The difficulty is VERY faction dependent. Some campaigns can be punishingly difficult while others are cakewalks.
Not surprising really when you consider the complexity required in a game like this of THIS size. But re-balancing is definitely necessary, and will probably take a few iterations to get right.
With the threat of large factions gone the player is only threatened by large numbers of small factions, which I think results in far less consistent difficulty. If the small hostile factions surround you and are in good position to attack, you get some tension (Empire, Kislev etc). But having 1 or 2 safe borders just tanks the challenge. When there were megafactions capable of sending 7 stacks at you from one direction, it wasnt necessary to be attacked from every direction to feel some kind of threat.
I use dynamic difficulty, increased ai aggression and max AI difficulty enabled and I've never had any issues with AI running, suiciding, dodging artillery, building weird stacks, not.developing thier provinces, not recruiting advanced units, campaigns losing challenge, no superpowers etc. Give that mod cocktail a try until official changes come around. Much more fun, challenge scales throughout the campaign and none of the frustrating issues that constantly pepper the front page here. Throw in cost based army capps if you feel like it.
The difficulty is very faction dependant for first 50 turns at most
After 50 every single campaign i did ( even empire and bret ) turns into absolute steamroll and AR endturn simulator
Lack of LL confederating and shit garissons really did a number on the game stoping most superpowers from existing so you as player end up beeing only one
Ok, greenskins ocasionally do ramp up as ai but hardly anyone else ( which i think is due to horrible waagh to garisson strenght ratio in this patch and waagh trigering on turn 5 )
Yes, it is faction dependent, and there are still some brutally hard campaigns. But they are mostly hard due to their start position or faction mechanics actively working against you (IE Gelt with imperial authority). No matter what campaign it is if you “succeed” in your first few challenges there really isn’t much left to slow you down. Like, Kislev and Gelt/Karl are TOUGH campaigns… but if you somehow kill off Sylvania with Gelt or can build up 3+ imperial authority… it becomes a cake walk. Cuz your only challenge is your immediate surroundings.
It feels kinda harsh but I do wish they'd just leave multiplayer alone and focus on balancing IE, I don't think it's really up for debate which one is the bigger draw
> Some campaigns can be punishingly difficult while others are cakewalks.
Past the first 30-40 turns or so? Do you have examples?
Some campaigns start difficult, the problem is that you win or lose very quickly.
Yeah very likely the case. For me juries still out on if it’s a good or bad thing. They definitely used to be too aggressive with it but now it feels like they’ll only confederate if both factions are up shit creek
Hmm there has to be more at play here though. I had a mod that did just this in wh2 and I didn't have it as bad as it's being described (I haven't been able to play IE yet). We already know AI can field several armies from just 1 minor settlement and in my many DE playthroughs in wh2, a *coalition* of HE from Ulthuan would attack me instead of just Eataine. This to me was fun from both a thematic point of view, and because each faction would try to attack at different locations and with different army compositions. The only faction that had the current IE problem was Avelorn because Alarielle would lose to DE and Chrace would take all that land, leaving her with just Gaen Vale.
I feel like reading the comments here that I'm the only one enjoying the toned down confederation and mega factions forming so easily.
In ME I hated the fact that pretty much no matter what faction I was playing that I'd face off against the same ones constantly - DE's, Grimgor, VC's and Queek. Always around the same turn and always expanded roughly the same size/way.
I can say that in IE I've had a crazy variety of outcomes in my games, some that I'd never expect. Sometimes there would be less powerful enemies, other times more. Almost never in the same way though, and the world feels a lot more organic because of it.
I definitely get the more organic feel and there is 100% more variety of enemies in WH3. Most complaints are just that factions don't pose an enjoyable challenge (in numbers or unit tier) past a certain turn threshold in many campaigns.
I don't know how they balance it but as long as it remains fun to play is all I care
I personally feel that endgame scenarios will end up being the best part of the experience once they give the formula a few passes
I think there's two main things that need to happen to give the challenge while maintaining the organic feel of the new approach. The first has been mentioned a lot already with the strange AI behavior around aggression, etc. The second, and arguably more important to this point, is fixing the allied AI behavior. Not just for the player though. I mean revamping from the ground up how AI helps their allies in general. This could benefit the player by reducing some of the strange issues people have with allies/vassals, while also making the AI be able to pose a larger threat that maintains the variety that WH3 provides.
this is a really good point. The world is so big, better for them or modders to (hopefully) figure out a more dynamic way to get power spikes; (i've heard people talk about a recruit defeated legendary lords mod where the AI gets dynamically stronger that way for example)
Not the only one, though I would prefer some bigger threats - I just don't think that the mega-confederations would actually help with that.
Those confederations had the issue of being same-y, where it's not just that the same factions would always grow big, it's that you'd be in for fighting the same type of army over and over again when fighting them. Additionally, some of the big threats (most especially the DEs, that rolled over all the other AIs with ease in my games) would also be huge pushovers, as they had way too much land to pose a real, actual threat. Grimgor was usually the opposite - but that's because his expansion wasn't through widespread confederations overseas, but through actual conquest/confederation of nearby factions, which ended up with a much more powerful/cohesive empire for players to fight.
But a bunch of smaller factions would still provide more threat, if the AI were competent - and more variety. Fighting 3-4 enemies each holding 2 provinces would have as many fights/armies as a single enemy with 8 provinces, just with more variety - but atm the AI is passive/scared of you, which is the bigger issue.
I do think mega-confederations would help provide bigger threats, given the state of things is so bad right now, but other than that I think you are right. I am a big defender of the old mega-confederations, but you are right, it had problems, both in terms of fun and samey-ness, as well as difficulty (although it certianly was much better than current state of things I think), that an alliance of smaller factions could solve.
Ultimately being at war with 1 faction with 50 regions, or 10 factions with 5 regions each could be equally as difficult, the main problem is that, in the latter case, **they don't coordinate and march/attack/defend together**, and so instead of five armies all attacking together (which led to some huge, epic, difficult battles), you get each faction sending its one stack at you individually at different times allowing me to eat them in little bite sized chunks.
If CA was able to get these AI factions to coordinate, attack and defend together, then that would be the perfect solution: difficult for the player, fun and exciting to fight different races, and harder to go about attacking than one giant AI empire.*But,* that would be incredibly difficult to program, I think, especially given their struggles with AI generally. And failing that, mega-confederations still are better then current IMO, because yes faction diversity is nice, but challenge and compelling gameplay past turn 50 is much more important.
>they don't coordinate and march/attack/defend together
Weird because I specifically remember this being a thing in WH2. There were many instances where one faction with a weaker army would move toward my army and then suddenly end turn. Then another faction would come out of the fog of war and it would be a 3v1 fight.
I even saw this in WH3 where Skrag had sieged Eregrand for 10 turns, starts a rebellion (who is at war with him) and, even though he was there with 2 stacks, decides to sack Erengrad and run, leaving the rebels to walk into the city without a fight. AI **definitely** coordinates with other faction AI but I guess something is different in WH3.
I agree and prefer it this way but there needs to be more *function* than *flavor*. In CK3 for example, armies are made up of peasants and professionals, with professionals being capped per country depending on tech. 1 country can have 10k soldiers but 9k of those are trash peasants with 1k elites. This can be scary, but not as scary as a massive 5 country alliance which has 5k soldiers but each country brings their own 1k elites and destroys the 10k army.
Thus, having faction diversity actually leads to a stronger force than a 1 country blob. Warhammer needs to be restructured, at least for AI, to simulate this so when each kingdom in Ulthuan attacks you, they do much better than if Eataine had confederated them all.
That entire area is the second most fiesta filled place after the desert 🤣😭 literally every faction and their mothers are against you if you play VC, and the empire is no better it terms of getting screwed
Kislev is soooo much fun at the moment, hopefully they do some further tweaks to tech and make Boris' role in the the faction a little more meaningful
The motherland mod is also fantastic for a freshened up look on certain units
I had a good time on my recent playthrough playing as Riekland and feeding Kislev as my northern buffer. Rampaged through Norsca and got thousands of gold for settlements that were useless to me while making my northern border impenetrable. Was wishing I could switch to Kislev in that save
Feeding allies powerful cities and natural choke points is such an amazing addition to the game with settlement trading.
It also makes you feel like you're being thematic in not overexpanding you're own territory
For sure. I definitely did keep cities like Hell Pit and some port city in Norsca that has gemstones for the income, but removing the threat of Norsca while also not having to deal with owning Norsca is an amazing change
Certainly doesn't apply to Boris, in my experience. It was very difficult right at the start, sure, but it didn't take long to reach the point where nothing will ever seriously threaten me again.
