My campaigns are too hard and i play on normal

[76561199091085798]

Played Malaki and had to quit at turn 80 because everyone declared war on me. Despite being strength rank 1 i simply couldn't handle size of my front and ammount of enemies i had, i couldnt get enough armies, and even if i did it takes several turns to make army that isnt bad.

I then played Kislev, again i have best armies, most armies, best economy but front is also too large and i cant afford armies that i need.

Now i played nuln and i really enjoyed effectiveness of my doom stacks, it was really fun to play, but again same problem, all dwarf factions got wiped out by green skins who all decalred war on me (3 different factions +10 settlements, and i destroyed multiple of their armies with wagh but there are just too many of them, then i have vampire trees in middle of my land that i am trying my best to keep peace with, and in the north bel`a`kor and two main norsca factions (trol and the guy) are also attacking me. And none of this factions want peace.

I really dont like this, i am not even able to fight (because they just spawn out of nowhere and raze random settlement), 80% of my settlements are underdeveloped because i just spend all my money to military. I am never able to do what i want because i have to deal with ai being annoying. Issue never stops, i always quit at some point, it only gets worse and worse as more factions declare war.

[Kel'Thuzad]

Have you tried diplomacy?
Have you tried developing/consolidating your conquered lands before expanding further? (i.e. building walls/garrissons)

Strength rank and strategic threat both play a role in how much other factions fear/despise you. If you are both very strong and very aggressive, factions will eventually decide that war with you is inevitable and preemptively declare war on you.

Also, there's a mod called 'No anti-player bias' that, as the name suggests, can help reduce how much other factions focus on you simply for being the player.

[MadArtillery]

Where are your allies in all this acting as buffers?

[76561199091085798]

Originally posted by Kel'Thuzad:

Have you tried diplomacy?
Have you tried developing/consolidating your conquered lands before expanding further? (i.e. building walls/garrissons)

Strength rank and strategic threat both play a role in how much other factions fear/despise you. If you are both very strong and very aggressive, factions will eventually decide that war with you is inevitable and preemptively declare war on you.

Also, there's a mod called 'No anti-player bias' that, as the name suggests, can help reduce how much other factions focus on you simply for being the player.

I use diplomacy, but there is no diplomacy with orcs, chaos and skaven, they just hate you and it's matter of time when they will declare war.

I tend to focus on capital settlement to gain strongest units, but i also expand as much as possible as fast as possible. Idk its turn based strategy game and I fell like i wasted turn if i didn't destroy an army or took a settlement.

I figured out that issue is with my expansion as this happens when i am considered major threat and a "super power" (which is funny tittle for medieval state). But i have my own pace, i want action and good battles, I don't want to constantly scramble armies to defend random settlements from 20 different factions.

[76561199091085798]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Where are your allies in all this acting as buffers?

For every ally i have 3.5 enemies

[dulany67]

Try easy and work your way up.

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Ni🅶⁹atᖇon BlackTrans/Ni91:

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Where are your allies in all this acting as buffers?

For every ally i have 3.5 enemies

Make sure you aggressively cull hostile factions so you don't get swarmed and working to help keep your allies alive does a lot. The game very much rewards high activity rather then sitting back building up..

[Mad77oi "BiHo"]

Originally posted by Ni🅶⁹atᖇon BlackTrans/Ni91:

... Idk its turn based strategy game and I fell like i wasted turn if i didn't destroy an army or took a settlement.
...

this is the problem. ;)

[Sigvuld]

Originally posted by dulany67:

Try easy and work your way up.

To make sure this is clear for OP, DO NOT USE EASY BATTLE DIFFICULTY. IT IS A TRAP. Only use CAMPAIGN on easy if you want an easier time.

I don't say that as in "oh it'll build bad habits" or "it's not challenging enough blah blah", it's because when the game calculates autoresolve results, Easy Battle difficulty will triple the power of your units for the purpose of the autoresolve's results. This leads to a trap that many people have been sucked into, where they see the autoresolve says "decisive victory" against what would be overwhelming odds, then try to do the battle themselves and almost always get something worse, or they take WAY more casualties than the autoresolve does.

This leads to them starting to autoresolve battles more and more and more often because the results are always better, and it starts giving them feedback that they're playing horribly when they're really, really not, the game just doesn't communicate WHY autoresolve's results always blow their manual battle results out of the water, and thus the player feels obligated to autoresolve so they don't lose too many units.

Make sure your battle difficulty is always at Normal AT THE ABSOLUTE LOWEST. Campaign difficulty will be what you'd wanna tweak, here, changing the AI's ability to bring together really strong armies and how fast they can do it.

