Videogames - Meanwhile in Poland.

[Jon AS]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

In any case, as expected, the next turn Settra took back Khemri. I made him bleed quite a bit once again, but essentially bit into my keyboard when my army routed while my commander was just about to kill the already badly injured Settra in single combat. Also my archers were actually doing a really good job thinning out his forces, so... why did I loose all of a sudden?!?

It might be a bit more complex than this, but the general gist is that there's a critical morale threshold below which an army will simply route en masse (or disintegrate in the case of Vampire Counts/Coast). Losing your army commander is a massive blow to overall army morale.

Brettonian infantry is essentially cannon fodder. They desperately need knights and heroes to prop them up. Even then I generally jettison all infantry except for a core of archers and a couple of trebuchets as soon as this becomes viable. I then use Questing Knights and later Grail Guardians to screen the archers and artillery and absorb the ennemy charge while the best lance-armed cavalry delivers the actual killing blow. If the enemy has artillery themselves I'd send a pegasus-mounted paladin, possibly supported by a unit or two of Pegasus/Hippogryph Knights to knock that out first.

As has been pointed out, the Tomb Kings, even more so than any other AI-controlled faction (note: the computer is a cheating bastard), can replace horrendous losses with ease. You'll need multiple armies to effectively beat any larger AI-empire to handle both offense and defense at the same time.

[The Winged Shadow]

On 11/18/2020 at 2:55 AM, Derfel Cadarn said:

Reached Sagittarius-A, the centre of thr Milky Way in Elite Dangerous!

Got a chill on leaving hyperspace and staring at the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.  I’m currently docked in a station in a system a few light years away, the furthest station from Sol. Made 20mill credits selling all my exploration data. Most of it was just pinging systems as I went through, but one I thoroughly scanned netted me over 1 mill alone.

Next step is to return to Earth.

 

Kudos dude, that is a good achievement. I don't have the patience for long range exploration, I get too bored!

On 11/18/2020 at 3:24 AM, Rhom said:

Did someone say Elite is free on Epic Games this week?

Ive been curious about it for a while.

Definitely worth it for free!

On 11/18/2020 at 6:51 AM, Toth said:

Okay, I am obviously too dumb for Warhammer Total War. I lost and don't even know what happened.

So I continued my campaign, somewhat savescumming. I managed to muster a fresh full army supplemented with Grail Knights and Questing Knights to support Repanse, but Settra got even more reinforcements and attacked before it arrived. I managed to kill half his army, but failed to destroy any of his goddamn constructs, so I went back and repeated my sortie from before to at least kill the sphinx. This one actually worked even better: I managed to destroy all of Settra's constructs and badly battered him himself. Unfortunately Repanse herself was killed in a duel with Settra this time.

In any case, as expected, the next turn Settra took back Khemri. I made him bleed quite a bit once again, but essentially bit into my keyboard when my army routed while my commander was just about to kill the already badly injured Settra in single combat. Also my archers were actually doing a really good job thinning out his forces, so... why did I loose all of a sudden?!?

In any case, it was that turn my full army led by a level 4 rando arrived. Settra got those reinforcements from before and met me in the field with only a very slight numeric advantage against my fresh army, something I really didn't expect to screw me over so much.

And then I was hammered. I killed every single enemy except Settra, but Settra routed my entire army anyway. What the fuck?!? What... what was this?!?

I guess I really underestimated just how shit Britonnian infantry is or messed up micromanaging my knights. I don't know. I only know that Settra was all of a sudden absolutely unfazed by them and effortlessly murdered even my most elite units while his reinforcements kept coming and I had extreme difficulties keeping my line together as they kept getting routed by the Tomb Kings' fear aura. Or is this some mechanic about unleveled commanders being utterly useless that I missed?

But I seem to suck in general. I focused entirely on economy and yet when I looked up some guides they said I should have already 20.000 gold per turn and conquered the entire continent by turn 50, which is where I am right now. Gah...