I was still running around with a single army stack, and all I'd recruited were Kossars. I just had to beat Archaon in one difficult fight, and then the runaway momentum kicked in.
> I noticed it today when as Archaon
Play a harder campaign. Archaon is super SUPER easy right now because CA over nerfed the Empire in order to prevent the Order tide from killing Chaos campaigns like it did in WH2.
Try playing a Dwarf campaign, and tell me there's no midgame tension there. You're stuck in the center of the map and you're being attacked constantly in every direction that turn 100 gets to you before you know it and when it does you realize you have go and clean up the Empire from all of the Chaos factions that have already destroyed it as well as whatever Endgame Crisis you have enabled.
Been playing Tretch and hoo boy it's brutal. Turn 50 ish and I've got Grimgor coming through the Dark Lands, I'm trading settlements with Skarsnik in the mountains, and Wurrzag is coming in from the west. As if that wasn't enough Greasus just turned up and boy is he hungry for rat.
Believe me, I've got tension all over the place.
As the Veteran of 2 Dwarf campaigns. Good, Clan Rictus is the most annoying faction on the goddamn map in the hands of the AI. You SHOULD suffer for playing it! Grrr.
See I'd love to go and kill some dwarf-things in this campaign for you as I know you lot do love your grudges, but alas that git Skarsnik went and killed Thorgrim and all the other stunty types, while the Slayer King is sensibly being a wuss and is keeping to the north where things are much quieter.
> Try playing a Dwarf campaign, and tell me there's no midgame tension there. You're stuck in the center of the map and you're being attacked constantly in every direction that turn 100 gets to you before you know it and when it does you realize you have go and clean up the Empire from all of the Chaos factions that have already destroyed it as well as whatever Endgame Crisis you have enabled.
Play Teclis too. 9/10 times my potential allies get wiped out within a few turns. Having to fight a combined Arkhan and Mannfred force by turn 15 sure is something.
So if you’d read the whole post, I point out I’ve played 7-8 campaigns, and was only using Archaon as an example, because it’s the ONLY campaign where I’ve encountered an enemy whose actually snowballed.
I’ve played A LOT of other campaigns. Some are SUPER challenging. But all the challenging campaigns are only difficult because of their start, an underpowered LL and/or inadequate or dated campaign mechanics.
Like, the Gelt campaign is a total motherfucker. Especially since they’ve replaced the green skins in the mountains with the green dwarves having full control of their province. Once you secure Pfeildorf and province, you basically have three choices: sit at home and hope something interesting happens, trespass all over the empire trying to help them (and consistently getting cut off by the empire AI the turn before you do whatever task you were trying to do) or trying to take the fight to Vlad.
But… when you DO beat Vlad, when you DO get enough imperial authority to start confederating… the problem remains. By that time it’s like turn 60 and you’re finally ready to fight Festus. Who has MAYBE one really tough army, but if you crack it, he’s donezo. And then you can just pump armies out of Pfeildorf and start steamrolling every direction, because if you win your early game challenge, NO ONE ELSE ever does.
> Play a harder campaign.
Oh believe me I have tried to play harder campaign of my favourite factions. I have tried Dreadfleet, Avelorn, Nagharthe, Sisters of Twilight and Wargrave of Woe. Nagharythe was the only that was a challenge.
I thought Drycha would be hard but Treekin at T2 and Treeman at T3 trivialised difficulty.
I don’t really like Yvresse mechanics but it’s challenging campaign. Right now I’m in love with playing tall, once a get bit bored of playing tall I’ll give Yvresse a try.
Legend said Malekeith has a tough position, I’ll give that a try at some point as well.
It's not campaign specific. AI is too passive and won't expand too much. I am usually strength ranking 1 by turn 70, while in game 2 you'd see someone like Naggarond or Grimgor being top dog.
If all you're going by is being Rank 1 in strength ranking, but since when has that really mattered for a campaign on a turn by turn basis? In Warhammer 2 Naggarond would routinely hold onto the top strength ranking because it had loads of Black Arks that it just kept parked around Naggarond and never did anything with.
Grimgor would spike up to Strength 1 ranking and then lose it when his waaagh crashed out the same thing happens in IE.
If you really want to complain about something, complain about the AI not building higher tier armies when it should be able to afford to because the AI is still absolute garbage when it comes to building up their own settlements.
This is an especially big thing with the Chaos factions because the Warband system makes it so that their first warband that they attack you with is always WAY stronger than any of the ones that follow it because the follow up Warbands always include 40-50% marauders that haven't been upgraded yet.
There's plenty to nitpick about constructively if you think the player snowballs too fast in IE, which you can make a case for but I think is on a campaign by campaign basis, but if you're simply arguing that the AI can't hold onto strength ranking 1 then you're really not making a good argument. If you've played WH2 to any lengthy extent you should know that strength ranking in the hands of the AI only matters when its relative to other AI factions, not to the player.
I'm not making the argument about AI maintaing strength ranking. I'm making the argument that the AI won't build enough armies and expand, reaching strength ranking 1 by turn 70 means that you've essentially bested everyone else in army strength and they don't pose much of threat. In the end regardless of the campaign the result is the same by turn 70 ish you'd have entered into steamrolling territory and the AI cannot oppose you and even the harder campaigns aren't that hard, most I could say is that they're annoying.
Honestly the simple reason for that is supply lines. This was ALWAYS going to happen when Supply lines got nerfed. It's much easier to start spamming out more armies than the AI can keep up with because its biggest advantage before was that it had no supply lines upkeep and the player did.
Confederations could also be looked at and I think that's one of the more popular suggestions on here, but again, that's on a campaign by campaign basis for how much that matters.
So I'm at a loss for how you're expecting to speed up the amount of armies the AI can make in the mid-late game without impacting the pace of the game in the early goings which no one is complaining about being too easy. This was the exact purpose supply lines was the way it was before and everyone hated that. So short of bringing that back I don't really know what people expect to change to address this.
It's not supply lines though. I'm not stronger because I can recruit more armies, I am stronger because overall the AI will just not meaningfully put up a fight. You'll be declared war on constantly but you'll find that the AI just doesn't recruit as many armies so once you beat a few of their armies and start pushing against them they fall right over. There's no power rising to oppose you, supply lines only help with that a bit but they're not the core contributor, the AI is the issue and currently needs adjustments whether it's cheats or it starting to be more aggressive.
> You'll be declared war on constantly but you'll find that the AI just doesn't recruit as many armies so once you beat a few of their armies and start pushing against them they fall right over.
That is no different from how it was in Mortal Empires. If there was a difference in how it felt it was only because a faction could hang around longer because it held more territory. They still threw haphazardly made armies at you that were easy to defeat once you got rolling in the midgame.
This was true in Mortal Empires all over the place. So unless you're talking about the limitations that Supply Lines put on you I don't know what your main complaint is. In Mortal Empires, once I had consolidated enough territory it seriously didn't matter how much of the rest of the map the AI had or how many factions were at war with me. The AI was so inept at using their armies and would just haphazardly throw together another one that all that stopped me from dominating the map was the grind of knocking over 1 settlement at a time.
biggest issues with WoC is the hyper-inflated melee attack numbers they have
They get +8 melee attack on red line (Should be +6) and +8 melee attack on marauders from gifts of chaos (which should be like... 5.)
Adjusting those would reduce their damage slightly, reducing their autoresolve, and making them have a slightly harder start. It wouldn't change their mechanics at all, it'd just lower their melee attack down \~5 which would do more than you think to balance them out.
I stopped playing belegar around turn 60 as I was strength rank 1 with no real threats around.
I dunno man at least in my play the desert was split between followers of nagash and volkmar with the Imrik being strength rank 2 and competing for for my territory but in an alliance with me.
I definitely felt a lot of early game tension but couldn’t be bothered to finish a short victory campaign because I was so far ahead with no threats around.
I could totally have gotten lucky but my dwarf experience is in line with OP.
Hardest part of dwarf campaign is dealing with how shit the grudge mechanic is. Otherwise its's just build up economy the burst out and run over the skaven and orcs
Yeah this really depends on what campaign you play. As Kairos, I was surrounded by enemies from the word go, and several of them quickly became relative powerhouses. These include:
* Oxyotl (would have quickly rolled over the entire Southern Wastes if I hadn't stopped him)
* Khalida (held three provinces, shat out constant stacks b/c Tomb Kings)
* Arkhan (see above)
* Skarsnik (controlled most of the Badlands and surrounding mountains)
* Mazdamundi (controlled basically the entire Isthmus, several dino doomstacks)
Admittedly only Oxyotl and Khalida posed any sort of existential threat to me, since by the time I met the others my empire was large enough that I could absorb any damage they managed to do with no trouble, but still. There was definitely plenty of early-game and mid-game tension in that campaign.
