Immortal Empires (Reikland) is DAMNED HARD

[Captain Doombeard]

Some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is gonna come in here and say "skill issue" but buddy, I've played most of the Total War games, including Warhammer II, and Mortal Empires didn't feel like an impossible struggle right out the gate.

I've replayed the first twenty turns as Reikland about three times now. I'm on a fourth attempt. And it just ain't working, man.

There's a Nurgle faction that deletes Hochland right out the gate, every time.

Wissenland rebels at the WORST ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time, every time

Middenland is getting roflstomped by both the beastherds and the local orc faction

Ostermark is getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ by the elves and the vampires at the same time

Every time one of the Empire states goes down, I lose Imperial Authority.

OK, WELL, WHY ARE THEY ALL SET UP TO IMMEDIATELY FAIL AND DIE?

I can't be responsible for the entire Empire if I have to spend five turns crushing the Secessionists, and THEN have to deal with Marienburg taking a stab at me just as I'm mopping them up at the pass!

I get it. The Empire is in a desperate situation, and both uniting and protecting it is supposed to be hard, but SWEET MERCIFUL ♥♥♥♥ why am I dealing with so many threats at once? Why are my allies being exterminated so quickly?

Back it the ♥♥♥♥ off, turn it down a notch, do SOMETHING to balance this so that I'm not having to restart over and over just to get a slightly more favorable start. Get it back down to something resembling the difficulty level of Warhammer II's Mortal Empires campaign.

It wasn't this insane! It was bad, yeah, it got desperate, I had to restart a couple of times to get that campaign right. Mortal Empires was *tough* and I liked it that way.

But it wasn't this bad. It was doable, even when I had to stack up armies three-to-one against the Chaos hordes. Even though I had to speedrun the vampire counts and make nice with the dwarves and hold the passes against orcs and beasts and everything else, just to somehow scrape together enough stacks to handle the crazy endless chaos attacks from the north.

I had to min-max the everloving ♥♥♥♥ out of Mortal Empires, but I did it! I did it TWICE, at different difficulty levels.

I have enough experience to know when a game is a challenge, and when it's just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ laughing at me.

So fix it.

EDIT::

Update, my dudes:

I turned down the difficulty at first, and then it got... too damn easy. Just too easy, it was almost insulting.

So I went back to "normal" diff, and started doing what y'all told me. Handled the Secessionists by turn 6 or 7, didn't touch Marienburg until they forced me, sent my one big stack to handle the beastmen, ward off the Orcs, and peel back Festus around turn 16 while reconquering Hochland.

I focused on re-conquering fallen elector counts and giving them back their settlements. I'm now way in the positive for Imperial Authority and have started getting confederation offers (which I'm turning down for now).

I'm economically *way* in the positive, and I've developed Reikland province to be very rich in income and tech, so I'm finally able to produce advanced units and artillery.

I'm now at turn 20-something, and I'm starting to feel like I've got a handle on this thing. Turning my attention now to that fanged bat bastard Carstein, who is about to find out you don't ♥♥♥♥ with Franz.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and encouragement! I came here to let off some steam, and got love back, and I'm a better player for it.

Cheers!

[Lunos]

Why should they fix it? Faction difficulty is part of ME and now IE. Not every faction will be easy and that's good. You can either turn down the difficulty or try a different faction. Some players will have the opposite experience and think that it's too easy instead and appreciate the challenge. Things might change in the future as new factions and lords get introduced and balance changes go through.

[The Guiding Light]

your first problem is playing as Humans...try any other faction lol

[Captain Doombeard]

Lunos, Reikland is supposed to be one of the starter factions for Immortal Empires. I get that not every faction should be easy, but I'm playing at "normal" difficulty, as someone with hundreds of hours of experience, and I can't get 20 turns in without my game going to hell.

Now, I agree, we should have some factions that are built to be tough as hell to play, but... Reikland? The recommended starter? THIS hard?

No, this is all wrong, any newbie who tries this is going to give up in frustration and think the whole thing is a prank.

[Spookymancer]

After reading the title, I was like "I bet this guy is playing Franz".
Yep.

