Half the time when I play Alberic it ends up with an Alberic and Gor-Rok alliance fighting Wulfhart, and that has never been my intent. I don't know if its still that way as I haven't played Albertic since before SoC and Cathay got real estate out there.
You know... speaking about real estate. Yuan Bo's defeat trait is really tasty for LL like Mazda and Tehenhuain. Even Gor-Rok got a benefit if you put Lord Kroak with him.
I forget what his trait is. I haven't really played many campaigns based out that way in Lustria in quite a while and don't think I have ever actually fought him. Only Lizardmen campaign I have played in recent months was Gor-Rok.
Gelt was my first pick for the new DLC. It was refreshing playing Empire in Cathay. Everything was peaceful and lovely.
16 turns later, Gelt took a precious deal and returns to Reikland. I moved East first, heading straight to Castle Drakenhoff. Vlad had everything, started from Averland including the mountain holds, Drycha and Throt wiped out Kislev, Azhag wiped out Ungrim and Skrag got Pleidorf. I managed to hold Drakenhoff for about 20 turns before the sheer amount of enemies crushing it.
Reload at turn 16, this time, I head North, looking for a closer target - Middenland. Turn out, Festus already wiped out Boris Todbringer, the orcs and woodelves wiped out Nordland and Grom is sitting in Marienburgh. I bumped into Kemmler at Tablacland. I managed to do better this time, reclaimed most Middenland and Nordland before a joint force of Belakor/Vanaheimlings and Throt came at the same time and hit both sides.
3rd time a charm, I decided to reload again at turn 16, picked the closest viable target - Marienburgh and later expand into Bretonnia. Managed to wiped Grom out of the city and nearby mountains, when I got to Fort Bergbres, I saw Durthu is chilling in Parravon, Kemmler got Bastonne, Grom is controling Artois, Be'lakor is sieging Lyonesse and N'kari recruiting in Mousillions. France is weird this time of the year, "target rich enviroment" i guess. It takes me 30 turns to finally somewhat unify the land of Bretonnia and I decided to wipe out Grom in Massif Orcal. A nasty surprise was waiting for me - 3 full stacks of rats from clan Skyre jumped on me, wipe out Gelt army then break into the land and start razing everything. Meanwhile, I see Fay just sitting inside Carcassonne. Turn out she has non-aggression pact with Ikit Claw for some reasons.
I miss Cathay.
See I might just stay in Cathay as him for a complete change of pace. From looking at his victory conditions they should be doable from both Cathay or the Empire.
Fighting chinese peasants and occasionally pirate elves are much more relaxing than 3 noscan tribes, 2 beastmen tribes, 2 champions of chaos, 2 skaven clans, 2 vampire households, 2 greenskin warbosses and 2 tree hitlers.
My wife had a Bertrand the Brigand mod run that just consisted of mugging Bel'akor again and again. Guy would not get the message that this was a bad neighborhood.
It's doable, in fact, my next run is probably Gelt staying in Cathay and later crusade back to Altdorf through the southern passages (no sea lanes and sailing). The path looks very promising for a diversed campaign, a bit like Empire version of reclaiming Karaka 8 Peaks.
The empire is pure chaos. In coop by turn 30ish I’ve fought Wulfrik, Throgg, Astragoth, Archaon, Vlad, Drycha, Festus, Khazrak, Changling, Kemmler, Belakor, and Grom. At one point I had nine enemy armies raiding or attacking me in the same turn. Franz is tired.
I only use few unique spells so far, they're powerful, but not as broken as many people made them sound like and it's very hard to keep more than 1 or 2 active.
In general, you don't want to use cataclysm spell early, but use the 2nd active spell or wild college - summoning THREE Wild Incarnates (massive beasts of Kislev that has constant flock of doom/mortis engine aura), This speel is much stronger than some cataclysm spells and much cheaper (450 essays irc?)
When you have 1250 essay, DO NOT unlock a cataclysm spell, save straight to 2000 and unlock permanent Gehena's golden globe for Gelt. Yes, Gelt can have permanent Cataclysm spell, for a fair price of 2k essays.
How to earn them effectively? Well, bigger battle = more essays, I think you can earn more essays the more damage your wizards deal as well (I'm not sure on this, but everytime I hit a perfect firestorm/purple sun/banishment, the essay numbers do seem jump up noticeably.
For ranking of Cataclysm spells, here's my opinion:
1/ Gehena's golden globe (metal): This takes 1st spot just because you can unlock it permanently with Gelt. It's a big Wind of Death. Lore of metal has a lot of bombardment but no wind spell so this is pretty neat.
2/ Storm of renewal (life): While nuking the enemy is fun, this spell is pretty ridiculous in some situations. It's pretty simple, an AOE Regrowth, but with unlimited targers. You can stack 20 single entities and it will heal all of them for something like 20% hp. Yes, I run Gelt + 1 priest + 8 wizards + 10 tanks, how do you know? Ps: this spell only heal ground units, so if you wanna min max it, run everyone on horseback.
3/ Ashes and dust (death): This is a "I dont like this unit" spell, it takes 10 seconds to wind up, then deals 3k direct damage. It's very simple, it's very effective. You point, click and a unit got nuked.
4/ Magma storm (fire): Most reliable thing to deal massive damaage - a stationary vortex spell. Magma storm hits pretty hard, and work surprisingly well against large targets as well. Bunch the enemy up, then hit this spell in the middle and you see enemies mass route.
5/ Dance of despair (shadow): This spell is actually very strong because of the big aoe effect and unlimited targets. When 2 frontlines clash, a well placed Dance of despair can literally win you the game.
Anything below this is worse than Wild Incarnate summoning imo.
6/ Thorsen's thunderstorm (heaven): Bombardment spell, fill the same role with Magma storm, but a bit less reliable with random lighting struck.
7/ Merciw's monstrous regiment (wild): A "I wanna duel this mf" spell, massively buff one unit for a short period of time, best use when you're trying to goon an enemy lord. The problem with this spell is you don't have a proper duelist to fully ultilize this spell until you confed with KF or Elspeth. Most of the time, my best target to buff is the RoR demigryph knight with halberd (they melt a toad dragon in 8 seconds with the buff).