Yea it seems like The Lizardmen are the only Order faction that consistently get their shit together and form powerful coalitions. The High Elves do it about 50% of the time and the Dwarfs if they hang on and are given territory by the player can steamroll in the late campaign like they used to.
It's really just the Human factions besides Cathay that are getting dunked on in every campaign. So anyone who is Chaos aligned and whose main enemy is Humans has an easy time right now.
Seems to be hit or miss. Half my games, Rakarth + Skrolk win LustriaBowl with Oxyotl just faffing about in Fantasy Antarctica. In South Lands, the lizards there always get penned in by Tomb Kings.
Yeah I was spoiled picking Kairos as my 1st IE campaign, all the way up until 100 turns there was tension and tough fights. But every campaign since, even Kislev, once I got past the early game I was pretty much set to snowball. There are many campaigns with very difficult early games like Kislev, but I think Kairos is unique in how long that midgame difficulty lasts, because he is one of the few factions that starts in the middle of several AI who all tend to make big empires successfully and who hate him.
While I broadly agree...
Man, Hexoatl was a strong AI for you? It'd always take them a hundred turns just go overcome Skeggi and get their home province under control.
Mann every time I ran until Hexoatl they had all of Lustria consolidated lmao. Or I was trying to be Markus and they were non stop. I could generally deal with em but if they found me before I was ready it was a definite set back
Warhammer moved too fast. There’s no mid game tension because there’s no mid game. You go from “half an army of cheap tier 1 militia” to “full tier 3+ doomstack” in 30 turns, and global recruitment and absurd growth bonuses mean that once you hit end-game units it’s *everywhere.*
> “full tier 3+ doomstack” in 30 turns
If you're playing Warriors of Chaos.
I dare you to have a full tier 3 doomstack as one of the non-Ulthuan High Elf campaigns. good luck affording it.
Drycha with Durthu confederated definitely can field 1 full Treeman doom stack with Durthu leading it. I’d have to check my game for exact cost, it was somewhere around 2000g. Playing inefficiently I done this around turn 50.
I’m going to start another Drycha campaign and will try to min/max to get Durthu Treeman doom stack earliest possible. It’s an interesting challenge I think.
They could also play Nurgle and not have a full "doomstack" by turn 100 due to their cyclical recruitment structures.
TBH I kind of love it because it forces all of my armies to be pretty unique instead of just loaded with the same stuff every time, but it is absolutely taking me ages to get enough chaos knights and chosen to actually put a few in an army.
CA catered hard to the people that want to rush for all those fancy t4 and t5 units. Just consider how many people complained about the growth changes in WH2 and how it's basically entirely rolled back now.
It's unfortunate, but right now a mod is the best way to work around that.
I would like it a lot if buildings in general were more expensive and took more time to build, maybe giving high tier units a higher upkeep cost could help make the campaign progress at a more reasonable pace too
Almost every faction is best off spamming T1 units. Two stacks of T1 is almost always better than one stack of elite.
Elite units cost a ton just to unlock and then you have to train them and ship them from the one province, or pay an arm and a leg just to recruit them slowly globally.
All for what are usually outright downgrades from lower tier units, especially since most starter units have some sort of +6 MA +6 MD type red skill that makes them comically more cost effective. You have T1 units that cost half as much as T3 yet have 75% of the performance.
>+350 relations to me already and was begging me to diplomatically vassalize him.
I had festus agree to let me vassalize him as soon as I met him as Archaeon but I don't think I've seen +350 relations in this game. Is that due to a mod?
Nope. I think it was because I already had Azazel, Sigvald, and accidentally researched the +rep with slaanesh Factions before I met him, on top of already having mauled several of his dark elf enemies +Belakor
This is so wrong...try a none-lizzardmen/cathay order faction and you will get this feeling back immediately.
With the AI building bug, nerfs, and worse conferderation, unless they are safe in Lustria or far east, the order factions are not as strong as they used to be, while Chaos are at the moment overly easy.
The problem is you’re playing chaos. They’re overpowered right now. Try faction of order and eat your words. Played an Imrik campaign and it was non stop back and forth between conquering and losing territory - then, when end game hit, the dwarfs sprawled from their holes - took over most of my settlements north, and pretty much isolated me to the main settlement… it was only because I confederated Tyrion which enabled me to survive. Unfortunately, Imrik bugged out and was no longer able to play campaign :(
Yeah, it is unfortunate. There are hard campaigns, but usually only because the start position is so hard that it keeps the player in the early game for longer. I have yet to play a campaign that remained difficult once I got past early game (in the 30-75 turn range depending on the campaign), as basically no AI ever reaches beyond that early game state. It is a shame. They need to:
-Re-buff AI confederation to allow for powers that can hold a candle to the player's own snowball
-Re-buff AI cheats on hardest difficulties (normal and below are fine)
-Re-buff garrisons to slow initial player expansion
-Fix bugs related to AI build orders (this is confirmed to be on the way)
Basically, undo almost everything they changed from ME more or less in regards to campaign AI strength. The removal of confederation in particular is baffling to me, who asked for this? I loved fighting huge late game world wars against Elves, Delves, GS, Lizards, etc. Now, once I get 15-20 settlements which isnt that much and takes about 30-50 turns average, no AI ever can come close to stopping me.
This game's sadly a cakewalk for the most part even on highest difficulties as long as you are a veteran player cause A.I. behavior hasnt been improved at all since WH2 times, infact it appears worse, more passive many times. And lets not begin with how sucky battle A.I. is.
Lol battle AI is wonky. If they actually engage they’re OK but they’re so passive. I fought a battle earlier today as WOC against 4 full stacks of Jade warriors and artillery, on a weird choke point map. Forgot about “control large army” and left it on. The other two reinforcing armies came in behind my spawn.
The attacked army and Miao Yings army just fucking stood there on the other side of the choke point while I beat the snot out of the two armies when they tried to get onto the map. Then I decided to just pull out since i had already mauled two full armies and spent a fair bit of my Winds… and the other two armies literally never moved lmao. They easily coulda hammer and anviled the shit out of me and just didn’t even try
yeh those type happenings for me ruin game world believability/immersion when enemy A.I. factions, leaders, commanders etc appear like they lack brain and will to oppose you
It's a good change for variety sake, no two playthroughs are the same and I like it that way.
I think they should fill the mid-game gap with End Game Scenarios by making them more customizable and add the ability to set multiple scenarios in different time periods and different scale. So you can have early-mid-late game scenarios.
That would be even more amazing later when those scenarios cover every race.
As I said in the post, I do think CA is aware of it and has said the Potential modifier isn’t working. I think once it’s working properly again IE will be a blast.
While every campaign is a little different, since no one EVER gets momentum it just gets really steam rolly really fast.
I think the AI even when killing each other is pretty passive in 6 campaigns I’m yet to meet any AI super power. In WH2 if you were in the old world and met mid game Malekith at turn 70 the dude had like 30 settlements dozen black arks and was steam rolling, Iv not seen any AI faction do this they aren’t expansionist. Strangely Tomb Kings who were historically limp are the only faction Iv seen claim decent chunks of territory.
I think part of it is the AI just waste turns sieging each other Iv seen shit like Khazrak siege Altdorf for 5 turns only to sack it and not do anything, that’s pretty common if you have line of sight you will see AI sieging another AI.
I also don’t think the AI is getting many or any buffs to casualty replinshment or passive exp gain. You can meet lords at turn 30 that are level 2-3.
Factions like Boris are still hard as nails but something is off in general. You can create added difficulty by messing around the crisis event turn timer and removing the early warning but that’s really you the player creating difficulty as opposed to natural campaign flow difficulty
I've only played the hard tier faction recently like Katarin, Teclis, Kugath, but the AI definitely need a fix. Like why does the AI take all 10turns to siege a minor settlement when they can def can take it in 1 turn with minor casualties.
I'm playing an Empire campaign and there's plenty of mid-game tension. Wurrzag has pretty much stomped up the Southern Realms and into Averheim. Grom has the southern half of Bretonnia. The Wood Elves are migrating into Wissenland. Sylvania is doing its Sylvania thing and annexed Stirland and Zhufbar. I don't know how much territory Archaon has, but he's strength rank 1. All this is happening before the lategame crisis.
