Rogue armies

[Aliceskysareblue]

Ive been playing total war warhammer series since 2016 and i have to say one of the more annyoing :features introduced in warhammer 2 was rogue armies, While I like the idea, I really dislike a Vaashar, coming in turn 20 with an elite stack of chaos chosen and 3 black dragons.

I think they should at least scale so rogue armies arent game ending, Or better yet at least be a optional feature for immortal empires where you can either toggle it on or off or set the turn were tthey appear.

[SomeGuy1]

... yeah, Vashnaar and College of Pyrotechnics spawning in with high tier units super early is really a problem (at least the College you can murder their Helstorms with fast units before they do too much damage. They have a specific weakness that can be exploited. Black Dragons, on the other hand, are just all around strong and even if you hit them with what they are weak to... early on it's gonna do a lot of damage to you before going down).

I agree that there should be some relation to game duration for how strong the rogue armies are.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

... yeah, Vashnaar and College of Pyrotechnics spawning in with high tier units super early is really a problem (at least the College you can murder their Helstorms with fast units before they do too much damage. They have a specific weakness that can be exploited. Black Dragons, on the other hand, are just all around strong and even if you hit them with what they are weak to... early on it's gonna do a lot of damage to you before going down).

I agree that there should be some relation to game duration for how strong the rogue armies are.

a rogue army with black orcs, orges, trolls and cygors and orc big-uins spawned in during my mother ostankya playthrought... I can deal with ogres fairly easily but black orcs and 3 3 cygors ? game ender

[Triple G]

Optional would be nice - as even late game they´re annoying, when You can beat them easily, or in auto resolve, but need to move one army back to some point at which they spawn as else they capture some village, or attack anything sooner or later, or get a deal with some enemy, and You retake the settlement, and then it has level 1 again - and You need to rebuild it, while You need to remember what was in there to rebuilt the region as it was. And they always spawn - and again - and again - and later somewhere inside Your territory, when You have all Your armies elsewhere. I personally would disable them, or set the spawnrate for them to 100 turns after beating them, when they can´t spawn before turn 50, so i would eventually see any of them once in a game, while on higher difficulties it´s around 98% sure that they will attack me instead of anyone else - so disabling seems good, even more so when i already fought all of them multiple times. Might be fun the first time...

[abyssalfury]

Can they *heavily* influence a game? Sure. But it's extremely rare that they are actually a game ender unless you choose for them to be a game ender.

They start with neutral relations, or somewhat negative if you've got the Strategic Threat penalty (And if you've got a big ST penalty, you should have options for beating them). If you can't fight then, throw them a bribe to boost relations. Pay them to go to war with your enemies. You don't *have* to fight them the second they spawn.

However, better campaign customization would absolutely be great in general.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by abyssalfury:

Can they *heavily* influence a game? Sure. But it's extremely rare that they are actually a game ender unless you choose for them to be a game ender.

They start with neutral relations, or somewhat negative if you've got the Strategic Threat penalty (And if you've got a big ST penalty, you should have options for beating them). If you can't fight then, throw them a bribe to boost relations. Pay them to go to war with your enemies. You don't *have* to fight them the second they spawn.

However, better campaign customization would absolutely be great in general.

Pretty sure a rogue army randomly appearing with a bunch of black orcs, cygors and black dragons, at turn 12 with -88 diplomacy and -60 for peace treaty, is a game ender.

I like this series but CA has a habit of adding mechnics that just end up being frustrating and not at all fun

[abyssalfury]

Originally posted by Aliceskysareblue:

Originally posted by abyssalfury:

Can they *heavily* influence a game? Sure. But it's extremely rare that they are actually a game ender unless you choose for them to be a game ender.

They start with neutral relations, or somewhat negative if you've got the Strategic Threat penalty (And if you've got a big ST penalty, you should have options for beating them). If you can't fight then, throw them a bribe to boost relations. Pay them to go to war with your enemies. You don't *have* to fight them the second they spawn.

However, better campaign customization would absolutely be great in general.

Pretty sure a rogue army randomly appearing with a bunch of black orcs, cygors and black dragons, at turn 12 with -88 diplomacy and -60 for peace treaty, is a game ender.

I like this series but CA has a habit of adding mechnics that just end up being frustrating and not at all fun

Did they spawn with that bad relations, or is that after some time or other actions? Because they generally start with neutral relations (- the standard Strategic threat penalty). If they are for some reason spawning in and being immediately hostile, I don't think it's intended to work that way.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by abyssalfury:

Originally posted by Aliceskysareblue:

Pretty sure a rogue army randomly appearing with a bunch of black orcs, cygors and black dragons, at turn 12 with -88 diplomacy and -60 for peace treaty, is a game ender.

