Legendary Mode, and the time sink/artificial difficulty

[.anointed.]

This has been a growing concern for me ever since I first launched Rome 2; the power level of rebellions and NPCs has slowly grown to a level of absurdity that is just down-right insulting. I only play on Legendary campaign mode, so take my critique with that in mind.

I am currently hundreds of turns in, and most of these turns have resulted in my constant dealings with random factions bee-lining it to my minor settlements...along-side rebellions that are not only inevitable, but soul-cripplingly powerful. My point of contention is not that it is unfeasible to deal with, but more so that it is tiresome and leads to gameplay that is NOT FUN. From my experience, the most optimal way to play this mode is to farm these ridiculous rebellions for gold, until my provinces all have top tier money/unrest tech buildings. That alone would be fine, but coupled with the fact that minor factions have the ability to produce 2 full stack armies off of 1 or 2 settlements is, for a lack of better terms, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid, and leads to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ tactics that feel unrewarding and tiresome at best.

There has to be a give and take here... I don't mind the AI having the ability to recruit more units in both number and power level; what really annoys me, is that no matter what I do to cripple an opponent, the handicap in which they play allows them to vigorously field massive stacks of units to bee-line towards my settlements without repercussion (due to the fact that newly conquered settlements are set to rebel within single digit turns, unless a full standing army is already at the capital). This kind of AI forces the player to level their general in the Campaign skill tree, so that they cover more distance and are able to lightning strike/attrition enemy factions. This design leads to poor gameplay, because it forces the player into one avenue; no other skill tree even comes close to the utility the Campaign tree offers.

E.G., the seven points it takes to achieve lightning strike compared to what you can get anywhere else is laughable. With a few more points? It is down right suicide to not pick a lower upkeep cost, considering the constant need to field 1 full stack vs 1 and a capital, or 2 stacks.

My gripes with these situations are not that it is impossible to deal with, trust me; I wouldn't be able to make these claims without having to endure it for hundreds of turns. My problems lie
with the fact that this leads to stupid, degenerate gameplay that lacks any sense of thought, or strategic input from the player. If these same circumstances lasted for a quarter of what they currently do, I would be HAPPY: why should I have to beat 2 full stacks of a minor faction for 20 turns because they can field top tier armies on 1 settlement while I also have to fend off a huge full stack rebellion? I've obviously employed the strategic know-how to beat back cheating AI for so long...to delay it any further is just annoying, and offers no sense of reward. Cool, I beat back waves of mindless AI that have units 2 or 3 tiers above mine without a passing thought...what's next?

All of this, mind you, to gain one or two provinces....and this is leaving out Chaos invasions, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

...the Chaos invasions have to be the most ham-fisted, poorly implemented systems in a game I've seen to date. I can only speak for legendary mode, but this is for what you're in for if you don't already have a taste:

Play Dark Elves. Reach a certain turn count. Once you reach said turn count, you can expect 6+ full stacks of top tier chaos units sacking towns, with AI that cares for nothing but sacking YOUR settlements. I have tested this multiple times, where half the invading Chaos force will mindlessly attack my newly conquered, throwaway settlements in High Elf territory...whilst still having FOUR STACKS actively invading my frozen dark elf territory. This is not fun, engaging gameplay; these are time sinks, which keep me from the main gameplay loop of expanding and deploying new unit types/scouting enemy factions to see how to counter their units(which is inherent to strategy games...)

Having a constant wave of HIGH TIER units attack my ♥♥♥♥ every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time I beat them back is RETARDED. This event leaves only one option; destroying all but 1 or 2 stacks of high tier "Servant" chaos armies to roam aimlessly, because I have no way of knowing when the other AI factions will wipe the "Puppets" (because when both factions are destroyed the whole cycle begins anew).