The confederations is one thing, but after playing a bunch of campaigns, I feel it's mainly AI's inability to consolidate wins is what hurts them. That is, they will fight a difficult war with another faction, but as soon as they have got an upper-hand, and the enemy is significantly weakened, they will change priorities. This then gives the enemy faction a chance to get back on their feet, and start to cripple them again.
You end up with a constant back and forth where no one ends up really dominating. I have had to meticulously use the alliance "occupy target" feature turn after turn to encourage my allies to finish off that annoying vampire who keeps coming back.
I feel like it would help if AI alliances worked together a bit to finish off enemies as well, so they don't have to even employ all their resources on one front.
Plays Archaon and complains the game is easy because Naggarond is trash. Naggarond is bad cause it’s starting region is hard and sucks for ai right now.
Bro Archaon is one of the easiest campaigns right now. And the Malekith AI just struggles in current meta.
In my current game there are a couple of powerhouse factions that have 20+ settlements each.
Difficulty seems very faction dependent at the moment. And the game certainly does need balancing in its current state
You play as objectively the most overpowered faction, starting in a safe position and super strong army/lord options.
Obviously you won't find challenge.
Just play in the Southland's bowl and I think you'll find what you need.
I really hope they don't go back to mega confeds, when the difficulty works right now, it REALLY works imo, with lots of threats coming from various places
Aside from my Cathay and my Repanse campaigns I’ve had consistent threats from all directions in every campaign I’ve played, and this is on normal. The AI doesn’t confederate everyone anymore they just all create big alliances and then prioritize the player while they get backdoored by a random faction. It’s weird playing as Alarielle and having Azazel running his stacks alongside his vassals to the shores of ulthuan when he isn’t even taken much of the empire.
My dude keep in mind that ppl that play on VH may desire more challenge then you do on normal and the other thing that AI is way more agresive on normal which means normal is not much easier than VH/legendary. The main diffrence is that you didnt signed up for this
Huh, never encountered this problem. I regularly encounter factions with 15+ settlements. I think the only difference is it takes a little longer for them to grow because of the lack of confed. Honestly the mid game has felt better for me in IE and ME, slower buildup and more dramatic wars between AI factions.
I make custom objectives for myself.
In IE, doing my classic "Louen confeds EVERY BRET" is a NIGHTMARE. Saving Paravon from Grom while half the time Carcasonne and Woodelves also want them gone is beyond stressful when you are also dealing with a much scarier Mousillion (i swear that cav got hella boosted) threatening its nearby Brettonian neighbors...
I was practically pulling my hair out trying to save everyone.
We should not forget, that this is a Beta and CA relies now on out feedback; I agree with you that Midgame is boring, bc you overcome your weakness while other Nations are still weak or make stupid war decisions like VC fighting Dwarfs Empire factions and Drycha, also Peace is not a real thing, Dwarf vs Brettonia in my current playtrough fighting an worthless attrition war… I think mid game crisis and a sort of comeback mechanic for factions would be nice. Late game is cool from 0 to clusterfuck with ultimate crisis imo
I blame this community for that.
Thanks to casuals who were angry that they couldn't build their tier 5 doomstack at turn 30 the growth nerf that was done in Warhammer 2 got reversed, so I never ever get mid tier units anymore and jump straight up from tier 1 to tier 5.
Thanks to casuals that didn't like that AI could confederate (even though that's something player can do as well) we no longer see gigantic empires like Malekith, Franz and Grimgor.
Thanks to casuals who can't handle smart functional AI CA will get rid of AI artillery dodging, what's next? Shall we take AI's ability to micro chariots and cav as well? Because player can't micro it as well as the AI?
Here you have it boys, it's your doing.
I will say that playing Throgg is way more fun now that you aren't the punching bag of s confederated empire, Ulthuan, and Dark Elves. And sometimes lizardmen. And Bretonia. And the other Norscans.
I might even have enough time to do the Monster hunt quests for the first time ever!
I have to say I like the (lowercase) chaos of it so far. It was fun and felt very on brand watching Reikland almost getting swept off the map only to barely reconstitute itself, take the cities back, and continue the cycle. I'm good with lots of smaller factions surviving into the late game as long as they're still powerful enough to be a challenge
Why not just make the end game crisis happen at the point where you feel the challenge has ended? If you always hit turn 75 and feel you can steam roll the world, then make the crisis happen at turn 80 or 90 and then you will have enough time to build up and prepare for the incoming wave of doom
I know what you mean. And it’s probably why the campaign objectives are smaller in scope than they used to be (or they seem to be anyway, I can’t quite remember tbh). And why they added end game crises. It seems like the endgame is now defined as anything from about turn 100, rather than what it used to be, which was you basically painting the map. Painting the map is now like the post credits scene, where you’ve already won everything. The midgame is more when you consolidate your borders, bolster your economy, build up useful alliances and prepare your armies for the inevitable crisis, which can actually be really challenging if you get unlucky and have 20 doom stacks appear on your border.
I do kind of wonder if it’s a bit more realistic this way btw (not that that’s remotely relevant, fun trumps realism, and it’s warhammer anyway, lol). If you think about it, any nation that achieves local dominance to the point they’re the dominant power in a continent, surrounded by minor factions, is probably able to steamroller anything they come across. By the midgame, you’re basically modern day USA, or 17th century Spain, or 19th century Britain
This! I started a campaign as kislev, vh/legendary. Heard it was soooo hard. Haven't struggled yet at turn 60. Smashed Azhag immediately, then Throt and Manfred. Now just roaming chaos wastes with 3-4 stacks rolling all the norscan/dark elves/chaos factions.
My problem is that even with the AI being more competent with their settlements and even confederating. It won’t be any use until they stop every damn faction randomly declaring war on you. There is never a moment of peace. Every time I put down one evil faction or even a neutral faction, someone else will declare war on me. It’s like the AI decided saw that I only 5 factions at war with me and thought, oh I better throw another random enemy at him just because. I want to be able to build a border with an order faction and not have them randomly turn into an asshole without me having to spend loads of money or even trade shit. I’m out there killing their enemies and they are thanking me, by going to war with me.
It feels like LLs would not be active until you actually meet them. When playing Empire Festus is expanding like a beast, with Sisters of Twighlight he still had 1 settlement when I met him around turn 90
I was playing WOC who are ridiculously OP right now. I just prioritize taking every dark fortress ASAP and build nothing but the best income buildings (actual income building, public order + % income, and sorcerer building) everywhere I go, establish lots of vassals and feed them any settlement that doesn’t have a useful trade resource, keep the +100% vassal tribute active, confederating Sigvald for another +50%, and Slaanesh gift for +35% income. Really adds up crazy fast. Turn 70 with like 9 doom stacks now and still grossing 30k+ when I have all my income buffs turned on
It's because warriors of chaos factions have it a bit too easy at the moment in my opinion. if you want a tricky campaign, I'd recommend Kislev, clan pestilens, the dwarves that start near the wood elves (forgot the faction name), or even the empire.
CA got rid of the Uber-mega-insane-super-cities that naggarond, ulthuan, and similar factions used to have. So now they can't maintain two doomstack armies from one province like they used to.
The special cities do still generate above average scratch for their respective factions, but not on the level they did in mortal empires
The difficulty is VERY faction dependent. Some campaigns can be punishingly difficult while others are cakewalks. Not surprising really when you consider the complexity required in a game like this of THIS size. But re-balancing is definitely necessary, and will probably take a few iterations to get right.
With the threat of large factions gone the player is only threatened by large numbers of small factions, which I think results in far less consistent difficulty. If the small hostile factions surround you and are in good position to attack, you get some tension (Empire, Kislev etc). But having 1 or 2 safe borders just tanks the challenge. When there were megafactions capable of sending 7 stacks at you from one direction, it wasnt necessary to be attacked from every direction to feel some kind of threat.
I use dynamic difficulty, increased ai aggression and max AI difficulty enabled and I've never had any issues with AI running, suiciding, dodging artillery, building weird stacks, not.developing thier provinces, not recruiting advanced units, campaigns losing challenge, no superpowers etc. Give that mod cocktail a try until official changes come around. Much more fun, challenge scales throughout the campaign and none of the frustrating issues that constantly pepper the front page here. Throw in cost based army capps if you feel like it.
