Isabella von Carstein nerfed?

[eatonpye]

I started an Isabella campaign in TWW1 on account of I figured it would go faster, but I don't really like the city-building part as much, so I decided to go ahead and restart in TWW2. But it seems like Isabella is set up to fail in 2. Manfred is huge, and the weak foes you can take on to power up her hero advantage are in the wrong direction, whereas in 1 most of Manfred's stuff belongs to another vampire faction so it's much more practical to take him down. Plus, it seems harder to get new heroes without taking Castle Van Draken, so it's kind of a double whammy. There's no good way to beef up her forces without that castle, or taking an Empire capital and spending a long time building it up. Meanwhile Manfred goes and takes the rest of your stuff...

So, the change from TWW1, in start conditions, is disappointing, and it seems like maybe Isabella got nerfed in other ways, too. Does anyone know if this was done? And if so, why? I admit her access to heroes seems OP in 1, but now she's really in a crappy position.

I saw something a while back indicating that her magic was pretty powerful from the start, but I'm not seeing that- or maybe I'm not using it right. Would be nice to know if she's been nerfed or how to use her regen more effectively- it doesn't seem to do a lot.

[Elitewrecker PT]

It wasn't a direct Nerf to her or Vlad, it was a bonus to AI Sylvania because Manfred had a tendency to not get anything done.
Same way AI Karl starts with Reikland full.

[eatonpye]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

It wasn't a direct Nerf to her or Vlad, it was a bonus to AI Sylvania because Manfred had a tendency to not get anything done.
Same way AI Karl starts with Reikland full.

He's got all the territory I went after first in the TWW1 version. Sigh...

So, I guess I have to either take a really long way around through the Empire, or through dwarf territory, to build up some strength, or just go after castle Drakenhof as soon as I can bring Vlad up. I can't build anything worth having in the little village Isabella starts out with.

Not nice, that change- if you're playing Isabella you really don't want Manfred to get anything done.

[THEDOSSBOSS]

I played her on legendary difficulty, took out mannfred by turn 10 with the help of the templehoff vamps (after taking all their settlements except for a minor one in sylvania, of course. I needed castle templehoff for myself), which meant that, so long as the dwarves didn't declare war, I had a corner protected by the mountains. Once you get skeletons with 0 upkeep, her campaign becomes just as easy as any other.

Just deal with Mannfred asap and then you have the entirety of the vampiric lands, and can start moving on the empire

[eatonpye]

Manfred has most of the Templehof lands from the TWW1 campaign, that's what I'm whining about. Whatever I take, I pretty much have to take it from Manfred right away, and he's got a lot of resources. In TWW1, it's easy to go after Templehof, they even sacrifice an army to you on turn one.

[THEDOSSBOSS]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

Manfred has most of the Templehof lands from the TWW1 campaign, that's what I'm whining about. Whatever I take, I pretty much have to take it from Manfred right away, and he's got a lot of resources. In TWW1, it's easy to go after Templehof, they even sacrifice an army to you on turn one.

It's easy to take templehoff in warhammer 2. Just raise dead a few units, get vlad on turn 2, recruit for Isabella for 2 turns, and start moving against templehof by turn 3, raising the dead for vlad when you use up all your movement points in the moot. Isabella and Vlad together are more than enough to deal with that minor faction, and then you just make a quick hit on Drakenhof before it is upgraded to tier 3 (also make sure Mannfred is put of the city before declaring war)

[Brother Sharazad]

on easy play as vlad and recruit isabella - can also easily deal with castle drakhenhof turn 2.

[eatonpye]

I can't even see Templehof on the map- Manfred occupies all their visible stuff, so I have to go through Manfred to get to them. I suppose that might work for me if the timing is good on him taking my capital while I'm on the other side of Drakenhof from it...

[eatonpye]

Originally posted by Silas 'Spook' Anderson:

on easy play as vlad and recruit isabella - can also easily deal with castle drakhenhof turn 2.

Does Isabella keep all her perks as a recruited lord?

[Brother Sharazad]

most of them, also having her support vlad gives some tasty buffs, to both armys.

Vlads buffs give him Seige attacker (Doesnt have to build siege engines to lay seige to a walled region - he can just attack immediatly) and his entire army Vanguard Deploy.

[eatonpye]

When you recruit Isabella, does she come with two heroes? Because that makes a pretty big difference.

[Brother Sharazad]

No, but you can quickly get +2 to vamp rec, Vlad also starts with the same two ladies. so it can be a handful of turns before both vlad and issabella have two vamp's each.

[Overt Operations Specialist]

By turn 10 empire can confederate marienburg. Lol. GG

[Imposter]

Hopefully soon, when the GS overhaul happens, it might rebalance Dwarf CPU numbers, a bit.

[Ashantai]

Admittedly on normal difficulty, but I just had a very successful Isabella campaign.

The trick and the issue is the first 5 turns. If you can take Castle Drakenhof in that time (best on turn 2-3) then everything else becomes pretty simple.

The key is using her vampire heroes and the Vlad/Isabella mutual bonus early on to best advantage. Your troops might be crap but you have heroes and lords able to destroy anything.

[Buldor]

If you want, we can do a co-op game and I can show you how I'd play them - it sounds like you're having a few fundamental issues on how they play if you're having issues early game.