Octopus Overlords

The Champions of Chaos DLC is up for pre-purchase, with a 10% discount until it launches alongside the Immortal Empires beta on 23 August.

Six and a wakie.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:07 pm

Spoiler:

Immortal Empires has a release date:

ICYMI: Did you watch all the way to the end of today's Q&A video...? 'cause we snuck one last important question in there...

(SPOILER: It's AUGUST 23!!!)

I love love love Warhammer Total War and I'm very much looking forward to Immortal Empires, but it's amusing that this video is all

Q: Will we get this [desired change]?
A: Nope
Q: What about this [long-imagined improvement]?
A: Nah
Q: And when is this [interesting feature] to be implemented?
A: Well, way down the road, maybe

It's here...

Total War: WARHAMMER III – Update 2.0.0

I saw the other day that they have also added settings to the blood DLC, so that you don't have to choose between using nerf weapons or going full Nightmare on Nuln Street.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe...

Gah. May be too many choices.

I think I need to find a nice, little campaign first!

My first IE campaign is Kislev/Tzarina Katerin. I picked her because she was featured in the first Warhammer 3 video that I saw, so it seemed fitting.

Total War: WARHAMMER III – Update 2.1.0

• The Total War: WARHAMMER III Assembly Kit has arrived for our amazing modding community!
• The High Elf Archmage is no longer unstoppable when mounted on a dragon.
• The Warriors of Chaos can now subjugate all human and elven races.
• Archaon and Be’lakor can now confederate other Warriors of Chaos factions upon capturing their final settlement.
• Added an Ultimate Crisis setting to trigger ALL endgame scenarios in the same playthrough (only for the strong-willed and stout of heart).
• All Legendary Lords now begin with the Siege Attacker trait.
• Improvements to the Dwarfs—they are gaining spell resistance, additional movement options, and buffs to their Hammerers.
• Stationary vortex spells have been rebalanced so that targets have a chance to react.
• Helman Ghorst is getting some necessary tweaks to bring him into balance with the rest of the battlefield.
• Domination Battles will see rule changes to help them last longer (and will continue to see changes in future updates).
• The Empire will receive reduced penalties to their Imperial Authority when they incur their first losses.
• Regiments of Renown units are now available to the appropriate factions, and costs have been reduced for units that were asking for far too much.

Update 3.0 Patch Notes

I have had this installed for months. I really need to get off of my ass and play it.

Chaos Dwarves (and their hats!) are probably my favorite part of the Warhammer universe, so this is finally getting me to engage on this game. Though I'm still in the early 'overwhelmed' phase of things as I don't understand anything.

I'm trying to finish off an Empire campaign as Balthasar Gelt (one last stubborn hold-out elector count stands between me and victory) before I give the Chaos Dwarves a try. I don't know much about them, but I've seen Warhammer players yearning for them since the first Total War: Warhammer so I assume they are extra cool.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 12:34 pm Chaos Dwarves (and their hats!) are probably my favorite part of the Warhammer universe, so this is finally getting me to engage on this game. Though I'm still in the early 'overwhelmed' phase of things as I don't understand anything.

Get thee some Zerkovich. The tactics section in particular is invaluable.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 1:10 pm I'm trying to finish off an Empire campaign as Balthasar Gelt (one last stubborn hold-out elector count stands between me and victory) before I give the Chaos Dwarves a try. I don't know much about them, but I've seen Warhammer players yearning for them since the first Total War: Warhammer so I assume they are extra cool.

Honestly, the main thing with them is the hats.

The hats are indeed good. Having my first Chaos Dwarves campaign stymied by a repeatable crash to desktop, not so much.

The specific problem I've run into that as of turn 120+ in my current IE campaign, the game will eventually lock up and CTD while in the character skills UI. I suspect that the crashing started after recruiting some new characters, and that 3.0 has a stability bug that kicks in if there are too many characters.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 9:06 am The specific problem I've run into that as of turn 120+ in my current IE campaign, the game will eventually lock up and CTD while in the character skills UI. I suspect that the crashing started after recruiting some new characters, and that 3.0 has a stability bug that kicks in if there are too many characters.

It's not a pre-Chaos Dwarves campaign, is it? FWIW the game gave me a pop up warning that campaigns that were started prior to the chaos dwarves DLC may not work super well post-DLC installation.

No, this was a new campaign that I started after 3.0, playing one of the Chaos Dwarves factions.

I tried rolling back to my oldest auto-save, but the bug cropped up in that one as well. I think I'll just set this campaign aside and start a new one. It'll be on the backburner for a while anyway, once Dead Island 2 drops tomorrow.

Edit: It looks like it is a bug that other people have been encountering as well:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1142710/ ... 425785344/

One person in that thread mentions that it only crashes when they use the scroll wheel. I'll try that work-around and see if it works for me.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2023 4:46 pm I have had this installed for months. I really need to get off of my ass and play it.

