Total War: Warhammer Announced

[Tom]

It is very fun

[Clockwork]

A look at how the campaign map works and who can do what on it. Very different from the other TW games but I actually quite like it.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Regional_Occupation_Blog

[comrade_general]

WHTW has a much better map.

[Jubal]

So, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I'm not quite on board with this. It's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure it's optimal either. I'd have been more excited by a halfway house - penalties for occupying "bad" terrain - or, more difficult but still possible, being able to shift centres of occupation between hold and city. I'm not a fan of the idea that somehow Dwarves can't occupy flatlands - they don't *like* doing so but they certainly *can* do so. Likewise, humans are perfectly capable of occupying mountain regions, even if hold-cities themselves are less good. It's with the orcs and badlands that I actually have a gripe though - the Badlands are hill country, not mountains, they're massively unsuitable for Dwarves and perfectly reasonably suited to human settlement. There's no reason why the Empire shouldn't occupy such a reason and no reason why similar conditions shouldn't take hold in, say, Solland, or the Drakwald Forest, and other rougher-terrain parts of the Empire. I hope it makes for a good game mechanic, basically, because I don't feel it's justified on fluff grounds as well as they're making out.

Other thing I hadn't realised which is of major importance: we're getting a lot of minor factions, looks like this includes Border Princes, possibly Estalia and at least one Tilean faction. This I am very happy about. I'm not as convinced by the Empire being governed as a loose collective of elector counts, I think that understates the power of someone like Karl Franz as represented in the lore. Certainly if the Empire is loosely structured in that sense, the Dwarves should definitely be; the Lord of, say, Karak Izor (let alone Kraka-Drak) is surely significantly more independent than the Elector Count of Stirland.

[Clockwork]

I thought KF wasn't that powerful to begin with? Like he was emperor but the Empire as a whole was more fractured than it had been in a while, only later on he united them again.


Yeah Brettonia, Tilea, Estalia, Marienburg and other border princes are included. I quite like the global recruitment thing they mentioned, even though that's all they said I like the sound of it as it's one of my gripes with earlier TW games especially (the pre-empire games specifically.replenishment in friendly territory makes things better admittedly).

[Clockwork]

These are the factions in the main game at launch; 1-4 plus a dwarf faction (Karak Azul or Karak Karin I think) are the playable ones but note that there are Brettonian factions, Tilea, Estalia, breakaways from the Empire, Kislev, Border Princes with Schwartzhafen being a weird one that could be human, dead or a mix of the two. But more likely just dead.

#1) The Empire[/size]#2) The Greenskins#3) Vampire Counts#4) Chaos#5) Averland (tricky little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥)#6) Hochland#7) Marienburg#8) Middenland#9) Nordland#10) Ostermark#11) Ostland#12) Stirland#13) Talabecland#14) Wissenland#15) Barak Var#16) Karak Azul#17) Karak Hirn#18) Karak Izor#19) Karak Karin#20) Karak Norn#21) Karak Ziflin#22) Kraka Drak#23) Zhufbar#24) Artois#25) Bastonne#26) Bordeleaux#27) Bretonnia#28) Carcassonne#29) Lyonesse#30) Parravon (another tricky one)#31) Kislev#32) Border Princes#33) Estalia#34) Tilea#35) Black Venom (Orc start)#36) Bloody Spearz#37) Skull-Takerz#38) Broken Nose#39) Crooked Moon#40) Necksnapperz#41) Orcs of the bloody hand#42) Red Eye#43) Red Fang#44) Scabby Eye (lol)#45) Skullsmasherz#46) Teef Snatchaz#47) Top Knotz#48) Templehof#49) Mousillon#50) Schwartzhafen#51) Skaeling#52) Varg#53) Empire secessionists

[Jubal]

OK, the Empire being 1 faction per state and Tilea being united is weird. Like the whole point of Tilea is that it's a disunited mess.

Templehof, Mousillon, and Schwartzhafen I'm assuming are all undead.

[Clockwork]

Possibly, but I'm hoping that they have some humans in at least Mousillon and Schwartzhafen ( I think Sylvanaia should as well but meh). Agree on Tilea to a degree (same thing with Border Princes being a faction) but I guess 53 factions was enough. I'm guessing those factions will be super passive anyway. But yeah, at least Miragliano and Luccini should be separate.

[Jubal]

To me it would've made more sense to unite the Brets and divide Tilea and the BPs, I guess. Indeed I'm not sure I'm 100% on having the Empire quite that divided, but ah well. Like Wissenland is really tightly under Altdorf's control for example, and family links often tie small groups of them together.

I'm glad Marienburg gets a chance to shine though - Marienburg, Miragliano and Estalia I was always sad I couldn't get into WHTW properly because of the dratted faction limit.

[Clockwork]

I quite like that the empire is divided up. I'm thinking that the states will be protectorate of The Empire faction. I think the different kings in Brettonnia will come into play more if they release Brets as DLC faction which I'm 90-100% sure they'll do.


Also I don't know if you know this but the most recent TW games have had emergent factions. For example if a faction liberated provinces from another faction that start really large (like WRE in Attila) then the newly liberated settlement might be gaul if in that part of the world or celtiberians if over in spain. Applying this to TW:WH, taking provinces held by 'The Empire' might make Altdorf and Nuln become separate factions and possibly have the option to liberate stolen Karaks from the Greenskins. Could mean Tilea can be divided.

[Jubal]

Yeah, that would make sense. And yes, they'd be nuts not to have Brets as DLC, especially as the groundwork is all there.

[Clockwork]

Brets are more than likely coming in as free content post launch, also I just read this even though the info has been there since last year but naval battles will be all auto-resolved which is a shame as I was actually really looking forward to them, loved them since Empire (actually Shogun 2 naval battles were boring).

[Jubal]

Aww, pity about naval battles - especially since there's plenty of GW material on the subject (I think there was even briefly a specialist game with ships?).

Brets as free post-launch content works, I think - given the map choice, IMO they're a fairly core part of an Old World game.

Has there been any mention of WEs, or is Athel Loren just likely to stay closed off/impassable?

[Clockwork]

Well Athel Loren is on the campaign map so I'd be highly surprised if they were closed off from the rest of the game, as to the extent of their involvement: all I've seen so far has been hearsay. People are saying there is a good chance they'll be a paid DLC but it's also conceivable that they'll come in a later game (not sure if this has been said but they're breaking the game up into 3 like blizz did with starcraft 2) along with High and Dark Elves. I think the wood elves never left the forest until end times iirc however.


My own guess is that they'll be DLC within the first 3 months of release and the other two games will be the Elven continents Ulthuan and Naggaroth first and Lustria as second with either one or two factions added to the grand campaign per game and the others present added as DLC for those games.


Here is a list of free DLC post launch if you're interested btw: http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_WARHAMMER_Future_Content_Blog


If you want a comparison of free content to paid DLC for Rome 2: 5 free dlc, 1 faction pack (contains 3 factions), 3 individual factions and 1 campaign. 9 paid DLC - 3 faction packs, 2 unit packs, 3 campaigns and blood and gore to circumvent some sort of ratings thing on the main game.

[Jubal]

Lustria would be fun... though if those are the map DLCs that'll definitely leave TKs out. But they're kind of hard to fit in anyway. Unless you did a Southlands campaign that had Lizards at the bottom of the map and TKs and Araby at the top. Ogres are easier as you can have them as an appearing horde like thing.