Recent reviews by JAMAICAN JIM

i hate this game

Edit: While I'm not sure if the issues in the Realms of Chaos campaign are totally fixed, but with the release of Immortal Empires, WH3 becomes fun again.

Edit2: Sieges and minor settlement battles are a huge step down from previous titles with no rework in sight. Also, the DLC price increase and CA's response are unacceptable.

The factions are interesting and fun to play. Siege battles are not perfect, but generally improved from WH1 and WH2. Maps are beautiful. But the campaign is what kills it.

It's an exercise in putting out fires.

Essentially, the campaign is a race to get four souls by defeating four daemon princes in the realm of chaos before finally challenging Be'lakor. To enter the realms of chaos, every so often, chaos rifts, specific to each god, will appear around the map, spreading corruption, spawning agents, then eventually armies which get slightly stronger every time the rift event happens. You choose which chaos god's realm to enter and navigate the realm with your Legendary Lord, eventually resulting in a long survival battle which nets you a soul. Getting four souls allows you to fight another long survival battle against Be'lakor and after defeating him, you win and can play the campaign however you like.

There are several problems with the campaign's mechanics:

The chaos rifts spread corruption which creates control (public order) issues which inevitably spawn rebellions in addition to the armies it eventually spawns. What this results in is the game actively punishing you for territorial expansion. The larger your empire, the more problems you will have with the chaos rift event. If you have the economy to afford an army and agents in every province, you will only be running around putting down rebellions and destroying chaos armies.

You can only travel to the realm of chaos with your Legendary Lord, resulting in your lord mostly being predisposed and healing before doing the same thing again and again. If other factions get the souls before you, you have a chance to intercept them by either using the teleport function of the chaos rifts or sending your LL to camp the Forge of Souls.

The teleport function of the chaos rifts is only usable by your LL. If your LL's army is weak, you will not be able to intercept the enemy army heading to the forge of souls.

In my experience, at least 8 times out of 10, once any of the factions enters the realm of chaos, they come out with a soul. If you enter the same realm as the AI and they beat you to the soul, you get kicked out. You CANNOT go back into the realm of chaos after getting kicked out.

If you miss maybe two rift events, you might as well restart. The AI will beat you to the four souls and you will have to send your LL to camp the forge of souls if you want to keep playing.

There is no way to steal a soul from another faction. If you kick an enemy out of the forge of souls, they still keep the souls and are barred from trying to fight Be'Lakor for 15 turns.

Some other issues:

The UI is a downgrade. WH3's main menu and skirmish menu look like its a beta. Everything is red; it lacks the colorful palette 1 and 2 had.

Minor settlement battles aren't that fun. It's mostly a grind. Your options of how to defend and attack are limited. When defending, the AI will ALWAYS split up its forces to fully surround the settlement. Because of the capture point mechanics, you're almost always forced to defend around that point. It can be a problem for more aggressive factions like Slaanesh.

Attacking is a grind. Towers will constantly shoot your troops as you advance through the narrow passages to take on the main force or capture the central point. Once you destroy one, the AI will immediately build one after.

Rome II and Attila had better minor settlement battles.

While the sieges are improved, there's something about the layout of major settlements that bugs me, I can't quite put my finger on it but it seems like they were rushed. Maybe the logic of the layout doesn't flow as well as something like Rome II. I don't know.

There are more problems that I'm sure others have pointed out, but these are what could come up with off the top of my head. What this boils down to is the absence of freedom in approaching the "soul race". You are forced to participate in it, or you can attempt to destroy all other major factions which is even more difficult because they are so spread out. The limitations on rift teleports make this even harder. There are mods that exist which turn off the realm of chaos mechanics and I'm sure modders will fix other issues. Immortal Empires will hopefully be better than the realm of chaos campaign but that is months? a year? off? Who knows. I haven't tried the smaller co-op campaigns, maybe they offer a more refined experience. But for now, the campaign feels tacked on or given little thought. If you're thinking about buying it, wait until the campaign is fixed (if it ever will be) or when modding support is officially released or when immortal empires drops.

This game has

Ultraviolence™
and
a weapon for nihilists

The most Christian game in existence.

F*** this game