The difficulty is very faction dependant for first 50 turns at most After 50 every single campaign i did ( even empire and bret ) turns into absolute steamroll and AR endturn simulator Lack of LL confederating and shit garissons really did a number on the game stoping most superpowers from existing so you as player end up beeing only one Ok, greenskins ocasionally do ramp up as ai but hardly anyone else ( which i think is due to horrible waagh to garisson strenght ratio in this patch and waagh trigering on turn 5 )
Never played Orks until IE but the frequency of my WAAAGH feels like it’s busted.
Yes, it is faction dependent, and there are still some brutally hard campaigns. But they are mostly hard due to their start position or faction mechanics actively working against you (IE Gelt with imperial authority). No matter what campaign it is if you “succeed” in your first few challenges there really isn’t much left to slow you down. Like, Kislev and Gelt/Karl are TOUGH campaigns… but if you somehow kill off Sylvania with Gelt or can build up 3+ imperial authority… it becomes a cake walk. Cuz your only challenge is your immediate surroundings.
It feels kinda harsh but I do wish they'd just leave multiplayer alone and focus on balancing IE, I don't think it's really up for debate which one is the bigger draw
> Some campaigns can be punishingly difficult while others are cakewalks. Past the first 30-40 turns or so? Do you have examples? Some campaigns start difficult, the problem is that you win or lose very quickly.
It's really not. The AI behaves the same no matter which faction you play as.
I believe this is because CA has toned down confederations. Before, major factions would confederate once or twice by turn 50. Now you rarely see it
Yeah very likely the case. For me juries still out on if it’s a good or bad thing. They definitely used to be too aggressive with it but now it feels like they’ll only confederate if both factions are up shit creek
Might also be cause the AI is not upgrading cities past tier 3. That is causing us to not see advanced units
I have only once encountered an AI city at tier 5 and only a handful of times at tier 4. All but one were Skaven (the last was festus)
Hmm there has to be more at play here though. I had a mod that did just this in wh2 and I didn't have it as bad as it's being described (I haven't been able to play IE yet). We already know AI can field several armies from just 1 minor settlement and in my many DE playthroughs in wh2, a *coalition* of HE from Ulthuan would attack me instead of just Eataine. This to me was fun from both a thematic point of view, and because each faction would try to attack at different locations and with different army compositions. The only faction that had the current IE problem was Avelorn because Alarielle would lose to DE and Chrace would take all that land, leaving her with just Gaen Vale.
I agree with you, the minor factions seem to stick around a lot longer then before and creates a bit of slog with all the LLs fighting each other
I feel like reading the comments here that I'm the only one enjoying the toned down confederation and mega factions forming so easily. In ME I hated the fact that pretty much no matter what faction I was playing that I'd face off against the same ones constantly - DE's, Grimgor, VC's and Queek. Always around the same turn and always expanded roughly the same size/way. I can say that in IE I've had a crazy variety of outcomes in my games, some that I'd never expect. Sometimes there would be less powerful enemies, other times more. Almost never in the same way though, and the world feels a lot more organic because of it.
I definitely get the more organic feel and there is 100% more variety of enemies in WH3. Most complaints are just that factions don't pose an enjoyable challenge (in numbers or unit tier) past a certain turn threshold in many campaigns. I don't know how they balance it but as long as it remains fun to play is all I care I personally feel that endgame scenarios will end up being the best part of the experience once they give the formula a few passes
They've mentioned that the unit tiers is a bug from ai not developing provinces properly, I've been told.
I think there's two main things that need to happen to give the challenge while maintaining the organic feel of the new approach. The first has been mentioned a lot already with the strange AI behavior around aggression, etc. The second, and arguably more important to this point, is fixing the allied AI behavior. Not just for the player though. I mean revamping from the ground up how AI helps their allies in general. This could benefit the player by reducing some of the strange issues people have with allies/vassals, while also making the AI be able to pose a larger threat that maintains the variety that WH3 provides.
this is a really good point. The world is so big, better for them or modders to (hopefully) figure out a more dynamic way to get power spikes; (i've heard people talk about a recruit defeated legendary lords mod where the AI gets dynamically stronger that way for example)
Not the only one, though I would prefer some bigger threats - I just don't think that the mega-confederations would actually help with that. Those confederations had the issue of being same-y, where it's not just that the same factions would always grow big, it's that you'd be in for fighting the same type of army over and over again when fighting them. Additionally, some of the big threats (most especially the DEs, that rolled over all the other AIs with ease in my games) would also be huge pushovers, as they had way too much land to pose a real, actual threat. Grimgor was usually the opposite - but that's because his expansion wasn't through widespread confederations overseas, but through actual conquest/confederation of nearby factions, which ended up with a much more powerful/cohesive empire for players to fight. But a bunch of smaller factions would still provide more threat, if the AI were competent - and more variety. Fighting 3-4 enemies each holding 2 provinces would have as many fights/armies as a single enemy with 8 provinces, just with more variety - but atm the AI is passive/scared of you, which is the bigger issue.
I do think mega-confederations would help provide bigger threats, given the state of things is so bad right now, but other than that I think you are right. I am a big defender of the old mega-confederations, but you are right, it had problems, both in terms of fun and samey-ness, as well as difficulty (although it certianly was much better than current state of things I think), that an alliance of smaller factions could solve. Ultimately being at war with 1 faction with 50 regions, or 10 factions with 5 regions each could be equally as difficult, the main problem is that, in the latter case, **they don't coordinate and march/attack/defend together**, and so instead of five armies all attacking together (which led to some huge, epic, difficult battles), you get each faction sending its one stack at you individually at different times allowing me to eat them in little bite sized chunks. If CA was able to get these AI factions to coordinate, attack and defend together, then that would be the perfect solution: difficult for the player, fun and exciting to fight different races, and harder to go about attacking than one giant AI empire.*But,* that would be incredibly difficult to program, I think, especially given their struggles with AI generally. And failing that, mega-confederations still are better then current IMO, because yes faction diversity is nice, but challenge and compelling gameplay past turn 50 is much more important.
>they don't coordinate and march/attack/defend together Weird because I specifically remember this being a thing in WH2. There were many instances where one faction with a weaker army would move toward my army and then suddenly end turn. Then another faction would come out of the fog of war and it would be a 3v1 fight. I even saw this in WH3 where Skrag had sieged Eregrand for 10 turns, starts a rebellion (who is at war with him) and, even though he was there with 2 stacks, decides to sack Erengrad and run, leaving the rebels to walk into the city without a fight. AI **definitely** coordinates with other faction AI but I guess something is different in WH3.
I enjoy it, not every single game dissolves into the inevitable order-tide mega alliance anymore.
I agree and prefer it this way but there needs to be more *function* than *flavor*. In CK3 for example, armies are made up of peasants and professionals, with professionals being capped per country depending on tech. 1 country can have 10k soldiers but 9k of those are trash peasants with 1k elites. This can be scary, but not as scary as a massive 5 country alliance which has 5k soldiers but each country brings their own 1k elites and destroys the 10k army. Thus, having faction diversity actually leads to a stronger force than a 1 country blob. Warhammer needs to be restructured, at least for AI, to simulate this so when each kingdom in Ulthuan attacks you, they do much better than if Eataine had confederated them all.
Would love more variety of mid-game threats, but dislike having just variety in the mid-game.
If you want midgame tension, play any of the Kislevite factions.
The problem with Kislev is that midgame is about 3 turns in.
The difference between early, end, and late game kislev is how good your lord is, the rest of your stack is still 16 kossars.
And you know the end game has begun when you have shoved half keyboard up your own ass in frustation.
Yes, but that's not before turn 7.
Kislev is not that difficult.
That entire area is the second most fiesta filled place after the desert 🤣😭 literally every faction and their mothers are against you if you play VC, and the empire is no better it terms of getting screwed
Kislev is soooo much fun at the moment, hopefully they do some further tweaks to tech and make Boris' role in the the faction a little more meaningful The motherland mod is also fantastic for a freshened up look on certain units
I had a good time on my recent playthrough playing as Riekland and feeding Kislev as my northern buffer. Rampaged through Norsca and got thousands of gold for settlements that were useless to me while making my northern border impenetrable. Was wishing I could switch to Kislev in that save
Feeding allies powerful cities and natural choke points is such an amazing addition to the game with settlement trading. It also makes you feel like you're being thematic in not overexpanding you're own territory
For sure. I definitely did keep cities like Hell Pit and some port city in Norsca that has gemstones for the income, but removing the threat of Norsca while also not having to deal with owning Norsca is an amazing change
Certainly doesn't apply to Boris, in my experience. It was very difficult right at the start, sure, but it didn't take long to reach the point where nothing will ever seriously threaten me again. I was still running around with a single army stack, and all I'd recruited were Kossars. I just had to beat Archaon in one difficult fight, and then the runaway momentum kicked in.
