100% agreed, I was all excited to play the VC after the latest update and I got absolutely mauled.

I was at war with something like 5-7 factions simultaneously, and this was in spite of the fact that I tried to be "diplomatic" (not attack large allies, destroy all the other vamp factions first, use gifts etc). No matter what I did I couldn't prevent waves of 20 stack invaders constantly assaulting me. It was stupid.

So yep, guess I'm giving up on this because the only way I see it possibly working is if you cheese vampire heroes, and I don't want to do that again... Sigh.

its funny because vampire counts are the most broken old world faction in the game right now, rivaled solely by taurox
if you intent on using chaff support them with something other than even more chaff
you can kill a full army of greatswords and demigryphs with spirit hosts crypt horrors and corpse carts
how do you not wipe out the empire before you even see a demigryph is beyond me
you get +250-300 growth from buildings before anything else in a 3 region province
you probably don't know not taxing a province gives +50 growth and don't utilize necromancer heroes and lords for +30 growth each for even more, you don't have to cheese it even one or two is enough and I do fine with 0
or just go raise dead from large battlefields if not straight up create your own by throwing a full zombie army at basically anything then waiting 5-6 turns for corpses to rot
you should be making 10k cash from doing two basic battles I really don't get how you struggle and come to conclusions this wrong

"all vampire count factions feel the same" go back to watching lets plays my guy

Originally posted by Balzaphon:

its funny because vampire counts are the most broken old world faction in the game right now, rivaled solely by taurox
if you intent on using chaff support them with something other than even more chaff
you can kill a full army of greatswords and demigryphs with spirit hosts crypt horrors and corpse carts
how do you not wipe out the empire before you even see a demigryph is beyond me
you get +250-300 growth from buildings before anything else in a 3 region province
you probably don't know not taxing a province gives +50 growth and don't utilize necromancer heroes and lords for +30 growth each for even more, you don't have to cheese it even one or two is enough and I do fine with 0
or just go raise dead from large battlefields if not straight up create your own by throwing a full zombie army at basically anything then waiting 5-6 turns for corpses to rot
you should be making 10k cash from doing two basic battles I really don't get how you struggle and come to conclusions this wrong

"all vampire count factions feel the same" go back to watching lets plays my guy

So let me explain a few things to you, since you obviously seem to be a few screws loose.

the only hero that stimulates growth are Banshee's. Now after several attempts of playing all five Legendary Lords, in a turtle mode, hyper aggressive and even bankrupting army amounts with the aforementioned builds.

The issue isn't the late stage power of the counts. No its the fact that by turn 30 or 40 there are so many enemies I cannot manage. But lets go on a little math adventure shall we?

All of the Lords growth is at the second half of the Blue Line. At 36 each. Without a mount Manfred Alone with the Starting Army costs 1367 without Kevin, with Kevin that bumps up to 1465. And a base growth of 50.

Now it takes two turns to get to Eschen. So on Turn 2 you will have Eschen. And on turn 3 all of Eastern with a taxed growth of 70/turn needing 200 for 1 surplus and 600 for surplus 2 for a total of 800, now if you build the only tier 1 growth slot you will go up from all three that is 100 growth per turn, now with the only tier 1 growth building they have, that is 160 with the growth decree that's 210. Each takes 1 turn, so you will be on turn 5 when all of them are complete. Leaving you at best with 35 turns to gain. With the growth tree requiring a total of 16 turns.

But back to Turn 5. Takes an additional 3 turns then 4 turns. So using the min max strategy of ONE minor settlement from turn 5, straight up to turn 6 three turns later that is turn 9. Which you will still have 1 additional turn to wait. So turn 10. then another 4 turns. So that brings you to turn 14. So then you have 3 more turns to build for banshees alone for growth. That is turn 17. So at best with how my experience and from the looks of several others that is 23 turns left before the entire empire declares war on you and comes after you. And that's for one buiding with a total hero slot of 3. Recruit rank 3. Which means 1 growth which is 15. And no additional units you can recruit except ethereal units.