This almost killed playing Total Warhammer for me, as I burnt out on campaigns REALLY FAST because of my feeling like I was an idiot for not being able to get the results autoresolve would. Merely changing to Normal has made a world of difference - I'm not, never have been, and never will be the type to insist on playing higher difficulties to prove myself, and this still blew my experience on Easy Battle out of the water. NEVER going back.

- - - -

Also, yes, expanding too fast is absolutely your problem, here. You're not really wasting turns not constantly killing an army or taking a settlement - give your defenses time to grow and settle in. Build walls at your borders,don't expand needlessly unless you outright WANT to try and paint the entire, gigantic map.

[Moist Butt]

Originally posted by Ni🅶⁹atᖇon BlackTrans/Ni91:

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Where are your allies in all this acting as buffers?

For every ally i have 3.5 enemies

that shouldnt be the case unless AI got horrible RNG. I played kislev katarin on legendary and they are one of the hardest apparently and even then I didnt have 3.5x enemies.

I will give u an example of what u should try to aim for since u also played kislev.


You should be allied with empire for south flank and to achieve this clear the vampire counts and the dyrads. If u do that, your south flank is secure the whole game unless the empire dies which is hard if u killed their main threat i.e. vampire counts/dyrads.

East flank should be covered by the dwarves. They dont always win against the orcs, but that where u the player come in. Similar to vampire count, wipe out Azhag or weaken them where the dwarves can clean them up.

West is always covered by Kostaltyn and they usually hold. So that really only leaves north. You have some kislev faction north of your starting position, but they will hold long enough for you to secure your flanks. If u play with no direction or plan then it is quite possible to end up in your case where u get 3.5x enemies. I am only at war with 3 enemies at turn 90, all my flanks are covered and I can focus 1 direction i.e. north. I could end up with more allies than enemies if I wanted too, but I dont like getting pulled into war because of AI so I have opted to only ally with 1 AI.

[Imniscor]

I always played on Very Hard/Very Hard, since I started this game.
Point is, youre not building Garrison.

Tip for all factions:
I always focus in all buildings that give garrison first, then gold/money.
When you see an enemy army coming, run to your settlement and fight together with your Garrison.
Wanna cheese the game? Use mostly ranged, with some monters and some tanking infantry and position all of them on the corner of the map.
Always put the ranged/artillery units in the cornermost point, protected by the infantry and mosters who will defend against cavalry/infantry/monsters.
This makes you win 90% of the fights.

Tip for Dark Elves:
If you have a strong Legendary Lord such as Malekith as you said you played, Malekith should be able to solo armies on his own, unless there are multiple monters or artillery.
Malekith melts infantry, cavalry, archers, other mages, 90% of the Legendary Lords.
He pretty much only dies to monsters, artillery and some other OP lords.

Also, if playing Dark Elf, try to never fight away from the covered area of a Black Ark.
Black Ark bombardments are one of the most important advantages Dark Elves have.

Kislev tip:
Dont play Kislev.

Dwarves tip:
See Tip for all factions.

[RomulanPraetor]

Try wood elves (if you have them) I find that the diplomatic buffs through forest health suffice on normal to keep a relative peaceful border. And since you get confederation missions for nearly every territory you want, you can focus on the forest encounter battles without much need for expansion.

Or maybe vampires as you really don't need recruitment buildings you can go all in for economy and garrison.

(I personally found that playing factions that "miss" some units like artillery or ranged troops entirely, does help to get used to the rest without beeing overwhelmed with the possibilities of army composition)

[Zefar]

Malakai has a hard starting point because you're surrounded by enemies and the very few friends you can get are also surrounded by enemies and often get wiped out or are so passive they do nothing.

Even when you wipe out one enemy you have a new one taking it's place. Sometimes an even stronger faction.

I have a hard time thinking of a faction that starts with more enemies at once in the start. Karl is a good contender but at at least his allies can help out.

[Filthy Pollo 🐔]

Because Elden Ring is too hard, that's why it's popular.

[76561199091085798]

Originally posted by Moist Butt:

Originally posted by Ni🅶⁹atᖇon BlackTrans/Ni91:

For every ally i have 3.5 enemies

that shouldnt be the case unless AI got horrible RNG. I played kislev katarin on legendary and they are one of the hardest apparently and even then I didnt have 3.5x enemies.

I will give u an example of what u should try to aim for since u also played kislev.


