Overview
This guide is intended to list observations on things like AI behavior, unit buff interactions, and campaign mechanics. This essentially goes beyond a basic tutorial, describing the mechanics in-depth while also providing general strategies and tips for factions. While not at the ideal completion point, due to lack of current free time, this guide is considered finished.
Intro
This guide is intended to list observations on things like AI behavior, unit buff interactions, and campaign mechanics that may or may not have been explained in the game. I’ll also list general strategies for the factions I’ve played here. If you would like to contribute a tip, I’ll add it in a separate section with your tip and your name next to it in parentheses. If there’s also something that I am wrong on, feel free to correct me or if you have a question, feel free to ask. Note that all of the observations and strategies made were based on max difficulty settings(Legendary campaign, Very Hard battles) and on Ultra scale.
While there are still remaining parts to this guide, due to current circumstances, I cannot fully complete this within a reasonable time frame. I will still edit, but it will be rather limited. I will check from time to time if someone wants to be a contributer to polish and/or add additional info, however.
AI Behavior(Battle)
-AI always sets their ranged units to Fire At Will. This means that even if you send a skink priest within close range, they’ll fire with ALL of their ranged units.
-More like ranged unit behavior, but ranged units fire ahead of moving targets, to compensate their projectile speed. So if the moving target goes in the opposite direction right after the projectiles are launched, the projectiles will be less likely to hit. This applies more to single and/or fast moving units, whereas a slow, yet numerous unit will generally get hit regardless.
-AI typically sets their ranged units to Skirmish formation. The only time it’s not active is either when they lack enough melee troops, or if they run out of ammunition where they then engage in melee. Archers sometimes stay in place when running out of ammunition instead.
-At least for AI, ranged units(artillery excluded) retreat at a slightly smaller range if the opposing unit is only moving towards the unit, not given a direct attack order. This applies when you want to occupy several ranged units close by with just one unit.
-The AI tends to act a bit strange when using spells. They will use healing spells if the units are less than ~90% hp even if the spell heals 40% hp. The AI will use AoE spells just to attack a surrounded lord, dealing way more damage to his own troops than your own. All the other times they seem to generally land.
-AI with army abilities will use them at a certain trigger point. Menace Below is almost always used at any chance it can use it, sometimes summoning them outside a gate at the beginning of a siege battle. Other abilities like Eagle Sanctuary(Great Eagle spawn from HE gate battles) only occur when the enemy managed to get on the walls or past the gate; in a field battle, it’ll spawn around the time your units are in melee.
-AI will attempt to dodge certain projectiles unless they are targeting something. The most noticeable so far is Plagueclaw Catapult projectiles in field battles and AoE spells with a summoning time in general.
[Siege Battle-specific]
-The defending AI will attempt to spread along the walls where your forces are while also keeping a small portion at the capture point. The units at the capture point will almost never move from their position unless you are too close to them and are more likely to shatter before they ever engage in large battles.
-If you’re units(attacking) are hidden at battle start, they will not mirror your position along the walls and will instead go to their default formation. They tend to concentrate towards the center gate or the capture point with a few units off to the side. Only after you reveal yourself will they try to mirror your forces along the walls.
-Rebel armies will generally have 6 siege towers(if large stack) and a battering ram although this varies by garrison and rebel army strength. Towers by default priortize the closest unit, with the exception of the battering ram. Certain tower setups allow you to target down a couple of siege towers, which upon their destruction deals significant damage to the unit.
-While this also depends on the army composition, a typical infantry-only(i.e. no monsters nor cavalry) rebel army will have one or two units behind each siege tower and a couple units on the sides of the battering ram. The units behind the siege towers will go up the siege towers and the units beside the battering ram will wait for the battering ram to destroy the gate. They will climb the walls instead if either no battering ram is present or the ram was destroyed before the gate was.
[Field Battle-specific]
The AI appears to take terrain or some other factors into consideration concerning whether to advance at battle start or not, not just army comparison. Hopefully I can update this later with greater accuracy.
-If your units are hidden at battle start, the AI(attacking) will go to a general location first, and if they don’t see your units there, will then send a couple units to scout out other areas in the map while the main army stays in that area. Once they find a unit, they’ll send their entire army to the last visible location they saw that unit. The scouts will retreat to the main army unless they’re close enough.
-AI, if it has ranged units and is defending, will usually not advance to attack you immediately, especially if you have no ranged units yourself. Once you have units in range of their units they will then advance. If they don’t have ranged, they immediately advance if you have ranged units and stand still if you don’t. Not 100% sure on the former reaction. Same applies to flying units. With artillery, they will advance if they have none.
-If any spell’s origin point reaches a defending army’s unit, then the defending AI will automatically advance and attack your forces. Note that this applies to offensive spells only.
-Unless you have an offensive spellcaster nearby, melee units from the defending AI army have a certain aggro range that will make them advance towards you if one of your units are too close. They will retreat back into formation after your unit retreats far enough. Occasionally you can get a defending unit to follow your unit towards the other side of the map. What makes this possible however is unknown.
-If you ambush a force with all of your units hidden at battle start, they will form a standard AI formation near their location after you’ve dealt enough damage to them whilst hidden. They will move a bit, but not too far away from their formation.
-AI will send skirmish cavalry and chariots to attack if you don’t have any ranged units. They’ll usually start harrassing your troops around artillery range. If you have ranged, they will move with their army until the armies start getting at about 200 distance apart, after which they’ll flank and harrass you from there.
-If the defending AI takes enough damage, they will automatically advance and attack your forces, whether you caused it or from their own friendly fire. I believe they only advance when there’s a unit of yours that is/was visible.
-If the AI is advancing, they will attack only your visible units. If your hidden units show up right after they’ve engaged an enemy, they will slowly start to commit troops to attack your previously hidden units.
-The AI’s army will change their formation to match your visible forces.
AI Behavior(Campaign)
[Diplomacy]
-After signing a treaty, you cannot declare war nor cancel the treaty until enough turns have passed without a diplomatic penalty. You can check the number right before you confirm the cancellation.
-I don’t remember the entire diplomatic status ratings, but it’s generally Steadfast>Dependable>Trustworthy>Untrustworthy>Unreliable.
-Your diplomatic status affects all treaties and AI reactions. Being unreliable makes it more likely for neutral factions or hostile factions to go to war with you. Attempting to get treaties is also difficult when not at good diplomatic status and treaties are prone to getting cancelled.
-In order for a faction to join your confederation, you must not only have high diplomatic relations with them, but also have a stronger army than them. The best time to confederate is when they’ve just lost their main armies and a settlement while you still have 80-100 relations with them.