Now to bulid a minor settlement still requires another 7 turns, so assuming you start at the smaller province right as its ready on turn 11, that brings you to turn 15, with another 5 turns for the armory for direct infantry. So that's turn 20 at best. So that leaves 20 turns remaining. Now Hexwraiths and Graveguard are each 2 turns to recruit, and you can recruit 3 per turn, since I am not seeing anything that recruits (up to 4 with the decree but that subtracts from growth which is you had actually read you wouldn't know is the issue) so lets assume you keep the vargulf, that is for solid units, you have 18 slots, divide that by 3 that is 5 revolutions or 10 turns which would bring you to turn 30.

Now obviously raise dead would bring better units by fighting dying, fighting dying in the same spot. Great, use that. Shame the amount it costs to do that depletes your income vesus your building amount.

Now I've maxed out the post battle amount the most I was getting was 2500 from one battle which usually crippled my zombies and I used Manfreds hard spells to win the match. So not sure where you are getting the extra 2500 per fight.

If you can survive on Zombies and Ethereal units alone against Demigrphy knights, Greatsword spam and Halestorm rocket batteries by turns 40 with one maybe 2 zombie armies you are far better than I am and I applaud you. and the Hex Wraths costs 1200 to recruit.

And given on the AI side of things, every faction I play, the counts are wiped out by turn 30, and the best I've seen is turn 50 before all of them are dead. Not sure where the strongest is coming from.

My intent isn't to disparaging the support team I never said anything about them all I was saying is how the mod is going for me.

But go off sis.

🎵 what can I say except l2p 🎵

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/871707638738583632/904718631823368252/unknown.png

My main problem is 9 games out of 10 I can't confederate Manfred when playing Vlad, because between me, him and Azhag pushing out, he gets too much territory safely and he gets too strong to accept confederation. I can crush him before that but I'd really like to use him in the ME campaign and there's just no way, especially with him somehow spawning like 2 full stacks + 1 / 2 half stacks while controlling a single province. It's not a matter of balance as much as just simple fun.

I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with the VC updates, one of my fav factions to play.
However, after three play-throughs on the new update, playing Vlad I conquer and consolidate all of Sylvania between turn 15-20, then the rest is turtling against the empire states and the annoying dwarfs.

Even though I'm surviving on the skin of my teeth, its essentially running around Slyvannia, the Moot, Avernium putting out fires and defending. I'm finding I dont have growth to fast tech my city or enough funds to recruit Isabella a decent army except for a zombie horde.

On my latest, I'm playing Kemmler VH/N and it seems it is a little bit easier as the pressure isn't relentless. I have taken the two forts early on and that has paid dividends stopping empire incursions. Except for Couronne, I've taken all of the Brettonia lands, but the lack of corruption and growth is an issue. In this campaign I've seen Vlad and Mannfred take a serious chunk out of the empire but like others have said by turn 30-40, they have lost all their territories except for their starting cities.

I haven't played VC recently but I can confirm, playing as someone else, VCs get steamrolled and annihilated by turn 50 in most scenarios. So there is definitely something wrong with the balance.

@Freemark
as for your concern of not being able to get other legendary characters, when their respective faction is destroyed, there is a great mod (which I am currently using and it works with SFO), it allows you to recruit defeated legendary lords/heroes after faction is destroyed, but only from your respective race type.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1736529254

I had high hopes that this patch would bring somekind of "Vamptide" since my campaigns (vanilla and SFO) are almost always plagued by Ordertide, no matter what faction I play.
Just started with Kemmler and had pretty good start, but turn 36 "Faction destroyed: Sylvania".

But positive: I really like Night Court mechanic, used it early to gain good relations with High Elves and secure trade routes and alliances so that front is secure and brings nice trade profits for now. (Although probably must betray them in future due Kemmler special buildings, but they are useful for now..)

