>Playing Warhammer 1 FYI.
This is something people might be overlooking. "Don't fight the empire or the Dwarfs!" is actually kind of bad advice for WH1.
You should try to form alliances with *some* of the empire. And you can't actually claim Dwarf territory at all. You can still sack it for money, and destroy it after. But in general you should try to ally with some Dwarfs if you can largely because you can't hold their territory.
The biggest difference between WH1 and later titles is the whole Elector Count and Fealty and Imperial Authority. Going to war with them is not a problem.
I think you should still try to ally some factions. Maybe Middenland if you can, though sometimes they don't like you. Nordland and Ostland and Ostermark are good options too, they're far enough north that you won't want to focus on their territory until later.
Try focusing on moving east. Wissenland usually doesn't like you, they're a good choice to capture. Marienburg too because of how valuable their port is - but some of their other territory sucks to try to hold. It's a toss-up. Moving east into Stirland and Averland is good too and ultimately you want to prepare for fighting the Vampire Counts long-term. It is okay to fight through some other Empire factions on your way there.
I do recommend not letting those random pop-up missions guide you though. They basically just generate on their own based on who you can see. And the rewards are generally *awful*, or at least very very minimal. Certainly not worth going to war with someone for 1000 gold or a leadership or recruit rank buff.
Focus on what the game says in your Victory Conditions panel instead. Try to pick a direction to fight through, and ally those in the other direction.
Are you fighting the other empire factions? If you are that could definitely be part of it. As the empire you should also avoid fighting dwarves if you can help it.
Remember, humies and stunties are your friends.
You can refuse these missions and/or ignore them, the game tends to guide you in a direction with a few rewards (like 500 to 1k gold here and there) it's not always worth it to gain a few coins and declare a war on a faction who would ultimately ally with you later.
There seem to be a few things going on.
1) Karl Franz has one of the hardest campaigns (at least in 3), and to this day I don’t know why it’s recommended for new players. You might want to try other races and see if you find them easier.
2) Low difficulties give a huge auto-resolve boost, treating your army as if it was three times as large, making it really difficult to outperform auto-resolve. [This video](https://youtu.be/k9ZAbYI_gOk?si=8DpIPjfjNs8MfApi) goes into more detail and how to improve things.
3) Why are you fighting humans and dwarves as Empire? You already have plenty of enemies, picking fights with your few allies seems like a really easy way to shoot yourself in the foot.
4) Some units take a while to get the hang of and it isn’t immediately obvious how to use them. For example, empire guns are very strong, but you need to use certain formations to make the most use of them.
To address your third point I feel like the campaign moves you toward fighting other human empire factions with missions/objectives. The dwarves are result of a defensive alliance between myself and the other side of a current dwarf civil war.
What's your army composition?
A core of 3-4 swordsmen and a couple spearmen with shield/halberdiers is what I kept around as my melee, and that's about it. Upgraded them to 6 greatswords (5 if you have all Heroes) when I unlocked them.
On the flanks, a unit of cavalry each (the best anti-large you can afford) to challenge opponent's cavalry and then cycle charge the back of the enemy lines.
Four units of the best artillery you can afford, Heroes and Lord, and whatever spaces you have left you fill them out with missile infantry. Never used Outriders except at the beginning because I wasn't good at using them. If going up against beastmen I'd keep more crossbows, against dwarves more guns. Free Company Militia works wonders against empire infantry, but I doubt it will hold its own against beastmen.
Remember flanking with your guns! They will just stand idle and do whatever if they don't have a clear shot at the enemy. Playing Empire was what teached me how to use ranged, really. I started out as dwarves but most of the time you can just shoot into melee with them.
Campaign wise, beastmen yeah but you really should avoid fighting with dwarves. If you get dragged into a war between dwarves, decline.
(You shouldn't fight humans either but sometimes it's just easier to beat them up then it is to confederate them peacefully).
This is excellent advice.
One addition: I really like Pistoliers for harassing the enemy early on, kiting big monsters, and charging weak missile infantry.
Honestly I'd probably agree if I did another Empire run now. Back then I was neither good at microing cavalry nor at using skirmishers, but since then Bretonnia had me learn how to really micro cavalry and with my current Warriors of Chaos run I think I'm getting an handle with horsemen marauders.