Wew lad, I just wiped 2 stacks of dark elves with one army, I wonder what could possibly be in store for me next? Oh, its a marauding Chaos faction that immediately respawns the moment both "Servants" and "Puppets" are defeated on the campaign map. It's actually not as cancerous as it sounds, believe it or not...its just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying and unrewarding, since the AI just mindlessly attempts to raze undefended settlements. It somehow takes but 2 or 3 stacks to deter a whole invasion force of 6+ chaos armies from overwhelming you, but God-forbid you let a minor faction sit on 1 or 2 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ settlements.

This kind of "clock" gameplay is unrewarding, and offers nothing to the player outside of the same turle/recoup game loop that TW:WH 2 offers from the start...when this game is all said and done, it is a completely unrewarding, thoughtless experience. What a shame, considering previous TW games offered so much more...

I remember a time where building up settlements and predicting army movement/composition was a part of total war games, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...warhammer delivers on NOT A SINGLE ONE of those premises. It truly is, a mindless "build ♥♥♥♥" whilst fending off nonsense so you can autoresolve the BS the game throws at you.

[MadArtillery]

Sounds like legendary difficulty is cancerious and I'm glad I don't play it.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Solution: don't play Legendary difficulty?

I agree it's pretty terrible... which is why I don't play it.

[Princemousey]

Sounds like you're expanding beyond your reach. You need to take settlements and stabilise them before moving on.

[naveed.sodhar]

I play Legendary too and I've found only one way to deal with this is to completely ignore minor settlements until after turn 130-150 and focus solely on major ones, building money makers making them hard to take over by any rebellion or minor factions. Every minor settlement razed or captured is easier to retake/rebuild to basic level. Well there's the strategy; not perfect but feasible and realistic imo. After all this is the warhammer world. Your lands are constantly ravaged by chaos rampages, rebellions and wars and sometimes there are no perfect strategies to be had.

[.anointed.]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Solution: don't play Legendary difficulty?

I agree it's pretty terrible... which is why I don't play it.

Its pretty bad, but for reasons outside of the difficulty setting.

Originally posted by Princemousey:

Sounds like you're expanding beyond your reach. You need to take settlements and stabilise them before moving on.

Its not that im over expanding so much as it is the faulty Chaos invasion mechanic. Its not as if its hard, its just an unfun time sink, especially when you consider the fact that quickly dealing with the chaos invaders closest to you seems to be UN-OPTIMAL. IE if youre dark elves, and you deal with the Servants quickly, youre essentially leaving it up to RNG with how quickly the AI decides to deal with the 'Puppets' a whole continent away. That is just impressively bad game design; 6+ high tier chaos 'rebellions' that respawn at the whim of the AI? no thanks, i'll just kite 1 or 2 of the last stacks endlessly whilst hero blocking them. like i said, a lot of this stuff just forces me to brainlessly devolve into degenerate gameplay that is neither fun or engaging.

Originally posted by naveed.sodhar:

I play Legendary too and I've found only one way to deal with this is to completely ignore minor settlements until after turn 130-150 and focus solely on major ones, building money makers making them hard to take over by any rebellion or minor factions. Every minor settlement razed or captured is easier to retake/rebuild to basic level. Well there's the strategy; not perfect but feasible and realistic imo. After all this is the warhammer world. Your lands are constantly ravaged by chaos rampages, rebellions and wars and sometimes there are no perfect strategies to be had.

a perfectly fine strategy, it definitely works well enough. the problem with it is it still, somehow, affords the AI enough time to endlessly re-stack, and force the player (at least in the early game) to resort to dumb tactics to cheese the AI. I get that its somewhat the nature of Legendary mode, they cant simply program an AI to perform better. But, the way it currently stands, cheesing AI for 100+ plus turns using the same skill tree is just...bad. Like i mentioned above, im 200+ turns in on this campaign, just constantly having to cheese the Servants of Chaos because they are set to immediately respawn as soon as both Servants and Puppets are eliminated. That just doesnt make sense to me, especially when you consider the fact that the campaign AI is notorious for just doing random weird ♥♥♥♥; I don't get to experience the fun part of this game if I'm constantly at the whim of whenever the AI decides to beat the rampaging chaos invasion force.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Don't forget the part where the goblins from the north can convince the dwarves far south to join their war against you, who is conveniently right next to the dwarves. On turn 4.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by Hyen《A》♧:

Don't forget the part where the goblins from the north can convince the dwarves far south to join their war against you, who is conveniently right next to the dwarves. On turn 4.

