Episode 357: Total War: WARHAMMER

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 357:

Total War: WARHAMMER

Good news, Games Workshop fans: your long wait is over. After literally days without a single new Warhammer or Warhammer 40K video game being launched, Total War: WARHAMMER is upon us. Fraser Brown and Dan Griliopoulos join Rob to talk about the latest entry in the Total War series that takes the series to the mildly ahistorical setting of Warhammer. The reviews have been positive and the verdict is a solid recommendation from our panel as Total Warhammer puts the fun back into Total War.

Total War: WARHAMMER

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[Gaizokubanou]

What Fraser said at the end... in a way, one way it could be solved is if AI was actually 'dumber' and actually wanted to fight your armies despite poor odds.  Instead we have this kind of smart AI that understand when to avoid battle and that ends up sucking lot of fun out of the campaign because the campaign movement mechanic was not designed to gamify trapping a fleeing opponent into a fight, so we have this chore of 'whack-a-mole' thing that has been plaguing TW series forever.

 

Remember when armies could be built out of any number of units without general and how AI would constantly send these 1 units to pillage your stuff?  So they fixed that by making armies require general but by implementing all these weird marching formation shinenigans now we deal with that same thing except it's an entire army that's just avoiding you :x

 

This is all so frustrating because battle and progression is so good.  Seriously I wish CA just made AI simpler and had it throw bunch of roughly half stacks of armies at you.

 

Also retreat option from battle is so bad.  It makes chasing down enemies incredibly bad  Also why doesn't sacking/razing just end movement?

 

Basically all of my biggest gripes with this game is CA, why did you design the strategy layer so that AI is always trying to avoid fighting player's army?  Whyyyy

[DoveBrown]

I think this is the article on why Warsaw Pact tactics work in wargames mentioned by Rob. It's an interesting read.

https://20thcenturywargaming.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/why-cold-war-warsaw-pact-tactics-work-in-wargaming/
 

Edit: So on review that looks pretty much exactly like a Spam bot comment. The link goes to an article by John Curry (an academic/professional wargamer) about how he is pretty sure he has never lost a wargame when playing the Soviet side. He talks a little bit about how the simplicity and expectation that they will be implemented by a "poorly trained, illiterate army with communication problems" leads to quicker decisions which can unsettle an imperfect commander attempting to use the NATO tactics designed to overcome the Soviet numbers advantage.

Edited May 25, 2016 by DoveBrown

[ilitarist]

Ah, total war again. Couldn't get into any of the games after Rome (just had 1 campaign in Empire. Most of it I autoresolved everything).

 

While listening I had the same thought all the time "So why didn't they do it earlier?" TW pretended it has some connection with history even though it was basically a Hollywood version of it. So armies felt samey most of the time. And no fancy abilities, of course. This I can understand. But here it sounds like they understood they don't need complex economy and diplomacy and all this strategic fluff. They've limited it somewhat previously with limiting armies number and some other things but in Rome 2 they compensated it with endless busywork. I couldn't for the life of mine figure out why do I need all those agents stat and how can those general bonuses be so minimal while the choice was so obvious.

 

Did they really focus on battles? Did they really made general progression fun? I still remember my great general from Rome 1 who gained traits like "Hates Carthago", "Mercenary Commander" and "Brilliant strategist" while fighting, then gaining homosexuality and decadence in Rome, then fighting Greeks and settling as an old governor of Crete. To hell with historicity, balance and player control - it was fun. I didn't even notice general changing in later Total War games except maybe Napoleon cause there were Napoleon and all the other guys. 

 

Hope they did it right this time.

[Gaizokubanou]

Did they really focus on battles? Did they really made general progression fun? I still remember my great general from Rome 1 who gained traits like "Hates Carthago", "Mercenary Commander" and "Brilliant strategist" while fighting, then gaining homosexuality and decadence in Rome, then fighting Greeks and settling as an old governor of Crete. To hell with historicity, balance and player control - it was fun. I didn't even notice general changing in later Total War games except maybe Napoleon cause there were Napoleon and all the other guys. 

 

I would say battles are perhaps the best out of all the vanilla versions of the games?  All the ridiculousness that kinda marred previous games' historical theme actually adds to the ridiculousness of the Warhammer lore and ends up being a plus rather than awkward thing that needed to be ignored.