The person who said I was attacking people and didn't actually read, because growth isn't the issue.

I like the base mechanics but sadly the Counts are just getting steam rolled usually around the same turn. I tried it on other difficulties with different factions, outside of the early Skaven factions, the Vampire Counts are the first to die, along with the Drowned, The Vampire Coast and Dread Fleet. Sartosa usually lasts for a while longer but usually because they are just in a "corner" or sorts and tend to be ignored.

I was about to do a vampire campaign and seeing this makes me want to continue playing my losing chaos campaign

Originally posted by Something Cat:

Originally posted by Balzaphon:

its funny because vampire counts are the most broken old world faction in the game right now, rivaled solely by taurox
if you intent on using chaff support them with something other than even more chaff
you can kill a full army of greatswords and demigryphs with spirit hosts crypt horrors and corpse carts
how do you not wipe out the empire before you even see a demigryph is beyond me
you get +250-300 growth from buildings before anything else in a 3 region province
you probably don't know not taxing a province gives +50 growth and don't utilize necromancer heroes and lords for +30 growth each for even more, you don't have to cheese it even one or two is enough and I do fine with 0
or just go raise dead from large battlefields if not straight up create your own by throwing a full zombie army at basically anything then waiting 5-6 turns for corpses to rot
you should be making 10k cash from doing two basic battles I really don't get how you struggle and come to conclusions this wrong

"all vampire count factions feel the same" go back to watching lets plays my guy

So let me explain a few things to you, since you obviously seem to be a few screws loose.

the only hero that stimulates growth are Banshee's. Now after several attempts of playing all five Legendary Lords, in a turtle mode, hyper aggressive and even bankrupting army amounts with the aforementioned builds.

The issue isn't the late stage power of the counts. No its the fact that by turn 30 or 40 there are so many enemies I cannot manage. But lets go on a little math adventure shall we?

All of the Lords growth is at the second half of the Blue Line. At 36 each. Without a mount Manfred Alone with the Starting Army costs 1367 without Kevin, with Kevin that bumps up to 1465. And a base growth of 50.

Now it takes two turns to get to Eschen. So on Turn 2 you will have Eschen. And on turn 3 all of Eastern with a taxed growth of 70/turn needing 200 for 1 surplus and 600 for surplus 2 for a total of 800, now if you build the only tier 1 growth slot you will go up from all three that is 100 growth per turn, now with the only tier 1 growth building they have, that is 160 with the growth decree that's 210. Each takes 1 turn, so you will be on turn 5 when all of them are complete. Leaving you at best with 35 turns to gain. With the growth tree requiring a total of 16 turns.

But back to Turn 5. Takes an additional 3 turns then 4 turns. So using the min max strategy of ONE minor settlement from turn 5, straight up to turn 6 three turns later that is turn 9. Which you will still have 1 additional turn to wait. So turn 10. then another 4 turns. So that brings you to turn 14. So then you have 3 more turns to build for banshees alone for growth. That is turn 17. So at best with how my experience and from the looks of several others that is 23 turns left before the entire empire declares war on you and comes after you. And that's for one buiding with a total hero slot of 3. Recruit rank 3. Which means 1 growth which is 15. And no additional units you can recruit except ethereal units.


Now to bulid a minor settlement still requires another 7 turns, so assuming you start at the smaller province right as its ready on turn 11, that brings you to turn 15, with another 5 turns for the armory for direct infantry. So that's turn 20 at best. So that leaves 20 turns remaining. Now Hexwraiths and Graveguard are each 2 turns to recruit, and you can recruit 3 per turn, since I am not seeing anything that recruits (up to 4 with the decree but that subtracts from growth which is you had actually read you wouldn't know is the issue) so lets assume you keep the vargulf, that is for solid units, you have 18 slots, divide that by 3 that is 5 revolutions or 10 turns which would bring you to turn 30.

Now obviously raise dead would bring better units by fighting dying, fighting dying in the same spot. Great, use that. Shame the amount it costs to do that depletes your income vesus your building amount.