Ass offed of. I'm getting my Warhammer legs again with an Immortal Empires campaign as Thorek Ironbrow (Dwarves.) So far, so good, but they've really reduced wealth generation compared to previous titles, which led to me expanding too quickly and having to pull back and let the rat bastards (literally) have a couple of their cities back. Oh, well. Grudges for the Book.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 12:38 pm One person in that thread mentions that it only crashes when they use the scroll wheel. I'll try that work-around and see if it works for me.

Avoiding the scroll wheel didn't fend off the crashing forever. I've continued to make progress in the campaign by quick-saving before entering the character skill UI and again if I make it through the training-up attempt. Each session still ends in a CTD eventually, but at least I don't lose an entire turn when it happens.

I just discovered that you can build the Red Moon Inn in Ubersreik. It gives you, amongst a few statistical bonuses, the following garrison:

1 Thane
1 Empire Captain
1 Waystalker
1 Witch Hunter
1 Bright Wizard

Ok, that's an awesome Easter egg I never noticed before.

(It's the Ubersreik Five, the characters from Vermintide 1 & 2 - Bardin Goreksson (Thane), Markus Kruber (Empire Captain), Kerillian (Waystalker), Victor Saltzpyre (Witch Hunter Captain), and Sienna Fuegonasus (Bright Wizard).)

Well, that wasn't fun.

I'm playing my first IE WH3 campaign as Dwarves (Thorek.) I'm 30+ hours in. In addition to a few small armies scattered here and there for province defense, I'm sitting there with two full, 20-unit armies full of fully upgraded, experienced units (Ironbreakers, Hammerers, Grude Throwers, Cannons, Slayers, Thunderers, Quarrelers. I'm trouncing every opponent I meet with minimal losses (one or two turns for full replenishment.)

Suddenly, with zero warning, there's a single Tzeentch army stack standing on my doorstep, no warning. Both of my armies together can't even begin to touch them and regardless of whether I fight do a manual battle or auto resolve, my armies are gone. My defensive armies are clear across the map, and any other army large enough to address them takes so long to form that my faction is nearly wiped out before I can even get a counter started.

Surprise, your game is over, or you get to erase a few hours of progress and load an old save to continue.

Holy WTF, Batman?

What turn? Just trying to figure out how you got 2 armies with that many good units. Ofc, I play with mods that likely impact things.
Anyways, I think Kairos has some sort of teleportation gimmick. I've forgotten the details.

I finally got through the battle. To be honest, I've played the Dwarves a lot in WH 1 and 2, and they're a bit easy - so I got lazy when it came to maneuvering and target prioritization. I just needed to analyze the enemy a bit more before getting into contact with them.

Freyland wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 6:47 pm What turn? Just trying to figure out how you got 2 armies with that many good units. Ofc, I play with mods that likely impact things.
Anyways, I think Kairos has some sort of teleportation gimmick. I've forgotten the details.

160-something.

I'm done with the Dwarves for now. I hit the short victory, but the Thorek Ironbrow Immortal Empires campaign wasn't a lot of fun after the beginning. In addition to conquering X settlements, you need to reforge 5 artifacts, and those artifacts are split into pieces and scattered in different cities. Ok, so I need to conquer those cities. The problem is that if allies take those cities first, you're screwed. You either have to attack your allies (not good, especially for Dwarves), or you need to go full military alliance with them (also not something I prefer to do - having military alliances with four or five factions means that you're perpetually at war.)

The other side of that was that by the time I was done with the five artifacts, I had factions with military alliances wrapped almost all of the way around me. There was about a thin sliver due west that wasn't completely covered by allies, and it wasn't friendly terrain. Not only did this make it fairly boring (nothing could get near my core provinces), it meant that in order to conquer the remaining settlements I had to set out into the middle of nowhere and just siege-raze-siege-raze-siege-raze. I couldn't really expand my faction anymore, and it just became a bit of a slog. I ended up stopping after the short victory, as the long victory would have just been me mowing down all of my allies.

Now I am going to give one of the other factions a try. I really want to play Empire, but they're the other faction that I've played to death. My short list, based on research:

~Kharbrand (Khorne)
~Valkia (Warriors of Chaos)
~Be'lakor (Warriors of Chaos)
~ Louis Leo (Brettonia)
~Greasus (Ogre Kingdoms)
~Icit Klaw (Skaven)
~Balthazar Gelt (Empire)
~Karl Franz (Empire) (Tough start)
~Settra (Tomb Kings)
~Luthor Harkon (Vampire Coast)
~Aranessa Saltspite (Vampire Coast)

I found this handy. I may have to dig out my medieval warfare books and start digging into the historical formations to try them out!