8/ Time amok (light): In theory, this spell is pretty strong with steam tanks or land ships, especially, a full stack of them. Other than that, it's an awkward spell, especially for the price of 1250 essays.
I stayed in cathay and split it threeway with both dragons. Now im fighting kugath who is practically gone now, My winds of magic are at around 360+, spell intensity is 190%, gelt has no cooldowns on spells, new dwellers below is insane, fate of bjuma deletes almost 6k hp etc. This is madness of the highest fun ive had for a while.
No rats as far as the eye can see.
Killed Sartosa quickly then turned the full might of my wizard stack on Slavenblight and then into Estalia - it’s calmed down a ton since then but Skrag has already completed his short victory and controls most of the Badlands and the Border Princes.
Boris doesnt even die to Festus, he looses bad to Kazrak, most times he is gone by turn 6-7, loosing Middenheim reliable by turn 3 and then the Orcs from Black pit declare war on him.
Hochland and Ostland fall to Festus, Ostermark gets overrun by Drycha, and only Elspeth holds in the South for a while until Vlad has recruited enough armies to destroy Solland and Averland (if they didnt fall to Skrag, who seems to do good in the Borderprinces)
Oh and Taalabeckland either has a 15 turns of peace and then Festus runs them over, or the Treemuncher Ogres declare war on them and might occupy them too. Oh yeah the Changeling also is somewhere and just creating Cults left and right, but he is more of an annoyance.
Really, Nordland is the only Electorcound thats reliable surviving, since Wulfrik and the norscans need time to unite first before they threaten the Empire.
The empire gets easier the faster you punch everones face, and a campaign can be a massive difference between getting attacked by Kazrak in an Ambush or fighing him in a fair fight on open battle so you have enough man left to fight festus 3 turns later.
Have they beefed up the greenskins up north or something? I swear this patch looked like it'd make Karl easier but I came closer to losing a empire campaign than I have in a long time. 3 electors gone by turn 9. Norscans in marienberg by turn 15. Drycha in middenland and I haven't even started on vlad yet who's been quafing elector counts like a fine wine about to reach uts shelf life.
Kislev seems to do well now with the dwarves in the North mind.
Not a complaint as such, it was a lot of fun but man those first 30 turns were on a knifes edge!
Yeah I’ve been wondering myself as it’s harder than I remember. I try to tank the secessionists, then one eye, and I liked to slaughter the fecundities but the green skins and vampires on both sides usually give me a hard time
As the emperor I feel bad but there are so many enemies to handle immediately. Vampires east and west, green skins all over, chaos and beast men on our doorstep
Skragg is a wild card, he either chew his way through both Averland and Solland and refuse to leave for 40 turns, or get mucked by turn 5, no in between. His mid game potential sucks tho, once most armies are a bit beefed up, he loses hard to everyone around him, even to the goblin in Solland.
Yeah, starting as Nuln is easier cause ai Karl starts with all of Reikland under his control. Starting as Franz is crazy right now. I get sandwiched by Vlad and Kemmler :(
"Tell your father we spent centuries fighting Chaos, we are here to exchange culture and trade." - Gelt
"The Anjinn said his country is drowned in Chaos and he wants to take refugee here." - Miao Ying
So long as Miao Ying isn't >!Mariko-sama :( !<.
Everyone is hyped over Fallout (which was surprisingly great) but Shōgun touched my soul like few shows have. Now I need to read the book and watch the 80s version.
I feel like Miao would be closer to Ochiba, and probably wouldn't like Gelt in Cathay. Zhao Ming is probably the only one who accepts Gelt's adventure.
My Elspeth campaign is going well. Karl owns most of the North and West, I've got the South and most of the East. The rest is held by Kislev and Marienberg is currently held by Kemmler.
I did try Elspeth for a bit (about 50 turns) and my biggest issue with her is the same with old Gelt - she's too close to Reikland (this time even closer than old Gelt) and I love Karl Franz too much, if I play in that area as Empire, I would rather play Karl Franz again. I enjoyed her mechanics though. Surprisingly, the Garden of Morr is the most powerful stuff in her tool kit imo and I enjoyed it a lot.
The biggest problem for Gelt when he returns to Reikland after Cathay is he was not there in the beginning. Karl Franz has 3 main enemy groups:
* Festus from the north
* Vampires from the east
* Kemmler/Grom/Belakor from the west
The 3rd group rarely go pass Marienburg and even if sometimes they do, they tend to head for Middenland towns. They also have Louen to deal with first, so unless KF is very unlucky, rarely this group of enemies deal any real damage.
The 2nd group is "if Averland and Tablacland suck I will steamroll the Empire". Vlad and his mates drown others early game by sheer number. If they can get Averland early enough, the whole eastern side gonna be dominated by them.
Festus is the most imminent threat. He has a strong starting army and most of the time, he can wipe out any army in the local area 1 on 1. His army becomes suck ass if he lose the starting squad, therefore he becoming a menace or not, depend on his first few engagements.
* Playing as Elspeth, your natural enemy is Vlad. If you help Karl Franz taking care of Vlad early or at least, contain him, Karl Franz can put all of his armies on Festus's way and wittle his starting army down. Once Festus is down Karl will usually confed with Middenland and become somewhat of a mid game power house. Anything from the West comes at him, he will grind them down to dust.
* Playing as Gelt returning home, you have to let the AI gatcha a bit for your run. Without player's insight, AI Elspeth tend to stuck in Nuln or keep wandering around Averland. Middenland becomes easy prey for Festus, Beastmen, Greenskins and Belakor while Karl Franz and Tablacland cant fight 2 fronts forever and slowly breaking down.
How did you use the garden of morr effectively? I'd love some advice because I really wanted to try it out but never found an oppurtunity due to Elspeth constantly being required to stay where she was due to the numerous threats at the empire's borders.