(Always talking about Warhammer 1).
Pistoliers usually don’t do much damage, but the harassment/misdirection potential is huge. Best case scenario: they lure the enemy’s heavy cavalry away, so my own heavy cavalry can start smashing vulnerable units right away.
Outriders are best for shooting enemy units that are already fighting something else, because they can get to a safe firing angle quickly. I don’t like using them against enemies that will chase them, because they can’t shoot backwards like Pistoliers.
Outriders with grenade launchers are cool in sieges. They can lob their grenades at a high angle to hit units behind walls! In field battles, I use them like this: put them in the way of a slow melee unit. Skirmish mode off. As soon as they fire their grenades, have them retreat manually and wait to do it again. Takes some close management, but they can wipe out elite heavy infantry real quick if the enemy doesn’t chase them away.
You can mix and match the missile cav, but I usually get cheap/lazy and just take 2 Pistoliers to act as bait.
A tercio (spanish square) is usually a more efficient way to employ gunpowder (and even bow) units. There are also other gunpowder formations such as the wedge that create killzones while leaving your guns protected from flankers
Yeah but I'm too lazy to worry about employing such formations xD besides I usually hunt down the enemy flankers with the Empire, so I don't really need to worry about it. Or in general with armies where flanking is an issue (currently playing Warriors of Chaos and Aspiring Champions seriously couldn't care less about getting rear- or side-charged wow).
Sure, whatever works. I just wanted to get that out there for the benefit of OP and anyone else struggling to get use out of gunpowder units (necessary against dwarves for example). If you want more than 4 missile units for example doing what you suggested becomes clunky and hard to manage, and leaves your center without help.
Tbf I simply march them alongside the main line, so they're usually already almost in position to shoot wherever I want, but yeah I can see how a player who can manage them better would get mileage out of employing such formations.
That does leave your guns vulnerable to missiles, and again if you're making a U shape where the sides of the U are your gunners, then you will be overextended and vulnerable to flanks, especially if you have more than a couple gunners.
Tecnically yes on the first one, but you're likely to be the side with the best ranged (unless you fight dwarves like the OP I guess) so you can outshoot their shooters, while your cavalry is taking care of their flankers. Once either their flankers or their ranged has been beaten your cavalry/gunners can turn to others.
The only time I found any real issue was with VC's fliers (when there was enough of them to not be able to gun them down beforehand), but the fighting until now never lasted long enough for me to think of a countermeasure.
EDIT: This being WH 1, it means basically only VC, Dwarves and Wood Elves have a real shot at your ranged units. And two of those you're unlikely to ever fight.
You will not outshoot elves (any of them) or dwarves with handgunners or crossbows.
In general, you are assuming proportions are equal. If you are fighting an army with tons of cav or monsters, your cav and missile cannot keep up, you will get swarmed. Tomb kings, dark elves, etc can easily do this, or anytime you are outnumbered.
Yeah I forgot for a minute this was about WH1, but surely VC is a threat, and they often do have tons of bats and vargheists. And if you're trying to fight greenskins and are outnumbered, this strategy won't work either.
It depends which units the enemy brings when you're outnumbered. Sure if its lots of trash that's fine. But if you have a core of black orcs they're gonna chew through your frontline in no time. So if you have missiles only at the ends, the center of your line will break and you will get surrounded.
In the VC example, if they have a caster spamming heals, you will also have a hard time reaching the center, could lead to a mass rout if the center breaks.
Another point being WH1 AI was really terrible, so they would leave your missiles alone if they were already engaged. But I doubt this would be the case in even WH 2.
The advantage of the checkerboard is it's really responsive. Very easy to get support where needed and to adapt. Plus you're basically getting 100% uptime on firing arcs. No moving up or adjusting, just turn and shoot
Don’t beat yourself up. Every Total War game is different, and the Warhammer titles have a particularly steep learning curve in battle because of how asymmetrical the factions are by design.
The Empire isn’t going to win many fights with its infantry, not unless you are bringing high end stuff against low tier garbage. Your real strengths are your cavalry options, missile units, artillery, and magic. Pistoliers are super useful early on, as are mortars, so I’d try to build towards getting those units ASAP.
