This game is hard. On Easy.

[Pukebeard]

I love this game. I played Warhammer when it was still a decent table-top game.

I have two other friends that play this game as well and we have a hard time winning with any army on Easy mode.

I've been a gamer for life and have never played a game so challenging.

In my mind, an Easy mode game should be hard to lose. Not hard to win. Have any of you experienced the same ridiculousness on Easy mode?

[Sometimes_Consistent]

No, not really. My first campaign was on normal, and it went kinda smooth actually. Where are you struggling most?

[Pukebeard]

I'm struggling with upkeep. I'm having a very hard time keeping an army full. If I play the Orcs I can't leave my territory to take more without losing territory to other Orcs.

When I play Beastmen (I've played them the most) I've actually been wiped out in 3 turns... by Orcs attacking. I have a hard time progressing due to gold.

I'm well aware that people are beating this on Legendary mode without mods. So, I know that I'm doing something wrong. But, in my experience Easy mode should be a lot more forgiving than what I'm experiencing.

[Sometimes_Consistent]

One of the most important things to do is to not suffer the shiny-unit-disease. For instance, getting cav early as the greenskins is good, but getting a lot of money is better. That's why your second building (the first is barracks, which is alreasy there) should be the gold mine. As for the beastmen, well, they just have a hard beginning, having only acces to ungor.

[Sometimes_Consistent]

Btw, don't get discouraged by people saying the game is too easy on Legendary. They've been playing total war for a long time and have lot of experience. While I've been playing this game for almost 800 hours, I still get beaten up on Very Hard and Legendary. (doesn't help that I play with mods that make the game harder though... :\ ) I now just play on hard, as that's the most fun for me.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

I'm struggling with upkeep. I'm having a very hard time keeping an army full. If I play the Orcs I can't leave my territory to take more without losing territory to other Orcs.

When I play Beastmen (I've played them the most) I've actually been wiped out in 3 turns... by Orcs attacking. I have a hard time progressing due to gold.

I'm well aware that people are beating this on Legendary mode without mods. So, I know that I'm doing something wrong. But, in my experience Easy mode should be a lot more forgiving than what I'm experiencing.

A good rule of thumb, especially for orks, empire and dwarves, is that you want an econ building in every region and fortifications in every settlement, then one control building(like the boss tent) and one flex spot(in a generic 3 region province) in your settlements, while you fill up your provincial capital with higher end buildings that need to be built up to tier 4+. As dwarves, you'll usually want a growth building in the flex spot because it's a big weakness of theirs. As greenskins, you might want more control because they tend to suffer revolts. Powerhouse economy is much more important than top tier armies. Greenskins are one of the worst races for this, as their low end units are cowardly and somewhat weak, and if you don't have the DLC, you don't get nasty skulkers to deal with armor. Despite that, by fielding rock lobbers(you need a tinkerer bench to unlock tech anyway), hordes of boyz and filling in with big unz, black orcs, boar boys and trolls(not all of these, you usually want to focus on infantry and just fill in the blanks with a handful of units) then you should be golden for most fights.

[Pukebeard]

I appreciate the advice, guys.

Truth is tonight I've made my 5th attempt at Beastmen and am finally making solid progress. I've allied with Chaos, 'confederated' the Redhorn Tribe and have been steadily destroying Bretonnians. I guess a little practice even on easy mode is necessary.

That and your advice gives me hope. I really don't want to have to go down the mod route to be able to win.

[VhagarTheLastOne]

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

I'm struggling with upkeep. I'm having a very hard time keeping an army full. If I play the Orcs I can't leave my territory to take more without losing territory to other Orcs.

When I play Beastmen (I've played them the most) I've actually been wiped out in 3 turns... by Orcs attacking. I have a hard time progressing due to gold.

I'm well aware that people are beating this on Legendary mode without mods. So, I know that I'm doing something wrong. But, in my experience Easy mode should be a lot more forgiving than what I'm experiencing.

Use Scouts so you dont need to keep full armies, also dont take it serously if AI captures or razes one of your minor Cities. I like to keep 10k in bank and at least 1k gold surplus, so I can attack fast and furiously when needed.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

I appreciate the advice, guys.

Truth is tonight I've made my 5th attempt at Beastmen and am finally making solid progress. I've allied with Chaos, 'confederated' the Redhorn Tribe and have been steadily destroying Bretonnians. I guess a little practice even on easy mode is necessary.

That and your advice gives me hope. I really don't want to have to go down the mod route to be able to win.

a viable strat for beastmen is to fast-tech to minotaurs and build nothing but those. They're stupidly powerful and you can easily have a 19 stack of them very quickly. It's how I beat the beastie campaign on legendary, haha.

[Centur1on01]

Yea. Pretty much same story as OP.

[JS93]

Tbh I conquered half the world pretty easily on my first run on normal... No mods ^^

But that was with the vampires, and they are pretty powerful imo.

