Sounds like Immortal Empires is pretty great! Those are the sort of dilemmas I love in this game.
Absolutely, it’s definitely everything I wanted it to be so far.
My altitis is acting up though, and I might play a dozen turns of a new campaign when I get another chance to play.
Playing a bit before work, decided to stick with Imrik. Had a Beastmen herd spawn which was a pain to deal with, and now my main territory is starting to rebel. These wastes take an eternity to move through without Underway. My army can smash any opponent nearby but simply can’t be everywhere it needs to be at once.
Ooh, yes. Things are turning around. I got a free noble agent so I can finally get into the Influence game.
Eta: last update for now. Queek is back with 12 units. My settlement hasn’t grown enough for defences so I’ve just got 5, though I should have time to raise a caster lord (with a really shit trait but that’s OK) and a Regiment of Renown or two.
Small settlement battles are great in WH3, the maps really let you hold chokepoints like in the historical games (though magic complicates things). We will see if I can stop Queek…
Actually finished the short campaign victory with Be’lakor last night; it was incredibly easy. That rift mechanic is nuts; it is an Unholy Manifestation, you just target an army, and boom, rift in that province. You can jump in the rifts to teleport from rift to rift.
And when I say “an army”, that is ANY army, not just my own. Sent an agent to Ulthuan (had to kill off N’Kari’s faction as one of my victory conditions), spawned a rift on the island, popped in with a couple of armies and wasted N’Kari. High elves declared war, and I proceeded to wipe them out for their insolence, which fulfilled the number of settlements I needed to take for my final Short Victory condition.
I like the new campaigns; completing the Short Victory gives you a faction-wide buff, the Long Victory gives you another, stronger buff, and then you can go for complete domination if you want. However, there are apparently no achievements in yet for Immortal Empires victories, if that’s something you are interested in!
I just saw there is a “bug” in WH3 that gives Elf Archmages of lore Metal over 88,000 hit points (should be 8,444 base). Oops!
Doubtless that will be fixed in a patch later but for now you can go kinda nuts with them.
So I gave Northern Provinces a short spin on my lunch and it’s a much easier start than Imrik’s - at least so far. But I’ve got some more play time tonight and I am gonna give one of the new Champions a spin in Realm of Chaos. I think I’ll go with Vilitch. I’ll report back on how the WoC campaign feels later.
Greenskins are the new meta for strongest faction?
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So I’m in full-blown Altisis mode, having started 4 campaigns now. I am also really tempted to start a Grimgor campaign, but for now I’m holding off.
I’m playing Vilitch on ROC and that’s been a blast, the voicelines for Vilitch are seriously amazing and the mechanics for Warriors of Chaos are a blast too. I can’t wait for the patch, I’ll definitely do an Archaon campaign once he can confederate the new Champions.
Imrik was by far the hardest start and I think I need to start that campaign over - it has been ages since I played High Elves and I forgot just how valuable Influence is, meaning I went 20 turns without investing in it at all (not even selecting it as post-battle loot) which is really setting me back.
Miao Ying is much easier, so far - I easily defeated the Deathmaster, and am about to square off against the dark elf pirates led by Lokhir. Cathay is humongous on Immortal Empires, and much more satisfying to play in than the squished little realm we got in ROC. So that’s been fun too.
But the most fun campaign has definitely been Karl Franz, as the Empire. My Elector Counts are getting their butts kicked, and I’m actually having to go run out and save them. I’ve fought beastmen and orcs in Middenland, Festus in Hochland, and once that’s settled I will need to go fight Drycha in Ostermark before invading Sylvania. All while holding off Broken Tooth at the Bretonnian mountain passes. I’m putting out about twice as many fires as I can comfortably handle, and it’s amazing. This is exactly what playing the Empire should feel like! I’m loving it.
I’m playing Dwarves now (not Grombrindal, but the High King himself, Thorgrim Grudgebearer). I’m enjoying it, but it is a vastly different experience compared to playing as Be’lakor. I’m beset by enemies on all sides, and trying to keep the other minor dwarf factions alive has been an exercise in futility. Barak Varr was losing settlements faster than I could retake and regift them (I absolutely love being able to trade settlements). In vengeance, I did retake their homelands. Wurrzag has been a thorn in my side, but even worse is Vlad currently; he has apparently decided he REALLY wants to live in the mountains, and has been beating the hell out of Zhufbar and Karak Kadrin. I’m slowly dealing with him, but dwarf armies are expensive.
I don’t know if changes have been made, but I am LOVING the Gyrobomber that I started with; historically, I never bothered to build Gyros, they always just seemed to be trash to me. Now, I feel like they are almost the core of my force; infantry to hold things in place, artillery to melt them on the way, and gyros for the closest thing to “mobility” a dwarf army gets. Irondrakes are still as fun as always; I took a minor settlement almost entirely with two units of them. Also, the master engineer’s “Zhufbar 42-Pounders” ability is NUTS; a two-use wind-type army ability, does HUGE damage if you can drop the volley on top of a bunch of units.
One frustrating thing about Franz is that he cannot ally with the Elector Counts due to the Imperial Authority system (which is probably a balance thing because otherwise I’d be sending armies of vassals to deal with the threats to the Empire instead of running around doing it myself). While that’s alright, it DOES mean you cannot heal in their territory, which makes saving their butts a pain.
I’ve found a neat trick, though. You can now sail up the river that runs through most of the Empire, which brings you right up to Drycha and Festus; and as long as you protect the Elector Count territories that run along the river, it will be considered Shared, which gives moderate replenishment (which can be buffed with Warrior Priests).
