Vampire Coast is just awful to play

[Strategist]

Ok this is kinda just a rant, but I have recently played as The Drowned and The Awakened. neither of these factions are fun. Maybe Noctilus is the only fun one? It seems that the overall economy, growth rate, construction costs, etc. are just not on par with other factions.

I've watched guides and I get that you are supposed to play as more of a "horde" style faction and sail the seas, establish pirate coves, and use the Legendary pirates + Fleet Command thing for the bonuses, but you can't just do that when every faction is assaulting your lands. And you need to capture 3 province capitals in order to build the Treasure Troves to gain access to the Rite, which is super counter-intuitive to a naval faction.

Establishing pirate coves is super costly, and doesn't really work if you do it via war because then you can't kill the faction. And if you reconquer the pirate cove goes away. Plus, you miss out on having ports if you do this.

On top of this, a lot of the VCoast roster feels very underwhelming as guns have line of sight issues and the zombies are so dang slow. Deck Droppers are super inefficient as well so there goes the mobility game. A lot of the buildings are super expensive and it seems like the upkeep reductions hardly do a thing. I could barely afford 2 armies by turn 50 (majority various gunnery mobs). AND it actually takes forever to unlock a lot of the units, especially since the buildings are almost pointless when you can just raise dead and sometimes get the higher tier units.

[dot]

I like them. They are that, pirates. The campaign victories in IE are just about attacking settlements and infamy, is not about building an empire, just plunder that booty and be off.

If you hold any settlements, those should be ports, because ports buildings are about all the economic building they have, and for that you need to make alliances with whoever inland factions there are.

For example with the awakened, you alliance with the skaven to kick the butts of the french and the frogs, give them the inland settlements to the rats and get and keep the coast. Then follow and do the same thing with your pharaonic bros, kicking more french butt and keeping the coast. Repeat.

[hottnova75]

The pirates are cool because you can raise the dead after the battles. If you constantly use them for looting and pillaging cities, it works out well. Making sure you have large graveyards at your defending cities is good for counter attacking.
Learn to save gold from hoarding, and build flash armies in a instant from the large graveyard pools to surprise and counter enemies.
Get the most gold from destroying the enemy cities. Most buildings do not transfer anyways, unless cultures are similar sometimes.

[BigRockWall]

No need to hold land. Ergo no need to kill factions to protect your land. The Coast doesn't even suffer attrition for being homeless if you just abandon your capital and roam the seas exclusively as a horde.

Alternatively, you can use the fact that you don't care about holding land to play empire builder by trading away all the non coastal cities (which you should have put coves in), the new inhabitants can be directed to take out those cove cities which will eliminate the faction as you desired in your OP, while leaving the cove in place for your allies to pay you from.

Try starting as Noctilus. Abandon the capital on turn 1, and take Caledor immediately followed by Tiranoc. Trade both provinces to Tyrion to make him love you for the rest of the game (and fund your horde buildings), then pop over to Lustria and start building coves.

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Of Iron and Gold:

I think they're awful to play and not fun but not because they're weak. I think they're quite strong with their hordes of guns and raise dead mechanic.

I mostly hate their characters and aesthetic. I've almost never liked playing as the undead horde or the criminals and they're both which is silly to me.

Cylostra makes me wish I was deaf, Noctilus is milquetoast, Luthor is lmao so randum 🤪 and Aranessa is just some cripple who isn't even undead or a necromancer or a vampire.

Because vampire coast barley had lore. Cylostra didn't exist until warhammer 2 and Aranessa is Norscan I believe. Why she's controlling undead as a chaos mutant who hates chaos to my knowledge I don't know. So I have to agree their faction is meh in that aspect.

Someone feel free to add on since I am by no means extremely knowledgeable about the lore.

[Cyiel]

I like them the concept is silly as ♥♥♥♥ but they are pretty funny to play. Sure i would rework the "Fleet Office" system but other than that the faction works pretty well.

[Slyspy]

Originally posted by Strategist:

I've watched guides and I get that you are supposed to play as more of a "horde" style faction and sail the seas, establish pirate coves, and use the Legendary pirates + Fleet Command thing for the bonuses, but you can't just do that when every faction is assaulting your lands. And you need to capture 3 province capitals in order to build the Treasure Troves to gain access to the Rite, which is super counter-intuitive to a naval faction.

