Faction Difficulty Ranking: (RoC)

[Zarkkill]

Over the last few weeks I have been on and off forums posting about the pros and cons of various factions in TWW3. I have finally managed to play enough of all the factions currently available in RoC to give each of them a ranking based on how difficult the initial early game is (first 50 turns) and how difficult it is to win as the faction overall. The difficulty rankings go from Very Easy to Nightmare. Very Easy signifies that there would have to be a conscious effort made by the player to somehow lose, and Nightmare signifies that it's highly unlikely anyone but the most veteran TW players can prosper.

I hope this ranking may help newer players decide what factions are feasible to play as and also to hear what people think of my rankings.



Kislev (Ice Court) - Initial (Hard) / Overall (Easy)

Nurgle - Initial (Very Hard) / Overall (Very Hard)

Khorne - Initial (Nightmare) / Overall (Hard)

Slaneesh - Initial (Easy) / Overall (Very Easy)

Tzeench - Initial (Hard) / Overall (Very Hard)

Puppets of Misrule - Initial (Very Easy) / Overall (Very Easy)

Legion of Chaos - Initial (Nightmare) / Overall (Nightmare)

The Maw - Initial (Hard) / Overall (Hard)

Goldtooth - Initial (Easy) / Overall (Hard)

Northern Provinces - Initial (Easy) / Overall (Easy)

Western Provinces - Initial (Easy) / Overall (Easy)

The Fecundites - Initial (Very Easy) / Overall (Very Easy)

Legion of the Gorequeen - Initial (Very Easy) / Overall (Very Easy)

The Ecstatic Legions - Initial (Medium) / Overall (Hard)

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от id:

You're just gonna get a lot of arguments in this thread, OP. Everyone thinks they know better.

I love a good debate ;P but thank you for the warning regardless

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от RamboRusina:

I've yet to see single campaign that I would consider even mediocre challenge after 50 turns on hardest difficulties when talking about single player. If you understand mechanics and how the AI works by turn 50 you're generally at spot where it's smooth sailing. For RoC specifically you can just turtle to victory on most races for easiest WH win of your life since there is nothing to encourage expanding.

The ranking is based on the average player experience, or someone not a veteran of the TW series. For you or I all of these are pretty easy because we already know exactly how to win. You can't say Dark Souls isn't hard just because you already know how to beat all the bosses. Likewise, without advanced knowledge or a guide, these are the difficulty you can expect for a given faction.

Ofc any faction can be piss easy if you master it, that's not the point.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Rotor:

Vilitch doesn't have an easy start, I just played it today and got attacked by Kostaltyn around turn 15 that wiped out my vassal, and Festus two turns later and some norsca tribes decided to join the plunder !
The territory is hard to defend as it is quite vast and I have to run around many moutains to reach my cities and I don't have the money for a second army. So I'm running around winning a fight but losing a city elsewhere and not progressing at all. That's not an easy start !

Obviously there will be RNG involved in this and every playthrough will be a bit different, but overall the puppets of misrule are extremely easy to play as, barring some weird rng like a major faction declaring war on you immediately and booking it for your territory. I've had that happen as other factions, but that doesn't make those factions harder necessarily. With the tools available to your faction it is very easy to get started and steamroll the enemies around you. The same is pretty much true for Gorequeen and Fecundites since they all start near each other and have very similar mechanics and rosters. I was able to play all 3 of them on Hard with barely any resistance. That being said, the ranking is meant to convey what you will most likely experience given the faction's start, not what you WILL experience, since the game can change a bit each time.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Garatgh Deloi:

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

...

In my opinion:

1. Khorne is easy (start and overall) in the Realms of Chaos campaign, he is harder in the Immortal Empires campaign because he is surrounded and its further between settlements.

2. All of the WoC Legendary Lords are a easy start and very easy overall.

3. Daniel has a hard start but once you get past his start he isn't anywhere near a nightmare (you can quite easily get a free god specific army for him rather early on)

1. he is surrounded in RoC too so I don't understand what your point was there.

2. I disagree and am willing to hear your arguments as to why. After playing every faction in RoC all of the order factions were pretty easy compared to the chaos factions, and you could blame it on my playstyle like so many people do but I don't play every faction the same so that is irrelevant. Order factions can field way more armies that Chaos, start near way more friendly factions, and overall have much better garrisons making territory easy to defend. Chaos are pretty much the polar opposite of this. While some Chaos factions, like pretty much any WoC except Azazel are stupid easy, the base game chaos factions vary greatly in difficulty. However, withe the exception of slaneesh, all of them share a hard start.