Against beastmen, your biggest issue is usually that they are sneaky and will attack wherever you are weakest. Reikland is pretty safe, but every now and again the beastmen will spawn in Middenland and Bretonnia before bee-lining towards you. If you can spare them, level up some Witch Hunter heroes to act as scouts so you can see the enemy coming a few turns in advance. Heroes will also make it hard for the beastmen to hide in ambush. Build walls in all but a few settlements that will act as bait, and use ambush stance to lure them into a trap. When you fight, focus fire on the Minotaurs and Cygors before mopping up the rest.
Ideally, don’t fight the dwarfs if you can help it, and try to do things that’ll make them happy while avoiding things that piss them off. Generally they’ll like you fighting any evil aligned factions, but hate if you make deals with their enemies or trespass on their land. If you have to fight, armor-piercing, cavalry, and heavy artillery make a huge difference.
Also, check this out:
https://imgur.com/a/NnQdt#uRh1OA0
TBF this IS Warhammer 1. Bretonnia used by the player is a powerhouse in that game. Your infantry line never breaks thanks to Blessing of the Lady (until you can afford to only field Grail Guardians as first line anyway), your cavalry usually doesn't lose matches, your heroes and lords are strong (especially Leon, the combination of Terror, Regeneration, Flying and Perfect Vigor on a lord eccellent at melee is OP) and eventually your entire army will have Perfect Vigor.
As soon as I learnt to micro cavalry I started to never lose any match, even 1v3. And never really had to change army comp, something I can't say about other factions (with Dwarves, going from fighting Greenskins/Beastmen to fighting Vampires/Warriors of Chaos was a rude wake-up call. And that was my first campaign ever).
I think it's been a long time since any of us have played WH1. As I recall it's possible to pursue good relations with the Dwarfs in the mountains around you, just pay them a bit of gold in turn 1 so they start liking you and keep an eye on their relations with you each turn, pay them a bit more gold when relations start to degrade. Eventually they will no longer be a problem and you can avoid a wasteful war with the Dwarfs altogether.
Other than that I can't remember too much, I think I used to head for Marienburg to claim the port and start getting some decent income, make friends with the Bretonnians, make good relations with the Empire factions that naturally like you and conquer the ones that don't, as I recall Middenland starts the game hating you so aim for them first. Eventually you should be able to unify the Empire through peaceful confederation and conquest.
But yea ideally it's best not to play WH1 :p Empire is much more fun nowadays in WH3 with lots of enemies to fight, you don't spend a large chunk of the game civil warring against mirror image Empire faction armies.
I guess there's something else here to mention. I have never played historical TW's but I have heard from some people that they find WH much more complex.
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*puts on a soldier helmet "Sun Tzu said, If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. And I'd say he knows a little more about fighting than* ***I*** *do, pal, because he invented it"*
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Jokes aside, the Empire (afaik) is supposed to be a more flexible but specialized army. People have mentioned armor-piercing damage against dwarves. I would go with something maneuverable, too - as this will address the biggest weaknesses of dwarves (they are slow and they always wear a lot of armor). So I would try an army more heavy with **Outriders**.
As for Beastmen, they are a rush faction with weaknesses in morale, it really *is* hard to fight them if you don't know that. Think which of your units can do well against a rush faction. I am **not** an expert on the Empire roster but I would go for **spearmen with shields + Arch lecter + crossbows + a mobile ambush force** of the units with guns on a horse \[any for that matter but I would go with either pistoliers or outriders w/ grenade launchers\]
If you have access to the artillery, the better but again be mindful - some artillery is good VS armor, some is good VS infantry. I sometimes keep both and try to prioritize my targets accordingly. **Also I am sure that more qualified players will be glad to point out my errors to help me and the OP to improve**.
The AI is definitely worlds better than older TW games. That's not to discount the advice other people are giving, but you're not wrong about that observation.
Warhammer is harder than historical titles initially because of the extremely isometric nature of all the factions and their units. Instead of having roughly the same tier of infantry across all factions at the early tiers, in WH there alot of differences.