I like this series but CA has a habit of adding mechnics that just end up being frustrating and not at all fun

Did they spawn with that bad relations, or is that after some time or other actions? Because they generally start with neutral relations (- the standard Strategic threat penalty). If they are for some reason spawning in and being immediately hostile, I don't think it's intended to work that way.

they spawned at a large negative, I probably could have sent money there way, but likely they would have eventually declared war.

I didnt have them spawn on my current playthrough, Like I said, great idea for a mechnic but its poorly implemanted.

[Atari 2600]

I think it's fine if the rogues show up as a ragtag group of maybe 5-6 at first, and grow from there every turn. Just popping up with a 15 or 20 stack of elite troops makes little sense, like, *someone* would see them on the way, lol. It's a huge army...did they all jump out from people's basements?

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by Drizzt Fan:

I think it's fine if the rogues show up as a ragtag group of maybe 5-6 at first, and grow from there every turn. Just popping up with a 15 or 20 stack of elite troops makes little sense, like, *someone* would see them on the way, lol. It's a huge army...did they all jump out from people's basements?

I agree, it always ends up being a super stack of tier 4 and 5 units, how am I supposed to deal that ?

I'm just going to give the game a break, ca's poor support of the game, and their general apathy towards immortal empires is very frustrating. There are a ton of other games out there that better supported with more enthuastic developers, an managment staff that actually have there ♥♥♥♥ together. I'll play those.

I'll check back for 4.1 but if nothing big has changed Im not touching the game until thrones of decay.

[Alan]

I'm confused. I've never once had a rogue army attack me. They just sit there, being neutral, often for dozens of turns, until I'm ready to murder them.

Random beastmen spawns are more of an annoyance (if not a threat).

[Atari 2600]

Originally posted by Aliceskysareblue:

Originally posted by Drizzt Fan:

I think it's fine if the rogues show up as a ragtag group of maybe 5-6 at first, and grow from there every turn. Just popping up with a 15 or 20 stack of elite troops makes little sense, like, *someone* would see them on the way, lol. It's a huge army...did they all jump out from people's basements?

I agree, it always ends up being a super stack of tier 4 and 5 units, how am I supposed to deal that ?

I'm just going the game a break, ca's poor support of the game, and the general apathy they towards immortal empires, is very frustrating, there are a ton of other games out there that better supported with more enthuatic developers, an managment staff that actually have there ♥♥♥♥ together. I'll play those.

I'll check back for 4.1 but if nothing big has changed Im not touching the game until thrones of decay.

In large part I agree. If not for modders working for nothing, these games would have far less play time from the community, IMHO of course.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by Alan:

I'm confused. I've never once had a rogue army attack me. They just sit there, being neutral, often for dozens of turns, until I'm ready to murder them.

Random beastmen spawns are more of an annoyance (if not a threat).

rogue armies are a leftover from game two and as such only tend to be really aggressive in ulthian, lustria and southern realms, I rarely encounter them as game 1 or 3 factions.

they were really infuriating in warhammer 2, when the AI tended to be hyper aggressive and go around razing all your settlements instead of sacking them.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Aliceskysareblue:

they were really infuriating in warhammer 2, when the AI tended to be hyper aggressive and go around razing all your settlements instead of sacking them.

Or in case of some factions take it, to build a second army instantly. But the razing thing is something i don´t understand anyway. That´s not exclusive to the rogues factions, while other factions razed it - just to resettle it, and have half their army gone with it, to then get beaten easily by the army in movement range. Or sacking the same settlement 30 times in a row - for 3 gold each turn instead of just taking it for more money after first sacking it.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by Triple G:

Originally posted by Aliceskysareblue:

they were really infuriating in warhammer 2, when the AI tended to be hyper aggressive and go around razing all your settlements instead of sacking them.

Or in case of some factions take it, to build a second army instantly. But the razing thing is something i don´t understand anyway. That´s not exclusive to the rogues factions, while other factions razed it - just to resettle it, and have half their army gone with it, to then get beaten easily by the army in movement range. Or sacking the same settlement 30 times in a row - for 3 gold each turn instead of just taking it for more money after first sacking it.

yeah the ai in this game is just bad, granted simulated intellegiance is never going to be on par with an actual human player, but its just awful in this game.

CA really needs to work on a engine successor, we are dealing with a game engine that has been used since rome 2, it was bad then and it hasnt gotten better

[FracWiggles]

Just had that happen to me with the black orc/cygor rogue army.

Playing tyrion, defensive alliance with Eltharion. Decided to attack eltharion, didnt want to break treaty so it would take longer to confederate. Turns out all his armies are by the white tower area.

So he declared war on my ally without having a single army in a 3 turn striking distance.

Unfortunately for me, I am dealing with Morathi and Count Noctilus, so my main armies are at the south east of the donut.

So cool to have a rogue army just decide to attack for no other reason to ♥♥♥♥ with my diplomacy or tear through me with elite troops. Its turn 12 or 13.

Definitely need an option to remove them.