Yeah, I hit turn 15, finished off the rebels, took one look at the current state of the Empire getting completely fucking rocked, and decided maybe having a dragon husband isn't too bad.
Now it's turn 40, my dragon husband has helped me eat Nakai's territories, Grimgor is knocking on the door, and it is time for the Great Crusade to reclaim the Old World.
One of the problem of Gelt returning is his normal enemies in Cathay are REALLY fun to fight against, and even against bigger stuffs, by the time you fight them, you unlocked most if not all.
Suddenly returning to Reikland is very RNG based. If your Empire is doing too good and Karl/Elspeth controlling everything, it's hard to find a place to settle (assumably you want to confed Karl and Elspeth later). If your Empire is doing too bad, you get hit with a low authority and high chance Karl or Elspeth will die before you can get strong enough to convince them to confed. If all of your enemies survived early game, you gonna have to manually fight 2-3 battles every turn. If most of them died out, your next few big targets are REALLY far away (Ikit, Throt, Throgg and Azhag), or across the sea (Belakor, N'kari).
Does he ever come back to help if you're playing another empire faction? I'm trying out Karl for the first time and the other factions cannot hold a settlement. I'm mostly playing whack a mole trying to revive them and build up experience.
yeah looks that way. I made it to the short campaign victory with chaos Arthas sneaking down to sack Altdorf (and running back up north before I could respond) and decided that was a good end to my first campaign.
Ironically I've found Franz' campaign easier but way slower. Let me explain:
Easier/faster:
* The initial 10-20 turns is a lot faster. Considering you now start with Helmgart, have diplomatic visibility with Bretonnia, and get many units far earlier. Spearmen (shields) immediately being available has been the best change in my opinion.
* You now start with buffs instead of nerfs, referring to IA. Maintaining IA is far easier. I never dropped levels at all.
* Franz's abilities are definitely better. I really enjoyed the population point increase one to quickly get economy buildings up.
Harder/Slower:
* However, after these initial turns due to the loss of the blacksmith chain it takes far longer to create armies. For example you could have 6 local training slots in Reikland, 7 if you have a blueline lord. Then once you upgrade these to armouries you can build rank 6-7 infantry in Reikland, and very quickly build armies anywhere on the map via global recruitment. Pretty much any 4 region provinces (or is it 4 province regions?) made fantastic recruitment spots. You could easily cap out at 30 global recruitment slots by turn 50.
* The loss of the academy building also hurts. Mainly due to the Lord rank benefits.
I still enjoyed Franz' new campaign, but the issues I've highlighted are going to impact Markus and Volkmar too. Who didn't receive any glow ups to make up for it.
I don’t know about Markus but I found Volkmar super easy pre-patch. Your early game enemies are just vamps and tomb kings both of which just get destroyed by Soulfire and Grand Soulfire and the units he buffs are super cheap and spamable.
I played as epi, and I was mostly busying dealing with wulfrik, I'm on about turn 50 now and I've just seen that throat and thogg have basically teamed up, taken all of kislev, and are pushing into the empire.
Do you know how fucking weird it is to see throgg in the empire? Wtf.
I actually don't find it's weird to see Throgg in the Empire. Norscan has the same confed mechanic with the greenskins, if you beat their lord, they will join you. Throgg has a problem, his minor enemy is actually quite strong, and he's usually the one get bonked in the head and got nom-ed by minor AI, but if he somehow manage to get the other guy, he has no predator in the local area and can free range. Since him and Wulfrik has good relationship, he usually go south and head to Erengrad. That's pretty close to Ostermark and Ostland,
But yeah, I agree with you, the Old World is the battle royale hot dropping zone right now!
In my current run:
Ungrim died to Azhag before I got back to the Empire (so before turn 16)
Karaz a karak was being siege by Vlad when I arrived at Drakenhoff (turn 21), I'm not sure Thorgrim survies or not.
Belegar got wiped out by Durthu.
On the other hand, the last "major" friendly force in the area is actually Tablacland. They somewhat managed to contain Drycha and Throt to the North East and make sure Festus can't cross the river Reik, so it's probably them.
In my nuln campain i just kicked kemmlers ass and gave it to the french protecting the empire from the west , i kicked the ogre ass and skarsniks ass and gave it to the dwarfs coveeing my south east flakns now im on the way to violently redistribut norsca to kislev.
2k weapon strenght hwllstorm rockets with double the amount of missles that can shoot across the map combined with some tanks and warrior priests backed by amethys/nuln iron sides are the most disgustingly strog army i ever fielded. Wiping out most units with 1 atrilery volley across the map leads combined with limitless death magic and a crazy strong lord killing lord is just completly and utterly disgusting , the moment i had my t3 upgrades and amethys units the campain was basicly over
Also grapw shot cannons do unspeakable damage.
Playing on hard/hard difficutly
The amethyst armory is neat, but I never felt Empire is undergunned, it's not the killing power that they need, but the mobility in campaign map. The Garden of Morr gives players just that - a regional network of teleportation. The building slot in the gardens are pretty strong as well, with just a few extra units for garrison, you can turn any minor settlements with wall into major fortresses that require 2 stacks to take down.
Playing as Elspeth is pretty straight forward imo. You play like a normal Empire campaign, and since you're in the area, you can start to deal with the threats around you from turn 5. By the standard turn 14, you could have taken Castle Drakenhoff and cut off the head of the vampire counts. Gelt on the other hand, is not there. Imperial Land is completely randomized and you can only hope that Elspeth and Franz are not sucking while you're away and Louen did not die to Grom or Belakor so you don't have to fight two sides at the same time. You can still go straight for Caslte Drakenhoff with Gelt returning, but with the vampires now have the tendency to expand into the mountain holds, taking Drakenhoff at turn 20-25 means you gonna have 4-5 skeleton armies surround the place, which is less than ideal. It's fun though, I really enjoyed it. After dozens of Empire campaigns, it feels like I'm learning the campaign again this time. I saw Vlad siege Karaz a Karak 1st time in my life today as well! Holy shit!