You should be allied with empire for south flank and to achieve this clear the vampire counts and the dyrads. If u do that, your south flank is secure the whole game unless the empire dies which is hard if u killed their main threat i.e. vampire counts/dyrads.

East flank should be covered by the dwarves. They dont always win against the orcs, but that where u the player come in. Similar to vampire count, wipe out Azhag or weaken them where the dwarves can clean them up.

West is always covered by Kostaltyn and they usually hold. So that really only leaves north. You have some kislev faction north of your starting position, but they will hold long enough for you to secure your flanks. If u play with no direction or plan then it is quite possible to end up in your case where u get 3.5x enemies. I am only at war with 3 enemies at turn 90, all my flanks are covered and I can focus 1 direction i.e. north. I could end up with more allies than enemies if I wanted too, but I dont like getting pulled into war because of AI so I have opted to only ally with 1 AI.

I was in war with norsca in west, in east with maggot host which made me quit because I just defeated archeon, my armies were weak because of attrition and this guy had doom stacks, and i two chokepoints separates by huge mountains, which meant that one side would be undefended because i couldn't beat maggot host with only one army. And in the north west i was in war with that one gay chaos lord. Despite me being strength rank 1 i couldn't fell in all the gaps and was overwhelmed

[Pönnukaka]

Originally posted by Ni🅶⁹atᖇon BlackTrans/Ni91:

Originally posted by Moist Butt:

that shouldnt be the case unless AI got horrible RNG. I played kislev katarin on legendary and they are one of the hardest apparently and even then I didnt have 3.5x enemies.

I will give u an example of what u should try to aim for since u also played kislev.


You should be allied with empire for south flank and to achieve this clear the vampire counts and the dyrads. If u do that, your south flank is secure the whole game unless the empire dies which is hard if u killed their main threat i.e. vampire counts/dyrads.

East flank should be covered by the dwarves. They dont always win against the orcs, but that where u the player come in. Similar to vampire count, wipe out Azhag or weaken them where the dwarves can clean them up.

West is always covered by Kostaltyn and they usually hold. So that really only leaves north. You have some kislev faction north of your starting position, but they will hold long enough for you to secure your flanks. If u play with no direction or plan then it is quite possible to end up in your case where u get 3.5x enemies. I am only at war with 3 enemies at turn 90, all my flanks are covered and I can focus 1 direction i.e. north. I could end up with more allies than enemies if I wanted too, but I dont like getting pulled into war because of AI so I have opted to only ally with 1 AI.

I was in war with norsca in west, in east with maggot host which made me quit because I just defeated archeon, my armies were weak because of attrition and this guy had doom stacks, and i two chokepoints separates by huge mountains, which meant that one side would be undefended because i couldn't beat maggot host with only one army. And in the north west i was in war with that one gay chaos lord. Despite me being strength rank 1 i couldn't fell in all the gaps and was overwhelmed

So. You should be done with Norsca by turn 40 max. My 'kill list' was - Throt - Throgg - Wulfrik - Azazel/any faction from North declaring - going West and into Chaos Dwarfs. Early game all killed by the almighty combo of gyrocopter stack (also your first legendary grudge by pushing into Norsca), but at this point I am starting to be flexible, you have to reinforce your coast, every settlement there = garrison. Anyone who dares to declare war from the North, I will make a new army and go to kill them. I usually won't do that to Kislev or Empire factions. Any evil Legendary Lord - never leave them to fester even with 1 settlement, you go in and finish them off. In my campaign, after Wulfrik - Azazel/Epidemious - Daniel and I were selling territory to Malus to become friends (worked for 30 turns) so I can focus on the West and North West. Pushing into Chaos Wastes to help Boris Ursus who was still alive and to open the can of worms that is Dawi Zharr. Use diplomacy often if you can, if suddenly you killed all their armies, and you're more busy on other fronts, peace out for now, rush other factions and return in 10 turns to declare war on them.

What most new players need to understand, you are in a much better position if you are attacking. You want to be the attacker. In battles, you decide the flow of it by being the attacking side. If you're not at war, but they look like they will declare on you, move your army close to theirs sitting in a city - attack the next turn, killing an army and taking over the first province - proceed to push this advantage. Sure, it's not good for your grudges, but you don't need to get Gnollengrom every time if you keep failing at basics.

There are many topics here, YouTube guides and videos that will show you how to do it. If your strength rank 1 with massive war fund and strong economy, you can just keep making armies and crush them. So despite being rank 1, you lacked funds and economy in my estimation. Malakai position is challenging. Try other Dawi lords maybe to learn further? (not Belegar)