Now I've maxed out the post battle amount the most I was getting was 2500 from one battle which usually crippled my zombies and I used Manfreds hard spells to win the match. So not sure where you are getting the extra 2500 per fight.

If you can survive on Zombies and Ethereal units alone against Demigrphy knights, Greatsword spam and Halestorm rocket batteries by turns 40 with one maybe 2 zombie armies you are far better than I am and I applaud you. and the Hex Wraths costs 1200 to recruit.

And given on the AI side of things, every faction I play, the counts are wiped out by turn 30, and the best I've seen is turn 50 before all of them are dead. Not sure where the strongest is coming from.

My intent isn't to disparaging the support team I never said anything about them all I was saying is how the mod is going for me.

But go off sis.

Spam spirit hosts and vargheists you will never lose a battle

I second all these issues. I've been excited at the idea of pursuing an alternate history with Vlad since seeing his specific changes, but no. Four tries and I always end up in an unwinnable situation by turn 50 or sooner. Honestly it's like the AI cheats are dialed up to 11. It's incredibly immersion breaking when you just barely win a massive battle that wiped out both of Ostermarks 20 stacks. Take 2 turns to just replenish your forces to take Beschfen and BOOM. Their's two fresh stacks sitting on it with a deep ass garrison.

And you can't just rest and build up because eventually someone will wanna fight. (Wtf Hochland) and you have the building doom that is Franz swallowing up provinces the whole time.

And just a funny aside. Red Duke keeps getting destroyed super fast. Like turn 4 my last attempt.

Had the same problems as Kemmler during my first campaign. Expanded too fast, got too many enemies, VCs got steamrolled, all the works. Decided to start over, avoid expanding too fast. First thing I did was hire 3 units of spirit hosts. Haven't lost a battle since, VCs are doing fine. Amazing units, love them. Just try a different approach.

Please make proper discussion and dont use strong language. Topic will be closed if comments wont be less aggressive.

Originally posted by artedox:

Had the same problems as Kemmler during my first campaign. Expanded too fast, got too many enemies, VCs got steamrolled, all the works. Decided to start over, avoid expanding too fast. First thing I did was hire 3 units of spirit hosts. Haven't lost a battle since, VCs are doing fine. Amazing units, love them. Just try a different approach.

I can try that, really the first comment (well actually second, the other one suggesting vargests as well). I was trying to initially play them where I spammed zombies and abused the LLs because they are so strong, especially Manfred, but Manfred has always been strong due to having massive damage and leadership killing with Death and the bonkers effects Vampires.

I am just not sure how to deal with the 3 to 8 armies every turn and its pretty consistent for me to be staring down many armies from so many factions at once. Oddly however, on Hard its easier for me, but Normal and Legendary everyone just says "Nope time for the vampires to die"

The only thing that also works is as any of the vampire factions I pretty much ignore the other vampires because if I take it, the dwarves and Empire of Men hit -100 diplomacy from 25-50 within 2-3 turns.

Like I said originally I just don't know what to do. Often times I run out of money trying to build versus trying to fight back. Because the CPU will either let me fight or wont let me build.

HIghest I've gotten was a T-4 Slyvania before I was down to just Castle Drankenhoof. Defending as best as I can before I fully lost on turn 65.

I did however got back to an old strategy of mine with Vlad where I just went south to Lamia and beat up Khalida and it worked for a time until the Dwarves went full space marine on me and I couldn't out match the underways.

I just don't really now how to long term defend/expand as the vampire counts anymore. I do like a lot of the changes to the vampire counts I just feel like I cannot do anything impactful or even really win for that matter, it often feels like I am just getting steamrolled or trying to go turn by turn hoping to be ignored so I can build Ranks and Buildings. Abusing Heroes as best as I can, but I cannot for the life of me maintain Vamp Corruption even with Manfred I start loosing vamp corruption sometimes even at -5 per turn.

So really I just need help overall.