Total War: WARHAMMER - Official anounced

[Gorsameth]

So no news until September and then a lot coming. If they are still aiming for a 2021 then they are fast running out of time, given how much is left to reveal.

People think that the Ogre Kingdoms are pretty much confirmed as the pre-order bonus, given that the article spoke of 'fulfilling your hunger' about it. OK seems an odd choice given they and the chaos dwarves would seem the logical choice for the campaign packs. If they use the OK for pre-order and not a campaign pack what does that leave? The talk about how WH3 is a massive game (have mercy on my poor computer) and the talk of major surprises they doubt people have seen coming is interesting. Hints at maybe Ind and/or Nippon?

Oh, and a diplomacy upgrade. If it is just the one from 3K I'd be happy. Diplomacy in wh2 is horrible. Free money from a trade agreement? Nah, can't be having that. You are a skaven and I'm a high elf? Sure, I'll join forces with you to fight an enemy that has done nothing to me.

OK is a logical choice when you look at the map. Kislev + Cathey doesn't really work without the Mountains of Mourn which lie in between them. You'd end up with a U shaped map with a massive gap in it.
And I don't know how they would do the combined map without the Chaos Dwarf wasteland. If they are not in at the start the might have to fill it with placeholders?

And they have plenty of room for new races to the south/east (Nippon, Ind) and 3 more Chaos Daemons.

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WHIII is in an interesting spot give that it's basically an advertisement for The Old World so it seems to me unlikely CA will be releasing any fanfiction armies but rather only armies GW plans to eventually ship. In that sense, it makes sense to get the ogres 'out of the way' since they and chaos are the only factions with real 8th ed armies. Kislev and Cathay (and presumably chorfs) will be ToW only armies.

Nippon and Ind are on the table now that we have Cathay. CA has already left the realm of released WHFB armies.

[Corvus]

I seriously hope Ind makes it. The little lore we have of the place makes it sound really interesting - non-chaos aligned beastmen, winged lions, six armed monkey warriors, a god who terrifies chaos worshipers and more. Plus Indian mythology is just filled with interesting characters and creatures to inspire a fleshed out Ind.

[KrayZ33]

If Cathay is a thing. OK is a thing as well.
Unless they fill everything with random orc tribes or something?

Cathay and OK are connected by lore quite a bit afaik, with the maw and all that.

[Jastall]

OK is a logical choice when you look at the map. Kislev + Cathey doesn't really work without the Mountains of Mourn which lie in between them. You'd end up with a U shaped map with a massive gap in it.
And I don't know how they would do the combined map without the Chaos Dwarf wasteland. If they are not in at the start the might have to fill it with placeholders?

And they have plenty of room for new races to the south/east (Nippon, Ind) and 3 more Chaos Daemons.

- - - Updated - - -

Nippon and Ind are on the table now that we have Cathay. CA has already left the realm of released WHFB armies.

It's what made me think the pre-order would either be Ogres or (my initial option) Chaos stunties; to fill the map. People were throwing around Nagash, Dogs of War and (so help me) Hobgoblins and my first thought was, wouldn't this leave the map with a huge gaping hole? All of the Mountains of Mourn and most of the Darklands would be filled with generic Orcs and Skaven and whatnot? That would be as dumb as not having Lizardmen in WH2's initial launch so that Lustria is filled with their enemies instead. Worse in this case because at least the continents in the second game were relatively separated by bodies of water; in WH3 the Darklands and nearby regions will be near the center of the map, if Kislev is west, Cathay east and the Realms of Chaos in the north.

[Gorsameth]

It's what made me think the pre-order would either be Ogres or (my initial option) Chaos stunties; to fill the map. People were throwing around Nagash, Dogs of War and (so help me) Hobgoblins and my first thought was, wouldn't this leave the map with a huge gaping hole? All of the Mountains of Mourn and most of the Darklands would be filled with generic Orcs and Skaven and whatnot? That would be as dumb as not having Lizardmen in WH2's initial launch so that Lustria is filled with their enemies instead. Worse in this case because at least the continents in the second game were relatively separated by bodies of water; in WH3 the Darklands and nearby regions will be near the center of the map, if Kislev is west, Cathay east and the Realms of Chaos in the north.

Yeah my initial beliefs for WH were Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres both being in from the start. But unless they do a big surprise it looks like we will be missing out on the chaos stunties for now since Ogres being added makes OK extremely likely as the pre-order race.

