Everyone dies at the end. (Total War: Warhammer)

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Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

John Charity Spring posted:

It takes 50% of your movement to encamp (for most factions), so you can move a little bit then camp, move a little bit then camp, and so on.

Yeah, but you take damage in the movement (granted, I guess the replenishment would cover for that) whereas as I recall raiding just outright ignores attrition.

Coolguye posted:

they do have income to loot, but raiding stance caps out at 25% campaign map and tires your army in case of an attack. moving 50% and camping not only keeps your men fresh, it outright gives them stat bonuses in case of an attack and enables replenishment.

if there is significant income to be made from the province you will capture it when you take the town. in that case, you can sack one turn and raze the next.

I thought raiding reduces your movement by 25%, not to 25%. I think it's kind of situational. So if you're expecting to undertake a long march and aren't going to be doing any other fighting, raiding might make sense.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 17:47

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 19:26

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Magni posted:

There's a reason there was much rejoicing when the Wood Elves came along and Durthu had the ability to make his army completely immune to attrittion. Tree Hitler enacting the Final Solution on Norsca almost instantly became a meme for a reason.

Its also not just Durthu, all elves can with research. Durthu just starts with the ability to do so. Which kind of sucks for Durthu, actually, because there's no equivalent bonus on Orion's end.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 18:19

Coolguye: Jul 6, 2011; Required by his programming!

Yvonmukluk posted:

Yeah, but you take damage in the movement (granted, I guess the replenishment would cover for that) whereas as I recall raiding just outright ignores attrition.

I thought raiding reduces your movement by 25%, not to 25%. I think it's kind of situational. So if you're expecting to undertake a long march and aren't going to be doing any other fighting, raiding might make sense.

you do not take attrition damage as you move in the same way you rack up trespassing maluses as you move. you only take attrition damage if you end the turn in a vulnerable state.

i will need to double check the raiding stance thing when i get back to my computer.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 19:37

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

A fairly long stretch of turns today because most of them were spent doing little more than upgrading buildings. But there were some very interesting developments in global geoskullpolitics.

Turn 31-40

Karl Franz has been thinking about where to direct his statesmanship. A confederation is what's being pursued here. A confederation is when a sub-faction is absorbed into it's parent faction, ceasing to exist as an independent entity. The Empire can confederate imperial factions, the Vampire Counts can confederate vampires, etc. Wissenland seemed like the obvious choice for a confederation sometime ago, but with the rise of the vampiric threat perhaps it's not the best choice any more. It's more exposed to invasion from the east. Middenland would take longer to confederate, but it's a powerful and very defensible province that would slot in well with our existing territory. It's also a long way away from Sylvania.

A large amount of gold is sent Todbringer's way to start improving our relations. To get a confederation out of him we'll have to keep bribing him while establishing diplomatic agreements. It's going to be very expensive, but we'll probably get a whole province out of it at the end.

Talabecland are gone, conquered by Ostland. Ostland has become a very large faction. Count Valmir von Raukov can probably claim to control more of the Empire than Karl Franz at this point and there's no love lost between them.

Some more research has been completed. 'State troop musicians' was researched earlier just because there wasn't wasn't else to do at that point, it makes all infantry marginally faster. Then 'Sea Charts' was researched which improves port income, this became available after the Altdorf port was upgraded. But now we're getting to the good stuff, with a blacksmith constructed in Altdorf we can start researching 'state-issued infantry armour' to make all of our basic infantry somewhat tougher. This upgrade applies to all existing units and even garrisons. Since lightly-armoured infantry make up the vast bulk of our forces this research could go a long way.

Marienburg boils with discontent. After several decades they had become accustomed to their independence and the sacking of the city by Karl Franz hasn't endeared them to their new Emperor.

The Bretonnian dukedom of Artois has declared war on The Empire. It may be that Duke Chilfroy feels that Marienburg is up for grabs. All the more reason for Karl Franz to head back west with his army once more.

While Karl Franz army is marching back to the Wasteland to deal with the Bretonnian threat, he crushes the inevitable rebellion along the way. we get some gold out of it.