-The maximum great power penalty appears to be at -60.
-If you go to war with a faction your ally/friend has an alliance with, then all treaties will be broken and you’ll go to war with both factions if they side against you. If you have at least two agreements you’ll go from Steadfast to Unreliable and stay there for quite a while(seems to be more than 20 turns).
-Once you complete your first ritual, you will be permanently at war with all current ritual factions. This means that you will be at war with Naggarond, but not necessarily Cult of Pleasure. How elimination and lack of vision affect this I’m not sure.
-You’ll receive diplomatic bonuses for the following: Gifts(expire over 10 turns), treaties, events, affinity(sometimes from technology/events), technology, treaties/gifts towards friends, releasing captives of a friendly nation, executing enemy captives, being at war with an enemy faction, taking military action against an enemy, and hero actions against an enemy. With the exception of demanding gifts, the opposite of each of these will be the penalty equivalent.
-If at a good diplomatic status and good relations with a friendly faction, you can occasionally ask for gifts. You can also ask for payment when asking for a treaty if their willingness is at least moderate. They will accept the agreement at a “mid-moderate” level; for example, if their willingness goes from High to Moderate when you ask for 600, you can ask for 800 instead and probably still get the offer accepted.
-Any offer can be declined or rejected without penalty
-In order for a faction to accept peace, you need to have wiped out or be close to wiping out every army they have. This is mostly based off of relative strength values.
-A faction you are at war with that has no settlements(hordes excluded) will never agree to peace.
-Strength rank takes damaged or missing units into its calculation. This means that if you had an army early on take a pyrrhic victory, you’ll likely go down in strength rank. This is important when attempting to sign certain deals with other factions.
-If a neutral faction doesn’t like you(about less than 20 net relations), they may join in a war against you if they are at least neutral in relations with the faction they are joining with. So things like Tor Elasor teaming up with Clan Mors to attack you can happen.
[Economy]
-AI receives roughly 70% bonus income, likely including their 2500 background income
-Settlements will tend to have their unique or special resource buildings constructed. They will also build quite a few more military buildings than necessary, making looting and occupying a viable option most of the time.
[General]
-When you’re near an enemy settlement, nearby enemy armies will either be in range to defend the settlement or attack you if the autoresolve gives them a good chance.
-If you besiege a settlement for a turn, they will likely attack you if they have a good auto-resolve even in a field battle.
-Enemy heroes tend to be very active. They will try to wound your hero only if he is outside a settlement. They’ll use steal technology often at settlements and they’ll occasionally do things like assault unit and block army. AI heroes will only interact with your forces/settlements if you are at war with them, the exception being your lone standing heroes.
Campaign Mechanics
[Ritual]
-Rituals for all factions take 10 turns to fully complete. They need to own the 3 settlements by ritual completion to succeed. The final ritual for each faction takes 20 turns.
-Rituals do not consume their associated currency. Ritual currency will also accumulate as normal whether or not your ritual is in progress.
-Right before you start a ritual, you can hover over the colored icon in the upper left of the ritual popup screen. This will tell you whether you have the army strength to perform the ritual.
-Once a ritual starts, you will get a buff that gives public order and a small reduction to upkeep that lasts as long as the ritual.
-Rituals produce Chaos hordes, which are neutral to all factions except the faction that is conducting the ritual. Chaos hordes cannot be interacted with, and each Chaos horde faction is dedicated to that particular ritual faction.
-Chaos Hordes will spawn about a province or so away from the closest ritual site(although this is only based off of a single ritual). They will raze any of your settlements along the way. They generally consist of at least one hellcannon, some chaos warriors, couple marauders, and some chaos warhounds. The strength and number of these hordes increase as you progress through rituals.
-If a ritual faction was eliminated, the other ritual faction of the same race will continue from where it left off. Not entirely sure, but any ritual conducted during its elimination is cancelled and is transferred to the other ritual faction. If both ritual factions of the same race have been defeated, their progress is deleted. I don’t know how it works when a ritual faction previously eliminated comes back via rebellion.
[Rites]
-There’s a 5 turn separation between rites that acts as a separate cooldown.
[General]
-Regardless of movement points available, you can always move an army stationed in your settlement right outside. This can be important for certain battle results(e.g. your army will not completely die if it was reinforcing) and for initiating quest battles after you take a settlement.
-Quest battles must be initiated while at the default, normal moving stance; for beastmen and skaven, this is also their offensive ambush stance.
-If you attack an army that is on march stance and win the battle, the enemy army will be eliminated regardless of units lost. The same occurs when intercepting armies that use the Underway, Worldroots, or Beast Paths.
-If you attack a settlement with an army inside and win, all defending units that were in the settlement are lost, including any lord’s army garrisoned inside. Reinforcing armies retreat if they can. Any defenders that survived the battle are killed and those kills are spread evenly amongst the primary army. No experience is gained from post-battle kills, however.
-Usually if you attack an army twice in a row that army will be wiped out. Depending on the battles and campaign terrain, it can vary between 1-3 attacks on the same turn. A successful auto-resolve on the 2nd attack seems to eliminate the defending army regardless of losses.
-Settlements that are besieged stop any recruitment that was queued from their buildings and halt construction. The garrison may directly attack the besieging army in a field battle by clicking on the settlement and then right-clicking the enemy. Reinforcements may assist if within range and armies can dock themselves inside the besieged settlement if no stationed army is present.
-Every army and settlement has an area of influence(AoI) around them in the form of a red circle. This prevents enemy armies from moving past it unless the source is attacked directly and defeated in battle; for enemy settlements, you only need to siege it to remove it. If you do not have the movement range to attack it directly then you can only stand at the edge of it at best. For underground travel, you can never move directly inside an AoI.
-If you are inside an AoI, you cannot move outside it unless you interact with the source.
-Reinforcements can join a battle so long as they are on the edge of what is or what would be the defender’s AoI. These reinforcements come soon after the battle starts(unless ambush) from the edges of the battlefield and the reinforcement location depends on relative positioning of armies in the campaign map.
-Lightning strike prevents reinforcements from both sides in a battle and is only an option when attacking. This does not prevent the garrison nor the stationed army from defending when attacking a settlement.
-If an army chooses to retreat a battle on the opponent’s turn and then is attacked again, the defender’s army must fight and will lose all forces if defeated.
-You will move only as far as your slowest unit. While army units don’t have a separate move speed, if you transfer units over to a different lord, then the lord that had the lower movement range will be your available movement range for the receiving lord.