 

General progression is good but it is very very straightforwardly gamey kinda good.  It's not that kind of dynamic/random growth that you are describing that happened in Rome/Medieval 2, but it's also not kind of boring middle of nothing kind of progression generals had in say, Shogun 2.  You have the control you have over your general's growth as you do in Shogun 2 (minus random retinues and items but those can be swapped around at will as well) but the actual growing is quite exciting when it comes to spells and mounts.  It's really satisfying watching a leader that starts on foot go to a horse into pegasus into griffin, or goblin lord into wolf riding into spider.  Even the raw stats up upgrades are much better just because your lords actually fight like elephants (in a sense that they hit multiple dudes and toss soldiers around) so even those transfer into gameplay much better.

 

It's in a way very 'shallow' kind of fun but heck, it is fun so I'm very glad it exists.

 

To give clear example, I had Orc's starting warchief (famous Grimgor Ironhide) specced deep into his own combat capabilities and in a full stack fight against invading chaos army, had him sit on my left flank.  At the start chaos' uber cannon took a toll on my boiz (I'm so sorry but I had to) but I had my goblin chucking thing target it exclusively so I ended up taking it out in mid fight.  So lines crash and my army was kind of mix of units so my center started to buckle but the black orcs to the right killed off their flanking cavalry and was holding and my warboss murdered their leader, soloed a cavalry group (again, it swings like elephants so each swing you would think a cannonball landed or something) and saved 2 big'uns that would otherwise would have been killed by the flanking cav so with them ended up flanking the middle mob that already got 2 of my center groups on the run, and along with the black orcs from right dynamically created this battle of cannae kind of flank and YEAAA that was super fun.

[panzeh]

The design choices in this game tend to be really bad IMO.  The unit balance is still at that kind of linear progression of three, maybe four roles of unit with zany wizards and dragons now.  The strategic mechanics are very one-note and limiting for each faction- you don't really make too many terribly interesting decisions there.

 

It's polished, but there really isn't anything there.  It's still not got the kind of craft Shogun 2 had.  I guess GW IPs make people overlook or even want bizarre and weak game design.  It's the same for their actual games- they're made without even having considered that other people were making better games- they just do their own thing like it's still 1990.

 

Since Warhammer doesn't do it for me, this game doesn't do it for me.

[Fhnuzoag]

I really disagree, I found a distinctive use for every unit as Empire. It's a genuine improvement to the homogenous yari blobs I used to run in Shogun 2.

Shogun's big problem is that the fun units are all found deep down your building tree, so you end up only being able to build them faaar back in your home province. They just aren't worth the trouble when you can raise yaris wherever. The new tech trees gives you interesting units like muskets and flyers super early and global recruitment means you can build them directly on the front line.

Also I found plenty of interesting strategic choices. In my game I mostly ignored unifying the empire in favour of killing off the vampires and ransacking the orcs. And it worked.

[Cordeos]

I am really enjoying Chaos. Not having to deal with cities at all is pretty much what I want. Its been interesting dancing around the northern dwarves, raiding humans and unaffiliated tribes until I was able to build up a second army to finally burn the dwarven cities to the ground. Now to sweep down on the realms of man.

My enlightened/subjugated tribes have already been doing a little raiding and chaos rebellions have started popping up. Also my win condition appears to be just sacking tons of cities, which is pretty interesting. Chaos seems to play as a guerilla faction especially since having two armies close together causes them to infight. I want to destroy the empire, but this may not be possible. 

[Turrican]

The design choices in this game tend to be really bad IMO. The unit balance is still at that kind of linear progression of three, maybe four roles of unit with zany wizards and dragons now. The strategic mechanics are very one-note and limiting for each faction- you don't really make too many terribly interesting decisions there.

It's polished, but there really isn't anything there. It's still not got the kind of craft Shogun 2 had. I guess GW IPs make people overlook or even want bizarre and weak game design. It's the same for their actual games- they're made without even having considered that other people were making better games- they just do their own thing like it's still 1990.

Since Warhammer doesn't do it for me, this game doesn't do it for me.

Since you don't like Warhammer or Total War I'm surprised you're even following and commenting on Total War: Warhammer. What did you expect?

[Gormongous]

Since you don't like Warhammer or Total War I'm surprised you're even following and commenting on Total War: Warhammer. What did you expect?

 

Turrican, please don't give people shit for having negative opinions of stuff in this thread, too. Panzeh is clearly familiar with Creative Assembly's games and implicitly compliments Shogun 2, which is the last Total War game that landed for me as well. He's not some troll doing a drive-by.

[Turrican]

Turrican, please don't give people shit for having negative opinions of stuff in this thread, too. Panzeh is clearly familiar with Creative Assembly's games and implicitly compliments Shogun 2, which is the last Total War game that landed for me as well. He's not some troll doing a drive-by.