It is whispered by some that the Emperor enjoyed slaughtering the rebels a bit too much. More so than is seemly, even in this benighted world. He's also been a bit of a tryhard with the battlefield decapitations lately.

Elsewhere we can see that the siege of Karak Azgal has begun, but Karak Norn has finally fallen to Skarsnik. Karak Norn is a larger and mightier hold than Karak Azgal but hopefully Wissenland can still help the beleaguered dwarfs, who still cling to their smaller remaining settlement further south.

The quest for Ghal Maraz begins, a set of missions which will end in Karl Franz obtaining the weapon. This is confusing because Karl Franz has been visibly carrying the hammer and whacking people with it ever since the game started but technically he doesn't possess the item. It would be great if Franz could complete this quest because Ghal Maraz provides +5 public order to all provinces which will be a pretty nice buff once we start growing larger. During a time when the von Carsteins and von Raukov contest the title of Emperor, the legitimacy conferred by reminding everybody just who wields the Hammer of Sigmar would be a great advantage.

Karl's decision to pursue confederation with his former rival Boris is reinforced when Count Leibwitz' wife (the real power in Wissenland) makes her position known.

With another large gold donation, Boris agrees to a basic non-aggression pact. It's difficult to make progress with him but he's coming around. Turns out he likes being given vast amounts of money.

It's Festag all year round in Reikland, mate. Only limitless alcohol can dull the people's memory of the Turns of Shame.

A level-3 barracks was one of several buildings recently finished in Reikland, allowing us to recruit the Captain heroes. They are similar in combat performance to generals and can also do stuff on the campaign map. This captain is reducing public disorder in the Wasteland to help us avoid another rebellion, whereas Konrad the wizard is overseeing all the contruction projects in Reikland.

Our Dwarfs neighbours failed to hold their last redoubt and were finished off for good. Skarsnik now controls the entirety of the mountains to our south. A bad outcome.

There's some confederations also happening among the other factions. The parent factions grow larger by absorbing the smaller ones into themselves. Karak Kadrin was at war with the Vampire Counts, a useful distraction for us since Kadrin in on the other side of the map. But the parent faction does not inherit the diplomatic standings of the absorbed faction so the war between them ends. Potentially a problem, as the vampires may now decide to make us their next target.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer made peace with a horde of greenskins? uh huh.

After crushing the Wasteland rebellion, the Emperor marches through one of the mountain passes separating The Empire from Bretonnia with the intention of sacking Gisoreux in revenge for their declaration of war. He conceals his army movements in order to avoid drawing Bretonnian reinforcements from the nearby Castle Artois.

Since Karl was put into ambush mode and wasn't detected, the much larger Artois army failed to respond allowing Karl to attack the relatively weak garrison of Gisoreux.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epqUNrCi86U

An easy win and the town is ransacked.

Karl makes off like a bandit back to Reikland with his chests of loot before the duke's army can catch up with him. He's rank 14 now and has taken to riding around on a pegasus. Not for long though, he's only one level away from unlocking his griffon mount.

During the ensuing negotiations it's clear that Artois feels itself to be at a terrible disadvantage. So why did it attack? Regardless, we manage to coerce a non-aggression pact, trade deal and a tribute of gold from them in a total humiliation.

"This is fine."

What? I'm really curious as to what must be going on in the Badlands in order for there to be some sort of mass outbreak of peace between dawi and greenskin. It's not natural. Sadly, we're nowhere near that area and can't check in on it. Perhaps love can bloom on the battlefield.

Seems legit. Welcome to the team, Mr. Knifemurder. The Emperor feels that you have a lot to offer the imperial government, especially financially but we're sure you also have a great personality.

After checking back on Count Leibwitz' siege of Karaz Azgal, the Wissenland army is nowhere to be found. it seems he has fallen in battle and Wissenland's diplomatic power rating has dropped considerably. It turns out that they are suddenly, like, really keen to straight-up confederate with us when we couldn't even get a simple trade deal out of them previously. A lot of gold was spent buttering up Todbringer for that purpose but since this confederation is being offered to us on a silver plate we'll confederate with Wissenland instead. We even get 900 gold out of them for the privilege. You know you hosed up when you're paying people to take all your stuff.

