Is WH3 Worth It NOW?

[Lord von Games]

Greeting fans of WH and TW. As someone who owns quite a few WH games, ALL the TW games, incl WH1, and WH2... I posed this question about a year after WH3 came out, "Is WH3 worth the extra investment" for someone who already bought the previous 2 WH TW's, and the consensus seemed to be... "not yet".

Similar to whether is it worth getting the newer Car Mechanic game, or the one that came out before it - the idea, was the newer version doesn't offer any real improvements over the old version, other than a new price and some trivial QoL that you never asked for... .

Some of the feedback I got on WH3, when I last asked the question referred to a general dissatisfaction with the adjustments to certain races. I for one, tend to lean towards the Tomb Kings, Bretonian (for the Arthurian feel), and the Vampires for their blend of undead and Baronial / or naval roles.

So, here we are mid(ish) 2024, and I wonder, is in the opinion of the WH3 community... is it time to make the transition to WH3 or will I be just as happy staying with WH2.

Since I can't mark my own post as the answer to this question I am "edit updating" below.

My Verdict follows.

Since I posed the question, a non-to-rare question that pops up all the time, I thought I might as well, give answer to the OP - as I did buy the game (WH3). Before I delve into the detail, I want to thank everyone for their detailed, and honest (from your perspective) answers and feedback. Steam can get rather trolly, but it also has some genuinely involved-for-the-good "fellow-gamers". First, please keep in mind, this IMHO. It's an opinion, which I don't expect everyone to agree with (after all the consensus on the feedback from the community on this post has been rather divided).

OP Question: Is WH3 Worth It NOW, for somneone who has already invested in WH1 & 2?
Verdict: NOPE.

Extended answer: I enjoyed WH1. I enjoyed WH2, and I thought the vortex campaign was a nice, more narrative-driven experience. I like games I can play my way, in my direction, but as a long-time gamer who has bought nearly every major sandbox game... sometimes I want something more than just game-mechanics. I want a story, a story that I'm a part of, that moves with me, dynamic, and changing as I make up my own mind. Again, I enjoyed the Vortex (even if I spent a lot of time in mortal realms of the game). IF there was one thing I had to complain about the Vortex, it was the limitation of faction choices. Fortunately, it was diverse, and expanded. Even if my faction wasn't plugged INTO the story, I enjoyed the fact that I could still play IN THAT WORLD.

You probably can guess where I am going with this by now. I found the new campaign extremely irritating in the faction selection. I literally have NONE of my favorite factions available to me. NONE. Even the factions that are on the fringe of choices I would like to make, I found the character selection extremely limited and further polarizing my opinion. IE: I can play the Empire... but only as a girl... really? ONLY as a girl? Gamers in RP-games tend to have two types of players, #1 Story-driven (slightly more passive engagement) and #2 Immersive roleplayers (where we find a character we identify in the fantasy realm and escape and become the main character). Guess I'll let my wife borrow the game.

Right now, my answer is a firm, NO. I feel like the devs took major shortcuts on the campaign, compared to the Vortex. The faction and character choice will appeal to some, as will completely exclude from others. Since I bought it from another site, I won't be refunding it, and so I will be looking for playtime to get my money's worth - while much of me is tempted to just uninstall it, reinstall WH2 and play some Vortex. Hopefully this answer will help other players with the same OP question to be better informed as to if they indeed will (and you may) or indeed will not enjoy this game. In the meantime, I hope they spend more time putting out more faction choices, one's I'm interested in, and don't gut my wallet too badly in the process.

[Eldi]

Yea.
No.
Maybe.
Probably.

Yes.


Try it and use the refund policy, you know the game, 2 hours will be plenty.

[Tr4cker0]

It depends if you already like the wh2 formula then wh3 should not be worse and will give you more contents and some QOL. But if you don't like wh2 formula, wh3 changes may not be enough to make you love thise game.
Also i can sum the main difference from the 2 games as you can decide if you find it worth it:
-Realm of chaos campaign map replace the vortex some like it some hate it (I do like it but it bored me faster than vortex since survival battles are the same at each playthrough)
-Survival battles are a new special battle mod that you can do in custom or in some quest battles or through the realm of chaos campaign in order to claim Daemon souls it involve using tickets to improve your units, replenish their life, amo wind of magic, building wall towers and call reinforcement
-Siege battles now use supply tickets that allow the defender to build wall and towers during the battle, attackers can capture some area to reduce the ticket output. Some like it some hate it(i find it better than game 2 but still need big improvement in siege battles imo like remove pocket ladders and polish units pathing, also they should make wall more wide)
-Mp battles have a new mod call domination where you can win by holding control area and where you call reinforcement from your reinforcement pull(chosen before the match) in exchange of tickets that you earn passively. Some love it some hate it(I love it it's less blind counter than standard battles and more manageable since you don't start with a too big army)
-Authority now give some buff/debuff depending of how much you are high on/low of and somewhat stay stable by itself by nerfing the gain of autho when too high and buffing when too low. (Most people hate it and i find it meh like progressive buff/debuff is cool but autoregulation make stabilize his empire trivial so too ez to snowball)
-Corruption is now trivial to clean or spread so it's not rly a mechanic anymore except for the attrition stuff when fighting in foreign realms
-Wind of magic gain has been revamp in a good way even if few people still don't like it
-Auxilaries and items can now be fused to improve their tiers and you earn plenty of them(it's a little too much imo since it's time consuming to manage them every turn)
-Character level cap is increased from 35 to 50 but some char don't have enough skill node to have any effect above a certain level... (It's bad for me as it means you have all skills anyway so not rly choice and it makes char even more op)
-Older faction such as DE, Empire, Dwarves and Chaos warriors have been reworked and it's mostly better than before esp for CW even if imo they became too op and rely too much on vassal which is a bugged feature in all TTW except if you use mods to fix it.
-The game has now a ton of mods both new and imported from previous game, some of them have a rly high quality
-9 New races playable with mostly funnier campaign mechanics than older races even if not balanced enough so every faction are op except kislev, tzentch and ogres :p
-2 new mini campaign game mod available on mp only one pve coop oriented (2 players kislev vs nurrgle and one pvp FFA oriented game with a score based map where after the turn 50 the player with the most points win the game)
-In game prologue is cool and the most narrative thing we have in total war xD even if it doesn't rly teach you enough how the true campaign work imo