[ParmenionGiant]

I think you are right, the game is hard to lose on easy (maybe less so for hordes). I've never played it on easy but you are probably doing something very wrong. If you are not familiar with strategy games or total war games I would recommend you to watch a couple of let's play on Youtube (eg Lionheart), at least the first coupke of hours to see how the game is played and what are your priorities at the start of campaign.

[Sevrun]

Been playing on easy to get used to the differences from previos TW titles and familiarize myself witht he races... and I gotta say easy has been... well... EASY. Hardest parts have been some of the quest missions having some unpleasant surprises.

It requires a lot more micro than I'm accustomed to out of a TW game thanks to the spell casters, which are far less devastating than I had thought they'd be. (so far, only tinkered with Shadow and Beasts) Which isn't to say I haven't had a couple false starts. Beastman surprises gutted my first Empire run because I was stupid and didn't build additional defenses in my villages. Oops. Didn't make the same mistake with the Greenskins though and rapidly dominated two local tribes and started in on the humies before I stopped to ask wth I was actually supposed to be doing ;)

Chaos was challenging, knowing when to spawn a second horde and how to protect them until they were stong enough to fight for themselves was a little awkward. Bretonnia... I have no idea how to manage. I can roll with all the shifts between races just fine except that peasant economy. Makes fielding my first full army... difficult. But the Wood Elves... I adore the Wood Elves. Was well on my way to dominating Bretonnia without breakin a sweat.

It's all in knowing how each race applies pressure. If all else fails, use the Dwarves and simply roll forward in a wall of steel with seige weapons firing from behind. Can't go wrong.

[Firaeveus Carron]

Hmm, strange.

Unless you are new to the Total War series, I can't see how this game would be difficult for the average gamer, as Total War: Warhammer has streamlined / simplified almost all economic management. Furthermore, it has never been easier to distinguish different troop types from each other, allowing players to more easily match their own units up against enemy units that they excel against.

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

I'm struggling with upkeep. I'm having a very hard time keeping an army full. If I play the Orcs I can't leave my territory to take more without losing territory to other Orcs.

Upkeep is extremely easy to manage. As anyone other than the Warriors of Chaos, don't go into negative upkeep. You may think I'm grievously oversimplifying this, but I'm not.

You can leave your territory as the Greenskins. No other Dwarf or Greenskin army will be able to overpower your starting settlement. On hard difficulty and below, your starting stack (as either Grimgor or Azhag) is powerful enough to wipe out the nearby Red Fangs army AND take the Red Fangs settlement to the south without even adding more units or replenishing casualties.

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

When I play Beastmen (I've played them the most) I've actually been wiped out in 3 turns... by Orcs attacking. I have a hard time progressing due to gold.

Horde factions (Beastmen and Chaos) are slow starters. You will have to spend most of your time raiding and waiting for opportunities to attack lone armies and undefended settlements. If you are playing as Malagor, starting out in the Badlands, you can move southwest and raze the Top Knots settlements with relative ease. Alternatively, you can go after the wealthy Border Princes to the north.

Originally posted by Pukebeard:

I'm well aware that people are beating this on Legendary mode without mods. So, I know that I'm doing something wrong. But, in my experience Easy mode should be a lot more forgiving than what I'm experiencing.

Easy mode is definitely easy, so this is a L2P issue.. which isn't a big deal. The AI has numerous penalties, on easy difficulty, that make facing off against them far easier. I had a tough time starting out too and now I have beaten several unmodded Legendary campaigns, so don't worry about it.

Pick a race, learn some build plans and learn about your units and your enemies' units in order to figure out how to best match your troops up against specific enemy troops.


I would recommend starting off with the Vampire Counts, as they have the easiest campaign for numerous reasons:

• Strong Lords

• Units will not flee (they crumble instead, taking damage until they die, when their leadership drops below a certain threshold)

• Vampire Corruption encourages you to expand slowly and play more defensively

• Vampire Corruption can cause rebellions to occur and they will automatically raze enemy settlements, leaving you to colonize and expand without even going to war with your neighbours (if you want to play that way).

• Raise dead allows you to instantly recruit troops

• Research allowing you to gain favourable diplomatic relations with ALL factions, making them less eager to declare war on you

[Major Noob]

I kinda felt the same way you did when I first played. It takes a bit of time to get use to it but once you know the basics of flanking, what is good against what, and which spells are useful at what times, it becomes easy. learning the flanking and whats good against what is pretty simple. Some thing like spears vs melee mounted units is a given since its been in all total war games. The only thing that toke me a while to learn and even now I still have trouble are mounted archers with high move speed. they are a pain in the ass to deal with.

[Sometimes_Consistent]

Originally posted by Major Noob:

The only thing that toke me a while to learn and even now I still have trouble are mounted archers with high move speed. they are a pain in the ass to deal with.

Use your own missile infantry against them. Most archers / crossbows have longer range than them, and also a higher dps.