We now control the great city state of Nuln. The first level of the industrious Nuln Gunnery School has already been built, which is perfect timing because a mortar-producing Gunsmith building was just recently constructed in Altdorf, too. A Reiksfort was also constructed in Eilhart so that Karl Franz can reform his Reiksguard.

The confederation is not a total freebie, though. The new province sufferers from a high level of instability and is prone to rebel whereas the other imperial factions are jealous of our sudden acquisition and we suffer massive diplomatic penalties with them for a while.

We got another tradeable resource (iron) out of the province and a trade deal with Artois so our trade income has gone up even further. It was around 500 gold before we lost Gorssel and it's salt mine but even despite that we're making good money on trade now.

This is why Wissenland was so keen to confederate. Skarsnik is invading and the Wissenlanders are totally helpless through the loss of their own army. One of our smaller armies marches south from Reikland in an effort to defend our new possession. Elsewhere, our general Rupert Taalson takes a newly-raised garrison army to Marienburg and Karl Franz is recruiting newly available units such as Reiksguard and Mortars in preparation to take the war back to the mountains.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 21:17

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

It's kind of funny how several factions made allies with you just so they could pawn off their problems to you.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 21:43

Stephen9001: Oct 28, 2013

All I can say is that it's a drat good thing Pjeildorf already has walls.

Now, get to building walls in Wissenburg for the love of god! Everywhere MUST HAVE WALLS!!!!

I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.

Stephen9001 fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Mar 28, 2017

# ? Mar 28, 2017 22:13

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Stephen9001 posted:

Now, get to building walls in Wissenburg for the love of god! Everywhere MUST HAVE WALLS!!!!

~~Province capitals have walls by default, so he's good there.~~

That's good politicking, by the way.

e: Well, poo poo. It is I who is the fool.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Mar 28, 2017

# ? Mar 28, 2017 22:18

Trujillo: Jul 10, 2007

Ravenfood posted:

Province capitals have walls by default, so he's good there.

Nuln is the capital of Wissenland, Pfeildorf is a minor settlement

# ? Mar 28, 2017 22:21

ZearothK: Aug 25, 2008; I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021

MonsterEnvy posted:

It's kind of funny how several factions made allies with you just so they could pawn off their problems to you.

And they say Total War AI is braindead.

Skarsnik is still going to be left standing after Archeon, isn't he?

I feel Wissenland and Middenland are by far the best imperial provinces to confederate in the midgame. The Chapterhouse of the Knights of the White Wolf and Temple of Ulric in Middenland let you recruit superior cavalry and priests, respectively, and the Nuln Gunnery School gives a boost to all your artillery.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 22:23

HannibalBarca: Sep 11, 2016; History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

Plus Middenland has this weird issue where you can't trade with them because river fords don't count as roads, so confederating them is the only way you're gonna be making money off of 'em.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 22:31

Artificer: Apr 8, 2010; You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

So Middenland hates us now that we're bigger, right? So there goes any chance of confederating with them as well, at least we got a NAP out of them before our gold spent buying diplomacy went into the ether.

Edit: What does chaos corruption do?

Artificer fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Mar 28, 2017

# ? Mar 28, 2017 23:28

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

The 'great power' diplomacy penalty stands at -20, on top of -15 for 'imperial distrust' and the -40 confederation penalty (-75 in total) so Todbringer ought to hate our guts. But he has already been given lots of gifts so there's an existing buffer of good will, I further intend to give him a small gold gift every turn or two in order to ride out the temporary confederation penalty. iirc, I could confederate Middenland without increasing the 'great' power penalty beyond 20 so I may aim for that. Middenland is a good province to have and the gold gifts aren't totally wasted because he'll spend it on building upgrades which can be inherited.

Chaos corruption provides benefits to Chaos armies at lower levels of corruption (increased replenishment, I believe). High levels of Chaos corruption cause non-Chaos armies to take attrition damage, it increases disorder and rebels are replaced with Chaos uprisings. I think Vampiric corruption works the same way except with undead. One difference is that undead armies can't even set foot in un-corrupted lands without taking attrition damage themselves.

