Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Cylostra Direfin - Vampire Coast campaign overview, guide and second thoughts

Hello everyone. This is what I check out for when I wish to play a campaign, a very brief overview of what I believe will happen during the campaign, as well as my initial thoughts on matters such as diplomacy, expansion paths, army compositions, important skills for lords, etc.

In this specific one, I pick the Legendary Lord Cylostra Direfin, of the Vampire Coast.

Please do leave feedback and comment below, always keen to discuss the game with you guys.

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Cylostra Direfin - Vampire Coast campaign overview, guide and second thoughts

Hello everyone. In this guide I will cover:
- Victory conditions, faction and climate;
- Starting location;
- Diplomacy and outposts;
- Mechanics of the race and faction;
- Province edicts and army stances;
- Buildings and research;
- Lords and skills;
- Army compositions;
And give you my final notes on the specific faction. Hope you enjoy it.

If you wish to watch the video, it also helps to support me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5J0e40fJs

If you prefer to read, here it is:

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

Short victory:

- Gain the first Sea Shanty verse;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements;

The reward is +15% casualty replenishment rate, excellent to ensure your units are able to fight sooner. I always like to have a bit of replenishment in my armies anyways.

This is quite a quick short campaign in reality, you only need to earn Infamy and then you fight to earn the Sea Shanty. You should be close to the 30 settlements by then.

Long victory:

- Achieve the short victory;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 75 different settlements;
- At the start of your turn, have 25000 Infamy;

The reward is +35 winds of magic power reserve, which is great as well for the Vampire Coast since they do benefit from their magic.

This is a very sandbox idea, similar to the other Vampire Coast lords. They all have this nice feel, which makes them one of the best if you like a true sandbox experience.

Cylostra is the Mistress of the Deep, and she benefits from:

- Loyalty +2 for new recruits;
- Upkeep -20% for Syreen and Mourngul units;
- Recruitment cost -20% for Syreen and Mourngul units;

Loyalty is nearly not an issue for Cylostra, and she is incentived towards Syreens and Mournguls. Not the best bonuses, but you can theme it well.

Climate is quite good, although as Cylostra you start much closer to uninhabitable terrain and unpleasant terrain. It is slightly harder than other Vampire Coast lords, but still a cool faction to play for domination or even full map completion.

STARTING LOCATION:


Your starting location is a 3 settlement province, and it may seem on a nice edge, but truth be told, it is a perilous location. Dark Elves and High Elves combined aim to obtain control of the small province, so you may have issues against both very soon.

Typical expansion is to try and control the peninsula, and then follow either up North or into the South. You may wish to go to Ulthuan, but this is the part where the Sandbox really begins and shines, as it is truly up to your idea.

DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:

Diplomacy is once more difficult. You are bound to fight both Dark and High Elves, so you may likely bounce between Order and Evil tide. Ogres and Skaven should likely be your main allies, if you can find them, so exploring the map should be a priority if you intend on getting some allies fast.

Should you achieve that, gaining some cavalry units from the Ogres, or some Weapons Teams from the Skaven really fits well with your possible army compositions.


MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:

The Vampire Coast are really nice in the sense that they have a lot of small mechanics.

Raise the dead is pretty much as the Vampire Counts, although not as effective. It does allow quick armies to be summoned, particularly in the early game.

Treasure maps and Pieces of Eight are good and quite thematic. Typically players have a hero going around the World to collect treasure, which is never a bad idea. Pieces of Eight is a mechanic to gain your Regiments of Renown, by fighting against a specific army in the seas.

Infamy gives you some fights overall, as whenever you reach a specific level, you need to fight for a Sea Shanty. Once you get all Shanties, your army is really powerful, as getting that amount of melee defense and reload speed is crazy good for your army.

Port settlements allow the building of Pirate Coves. Unlike the Skaven undercities, Pirate Coves cannot be discovered and are only destroyed if the settlement is razed.

The buildings at the Pirate Coves include:

1 - Infamy per turn, lord recruit rank, hero capacity;
2 - Infamy and vampire corruption;
3 - Infamy and income;
4 - Infamy, income, research rate.

Some lords, including your Legendary Lord, have a horde style construction called Shipbuilding. This is similar to Black Arkcs, and allows you to quickly build infrastructure to recruit units, as well as receiving some important buffs. It is easier and quicker to develop these over your basic settlements.

Rites:

1 - Curse of the Sea Mist, giving all of your regions attrition to enemies, and vanguard deployment for a ton of units;
2 - Curse of Eternal Service, giving loyalty to your lords, loyalty does not decline, and +5 control to all provinces
3 - Curse of the Queen's Cannon, giving you the possibility of recruiting the unique Queen Bess, and casualty replenishment rate +15%
4 - Curse of the Bountiful Treasure, costs no gold and gives you +500 gold per every building from the Buried Treasure chain.