[Heroes]
-Steal Technology will actually remove 20% of the target’s research speed for 3 turns. The debuff is removed before research, so even if a research says 2 turns, if that’s the last turn of the debuff, it might actually just be 1 turn.
[Rebellions & Public Order(PO)]
-Rebellions occur when PO in settlements you control in a province is greater than or equal to -100.
-Rebellions by default spawn next to and attack the province capital. If you do not own the province capital, they will attack the first minor settlement you captured. If the rebels are too weak, they will build up until they can attack.
-If there are already rebels in your province that are targeting one of your settlements when you hit
-100 or more, all buildings in the settlement will receive damage, reducing the income and effects of your buildings by 50%.
-You will net gain 20 PO for 5 turns or until the rebels are defeated when the rebels spawn. The PO effect will also be cancelled either on your turn before they’re about to attack, or on their turn; the stronger your forces there(including local armies), the longer they’ll wait. So even if you’re going to lose 50 PO that turn, you’ll actually gain 70 while the rebellion PO effect is active.
-If the province capital was originally owned by a currently destroyed faction, that faction’s rebels will spawn, and will recreate the faction if it succeeds in taking the settlement. If the province has enough chaos or vampiric corruption, the settlement will spawn rebels attached to that corruption and will raze the settlement (and disband themselves) if they succeed. I’m not 100% sure on skaven corruption. I think faction rebels spawn if the original faction was destroyed and there’s high corruption, but I haven’t confirmed that.
-There are a couple of quick ways to increase PO. You can uncheck the box that collects income on the left after selecting a settlement within that province; unless you want the rebels, this is recommended for provinces that produce little to no income. DE are excluded from this option. The other way is to station an army inside a settlement, with the PO increasing based on army size and strength.
-If you allocate a skill point into a mount you will immediately equip the mount. You will not be able to revert to a previous mount until the turn after.
-Rebels may attack other nearby armies, whether yours or your enemy’s, before they start to siege your settlement.
[Treasure Hunting]
-You can treasure hunt in vacant ruins(i.e. not skaven-controlled) and on special locations that spawn on the water.
-The water variant is always beneficial and at worst doesn’t apply. You get 1500-10k in gold if you don’t get the event that gives you two choices. Some events give you good benefits like +10% income from all buildings and -30% building cost for 10 turns; others can give you good items; the ones that give two choices either give the explorer’s army battle buffs or campaign ones for 10 turns.
Battle Mechanics
-In a siege, some spells act a bit differently. So far it seems to be for breath attacks, where if the cone is even near the wall it actually goes in the opposite direction. This means you can’t hit units underneath a gate nor a bit outside of it with this spell. This is also a way of causing some accidental friendly fire.
-Occasionally, if you’re attacking a gate with opposing forces opposite of it, the gate will sometimes open, allowing a few units of yours to go in, and then close. This prevents your units from coming back out until the gate is destroyed. Just make sure to keep an eye on the gate and pull your important units back if it opens up prematurely.
-Vigor determines what percentage of its stats are currently in effect and is lost through fighting/firing, moving fast, and casting. While speed is the most obvious difference, units also lose reload reduction, melee attack/def, and armor. For specifics, see
.
-When using ladders, the unit’s vigor will be reduced. For units with many models, it seems to go down to Tired, whereas single units like lords go down to Exhausted.
-When a unit’s leadership stays less than 0 for a long enough time, the unit will be broken, meaning the unit will attempt to flee the battle, but can come back. If the leadership is well in the negatives (I think it’s around -80 or -100) then the unit will shatter, meaning the unit will attempt to flee for the remainder of the battle.
-There are numerous factors that govern a unit’s leadership. Technology, events, ranks, unit type(i.e. RoR), army abilities/passives(encourage, stand your ground), spells, terrain, secure flanks and favorable combat all increase leadership beyond its base. Many of the same things can decrease leadership, in addition to getting hit from behind/side, attacked by artillery or missiles, faster/stronger enemies nearby, friends routing, and lastly army losses. Knowing the factors is important as it can lead important enemy units to break faster than they normally would.
-Fear decreases enemy leadership within a certain radius, whereas terror causes nearby enemy units to break when they are at low leadership(I think less than 10). Any units that have one of these traits will be immune to its psychological effect.
-Charge defence negates the charge bonus of an enemy unit charging directly at your unit if the unit is standing still and facing it.
-While unit sizes do vary, the primary distinction is between infantry and large. Large is typically larger than a horse, so cavalry, monsters like trolls, dragons, etc. so things classified as “monstrous infantry” are large.
-Units that are large can block both infantry and other large units. Depending on how large the unit is, the unit may also be able to walk past infantry. No large unit can walk past another if there’s no sufficient gap; very large units like dragons can slowly push aside cavalry, but can never walk over them.
-Flying units that are on the ground require free movement for a few seconds before they can fly again. If they’re on a wall, they have to stand still for a similar amount of time before being able to fly.
-Units stagger after getting hit with sufficient missile damage or from basic unit attacks(although this only applies to certain units against particular unit types). The stagger is the equivalent of a short stun, cancelling casts, delaying movement and attacking/firing. I believe it also delays flying units from taking flight, but not certain on that.
-Bonus vs. large/infantry provide both a melee attack bonus and additional weapon damage based on the number provided. The bonus only applies if the unit that was attacked was the appropriate unit type. This applies to units that deal splash as well.
-When in melee, a unit model’s melee defense changes based on the where the melee attack landed. If hit from the front, the melee defense remains the same. If hit on the side, only half of the melee defense applies. If hit in the rear, only 25% of the melee defense applies. This is why warhounds tend to be good at chasing fleeing units and why rear cavalry charges are devastating from a damage perspective.
-To explain the damage system simply, there are 3 types of damage: physical, magical, and direct. From the first two, there are regular and armor-piercing subtypes, and the subtypes of those are missile, melee, and other(e.g. breath spells). Regular damage, whether physical or magical, can be blocked by armor, and armor-piercing always bypasses armor. From there, the remaining damage is reduced by resistances the unit has and then it receives the hp loss. Direct damage bypasses armor and is only mitigated by ward save/damage resistance.
-Scale sizing affects the gameplay significantly. Spells and army abilities/passives are not scaled, models are increased for those with multiple troops on Large, and HP is increased for single models.
-Friendly fire exists in this game. Many damage spells deal friendly fire damage and are the most noticeable. Archers and other ranged units can also deal damage to your own troops, although they will hold their fire if they don’t have a good shot of the target; this friendly fire happens for a few reasons like accuracy, projectile speed, and unit animations. Friendly melee attacks, including splash, do not deal damage to friendly units.