Mukip fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Mar 28, 2017

# ? Mar 28, 2017 23:40

Morbidmind: Feb 24, 2013

I'm fairly certain chaos corruption doesn't actually benefit chaos in anyway. One of those launch bugs that has just never been fixed.

# ? Mar 28, 2017 23:57

Dmar: Aug 19, 2004; yarg

I often get an event that Todbringer is kinda pissed at me anyway and it does some amount to relations as well, but it doesn't seem to trigger every playthrough.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 00:22

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

Dmar posted:

I often get an event that Todbringer is kinda pissed at me anyway and it does some amount to relations as well, but it doesn't seem to trigger every playthrough.

Yeah, the Bringer of Tods just seems kinda angry on most of my runs, too.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 00:48

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

He was the Hillary Clinton of the Empire, but then Karl Franz got elected. Of course he's pissed.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 00:49

Artificer: Apr 8, 2010; You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

Confederation basically is the same as militarily seizing all their poo poo, only more "peacefully," right?

# ? Mar 29, 2017 00:53

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

Artificer posted:

Confederation basically is the same as militarily seizing all their poo poo, only more "peacefully," right?

Not really! You also get any armies and lords they have (but not heroes), which didn't apply in this case because it looks like Wissenland lost their army first - that's why they agreed to confederate.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 00:57

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

Think of it like an anschluss, but less antisemetic

# ? Mar 29, 2017 01:00

Coolguye: Jul 6, 2011; Required by his programming!

conquering an area militarily will also necessarily destroy the infrastructure in the towns and villages you conquer. confederating gives you these towns whole cloth. in addition to the money saved, this also saves you lots of time building up the population surpluses you need to upgrade hubs.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 02:46

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Mukip what mods are yourunning?

# ? Mar 29, 2017 03:09

White Coke: May 29, 2015

wiegieman posted:

He was the Hillary Clinton of the Empire, but then Karl Franz got elected. Of course he's pissed.

No one is more qualified to cave in peoples' heads with Ghal Maraz than Todbringer.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 06:58

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Have they changed it from where garrisons reset to zero in case of confederation and you have to wait for them to reform? That always bugged me.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 09:30

Nice piece of fish: Jan 29, 2008; Ultra Carp

Welp, this LP has convinced me that I need to get this game. Being on a Warhammer bender with Vermintide didn't help, though.

This is shaping up to be a really great LP, I'm enjoying this a lot. I'm really looking forward to seeing when you come across some more non-human opponents. Do the vampires field vast armies of the undead? Are the elves all useless archers? Is a waaaagh a bad thing? Who knows?!

# ? Mar 29, 2017 10:38

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Nice piece of fish posted:

Welp, this LP has convinced me that I need to get this game. Being on a Warhammer bender with Vermintide didn't help, though.

This is shaping up to be a really great LP, I'm enjoying this a lot. I'm really looking forward to seeing when you come across some more non-human opponents. Do the vampires field vast armies of the undead? Are the elves all useless archers? Is a waaaagh a bad thing? Who knows?!

You can find out about Vampires in the other LP thread.

But yeah, I think this format is pretty much the perfect way to LP this game.

And they're probably just amount to announce the expansion/sequel that adds Lizardmen & Skaven. Also probably some variants of elves, but Aztec Dinosaurmen and Rat-Things are the main attraction, let's be honest.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:00

Nice piece of fish: Jan 29, 2008; Ultra Carp

Yvonmukluk posted:

You can find out about Vampires in the other LP thread.

But yeah, I think this format is pretty much the perfect way to LP this game.

And they're probably just amount to announce the expansion/sequel that adds Lizardmen & Skaven. Also probably some variants of elves, but Aztec Dinosaurmen and Rat-Things are the main attraction, let's be honest.

Oh, man, fantastic! Thanks a lot!

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:02

Artificer: Apr 8, 2010; You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

I appreciate the effort taken to not take over everything with pure raw military might. Its a very odd shift from standard Warhammer fare.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:05

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Is there a good reason you are (it seems) not going for Honest Steel on lords and the Net spell on your wizard? I suppose ultra unit sizes probably changes things there, but...

