Morale and routing on Very Hard

[warmarrer]

I've noticed consistently in battles that enemy units seem to fight almost to the last man, even outside the aura of their general. I'm playing Skaven so I understand my units are lower morale and have to be managed, I'm just curious if there's any realistic way to make enemy units route.

In close battles, late battle I have 10 half strength (other 10 routed off screen) units fighting against 15 units with 10-12 guys left. My men will slowly lose morale and route as they get down to about 30 guys, and the enemy will win with about 30 men left on the field.

Any tips on how to overcome this? I'm a Total War veteran, but I've never really encountered this issue before playing Warhammer II.

[warmarrer]

Oh, extra question, I've faced enemy armies that don't get the "army losses" debuff even when they're down to less than 100 men. Anyone have any info on how the game applies this?

[Andrewbh2003]

Originally posted by warmarrer:

Oh, extra question, I've faced enemy armies that don't get the "army losses" debuff even when they're down to less than 100 men. Anyone have any info on how the game applies this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSHSrtzdYwk

also VH is dumb af precisely cause you have low tier melee units running around with longbeard levels of leadership

[Imposter]

Even 'Hard' battle mode almost negates leadership debuff perks, granted through reward, or inherent stat.

'Terror and fear' should be altered or removed/"replaced-with", because it doesn't really work, unless you swarm with 4-5 units against a single unit with leadership debuffs abilities.

Terror in higher difficulty acts weird and seems to work when it wants.I noticed if you have defeated Franz and gained 'Terror' against Empire perk: It helps maybe 1 time? GreatSwords, or even Ranged it doesn't affect all that much.

"Leadership" in higher diffs should get looked at again, because it serves almost no purpose when you want a more difficult challenge, but it's only a compounding issue when the AI cheats its butt off in many other different sectors too.

I don't say that because I don't want a challenge, but it's unrewarding when you earn leadership debuffs, and there's virtually nothing the player can do with it. It makes the game very boring and forces somebody like me to use a 1-sided doom stack squad.(Gotta have ALL those elites!!!)

[Inardesco]

Its cuz the AI gets massive bonusses on any battle difficulty higher than normal. So high to the point that trash tier troops can stand up to your elites without dying like they should.

[warmarrer]

Ok thanks, that video in particular makes a lot of sense. I tend to micro my ranged hard and do a lot of kiting, so I've been completely turfing my CP every time by having half my stack be no-ammo ranged units. I had no idea unit cost was factoring so heavily into both army morale AND local bonuses/debuffs so that gives me something to adjust.

And yeah Blasted, I feel you on that. It's a fine line because I'd rather fight 2 armies with normal leadership and out micro them than fight an unbreakable army, but that messes up the campaign map because the enemy ends up with armies everywhere and wins because you can't be everywhere.

I'd almost rather enemies get 25 slots in each army or something, gives them a handicap without messing with individual unit leadership OR ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the campaign map.

[warmarrer]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Its cuz the AI gets massive bonusses on any battle difficulty higher than normal. So high to the point that trash tier troops can stand up to your elites without dying like they should.

I didn't have an issue with Very Hard in Shogun 2, Rome 2, or Three Kingdoms. I feel like they've altered the calculations on routing and such because even on legendary you wouldn't usually see an enemy unit with 10 men left holding against 120 ashigaru or what have you.

[Ardariel]

Originally posted by warmarrer:

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Its cuz the AI gets massive bonusses on any battle difficulty higher than normal. So high to the point that trash tier troops can stand up to your elites without dying like they should.

I didn't have an issue with Very Hard in Shogun 2, Rome 2, or Three Kingdoms. I feel like they've altered the calculations on routing and such because even on legendary you wouldn't usually see an enemy unit with 10 men left holding against 120 ashigaru or what have you.

they did not altered how it is calculated. Just there are more factors in play in TW 2

[Sn3z]

Are you playing vh/vh? And who are you fighting?

Very hard battle difficulty prior to the passive rank gains on campaign map was really just a early game speed bump to get over(red skills or ranks ranking was always better since you got leadership to counter), now the battle difficulty combined with passive ranks is just awful at the start depending on what faction you go and who your fighting, HE, dwarfs and LM are borked on these setting's.

CA should just nerf some of melee buffs to the AI.

[Raider Deci]

These buffs CA has been running with in every game since rome 2 is cancer and needs to go away. They do nothing but streamline the so called "sandbox" into a few effective ways to fight.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Raider Deci:

These buffs CA has been running with in every game since rome 2 is cancer and needs to go away. They do nothing but streamline the so called "sandbox" into a few effective ways to fight.

Then play on normal battle difficulty? You are aware you can have a legendary campaign difficultry with normal battle difficulty right?

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by Ming:

Originally posted by Raider Deci:

These buffs CA has been running with in every game since rome 2 is cancer and needs to go away. They do nothing but streamline the so called "sandbox" into a few effective ways to fight.

Then play on normal battle difficulty? You are aware you can have a legendary campaign difficultry with normal battle difficulty right?

Unless multiplayer campaign where I do spent most of my time with WH2.

The "just lower the difficulty"-answer is nothing but a copout-answer to bad game design that has not always been in TW. There are only a few RTS that buffs the enemy AI-troops & therefore making the players worse and they are all slammed for the exact same reason. Most develop around it and the behavior of the AI for harder difficulties.

[Winter]

It's unfortunate that to get higher levels of A.I you also gotta deal with A.I stat buffs.

[Dregora]

Originally posted by WinterWolf:

It's unfortunate that to get higher levels of A.I you also gotta deal with A.I stat buffs.

That's all higher levels do, they do nothing else.

[Imposter]

Getting rid of their leadership buff and adding a little more ‘Melee defense’, to AI would be an alternative medium?(i think, please criticize if disagreed.)

So long as the player is aggressive enough, then leadership can play more of a role, than only the player worrying about leadership.

Oh wait I must revise my last statement: I don’t think AI would consider Leadership control a thing... So maybe, never mind, and probably why its Leadership stats are so high.

Or its something the programming cannot deal in with “Leadership”...

Still though... High Leadership has become almost synonymous with ‘Unbreakable’ in this game. Kinda like how ranged units are all also convoluted; trivial, except for their Highest tier ranged, example: Sisters of Averlorn.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Raider Deci:

Originally posted by Ming:

Then play on normal battle difficulty? You are aware you can have a legendary campaign difficultry with normal battle difficulty right?

Unless multiplayer campaign where I do spent most of my time with WH2.

The "just lower the difficulty"-answer is nothing but a copout-answer to bad game design that has not always been in TW. There are only a few RTS that buffs the enemy AI-troops & therefore making the players worse and they are all slammed for the exact same reason. Most develop around it and the behavior of the AI for harder difficulties.

Terrible example is terrible. RTS have base building, and things where the computers superior APM helps leverage an advantage. This is not an RTS. Yeah, it has real time battles, but that is where the similarity ends. More aggressive, and better battle AI is never a bad thing for them to try and make, especially in siege. But an apples to apples comparison this is not.