Total Warhammer 2

hexagonalbolts 2017-09-27 09:05:20 UTC #1

Anyone else excited about the release of this (tomorrow)?

All of the new races look amazing and the reviews claim it’s even better than the first one which I lost far too many hours of my life to.

I’ve never really ventured into the multiplayer and it would be great to get some RPS people to do a co-op campaign with / play against. PixelatedApollo did a crazy free-for-all battle that is worth a watch:

Imaginary_Llamas 2017-09-27 09:30:22 UTC #2

Also excited, I just can’t decide which race I want to do the campaign with first. Each race is so different, more so than in the initial release of the first Total Warhammer IMO.

hexagonalbolts 2017-09-27 09:32:06 UTC #3

The lizardmen & Mazdamundi look awesome. But then the Skaven have absolutely enormous armies and all sorts of cool weird units. But the Dark Elves look amazing in the video above. Arrrgghhhhhhh.

LexW 2017-09-27 11:07:21 UTC #4

I played an absolute ton of TW:W, both single player and multi, but I feel like I can wait for TW:W2. Is that strange? It’s not that I don’t think it’ll be cool, it’s just I think it’s only going to get cooler as time goes on, and there isn’t really anything to spoil or the like story-wise, so I will wait until I am in need of a game, or it gets cheap, or my friends get really demanding and want me to get it to play it with them.

MantisTobogganM.D.4 2017-09-27 11:51:08 UTC #5

That’s kind of where I’m at too. Are they improving the co op? 4 player would be amazing. I’d also like the ability to play as the same race, but in different areas (not splitting provinces either). It was kind of tough to find compatible races to play co op with in 1.

I also wasn’t happy with the prices for the dlc races. I fully expected quite a few of them, and was ready to pay up, but not for damn near $20 a race. They did release a fair amount of free content though, so I’m not even close to full boycott mode, just more of a wait for half off mode, then I’ll spend what I saved on dlc races.

Are they ever going to do a discounted race/lord pack for 1? I haven’t bought a single one yet, so a pack would be ideal, especially since you’re going to be able to use the races from tw1 eventually in tw2(that’s still a thing right?)

Imaginary_Llamas 2017-09-27 13:41:32 UTC #6

CA have said they’ll be adding a combined campaign with TW:W1 (called ‘Mortal Empires’) in a few weeks or so, in which every race will be playable.

I suppose the WElves and Beastmen were a bit pricy, but then again they weren’t exactly reskins of other factions what with the Treemen and Minotaurs and whatnot. They could have done without the mini-campaigns though, which is perhaps why Norsca is cheaper despite having a fair number of unique units.

Oh yeah I forgot, the lord packs were a bit more iffy. Am I right in thinking that the Regiments of Renown that came with those packs are still available to AI in the campaign even if the player doesn’t own them?

sonson 2017-09-27 16:07:29 UTC #7

Yeah very excited, sold a bunch of DOTA junk to preorder and it’s preloaded . However I’m absolutely gripped by my current Wood Elves Campaign which is real tooth and nail stuff, prior to that the Beastman campaign was excellent and Norsca who I got with TW2 just sound like fun incarnate with all their monsters and stuff so I’m in no rush to leave it, I’ve been obsessing over it the past fortnight like a kid. With a couple of mods (advanced AI mod is a must) I’m finding it to be utterly compelling. The Wood Elves and Beastmen in particular open up a considerable new avenue of tactical approaches and really highlight some of the deeper stuff. The Magic, morale and healthbar vs models systems in particular are massively more interesting and deep than I gave them credit for when playing the more traditional line infantry races. I think on release they nailed the aesthetic but it was just Total War on a Warhammer Map. Whereas with the DLC it is a fully working geopolitical model of the Old World more or less complete with accurate simulations of its inhabitants in regards to how they act, feel and play as well as look. With the one exception of the poor old Empire, who are about the same as they are in the lore, except here they more realistically just collapse under the weight of the challenges they face rather than magically not only survive them but prosper. Even when I won with them the world was well and truly fucked.

I managed to beat three stacks of almost exclusively armoured and monstrous Chaos yesterday using armies compromised of a handful of line infantry and 3/4 archers with Orion to hold things together. It was utterly brutal tooth and nail stuff but I won the Wood Elf way playing against an army playing the Chaos way and it was amazing, it was a real battle between two completley opposed factions. I’d marched North into the now blasted ruins of the Empire, the strongest member of a failing alliance succumbing to innumerable beastmen and Norscans on the fringes as Chaos carved their way up the middle. This was my Helms Deep, it felt like a real Armageddon, as we met on a blood red outcrop so different to the lush forests of home, and in the bloody twilight we held out despite being outnumbered (the auto resolve thing was all red, I only played it because I didn’t have the heart to try and salvage my campaign if I lost) and won. I made it happen on the map and in the battle and it looked glorious of course, the dense ranks of beastial armour clad juggernauts motoring their way into thin regimented lines of disciplined but fragile elven infantry while arrow shafts blotted the sky constantly. The archers won the day but only because the massively outnumbered Wardancers and Wildwood Rangers kept their nerve in the face of repeated frontal and flank attacks , and even then it required meticulous use of magic and abilities to keep them from getting overwhelmed and exposing the soft archer underbelly doing all the killing behind them. I had to reinforce flanks, scrabble for reserves, have units feint to trap them in crossfire, everything. I had to work harder for that win than I think any real time challenge before and if I’d ignored psychology and a few other mechanics it would have been over in seconds. I love it. It’s what I used to see in my head playing Shogun as a Teenager, but even more fully realised on a screen right in front of me. It’s perfect frankly, for what it is.