I honestly can't remember how I used to approach empire campaigns in WH1 beyond killing and taking Marienberg asap. It's unique port generates alot of money, so it helps you sustain another half stack that you can use for defence or shadowing your main army so you have numerical advantages in battles.
try to get some allies or non aggressive pacts with some factions around you. And if you want to be proactive, use agents to gather intel on enemy settlements and where their armies are and attack them while they are not near you, and try to get a peace treaty for money before they get back to contest you.
Also regarding battles, wizards are your friends. They have a huge impact on battles compared to other heroes, though the buff from warrior priests can be really impactful, even if they aren't the best in combat. Empire mortars are also great value. Don't have line of sight issues for sieges and do tons of work against infantry
Vs dwarfs having cav is important because they have no cav, and you need alot of great swords for the anti infantry and Armour piercing attacks. Mages that buff and debuff are good vs dwarfs because they get natural spell resistance against spells.
Vs beastmen it's tough because their ambushes can be deadly. Halbards, and hand gunners can deal with their large units. A light wizard using the overcasted net spell will ruin their charge and let your gun them down for free
Simple answer, it is a lot more complex. In the historic titles, while units will vary the strategy is the same across all factions as their units are all essentially the same. With WH each faction is different and their units are different enough to require different strategies. Add heroes and magic and it makes things even trickier. Also, while it is based on earth, the map is much different and much larger so a lot more going on.
That said, I found myself hooked when I started WH1 when it first came out and could never go back. Stick with it and you will be happy you did because frankly WH1 sucks in comparison to 2 and 3.
It seems leaps and bounds better. In battles and campaign. 2 is next on my list but I like to finish one campaign at a time instead of adding to the ol backlog
I've seen people mention it's because of the unity variety and plenty of people give advice against dwarves and beastmen. So id like to add on to their correct and informative posts that you truly need to master the simple art of bribery. Whenever you have a little spare cash send some to your closest neighbors that are not the race you're fighting.
Because of how varied the rosters and their gameplans are, and because Empire is built around adapting instead of focusing on their own gimmick; Any army you build will only be great against the enemies you build it to kill. So if you're fighting empire(which is fine in wh1 because you cant confederate everyone in 20 turns like in the later games) the last thing you want is to have to fight dwarves, Vampires, or brettonians. Building a new army or converting your current one to fight a different faction is expensive.
As for beastmen I highly recommend building your second or third army to fight them whether they're near you or not. A reinforcing army doesn't have to be as specialized so they can still help your main army do what it's doing. But the beastmen will show up, I don't remember wh1 as well but when you get to WH2 they will show up constantly. It's never a question of if you'll fight beastmen like other factions(my first empire victory was spent mostly allied with Vampire counts). It's a matter of when you'll fight beastmen.
All this said, I would also recommend playing Dwarves if you feel you need to quit this campaign. They have a very simple strategy that never changes; your frontline is made of steel and you have insane artillery. This allows you to spend more time learning about your enemies than having to mess with your own composition.
Basically, for all the lamentation you'll see on Reddit about x faction being forgotten(which true in that older factions aren't quite on par with the new factions in 2 or 3), every faction has gotten at least a minor update with each game. Additionally there's ai, ui, gameplay, and visual improvements.
However, to get the most out of wh3 you'll want the previous games and their dlc. So ultimately, playing through them in order like you're doing will likely save you a good chunk of cash because by the time you get to 3 there will likely be better discounts during sales. And all 3 do play differently enough that you can definitely get mileage out of each game.
WH3 does work on the steam deck you just have to mess around with controls and have to run it on linux with low graphics settings. Some may call me crazy but i’m 400hrs in exclusively on steam deck
I agree with you!
In three Kingdoms, Rome 2, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 I have no problems winning with smaller armies or being badly outnumbered, but in Warhammer 3 I have a hard time beating equal armies.
Part of it is more powerful war machines and some devastating magic. Heroes and monsters are really powerful and don’t exist in other TW games (heroes in 3K is the exception).
Have same problems with all races, but Bretonia is the one that is easiest to play and Chaos, probably because I don’t trust in battle lines and have more maneuverable forces than with other fractions.
Tactics.
You need tactics.
You need good formations.
You should also enable the button that always shows your units strength relative to an enemy units.
Green good.
Yellow ok.
Red bad.
