How do I win with Mannfred von Carstein on Literally Normal difficulty

[Judge Cudge]

I am apparently terrible, because even without declaring war on a singular person I am at war with Rakaph Dynasty, The Cult of Sigmar, The Last Defenders, and Tlaqua on turn 20.

Tlaqua has killed all the Greenskins to the south, removing my buffer with Tzeentch who I know is a later problem. But the bigger threat is that right now Tlaqua has three armies, I know from experience that each of his 20 stacks costs 2 of mine to kill, and that the Last Defender armies take 3 20 stacks to kill, and he has two.

This means I need 12 armies, and I have two and a half. And this theoretical need for 12 means my armies are fodder. Plus even if I had the twelve armies to defend myself from the south, The Cult of Sigmar would still be stealing my towns up north.

What is going on with normal difficulty that makes it this way? Is Mannfred's campaign just an insufferable thunderdome from second one?

[Jokulator]

well, you don`t necessarily have to beat all those armies during one turn. Aswell you might check some youtube viedeos about battling the ai efficiently. Cause usually its the other way arround and players kill off multiple stacks with one army.

[Judge Cudge]

Obviously I don't need to kill all of their armies in one turn, but if it takes three or more 20 stacks to kill one blue boy and they are actively stealing my towns I am either paralysed or actually losing towns at turn 20 with only 4-5 towns to begin with.

There doesn't seem to be a way to make them not go to war with me, and The last Defenders are weenie rush proof and thats all I have on hand at that point.

[UnluckyNoob]

With Mannfred you should already destroy all mentioned factions by turn 20.

You are doing something very wrong if you need 3 armies to fight 1.

[Bennster]

I hear you OP - there is an issue with "Normal" difficulty across the board. It's been well documented that the AI is far too aggressive.
I have had a Bretonnian campaign ended on normal by 2 high level full stack attackers in just turn 11 - before you can hire more than 12 peasant units or build a stable.

You will get the unhelpful comments from those who believe they are superhuman and therefore everyone else should have won the game by turn 20, but for most of us we will have to wait for the difficulty to be balanced.

[dulany67]

No enemy you face requires 3 armies to defeat one of theirs, 2 will do. Life Leach the LM lord until he's dead or close and send a melee hero to end him. Then micro your butt off to kill those dino's. Make sure you get techs that buff zombies, skeles, and grave guard. Use zombies to tarpit and only use skeles with spear- grave guard with great weapons are preferable.

The battles may be very close but you have Dead Will Rise Again and Raise Dead.

[dulany67]

Oh and make sure you have some wolves or bats to chase off Dino's when they rout.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Bennster:

It's been well documented that the AI is far too aggressive.

Anecdotal, its not documented at all. And has been dis proven by many, myself included. Also has not been acknowledged by CA. The only thing they have acknowledged was looking into why some legendary campaigns the AI was so passive. And that was fixed in patch 2.1. The problem was that AI was taking whatever your battle difficulty was and putting it as the difficulty setting for all AI bonuses. So unless your normal campaign was Normal/Very Hard Battles you were unaffected by this particular bug on normal.

[valky]

Originally posted by Bennster:

I hear you OP - there is an issue with "Normal" difficulty across the board. It's been well documented that the AI is far too aggressive.
I have had a Bretonnian campaign ended on normal by 2 high level full stack attackers in just turn 11 - before you can hire more than 12 peasant units or build a stable.

You will get the unhelpful comments from those who believe they are superhuman and therefore everyone else should have won the game by turn 20, but for most of us we will have to wait for the difficulty to be balanced.

One shall not compare VC with Bretonnia, though. If you are lucky or slightly aware of your surrounding, you might find a battle-sit with 2k+ casualties. That usually lets you recruit all the top-tier shenanigans in an instant. Stuff like Terrorgheist, Vargheist, Black Knights..maybe even 1-2 Blood Knights....
When playing Ghorst, most of my units - if not all - were recruited by that. I built all those stupid recruitment stuff for nothing.

I even recruited some corpse cart every now and then, darn I was so wrong about that unit. Bit slow but rules...Mortis Engine is pretty awesome, like usually ^^ helps a lot in early fights and usually gets kills of 200+ (i think large setting)

edit: am not quite aware of the bug, that seems to be an issue on regular difficulty levels. I was occasionally puzzled, that on VH the game is rather boring.
Nothing is really threatening me or does stupid raiding with the exception of the occasional 8-10 unit-army, that parks exactly at that spot, where you can't reach it.

Or retreats like a million miles accross a river deep into some other guys' territory...
F* Kislev doesn't have a block-agent.

Else: Skeleton spearmen rule with perfect vigor once unlocked - they hold the line just long enough for a perfectly placed Wind-spell or something, that can hammer it down. With Ghorst, whom you ain't playing, Zombies would be your closest friend ^^
Black Knights & Crypt Ghouls do pretty decent as hammer in early stages.

[Kendrick]

I had a similar issue as Mannfred but that was because my main force was in Lustria. While my defense armies got crushed. The answer I had to the question was flee and travel to Cathay via the sea lanes. I united Cathay and that was a much better experience. I think building an empire in the Southlands is very difficult.

[Judge Cudge]

Originally posted by UnluckyNoob:

With Mannfred you should already destroy all mentioned factions by turn 20.

You are doing something very wrong if you need 3 armies to fight 1.

Auto battle calculator is certainly doing something very wrong.

[Solvic]

@Judge Mannfred is by far the hard Vamp start in W3 all other lords have easier starts so maybe try one of them first, I play on legendary so iv no idea if normal is playing correctly (tbh im not sure any difficulty is working right yet)
but Vamps have changed now meaning you will win fights against crazy odds by just building your armys around self healing, This means looking for raze the dead areas and getting mortis engine or 3 :P into your army with some necros and spec'ing into the zombie buff and crypt ghoul self healing tec trees. Trust me you will start to feel the undead power then. Good luck..

And btw don't lessen to the people who say you should have killed said factions by turn 20 they are clueless iv played the campaign 3 times now and have different circumstances play out. but Cult should be delt with fast like turn 5-6

[Sn3z]

I playing veryhard-hard and this campaign atm is easy, granted I'm on turn 15, I have taken my starting area and then strategically wiped Volkmar and now moved into Cracked land. Income is no problem, don't build any growth buildings(use techs and vamps blue skill for passive) just build gibbet and resources. Get up stacks of skeletons not zombies. After growth tech I grab the skeleton -25% upkeep and go to GG techs(actually good game techs). Also raise the dead spawns are broken as hell.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860038932and

[identity]

Cult of Sigmar should be long dead before turn 20.

[Solvic]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

I playing veryhard-hard and this campaign atm is easy, granted I'm on turn 15, I have taken my starting area and then strategically wiped Volkmar and now moved into Cracked land. Income is no problem, don't build any growth buildings(use techs and vamps blue skill for passive) just build gibbet and resources. Get up stacks of skeletons not zombies. After growth tech I grab the skeleton -25% upkeep and go to GG techs(actually good game techs). Also raise the dead spawns are broken as hell.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860038932and

Id have to disagree go full zombie tree and get them buffed far better bang for buck now than skells , you can make cheaper trash armys faster but each to their own, whatever works

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Solvic:

Id have to disagree go full zombie tree and get them buffed far better bang for buck now than skells , you can make cheaper trash armys faster but each to their own, whatever works

Skelles with spears are better meat shields for LM.