[Jastall]

Yeah my initial beliefs for WH were Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres both being in from the start. But unless they do a big surprise it looks like we will be missing out on the chaos stunties for now since Ogres being added makes OK extremely likely as the pre-order race.

My initial prediction was Kislev, Ogres, Chaos Dorf, and Daemons who would then get sub-races of sorts via DLCs to make monogod-esque factions. Suffice it to say I was way off the mark, but I'm hardly angry about it. 6 factions on release, 7 counting pre-order, possibly 7 and a half if Be'lakor has serious differences, is loads more than I expected and frankly the rosters seem a bit thinner than some would have liked because of that I'd wager.

But rosters can be expanded later. CA hasn't done very many races dirty on that front ultimately, I think everybody is fun to play on the battle map now. What I want to see is campaign mechanics and improvements; new sieges, small settlement battles, economy reworks to make doomstacking less dominant, difficulty and balance rework so the best units aren't almost always ranged and monsters The sort of thing that's harder to get in a DLC or patch. If WH3 launches with these issues fixed, or at least mostly fixed, I'll be a very happy camper indeed.

Same for Chaos Dwarf. Not in on release means they'll likely get a Tomb Kings-sized DLC and be a very flashed out faction. Here's hoping the Ogres are as good as that, but hell even if they're not CA has shown with the Dwarfs this update that they're willing to spice up factions even without us having to pay for it.

[Faldric]

They really seem to struggle with the new features they are putting in. I played about 20 turns of Taurox and the interaction between his stances and the movement refresh of rampage and battles is completely broken.

If you cant encamp because you don't have 10% movement left: Switch to raiding stance and suddenly encampment stance is available.
If you switch to raiding stance while you are at 100% movement (e.g. right after you refreshed it with momentum), sometimes you will lose your entire movement.

I doubt they tested this very much.

[Saltysquidoon]

This isn't strictly TWW but it is relevant to game three.

ToW will use square bases and will be a mix of old and new rules. Also, there's no release date set but given how highly synergised the products are they're likely working with CA on a launch window.

[Faldric]

I really hope they change how difficulty works in TW3. Maybe its just me, but I don't seem to find a difficulty thats working for me. Either I feel cheated and forced to "cheese" everything with doomstacks/autoresolving or I am bored because the game doesn't pose a challenge.

The higher difficulties don't reward smarter play, they reward exploiting the AI. Because you can't outplay stat buffs that make skaven slaves go toe to toe with dwarf warriors. It doesn't make you play smarter, it just removes tier 1 infantry from the list of units you would ever recruit. Same with Agents. The harmful actions get outdone by the insane buffs to replenishment, public order, construction cost, recruitment cost and reduced attrition damage. There is almost nothing you can do with agents, the AI can't undo in a single turn with no impact whatsoever. Diplomacy suffers too. If there is a war, you will be forced to fight it until the enemy is annihilated. If you accept peace, they will cheat out 2-3 stacks from the single settlement left and go to war with you again.

Some toggles would also be nice, e.g. I would like to have the "ironman" mode from legendary, without actually having to play with legendary difficulty.

[Gorsameth]

I really hope they change how difficulty works in TW3. Maybe its just me, but I don't seem to find a difficulty thats working for me. Either I feel cheated and forced to "cheese" everything with doomstacks/autoresolving or I am bored because the game doesn't pose a challenge.

The higher difficulties don't reward smarter play, they reward exploiting the AI. Because you can't outplay stat buffs that make skaven slaves go toe to toe with dwarf warriors. It doesn't make you play smarter, it just removes tier 1 infantry from the list of units you would ever recruit. Same with Agents. The harmful actions get outdone by the insane buffs to replenishment, public order, construction cost, recruitment cost and reduced attrition damage. There is almost nothing you can do with agents, the AI can't undo in a single turn with no impact whatsoever. Diplomacy suffers too. If there is a war, you will be forced to fight it until the enemy is annihilated. If you accept peace, they will cheat out 2-3 stacks from the single settlement left and go to war with you again.

Some toggles would also be nice, e.g. I would like to have the "ironman" mode from legendary, without actually having to play with legendary difficulty.

don't count on it. Writing actual AI that could compete with humans is insanely difficulty. That is why basically every game simply 'cheats' by stacking buffs at higher difficulties.