You can get army loss penalty if you suffer lots of losses and your remaining army is considered weak compared to enemy + enemy reinforcement. Was Settra on his Kitty or Chariot? He is extremely powerful and can singlehandedly wreck your infantry units with his chariot. AI is REALLY good at chariot micro. Pretty sure Settra is unbreakable, so will fight to death (while your general probably isn't, if it is generic lord).

Not sure I quite understand your scenario as you say you killed his army but he still had reinforcement. How many reinforcing armies did he have? Were your units damaged from previous fights? It could be that they fear routed all your infantry at the same time and then your general routed because he thought he was the only one left (get negative leadership if stronger foes are nearby or overwhelmed by numbers).

Bretonnian infantry are garbage. Replace them ASAP. They have super low leadership so the fear debuff from fighting undead can be devastating. By the time you can afford high tier infantry, you are better off getting Cavalry unit instead.

Do not worry about guides. Situations vary vastly between what the guide assumes and what your situation is. No point having heaps of money and territory if you don't have the armies (or atleast one quality army) to defend it as well as expand. Try to invest in at least one doom stack so it can wreck any army. Then make sure your Lord has Lightning Strike. Lightning Strike is basically cheat mode against Tomb Kings, who tend to have heaps of shit tier armies. Then when you attack their settlements, you can go 1v1 even though they kinda sit on their cities with 4-5 armies lol.

Don't be afraid to recruit armies as needed, and then DISBAND them as needed. Your defending armies can be shit tier archer stacks or half stacks if you have walls built in your frontier territories, but you want your attacking armies to be of good quality as they will often be out numbered.

A Life Enchantress Lord with a Cav stack is extremely powerful as they can heal your cav units pretty efficiently.

On 11/18/2020 at 8:10 AM, Toth said:

Yes, I noticed and this is why I made it a habit to go straight for the undead generals because I noticed their armies after their death just disappeared. Too bad Settra is too tough a bastard to take on without Repanse, the generic generals suck.

I actually managed to kill his sphinx during my sortie! I also noticed he has the ability to mark one unit with a purple icon which turns them to max experience. He also has a vast array of spells to support his army or strike fear into my troops, but am not quite sure what either of it does specifically.

Ah. Okay, no, I didn't know that. Settra got a pretty impressive empire since he gobbled up quite a few of his neighbors, so. I wondered whether it would be a viable tactic to avoid Khemri and attack his other cities before returning and... I think that's what I will do now.

I just watched a Let's Play of some guy on Youtube and at the turn where I am he already got more than 50k income for some reason. I'm just... baffled. Though it seems he has allies to trade with that or not constantly nearing extinction.

Purple icon units are Regiment of Reknown (if i am thinking the same as you), special version of the standard units (max level, has special abilities or passives, better stats etc). Do you have trade agreements? You should be able to get some going with other Bretonnian factions, Empire, Dwarves etc if not.

Definitely worth attacking other easier settlement to weaken him and bring out his armies. And take it apart piece by piece. Also worth focus firing their Lord and Heroes with your archers to inflict leadership penalties and make them crumble quicker.

How many strong armies do you have? 

[Heartofice]

On Total Warhammer Lightning Strike, I actually really hate it as a perk, because it is such an auto pick. You literally HAVE to get it with pretty much every general because it is so useful. That means putting at least 3 perks into the blue tree. Ruins that sense of freedom and role playing a little bit.

It is worse on any level about normal because of the AIs ability to just build huge numbers of stacks, sometimes doomstacks. 

My one big gripe on TWW is doomstacks actually, there really is little incentive to not build them, and at later periods in the game it just becomes a little annoying. I can easily build a stack of nexcrofex collossus' and pretty much kill everything. I wish they would build in a system that limited the army composition a bit more in campaign.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

On Total Warhammer Lightning Strike, I actually really hate it as a perk, because it is such an auto pick. You literally HAVE to get it with pretty much every general because it is so useful. That means putting at least 3 perks into the blue tree. Ruins that sense of freedom and role playing a little bit.