Bonus: if you want example of selfrules i give to me to keep being challenged and entertained whithout having to limit me to only X units like Legend do and which i don't find fun at all:
-Don't corner camp
-Don't amo waste
-Don't blob on the gate pass
-Don't ambush
-Don't use lightning strike
-Use a mod that unallow you ambush attack and teleportation attack
-Use a mod that unallow red skill lines for both Ai and players as AI will randomly invest in whithout optimizsng it while player will over optimise it
-Don't use an army of one unit to siege a settlement in order to isoldate surrounding armies of garnison reinforcement
-Don't swap items before fighting and each item can be swaped only 1 time each 5 turns(can't be swaped the turn you use them)
-Don't attack caravan as they give too much reward for the risk you take esp when you are far from the sender
-Don't bait half of the opponent army with one cheap light cav before engaging
-Don't doom stack=>use unit cap mods or self customised cap
-Don't use more than X heroes(often i limit myself to 3-5 heroes unattached to an army) on the campaign map in order to limit the assassination spam that allow you to kill an army whithout fighting it
-Don't trade joining war against gold or opinion since Ai don't use the option at all and that you can join war on a far ruler taking gold and never fighting him it's op and not fun
-Don't use Mp banned units until they are not nerf lile thunderbarge(it can literraly pay for 15X it's cost even in mp battles so XD)
-Don't declare war on a ruler the turn you've broken a treaty(you should at least w8 one turn like Ai do)
-Don't trespass whithout having passage right in order to attack a foe by surprise, you can still trespass to attack someone else
And so on and so on and so on....
The process here is just to unallow/limit you when you discover that something is unfair, op, unfun, unimmersive, uninted game breaking etc...

[Enelith]

Try it yourself, or stick to TWWH2.
You won't have a better opinion than your own....

[Lord von Games]

Thanks for the break down. Any opinions on how the Tomb Kings are in this rendition? Last discussion was bleak for them... but that was when the game was VERY new in the 3rd iteration. Also Bretagne? Vampires?

[Reaver79]

Kinda depends on one thing.. You..

[CrUsHeR]

Was it ever... not worth it?


Well, i do remember the game performing real bad after release. And it didn't have the Immortal Empires campaign yet. So i actually shelved it and went back to play WH2.

Then it also had some really bad updates. Like last year i started playing again, and the game would randomly CTD after battles, on the campaign map, everywhere. Worst thing was the CTD when an undead army would disintegrate.

But the game has massively improved. Can't remember the last crash. They even fixed that annoying, ancient CTD when searching those treasure island markers.

Performance-wise, it actually runs perfect in 1080p on my old PC from 2015 (on which i originally bought WH3).

[DoctorOjama]

yea its worth it very fun

[Good Night Owl]

I didn't touch the total war series for about 10 years. When I did, I played WH2 because people said it's 'better'. after playing that game, then this one. I completely disagree. IDK where that consensus even came from probably because I wasn't around for launch.

[Zeek]

The game has been subjectively worth it since Immortal Empires came out. It is a great game.

[MajinSoul]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Was it ever... not worth it?

This. Game was worth it at release and is definitely worth it now.

[Darklight]

The game isn't the same as it was when it came out. The current state of the game is very much worth it, especially if you play IE.

[Good Night Owl]

I thought even Realms of Chaos is better than what the second game offered. Although, I didn't play that second campaign map for the second game.

[Lord von Games]

Thanks for the feedback! Any feedback on the Tomb Kings changes? I heard it was changed, noticeably.

[Lotor13]

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

I thought even Realms of Chaos is better than what the second game offered.

+1

I like Realm of Chaos more than Vortex

[Good Night Owl]

Originally posted by Lord von Games:

Thanks for the feedback! Any feedback on the Tomb Kings changes? I heard it was changed, noticeably.

Maybe someone who has played them can respond. All I know is they have new units, and some of the tech tree stuff got some additions to make them stronger.