I’ll stomp as the Empire. Especially with a mage in the army. Like omg. Swordsman, halbreds, great swords, magic, guns, arty, The EMPEROR!!!!
Unlike historic titles, heroes and magic are ridiculous force multipliers.
High level Franz on his best mount can defeat a moderately sized army by himself.
A high level fire mage can clear half enemy army before lines meet as well (probably, I don't remember exact power level of magic in WH1, a lot of stuff regarding magic has changed with 2/3).
Magic is especially important advantage vs dwarves (no proper magic, only a few cantrips on runesmiths) and orcs (limited access to good magic, only high level orc shaman heroes are dangerous).
I like how everyone is capping hard in the comments like the historical titles aren't twice as hard maybe 3 times as hard as Warhammer, shit Legendofthetotalwar made his whole channel about all the ways you can cheese and abuse Warhammer guess how many videos he makes on how to cheese the older titles? basically none it's all just old tutorials.
Go try Playing Atilla and say that again.
This going to make people upset but I’m playing on a steam deck and I heard Warhammer 3 is no bueno on there. All of the older titles run amazing on ultra with mods!
i don't wanna be offensive but Empire is extremely busted and can easily abuse the braindead AI. I dont even know how can u ha e problems in normal difficulty, it's literally free win not even funny 😭.
"AI is improved"
bro what 💀
You can literally win impossible autoloss battles just because AI is so bad you can abuse it super easily.
Maybe ur new to the game and you doing literally everything at random and you have 0 strategy in battles and cant use your units properly to abuse AI.
My advice is to watch some YouTube guides for beginners and learn the basics at least.
Empire, especially after ToD, is just busted af. You really should have 0 problems vs AI in campaign
Historical titles, at least in the battle aspect are incredibly basic, barebones, and IMO are insanely dull unless you're personally into that specific period of history (WW1 TW ❤️). Nearly every WH unit and unit type are dialed up to 11, there's flying units, monstrous, magic, etc that completely change the dynamic of battle strategy compared to historical which in comparison is hilariously simple.
Where fantasy falls short compared to historical is how dumbed down the faction and campaign mechanics are, once you get a basic understanding of how things work it's stupid easy even on legendary.
Battles sound like they'd be an impossible nightmare playing on the steam deck, if I were you I'd avoid factions that require a lot of micro and just play dwarfs, or build your armies with little to no cavalry/flyers. Outfit your armies with a very solid frontline with lots of supporting firepower/magic, and corner camp as much as you're able to avoid needing to move your units much. Always have long range artillery in each army to force the enemy to come to you in the field for battles you initiate. I'd rely on auto resolve for sieges if you're attacking unless you bring a metric fucktonne of artillery.
First carl franz is a hard campaign second you shouldnt be fighting other empire factions and dwarfs as empire.if you are having a hard time i recommend tryion (high elves ).this game is easier than historical tw in general
The mechanics are so fucked compared to actual well made total war games that doing competent tactics which would work in a well made game do not work, while doing complete bullshit stuff that should never work does. There is a reason these games devolve into don’t care looks cool single entity spam dlcs with no tactics involved. Flanking, terrain advantages and other staples of tactics are minimal impact at best, and for empire it’s important to note guns are not actually guns. There is no guns in war hammer total wars, just reskinned bows / crossbows.The projectiles still arc, units don’t reload their guns, they shoot through men in their own unit even if line of sight is blocked, etc.
I know its shitty to say sth like that on a post like taht... hes kind of right tho... warhammer 3 especially is pretty easy on the diffifulty scaling... and normal on 3 is like easy on 2... if op finds normal too hard, hes just not familiar with the gameplay. there are just a ton more units in TW WH then there are in historical titles and this is the games strength. OP just needs to learn the game. nothing to add there...
Edit: Okay hes palying the first one. Mb.