It is worse on any level about normal because of the AIs ability to just build huge numbers of stacks, sometimes doomstacks. 

My one big gripe on TWW is doomstacks actually, there really is little incentive to not build them, and at later periods in the game it just becomes a little annoying. I can easily build a stack of nexcrofex collossus' and pretty much kill everything. I wish they would build in a system that limited the army composition a bit more in campaign.

I've never used Lightning Strike, because I always focus on the red and gold perks, and only get a few of the blue. The AI used it on me a few times.

Good timing, because CA just announced the latest, and I believe final, WHII DLC, adding another Skaven legendary lord, and more importantly more Wood Elf content. It should also come at the same time with the much needed re-work for the Wood Elves.

[Heartofice]

24 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've never used Lightning Strike, because I always focus on the red and gold perks, and only get a few of the blue. The AI used it on me a few times.

Good timing, because CA just announced the latest, and I believe final, WHII DLC, adding another Skaven legendary lord, and more importantly more Wood Elf content. It should also come at the same time with the much needed re-work for the Wood Elves.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-the-twisted-the-twilight-faq/

Oh yeah just checked it out. It is exactly what the community had predicted months ago funnily enough. The Flesh Lab looks fun, if not a million miles away from the mechanics they have brought in with previous DLC.

The wood elves mechanics look pretty underwhelming to me. I was hoping for more from the Amber rework. They just appear to have removed it as a real mechanic and made them a standard faction, except now they need to jaunt around the map looking for different forests. Yawn.

Like most of these DLCs, one of the factions is fun and interesting, and the other one feels like an afterthought.

[Caligula_K3]

Are any of you Switch owners planning to buy Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity? I tried the demo and I'm on the fence. On the one hand, Breath of the Wild nostalgia is strong. On the other, even though I had fun with the demo, I'm not sure if that fun will last longer than 10 hours or so with how frantic the combat system is. If you get it, let us know how it is!

 

[Slurktan]

44 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've never used Lightning Strike, because I always focus on the red and gold perks, and only get a few of the blue. The AI used it on me a few times.

Good timing, because CA just announced the latest, and I believe final, WHII DLC, adding another Skaven legendary lord, and more importantly more Wood Elf content. It should also come at the same time with the much needed re-work for the Wood Elves.

Lightning strike is essential on higher difficulties as anyone (other than the Undead factions who actively don't want it) because the AI gets so many cheats and will always have multiple stacks.  Helps that blue line generally makes armies cheaper too.  

[Corvinus85]

52 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-the-twisted-the-twilight-faq/

Oh yeah just checked it out. It is exactly what the community had predicted months ago funnily enough. The Flesh Lab looks fun, if not a million miles away from the mechanics they have brought in with previous DLC.

The wood elves mechanics look pretty underwhelming to me. I was hoping for more from the Amber rework. They just appear to have removed it as a real mechanic and made them a standard faction, except now they need to jaunt around the map looking for different forests. Yawn.

Like most of these DLCs, one of the factions is fun and interesting, and the other one feels like an afterthought.

On the DLC alone, it does look like the Skaven got more love, though I'm curious how having two characters in one will work for the Woold Elves. But apart from this the Wood Elf rework will be available for everyone. I'm glad that you no longer have to chase Amber around just to get better units, and I'm curious about the new forests, and how engaging the campaign will be. At the very least, we're getting a few more settlements on the map.

@Toth I thought about doing a Repanse play myself, too, thanks to your posts, then I remembered the stupid water supply mechanic that only her faction has, which makes no sense. Better to do a campaign in Mortal Empires with one of the other Bretonnian factions.

One thing I wish they reworked for the entire game is the item quest mechanic. Teleporting your army to wherever for a small fee is a way too easy resolution to these quests.

[Slurktan]

27 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

On the DLC alone, it does look like the Skaven got more love, though I'm curious how having two characters in one will work for the Woold Elves. But apart from this the Wood Elf rework will be available for everyone. I'm glad that you no longer have to chase Amber around just to get better units, and I'm curious about the new forests, and how engaging the campaign will be. At the very least, we're getting a few more settlements on the map.