3. LoC is stupid hard to play. Even as a TWW vet, and even after winning as every other faction (Except Nurgle because he's trash) The only faction I consistenly struggled with for the entirety of my playthrough regardless of strategy was LoC. You start off getting mauled by Fecundites and Vanaheimlings which can send anywhere from 2-4 armies at you while you still have only 3 settlements. If you expand north instead you get blocked by Puppets of Misrule vassalizing everything near you and unless you go to war with them which is already a bad idea, you can only expand East which runs you right into Kislev which will absolutely steamroll you. While it is possible to beat the Fecundites and their vassal, it involves a ton of cat and mouse, a lot of your settlements being raised, and much careful play. By the time you are even able to secure and stabilize a decent chunk of land, every other major faction has a huge headstart on you since you had to deal with so many setbacks. These reasons make LoC a Nightmare difficulty faction. That said, I think LoC is sick as hell and really wanted it to be strong but it just was not strong at all.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от La Hire:

Total war difficulty is only based on the player knowledge and the way he decides to play.

My campaigns always turn out to be much harder than expected, because I won't let anyone or anything dictate how I should be playing.

-As Nurgle, if you keep Tzeentch and whoever wins between Khorne or Slaanesh, on your side, it becomes a real piece of cake.
-Goldtooth has some of the most broken Auto-resolve, I won battles I couldn't win manually. The whole point of ogres is to "charge, back up, then charge again" !
-Khorne is just a blessing, you just headbutt anything, and use Blood hosts armies when you feel the need. $$$ is tight early game, that is all.
-As tzeentch, try to keep nurgle on your side, and defeat Cathay by any means possible, and it becomes a breeze...

I've just had my best and easiest campaign as Legion of chaos(2nd one), by migrating north(turn 1) and occupying Slaanesh territory.

The only race I would generally disagree with is Slaanesh, I expanded south and even with top tier units defeating Kislev was a real pain ! Once RoC was over, I never wanted to play that race again.

Nurgle is definitely viable to win as, but since your units will get slaughtered in a straight up fight against Cathay it makes it nearly impossible to expand East. Similarly if you try south you are met with similar challenge from Kislev. The fact that both factions almost always reach top 3 strength by mid-late game and have very strong ranged units and you have none, makes it much more challenging. Certainly doable of course, but it's way harder than a faction like Slaneesh where you just sit with your thumb up your ass until every enemy you have is your slave.

I have had quite literally the exact opposite experience as ogres. almost every single auto resolve shows me a decisive defeat, so I have to manual battle almost every dame battle and then when I do I lose like 11 people and only 4 of my units even take damage meanwhile I absolutely slaughter my enemies. It got to the point where I got so sick of having to manual every single fight that I just stopped playing that faction out of pure annoyance, even though I was very clearly winning.

Everyone I talk to WAYYY overvalues bloodhosts. They are good for 1-3 battles tops all the way from early to late game. They can't replenish so they already diminish greatly in value after a single fight and take attrition very fast after summoning them. They'll never be able to take on any competent enemy army so long as it is a full stack, so they are really only good for whittliong down the enemy, assuming you don't give them time to heal or they'll just go right back to full health next turn. That said, they ARE very useful, especially when you snowball, but they aren't as god tier as everyone says. Additionally, Khorne's overall difficulty is only Hard because of the Nightmare start, otherwise it's closer to medium.

I have always expanded south as Tzeench so maybe that is just user error.

I feel like abandoning Doomkeep is cheating though but that's my personal opinion. I did the exact same thing as Khorne and that was the only way I didn't wipe playing that faction because it's nigh impossible to hold Infernius.

I think that's where you are running into trouble. You don't "fight" your enemies as slanesh. You build cults, chill in your own territory, and then dominate them when the bar is full. In my Slaneesh playthrough I had dominated all of Cathay and Kislev by late game so pretty much no one could even hope to stand against me.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Rotor:

I still do play Roc, because I haven't finished the campaign. And like any other tryharder as Henry Cavill, I still miss my achievments.
But not with Vilitch the god of no money with multiple ennemies. Next game I'll play Festus the overlord of Covid ! Such an easy game is WW3 !!!!

I've just beaten my first campaign with Aranessa ! But she's supposed do be weak, don't know why. She's fine to me.

If you colonize and upgrade enough palaces you can easily field like 5 full stack armies and still make 20k/turn as Puppets of Misrule. Every WoC faction save for Azazel can make bank very easy but it takes time to get there.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Hex:

Първоначално публикувано от Rotor:

I still do play Roc, because I haven't finished the campaign. And like any other tryharder as Henry Cavill, I still miss my achievments.
But not with Vilitch the god of no money with multiple ennemies. Next game I'll play Festus the overlord of Covid ! Such an easy game is WW3 !!!!

I've just beaten my first campaign with Aranessa ! But she's supposed do be weak, don't know why. She's fine to me.

There are no really weak factions. Some just have easier time early on and certain units that make for an easy doomstack but you can absolutely paint the map with every faction rather easily.

I never meant to indicate otherwise. The ranking only predicts the challenge for the average player on their first playthrough.

[Basarab Laiota]

khorne hard? lawl

[Garatgh Deloi]

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Khorne reply

On one side you only have Slaanesh, If you take him out (something you can do very early) you have the easily defensible corner of the map.

Also since the settlements are close to each other you can often take more then one settlement in a single turn with Skarbrand/Khornes special mechanics (something that, in my admittedly limited experience of that campaign, is much harder to get rolling in his immortal empires spot since the settlements are further apart and there is a lot of terrain that hinders movement).