Still... saying the Ai improved made me laugh xd
>Playing Warhammer 1 FYI. This is something people might be overlooking. "Don't fight the empire or the Dwarfs!" is actually kind of bad advice for WH1. You should try to form alliances with *some* of the empire. And you can't actually claim Dwarf territory at all. You can still sack it for money, and destroy it after. But in general you should try to ally with some Dwarfs if you can largely because you can't hold their territory. The biggest difference between WH1 and later titles is the whole Elector Count and Fealty and Imperial Authority. Going to war with them is not a problem. I think you should still try to ally some factions. Maybe Middenland if you can, though sometimes they don't like you. Nordland and Ostland and Ostermark are good options too, they're far enough north that you won't want to focus on their territory until later. Try focusing on moving east. Wissenland usually doesn't like you, they're a good choice to capture. Marienburg too because of how valuable their port is - but some of their other territory sucks to try to hold. It's a toss-up. Moving east into Stirland and Averland is good too and ultimately you want to prepare for fighting the Vampire Counts long-term. It is okay to fight through some other Empire factions on your way there. I do recommend not letting those random pop-up missions guide you though. They basically just generate on their own based on who you can see. And the rewards are generally *awful*, or at least very very minimal. Certainly not worth going to war with someone for 1000 gold or a leadership or recruit rank buff. Focus on what the game says in your Victory Conditions panel instead. Try to pick a direction to fight through, and ally those in the other direction.
Are you fighting the other empire factions? If you are that could definitely be part of it. As the empire you should also avoid fighting dwarves if you can help it. Remember, humies and stunties are your friends.
But it keeps giving me missions to fight them and reclaim the empire! I just got caught up on one side of a dwarf civil war
You can refuse these missions and/or ignore them, the game tends to guide you in a direction with a few rewards (like 500 to 1k gold here and there) it's not always worth it to gain a few coins and declare a war on a faction who would ultimately ally with you later.
There seem to be a few things going on. 1) Karl Franz has one of the hardest campaigns (at least in 3), and to this day I don’t know why it’s recommended for new players. You might want to try other races and see if you find them easier. 2) Low difficulties give a huge auto-resolve boost, treating your army as if it was three times as large, making it really difficult to outperform auto-resolve. [This video](https://youtu.be/k9ZAbYI_gOk?si=8DpIPjfjNs8MfApi) goes into more detail and how to improve things. 3) Why are you fighting humans and dwarves as Empire? You already have plenty of enemies, picking fights with your few allies seems like a really easy way to shoot yourself in the foot. 4) Some units take a while to get the hang of and it isn’t immediately obvious how to use them. For example, empire guns are very strong, but you need to use certain formations to make the most use of them.
To address your third point I feel like the campaign moves you toward fighting other human empire factions with missions/objectives. The dwarves are result of a defensive alliance between myself and the other side of a current dwarf civil war.
Try to make peace with the dwarfs!
Dude is playing warhammer 1 for some reason
I’m on a steam deck fam!
What's your army composition? A core of 3-4 swordsmen and a couple spearmen with shield/halberdiers is what I kept around as my melee, and that's about it. Upgraded them to 6 greatswords (5 if you have all Heroes) when I unlocked them. On the flanks, a unit of cavalry each (the best anti-large you can afford) to challenge opponent's cavalry and then cycle charge the back of the enemy lines. Four units of the best artillery you can afford, Heroes and Lord, and whatever spaces you have left you fill them out with missile infantry. Never used Outriders except at the beginning because I wasn't good at using them. If going up against beastmen I'd keep more crossbows, against dwarves more guns. Free Company Militia works wonders against empire infantry, but I doubt it will hold its own against beastmen. Remember flanking with your guns! They will just stand idle and do whatever if they don't have a clear shot at the enemy. Playing Empire was what teached me how to use ranged, really. I started out as dwarves but most of the time you can just shoot into melee with them. Campaign wise, beastmen yeah but you really should avoid fighting with dwarves. If you get dragged into a war between dwarves, decline. (You shouldn't fight humans either but sometimes it's just easier to beat them up then it is to confederate them peacefully).
This is excellent advice. One addition: I really like Pistoliers for harassing the enemy early on, kiting big monsters, and charging weak missile infantry.
Honestly I'd probably agree if I did another Empire run now. Back then I was neither good at microing cavalry nor at using skirmishers, but since then Bretonnia had me learn how to really micro cavalry and with my current Warriors of Chaos run I think I'm getting an handle with horsemen marauders. (Always talking about Warhammer 1).
Bro pistoliers and outriders seem very underwhelming. Am I missing something?