Don't forget there is another Legendary Wood Elf Lord coming that is a bad guy so presumably like Arkhan for the Tomb Kings. They haven't announced anything for him yet but presumably instead of healing the forests he will corrupt them or something.  Also the new power for transporting wood elves armies between forests seems awesome as it doesn't say you have to control the forest.

[RumHam]

Wow it looks like they're actually adding a new island to GTA online. I may have to reinstall that after all these years. 

https://www.polygon.com/2020/11/19/21575391/gta-online-map-expansion-island-john-doe-naked-man-rockstar-games-tease

[Werthead]

Started playing Cloudpunk. Really great cyberpunk indie game. No combat, no violence. Instead you're a delivery driver who just takes things from A to B (helped by your dog-like AI companion) and gets caught up in Bigger Events. It's quite impressive. There's sort of open world, although there's not a huge amount to do other than collecting loot and collectibles and follow the main story. About a dozen hours in total, from the sound of it. The voice acting is a bit amateurish (more endearingly so than bad, though) but the writing is solid and the visuals (halfway between Cyberpunk 2077 and Minecraft, oddly) are really cool.

Episode 5 of Night City Wire has some good stuff about the delayed Cyberpunk 2077 (including lots more Keanu) and also some stuff on the game's influences: Neuromancer, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner (natch), Ghost in the Shell, Deus Ex and the Shadowrun Returns trilogy.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

Don't forget there is another Legendary Wood Elf Lord coming that is a bad guy so presumably like Arkhan for the Tomb Kings. They haven't announced anything for him yet but presumably instead of healing the forests he will corrupt them or something.  Also the new power for transporting wood elves armies between forests seems awesome as it doesn't say you have to control the forest.

It's Drycha. https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Drycha Not sure she will corrupt the forests, maybe purify them. Kick everyone out, including the Wood Elves.

[Toth]

On 11/17/2020 at 10:44 PM, Jon AS said:

It might be a bit more complex than this, but the general gist is that there's a critical morale threshold below which an army will simply route en masse (or disintegrate in the case of Vampire Counts/Coast). Losing your army commander is a massive blow to overall army morale.

I saw this threshold system explained now. I find that... somewhat artificial. You would think that individual soldiers lack the overview over the battle to consider a battle lost if the soldiers around them aren't routing en-masse, but actually holding the line. Or in siege battles where you know if you loose you'll gonna get slaughtered to the last man, so you end up fighting till the end. It seems to me just an unnecessary mechanic to make the already stupidly fast paced battles end even faster.

On 11/17/2020 at 10:44 PM, Jon AS said:

Brettonian infantry is essentially cannon fodder. They desperately need knights and heroes to prop them up. Even then I generally jettison all infantry except for a core of archers and a couple of trebuchets as soon as this becomes viable. I then use Questing Knights and later Grail Guardians to screen the archers and artillery and absorb the ennemy charge while the best lance-armed cavalry delivers the actual killing blow. If the enemy has artillery themselves I'd send a pegasus-mounted paladin, possibly supported by a unit or two of Pegasus/Hippogryph Knights to knock that out first.

 

11 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Bretonnian infantry are garbage. Replace them ASAP. They have super low leadership so the fear debuff from fighting undead can be devastating. By the time you can afford high tier infantry, you are better off getting Cavalry unit instead.

There is something deep inside me stubbornly refusing to consider an all cavalry army as the appropriate answer. I mean... I seriously haven't managed yet to try out everything, I still need to unlock Grail Reliquaes to raise my infrantry's moral and I just found out how I can hire spellcasters. But then... well... ugh...