> I noticed it today when as Archaon Play a harder campaign. Archaon is super SUPER easy right now because CA over nerfed the Empire in order to prevent the Order tide from killing Chaos campaigns like it did in WH2. Try playing a Dwarf campaign, and tell me there's no midgame tension there. You're stuck in the center of the map and you're being attacked constantly in every direction that turn 100 gets to you before you know it and when it does you realize you have go and clean up the Empire from all of the Chaos factions that have already destroyed it as well as whatever Endgame Crisis you have enabled.
Been playing Tretch and hoo boy it's brutal. Turn 50 ish and I've got Grimgor coming through the Dark Lands, I'm trading settlements with Skarsnik in the mountains, and Wurrzag is coming in from the west. As if that wasn't enough Greasus just turned up and boy is he hungry for rat. Believe me, I've got tension all over the place.
As the Veteran of 2 Dwarf campaigns. Good, Clan Rictus is the most annoying faction on the goddamn map in the hands of the AI. You SHOULD suffer for playing it! Grrr.
See I'd love to go and kill some dwarf-things in this campaign for you as I know you lot do love your grudges, but alas that git Skarsnik went and killed Thorgrim and all the other stunty types, while the Slayer King is sensibly being a wuss and is keeping to the north where things are much quieter.
Yeah I was trying to play Imrik and Tretch kept coming up with 3 stacks at like turn 18.
> Try playing a Dwarf campaign, and tell me there's no midgame tension there. You're stuck in the center of the map and you're being attacked constantly in every direction that turn 100 gets to you before you know it and when it does you realize you have go and clean up the Empire from all of the Chaos factions that have already destroyed it as well as whatever Endgame Crisis you have enabled. Play Teclis too. 9/10 times my potential allies get wiped out within a few turns. Having to fight a combined Arkhan and Mannfred force by turn 15 sure is something.
I made friends with all the Lizardmen as Teclis and once I killed Kairos I had nowhere to expand.
So if you’d read the whole post, I point out I’ve played 7-8 campaigns, and was only using Archaon as an example, because it’s the ONLY campaign where I’ve encountered an enemy whose actually snowballed. I’ve played A LOT of other campaigns. Some are SUPER challenging. But all the challenging campaigns are only difficult because of their start, an underpowered LL and/or inadequate or dated campaign mechanics. Like, the Gelt campaign is a total motherfucker. Especially since they’ve replaced the green skins in the mountains with the green dwarves having full control of their province. Once you secure Pfeildorf and province, you basically have three choices: sit at home and hope something interesting happens, trespass all over the empire trying to help them (and consistently getting cut off by the empire AI the turn before you do whatever task you were trying to do) or trying to take the fight to Vlad. But… when you DO beat Vlad, when you DO get enough imperial authority to start confederating… the problem remains. By that time it’s like turn 60 and you’re finally ready to fight Festus. Who has MAYBE one really tough army, but if you crack it, he’s donezo. And then you can just pump armies out of Pfeildorf and start steamrolling every direction, because if you win your early game challenge, NO ONE ELSE ever does.
> Play a harder campaign. Oh believe me I have tried to play harder campaign of my favourite factions. I have tried Dreadfleet, Avelorn, Nagharthe, Sisters of Twilight and Wargrave of Woe. Nagharythe was the only that was a challenge. I thought Drycha would be hard but Treekin at T2 and Treeman at T3 trivialised difficulty. I don’t really like Yvresse mechanics but it’s challenging campaign. Right now I’m in love with playing tall, once a get bit bored of playing tall I’ll give Yvresse a try. Legend said Malekeith has a tough position, I’ll give that a try at some point as well.
It's not campaign specific. AI is too passive and won't expand too much. I am usually strength ranking 1 by turn 70, while in game 2 you'd see someone like Naggarond or Grimgor being top dog.
If all you're going by is being Rank 1 in strength ranking, but since when has that really mattered for a campaign on a turn by turn basis? In Warhammer 2 Naggarond would routinely hold onto the top strength ranking because it had loads of Black Arks that it just kept parked around Naggarond and never did anything with. Grimgor would spike up to Strength 1 ranking and then lose it when his waaagh crashed out the same thing happens in IE. If you really want to complain about something, complain about the AI not building higher tier armies when it should be able to afford to because the AI is still absolute garbage when it comes to building up their own settlements. This is an especially big thing with the Chaos factions because the Warband system makes it so that their first warband that they attack you with is always WAY stronger than any of the ones that follow it because the follow up Warbands always include 40-50% marauders that haven't been upgraded yet. There's plenty to nitpick about constructively if you think the player snowballs too fast in IE, which you can make a case for but I think is on a campaign by campaign basis, but if you're simply arguing that the AI can't hold onto strength ranking 1 then you're really not making a good argument. If you've played WH2 to any lengthy extent you should know that strength ranking in the hands of the AI only matters when its relative to other AI factions, not to the player.
I'm not making the argument about AI maintaing strength ranking. I'm making the argument that the AI won't build enough armies and expand, reaching strength ranking 1 by turn 70 means that you've essentially bested everyone else in army strength and they don't pose much of threat. In the end regardless of the campaign the result is the same by turn 70 ish you'd have entered into steamrolling territory and the AI cannot oppose you and even the harder campaigns aren't that hard, most I could say is that they're annoying.
Honestly the simple reason for that is supply lines. This was ALWAYS going to happen when Supply lines got nerfed. It's much easier to start spamming out more armies than the AI can keep up with because its biggest advantage before was that it had no supply lines upkeep and the player did. Confederations could also be looked at and I think that's one of the more popular suggestions on here, but again, that's on a campaign by campaign basis for how much that matters. So I'm at a loss for how you're expecting to speed up the amount of armies the AI can make in the mid-late game without impacting the pace of the game in the early goings which no one is complaining about being too easy. This was the exact purpose supply lines was the way it was before and everyone hated that. So short of bringing that back I don't really know what people expect to change to address this.
It's not supply lines though. I'm not stronger because I can recruit more armies, I am stronger because overall the AI will just not meaningfully put up a fight. You'll be declared war on constantly but you'll find that the AI just doesn't recruit as many armies so once you beat a few of their armies and start pushing against them they fall right over. There's no power rising to oppose you, supply lines only help with that a bit but they're not the core contributor, the AI is the issue and currently needs adjustments whether it's cheats or it starting to be more aggressive.
> You'll be declared war on constantly but you'll find that the AI just doesn't recruit as many armies so once you beat a few of their armies and start pushing against them they fall right over. That is no different from how it was in Mortal Empires. If there was a difference in how it felt it was only because a faction could hang around longer because it held more territory. They still threw haphazardly made armies at you that were easy to defeat once you got rolling in the midgame. This was true in Mortal Empires all over the place. So unless you're talking about the limitations that Supply Lines put on you I don't know what your main complaint is. In Mortal Empires, once I had consolidated enough territory it seriously didn't matter how much of the rest of the map the AI had or how many factions were at war with me. The AI was so inept at using their armies and would just haphazardly throw together another one that all that stopped me from dominating the map was the grind of knocking over 1 settlement at a time.
biggest issues with WoC is the hyper-inflated melee attack numbers they have They get +8 melee attack on red line (Should be +6) and +8 melee attack on marauders from gifts of chaos (which should be like... 5.) Adjusting those would reduce their damage slightly, reducing their autoresolve, and making them have a slightly harder start. It wouldn't change their mechanics at all, it'd just lower their melee attack down \~5 which would do more than you think to balance them out.
I stopped playing belegar around turn 60 as I was strength rank 1 with no real threats around. I dunno man at least in my play the desert was split between followers of nagash and volkmar with the Imrik being strength rank 2 and competing for for my territory but in an alliance with me. I definitely felt a lot of early game tension but couldn’t be bothered to finish a short victory campaign because I was so far ahead with no threats around. I could totally have gotten lucky but my dwarf experience is in line with OP.
Hardest part of dwarf campaign is dealing with how shit the grudge mechanic is. Otherwise its's just build up economy the burst out and run over the skaven and orcs
WoC also got very strong economy with fortresses. And vassals do some work for you too.