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:09

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Fangz posted:

Is there a good reason you are (it seems) not going for Honest Steel on lords and the Net spell on your wizard? I suppose ultra unit sizes probably changes things there, but...

Well, I suppose that red-line upgrades only effect certain units, while blue-line provides more overall utility. Plus, of course, lightning strikes.

Any would-be Dwarf players: Grombrindal's blue line is the best in the game. Not only is it the shortest to get to LS, but all of his other blue benefits are factionwide. :getin:

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:18

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

Nice piece of fish posted:

This is shaping up to be a really great LP, I'm enjoying this a lot. I'm really looking forward to seeing when you come across some more non-human opponents. Do the vampires field vast armies of the undead? Are the elves all useless archers? Is a waaaagh a bad thing? Who knows?!

Answers to your questions (spoilered if you want to wait for the LP to show you)

Vampires DO field vast armies of undead. Generally they field a lot of trash units that fix enemies in place, while their generals and a few elites run around shredding the enemy's actual stuff. Kill their general and the whole army dies pretty quick, though.

Elves are shockingly-OP archers with some big dangerous treemonsters and decent cavalry.

Waaaaghs spawn when a Greenskin army reaches a certain level of fightiness, and are basically an allied army that exists for a few turns and you can point it at your enemies.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:42

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

Arglebargle III posted:

Mukip what mods are yourunning?

None.

Fangz posted:

Is there a good reason you are (it seems) not going for Honest Steel on lords and the Net spell on your wizard? I suppose ultra unit sizes probably changes things there, but...

I barely have any upgraded generals besides Franz, who I want lightning strike and the upkeep reduction skill on. He's also going for the headhunter skill (extra vet on recruitment) so in the future armies I recruit will have good stats even without honest steel.

The light wizard does have Net of Amyntok now. I didn't unlock it earlier because the melee Pha's Protection was going to be more useful in the Marienburg siege.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:48

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Mukip posted:

None.

I barely have any upgraded generals besides Franz, who I want lightning strike and the upkeep reduction skill on. He's also going for the headhunter skill (extra vet on recruitment) so in the future armies I recruit will have good stats even without honest steel.

The light wizard does have Net of Amyntok now. I didn't unlock it earlier because the melee Pha's Protection was going to be more useful in the Marienburg siege.

Oh alright. I tend to beeline Honest Steel because the other skills take longer to pay off (in particular lightning strike requires there actually be multiple stack enemies), whereas Honest Steel is a lot stronger in the early game where it affects the bulk of my units. This might be different on legendary though.

(Then again if Skarsnik is your main enemy, I can see the use of Lightning strike to snipe his Waaagh armies. Skarsnik waaaghs are terrifying.)

Fangz fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Mar 29, 2017

# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:54

Coolguye: Jul 6, 2011; Required by his programming!

in general you want Headhunter first because Headhunter will affect everything you recruit and veterancy is a big, big deal the entire game. on not-Legendary honest steel makes more sense because swordsmen remain at least competent to end game, but -5 leadership hurts more than can be adequately expressed sometimes.

it also doesn't help that Karl really NEEDS yellow skills on Legendary so he can do what it is he does best against enemy generals. failing Karl or a Captain winning a duel, your only way to deal with enemy generals is a bunch of halberdiers or handgunners, neither of which are terribly attractive prospects. combine that with the inherent usefulness of blue skills and it starts to become obvious what should drop.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 16:30

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Coolguye posted:

in general you want Headhunter first because Headhunter will affect everything you recruit and veterancy is a big, big deal the entire game. on not-Legendary honest steel makes more sense because swordsmen remain at least competent to end game, but -5 leadership hurts more than can be adequately expressed sometimes.

it also doesn't help that Karl really NEEDS yellow skills on Legendary so he can do what it is he does best against enemy generals. failing Karl or a Captain winning a duel, your only way to deal with enemy generals is a bunch of halberdiers or handgunners, neither of which are terribly attractive prospects. combine that with the inherent usefulness of blue skills and it starts to become obvious what should drop.