I must admit I haven't played a Total War game since Empire, so I'm a bit out there in regards to my opinions. I know past TW games had their issues with AI and balancing in regards to how usually ended up cheesing battles with extremely ranged units heavy armies playing space invaders, murdering any enemy before they could touch me. Or that I usually fought my battles only with one army as some kind of self-imposed challenge. TWW trying to be more challenging with deeply unique faction strengths and weaknesses is admirable. But the more I get to know Brettonia, the more annoyed I get. You'd think a cavalry heavy faction would allow for classic hammer-and-anvil tactics, but it turns out your supposed anvil is made of porcelain, so instead you just end up throwing all the hammers at the enemy. How exactly does that qualify as a strategy? So the recommendation is usually all-cavalry armies or I have also seen all-griffon armies to stunlock enemies. Sometimes I have seen people making use of more archers, but on the campaign they move in a pack of three armies close together to overwhelm the enemy if they get into battle.

12 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Not sure I quite understand your scenario as you say you killed his army but he still had reinforcement. How many reinforcing armies did he have? Were your units damaged from previous fights? It could be that they fear routed all your infantry at the same time and then your general routed because he thought he was the only one left (get negative leadership if stronger foes are nearby or overwhelmed by numbers).

I know I phrased that oddly: Settra was attacking me with three armies. I slaughtered the first one to the last man, then the second one hit, then the third one, all the while Settra was running back and forth, never allowing himself to be caught alone even if I kept killing everyone else around him.

By now I think it was the micromanagement that killed me. My infrantry kept getting routed and then regrouping, only to route again the moment they returned to combat. And while I was busy throwing them back into the fight I noticed that a whole lot of my knights kept just kinda standing there in the middle of the fight without defending themselves because the unit I ordered them to charge had already crumbled. So in the end I did barely the damage that I could have done if I had succeeded in constantly babysitting my knights.

12 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Don't be afraid to recruit armies as needed, and then DISBAND them as needed. Your defending armies can be shit tier archer stacks or half stacks if you have walls built in your frontier territories, but you want your attacking armies to be of good quality as they will often be out numbered.

Well, at least that makes me feel a little better about loosing two stacks, this means they were at least replaceable.

12 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Purple icon units are Regiment of Reknown (if i am thinking the same as you), special version of the standard units (max level, has special abilities or passives, better stats etc). Do you have trade agreements? You should be able to get some going with other Bretonnian factions, Empire, Dwarves etc if not.

I wondered whether Settra has the ability to declare one unit his honor guard or something, given that even after I killed the purple unit, he kept getting another one the next turn, but always only exactly one. No idea how I can get those myself.

Trade is an issue. I am in the vortex campaign since I don't have TWW1, there aren't enough human races around to trade with me. My trade partners are one Empire, one Elf and one Dwarf faction, but each with only one city. The entire continent has been divided between Settra and a Lizardmen kingdom, with the latter owning pretty much three quarters of it. The lizardmen stubbornly refused to trade with me so far. I also don't know any elven factions in the north. Trying to send a unit up there got it slaughtered by pirates before getting out of sight of the shore.

12 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

How many strong armies do you have? 

How about none? I wasted all of them with that expedition. XD I have two more lords sitting in cities where I was just starting to build an army, they have about 5 units each. In the south I also have one Lord in a tiny enclave surrounded by lizardmen (a ruin I settled), he got one unit. I also just got Repanse back, so I'm thinking about giving her the all-cavalry treatment and go get the sword of lyonesse from the dwarves before joining the fight against the Tomb Kings.

That's... that's pretty much all. Like I said, I lost two full armies over the course of three turns now against Settra.

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

@TothI thought about doing a Repanse play myself, too, thanks to your posts, then I remembered the stupid water supply mechanic that only her faction has, which makes no sense. Better to do a campaign in Mortal Empires with one of the other Bretonnian factions.

Oh nice! But wait... that's one thing that's bugging me. The water mechanic applies only in deserts, doesn't it? Because... if not, I will never survive crossing the ocean to other continents, do I?

[Corvinus85]

9 minutes ago, Toth said:

There is something deep inside me stubbornly refusing to consider an all cavalry army as the appropriate answer. I mean... I seriously haven't managed yet to try out everything, I still need to unlock Grail Reliquaes to raise my infrantry's moral and I just found out how I can hire spellcasters. But then... well... ugh...