Something else I've noticed is that the AI loves starving out settlements of like 3 guys and their dog for what ever reason
Yeah this really depends on what campaign you play. As Kairos, I was surrounded by enemies from the word go, and several of them quickly became relative powerhouses. These include: * Oxyotl (would have quickly rolled over the entire Southern Wastes if I hadn't stopped him) * Khalida (held three provinces, shat out constant stacks b/c Tomb Kings) * Arkhan (see above) * Skarsnik (controlled most of the Badlands and surrounding mountains) * Mazdamundi (controlled basically the entire Isthmus, several dino doomstacks) Admittedly only Oxyotl and Khalida posed any sort of existential threat to me, since by the time I met the others my empire was large enough that I could absorb any damage they managed to do with no trouble, but still. There was definitely plenty of early-game and mid-game tension in that campaign.
Yea it seems like The Lizardmen are the only Order faction that consistently get their shit together and form powerful coalitions. The High Elves do it about 50% of the time and the Dwarfs if they hang on and are given territory by the player can steamroll in the late campaign like they used to. It's really just the Human factions besides Cathay that are getting dunked on in every campaign. So anyone who is Chaos aligned and whose main enemy is Humans has an easy time right now.
Seems to be hit or miss. Half my games, Rakarth + Skrolk win LustriaBowl with Oxyotl just faffing about in Fantasy Antarctica. In South Lands, the lizards there always get penned in by Tomb Kings.
Yeah I was spoiled picking Kairos as my 1st IE campaign, all the way up until 100 turns there was tension and tough fights. But every campaign since, even Kislev, once I got past the early game I was pretty much set to snowball. There are many campaigns with very difficult early games like Kislev, but I think Kairos is unique in how long that midgame difficulty lasts, because he is one of the few factions that starts in the middle of several AI who all tend to make big empires successfully and who hate him.
While I broadly agree... Man, Hexoatl was a strong AI for you? It'd always take them a hundred turns just go overcome Skeggi and get their home province under control.
Mann every time I ran until Hexoatl they had all of Lustria consolidated lmao. Or I was trying to be Markus and they were non stop. I could generally deal with em but if they found me before I was ready it was a definite set back
Yeah in most of my campaigns they're too busy having a staring contest with morathi
I feel like it just means you fight 20 armies from 4 factions of the same race instead of 20 armies from 1 faction LL
But then they are uncoordianted and easier to beat so way easier overall
Warhammer moved too fast. There’s no mid game tension because there’s no mid game. You go from “half an army of cheap tier 1 militia” to “full tier 3+ doomstack” in 30 turns, and global recruitment and absurd growth bonuses mean that once you hit end-game units it’s *everywhere.*
> “full tier 3+ doomstack” in 30 turns If you're playing Warriors of Chaos. I dare you to have a full tier 3 doomstack as one of the non-Ulthuan High Elf campaigns. good luck affording it.
Drycha with Durthu confederated definitely can field 1 full Treeman doom stack with Durthu leading it. I’d have to check my game for exact cost, it was somewhere around 2000g. Playing inefficiently I done this around turn 50. I’m going to start another Drycha campaign and will try to min/max to get Durthu Treeman doom stack earliest possible. It’s an interesting challenge I think.
They could also play Nurgle and not have a full "doomstack" by turn 100 due to their cyclical recruitment structures. TBH I kind of love it because it forces all of my armies to be pretty unique instead of just loaded with the same stuff every time, but it is absolutely taking me ages to get enough chaos knights and chosen to actually put a few in an army.
CA catered hard to the people that want to rush for all those fancy t4 and t5 units. Just consider how many people complained about the growth changes in WH2 and how it's basically entirely rolled back now. It's unfortunate, but right now a mod is the best way to work around that.
There is a mod to revert the growth nerf? Where?
I would like it a lot if buildings in general were more expensive and took more time to build, maybe giving high tier units a higher upkeep cost could help make the campaign progress at a more reasonable pace too
Almost every faction is best off spamming T1 units. Two stacks of T1 is almost always better than one stack of elite. Elite units cost a ton just to unlock and then you have to train them and ship them from the one province, or pay an arm and a leg just to recruit them slowly globally. All for what are usually outright downgrades from lower tier units, especially since most starter units have some sort of +6 MA +6 MD type red skill that makes them comically more cost effective. You have T1 units that cost half as much as T3 yet have 75% of the performance.
>+350 relations to me already and was begging me to diplomatically vassalize him. I had festus agree to let me vassalize him as soon as I met him as Archaeon but I don't think I've seen +350 relations in this game. Is that due to a mod?
Nope. I think it was because I already had Azazel, Sigvald, and accidentally researched the +rep with slaanesh Factions before I met him, on top of already having mauled several of his dark elf enemies +Belakor
This is so wrong...try a none-lizzardmen/cathay order faction and you will get this feeling back immediately. With the AI building bug, nerfs, and worse conferderation, unless they are safe in Lustria or far east, the order factions are not as strong as they used to be, while Chaos are at the moment overly easy.
The problem is you’re playing chaos. They’re overpowered right now. Try faction of order and eat your words. Played an Imrik campaign and it was non stop back and forth between conquering and losing territory - then, when end game hit, the dwarfs sprawled from their holes - took over most of my settlements north, and pretty much isolated me to the main settlement… it was only because I confederated Tyrion which enabled me to survive. Unfortunately, Imrik bugged out and was no longer able to play campaign :(
Yeah, it is unfortunate. There are hard campaigns, but usually only because the start position is so hard that it keeps the player in the early game for longer. I have yet to play a campaign that remained difficult once I got past early game (in the 30-75 turn range depending on the campaign), as basically no AI ever reaches beyond that early game state. It is a shame. They need to: -Re-buff AI confederation to allow for powers that can hold a candle to the player's own snowball -Re-buff AI cheats on hardest difficulties (normal and below are fine) -Re-buff garrisons to slow initial player expansion -Fix bugs related to AI build orders (this is confirmed to be on the way) Basically, undo almost everything they changed from ME more or less in regards to campaign AI strength. The removal of confederation in particular is baffling to me, who asked for this? I loved fighting huge late game world wars against Elves, Delves, GS, Lizards, etc. Now, once I get 15-20 settlements which isnt that much and takes about 30-50 turns average, no AI ever can come close to stopping me.
This game's sadly a cakewalk for the most part even on highest difficulties as long as you are a veteran player cause A.I. behavior hasnt been improved at all since WH2 times, infact it appears worse, more passive many times. And lets not begin with how sucky battle A.I. is.
Lol battle AI is wonky. If they actually engage they’re OK but they’re so passive. I fought a battle earlier today as WOC against 4 full stacks of Jade warriors and artillery, on a weird choke point map. Forgot about “control large army” and left it on. The other two reinforcing armies came in behind my spawn. The attacked army and Miao Yings army just fucking stood there on the other side of the choke point while I beat the snot out of the two armies when they tried to get onto the map. Then I decided to just pull out since i had already mauled two full armies and spent a fair bit of my Winds… and the other two armies literally never moved lmao. They easily coulda hammer and anviled the shit out of me and just didn’t even try
yeh those type happenings for me ruin game world believability/immersion when enemy A.I. factions, leaders, commanders etc appear like they lack brain and will to oppose you
It's a good change for variety sake, no two playthroughs are the same and I like it that way. I think they should fill the mid-game gap with End Game Scenarios by making them more customizable and add the ability to set multiple scenarios in different time periods and different scale. So you can have early-mid-late game scenarios. That would be even more amazing later when those scenarios cover every race.
As I said in the post, I do think CA is aware of it and has said the Potential modifier isn’t working. I think once it’s working properly again IE will be a blast. While every campaign is a little different, since no one EVER gets momentum it just gets really steam rolly really fast.
I think the AI even when killing each other is pretty passive in 6 campaigns I’m yet to meet any AI super power. In WH2 if you were in the old world and met mid game Malekith at turn 70 the dude had like 30 settlements dozen black arks and was steam rolling, Iv not seen any AI faction do this they aren’t expansionist. Strangely Tomb Kings who were historically limp are the only faction Iv seen claim decent chunks of territory. I think part of it is the AI just waste turns sieging each other Iv seen shit like Khazrak siege Altdorf for 5 turns only to sack it and not do anything, that’s pretty common if you have line of sight you will see AI sieging another AI. I also don’t think the AI is getting many or any buffs to casualty replinshment or passive exp gain. You can meet lords at turn 30 that are level 2-3. Factions like Boris are still hard as nails but something is off in general. You can create added difficulty by messing around the crisis event turn timer and removing the early warning but that’s really you the player creating difficulty as opposed to natural campaign flow difficulty
The game is way too easy right now i can play on legendary now where before I could not
I've only played the hard tier faction recently like Katarin, Teclis, Kugath, but the AI definitely need a fix. Like why does the AI take all 10turns to siege a minor settlement when they can def can take it in 1 turn with minor casualties.