 

I haven't given anyone shit on any thread and I wasn't here.  I was making a serious point.  If Panzeh hasn't liked a TW game since Shogun 2 and doesn't like GW in general he's probably just not going to like the game.  It would be like me following and commenting on Overwatch - it may be amazing but I am just never going to appreciate a game like that because it's not my thing.  

[Fhnuzoag]

Enh, I know nothing of Warhammer fantasy, and also haven't really liked a total war since Shogun 2. I love this game though. I just don't know what the heck he's talking about.

[Turrican]

Enh, I know nothing of Warhammer fantasy, and also haven't really liked a total war since Shogun 2. I love this game though. I just don't know what the heck he's talking about.

Who?

[panzeh]

I really disagree, I found a distinctive use for every unit as Empire. It's a genuine improvement to the homogenous yari blobs I used to run in Shogun 2.

Shogun's big problem is that the fun units are all found deep down your building tree, so you end up only being able to build them faaar back in your home province. They just aren't worth the trouble when you can raise yaris wherever. The new tech trees gives you interesting units like muskets and flyers super early and global recruitment means you can build them directly on the front line.

Also I found plenty of interesting strategic choices. In my game I mostly ignored unifying the empire in favour of killing off the vampires and ransacking the orcs. And it worked.

 

I feel like the way the game forces every faction into its own sort of thunderdome with another(though this isn't perfeclty strict) by not allowing factions to capture territory outside their "lore enemy" for example is extremely limiting in terms of strategic decisions.

 

In terms of the troop balance, I feel like the empire probably has the most interesting unit selection- but the dwarves tend to have units with poorly defined roles, orc units tend to be "unit x, unit x+1, unit x+2", etc.

 

I haven't given anyone shit on any thread and I wasn't here.  I was making a serious point.  If Panzeh hasn't liked a TW game since Shogun 2 and doesn't like GW in general he's probably just not going to like the game.  It would be like me following and commenting on Overwatch - it may be amazing but I am just never going to appreciate a game like that because it's not my thing.  

 

Yeah, okay, sometimes, y'know, a game can be good despite GW, and I was hoping for that.  I'm not here to shit and run, I can explain what I like and dislike.  Not every thread needs to be a hug-fest and I can certainly see how people like it.  It's in my genre preferences, it's not just totally out of left field- I can judge its mechanics and see whether I like it or not.

[Fhnuzoag]

Really, I think people are treating the capture territory restriction wrong. What the territory restrictions are is that they create *oceans* on the map. If you maintain non aggression pacts with those guys, or vassalise them, or raze them, you can create these buffer zones around your territory that give you a secured front, thus enabling your armies to go elsewhere. Otherwise the map would be effectively a flat surface with few chokepoints, and rather less interesting.

Yeah you can only expand in your selected terrain type but raiding and sacking is a very much legitimate way of running your economy, and that creates an interesting fundamental choice - fight secondary enemies for money, or focus on the big threat?

[Turrican]

Yeah, okay, sometimes, y'know, a game can be good despite GW, and I was hoping for that. I'm not here to shit and run, I can explain what I like and dislike. Not every thread needs to be a hug-fest and I can certainly see how people like it. It's in my genre preferences, it's not just totally out of left field- I can judge its mechanics and see whether I like it or not.

Yeah sure. I wasn't saying you were wrong to have criticisms of the game, just asking whether you were ever likely to think much of it due to your gaming preferences.

Personally, I love the GW universe and I own every WH game, however, I haven't tried Total Warhammer yet or watched a let's play, nevermind bought the game. I think I've just lost patience with and faith in CA.

What's weird to me is that most reviews (such as the 3MA cast) have been very complimentary about the game whereas a lot of what's been said has actually put me off (eg certain factions forced to collide, simplified city management, the usual dodgy AI, each campaign involving fighting Chaos etc). Essentially, whereas I'm not surprised someone like you doesn't much like the game, I'm quite surprised by my own lack of interest. Maybe it's just that when TW first came out it was a revelation but it hasn't moved on much since and nowadays there are so many other brilliant games out there to play.

[Valorian Endymion]

I am enjoying the game a lot, is way better that I expect in several aspects - there is, off course, some not so good or weird aspects (such as dwarves ransom orcs), but most of them appear to me as matter of adjustment (such as the heavy public order penalty, parts of diplomacy) rather that the whole thing (as happened in vanilla Rome 2), that said, the rest - battles, quests, atmosphere, heroes works really well for me. Adding to this the mod support (and the mod are already coming in) and eventual patch/expansions/dlc (where mostly like I are going the see the people behind Charlemange working) made the game very good too me.