I’ll probably wait a few weeks until quality of life mods are out for Two, although I’ll take a quick look at each race tomorrow no doubt . I really want to play it but I’m going to wait til I have the necessary hours to get hooked. Dabbling with TW games on release has never worked for me due to their vastness. I need at least one long session to ease me in. Whereas with the first one it’s so streamlined and I’m so familiar with it now that I can do a couple hours across weeks and still get into it.

hexagonalbolts 2017-09-27 17:43:45 UTC #8

I believe the co-op is just for two still. I have a very vague memory of hearing that you can only do a co-op campaign as the same race, or a competitive campaign as different races, because of the way that the rituals work (only one race can complete the rituals so it wouldn’t make sense to do it cooperatively as different races, I suppose) - perhaps I am misremembering though.

MantisTobogganM.D.4 2017-09-27 22:22:53 UTC #9

Same race co op would be a big thing for me. My favorite race from the first was the vamps, and being allied with just about any other race kind of sucked.

hexagonalbolts 2017-09-27 23:49:01 UTC #10

Yeah, your allies really didn’t appreciate that vampiric corruption burning all their troops!

I think each race has two legendary lords so you play as one each.

MantisTobogganM.D.4 2017-09-28 00:57:23 UTC #11

That would work as long as you don’t have to split a starting province, I hate when an ally has one city, especially in your starting province.

hexagonalbolts 2017-09-28 07:30:28 UTC #12

Give us a yell if anyone fancies messing about in multiplayer

Tevildo 2017-09-28 16:01:06 UTC #13

I’m really excited about this one. It’s so strange, frankly, it’s against all odds!
Because, having played TW games since RomeTotalWar, the franchise mostly disapointed me after Shogun 2 and its amazing expansion! And I’m not even interested in the Warhammer world, or haven’t been since I was 12 years!

But somehow, TW games being what brought me into computer games, I always end buying CA’s games. That’s how I finally gave a try to TWW and got so nicely surprised. Even went to the point of reading some Felix&Grotek books to help synthetizing this thin layer of lore which brings immersion into TW games to make them so much more lively. (When you play RTW, and have stuff like Thucydides, E Gibbon or HBO’s Rome it’s easy but when you have only Felix&Gotrek, it’s something else…).

So… I bought this one in pre-order which is the first time since R2TW (which should have cured me from the temptation of pre-ordering stuff forever). And with the Norsca campaign being so great, I have the feeling I won’t regret it…

Now, I played a few turns and liked mostly what I saw (except a few things which I suppose will be soon repaired). But the first thing that comes to my mind is AgeofWonder3. I don’t know why, I have the feeling they took some inspiration in AoW3’s campaign and victory conditions.

And the battle maps are amazing. The return of relief is so welcome ! Only now, do I realise how much I missed it i n the last games and how tedious battle maps became after M2TW.

(just one surprising thing : hard difficulty level has been considerably watered down. I usually play everything on normal, because I’m a normal guy, but with TWW2 I just wanted to make a short experimentation and what happens is that battles are incredibly easy even on hard. Only thing that seem to be affetcted by difficulty level is diplomacy, meaning some high elves seems to hate me for no special reason)

Zephro 2017-09-28 17:55:37 UTC #14

Finally some real elves! Not dryad loving morons. Though I also own a bunch of them, just no sodding dryads.

Viral_Frog 2017-09-28 18:00:33 UTC #15

I’m tempted to pick it up just because it features Lizardmen. I’m absolutely awful at the combat in the TW games though. Tried watching numerous YouTube videos, and no matter what, I cannot make my formations solid or keep them decent mid-battle. It’s too frantic and RTS-y. But it’s one of those games I really, strongly wish I could just “get”.

sonson 2017-09-28 18:09:37 UTC #16

Did you play Wood Elves in the last game? If you go with Orion it’s really hard to get all the tree monster lads and their faunal associates, my playthrough I had 4 stacks in which there were 3 such units across the board and one was Durthu

Tevildo 2017-09-28 18:27:50 UTC #17

Yes, but those high elves looks like nerds aren’t they ? Tyrion looks like he’s been spoon-fed with peanut
butter toasts for all the centuries his teenagehood lasted.

The dark elves are awesome though. And I can’t wait to play Lizardmen and Skaven but I decided to play the most interesting races latern once the game has been properly patched.

My wood elves campaign in TWW was so disapointing !!! Nothing happened for 100 turns, until the second wave of chaos washes on my shore, leaving me to face something like 10 times more powerfull than me. Got stomped by chaos giants and trolls and myriads of amor plated chosen mirror champions. Then game over.

Zephro 2017-09-28 18:38:29 UTC #18

I did but I’ve always had an intense dislike of Orion owing to this:

Tevildo 2017-09-28 18:58:26 UTC #19

Do they intend to implement naval battles ? It’s a pity not to have them with so much water on the map…

There’s this High Elve in the democracy screen who really get on my nerves, she keeps calling me a “savage creature” like if she was some superior entity when she just wear a traffic cone for helmet (just like everybody else on Ulthuan, actually).

Ulthuan is so beautifull. IIt’s the only part of the campaigbn map I saw but it already makes this map a contender of Fall of the Samurai for the most beautifull campaign map in a YW game ever.

Zephro 2017-09-28 20:28:28 UTC #20

They’ve still not fixed the democracy voice over. They never make sense. Oh hey there, I’m Tyrion from the Court of the Phoenix King, other elf replies “Welcome to the Phoenix Court” or “begone from the court” etc. Total Warhammer 1 had this with you poncing around as the Emperor and elector counts shouting abuse at you in the name of the Emperor.