Am I missing something or is this game insanely difficult?

[Gilead]

I'm a seasoned Total War player who usually plays on Hard to Very Hard, but anything above easy in this game seems insane. I just tried the Easy rated Dwarf campaign and had 6 Orc stacks running trains on my starting region from 3 different factions on turn three. They would move the exact amount needed to never be attacked by me, then mob rush any of the settlements I couldn't defend before instantly replenishing both the garrison of the conquered settlement and their own army. I tried fighting the battles manually to pull off underdog wins but the dwarf warriors are losing head to head with goblins and my own lord will shatter after about 10 seconds of helping fight a base level enemy unit of orcs. What the hell is going on? I feel like this must be a bug because it seems like they're getting legendary level buffs on normal difficulty.

Even the one or two campaigns I manage to get further on, the AI pulls off really obvious cheats that make the campaign a slog at best. I watched Karl Franz on one province confederate multiple larger electors on almost consecutive turns and spawn endless trains of legendary lords that would return with a full stack of elite units 2 turns after destroyed them. That isn't even getting into how bad the problems with autoresolve are, I've had Vlad and Isabella running doom stacks get negative odds to beat a minor settlement garrison.

What am I missing here? Does everyone just play this game on easy? Is this a recent bug? It feels harder than Shogun 2 on Legendary.

[Zebedee]

Would ignore the stated campaign difficulty as they tend to only apply to when the campaign was first put into the game. Dwarves are much chewier now because orcs have been revamped since.

To be honest, I play battles on 'normal' for an enjoyable campaign because I hate having the AI buffs distort balance there. Dial campaign difficulty to suit how much cheese you're willing to put up with from AI.

[Andrewbh2003]

dwarfs are one of the hardest starts in the game currently "especially since the greenskin rework"

the "easy" rating is from 2016 back when warhammer 1 launched and back then yes dwarfs were indeed the easiest start but over the course of 4 years they got progressively harder to where now there pretty much the opposite of what they were at the start

[pokerhabs]

Well, now with all the legendary lords and their tier4-5 starting units as neighbors, it's becoming harder, I agree.

[PK_Thunder]

I mostly play on Hard/Hard(because I don't like how the harder difficulties only scale in stats instead of AI smarts, which makes cheese mandatory) and I don't find it quite that overwhelming. I've never seen huge Ork stacks that quickly while playing Dwarves either.

That said, what you said you saw from the Empire is 100% normal, they confederate like ants and they're supposed to.

They would move the exact amount needed to never be attacked by me

Yeah, the Warhammer versions are notorious for that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. They AI has so little variance in its decision making that it only picks fights it knows it can win, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out hard otherwise.

[Zane87]

It's not extremely difficult. But it's a ton of stuff you need to learn first, unlike historical TW games here every race is quite unique and plays differently.
They also have a lot of abilities that you need to factor in as well, not to mention flyers, monsters, spells, Lords that can solo armies, faction mechanics and all that stuff.

The AI however has no mechanics the player doesn't have. They get buffs to income, upkeep reduction and recruitment points (plus a few other) but mechanically they have the same rules. But since so much is going on, it's a common complaint from newer players which almost always boil down to them missing something. No blame there, it's really a lot going on at first.

Also, most veterans of us play on very hard or legendary and/or use mods like unnatural selection 2, gates of chaos or chaos invasion enhancement mods (though those are outdated and yes, even legendary invasion is not really hard)

[Nuyu]

i know its going to sound a bit silly. but try ranged units.

the way legendary and very hard mode inflate the difficulty of battles is by increasing the enemies combat stats a bit. specifically leadership, melee attack and melee defence (its not anything super extreme but enough to nudge out wins in melee fights between similar units). so the harder you go. the less effective your own melee units are. ranged units overcome this problem avoiding all the buffs the enemy gets because they wouldnt want to be in melee with them anyway. oh also in legendary the enemies armies get exp levels faster. so your more likely to encounter stacks of rank 9 units and such.

always rush walls. always always always unless its somewhere you can protect easily.

the empire has a special mechanic that lets him confederate the other empire factions. i think thats prob how they do it. unsure on that one tho since its been a while since iv played empire.