Ah, you're forgetting that you can do exactly the same thing. :P Hey Spine of Sotek Dwarfs, want to join my war against Clan Pestilens and I won't give you a single cent for it? We have an agreement!

You'd be surprised the number of times you can pull that off XD

(Bonus: Asking a faction to join their war against faction X bypasses alliance shenanigans that might drag you into war with other factions. Say if Harkon is allied to Pestilens, and you ask Itza if you can join their war against Pestilens (if you don't demand anything they'll always accept), you will be at war with Pestilens but not Harkon. If you then smack Pestilens quickly enough before they can call Harkon in (the AI doesn't do it imemdiately), you will have successfully negated this alliance. :P)

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Ah, you're forgetting that you can do exactly the same thing. :P Hey Spine of Sotek Dwarfs, want to join my war against Clan Pestilens and I won't give you a single cent for it? We have an agreement!

You'd be surprised the number of times you can pull that off XD

(Bonus: Asking a faction to join their war against faction X bypasses alliance shenanigans that might drag you into war with other factions. Say if Harkon is allied to Pestilens, and you ask Itza if you can join their war against Pestilens (if you don't demand anything they'll always accept), you will be at war with Pestilens but not Harkon. If you then smack Pestilens quickly enough before they can call Harkon in (the AI doesn't do it imemdiately), you will have successfully negated this alliance. :P)

Yes that is so stupid! And tbh I never liked the idea of cheesing in diplomacy. It's not like the AI will actually help you attack the enemy anyway. But they will blitz straight to you and attack you if your enemies get them to attack you first.

At least 3K mitigated this issue by limiting this joining war option to allies only.

[Inardesco]

Not entirely sure why your chaos invasions are seemingly so powerful, mine always get wiped by the AI.

That was until I got the x5 chaos invasion because I was seeing nothing from them playing as the VC and some petty Empire provinces wiped the floor with Archeon multiple times.

My other campaign was with Settra and I had only seen one invasion.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Not entirely sure why your chaos invasions are seemingly so powerful, mine always get wiped by the AI.

That was until I got the x5 chaos invasion because I was seeing nothing from them playing as the VC and some petty Empire provinces wiped the floor with Archeon multiple times.

My other campaign was with Settra and I had only seen one invasion.

That mostly depends when the invasion spawns.
If they spawn at turn 50 or even 30, AI seems to struggle a lot cause they don't have neither armies nor the economy up put up a fight.
If they spawn at turn 100 or later however they got swatted like some flies.

And since the player has rather direct control of when they spawn, that's the reason.

[Elitewrecker PT]

How fast are you expanding to have Chaos at turn 30?

[.anointed.]

I think I misspoke, it's not the actual chaos invasion, it's the Doom Tide I believe it's called. The difficulty of them isn't to great, it's more so the lack of predictability of when the AI will finish off the other faction.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

How fast are you expanding to have Chaos at turn 30?

1 settlement a turn starting at the first.

Which means full offense and full AI cheesing and hopefully small ways between settlements.
Vamps can actually pull that off and I did it once with Vlad after confederating Kemmler and Mousillon who both had ~ 5 settlements. Not recommended cause you just have a hell lot of issues from that as has the AI.

Was also not planned but a lot of empire factions snowball declared war to me so I kinda had to take the fight to them

[Gnarl]

It's not just Legendary mode, with the changes to how Ai v Ai autoresolves and Legendary Lords aren't given bonuses we end up fighting a lot of generic lords and factions.

I'm hoping they add a toggle to adjust whether Legendary Lords get a bonus or not. Could be a simple way to offer more variability of campaigns, almost like adding a whole new game mode.

[yuzhonglu]

Play Bretonnian faction. Makes Legendary as easy as Normal.