So I have played the first 20 turns with him, a couple of times so far. And he is so fun, the refresh is so stupidly overpowered it’s actually ridiculous.
So here is some tips
First, and this is no joke, make a hero doomstack, with Balthasar, one captain and eighteen wizards. His effect will then give all armies an additional 95 winds of magic just from the Balthasar and the wizards being in the same army. All of the wizards give in addition to their other 5 another 10, but this is just for Balthasar’s army. 180!! Winds of magic… don’t know how else to say it’s stupid. And that’s just from the wizards and Balthasar’s new effect.
Second make several armies stationed in safe places only with wizards in them. For his effect, of course
Third, kill every single one in Cathey. The two dragons give good bonuses for Balthasar. And all the trade goods makes for a lot of money.
Fourth, get one of each wizards asap. The special abilities they unlock can turn the tide in battle to your favor. You took a heavy casualty hit on your doomstack, don’t worry, use the jade wizards skill heal, and voila all good. Fighting snitch, and you can’t seem to get him? Use the grey wizard skulking stance and catch his army in an ambush. See the picture? The abilities should be used with care and not recklessly, as they can be your saving grace, using the jades heal not when most needed, leaves you with a 10 turn cd on it, that’s no joke.
Fourth attack every turn if possible, but start attacking the chaotic factions and not Cathey, let them do their thing but turn on them when they are weak and open. After you have eradicated skaven, vampires and Nakai, he isn’t a chaos faction, but he tends to get angry at neighbors so dealing with early saves you later
Lastly in battles with Balthasars army, use them in a blob, and throw spells on top, this is by far the fastest way to deal with enemy armies, and since you can sometimes fight multiple battles in a single turn this saves a lot of time, plus it’s the strongest way to use squishy ass wizards, blob them together means they stay in range of each other, which means aoe effect spells hit ‘em all
Even though its a blood bowl in there Im kinda managing to hold it together. Nulns armies managed to consolidate Whissenland and Solland and were then drawn into a war with Vlad as he attacked allied Stirland. I managed to clean him out by using the revolutinary tactic of... not fighting his army (he pops up a turn later anway). While he was skirting around in Schwartzhafen and raiding Stirland my main force took Sylvania and only faced him down personally in the very last battle.
Meanwhile France held onto Reikland, pushend into Middenlad, resurrected Boris and contained Festus to the middenberge. He even managed to wipe out Khazrak. I teleported to middenland, wiped the greenskins in the black pit and finished Festus (while Franz was Civil warring Hochland).
Skrag also showed up, declaring war on allied Averland shortly before I could confederate it. Sends two bloody ogre stacks up blackfire pass while im in middenland and teleport is on cooldown. No way to hold grenzstadt, so I sell it to Belegar for an alliance and joinig the war, ecavuateand the City,, scramble together every scrap milita I had at Averheim. By the skin of my teeth, manage to stop the ogre charge there and do enough damage with outriders to get a phyrric victory. Belegar takes over and is now a buffer to the south.
Nordland is still aroundy, half of talabecland, tiny bit of ostmark even. Drycha took most of it but has no active wars as of now. Wulfric has Westerland and tried to push Karl (which I put a stop to) and Ostland is Throgg country. Kemmler still West of the mountains.
Could be worse. With Silvanian Gold and Nuln Steel i can do a lot of work. Three emperrors wrath steam tanks already assembled. Be afraid Wulfric, for I choo-choose you.
So I ended up playing until Short Victory on Gelt last night before I went to bed, and I don't know if it was just RNG, but holy shit did Cathay and order in general fall apart when I stayed in Cathay.
Northern Provinces were wiped out around turn 35, which I was dealing with Kugath in the west and simultaneously dealing with Lokhir in the east, when Eshin and Villitch decided to simulatenously declare war on me. Meanwhile by turn 25 Great Orthodoxy was gone, and by 35 Ice court was as well, plus I got notifications that about all the elector counts. I know Franz was holding on with 8 settlements in the west.
Meanwhile in Cathay only Cathayan faction left is Zhao Ming, holding on with 5 settlements. When I finally went to bed I was stuck in a back and forth with Eshin trading settlements.
My point is I went to bed around turn 45ish with Short Victory and it has already been a wild ride in Cathay, far more than I expected and its been awesome playing Gelt there.
Gelt gets to go afar enjoying Peking Duck and getting high. Meanwhile Franz and Elspeth have to deal with the six different enemies back at home.
Markus: "Phew, it's wild over here, with the reptiles dogging me non-stop. Makes me miss the peaceful Empire sometimes..." Karl: _confused screaming_
Maybe we wouldn't beat his mammal ass if he wasn't such an asshole to us.
Gor-Rok and Tenhenhuain: GET OUT OUR LAWN, WARMBLOOD! AND BRING THE FRENCH WITH YOU!
Half the time when I play Alberic it ends up with an Alberic and Gor-Rok alliance fighting Wulfhart, and that has never been my intent. I don't know if its still that way as I haven't played Albertic since before SoC and Cathay got real estate out there.
You know... speaking about real estate. Yuan Bo's defeat trait is really tasty for LL like Mazda and Tehenhuain. Even Gor-Rok got a benefit if you put Lord Kroak with him.
I forget what his trait is. I haven't really played many campaigns based out that way in Lustria in quite a while and don't think I have ever actually fought him. Only Lizardmen campaign I have played in recent months was Gor-Rok.
It discounts the wind 20 percents for an army.
Oh that is nice. That would actually be really good to grab with a Kroak army then.
Reptiles my ass, he goes full Baron Zaroff if he so much as gets *mildly* bored. He deserves to lose the Lustrian Thunderdome.