I must admit I haven't played a Total War game since Empire, so I'm a bit out there in regards to my opinions. I know past TW games had their issues with AI and balancing in regards to how usually ended up cheesing battles with extremely ranged units heavy armies playing space invaders, murdering any enemy before they could touch me. Or that I usually fought my battles only with one army as some kind of self-imposed challenge. TWW trying to be more challenging with deeply unique faction strengths and weaknesses is admirable. But the more I get to know Brettonia, the more annoyed I get. You'd think a cavalry heavy faction would allow for classic hammer-and-anvil tactics, but it turns out your supposed anvil is made of porcelain, so instead you just end up throwing all the hammers at the enemy. How exactly does that qualify as a strategy? So the recommendation is usually all-cavalry armies or I have also seen all-griffon armies to stunlock enemies. Sometimes I have seen people making use of more archers, but on the campaign they move in a pack of three armies close together to overwhelm the enemy if they get into battle.

I find that the men-at-arms with polearms are decent enough to hold their own against most large units, barring the elites, but keep them away from enemy archers. They do have anti-large bonus. So use them, and apply hammer and anvil tactics. Use the specialized archers, fire or poison. Use trebuchet, especially if the enemy has artillery. Use flying units to hit enemy artillery and missile units. Unfortunately, micro-management is necessary, especially for anything that doesn't automatically shoot at the enemy.

14 minutes ago, Toth said:

Trade is an issue. I am in the vortex campaign since I don't have TWW1, there aren't enough human races around to trade with me. My trade partners are one Empire, one Elf and one Dwarf faction, but each with only one city.

That's a shame you didn't get the first game. I prefer Mortal Empires over Vortex, as it has huge map, the biggest since Empire TW, and so many replay possibilities. In Vortex, I would prefer playing with one of the four core races (High Elves, Dark Elves, Skaven or Lizardmen) because of the Vortex rituals and end game scenarios, giving the campaign a different dynamic. Or with the Vampire Coast because of the main quest to hunt down a giant sea monster.

18 minutes ago, Toth said:

Oh nice! But wait... that's one thing that's bugging me. The water mechanic applies only in deserts, doesn't it? Because... if not, I will never survive crossing the ocean to other continents, do I?

No,  just the desert. But it's still stupid. The Chevaliers de Lyonesse is the only human faction to apparently need water to survive in the desert. 

[Slurktan]

I get that you are committed to this campaign Toth but I would either restart or simply go to another faction.  Bretonnia is just..... boring and even moreso in Vortex.  You are missing the better parts of the game by playing them.  You need to build all cavalry and even then you still aren't that good as cavalry is not good in TWW.

Just at this point I'd suggest do not play the Huntsman as that is legit the hardest campaign in the game.

[Werthead]

There's been a huge amount of focus on Cyberpunk 2077's original songs by proper artists - I believe, by far, the largest body of original material ever written specifically for a video game as opposed to using pre-existing material (such as the GTA games use) - but CDPR decided to release a sample of the actual score itself (six full tracks, for fairly generous). I have to say it's very impressive. Considering it's the same composer as The Witcher 3 (the score of which is utterly magnificent), it's remarkable that it's in a totally different style.

[Argonath Diver]

With all the wild confusion and fear over DMCA warnings and streaming, I wonder how Cyberpunk's music could affect the massive amount of streamers likely to dive into it with their communities. With all this word about major artists contributing in possibly an unprecedented way to this single player game, could anyone streaming the game be risking their online body of work? No one has any clear answers right now; half the content creators I watch are living in fear and don't even risk a tiny clip of possibly copywritten music as part of their stream now. 

[Toth]

3 hours ago, Slurktan said:

I get that you are committed to this campaign Toth but I would either restart or simply go to another faction.  Bretonnia is just..... boring and even moreso in Vortex.  You are missing the better parts of the game by playing them.  You need to build all cavalry and even then you still aren't that good as cavalry is not good in TWW.