-Rampage typically occurs after the unit takes enough damage. When a unit is under its effect, it will focus on one target and follow it. During this time, you are unable to control the unit. When there are no nearby enemy units the unit will then stop its rampage. If the unit is injured enough, it will automatically go into rampage when there’s an enemy unit within ~150 range. Rampaged units can follow broken units off the map, removing them from the fight. Leadership effects still occur under Rampage.
-Winds of Magic control how many spells you can cast. At the start of each battle, you can choose to Gamble on your current pool. Your power reserve determines how quickly your current pool of magic regenerates, and casting spells will deplete this pool. Your power reserve will bring you up to 30 without depleting the pool; only spells will drain the reserve. This means that if you wait, you can go from 0 to 30 with only 8 power reserve for example.
-Different formations are good in different situations. Gunpowder units or any units that shoot in a straight line generally perform better in a line formation. Line formation is also good for mitigating enemy artillery, but is weak to charges and offensive spells with line AoE. Square is good for defensive formations and can reduce retargeting time for ranged units. For advanced movements, go to Options>Controls>Advanced tab.
-If you would like to manually fire artillery, the button on the bottom left after selecting artillery will allow you to manually fire. The range of the artillery when manually fired is lower in comparison, however.
-In melee, hitting or blocking an attack is based off of chance. This chance is determined by Melee Attack and Melee Defense(MA/MD). From a model’s base chance to hit, its attack chance will increase based off of its MA and will decrease from the opposing entity’s MD. Charging, flanking, and vigor will affect a unit’s chance to land or block an attack. I’ve read different numbers, but it’s 40% base chance to hit, minimum 15% and maximum 80%. Each MA or MD point is a percentage point that stacks additively to the base chance.
-Archers and skirmishers in typical circumstances will fire at the whole unit. They may only target a specific side or model due to lack of range and their relative position. In order to maximize fire, half or over half the target unit should be within range.
General Strategy for Kroq-Gar(Last Defenders)
[Victory Condition]
I pretty much finished my Kroq-Gar campaign using the Conquest victory option rather than rushing to finish the Vortex.
[Early Game]
-Went near the Skaven army, started to recruit a few Saurus Warriors(Spears rarely apply to early Skaven and other factions you encounter early on) and waited for the Skaven to attack. Built the growth building, and while I don’t remember if I did this myself, you can recruit a lord and send him up to colonize the Cursed Jungle settlement. Afterwards you can either keep him or dismiss him depending on the rebel situation(which on Legendary you will inevitably have).
-After the Skaven army is gone(eliminated if they attack you and lose), go down and attack the Skaven settlements along the coast. You don’t need your skink priest to search it first to attack it btw, which was my mistake when I first started the campaign.
-The conquest path I took was taking out Clan Mordkin, then taking out Tlaqua, and from there conquering the rest of the southern region including Fortress of Dawn and Tor Elasor. Personally, it was probably easier for me to take out all of the Skaven first, then the High Elves, and then the Lizardmen.
-As a small note, you only get Skaven rebels at your capital
-Hardest things you’ll encounter are three-stack ambushes from skaven and siege battles with Skaven special abilities. Take note of the abilities before you manually fight, as they display their army abilities off to the side. Warpbomb is very deadly to saurus as it can also target friendly units that have already shattered. I lost several hundred saurus to just one use of warpbomb as some shattered clanrats were trying to exit the same gate as I was trying to enter. You’ll know you were hit by warpbomb if there’s a huge disparity between your losses and their kills.
-To best avoid a mass ambush, either have some heroes(or allies) scout, or move into Skaven territory in armies of two without using forced march(seems more likely to get ambushed in forced march, but not sure). I lost Kroq-Gar’s army early on shortly after taking Yuatek by going on forced march by himself. Two armies previously further south and out of vision came next to him and the army that I already knew was in the next settlement came to attack and ambushed me. Oh and on the same turn my skink priest got wounded so it ended up just being Kroq-Gar and his saurus, which does not do too well against a bunch of clanrats, poison wind globadiers, and catapults. With the skink priest it was winnable, but yea just make sure you don’t put yourself in a bad spot against skaven.
-If you want to confederate Tlaqua, it’s probably best to not be at war with the Undead factions(specifically Necrach) as Necrach tends to be the strongest faction. You might also get an extra war or two declared on you once you confederate as well. You will most likely have to disband their troops because the upkeep will soar pretty quickly(ended up with -8k/turn). To top it all off, if you don’t have Zlatlan, you’ll lose some minor settlements there due to ~-20 public order per turn
-I ended up being allies with Wood Elves after receiving the quest for the non-aggression pact and managed to get the occasional gift from them. They lost to the dwarves so I ended up having to conquer all of the dwarven territory earlier than I wanted to.
[Mid-Game]
-After securing the southern region, you should make sure you have at least a few stacks full of saurus, ideally with shields although not critical. After that, conquer the dwarves, making sure to force a fight on their armies next to their capital, rather than going for a massive siege battle, and then make sure your armies are in position to take a settlement the same turn you declare war on the Undead. If you thought it was going to get easier, it’s not.
-Undead have about a stack per settlement they own, and they had about 20+ settlements. Luckily for me at least, the stacks didn’t group up, and so in that position you can 1v1 their armies without taking too many losses. Make sure you fight the hardest settlements(e.g. Khemri) and stacks with your best army. Keep an eye on your Carnosaurs and Stegadons as they can be blocked in by Vargheists, Black Knights, and Crypt Horrors, of which they have plenty.
-If you are using a Heavens spellcaster, it’s generally a good idea to use Curse of the Midnight Wind before you use something like Comet of Casandora as you’ll do minimal damage against grave guard that have high armor.
-Vampire attrition is about 11%, so avoid ending your turn with your units inside of those regions while not being inside a settlement. You’ll still end up taking the same damage in vamp territory, whether yours or theirs, so past the first settlements you take, you can just keep pushing forward without holding back too much.
-Their main corruption comes from the Black Pyramid of Nagash, which you should take out sooner rather than later. Build it yourself once you’ve built enough Untainted buildings(unless you want vamp rebels everywhere).
-Remaining factions on the continent are a cakewalk.
[End Game]
-After taking the continent, either go west towards pestilens, or north towards HE. I went north because I valued shorter distance over climate. Going north gives me an easier time to get to Naggaroth as well.
-At this point, only elite pestilens three-stack, DE sieges, and gate battles would be the remaining challenges.
-I started my first ritual around turn 100 to test it out but you don’t ever need to. Game naturally ends around turn 140-150 without stopping anyone as it looked so you have time.