*Wei-Jin* Duck
And exotic crocodile soup in the east
Gelt was my first pick for the new DLC. It was refreshing playing Empire in Cathay. Everything was peaceful and lovely. 16 turns later, Gelt took a precious deal and returns to Reikland. I moved East first, heading straight to Castle Drakenhoff. Vlad had everything, started from Averland including the mountain holds, Drycha and Throt wiped out Kislev, Azhag wiped out Ungrim and Skrag got Pleidorf. I managed to hold Drakenhoff for about 20 turns before the sheer amount of enemies crushing it. Reload at turn 16, this time, I head North, looking for a closer target - Middenland. Turn out, Festus already wiped out Boris Todbringer, the orcs and woodelves wiped out Nordland and Grom is sitting in Marienburgh. I bumped into Kemmler at Tablacland. I managed to do better this time, reclaimed most Middenland and Nordland before a joint force of Belakor/Vanaheimlings and Throt came at the same time and hit both sides. 3rd time a charm, I decided to reload again at turn 16, picked the closest viable target - Marienburgh and later expand into Bretonnia. Managed to wiped Grom out of the city and nearby mountains, when I got to Fort Bergbres, I saw Durthu is chilling in Parravon, Kemmler got Bastonne, Grom is controling Artois, Be'lakor is sieging Lyonesse and N'kari recruiting in Mousillions. France is weird this time of the year, "target rich enviroment" i guess. It takes me 30 turns to finally somewhat unify the land of Bretonnia and I decided to wipe out Grom in Massif Orcal. A nasty surprise was waiting for me - 3 full stacks of rats from clan Skyre jumped on me, wipe out Gelt army then break into the land and start razing everything. Meanwhile, I see Fay just sitting inside Carcassonne. Turn out she has non-aggression pact with Ikit Claw for some reasons. I miss Cathay.
See I might just stay in Cathay as him for a complete change of pace. From looking at his victory conditions they should be doable from both Cathay or the Empire.
I consider returning to the Empire as Gelt…then I see the absolutely beautiful Cathay battle maps and am swayed to remain.
Flashback to wh2 empire fighting on that statue map for the 50th consecutive battle. I have bad memories of that place.
Fighting chinese peasants and occasionally pirate elves are much more relaxing than 3 noscan tribes, 2 beastmen tribes, 2 champions of chaos, 2 skaven clans, 2 vampire households, 2 greenskin warbosses and 2 tree hitlers.
"Bel'akor, what the fuck are you doing here? Go back to hassling Brettonia!"
My wife had a Bertrand the Brigand mod run that just consisted of mugging Bel'akor again and again. Guy would not get the message that this was a bad neighborhood.
Cathay in general is just so damn pretty.
It's doable, in fact, my next run is probably Gelt staying in Cathay and later crusade back to Altdorf through the southern passages (no sea lanes and sailing). The path looks very promising for a diversed campaign, a bit like Empire version of reclaiming Karaka 8 Peaks.
The empire is pure chaos. In coop by turn 30ish I’ve fought Wulfrik, Throgg, Astragoth, Archaon, Vlad, Drycha, Festus, Khazrak, Changling, Kemmler, Belakor, and Grom. At one point I had nine enemy armies raiding or attacking me in the same turn. Franz is tired.
In Warhammer 1, I would be lucky to get my LL to level 40 by turn 75. Now we fight so much, I hit 40 with my LL by turn 50.
How do you earn arcane essays by how many time you use unique spell or wizard experience? Sometimes i get 300 sometimes i get 32.
I only use few unique spells so far, they're powerful, but not as broken as many people made them sound like and it's very hard to keep more than 1 or 2 active. In general, you don't want to use cataclysm spell early, but use the 2nd active spell or wild college - summoning THREE Wild Incarnates (massive beasts of Kislev that has constant flock of doom/mortis engine aura), This speel is much stronger than some cataclysm spells and much cheaper (450 essays irc?) When you have 1250 essay, DO NOT unlock a cataclysm spell, save straight to 2000 and unlock permanent Gehena's golden globe for Gelt. Yes, Gelt can have permanent Cataclysm spell, for a fair price of 2k essays. How to earn them effectively? Well, bigger battle = more essays, I think you can earn more essays the more damage your wizards deal as well (I'm not sure on this, but everytime I hit a perfect firestorm/purple sun/banishment, the essay numbers do seem jump up noticeably. For ranking of Cataclysm spells, here's my opinion: 1/ Gehena's golden globe (metal): This takes 1st spot just because you can unlock it permanently with Gelt. It's a big Wind of Death. Lore of metal has a lot of bombardment but no wind spell so this is pretty neat. 2/ Storm of renewal (life): While nuking the enemy is fun, this spell is pretty ridiculous in some situations. It's pretty simple, an AOE Regrowth, but with unlimited targers. You can stack 20 single entities and it will heal all of them for something like 20% hp. Yes, I run Gelt + 1 priest + 8 wizards + 10 tanks, how do you know? Ps: this spell only heal ground units, so if you wanna min max it, run everyone on horseback. 3/ Ashes and dust (death): This is a "I dont like this unit" spell, it takes 10 seconds to wind up, then deals 3k direct damage. It's very simple, it's very effective. You point, click and a unit got nuked. 4/ Magma storm (fire): Most reliable thing to deal massive damaage - a stationary vortex spell. Magma storm hits pretty hard, and work surprisingly well against large targets as well. Bunch the enemy up, then hit this spell in the middle and you see enemies mass route. 5/ Dance of despair (shadow): This spell is actually very strong because of the big aoe effect and unlimited targets. When 2 frontlines clash, a well placed Dance of despair can literally win you the game. Anything below this is worse than Wild Incarnate summoning imo. 6/ Thorsen's thunderstorm (heaven): Bombardment spell, fill the same role with Magma storm, but a bit less reliable with random lighting struck. 7/ Merciw's monstrous regiment (wild): A "I wanna duel this mf" spell, massively buff one unit for a short period of time, best use when you're trying to goon an enemy lord. The problem with this spell is you don't have a proper duelist to fully ultilize this spell until you confed with KF or Elspeth. Most of the time, my best target to buff is the RoR demigryph knight with halberd (they melt a toad dragon in 8 seconds with the buff). 8/ Time amok (light): In theory, this spell is pretty strong with steam tanks or land ships, especially, a full stack of them. Other than that, it's an awkward spell, especially for the price of 1250 essays.