But... that's just conceding defeat... though I admit I am getting extremely frustrated. I just tried again. Managed to sneak up on a city with an army, but Settra and another army came immediately rushing down on them. I destroyed the first one, but got slaughtered by Settra again, despite having numerical advantage. I also noticed that my income went from +1900 back to 10.000 after I lost my Grail knights. Damn, having them in an army with just the first vow absolutely tanks my economy...

At least my allies are managing to take down the lizardmen in this time. Good for them!

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

With all the wild confusion and fear over DMCA warnings and streaming, I wonder how Cyberpunk's music could affect the massive amount of streamers likely to dive into it with their communities. With all this word about major artists contributing in possibly an unprecedented way to this single player game, could anyone streaming the game be risking their online body of work? No one has any clear answers right now; half the content creators I watch are living in fear and don't even risk a tiny clip of possibly copywritten music as part of their stream now. 

That's an interesting point. I guess the question is how does it work for streamers playing GTA Online or even streaming GTA5's single-player mode, or any game with other artist's songs (I just finished playing Watch_Dogs 2 and that had a ton of other people's music in it)? Do they just switch it off to avoid the problem?

I guess it depends on how they've worked it. If all of the songs have been created specifically for this project and CDPR owns them, then I guess whatever rules that allows people to stream in-game audio and scores will apply. If CDPR have commissioned the songs but the artists still own them, then that might be more of an issue.

[The Winged Shadow]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

On Total Warhammer Lightning Strike, I actually really hate it as a perk, because it is such an auto pick. You literally HAVE to get it with pretty much every general because it is so useful. That means putting at least 3 perks into the blue tree. Ruins that sense of freedom and role playing a little bit.

It is worse on any level about normal because of the AIs ability to just build huge numbers of stacks, sometimes doomstacks. 

My one big gripe on TWW is doomstacks actually, there really is little incentive to not build them, and at later periods in the game it just becomes a little annoying. I can easily build a stack of nexcrofex collossus' and pretty much kill everything. I wish they would build in a system that limited the army composition a bit more in campaign.

I wouldn't say you have to. There are certainly some things more valuable for some factions. Ambush for skaven means you don't need Lightning Strike. Vamp Counts you might want to rush Wind of Death as it is so OP, Tomb Kings you run with multiple armies so Lightning Strike isn't useful until late game when you actually have enough powerful constructs to fill an army. But overall yes, it is extremely powerful. I almost always go Blue line first, then Red then Yellow. Army buff and Faction buff is too useful compared to Lord buffs. But going down the red line first is the most common mistake new players make because it's tempting to buff your army. New players don't always consider that buffing your early game units is useless late game when you army composition changes.

Doomstacks are an absolite requirement for harder difficulty due to Army Upkeep increases. But lower difficulty it's not needed. I usually have cheap crap stacks to protect my territory, and flavour army for rest. Maybe have one Doomstack to take on AI doom stacks. But you are right that the supply line mechanics does favour doomstacking.

6 hours ago, Toth said:

TWW trying to be more challenging with deeply unique faction strengths and weaknesses is admirable. But the more I get to know Brettonia, the more annoyed I get. You'd think a cavalry heavy faction would allow for classic hammer-and-anvil tactics, but it turns out your supposed anvil is made of porcelain, so instead you just end up throwing all the hammers at the enemy. How exactly does that qualify as a strategy? So the recommendation is usually all-cavalry armies or I have also seen all-griffon armies to stunlock enemies. Sometimes I have seen people making use of more archers, but on the campaign they move in a pack of three armies close together to overwhelm the enemy if they get into battle.

*snip*

By now I think it was the micromanagement that killed me. My infrantry kept getting routed and then regrouping, only to route again the moment they returned to combat. And while I was busy throwing them back into the fight I noticed that a whole lot of my knights kept just kinda standing there in the middle of the fight without defending themselves because the unit I ordered them to charge had already crumbled. So in the end I did barely the damage that I could have done if I had succeeded in constantly babysitting my knights.