[Rebels]
-Make sure to get a lord or two(either that or a defense structure) to defend. Skaven are a bit hard without numbers to match as when they break, they start to retreat towards the capture point, and when they regroup they’ll just sit at the capture point. The Lizardmen rebels I faced usually had a lot of skinks and a few saurus so they’re easy. Vamps and Chaos are generally the hardest ones, requiring at least a basic defense structure to hold at capitals. HE are only a problem because their spearmen kill your skink cohorts, but beyond that the only question is whether you beat their lord or if their lord beats your saurus. Stopped the campaign when I started to take over some DE settlements by Naggaroth, so idk how those rebels are, but I’d imagine they’re like HE ones but with darkshards.
[Army Composition]
-I personally went for saurus-only armies(5 or 6 spears, rest warriors, all with shields) when creating my stacks due to technology upgrades and the fact that Saurus are generally just really solid both in cost and performance. They suffer a lot against ranged/artillery they can’t reach and their rampage can sometimes really suck when 4 units chase down one small group of skaven slingers, but other than that, they’re pretty reliable. I stick in a Skink Priest(Heavens) for the Ancient Stegadon for additional AoE debuffs and damage. Other units seemed too fragile and not impactful(skinks), too situational and awkward to use(cold ones), or too expensive(temple guard and most monsters). Blessed Saurus Warriors and Spears with Shields are pretty much an auto-recruit, especially the Warrior version since they have perfect vigor.
-One surprise is the Blessed Terradon Riders(Fireleech Bolas) for an army when they were in a pinch. Four of these helped to pretty much carry some of my hardest fights, easily getting 100 kills, sometimes 200 each, in each one. Helped to not auto-lose to Tyrion, Malekith, and a siege battle filled with shades and darkshards. Only catch is that they take up a lot of time to micro and maximize damage output.
[Quest Battles]
-Fighting the armies with saurus with shields, lord w/ carno and priest with stegadon, it’s very doable, just a bit slow. Just don’t fight when losses matter.
General Strategy for Malekith(Naggarond)
[Conclusion Post-Experimentation]
After experimenting a lot with Malekith’s early game, I’ve learned that the simplest, easiest strategy is going strictly for DE territory after local Skaven with a standard lineup of 6-8 dreadspears, 1 bolt thrower(opt.), and 10-12 darkshards. After playing out the strategy, you can still make darkshard only armies, but just make sure you react properly to harpies, dark riders, and other units that may come at your darkshards(refer to Tyrion’s Army Composition/Tactics for details). I’ll update this later with more info and ideally some screenshots.
[General]
-Conquest path you can take would be to attack the Skaven army twice, then Har Kaldra>Kaelra>Altar of Ultimate Darkness(raze or let rebels take it asap after looting)>Ghrond & Great Arena(spare lord)>Ashrak. Past this it depends on how the map looks, but you can take out Hag Graef and go down into the mountains south of it.
-Beastmen Warherds will almost always go to war with you early in the game. It doesn’t matter what your strength rank is, they’ll just always go to war. Shadowgor seems to be the most aggressive out of the three I’ve encountered so far. Two of these factions are by the Iron Mountains after 5 turns, one next to Shroktak Mount and the other south of Cragoth Deep. They can use Hidden Encampment stance so if you know they’re there, just declare war on them and walk through that territory to intercept them. The last one is south by Clar Karond but is typically at war with the southern DE factions.
-Avoid taking the Iron Mountains province due to the sheer cost and time to improve them. Let Mung take the settlements instead and when you’re ready, just take them yourself. You’ll be saving at least ~4500 gold (spare lord+colonization cost+ruins rebuild) and 5 turns per minor settlement you take.
-You don’t have to take out Mung unless you’re ready to take Bear Isle. Their home province is very spread out and despite Chaotic Wasteland being suitable, you’ll still take attrition from Chaos corruption.
-Ghrond is usually the best early game target due to the gold and ritual resource site. Har Ganeth might take Ghrond out around turn 9 or 10, so it’s best to cancel the treaties early on if you aren’t prioritizing conquering Ghrond.
-You can take HE territory early on but it’ll be harder and slower overall. The HE matchup is generally harder due to more artillery, cavalry/monsters and better archer range. It’s winnable, just not easy. It gets easier when you have the funds and technology to get higher tier units.
-You can confederate one or two of the DE factions with Har Ganeth and Cult of Pleasure being the preferable ones. It’ll take a good few gifts, treaties, and actions against their enemies along with being stronger than them to get them to confederate.
-The initial advantages you have as DE are the slave economy, armor-piercing archers, and Black Arks. Effective use of Chillwind from Malekith will also help for his battles. Exploiting these advantages will go a long way in the campaign.
-Word of Power skills provide different bonuses. After you choose one of the three, you will then receive a random dilemma with 2 options. If you don’t like the choices you were given that turn, you can reload(legendary or not) and wait until next turn for different choices. I don’t have all of the choices recorded, but
seems to have most of them.
-Dark Conduit, obtained from a rite, can completely turn the tide in a defense battle. It seems to work best on a single model that’s heavily surrounded. The explosion’s center is at the center of your unit, so it can be difficult to land if your unit is rather scattered. Remember not to use Dark Conduit when you have other things on cooldown, otherwise that simple Chillwind will suddenly take forever to re-cast.
-DE have many unique buildings with powerful effects in their area. A few buildings produce 100 of a resource with a factionwide upkeep reduction, others have high income and a couple provide good factionwide buffs.
[Black Arks]
-Black Arks have a horde structure, but do not have the additional 15% upkeep like lords. The buildings they have are interesting, but take many turns before such effects take place. The admiral’s auto-resolve is also rather high; it only took a black ark, 1 black ark corsairs, and a lord to defeat a stack of dreadspears and darkshards. Black Arks can pick up treasure at sea just like lords.
-Armies can be replenished even in enemy territory with a Black Ark in range.
-Black Ark army abilities are decent, Sky Cauldron being like Comet of Casandora, Khaine’s Lash like a lightning spell, and Soul Rain like a bulkier Searing Doom. Soul Rain can really only deal damage on units fighting in melee due to long summoning time, but can also be used to force enemy archers to stop firing a couple volleys(they’ll move out of the way). Khaine’s Lash deals a lot of damage in a small AoE so it can take out tough infantry or an artillery piece. Sky Cauldron is weaker than Comet but the sheer disruption is still useful. Black Ark abilities, unlike other army abilities, do not stack with reinforcements.