[Notoko]

Hard == Normal, playing on easy is ok for new players.

Very Hard the AI starts to get a bunch of buffs.

Legendary - you need to know the meta for the faction your playing, the AI gets tons of buffs and many units just become unviable. Even the camera view on the map becomes limited.

[pierce]

You're probably missing something I never have these problems. Check to make sure BOTH campaign AND battle difficulty are Easy or Normal.

Some goblins, like nasty skulkers, have armour piercing and are made to kill dwarves. Some goblins are elites with special abilities.

dont chase AI, use cities to force a fight.

Morale can cascade across the whole army so a Lord may flee a battle if youve been losing before sending them in. (they should at least be close to the fight.) Also not all lords are good at melee.

Karl Franze is one of the most powerful lords, Aldorf is one of the best provinces, his recruitment is usually high even when he's stuck there.

The siege thing...probably has to do with what specifically you have in those 'doom stacks.' I haven't had these issues.

Its a complex game because of magic and unit diversity so sorry i cant give better suggestions. I hope something here is helpful and you have a smoother time from here on out! good luck!

[Dregora]

6 full stacks on turn 3? Even on Legendary I don't think that happens.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Notoko:

Hard == Normal, playing on easy is ok for new players.

Very Hard the AI starts to get a bunch of buffs.

Legendary - you need to know the meta for the faction your playing, the AI gets tons of buffs and many units just become unviable. Even the camera view on the map becomes limited.

They already get buffs on hard.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Dregora:

6 full stacks on turn 3? Even on Legendary I don't think that happens.

Gobbos, gobbos and loads of gobbos. And like he said , 3 different factions.

[Renzo]

Originally posted by Dregora:

6 full stacks on turn 3? Even on Legendary I don't think that happens.

yeh Op is jst in a bad mood or has mods installed and isnt saying, needs to go watch some videos of ppl playing higher difficulty.

[Fryskar]

The only dwarf campaign i'd currently rate easy is Ungrimms start.
Thorgrimm/Grombrindal are rather hard and Belegar is among the hardest

[Dregora]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Originally posted by Dregora:

6 full stacks on turn 3? Even on Legendary I don't think that happens.

Gobbos, gobbos and loads of gobbos. And like he said , 3 different factions.

It's still really hard to believe, I assume he plays karaz-a-karak, since that's I believe the only one that's the ''easy'' one. There are two big factions nearby, which are more to the south, but you still have a small buffer in between. The orcs to the right never get that much UNLESS you let them, but even then I don't think it happens turn 3.

3, maybe. Not 6.

[Metalov]

I finished both TW1(with dwarves then vampires) & TW2-vortex(with skavens) on legendary.
I still have to finish ME
But it didn t come immediately as easy. Since factions are so different i can t give you a general strategy; however a few tips i found the hard way :
- Know well your faction and their unique pro/cons.
- As in every RTS economy is key if you can lay a solid foundation, you may have enough canon fodder to sustain losses.
- Auto solve battle is your friend , it tends to exagerate the displayed tendancy; for example
if you have a large forces advantage the auto solver will save you LOT of units, possibly more than if you spend your time micro managing, and the other way around ... estimate loss= solver losing more than expected.
Only go manual if estimates gives a draw or close lose on a key battle.
- The second most powerfull thing on campaign map is the ambush stance; it will prevent your enemies from stacking and gives you a field advantage letting you pick enemies one by one.
- IMO the most powerful thing on map is the diplomacy, often under estimated; most players going starcraft style "me move, me attack"; check the relations,the behaviors and you may put the cheats of the AI at your service with some alliance.
- Following the diplomacy thing, think twice before declaring war, be sure you can manage it.
Sometimes a bit of bribe can save you from a sticky situation.
I often go the battle royale way letting several factions wage war betwen them and i stay neutral.
- Heroes are mostly useless... you can have some to help but really not worth the time.
- Quests for legendary lords are cool and rewarding but not having the shiny toys shouldn t be a problem at all, feel free to skip it all.

So as a conclusion yes the computer cheats but that s to step up the challenge;you may as well play in lower difficulties if you find it frustrating.