[Jastall]

I really hope they change how difficulty works in TW3. Maybe its just me, but I don't seem to find a difficulty thats working for me. Either I feel cheated and forced to "cheese" everything with doomstacks/autoresolving or I am bored because the game doesn't pose a challenge.

The higher difficulties don't reward smarter play, they reward exploiting the AI. Because you can't outplay stat buffs that make skaven slaves go toe to toe with dwarf warriors. It doesn't make you play smarter, it just removes tier 1 infantry from the list of units you would ever recruit. Same with Agents. The harmful actions get outdone by the insane buffs to replenishment, public order, construction cost, recruitment cost and reduced attrition damage. There is almost nothing you can do with agents, the AI can't undo in a single turn with no impact whatsoever. Diplomacy suffers too. If there is a war, you will be forced to fight it until the enemy is annihilated. If you accept peace, they will cheat out 2-3 stacks from the single settlement left and go to war with you again.

Some toggles would also be nice, e.g. I would like to have the "ironman" mode from legendary, without actually having to play with legendary difficulty.

Coding an AI that can actually play such a complex game well is very, very hard. The AI as it is is significantly better than in old Total Wars where it shit itself more often than not, without the player having to do anything to trigger that, at least in Warhammer you gotta go out of your way to exploit it in a game-changing manner. I do think it should be smart enough to, for example, not leave its artillery undefended or expend literally all its ammunition at a target it can barely hit at all, and that what buffs the AI does get really shouldn't be as melee-centric as they are now. But anything more clever than that is out of reach unfortunately.

As to the campaign map, yeah, the clear and obvious cheating on the AI's part does suck at points. But it's already not very hard to snowball out of control, if the AI had no buffs it would be even easier.

[Maximus Testiculos]

https://www.facebook.com/TotalWar/ph...7072570034560/

Release has been delayed to early 2022.

[Makabreska]

https://www.facebook.com/TotalWar/ph...7072570034560/

Release has been delayed to early 2022.

Well shit.

[Jastall]

Good. WH2 had lots of issues on and after launch, some of which came to the fore later on like the Norsca nonsense, and I'd rather the game be as good as can be on release than be half-baked because the fans can't wait and the suits want the holiday release money. It was inevitable as well, we barely got to see anything about the game and a 2021 release would have meant early December at the very latest, so condensing all their marketing in barely 3 months.

We're getting a Cathay reveal trailer and Q&A tomorrow and I'm certain it'll get rid of 99% of the grumbling.

[Malania]

Yeah, was just saying on reddit they released the roster reveals and demo far too early. They never should have crossed work on it with Troy and done multiple marketing releases for both games. It just leaves people frustrated and you get stuff like Shadowlands. Too early and pushed back because you're aiming for an earnings call.

[KrayZ33]

We're getting a Cathay reveal trailer and Q&A tomorrow and I'm certain it'll get rid of 99% of the grumbling.

hmpf

[Jastall]

hmpf

Exactly, haha.

Although doubtless the grumbling shall resume shortly, either because people aren't satisfying with Cathay and/or because the news will keep being slow given that we have, at minimum, 5 months until release now.

[Airlick]

They never should have crossed work on it with Troy and done multiple marketing releases for both games.

Seeing how Troy is 70% rehashed Rome 2 and 20% 3K (and 5% WH2 with the new DLC) that could have been put together by interns and looks and plays the part, I'd be betting WH3 had some serious development problems and that's what delayed it.

[Gorsameth]

https://www.facebook.com/TotalWar/ph...7072570034560/

Release has been delayed to early 2022.

if it needs time it needs time. I would rather them delay it multiple times but release a good game then release it on time but be shit.

Ofcourse when you delay it multiple times and still release shit you do a Cyberpunk and deserve all the shit thrown at you.

[Jastall]

Seeing how Troy is 70% rehashed Rome 2 and 20% 3K (and 5% WH2 with the new DLC) that could have been put together by interns and looks and plays the part, I'd be betting WH3 had some serious development problems and that's what delayed it.

Well the Covid nuke certainly didn't help, but aside from that they're trying to introduce basically 7 new races at once including the pre-order, 2 of which had little or no prior material to draw from, and apparently overhauling core systems like minor settlement battles, sieges and supply lines on top of a campaign map said to be a lot bigger than WH2's. That sounds like a lot of work to me.