[Malekith]
-Malekith’s items are good, but aren’t the best. Circlet of Iron is probably the best one out of the three, and is the easiest to get. Unless you feel you’ll really need it, don’t rush into getting his unique items.
-Chillwind is easily one of the best spells to cast; 4 magic to cast(with skill point allocation), low cd, good aoe, good damage, and provides a quick way to debuff enemies with -15 armor. Bladewind on the other hand is very situational and expensive to cast. If your battles end very quickly then getting bladewind as additional burst is certainly a consideration. Just be careful not to place it near your own troops, as it can move a fair distance before disappearing. The other spells are ok, but the damage chillwind can dish out for its cost makes it a particular standout.
-Make the most out of his dragon’s breath attack. It’s very good against a concentrated cluster of units. I managed to take out 2 and a half’s worth of darkshards with a single dragon breath so it can certainly be worth its weight if used properly.
-Malekith is a decent tank, but he’s no Tyrion; he will melt just like any lord if surrounded or targeted properly. Make sure he has good support if he’s placed in prolonged combat.
-Malekith’s skill that halves construction time only applies to base time. So after taking a mountain settlement it’ll take 4 turns instead of 5 turns to upgrade it’s main structure.
[Rebels]
Like other factions, DE tend to require an additional defense structure due to lack of units in comparison to rebel armies. You may need a small stack to attack the rebellion uprisings until you get the wall structure up. The garrison usually pretty solid with Black Ark Corsairs to handle infantry at the walls and Darkshards to handle the units by the gate. The wall’s army ability isn’t the most impactful, but is certainly better than HE’s channeling spire.
General Strategy for Morathi(Cult of Pleasure)
While there are many similarities to how Malekith and Morathi operate due to being the same race, their early game and LL’s are certainly different.
For any info that may be missing, refer to Malekith’s strategy for general DE observations.
[Early Game]
-While it might be possible to win that turn 1 fight and the fight to take Ironspike afterwards, it is significantly easier to instead head towards The Moon Shard and start recruiting darkshards instead. After taking The Moon Shard, recruiting darkshards whenever possible/affordable, then you can head over to Ironspike fighting the enemy army just once if they’re in range. Next, go over to Bleak Hold Fortress(killing the chaos rebels on the way), and if Tiranoc is besieging them, you can go down to Arnheim and take that before Bleak Hold. If Tiranoc is not attacking Bleak Hold, then take Bleak Hold and hold off on Arnheim until their army is away from their settlement.
-Continuing from the previous point, prepare to take Clar Karond’s territory. After Hag Hall, be aware of what next to take. Their army for me was in Vaul’s Anvil when I moved up to Venom Glade. If they have Ice Rock Gorge, just raze the settlement with a second army later on. Your second army should be protecting your provinces from rebels, as it can be difficult to win without a defense structure. If you have Dark Conduit you can make it work without having an army, but this seems to work better when they’re heavy on chaos marauders.
-Past Clar Karond, you can take Hag Graef as Naggarond might take it soon if they didn’t already. Finally, after taking Karond Kar, your conquest options expand and you can decide whether to continue taking DE territory, go over to HE territory, or take out Hexoatl preemptively.
-Be aware of the beastmen that are at war with you in the beginning. They are up by Tyrant Peak and may attack either Ironspike or Quintex. I built a wall in Ironspike early in case, both for beastmen and for Hexoatl in the future.
-You can use your Khainite Assassin to spam Assault Units at the enemy DE army to gain some quick levels early on. Focusing on Specialist means it’ll only cost ~50 gold per turn for the action.
-Your first province is the most valuable one you’ll have for a long time. Vaults of Quintex already starts like a free gold mine and even adds a major income boost to boot. Investing your resources into developing the province is definitely worth it.
-Due to the major income you’ll need early on to get going, prioritizing income buildings over growth ones is arguably better, as a second army allows you to both expand and protect. The income boost at Quintex, the growth commandment, and the 2 growth techs as DE leans towards this.
[Morathi]
-Morathi is definitely not as strong early on as Malekith, but has some interesting skills that make her quite impactful, both in campaign and in battle. One gives her 30 phys. resist and 20 magic resist, another is brass cleaver’s evil twin(-9 MA 40m AoE), and she can also recruit two sorceresses early on. While the sorceress isn’t as good when morathi is already a spellcaster, her steal technology action can be useful.
-Comparing her first spell to malekith’s, it’s more reliable in damage as it goes past armor, but overall does less against DE because it can only affect one unit. It’s more versatile, able to target those on walls, and only requires a couple casts to get down to about half a unit’s hp, which is usually the point where the models start to drop.
-Soul Stealer is an ok AoE lifesteal, but for real AoE damage your only real option is pit of shades, which is pretty decent when reduced in cost.
-Sulephet is no dragon, but is pretty critical in getting the armor gain that she desperately needs as well as flight.
General Strategy for Tyrion(Lothern)
[Early Game]
-Tyrion is a strong melee combatant, able to both take and dish out lots of damage. While Malhandir does give him some good mobility, this leaves him more vulnerable to arrows and the all too common spearmen of the elven armies.
-When you can afford it, purchase a lord with the trait you want. I preferred ardent(+10% range for army, -30% upkeep for ranged inf.&bolt thrower) and punitive(+20% missile damage for ranged inf.,
-10%missile resistance for local enemy armies). You don’t have to keep the lord, but it’s a sort of pre-purchase so you when you are ready for another army, you have the lord available.
-The fire phoenix has a good bombardment ability, but it provides no kills(which is important xp-wise). Use it to initiate fights and help protect archers. Having it attack from the rear with it’s fear and terror can be useful.
-If you want to confederate large amounts of land, it’s generally best to hold your influence until you’re well up in strength ranks. Usually in 50 turns there are some larger HE factions that you can spend your influence on.
-For the starting turns, take out the dark elves in the starting area. I did Glittering Tower>Angerrial>Shrine of Asuryan(to prevent Saphery)>Tower of Lysean.
-Unless you’re willing to take Caledor’s province capital, do not rush to colonize its minor settlement due to rebellions. Caledor’s army in my run had at least 2 dragon princes so I opted against it.
-After you take out the minor dark elf faction, now you have a choice; you can take the lands around you by force or go conquer territory in other areas. I went for the DE territory on their homeland due to the distance, climate suitability, and to take out a ritual faction. Another consideration is taking the Elven Colony islands in the south due to the sheer income that the ports produce. You can target some gold provinces too like Tor Anroc which is Nagarythe’s capital for the extra income early on.
-If you do decide to move out early, make sure that your settlements in the homeland have tier 3 defense structures to defend against the more aggressive HE factions.
