Pretty hard as Karl Franz now

[josephmcmullin]

I'm a fairly good player, but this is hard. On hard level, and within perhaps 20 turns 3 of the elector counts have been destroyed and I'm still messing around in my own region. Pretty tough

[warrickbartley]

thinking of going empire just on normal mind you

[Revilar]

Yea it's odd because they're meant to be one of the suggested factions to play as a new player.

[lefty1117]

I play on normal and its also rough. The penalty for destroyed electors is quite severe and permanent until/if you can restore them. The IA penalties below zero really stifle growth and you find yourself constantly on the back foot. In some ways this is fun actually but it feels a bit harsh at the moment. Just as I’m fighting back Festus and looking at the VCs moving in, I see Brettonia has killed off marienburg. Sigh

[DoomGuy]

playing as festus, turn 30 im already at altdorf, just melted everything that the empire has, i think this time order factions are taking the hard side, because in wh2 it was the opposite.

[Phantom Limb]

Chaos is in fact very strong and Empire now has a lot of strong enemies nearby while Kislev is a pushover for Archaon and his allies. Minor electors are also weak but hard to confederate.
Karl is indeed struggling in IE right now.

[Specter]

Beastman, Orcs and Nurgle in the north, orcs in the south, vampires and wood elves to the east. It is crazy.
Normaly this is not a problem, but the empire mechanik does not work with this battle royal dome that we have in a lot of places in IE.
Just had a game where i was on negativ 8. This is not realy fun.

The empire got harder and harder with every update, and now they are actualy very difficult.
Sure, you will not die so easily, but keeping the empire together? no chance.

Empire need some buffs or the empire mechanic needs a rework.

[Jack Greedy]

Im playing as Kugath for Nurgle and it is very fun but hard, even on easy. What i noticed is i have many more field battles than in WH2 and that AI factions plays reasonable.

[Schizovoker]

I'm playing on Very Hard and I'm having a good run right now. I was lucky and got enough events involving The Golder Order so I got Baltahzar by around turn 30.

Some tips: Don't underestimate returning cities to elector counts, especially far-off cities. It gives you instant fealty with them, and while you don't get the income, you also don't have to spend money to maintain an army in the area to defend it (or travel 3+ turns to get there). It's also useful to revive far-off empire factions like Averland and all so they keep the vampires at bay/\.

Don't squander your prestige. If you can pay for an event, pay for it. Prestige is hard to get and is one of the only ways to prevent your authority from going down. I only use prestige to prevent factions from declaring war on me, or to increase imperial authority.

Don't confederate often. The penalty is harsh for it. Only do it when it strategically makes sense.

My general strategy has been to pick a main target and just go crazy on them while the other counts keep those that encroach on my lands at bay. First I took out the secessionists, of course, then I took out Festus that was rapidly expanding up north, and I ended up giving back most of the land to Middenland, I just kept the Brass Keep. After that, I took out Khazrak the One-Eye after he razed marienburg which I colonized after. Then I went after the vampire counts. Basically all the neighboring empire factions helped me, and I managed to take all of sylvania because Vlad left his lands undefended to push westwards. I still haven't taken him out, but he's down to 2 settlements from like, 12. I think after I'm done with him, I'll be dragged down to the badlands because the dwarfs lost the fight and are on one last settlement, and basically all of the greenskins down there declared war on me.

Originally posted by lefty1117:

I play on normal and its also rough. The penalty for destroyed electors is quite severe and permanent until/if you can restore them. The IA penalties below zero really stifle growth and you find yourself constantly on the back foot. In some ways this is fun actually but it feels a bit harsh at the moment. Just as I’m fighting back Festus and looking at the VCs moving in, I see Brettonia has killed off marienburg. Sigh

Bretonnia taking marienberg is actually a good thing early, in my opinion. The game starts off with marienburg hating you, with high chances of them declaring war on you. You can just give like, 2000 gold once to Leoncoeur and he'll ask you for a non agression pact at minimum.

[Paladin]

It is definitely more handicapped that in WH2. Yeah, the secessionists have been buffed, which is fair, but the hard part is being penalized harshly for factors you can't help at all. The other elector counts just getting wrecked by all the hostile factions can take you from 0 IA to -2 or -3 in just 4 or 5 turns.