I don't think those arguments make sense. If Leadership is important, grabbing the first red skill (inspiring presence) would immediately address it. And then you're straight on to honest steel. It'll take 6 levels before you can even get headhunter, and even then you'll only have the effect on new recruits. And I'm not sure if +3 levels actually is actually better than the +12 melee defense/offence you get on honest steel units combined with inspiring presence.

Stuff like leader of renown and headhunter make more sense for a stay-at-home second tier general, not one that will be in combat all the time like Karl is. They are also more valuable in the later game than early on. Especially as headhunter requires you waste points on crap like Fervent (you do not want to be using your legendary lords to clear corruption) and Irrepressible. I think the main reason to blue-line Karl is if you really, really need Lightning Strike.

Generally I deal with enemy generals with Witch Hunters.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 17:24

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

Turns 41-48

The Bretonnian damsel Bianca has naively led some peasants to resettle the Wasteland, only to discover why it was forsaken by The Empire to begin with. Welcome to the Gorssel Inn; you can check out any time you like but you can never leave!

Beastmen also ravage other parts of The Empire.

This is how things stand as of turn 41. Wissenland is a fine province to add to our collection but it does veer off to the south east. The furthermost town of Pfeildorf is a long way away from the center of power in Reikland, fortunately we inherited it as a walled town so Pfeildorf can hold out for relief in case of a siege. The province of Averland still stands strong despite the vampiric threat so we still have one buffer between us and the bulk of the vampire lands. Without Averland, Wissenland would be sandwiched between the goblins and the vampires. There are various Dwarf factions further south but we don't need to worry about them for now.

Todbringer is still being sent fat stacks of cash to keep him sweet.

With Pfeildorf to the east being a walled settlement and not easily attacked, Skarsnik turns his beady eyes towards Wissenburg. Hertwighan's army arrives to reinforce the garrison in time to deter Skarsnik's attack. The regiment of renown rocket launcher, the Sunmaker has been recruited into his army to bolster our anti-goblin firepower.

Back in Reikland, von Carstein's minions are straining at the leash. A horde of zombies shambles across the borders... but does not attack.

The strongest faction in the game right now is Norsca. Sometimes they cause a lot of trouble for The Empire as they tend to declare war if you capture Marienburg. But here they have spent most of the game attacking the shores of Bretonnia. We don't need any more problems so we'll leave King Leoncouer to deal with that.

Skarsnik brings up reinforcement to support his planned attack on Wissenburg. A features shared by some factions is the ability to cross impenetrable terrain like mountains. These greenskins are utilising the remnants of the Dwarfen Underway, the underground system of roads criss-crossing the Old World, to bring more troops straight from the mountains. It would take them several turns otherwise and is fairly advantageous for them. They can cross that mountain border and we can't.

The cursed town of Gorssel was quickly razed to the ground once more. Beastmen spread lots of Chaos corruption and it's showing on the campaign map. The Wasteland is turning into what looks like Mordor. This will have consequences for Marienburg.

Despite having been crushed multiple times by the Franz' armies, the rebellion shows no sign of abating. Now they barter with dark powers and an esoteric cult begins to profilerate.

The gods are always angry.

The standoff at Wissenburg continues. Some more regiments of renown are recruited to make up for the enemy reinforcements.

This useful tech was finally researched. A global improvement to all of our infantry's armour, everywhere will be a very cost-effective buff over time. Research next begins on the 'Draft Irregulars' tech which will reduce upkeep costs for infantry. Infantry comprise almost all of our forces so this will save us a lot of gold.

Meanwhile, Karl Franz leads his army up into the mountains to attack the Crooked Moon lair.

Karaz Azgaraz itself has an upgraded wall turning it into a walled settlements. It's quite a beefy garrison, too. Normally we'd have to wait a little while before the attack could begin, but since Karl Franz has artillery in his army the attack can begin straight away. Sadly, I forgot to save the replay so theres no recording of this battle.

The mortars were the pivotal unit in this battle accounting for over 500 kills between them. Although plenty of mortar shells landed among Karl's own troops, which accounts for a not-insignificant portion of the army's own losses. Because the settlement was strongly garrisoned this turned out to be a more costly battle than expected; the Reikland army will have to recuperate for a few turns after this and replace lost units.