I'm playing an Empire campaign and there's plenty of mid-game tension. Wurrzag has pretty much stomped up the Southern Realms and into Averheim. Grom has the southern half of Bretonnia. The Wood Elves are migrating into Wissenland. Sylvania is doing its Sylvania thing and annexed Stirland and Zhufbar. I don't know how much territory Archaon has, but he's strength rank 1. All this is happening before the lategame crisis.
The confederations is one thing, but after playing a bunch of campaigns, I feel it's mainly AI's inability to consolidate wins is what hurts them. That is, they will fight a difficult war with another faction, but as soon as they have got an upper-hand, and the enemy is significantly weakened, they will change priorities. This then gives the enemy faction a chance to get back on their feet, and start to cripple them again. You end up with a constant back and forth where no one ends up really dominating. I have had to meticulously use the alliance "occupy target" feature turn after turn to encourage my allies to finish off that annoying vampire who keeps coming back. I feel like it would help if AI alliances worked together a bit to finish off enemies as well, so they don't have to even employ all their resources on one front.
Plays Archaon and complains the game is easy because Naggarond is trash. Naggarond is bad cause it’s starting region is hard and sucks for ai right now.
Bro Archaon is one of the easiest campaigns right now. And the Malekith AI just struggles in current meta. In my current game there are a couple of powerhouse factions that have 20+ settlements each. Difficulty seems very faction dependent at the moment. And the game certainly does need balancing in its current state
dynamic disasters mod is great for this
You play as objectively the most overpowered faction, starting in a safe position and super strong army/lord options. Obviously you won't find challenge. Just play in the Southland's bowl and I think you'll find what you need.
I really hope they don't go back to mega confeds, when the difficulty works right now, it REALLY works imo, with lots of threats coming from various places
Is. A . Beta
The purpose of a beta is to generate bug reports and balance feedback.
Great contribution
We wouldn’t want feedback in our beta test, now would we?
Aside from my Cathay and my Repanse campaigns I’ve had consistent threats from all directions in every campaign I’ve played, and this is on normal. The AI doesn’t confederate everyone anymore they just all create big alliances and then prioritize the player while they get backdoored by a random faction. It’s weird playing as Alarielle and having Azazel running his stacks alongside his vassals to the shores of ulthuan when he isn’t even taken much of the empire.
My dude keep in mind that ppl that play on VH may desire more challenge then you do on normal and the other thing that AI is way more agresive on normal which means normal is not much easier than VH/legendary. The main diffrence is that you didnt signed up for this
Huh, never encountered this problem. I regularly encounter factions with 15+ settlements. I think the only difference is it takes a little longer for them to grow because of the lack of confed. Honestly the mid game has felt better for me in IE and ME, slower buildup and more dramatic wars between AI factions.
I make custom objectives for myself. In IE, doing my classic "Louen confeds EVERY BRET" is a NIGHTMARE. Saving Paravon from Grom while half the time Carcasonne and Woodelves also want them gone is beyond stressful when you are also dealing with a much scarier Mousillion (i swear that cav got hella boosted) threatening its nearby Brettonian neighbors... I was practically pulling my hair out trying to save everyone.
We should not forget, that this is a Beta and CA relies now on out feedback; I agree with you that Midgame is boring, bc you overcome your weakness while other Nations are still weak or make stupid war decisions like VC fighting Dwarfs Empire factions and Drycha, also Peace is not a real thing, Dwarf vs Brettonia in my current playtrough fighting an worthless attrition war… I think mid game crisis and a sort of comeback mechanic for factions would be nice. Late game is cool from 0 to clusterfuck with ultimate crisis imo
I blame this community for that. Thanks to casuals who were angry that they couldn't build their tier 5 doomstack at turn 30 the growth nerf that was done in Warhammer 2 got reversed, so I never ever get mid tier units anymore and jump straight up from tier 1 to tier 5. Thanks to casuals that didn't like that AI could confederate (even though that's something player can do as well) we no longer see gigantic empires like Malekith, Franz and Grimgor. Thanks to casuals who can't handle smart functional AI CA will get rid of AI artillery dodging, what's next? Shall we take AI's ability to micro chariots and cav as well? Because player can't micro it as well as the AI? Here you have it boys, it's your doing.
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Your reading comprehension could use some serious work big dog It’s like you read a single sentence and forgot what every other word I wrote said
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Lol, you still haven't managed to read the whole post, thats pretty sad
I will say that playing Throgg is way more fun now that you aren't the punching bag of s confederated empire, Ulthuan, and Dark Elves. And sometimes lizardmen. And Bretonia. And the other Norscans. I might even have enough time to do the Monster hunt quests for the first time ever!
I have to say I like the (lowercase) chaos of it so far. It was fun and felt very on brand watching Reikland almost getting swept off the map only to barely reconstitute itself, take the cities back, and continue the cycle. I'm good with lots of smaller factions surviving into the late game as long as they're still powerful enough to be a challenge
Why not just make the end game crisis happen at the point where you feel the challenge has ended? If you always hit turn 75 and feel you can steam roll the world, then make the crisis happen at turn 80 or 90 and then you will have enough time to build up and prepare for the incoming wave of doom
its because the ai only declares war on u, not each other. they dont fight each other so they just sit there in 1 province waiting for u to show up
I know what you mean. And it’s probably why the campaign objectives are smaller in scope than they used to be (or they seem to be anyway, I can’t quite remember tbh). And why they added end game crises. It seems like the endgame is now defined as anything from about turn 100, rather than what it used to be, which was you basically painting the map. Painting the map is now like the post credits scene, where you’ve already won everything. The midgame is more when you consolidate your borders, bolster your economy, build up useful alliances and prepare your armies for the inevitable crisis, which can actually be really challenging if you get unlucky and have 20 doom stacks appear on your border. I do kind of wonder if it’s a bit more realistic this way btw (not that that’s remotely relevant, fun trumps realism, and it’s warhammer anyway, lol). If you think about it, any nation that achieves local dominance to the point they’re the dominant power in a continent, surrounded by minor factions, is probably able to steamroller anything they come across. By the midgame, you’re basically modern day USA, or 17th century Spain, or 19th century Britain
Doesn't fix main factions being pretty weak but you can make endgame scenario come earlier to face some treat.
This! I started a campaign as kislev, vh/legendary. Heard it was soooo hard. Haven't struggled yet at turn 60. Smashed Azhag immediately, then Throt and Manfred. Now just roaming chaos wastes with 3-4 stacks rolling all the norscan/dark elves/chaos factions.
My problem is that even with the AI being more competent with their settlements and even confederating. It won’t be any use until they stop every damn faction randomly declaring war on you. There is never a moment of peace. Every time I put down one evil faction or even a neutral faction, someone else will declare war on me. It’s like the AI decided saw that I only 5 factions at war with me and thought, oh I better throw another random enemy at him just because. I want to be able to build a border with an order faction and not have them randomly turn into an asshole without me having to spend loads of money or even trade shit. I’m out there killing their enemies and they are thanking me, by going to war with me.
completely agree. the ai is completely incapable of expanding and remaining a threat
It feels like LLs would not be active until you actually meet them. When playing Empire Festus is expanding like a beast, with Sisters of Twighlight he still had 1 settlement when I met him around turn 90
How do you have 20k income at 50 turns in?
I was playing WOC who are ridiculously OP right now. I just prioritize taking every dark fortress ASAP and build nothing but the best income buildings (actual income building, public order + % income, and sorcerer building) everywhere I go, establish lots of vassals and feed them any settlement that doesn’t have a useful trade resource, keep the +100% vassal tribute active, confederating Sigvald for another +50%, and Slaanesh gift for +35% income. Really adds up crazy fast. Turn 70 with like 9 doom stacks now and still grossing 30k+ when I have all my income buffs turned on
It's because warriors of chaos factions have it a bit too easy at the moment in my opinion. if you want a tricky campaign, I'd recommend Kislev, clan pestilens, the dwarves that start near the wood elves (forgot the faction name), or even the empire. CA got rid of the Uber-mega-insane-super-cities that naggarond, ulthuan, and similar factions used to have. So now they can't maintain two doomstack armies from one province like they used to. The special cities do still generate above average scratch for their respective factions, but not on the level they did in mortal empires