Offices, finally, provide many different bonuses that will help your overall campaign and determine some army compositions. Just pay attention to what are the Faction wide and Lord army effects, and you should be fine with your choices.

PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:

Edicts:

Growth +15, recruitment cost -10% for Zombie units, Local recruitment capacity +1;
Loyalty does not decline, Infamy per turn -10; control +5;
Attrition -7% when under siege; global recruitment capacity +1; ammunition +25% for armies in province;
Campaign movement for enemies -20%; vampiric corruption +2;

For the most part, growth will be your main one, but you should not overlook the global recruitment capacity increase, specially when you need to recruit a better army.

Army stances:

Dig for treasure is specific, consumes all movement and allows you to search for one of the Treasure maps if you are in the vicinity.
Encamp does not cost any movement, gives you replenishment, global recruitment, and immunity to attrition; Should be active whenever possible.
Raiding costs 50% movement, giving you immunity to attrition;
Ambush costs 25% movement
Forced march

Make sure that you benefit from the Encamp having no movement points cost, so your armies should be ready for action at all times.

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Cylostra Direfin - Vampire Coast campaign overview, guide and second thoughts(continuation)

BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:


There are no special buildings in your starting province.

Military requires 6 buildings, but the biggest issue is that all of them must be built in teh capital for its fullest effect. You do have decent tier 3 units, so some may be built in your minor settlements, such as carronades, for example.

It is probably one of the few factions that only needs one building to be somewhat effective well into the lategame (ranged building). It gives you a good hero, frontline, anti-large, and ranged units.

Infrastructure:

1 - Growth and control, as well as debuffs for enemies;
2 - Income and control
3 - Corruption
4 - Income
Overall, nice to get more income, controll will most likely never be an issue with access to two buildings for it.

Research is amazing and useful. It gives you great buffs for your troops that you can choose which ones nearly from the start. Adding to this, you have nice anciliaries and even Lords who have their own Shipbuilding mechanic too.

LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITION:

Blue line has an interesting aspect: upkeep has not been reduced, so it is still -15% and you get an extra -8% from the last skill. Talk about getting cheaper armies;)

Replenishment is in the first line, so it allows you to have quick expansion without having to invest too much.

It requires a lot of skill points overall, basically because everyone is a spell caster. Plan your lords wisely from the start.

Redline can either be extremely effective, or not, at least in terms of how many skills you need. It is a good one to come up with different possibilities for your armies.

Note how both low tier and high tier units are benefitted by the same redline skill. Nearly every ranged unit including a frontline defender is benefitted from another skill.


Cylostra buffs her whole army and slightly Syreens and Mournguls. She also has the interesting aspect of having Bloated corpses nearly free.
The compositions are about having Monster lines in front of a typical ranged line, and you can adapt the numbers as you see fit. Third composition has some Depth Guard frontline covered by mournguls and some bloated corpses with ranged support.


For other armies, you can enjoy a frontline of just monsters and backline of missiles. Gunnery Wights are very good since they have great abilities for the missile units.


Another idea for fun is to have a mix of flyers with some infantry. Be careful as it can be weak in some cases, but it is a fun composition for some variety.

You can also have a fully ranged army for target practice, or some vanguard units and flyers, monstrous infantry based armies. They are all fairly easy to buff in total, note the yellow number (number of redline skills required to buff the entire army above it).


The hero selection here is, like always, placeholder. All I advise is a caster hero and a melee/support hero. Your choice of which ones and how many.

FINAL NOTES:

The Vampire Coast are quite unique in that they all start in a very different position. Cylostra may yet have the most difficult start, since she is going to be facing some tough opponents for certain, right in the early game.

Cylostra can have some good early game, though, with the summons that she can get. For the most part, expect her to carry a bit with her spells while you steadily improve your position.

Like the other Pirate nations, you can just explore the seas and ensure that no one but you can sail the waters, and it is quite a fun campaign to do so.

Their army is CRAZY good after all the buffs you can get, and the Sea Shanties make you a formidable force on the battlefield, nearly second to none. Beware, though, you rely on range, so if you are moving while already in range... stop and fire!

Your army consists of:

1 - Good infantry
2 - Great missiles and artillery
3 - Good monstrous infantry
4 - Decent flyers
5 - Good single entities
6 - Lacks cavalry
7 - Somewhat slow overall

Replenishment is great, specially with good climate. Be wary of the Chaos locations, though.

I believe now it is time to plunder, raze and sack following Cylostra Direfan!