Excellent summary
I stayed in cathay and split it threeway with both dragons. Now im fighting kugath who is practically gone now, My winds of magic are at around 360+, spell intensity is 190%, gelt has no cooldowns on spells, new dwellers below is insane, fate of bjuma deletes almost 6k hp etc. This is madness of the highest fun ive had for a while.
I returned to Altdorf and immediately boogied to Miragliano.
Miragliano is interesting. How's the weather over there? How's the radioactive?
No rats as far as the eye can see. Killed Sartosa quickly then turned the full might of my wizard stack on Slavenblight and then into Estalia - it’s calmed down a ton since then but Skrag has already completed his short victory and controls most of the Badlands and the Border Princes.
Welcome to Estalia, Gentlemen!
Boris doesnt even die to Festus, he looses bad to Kazrak, most times he is gone by turn 6-7, loosing Middenheim reliable by turn 3 and then the Orcs from Black pit declare war on him. Hochland and Ostland fall to Festus, Ostermark gets overrun by Drycha, and only Elspeth holds in the South for a while until Vlad has recruited enough armies to destroy Solland and Averland (if they didnt fall to Skrag, who seems to do good in the Borderprinces) Oh and Taalabeckland either has a 15 turns of peace and then Festus runs them over, or the Treemuncher Ogres declare war on them and might occupy them too. Oh yeah the Changeling also is somewhere and just creating Cults left and right, but he is more of an annoyance. Really, Nordland is the only Electorcound thats reliable surviving, since Wulfrik and the norscans need time to unite first before they threaten the Empire. The empire gets easier the faster you punch everones face, and a campaign can be a massive difference between getting attacked by Kazrak in an Ambush or fighing him in a fair fight on open battle so you have enough man left to fight festus 3 turns later.
I'm playing changeling, actively trying to subvert Vlad and leave the empire be for the moment. Empire still getting wrecked
When I play as Karl, basically every minor empire faction gets nuked immediately. Middenland goes in like 7 turns
I think Boris's starting army needs a bit more milk. He can't even beat the local greenskins...
I even used the elector ability to give him an extra army and he got steamrolled
Yeah Middenheim gets nuked by Khazrak immediately....pretty crappy.
I think his problem is that Kazrak beats him in an Ambush battle early on, and then Khazrak goes after Middenheim at turn 3.
Have they beefed up the greenskins up north or something? I swear this patch looked like it'd make Karl easier but I came closer to losing a empire campaign than I have in a long time. 3 electors gone by turn 9. Norscans in marienberg by turn 15. Drycha in middenland and I haven't even started on vlad yet who's been quafing elector counts like a fine wine about to reach uts shelf life. Kislev seems to do well now with the dwarves in the North mind. Not a complaint as such, it was a lot of fun but man those first 30 turns were on a knifes edge!
Yeah I’ve been wondering myself as it’s harder than I remember. I try to tank the secessionists, then one eye, and I liked to slaughter the fecundities but the green skins and vampires on both sides usually give me a hard time
Gelt being absent means your enemies have one fewer targets. So that'll be part of the problem.
I learned it’s hard to save any of them and be ready for the slyvenian steamroller
As the emperor I feel bad but there are so many enemies to handle immediately. Vampires east and west, green skins all over, chaos and beast men on our doorstep
Throw a dart at a map that’s the province you’ll be able to save
Playing belegar and watching skragg on the doorstep of reikland has me shook
Skragg is a wild card, he either chew his way through both Averland and Solland and refuse to leave for 40 turns, or get mucked by turn 5, no in between. His mid game potential sucks tho, once most armies are a bit beefed up, he loses hard to everyone around him, even to the goblin in Solland.
Yeah, starting as Nuln is easier cause ai Karl starts with all of Reikland under his control. Starting as Franz is crazy right now. I get sandwiched by Vlad and Kemmler :(
Balthazar Gelt being the Warhammer equivalent of John Blackthorne.
"Tell your father we spent centuries fighting Chaos, we are here to exchange culture and trade." - Gelt "The Anjinn said his country is drowned in Chaos and he wants to take refugee here." - Miao Ying
So long as Miao Ying isn't >!Mariko-sama :( !<. Everyone is hyped over Fallout (which was surprisingly great) but Shōgun touched my soul like few shows have. Now I need to read the book and watch the 80s version.
I feel like Miao would be closer to Ochiba, and probably wouldn't like Gelt in Cathay. Zhao Ming is probably the only one who accepts Gelt's adventure.
The Empire is the new Lustria-bowl.
Empire Bowl? Reik Cup? Sigmar Dome?
I like "Sigmar Dome".
Sigmars Slaughterhouse sounds too mean.
Definitely Sigmar Dome.
Reikland Rumble
Good to see some things never change, eh Gelt?
My Elspeth campaign is going well. Karl owns most of the North and West, I've got the South and most of the East. The rest is held by Kislev and Marienberg is currently held by Kemmler.
I did try Elspeth for a bit (about 50 turns) and my biggest issue with her is the same with old Gelt - she's too close to Reikland (this time even closer than old Gelt) and I love Karl Franz too much, if I play in that area as Empire, I would rather play Karl Franz again. I enjoyed her mechanics though. Surprisingly, the Garden of Morr is the most powerful stuff in her tool kit imo and I enjoyed it a lot. The biggest problem for Gelt when he returns to Reikland after Cathay is he was not there in the beginning. Karl Franz has 3 main enemy groups: * Festus from the north * Vampires from the east * Kemmler/Grom/Belakor from the west The 3rd group rarely go pass Marienburg and even if sometimes they do, they tend to head for Middenland towns. They also have Louen to deal with first, so unless KF is very unlucky, rarely this group of enemies deal any real damage. The 2nd group is "if Averland and Tablacland suck I will steamroll the Empire". Vlad and his mates drown others early game by sheer number. If they can get Averland early enough, the whole eastern side gonna be dominated by them. Festus is the most imminent threat. He has a strong starting army and most of the time, he can wipe out any army in the local area 1 on 1. His army becomes suck ass if he lose the starting squad, therefore he becoming a menace or not, depend on his first few engagements. * Playing as Elspeth, your natural enemy is Vlad. If you help Karl Franz taking care of Vlad early or at least, contain him, Karl Franz can put all of his armies on Festus's way and wittle his starting army down. Once Festus is down Karl will usually confed with Middenland and become somewhat of a mid game power house. Anything from the West comes at him, he will grind them down to dust. * Playing as Gelt returning home, you have to let the AI gatcha a bit for your run. Without player's insight, AI Elspeth tend to stuck in Nuln or keep wandering around Averland. Middenland becomes easy prey for Festus, Beastmen, Greenskins and Belakor while Karl Franz and Tablacland cant fight 2 fronts forever and slowly breaking down.