[Army Composition/Tactics]
-While generally you do use the spearmen and archer starting combo, you can get away with only using archers in most fights, albeit a bit riskier. For this, place the lord of your army slightly before the edge of your archers’ range. Dodge the enemy arrows with your lord by going side to side, and then engage when their melee troops are close enough. All or almost all of their melee troops will engage your lord, which can give your archers freedom to either shoot them down or snipe the enemy archers or lords(priority varies by battle). Just keep in mind that your lord has to be the closest unit by quite a fair distance to all of the enemy units, otherwise they’ll start spreading out their troops. This is risky not because your lord could die, but because the strategy is based off of AI behavior, which can change from time to time.
-Try not to group up your archers too close, as they’ll end up blocking each other’s shots. Same goes for keeping them at a good angle with their targets. The obstructed status occurs when enough archers cannot fire.
-If units do go into melee with your archers, have archers that face the back(ideally) or side of those units focus fire them down. Also make sure to retreat against slow melee infantry; it’s better to do this manually as skirmish formation can prevent several volleys.
-To take as few losses in siege battles, have your units outside the range of any towers and shoot in rows of 4-6 archers, targeting units that aren’t directly facing your archers. You can use available artillery/vaul’s hammer to take down a tower to provide a larger safe space for your units. Vaul’s Hammer can also be used in defensive siege battles(just not on walls with a siege tower attached).
[Screenshots]
Example of auto-resolve with HE:
Confederation possible with Ellyrion turn 56:
Confederation with Ellyrion turn 57, totaling 44 settlements:
General Strategy for Queek(Clan Mors)
[Early Game]
-As the Skaven receive a massive power spike at tier 3, you ideally want to get to tier 3 as fast as possible before attacking the Lizardmen. Plagueclaw Catapults are the most critical if you want to be able to deal with the Saurus.
-As Queek, your best unit initially is your Warpfire Throwers. Make sure they end up behind enemy infantry and protect them from archers to provide maximum damage. They are one of the main damage dealers against the High Elves. They’re decent against the other factions as well, but often end up being targeted. Rat Ogres are pretty fragile as well, but provide the important Siege Attacker bonus that you’ll need early on. You can replace them with catapults later.
-With your initial army, immediately wipe out the HE army, getting extra food(unless you took a bad fight) and proceed capture the rest of the HE territory on the mainland, recruiting clanrats after you take each one.
-After Tor Surpindar, you can get up to a tier 4 settlement at turn 5. You don’t necessarily need to as the most important units you’ll need are stormvermin and plagueclaw catapults which are tier 3, so you can decide whether the extra 20 food is worth investing here or for something else later on. Personally felt that a few Poison Wind Globadiers were good against Kroq-Gar(cold ones, kroxigors, and a stegadon) so ended up getting tier 4. If you go for Fortress of Dawn(which you should raze) before Tor Surpindar, you can get it up to tier 5 albeit excessive.
-At Yuatek, recruit a new grey seer lord, either plague or ruin, and start recruiting some clanrats when the rebels are about a turn or two away from spawning.
-After defeating the high elves, you can send queek to take the rest of the skaven lands, but make sure that he or your other lord is recruiting at Tor Surpindar once it finishes construction. After taking the skaven lands, you can either take Tor Elasor or go directly for Last Defenders. As I haven’t been able to diplomatically interact with Tor Elasor, I went straight for Kroq-Gar. Make sure you have about 4 catapults and 10 stormvermin, with the rest being any combination of your choosing.
-Once you’re up and running, just make sure that you spend 40 food on each province capital you capture to make sure you can build a defense structure.
[Food]
-You gain food from every win(amount dependent on battle), and can get 2 additional after each field victory or siege defense.
-The food buffs are based off of a percentage of the amount you can hold. As you gain food capacity per settlement, you will need more and more food in storage to retain any buffs.
-Settlements with pastures give a unique skaven building that can produce up to 6 food. You can get up to 3 halfway up the continent.
[Army Comp]
-Half of your army should consist of melee troops, with a few of those being stormvermin. You should also bring at least a few catapults to knock down towers and deal with mass infantry. The rest of the army slots are up to you to experiment with.
[Tips]
-When you fight battles with one army/garrison in reinforcement, you can get double the army ability charges. This means that just a lord reinforcing an attack can give you a few extra charges of Menace Below.
-Menace Below clanrats do exceptionally well against various units. Because of their unique summon, they can gang up on single large entities(lords w/ mounts, stegadons) and deal a surprising amount of damage. They also tend to continue fighting even after they’re broken if you’ve set a target for them.
[Screenshots]
Example of turn 5 tier IV settlement:
General Tips
-One question is whether or not having rebels are worth it for the extra money, and it usually depends. If you’re low on money, then yes, so long as you have a defense structure at a province capital. Only exception is your main capital if you have a significant trade income. Otherwise, if you have the money, try to maintain public order and develop instead, as waiting an extra 5 or 6 turns for a construction to resume is not ideal. Once you’ve maxed out economically, you can scrap the public order and start getting rebels again. This is especially better for skaven as they get food from every fight, which can then be used for the food buffs or to improve newly conquered settlements. For High Elves it’s worse due to the debuffs you get from low public order. Otherwise if you’re not willing to fight more rebels then you can keep the public order building. The problem is that while sometimes you can auto-resolve it just fine, there are other times you can’t, and that takes up time.
-Auto resolve generally goes like this: Elves>Lizardmen>Skaven. Elves in general get a high auto resolve rating just from their lord alone, and add in some chariots and archers and suddenly the auto resolve says you have almost no chance. That’s been my experience with the balance bar so far. Oh and if skaven have twice as many units as you as Lizardmen, then it also becomes favorable for them even though you can win that fight manually. You take significantly more losses(generally twice the amount) through auto-resolve than manually, and they tend to target the casualties on one specific unit or unit type.
-Do not go for intervention forces early unless you’re sure they have no army that’s stationed/will station there. The auto resolves generally aren’t that great for them and they might target a different settlement from what you expected. Generally better later on when their armies are spread thin between dealing with your forces+enemy forces+chaos hordes.
-(seems to be Lizardmen-specific so far) If you have a technology that reduces construction costs and construction time that will be finished next turn, cancel all the current constructions of that type started this turn and wait until next turn. You can also wait a bit for further reduction through treasure hunting and events.
-For DE and Skaven, Loyalty is generally gained from winning battles, so if you’re thinking of recruiting a lord that turn, recruit him first and then fight with your current armies to gain some additional loyalty. This helps in particular when recruiting Grey Seers in Queek’s campaign.