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 4:13 pm Well, that wasn't fun.

I'm playing my first IE WH3 campaign as Dwarves (Thorek.) I'm 30+ hours in. In addition to a few small armies scattered here and there for province defense, I'm sitting there with two full, 20-unit armies full of fully upgraded, experienced units (Ironbreakers, Hammerers, Grude Throwers, Cannons, Slayers, Thunderers, Quarrelers. I'm trouncing every opponent I meet with minimal losses (one or two turns for full replenishment.)

Suddenly, with zero warning, there's a single Tzeentch army stack standing on my doorstep, no warning. Both of my armies together can't even begin to touch them and regardless of whether I fight do a manual battle or auto resolve, my armies are gone. My defensive armies are clear across the map, and any other army large enough to address them takes so long to form that my faction is nearly wiped out before I can even get a counter started.

Surprise, your game is over, or you get to erase a few hours of progress and load an old save to continue.

Holy WTF, Batman?

I just wanted to follow up on this, by the way. This was mostly my fault. I've played the Dwarves enough (and in all three TW games) that I got lazy, and when faced with an army that had strong counters for them, I fell back on my tried-and-true tactics. When I went back and paid more attention to what was happening, changed my targeting priority (my losses were mainly caused by just a few of their units melting my armored front lines), focused them down before they got to me, changed my match-ups, and wiped them out without a single unit lost.

Patch Notes 3.0.1

• Replaced missing text strings in Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs.
• Addressed significant FPS drops when panning across the campaign map with 3D UI enabled.
• Fixed performance stuttering on 12th and 13th Gen Intel Hybrid-CPUs.
• Issued a potential fix to a rare crash with sticky tooltips when assigning skill points.

That last one sounds like the persistent crash bug that was bedevilling me, so I hope it actually fixes the issue.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 12:33 pm When I went back and paid more attention to what was happening, changed my targeting priority (my losses were mainly caused by just a few of their units melting my armored front lines), focused them down before they got to me, changed my match-ups, and wiped them out without a single unit lost.

Wow!

Development roadmap for the next year:

It had better be Prince Ulther's Dragon Company! There is zero chance it will be (it's been out of print since around 1990), but I've been wishing for them since WH1.

Patch Notes 3.1.0

However, in the here and now, if you’re reading this it means Update 3.1 is real and living and ready to pour down your internet pipes. Here are the highlights:

• A new Legendary Hero arrives in Total War: WARHAMMER III today for free (requires a CA Account)! Find (some!) details on that below…
• Bretonnia are getting some love with plenty of changes and rebalances.
• The Great Drill of Hashut will strike in a new Chaos Dwarf endgame crisis for Immortal Empires, The Will of Hashut.
• Beef up the lower tiers of infantry with the fourth Regiments of Renown, arriving for free in WARHAMMER III today.
• Gear up for the next content drop with quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, graphical enhancements, and more!

Enter the TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER III - MIRROR OF MADNESS Sweepstakes!

Your chance to win a custom-built PC designed by Newegg and a Total War: Warhammer III game key, in celebration of Mirror of Madness, built in collaboration with Intel and Creative Assembly.

By submitting this form, you are confirming you are an adult 18 years or older and you agree to Intel contacting you with marketing-related emails or by telephone. You may unsubscribe at any time. Intel’s web sites and communications are subject to our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.

No purchase is necessary. Open to legal residents of the United States that are at least 18 years of age. The contest begins at 9:00 AM PST on 5/18/2023 and ends at 11:59 PM PST on 6/29/2023. Void where prohibited and subject to the official rules.

There is a new DLC, Shadows of Change, coming at the end of August. I generally buy all the Total War: Warhammer DLC as it is released, but this may have to wait until a sale. Since this is being released at about the same time as Starfield, there is essentially no chance that I'll be setting aside any play time for Warhammer.



Shadows of Change: Introducing The Changeling

Four new legends approach that will turn the world of Total War: WARHAMMER III on its head! With them comes new units, new campaign mechanics never seen before in Total War, plus much more that will be be revealed in the coming weeks.

Shadows of Change will arrive in Total War: WARHAMMER III as part of Update 4.0 on August 31st! You can pre-order Shadows of Change here and, for a limited time, enjoy 10% off the launch price!

Following the new content format we announced back in March, included in Shadows of Change are three Legendary Lords – The Changeling (Tzeentch), the Jade Dragon Yuan Bo (Grand Cathay) and Mother Ostankya (Kislev) – along with Legendary Hero The Blue Scribes (Tzeentch). We can’t wait for you to get your hands on them and put them to good use – and by good, we of course mean very naughty and bad.

The blog post continues, with information about the first of the 3 new Legendary Lords: The Changeling.