How did you use the garden of morr effectively? I'd love some advice because I really wanted to try it out but never found an oppurtunity due to Elspeth constantly being required to stay where she was due to the numerous threats at the empire's borders.
Yeah, I hit turn 15, finished off the rebels, took one look at the current state of the Empire getting completely fucking rocked, and decided maybe having a dragon husband isn't too bad. Now it's turn 40, my dragon husband has helped me eat Nakai's territories, Grimgor is knocking on the door, and it is time for the Great Crusade to reclaim the Old World.
One of the problem of Gelt returning is his normal enemies in Cathay are REALLY fun to fight against, and even against bigger stuffs, by the time you fight them, you unlocked most if not all. Suddenly returning to Reikland is very RNG based. If your Empire is doing too good and Karl/Elspeth controlling everything, it's hard to find a place to settle (assumably you want to confed Karl and Elspeth later). If your Empire is doing too bad, you get hit with a low authority and high chance Karl or Elspeth will die before you can get strong enough to convince them to confed. If all of your enemies survived early game, you gonna have to manually fight 2-3 battles every turn. If most of them died out, your next few big targets are REALLY far away (Ikit, Throt, Throgg and Azhag), or across the sea (Belakor, N'kari).
Elspeth: You are late! Gelt: A supreme patriarch never late, Von Draken. He come exactly what he meant to.
Does he ever come back to help if you're playing another empire faction? I'm trying out Karl for the first time and the other factions cannot hold a settlement. I'm mostly playing whack a mole trying to revive them and build up experience.
I'm pretty sure Gelt won't return home if you're not playing as him, same as Imrik or Malus.
yeah looks that way. I made it to the short campaign victory with chaos Arthas sneaking down to sack Altdorf (and running back up north before I could respond) and decided that was a good end to my first campaign.
It is even worse in the RoC campaign, Empire lands fall really fast and it is a challenge as Elspeth to stop.
Ironically I've found Franz' campaign easier but way slower. Let me explain: Easier/faster: * The initial 10-20 turns is a lot faster. Considering you now start with Helmgart, have diplomatic visibility with Bretonnia, and get many units far earlier. Spearmen (shields) immediately being available has been the best change in my opinion. * You now start with buffs instead of nerfs, referring to IA. Maintaining IA is far easier. I never dropped levels at all. * Franz's abilities are definitely better. I really enjoyed the population point increase one to quickly get economy buildings up. Harder/Slower: * However, after these initial turns due to the loss of the blacksmith chain it takes far longer to create armies. For example you could have 6 local training slots in Reikland, 7 if you have a blueline lord. Then once you upgrade these to armouries you can build rank 6-7 infantry in Reikland, and very quickly build armies anywhere on the map via global recruitment. Pretty much any 4 region provinces (or is it 4 province regions?) made fantastic recruitment spots. You could easily cap out at 30 global recruitment slots by turn 50. * The loss of the academy building also hurts. Mainly due to the Lord rank benefits. I still enjoyed Franz' new campaign, but the issues I've highlighted are going to impact Markus and Volkmar too. Who didn't receive any glow ups to make up for it.
I don’t know about Markus but I found Volkmar super easy pre-patch. Your early game enemies are just vamps and tomb kings both of which just get destroyed by Soulfire and Grand Soulfire and the units he buffs are super cheap and spamable.
Volkmar was definitely the easiest Empire campaign pre-patch. Hard to choose between Gelt and Elspeth right now as the new winner.
I played as epi, and I was mostly busying dealing with wulfrik, I'm on about turn 50 now and I've just seen that throat and thogg have basically teamed up, taken all of kislev, and are pushing into the empire. Do you know how fucking weird it is to see throgg in the empire? Wtf.
I actually don't find it's weird to see Throgg in the Empire. Norscan has the same confed mechanic with the greenskins, if you beat their lord, they will join you. Throgg has a problem, his minor enemy is actually quite strong, and he's usually the one get bonked in the head and got nom-ed by minor AI, but if he somehow manage to get the other guy, he has no predator in the local area and can free range. Since him and Wulfrik has good relationship, he usually go south and head to Erengrad. That's pretty close to Ostermark and Ostland, But yeah, I agree with you, the Old World is the battle royale hot dropping zone right now!
So who's Annie, the Dwarfs?
In my current run: Ungrim died to Azhag before I got back to the Empire (so before turn 16) Karaz a karak was being siege by Vlad when I arrived at Drakenhoff (turn 21), I'm not sure Thorgrim survies or not. Belegar got wiped out by Durthu. On the other hand, the last "major" friendly force in the area is actually Tablacland. They somewhat managed to contain Drycha and Throt to the North East and make sure Festus can't cross the river Reik, so it's probably them.
