Tzeentch ambush attack: needs tuning?

[(Steelclaw)]

Tzeentch teleport-attacking has very little counterplay right now.

Ambush defense chance doesn't apply, they can reinforce into the teleport with multiple armies, and it doesn't even allow retreating like normal ambushes do these days.

It's just no fun to play against. I understand that teleport stance has a Winds cost to enter, but there's nothing you can do about it from the receiving end. It would be fine if ambush defense chance applied, or if they couldn't reinforce it either. But frankly I think it's just stupid that it works the way it does.

Compare Skaven/Beastment/Nagarythe stalk stance. It also allows a super-Lightning Strike where the attacker's allies can reinforce but the defender's can't (which is already a little silly), but it allows retreating consistent with normal ambushes, and you can go into encamp stance (or pick an ambush-resistant lord/hero) to greatly reduce the chance that they'll land the ambush.

I'm aware that you can still garrison in a settlement to avoid ambush attacks, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect to always face Tzeentch in range of owned settlements.

I will freely admit I am coming at this fresh from the tilt of trying to fight 5 stacks of Tzeentch trash with 2 elite armies and a garrison, and getting split up and picked off. But I don't think I'm entirely wrong just because I'm tilted. :P

[Garatgh Deloi]

You can also hide in ambush stance. They can't teleport ambush you if they can't see you. That said, being discovered is always a possibility.

But honestly, there is always a possibility to be ambushed in this game (ambush defense just reduces the risk), so my biggest advice would simply be building armies that can handle a ambush without being easily destroyed, or (refusing that) coming to term with armies sometimes being lost that way.

[Ashardalon]

the god of magic sacrificing half its supply of power to get an ambush
yes there isnt much counterplay
that doesnt matter
the cost is already there
the counterplay is making them regret coming to a battle as the god of magic without any magic
yes the god of fate isnt always counterable, nor should it be
those other factions, for the disadvantage that you can retreat, can do it for free

but can understand the salt
tzeentch isnt fun to fight

[(Steelclaw)]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

You can also hide in ambush stance. They can't teleport ambush you if they can't see you. That said, being discovered is always a possibility.

But honestly, there is always a possibility to be ambushed in this game (ambush defense just reduces the risk), so my biggest advice would simply be building armies that can handle a ambush without being easily destroyed, or (refusing that) coming to term with armies sometimes being lost that way.

I've tried, and I don't feel like it works often enough to be too valuable, but I do appreciate the advice! I don't mind the risk of being successfully ambushed, I just dislike the certainty of it, time after time (repeat attacks by the AI, not savescumming).

The army comp part is solid advice, but there's a limit to how much that can do versus three armies and with the melee debuff from ambushes. (Context is Something Rotten In Kislev - I've never run into Tzeentch in these kinds of ridiculous numbers in normal campaign, so it's the first time I've gotten to see how absurdly powerful it is.)

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

the god of magic sacrificing half its supply of power to get an ambush
yes there isnt much counterplay
that doesnt matter
the cost is already there
the counterplay is making them regret coming to a battle as the god of magic without any magic
yes the god of fate isnt always counterable, nor should it be
those other factions, for the disadvantage that you can retreat, can do it for free

but can understand the salt
tzeentch isnt fun to fight

Cost and counterplay aren't quite the same thing. I don't believe it meaningfully costs the AI to teleport-attack when it has trash wizards and doesn't know how to use its magic well, and I believe you can teleport even when you don't have enough Winds to lose any (though I could be wrong on that). I agree that it's not insanely strong to play as, because as a player, good mages are a bigger part of your strength as Tzeentch (rather than tons of crapstacks paid for with AI economy buffs).

My complaint isn't that it's unloreful (I agree that the lore pretty firmly states "sometimes people just get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by Tzeentch"), just that, as you said, it's no fun to play against. I don't find it particularly fun to play as, either. Bad game design from my perspective, not bad depiction of lore.

You could also argue failure chance from a lore perspective because Tzeentch is self-sabotaging and his minions do not always win.

(Plus it wouldn't be the only case where a lore mechanic gets ignored because it wouldn't make good gameplay.)