We loot 6000 gold from the settlement, which goes towards paying for some nice building upgrades. The gold we're making from these looting is building up Reikland quite nicely.

The beastmen we were warned about have arrived while the Reikland army is recuperating from their last battle. The beastmen army includes a trio of Cygors, rock-throwing giants which can launch first-turn attacks on cities in the same way as our artillery. This would be a problem except that Nuln is the probably the toughest city garrison to crack outside of Altdorf itself.

Nuln's garrison is quite large and includes plenty of artillery so there's no real risk of it falling to the beastmen. But they would pose a serious threat to any smaller settlement so they must be destroyed.

The Cygors might be a threat but the rest of the beastmen army is trash which poses little threat. I auto-resolve this stomp.

gg no re

Karl Franz has finally unlocked his best mount, Deathclaw the griffon. This is a big upgrade.

An army of the damned leads the resurgent uprising. Chaos Warriors from the northern wastes have landed on our shores to seek glory in the eyes of their dark gods. The Chaos uprising will only grow larger the longer we leave it alone, so Taalson attacks immediately.

Taalson's army was nearby so the rebels weren't given any time at all to become a larger threat. Our Swordsmen are at a serious qualitative disadvantage against those Chaos Warriors but at least there aren't too many of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMyHzeTRS0U

It was only a small Chaos force but it took a big bite out of Taalson's army. Our armies are going to have to be better equipped to fight this menace in the future.

The battle of Wissenburg finally begins as Skarsnik launches the attack. As always that's a lot of goblins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPg2df8XkY

Ack. That was probably avoidable with better tactics.

Karl Franz finally arrives on the scene to relieve poor Wissenburg but the damage is already done. Skarsnik's battered but victorious army escapes back into the mountains through the underway.

Fortunately, Wissenburg wasn't entirely razed to the ground. Skarsnik only sacked the settlement (reducing it to level 2 and destroying some buildings) so it's not a total write-off like Gorssel was. The remaining buildings can be repaired for a few thousand gold, too. The greenskins left a present for us in the town square.

Let's talk about these fools. Ostland recently declared war on Hochland. The vampires then declared war on Ostland. Count von Raukov was knocked down a peg when he began losing territory to both factions at once. But with both of the Imperial factions severely weakened Mannfred went ahead and declared war on Hochland, too. Technically it's a three-way war but soon half of The Empire is going to be conquered by the undead. Karl Franz is surrounded by idiots.

The game plan since the start was to quickly conquer Reikland and Marienurg and then go help out in the east to contain the vampires, if necessary. This would allow us to avoid early over-expansion while keeping imperial territories in our sub-factions hands so that we could confederate them all when the time came. But with our own setbacks that wasn't possible; while our early ally Stirland was being sieged by Vlad we were fighting just to survive ourselves. The vampires have risen almost unopposed in the east, they now exceed the Norscans in their power rating. It's to be a long war when it starts.

Mannfred just dropped by to say that the non-aggression pact we had since the game started was null and void.

Mukip fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Mar 29, 2017

# ? Mar 29, 2017 21:27

Stephen9001: Oct 28, 2013

I think you should probably at least consider a defensive alliance with Bretonnia.

I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 21:58

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Everything's comin' up Mannfred, baby

Well, with one exception. In terms of ground combat, the Empire's actually surprisingly well set up to wreck the armies of the Vampire Counts: mortar batteries, it turns out, beat the poo poo out of slow-as-hell totally-unarmored zomborgs and skelemans, and without their zomborgs and skelemans all the fearsome monsters of the Vampire Counts roster are vulnerable to being dogpiled by several hundred lightly armored men with swords. In the hands of a human player this can be compensated for, but the AI tends to send the legions of the dead lurching at your lines in a piecemeal and easily-shattered fashion.

Just, uh

don't engage the boss without backup

engaging the boss without backup ends badly

# ? Mar 29, 2017 22:09

Stephen9001: Oct 28, 2013

There is clearly only one reasonable response to this. Somehow convince Vlad to join you in a war with Mannfred, he really should be giving him a spanking for the betrayal all those centuries ago after all.

I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 22:32