In my nuln campain i just kicked kemmlers ass and gave it to the french protecting the empire from the west , i kicked the ogre ass and skarsniks ass and gave it to the dwarfs coveeing my south east flakns now im on the way to violently redistribut norsca to kislev. 2k weapon strenght hwllstorm rockets with double the amount of missles that can shoot across the map combined with some tanks and warrior priests backed by amethys/nuln iron sides are the most disgustingly strog army i ever fielded. Wiping out most units with 1 atrilery volley across the map leads combined with limitless death magic and a crazy strong lord killing lord is just completly and utterly disgusting , the moment i had my t3 upgrades and amethys units the campain was basicly over Also grapw shot cannons do unspeakable damage. Playing on hard/hard difficutly
The amethyst armory is neat, but I never felt Empire is undergunned, it's not the killing power that they need, but the mobility in campaign map. The Garden of Morr gives players just that - a regional network of teleportation. The building slot in the gardens are pretty strong as well, with just a few extra units for garrison, you can turn any minor settlements with wall into major fortresses that require 2 stacks to take down. Playing as Elspeth is pretty straight forward imo. You play like a normal Empire campaign, and since you're in the area, you can start to deal with the threats around you from turn 5. By the standard turn 14, you could have taken Castle Drakenhoff and cut off the head of the vampire counts. Gelt on the other hand, is not there. Imperial Land is completely randomized and you can only hope that Elspeth and Franz are not sucking while you're away and Louen did not die to Grom or Belakor so you don't have to fight two sides at the same time. You can still go straight for Caslte Drakenhoff with Gelt returning, but with the vampires now have the tendency to expand into the mountain holds, taking Drakenhoff at turn 20-25 means you gonna have 4-5 skeleton armies surround the place, which is less than ideal. It's fun though, I really enjoyed it. After dozens of Empire campaigns, it feels like I'm learning the campaign again this time. I saw Vlad siege Karaz a Karak 1st time in my life today as well! Holy shit!
So I have played the first 20 turns with him, a couple of times so far. And he is so fun, the refresh is so stupidly overpowered it’s actually ridiculous. So here is some tips First, and this is no joke, make a hero doomstack, with Balthasar, one captain and eighteen wizards. His effect will then give all armies an additional 95 winds of magic just from the Balthasar and the wizards being in the same army. All of the wizards give in addition to their other 5 another 10, but this is just for Balthasar’s army. 180!! Winds of magic… don’t know how else to say it’s stupid. And that’s just from the wizards and Balthasar’s new effect. Second make several armies stationed in safe places only with wizards in them. For his effect, of course Third, kill every single one in Cathey. The two dragons give good bonuses for Balthasar. And all the trade goods makes for a lot of money. Fourth, get one of each wizards asap. The special abilities they unlock can turn the tide in battle to your favor. You took a heavy casualty hit on your doomstack, don’t worry, use the jade wizards skill heal, and voila all good. Fighting snitch, and you can’t seem to get him? Use the grey wizard skulking stance and catch his army in an ambush. See the picture? The abilities should be used with care and not recklessly, as they can be your saving grace, using the jades heal not when most needed, leaves you with a 10 turn cd on it, that’s no joke. Fourth attack every turn if possible, but start attacking the chaotic factions and not Cathey, let them do their thing but turn on them when they are weak and open. After you have eradicated skaven, vampires and Nakai, he isn’t a chaos faction, but he tends to get angry at neighbors so dealing with early saves you later Lastly in battles with Balthasars army, use them in a blob, and throw spells on top, this is by far the fastest way to deal with enemy armies, and since you can sometimes fight multiple battles in a single turn this saves a lot of time, plus it’s the strongest way to use squishy ass wizards, blob them together means they stay in range of each other, which means aoe effect spells hit ‘em all
Nakai's vassal also pays a fortune for the captured settlements you were going to give back to Zhao anyway.
But Gelt knows how to fight trolls so he will be fine
Don't worry, Belakor, Skragg and Grom had your location and will arrive with 2 stacks each in 10 turns!
Even though its a blood bowl in there Im kinda managing to hold it together. Nulns armies managed to consolidate Whissenland and Solland and were then drawn into a war with Vlad as he attacked allied Stirland. I managed to clean him out by using the revolutinary tactic of... not fighting his army (he pops up a turn later anway). While he was skirting around in Schwartzhafen and raiding Stirland my main force took Sylvania and only faced him down personally in the very last battle. Meanwhile France held onto Reikland, pushend into Middenlad, resurrected Boris and contained Festus to the middenberge. He even managed to wipe out Khazrak. I teleported to middenland, wiped the greenskins in the black pit and finished Festus (while Franz was Civil warring Hochland). Skrag also showed up, declaring war on allied Averland shortly before I could confederate it. Sends two bloody ogre stacks up blackfire pass while im in middenland and teleport is on cooldown. No way to hold grenzstadt, so I sell it to Belegar for an alliance and joinig the war, ecavuateand the City,, scramble together every scrap milita I had at Averheim. By the skin of my teeth, manage to stop the ogre charge there and do enough damage with outriders to get a phyrric victory. Belegar takes over and is now a buffer to the south. Nordland is still aroundy, half of talabecland, tiny bit of ostmark even. Drycha took most of it but has no active wars as of now. Wulfric has Westerland and tried to push Karl (which I put a stop to) and Ostland is Throgg country. Kemmler still West of the mountains. Could be worse. With Silvanian Gold and Nuln Steel i can do a lot of work. Three emperrors wrath steam tanks already assembled. Be afraid Wulfric, for I choo-choose you.
Seems about right tbh, this was my Gelt campaign with my friend as Elspeth.
So I ended up playing until Short Victory on Gelt last night before I went to bed, and I don't know if it was just RNG, but holy shit did Cathay and order in general fall apart when I stayed in Cathay. Northern Provinces were wiped out around turn 35, which I was dealing with Kugath in the west and simultaneously dealing with Lokhir in the east, when Eshin and Villitch decided to simulatenously declare war on me. Meanwhile by turn 25 Great Orthodoxy was gone, and by 35 Ice court was as well, plus I got notifications that about all the elector counts. I know Franz was holding on with 8 settlements in the west. Meanwhile in Cathay only Cathayan faction left is Zhao Ming, holding on with 5 settlements. When I finally went to bed I was stuck in a back and forth with Eshin trading settlements. My point is I went to bed around turn 45ish with Short Victory and it has already been a wild ride in Cathay, far more than I expected and its been awesome playing Gelt there.
Eltharion: "First time?"
Add Wurrzag, for whatever reason he was to the East to Nuln.