[(Steelclaw)]

Originally posted by Tunguska:

Originally posted by (Steelclaw):

I will freely admit I am coming at this fresh from the tilt of trying to fight 5 stacks of Tzeentch trash with 2 elite armies and a garrison, and getting split up and picked off. But I don't think I'm entirely wrong just because I'm tilted. :P

One elite army should be able to beat at least three trash stacks to death solo, right? Maybe not if ambushed, depends on what you think is elite, I suppose.

But yeah, they should at least make it so neither side gets reinforcements with teleport ambush.

Trashstacks doesn't quite accurately reflect the game I was having, I was saying that more for the sake of argument. I was facing army comps that didn't particularly make any sense, and weren't especially well designed to exploit ambush, but they did have expensive units.

Off the top of my head what I remember dealing with was a bunch of pinks, some forsaken, one or two chaos/doom knights, a soul grinder, ~3 flamers, and a burning chariot or lord of change per stack.

My tilt in my specific case is largely because I'm pretty sure I could've gone 1v3 against their armies in a non-ambush context, or definitely 1v1 in an ambush context (one of the armies on my team was mostly armored kossars/war bears, the other was tsar guard/ice guard, both were led by legendary lords and had good heroes/high unit veterancy). I wouldn't have that degree of confidence versus player, but AI is bad.

(And yeah, not allowing armies to reinforce on the attacker's side in teleport attack would be my preference.)

[Holden Bloodfeast]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

the god of magic sacrificing half its supply of power to get an ambush
yes there isnt much counterplay
that doesnt matter
the cost is already there
the counterplay is making them regret coming to a battle as the god of magic without any magic
yes the god of fate isnt always counterable, nor should it be
those other factions, for the disadvantage that you can retreat, can do it for free

but can understand the salt
tzeentch isnt fun to fight

You know that Kairos has a tech that gives all of his armies free teleport stance right?

[Ashardalon]

Originally posted by Gargle:

You know that Kairos has a tech that gives all of his armies free teleport stance right?

yes i know, tho its not a particularly early one

[IonizedMercury]

Offensive ambush needs to go altogether, there's simply no reason for it to exist at all and it makes the game worse by giving yet more avenues to avoid big battles. The one time I actually got a big battle in TWWH, two Skaven stacks vs three and a half Greenskin stacks, was when offensive ambush failed to land. It was one of the most memorable battles I had in the series and to think I could have been denied it by an "unlucky" roll makes me roll my eyes hard. Let's not forget that Skaven players cannot switch that nonsense off if they want to be the proactive party.

People say TWWH is for spectacle, but the game is actually hellbent on never letting you experience any. Why is CA so insistent on making the game smaller than it has to be?

[(Steelclaw)]

Originally posted by IonizedMercury:

Offensive ambush needs to go altogether, there's simply no reason for it to exist at all and it makes the game worse by giving yet more avenues to avoid big battles. The one time I actually got a big battle in TWWH, two Skaven stacks vs three and a half Greenskin, stacks was when offensive ambush failed to land. It was one of the most memorable battles I had in the series and to think I could have been denied it by an "unlucky" roll makes me roll my eyes hard. Let's not forget that Skaven players cannot switch that nonsense off if they want to be the proactive party.

People say TWWH is for spectacle, but the game is actually hellbent on never letting you experience any. Why is CA so insistent on making the game smaller than it has to be?

I'm not strongly against this as an option, but I do feel that the factions which can currently ambush-attack deserve some kind of replacement if it's taken away. Removing it entirely without giving the factions anything else would be pretty sad for the people who play those factions (of which I am admittedly one).

[IonizedMercury]

Originally posted by (Steelclaw):

Originally posted by IonizedMercury:

Offensive ambush needs to go altogether, there's simply no reason for it to exist at all and it makes the game worse by giving yet more avenues to avoid big battles. The one time I actually got a big battle in TWWH, two Skaven stacks vs three and a half Greenskin, stacks was when offensive ambush failed to land. It was one of the most memorable battles I had in the series and to think I could have been denied it by an "unlucky" roll makes me roll my eyes hard. Let's not forget that Skaven players cannot switch that nonsense off if they want to be the proactive party.

People say TWWH is for spectacle, but the game is actually hellbent on never letting you experience any. Why is CA so insistent on making the game smaller than it has to be?