I had just defeated the secessionists before I had beastmen ransacking Middenheim and knocking on Altdorf's door. I managed to wipe them out and return Todbringer's settlements to him, but now I have greenskins showing up and Vlad just declared war on me.

So, I'm playing at a disadvantage from the start.

I do with you could get some IA for returning settlements to an elector count that hasn't been wiped out yet.

[JuntaKyle]

I had to restart, very hard/very hard. Basically had to perfectly defeat the rebels. Book it south to kill Grom, and then book it north to deal with the beastmen, and finally fest. Once you do that you stabilize a bit.

[lefty1117]

Originally posted by Char Aznable:

I'm playing on Very Hard and I'm having a good run right now. I was lucky and got enough events involving The Golder Order so I got Baltahzar by around turn 30.

Some tips: Don't underestimate returning cities to elector counts, especially far-off cities. It gives you instant fealty with them, and while you don't get the income, you also don't have to spend money to maintain an army in the area to defend it (or travel 3+ turns to get there). It's also useful to revive far-off empire factions like Averland and all so they keep the vampires at bay/\.

Don't squander your prestige. If you can pay for an event, pay for it. Prestige is hard to get and is one of the only ways to prevent your authority from going down. I only use prestige to prevent factions from declaring war on me, or to increase imperial authority.

Don't confederate often. The penalty is harsh for it. Only do it when it strategically makes sense.

My general strategy has been to pick a main target and just go crazy on them while the other counts keep those that encroach on my lands at bay. First I took out the secessionists, of course, then I took out Festus that was rapidly expanding up north, and I ended up giving back most of the land to Middenland, I just kept the Brass Keep. After that, I took out Khazrak the One-Eye after he razed marienburg which I colonized after. Then I went after the vampire counts. Basically all the neighboring empire factions helped me, and I managed to take all of sylvania because Vlad left his lands undefended to push westwards. I still haven't taken him out, but he's down to 2 settlements from like, 12. I think after I'm done with him, I'll be dragged down to the badlands because the dwarfs lost the fight and are on one last settlement, and basically all of the greenskins down there declared war on me.

Originally posted by lefty1117:

I play on normal and its also rough. The penalty for destroyed electors is quite severe and permanent until/if you can restore them. The IA penalties below zero really stifle growth and you find yourself constantly on the back foot. In some ways this is fun actually but it feels a bit harsh at the moment. Just as I’m fighting back Festus and looking at the VCs moving in, I see Brettonia has killed off marienburg. Sigh

Bretonnia taking marienberg is actually a good thing early, in my opinion. The game starts off with marienburg hating you, with high chances of them declaring war on you. You can just give like, 2000 gold once to Leoncoeur and he'll ask you for a non agression pact at minimum.

Yeah the only thing with that is I would have to go to war with them to reclaim those lands, if I want to unify the full empire and assign an elector count there. Whether that's worth doing or not, I don't know yet, but for some reason Brettonia is quite strong in my game and I'm not eager to fight them.

[Knight2E3Checkmate]

Only gets worse as Empire, got to turn 110 and out of the blue a dwarf kingdom declares war on me and every dwarf kingdom that was allied with them followed suit. Within a few turns ive got 20 dwarf stacks in the heart of Reikland and Sylvania and no way to beat them.

EDIT: Gave it another 2 turns, looked at the Karak Kadrin after defeating two full stacks, they had 13 (yes thirteen) full stacks coming my way yet only one settlement to support all those armies. Pretty much same for the other dwarf kingdoms.

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

Yeah i play Alarriele allot, same issue. Its one thing after another there is like no breather. By turn 15 on normal/normal i had to deal with noctilus, nkairi, 2 rogue army's, blood voyage and a swarm of orks who just spawend in after i beat Saphery. I had one full stack and just starting up my second army. In wh2 i used to play very hard/very hard but i am getting overwhelmed on normal/normal.

[Coldhands]

Yeah, the whole Imperial Authority system really breaks down when the Empire AI factions get quickly steamrolled by all the new enemies around them.
Empire AI is going to need a buff when playing as Karl or Gelt.

[jinko_1]

I tried it with the campaign in easy mode as a quick test and the electors still get rofflestomped. it feels like the empire campaign is just running around putting out fires. it is hard to make any progress when most of your time is spent running from one crisis to the next. Back to WH2 for a while i guess