Eta: played a bit on my lunch, I sent Karl upriver to deal with Festus for good (previously I smashed his army and returned two provinces to Hochland but had to retreat to replenish). The very turn I disembark, Marienburg and BORIS declared war on me. Looks like I will have to deal with Middenland instead of the GODDAMNED WARRIORS OF CHAOS rampaging through Hochland.
This is after I deal with Khazarak AND some goblins who had taken Boris’s cities. Thankless bastard
It really is so much fun, isn’t it? In prior games I felt like I always needed to expand on all sides (a bad habit from Rome 2 and trying to match the historical objectives I suppose) but now I’d much rather set up strong allies on three sides and only expand in one direction.
I think they made some changes to dwarfs, yeah. And based on your description I am excited to try them now!
This seems fun. Terror route almost any unit you want (assuming they are not unbreakable or immune to psychology):
So I lay siege to Boris’s capitol, get the towers ready, I’m all prepared for a big slog (his main army was inside the settlement…) and I think to offer him peace one last time before I burn his home down. What do ya know, he is willing to pay me a bunch of gold to pretend this never happened, and since it was an Imperial Authority dillema that made him declare I didn’t even lose reliability for making peace so fast.
I then managed to ambush Marienburg’s fullstack with my own small army (originally a cpuple spears and crossbows stationed in the fort in case Grom decided to invade from Bretonnia, but I grabbed some knights while running over). We smashed Marienburg to pieces and I’m now in the process of taking The Wasteland.
If I can capture Marienburg before Bretonnia does,there is pretty much nothing that can get in the way of us allying up. With luck, I can eventually help Louen take back land from Grom.
That depends on whether I can ever leave the Empire for that long, though. So far, there has been way too much action to even think about something like that.
That’s a neat combo. Festus’ heal/harm aura seems awesome as well. Vilitch is a handy spellcsster but I haven’t come across anything nearly as ludicrous with him (other than, you can spam switch spells - start casting, then interrupt with another spell - to keep his state “casting” at all times and thus rapidly increase his buff to melee and casting stats (which ticks up whenever he is casting or fighting). But that seems like more of a clear exploit and doesn’t sound like much fun.
The Brass Keep fell to Karl, and Hochland has been restored. The Wasteland has been restored to their rightful place as an Imperial province through force of arms. In the east, Vlad and Drycha are becoming more and more of a menace, so Karl marches there next, while the Arch Lector who took on Marienburg is marching south to recolonize the border fort that Marienburg once held.
I really want an alliance with Louen. I might march into Bretonnian lands held by Grom to gift these lands back to Louen for an alliance…
Drycha actually went down remarkably easily. I sieged one settlement and took it with few losses; they parked a 20 stack in the next settlement which I was able to beat by blasting the enemy with mortars until they came out into my crossbow and handgun field of fire; and finally I took their home settlement while Ostermark (who I just restored) retook the last settlement Drycha had conquered. I don’t think Drycha had any other armies in the field.
Maybe it was reading about how brutal and challenging Empire is now that made me overly cautious enough to avoid any pitfalls, but so far the Empire hasn’t been terribly difficult. I’ve taken Marienburg out and restored most of my Elector Counts. I’m in prime position to take on Vlad next. I’ve had a number of Electors offer to confederate and by refusing them driven my Imperial Authority sky-high.
My next step is to tackle Vlad, who owns all of Sylvania and some of Stirland. Then I can start thinking about confederating some Electors and consolidating the Empire.
Question: Can a Terror routed unit be saved or will they only ever run for escape?
By “saved” I mean casting a spell or otherwise doing something that raises their Leadership score after they have terror routed.
Standard Terror rout is temporary, and they should turn around (unless you are fighting too close to the edge of the map). It isn’t necessarily dependent on leadership, and also doesn’t trigger the “rout three times and permanently gone” problem. Basically, the only prevention/fix is to grant ItP (immune to psychology).
My experiences with playing Empire on Legendary/Hard have been pretty hectic but fun.
I wiped out the Empire rebels in about 7 turns during which Festus wiped out Hochland and Khazrak started gobbling up Middenland. I took Karl Franz to reclaim the Middenland provinces and wiped out the Beastmen. At this time I got a confederation offer from Talabecland, which I took even though it put me at -5 authority. Wiping out Festus and reclaiming Hochland with the combined forces of Talabecland and Karl Franz was quick.
At this time Vlad, Drycha and Katarina were all at war with Ostermark. Katarina took the capital, and the Wood Elves and Vampires divided the rest. Ostermark was wiped out at turn 15, putting me at -5 again. Drycha and Vlad also started gobbling up Stirland, so I went to war with Drycha to help them. I can’t afford to lose more elector counts, or I may soon be facing Civil War.
Currently it’s turn 17. I have 2 full 20-stack armies in Stirland/Ostermark. Plan was to kill Drycha first, then fight the vampires in Sylvania. Unfortunately around this time both Marienburg and Grom declared war on me. Grom attacked Helmgart with 61 units worth of armies, and I only have one army with 10 archers defending Reikland. Grom is strength rank 1, so it seem hard to recover from here.
One thing I’ve noticed with the cheap supply caps, that it’s a lot more feasible to have multiple armies in the beginning. I try to recruit 1-2 extra lords on turn 1. They can follow my main army in the beginning to get experience. The lord only costs about 350-400ish extra gold upkeep total, and they are pretty powerful combatants even at low level. Later on the extra levels help a lot with getting additional armies going faster.