About agents, let me tell you a funny experience I had in Attila, where, while playing as Huns, I got driven out of the Sassanid empire, by nothing else that their agents, which employed a pretty effective "guerrilla" war, even if I bring my own agents, I was not much able stop them, since most their provinces where very developed and could pull more agents as they need, meanwhile, the Sassanid kept their armies (and their vassals) too close to enough that I could not split around, but never facing me, just watching me. So I had to keep my horde close by and never advancing too much, since their agents would slow down someone and I need to keep them together. Not much later and I had to make a fast retreat to avoid more generals getting killed.

[Gaizokubanou]

I didn't expect this but this game is getting better with more playthroughs.  I'm on my third campaign as Orcs on legendary and the difficulty modifier is just spewing rebels at me every turn... which is great?  I get to fight more (granted most of the time I'm auto resolving) which gives me money and exp, I eat after battle for regen so rebel stomping doesn't really put my armies at risk either, then there is the free WAAAGH army deal on top of it.  Orc Warboss on a wyrm is very satisfying to watch, and transforming your armies from horde of cheap boys/goblins into black orcs supported by giant spiders is very rewarding.

 

One thing that haven't really gotten better at all is diplomacy though, it's still that broken chain that Fraser was talking about, and I really don't like what the lore-based innate modifiers doing still.  I mean it is TW so I'm not expecting much and practically diplomacy got rid of lot of annoyingly aggressive AIs but something about your foes being exactly the same (even if it has no actual implication... like in Shogun 2 everyone were the same so it didn't really matter who you allied and didn't) is just such a bummer.

[DukeofChutney]

This is the first game i have picked up on launch week (or there abouts) in several years. Its done a pretty good job so far in ticking the nostalgia box for my teenage warhammer years. I like that they've stripped out a lot of the strategic over head as it doesn't really belong in this setting and I have never really been convinced by the series attempts at empire management though I like the idea in principle. The game is pretty faithful to it source material too. I know my way around the map and I have generally found the units that appear match my expectations of what they should do. You can also employ many of the strategies from the miniatures game as the armies function the same.

[Turrican]

So I picked this up yesterday in the end, not because I particularly wanted to play it but curiosity got the better of me. I sank about 8 hours into it I think, playing as Empire.

It's ok. I understand why people say it's like a streamlined TW game. It's cleaner somehow, all the information is very clearly and neatly laid out and easily accessible. I also really liked the new tactical battle map where a scroll of the mouse wheel allows the player to direct the battle from a bird's eye view. What I liked less is the short distance of the battlefield camera (I'd like to pull back a little more) and the fact that the unit models look so similar and have the same face.

I like the hero / Lord system and levelling up these characters to use new abilities on the battlefield. However, as I played I kept thinking about Endless Lefend and how I'd rather be playing that. I did think the diplomacy was quite good actually (I was playing on very hard) and the empire management was not too sparse. However, due to the prohibitive cost of armies, my campaign seems to have devolved into a repetitive cycle of back and forth as forces stretched thin run from pillar to post artacking and defending the same settlements over and over. The actual battles themselves are the same old TW fare really and I find myself auto resolving a lot already.

Essentially, I found the game quite enjoyable so far if a little boring. I'd rather be playing Endless Legend, Stellaris or Thea I think but will push on further and see if I get more into it. It's a pretty solid release, no noticeable bugs so far. It's ok.

[ilitarist]

I think Age of Wonders 3 is much closer comparison, especially now that TW went fantasy.

 

Only there you can play small limited scenarios if you wish so. TW games scare me off the minute it becomes obvious I have to micromanage the hell out of dozens of provinces, which becomes more tiresome with each iteration. Probably not with this one though. Previously they had short campaign mode that didn't break by the midgame, but it's absent since at least Rome 2. But yeah, no beautiful battles - and in TW Warhammer you can at last look at battle without cringe cause it no longer pretends it's historical.

[Turrican]

I think Age of Wonders 3 is much closer comparison, especially now that TW went fantasy.

Only there you can play small limited scenarios if you wish so. TW games scare me off the minute it becomes obvious I have to micromanage the hell out of dozens of provinces, which becomes more tiresome with each iteration. Probably not with this one though. Previously they had short campaign mode that didn't break by the midgame, but it's absent since at least Rome 2. But yeah, no beautiful battles - and in TW Warhammer you can at last look at battle without cringe cause it no longer pretends it's historical.

Hmm maybe. Either way, I'd say AoW and EL are both far better games. I'll persist with WH for a little longer though and see if it gets interesting.

[Gaizokubanou]

EL for me is what Stellaris is to Rowan but with much higher scoring because I did have ton of fun before realizing how oddly static the mid-late games are.

 

TW always gets lot of stuff forgiven by me because at the end it will at the very least provide some visual spectacles.