I'm not strongly against this as an option, but I do feel that the factions which can currently ambush-attack deserve some kind of replacement if it's taken away. Removing it entirely without giving the factions anything else would be pretty sad for the people who play those factions (of which I am admittedly one).

The compensation is that big battles happen with greater frequency and cannot be avoided with cheap nonsense. That's all that's needed.

Also, why should Tzeentch, the "smart" one among the Chaos Gods, have a mechanic that can brute force lop-sided battles on another party with zero counterplay? You don't need any skill or brain to use it, so it feels completely off-

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by IonizedMercury:

Let's not forget that Skaven players cannot switch that nonsense off if they want to be the proactive party.

Considering that its stance specific you can easily avoid offensive ambushes as Skaven if you don't want to use them.

For example attack in the channeling stance (it will admittedly cost you 10% of your campaign movement) and you will never get a offensive ambush as Skaven.

[(Steelclaw)]

Originally posted by IonizedMercury:

The compensation is that big battles happen with greater frequency and cannot be avoided with cheap nonsense. That's all that's needed.

Also, why should Tzeentch, the "smart" one among the Chaos Gods, have a mechanic that can brute force lop-sided battles on another party with zero counterplay? You don't need any skill or brain to use it, so it feels completely off-

I don't believe bigger, more dramatic battles is inherently good compensation for factions which are weaker as a result of no longer having a tool which is annoying to play against. It's great for everyone else, but everyone else is not, actually, who's losing anything in this exchange.

I agree that teleport stance isn't a particularly cerebral mechanic, but I don't think "no mechanics at all, just be good at the base game" is really more lore-appropriate for Tzeentch (complexity is kinda his thing).

[Raider Deci]

I wouldnt mind if I had my actual camp up. A wooden-palisade or something, you know like in the old days. The army is not supposed to go anywhere and yet it does for reasons. The encampment mode is a hard-counter to the other offensive ambushes, but this teleport-thingy does apparently doesnt care about the camp-part of my stance. Offensive ambushes are really just cheese built into the game as a mechanic, teleport offensive ambushes are definetly deluxe cheese

The only way is to keep distance at all times

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Raider Deci:

The encampment mode is a hard-counter to the other offensive ambushes,

Its not, its a soft counter, it adds a bit of ambush defense (that is weighted against their ambush success) but you can still be ambushed by any of the offensive ambush options.

If you meant that it should be a hard counter then i'l just mention that sneak attacks on encamped troops happens quite often in history.

[IonizedMercury]

Originally posted by (Steelclaw):

Originally posted by IonizedMercury:

The compensation is that big battles happen with greater frequency and cannot be avoided with cheap nonsense. That's all that's needed.

Also, why should Tzeentch, the "smart" one among the Chaos Gods, have a mechanic that can brute force lop-sided battles on another party with zero counterplay? You don't need any skill or brain to use it, so it feels completely off-

I don't believe bigger, more dramatic battles is inherently good compensation for factions which are weaker as a result of no longer having a tool which is annoying to play against. It's great for everyone else, but everyone else is not, actually, who's losing anything in this exchange.

I agree that teleport stance isn't a particularly cerebral mechanic, but I don't think "no mechanics at all, just be good at the base game" is really more lore-appropriate for Tzeentch (complexity is kinda his thing).

Weaker?

Really?

Beastmen have been massively overtuned ever since their rework. They need to be taken down several pegs to be interesting to play again.

Skaven haven't been weak ever since their first DLC back in WH2.

Alith Anar has all the perks of HE, he doesn't need to get overpowered advantages piled on top of it.

Tzeentch can simply steal settlements and mess with other faction's diplomacy at a negligible expense of non-essential resources (you have infinite tomes by midgame, just like any other resource thanks to bad balancing).

They don't need any such mechanics to thrive. And as I said for Tzeentch, he shouldn't have such brainless nonsense in the first place. He should require players to approach his campaigns with MORE thought rather than less.

And yes, getting more big battles is its own reward because...that's the prime attraction of TW after all.

[Zefar]

I declared war against Tzeentch and for about 50 turns I never once saw him. He was still alive but he did nothing. This was me being dwarfs and actually had to save the empire.

Do I need to own the DLC in order for him to attack me?
I even tried to find him but no luck there.