-All campaign effects like income, recruitment, and construction occur at the start of your next turn. Anything that interrupts those effects between the end of your current turn and the start of your next will cancel or delay those effects.
-For recruitment purposes, buildings(demolished or constructed) take effect before recruitment, and commandments come after.
-If you’ve ambushed an army with reinforcements, your reinforcements will only arrive once the enemy has spotted one of your units.
-Individual models within a group get their hp restored at the end of a battle. So if all 90 archers get down to 1 hp at the end of the battle, the entire unit becomes fully replenished. This is why small groups like chariots can be useful in a campaign where you are often fighting more than one battle in a single turn.
-From an efficiency standpoint, don’t go out of your way to explore the treasure locations at sea; the rewards are sometimes very helpful, but other times don’t apply. I currently haven’t done too many treasure hunts in ruins, but I haven’t encountered anything that was worth the turn so far.
-When there’s an enemy force right next to an enemy settlement you’re targeting, you can attack the enemy army first, then attack the enemy settlement. This gives more xp to your lord(s) and can weaken a fortified settlement. Just make sure you have enough movement points to perform both actions.
-If it looks rather close whether you can attack a settlement or not, hold your move command over the settlement with your attacking force and look at the campaign movement percentage on the lower left side(left click to cancel btw). If it says zero percent, then you usually won’t make it. Another way to tell is if the movement range of the army on the map shows a small yellow circle surrounding the settlement.
-Unless you want to upgrade it or they provide income, you don’t ever need to repair military recruitment buildings.
-If you think you’ll do poorly fighting a siege battle, you can opt to siege it for a turn instead. If their army is strong enough, they’ll force a fight in a field battle instead which, if you win, will weaken them significantly. There are times when a siege battle is better(mostly related to how the AI acts) so consider both scenarios before deciding.
-Always consider whether taking a settlement is actually worth taking. Colonizing settlements early on can take quite a toll on your treasury and may spawn inconvenient rebel forces. Colonizing ones that don’t match your climate suitability requires significant time and money as getting to tier 2 would require at least 10 turns minimum.
-There’s a 10% chance that you can get the enemy’s artillery if the artillery crew routed and if you’re of the same race. The details can be read from a couple of threads(one was
[Warhammer] Stealing enemy artillery, how does it work? from totalwar
ago, the other
) and a mod to adjust it here. Note that the mod is only for the first TWW, but artillery steal chance does exist in TWW2.
-Multiple buffs/debuffs with the same name, unless stated otherwise, do not stack. In campaign a debuff may be extended(e.g. two unhappy populace debuffs, 5 and 3 separately, becomes 8 turns), but its effect will never stack if it has the same name. So Burnt and Contaminated will stack from Warpfire Throwers and Plagueclaw Catapults, but not two instances of Contaminated like from Plague Monk Censer Bearers and catapults.
-Keep in mind the percentage bonuses/penalties and how they’ll stack. For example, say you make 100 base income and pay 20 base upkeep. Your upkeep however is up an extra 200%, so you’re paying 60 in upkeep. If you take a skill that reduces upkeep by 10%, the bonus will take off 2, whereas a 10% income boost will be at 110; one gives a 10% difference, the other provides a 1/30 difference, or 3.3%. Then when you compare net gain, one gives 5 times more than the other.
-Resistance is capped at 90%. Confirmation found here[forums.totalwar.com] and evident from taking damage despite 100% phys. missile resist as malekith.
Contributor Tips
Save Files
If you’re still struggling to get through the early game or you just want to try some stuff out, this Dropbox folder[www.dropbox.com] has the save files of my current progress. If you’re not sure how to access save files, it’s C:Users#YourUsernameAppDataRoamingThe Creative AssemblyWarhammer2save_games . AppData folder is hidden by default.
The 2410 Naggarond file is going straight to HE territory(turn 31), 2810 one takes the surrounding area(turn 27) which is the recommended DE file, and 2910 is turn 61 of 2810. Lothern file is a turn after the confederation pic, Mors file is about halfway up the continent 59 turns in, although there is still Fortress of Dawn attackers(forgot to raze), and Kroq-Gar’s file is end game, turn 129 with presence in each of the 4 major regions of the map. 1111 is turn 24 for Morathi, 1211 is turn 61; I will admit that turn 61 is not nearly as impressive as it could’ve been, but gets the gate battles out of the way.
Updates
11/12
Added Morathi’s section
Added “the exception being your lone standing heroes” in the heroes line in Campaign AI. Still have yet to see further aggressive hero actions, but will update it as I see it happen.
Added 2 save files for Morathi.
11/10
Updated Vigor stats to match TWW2. Thanks to OG Shadowknight for the update.
11/5
Added Naggarond save file, 2910 is the 2810 version but at turn 61.
Added Resist Cap at bottom of General Tips(Battle Mechanics full too…)
Added a line of a rare case where the defending enemy unit will follow your unit towards the other side of the map in Battle AI
Added some extra information on Malekith’s campaign, which I put at the end.
11/1
Updated Intro and guide description.
Added a line about bonus/penalty percentage differences in General Tips.
Would’ve liked to add in some replays, but I guess maybe due to the update or just from a bug in general, every close win ended up being a loss after watching the replay. Despite the outcome difference, this showcase of Tyrion vs. an HE gate[www.dropbox.com] with sub-optimal gear and skills is more or less the same.
10/29
Added AI hero behavior in Campaign AI.
Added ranged unit targeting line at the end of Battle Mechanics.
Added stealing artillery line in general tips(a campaign mechanic that has in-battle conditions…)
Added buff/debuff stacking line in general tips.
10/28
Updated PO effect from rebellions, added an extra line for rebel army interaction with other armies.
Added additional info to Malekith’s strategy(Black Ark, Word of Power, Conquest Path, conclusion alternate strategy, and a note on malekith’s construction skill).
Added Steal Technology line to Campaign Mechanics under Heroes. Also added movement range inheritance line right above.
Added Save Files section.
I may need to make a new section or two due to character limit being reached just to continue to lay out the info. Currently maxed on Campaign Mechanics and Kroq-Gar’s General Strategy.
10/27
Minor proofreading fixes, confirmed power reserve and magic pool interaction for more than one race.
10/26
In case you missed the bottom part of the intro, guide completion will be on hold for a bit, at most 2 days. The other factions’ strategies(e.g. Mazdamundi) in the Vortex won’t be available for quite some time, however. I might add some things about heroes/hero actions soon and I’ll post the changes as they’re updating.