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Chaos & WoC reply

Note that i only said WoC, not chaos in general. I'm not sure why you find WoC in anyway difficult even at the start. The only settlements you need as WoC are dark fortresses. Those settlements have good garrisons, you tend to surround them with vassals and they are thus generally easily defended. In my experience you can also easily afford multiple armies unless you do full chosen armies or something like that (hardly needed), that said i do generally play on very hard for the campaign difficulty, if you typically play on legendary it would off course be harder to afford stuff.

You can also vassal any faction (even the Empire or Kislev for example) by just taking them down to one settlement and choosing that option on the last one (each of your vassal can have several armies thanks to background income and AI buffs). Those vassals screens yours own settlements. If one of your vassals have 2 armies (one not lead by their faction leader) you can borrow the second army from them for 10 turns (people make way to little use of this, its ideal for WoC).

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

LoC reply

After reading your reply i realized that i mostly played Daniel (in the realms of chaos campaign) before the Champions of Chaos DLC, so i admit that my take might be outdated. I'l have to retry him again.

But if you rush a god dedication you can get a army for free (filling it with more powerful units), the game tends to become rather manageable when you have a completely free elite army.

[Hex]

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Първоначално публикувано от Hex:

There are no really weak factions. Some just have easier time early on and certain units that make for an easy doomstack but you can absolutely paint the map with every faction rather easily.

I never meant to indicate otherwise. The ranking only predicts the challenge for the average player on their first playthrough.

On your first campaign every faction is extremely hard because you don't know how the game works. There are so many things that are utterly counter-intuitive that you just have to know from experience.

Pointless list.

[Eclipse]

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Tzeench - Initial (Hard) / Overall (Very Hard)
Legion of Chaos - Initial (Nightmare) / Overall (Nightmare)

Is it really harder than Tzeench campaing?I have not finished it,but first 20-30 turns of LoC campaing look much easier on legendary.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Hex:

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

I never meant to indicate otherwise. The ranking only predicts the challenge for the average player on their first playthrough.

On your first campaign every faction is extremely hard because you don't know how the game works. There are so many things that are utterly counter-intuitive that you just have to know from experience.

Pointless list.

On my first playthrough of Cathay and most of the WoC factions it was super easy, even though I was new to the mechanics of the factions, so your point doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Anyone with experience in the TW series would be able to play as Cathay and get the hang of it easily because it plays similarly to most factions in other historical TW games and it's a really easy faction to play and master.

[Zarkkill]

Първоначално публикувано от Eclipse:

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Tzeench - Initial (Hard) / Overall (Very Hard)
Legion of Chaos - Initial (Nightmare) / Overall (Nightmare)

Is it really harder than Tzeench campaing?I have not finished it,but first 20-30 turns of LoC campaing look much easier on legendary.

I will admit that the Tzeench faction could be easier than my initial appraisal, there could be user error on my part, it is possible it is closer to medium. As for LoC, I have tried several times and even in my latest attempt, although I am doing fine, I am barely able to hold my own, so unless you implement a specific strategy, I would say it is extremely difficult regardless and most people I talk to tend to agree.

[Hex]

Първоначално публикувано от Zarkkill:

Първоначално публикувано от Hex:

On your first campaign every faction is extremely hard because you don't know how the game works. There are so many things that are utterly counter-intuitive that you just have to know from experience.

Pointless list.

On my first playthrough of Cathay and most of the WoC factions it was super easy, even though I was new to the mechanics of the factions, so your point doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Anyone with experience in the TW series would be able to play as Cathay and get the hang of it easily because it plays similarly to most factions in other historical TW games and it's a really easy faction to play and master.

If you're played previous games then you obviously know how the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game works. My god... does everything have to spelled out for you people?

[(Steelclaw)]

I agree with people who say Khorne isn't that hard. Not primarily for the Blood Hosts, but more because Skarbrand is such a menace that he can personally carry most fights, regardless of the rest of your army composition (at least once you get him any source of regen while in melee). Combined with his additional movement from winning fights, you can pretty much hold the western Chaos Wastes with him alone.

The quality of Khornate armies also improves immensely with the addition of the Champions of Chaos DLC. I don't know whether you had it when you played Khorne, but having access to Chosen is a huge upgrade to the anvil of your frontlines.

I'd question your claim that Slaanesh gets easier to play in the lategame. While its economy and diplomacy are very formidable, high-tier Slaanesh armies just don't seem that powerful (granted, I wasn't playing with CoC DLC, so I may have been missing out), and their lack of staying power makes every lategame battle feel like a slog to me.

I'd probably also bump Cathay factions down to Very Easy - the strong roster combined with the natural barrier of Cathay's mountains just makes them trivial to play.

Regarding other Kislev subfactions: Boris is around the same difficulty as Katarin IMO (take that with a grain of salt, I haven't played much of him). Kostaltyn's campaign is painful to play, on par with Daniel's.

I mostly play on VH/VH, in case that affects your opinion of my experiences.