You have watched the guides and then still tried to play them like a normal faction. You don't need settlements, except as assets to trade if playing WH3 or just to enable you to hire more heroes. You also don't need Treasure Troves. Just because the rite exists doesn't mean you need it.

Agreed the faction is slow on the battlefield but they are essentially a gun line. Use lots of guns, artillery, some blocking units if you want, a bunch of heroes and some scurvy dogs for pursuit.

If you must have a settlement, make sure it is Galleon's Graveyard. Noti starts with it, the others will have to take it. Or maybe Sartosa will do, I've never tried. Either way, the other pirates are your competitors, not your friends.

[Basarab Laiota]

they're fun but they're not a world-conquering faction unfortunately

[Who trains thy hands for war?]

I’ve only ever played Aranessa and she was fine. Others have complained about the pirate land infrastructure though

I teched up her ship while unfortunately, or fortunately, remaining a marauder on the high seas

An army of Promethean Gunnery Mobs, Depth Guard, and Cannons is amazing. Can alpha strike Legendary Lords at the start of battle with Gunnery Wight buffing Cannons, and Depth Guard berserkers beat Khorne infantry

[Fishing4Trains]

I enjoy anything Vampire, though they are totally different to their landlocked cousins. They are almost like a game on their own and that's how I play them. You have to treat them as a pirate game in a fantasy world and forget about everything you have learnt about warhammer gaming, virtual or desktop. The thing I enjoy most about playing them is their mobility, being able to move around the map at will, and having that fleet to fall back on when you run into problems or are outnumbered. They can be a lot of fun imo.

[Shellbie]

Hopefully, we can have Captain Vangheist in the future.

[Isaac]

Agreed. They are probably the weirdest faction in the game, where none of the mechanics work as they should.
Normal settlements are garbage for them, so you should try to inly get ports, right? But then you have wars all over the place because literaly everyone hates you and will refuse any diplomacy. And if you want to move inlands to kill your enemies new ones will just appear and then you are forced to mainly fight inland as the pirates......
And if you don't take ports? Then you'll have little to no money and everyone still hates you and wants you dead. And coves will not offset this, they are expensive, take alot of time to make a new one and don't give that much money in the first place. it is allways just better to take the City yourself.
Treachure chests are terrible, loyalty on commanders makes it so that you never use regular ones and only the tech tree ones and the chantee you get for infamy is very weak.
Also doesn't help that the LL all are very close to each other, and so will allways fight the same enemies as the other. It gets repetetive really fast.

[SomeGuy1]

Coves being the only way to up your Gunnery Wight hero cap (you want them embedded for their army buffs) is my complaint with them. You make them by attacking ports... except then that puts you at war with their owners and you can't actually take or the port or it destroys the cove. So you can't wipe out the faction to end the war, and it's awful to end them otherwise, so you just have a bunch of enemies all over the place that hate you. And since ports are the settlements you actually want to take for yourself anyway...

It's just a whole bunch of things working at cross purposes. I'd love to be able to build coves in my own cities, even if it meant tanking my income (from stealing from myself). Or let you get Gunnery Wights and Mournghoul Haunters from major ports you own, even if much later than heroes from other factions. That way the Coves are still better ways to get the hero cap, just not the only way.

I guess the solution is to send an early Captain hero to the other side of the map through a sea lane and have it make Coves somewhere you aren't going to go, that is the other way to make them but it's once every, what, fifteen turns? I guess I don't need THAT many of them, since the shipbuilding lords can get enough cap for themselves... by the time I have enough income to need more than two or three generic lords, I'll have effectively won the game.

[Oderisson]

Ever heard "You dont sh*t where You eat"?

Just travel with Your horde to the other side of the world and let it wreck havoc there. It costs next to nothing to send one horde army trough sea lane and wreck havoc on other side of the world. And you get 5 for every faction.

Furthermore, you dont need to conquer anybody, because usually faction that you are pommeling will die to neighbours. neighbours that willl ally with You.

VCoast is super fun. It is just different.

[SpeaksTooFast]

I think they were fun in the last game. Have not been able to get into one of their campaigns in this entry so all I can really contribute is their early game did not hold my attention.

[Cyiel]

Originally posted by Basarab Laiota:

they're fun but they're not a world-conquering faction unfortunately

Who would you plunder if you conquered the whole world ?