*snip*

Trade is an issue. I am in the vortex campaign since I don't have TWW1, there aren't enough human races around to trade with me. My trade partners are one Empire, one Elf and one Dwarf faction, but each with only one city. The entire continent has been divided between Settra and a Lizardmen kingdom, with the latter owning pretty much three quarters of it. The lizardmen stubbornly refused to trade with me so far. I also don't know any elven factions in the north. Trying to send a unit up there got it slaughtered by pirates before getting out of sight of the shore.

How about none? I wasted all of them with that expedition. XD I have two more lords sitting in cities where I was just starting to build an army, they have about 5 units each. In the south I also have one Lord in a tiny enclave surrounded by lizardmen (a ruin I settled), he got one unit. I also just got Repanse back, so I'm thinking about giving her the all-cavalry treatment and go get the sword of lyonesse from the dwarves before joining the fight against the Tomb Kings.

Why have an Anvil when you can have two HAMMERS! My Cav tactics is usually NOT to charge head first. As the early game Cav units are more of a shock cav and not suitable for a melee scrap. I tend to divide up my cav into three stack, go in three different direction and see how the AI split their units. Then try to dismantle them piece by piece. Biggest weakness is Anti Large Artillery, so i do add flying units ASAP to manage that threat.

Note that if a unit is routed 3 times, it will permanently break and will not return (looks like flag with a little skull symbol iirc, normal route is just white flag). So chances are your units broke three times and bailed, despite having plenty of hp.

Sometimes having more variety of units make it HARDER to micro your army. There is Guard Mode in the unit card which stops units from chasing fleeing units and will hold their spot. Extremely useful if you want to maintain your formation (specially infantry/archer/arties). Also remember to turn off Skirmish mode for your archers, so they don't start running and hold formation.

For exploring, send a hero as they cannot be attacked by armies. When in the ocean, then can't be assassinated either! Your trade partner will need a port though. You will need land/road connectivity if you want to trade with landlocked factions. They can go through other territories and won't count as trespassing (while your Lord can't go through other faction land without penalty, unless you have military access agreement).

Ouch. That's a rough expedition indeed haha. I definitely recommend giving strongest possible army to Repanse. Add the poison archers to the list as it is a powerful debuff. I am assuming her vows are unlocked, so give her the best Cav units. Do not go for the first tier cav as it is super weak. Knights of the Realm as a minimum. Despite being anti large, their charge bonus makes them very effective against Infantry as well as long as you cycle charge. If you have Vows to get Grail Knights, definitely get them.

If you want to go balanced army, that is fine. I'd add more heroes to replace the melee infantry, but keep the archers and artillery. For infantry units go for the ones with highest melee defense and ideally anti large. But know that they will get wrecked lol

2 hours ago, Toth said:

But... that's just conceding defeat... though I admit I am getting extremely frustrated. I just tried again. Managed to sneak up on a city with an army, but Settra and another army came immediately rushing down on them. I destroyed the first one, but got slaughtered by Settra again, despite having numerical advantage. I also noticed that my income went from +1900 back to 10.000 after I lost my Grail knights. Damn, having them in an army with just the first vow absolutely tanks my economy...

At least my allies are managing to take down the lizardmen in this time. Good for them!

WTF NOOOOOO hahaha. Do not do this. The upkeep increase is devastating (as you found out). Prioritize getting your Vows done. There are some vows that are way easier than others. if your chivalry is high enough, your lords should start with the second vow. The easy ones are: rank up five times (basically win 5 battles), win battle at sea (those treasure in the oceans count), kill enemy lord 5 times. Since Bretonnia don't have supply lines (increase in upkeep per extra army), you can recruit 2-3 Lords and follow Repanse, so they come in as reinforcement and get exp. If that is too cheesy, give them some crap stacks and go fight treasure battles. Or sack undefended settlements etc..

The Vows are essentially the limitation on the Bretonnian army. Otherwise every lord will have stacks of Grail Knights or Pegasus Knights.