So Karl Franz starts the game with his gribbly bits in an iron vise. It's not that bad, but you do have to know the "solutions" to sail through it (Marienburg is a noob trap in game 3, Festus should be eliminated by about turn 15-16, etc).

Is he still a recommended start? I thought they changed that to High Elves and Cathay as the recommended starts. I could've sworn they removed the tag from his campaign.

[Captain Doombeard]

Bah.

Damn it.

DAMN it!

Hell with it!

I swore I wouldn't do it... but I'm gonna turn the difficulty down.

This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ campaign, man...

[KillerDuck]

I don't know if this is really good advice but have you tried Gelt? He's not very different from Franz as far as how he plays and the only real threat that's nearby is the Vampires. In my experience his campaign seems a bit more chill.

[Captain Doombeard]

Balthazar Gelt is cool, I like him.

I try to confederate with him as Franz so I get him as a general.

I might try his campaign.

[lethminite]

Yeah, the issue is here is: "Reikland is supposed to be one of the starter factions for Immortal Empires."
"Supposed" being the operative word. I'm pretty sure he's on everyone's short list for hardest starts.
There are some other hard starts too, and i've failed campaigns (or at least got into deathspirals I don't want to play out) with some factions, multiple times. But other factions can be face rolls, on the same difficulty, so it's not "IE" that's the hard part, just the faction you are playing as having a rough start.

[Captain Doombeard]

I edited the title with that in mind.

See, I really had the opposite impression. I thought Reikland was supposed to be the DEFAULT.

[SpeaksTooFast]

I do not think Franz should be a starter campaign.

His campaign can be fun and rewarding but there is no way that it should be "recommended" to people who are trying to learn the game.

They seem to have one "recommended" lord from each game and I'm not 100% sure who should represent game one. Throek Ironbrow maybe?

[Imposter]

You gotta play it slow with the Empire, at first. Once I got past the rebels and began working more diplomatic solutions, and giving money away while defending my castle: It was felt like the old TotalWar experience to me.

I just didn't have the desire to expand except just owning Reikland for a LOONG time. I had electors begging me to confederate, but I asserted their independence, until I couldn't eek out more money to develop my starting region, from sacking their natural enemies North. Once I had good buildings: I went on a war path with the late game units. If you go out of your way to defend Hochland whenever possible: do it. Because you can build a lot of equal diplomatic relations, trade rights, and a lot of money. Ignore war with other nations and pay them with authority whenever possible, if not: then money. Make sure to always send your own forces to help fight their battles, win or not: You earn better points. The rebels and how you deal with them via manual battle will determine how long it takes to get rid of them, sometimes luring them into an "ambush", will delete them altogether.

Trying to confederate too fast, or worrying about another faction that might die doesn't matter, as long as you do your best to defend those nations. That is the way you are gonna win, most of them, if not all.

[ChuTheMan]

Originally posted by Lunos:

Why should they fix it? Faction difficulty is part of ME and now IE. Not every faction will be easy and that's good. You can either turn down the difficulty or try a different faction. Some players will have the opposite experience and think that it's too easy instead and appreciate the challenge. Things might change in the future as new factions and lords get introduced and balance changes go through.

I think the major problem is that he is listed as recommended for new players, something he aint right now.
ofc its not a big issue, but for a new player they might choose him because the game tell you he is recommended for new players.

I could name a lot of other factions better recommended than him.

[Goatmanpig]

All the Empire factions are some of the easiest campaigns in game. Franz requires some more planning and execution on the strategic map but far from being impossible or even hard.

[ChuTheMan]

Originally posted by Goatmanpig:

All the Empire factions are some of the easiest campaigns in game. Franz requires some more planning and execution on the strategic map but far from being impossible or even hard.

far from impossible, but not exactly recommended for new players at they list it as.
Like i said, not really a massive problem, but still weird to list him as recommended when you compare him to the 2 other factions also recommended (+ all the other factions that are way easier than his)

[yuzhonglu]

Mass Pistoleers and a few Outriders. Don't build anything except pistoleers and Outriders. They massacre both Nurgle and Vampires.