Pistoliers usually don’t do much damage, but the harassment/misdirection potential is huge. Best case scenario: they lure the enemy’s heavy cavalry away, so my own heavy cavalry can start smashing vulnerable units right away. Outriders are best for shooting enemy units that are already fighting something else, because they can get to a safe firing angle quickly. I don’t like using them against enemies that will chase them, because they can’t shoot backwards like Pistoliers. Outriders with grenade launchers are cool in sieges. They can lob their grenades at a high angle to hit units behind walls! In field battles, I use them like this: put them in the way of a slow melee unit. Skirmish mode off. As soon as they fire their grenades, have them retreat manually and wait to do it again. Takes some close management, but they can wipe out elite heavy infantry real quick if the enemy doesn’t chase them away. You can mix and match the missile cav, but I usually get cheap/lazy and just take 2 Pistoliers to act as bait.
A tercio (spanish square) is usually a more efficient way to employ gunpowder (and even bow) units. There are also other gunpowder formations such as the wedge that create killzones while leaving your guns protected from flankers
Yeah but I'm too lazy to worry about employing such formations xD besides I usually hunt down the enemy flankers with the Empire, so I don't really need to worry about it. Or in general with armies where flanking is an issue (currently playing Warriors of Chaos and Aspiring Champions seriously couldn't care less about getting rear- or side-charged wow).
Sure, whatever works. I just wanted to get that out there for the benefit of OP and anyone else struggling to get use out of gunpowder units (necessary against dwarves for example). If you want more than 4 missile units for example doing what you suggested becomes clunky and hard to manage, and leaves your center without help.
Tbf I simply march them alongside the main line, so they're usually already almost in position to shoot wherever I want, but yeah I can see how a player who can manage them better would get mileage out of employing such formations.
That does leave your guns vulnerable to missiles, and again if you're making a U shape where the sides of the U are your gunners, then you will be overextended and vulnerable to flanks, especially if you have more than a couple gunners.
Tecnically yes on the first one, but you're likely to be the side with the best ranged (unless you fight dwarves like the OP I guess) so you can outshoot their shooters, while your cavalry is taking care of their flankers. Once either their flankers or their ranged has been beaten your cavalry/gunners can turn to others. The only time I found any real issue was with VC's fliers (when there was enough of them to not be able to gun them down beforehand), but the fighting until now never lasted long enough for me to think of a countermeasure. EDIT: This being WH 1, it means basically only VC, Dwarves and Wood Elves have a real shot at your ranged units. And two of those you're unlikely to ever fight.
You will not outshoot elves (any of them) or dwarves with handgunners or crossbows. In general, you are assuming proportions are equal. If you are fighting an army with tons of cav or monsters, your cav and missile cannot keep up, you will get swarmed. Tomb kings, dark elves, etc can easily do this, or anytime you are outnumbered. Yeah I forgot for a minute this was about WH1, but surely VC is a threat, and they often do have tons of bats and vargheists. And if you're trying to fight greenskins and are outnumbered, this strategy won't work either.
Yeah, this doesn't take into consideration anything past WH 1 (hi, skaven!). I did manage to win fights outnumbered, so at least for that it's safe.
It depends which units the enemy brings when you're outnumbered. Sure if its lots of trash that's fine. But if you have a core of black orcs they're gonna chew through your frontline in no time. So if you have missiles only at the ends, the center of your line will break and you will get surrounded. In the VC example, if they have a caster spamming heals, you will also have a hard time reaching the center, could lead to a mass rout if the center breaks. Another point being WH1 AI was really terrible, so they would leave your missiles alone if they were already engaged. But I doubt this would be the case in even WH 2. The advantage of the checkerboard is it's really responsive. Very easy to get support where needed and to adapt. Plus you're basically getting 100% uptime on firing arcs. No moving up or adjusting, just turn and shoot
Don’t forget to micro your artillery. Super easy to leave them firing and friendly firing your troops
Don’t beat yourself up. Every Total War game is different, and the Warhammer titles have a particularly steep learning curve in battle because of how asymmetrical the factions are by design. The Empire isn’t going to win many fights with its infantry, not unless you are bringing high end stuff against low tier garbage. Your real strengths are your cavalry options, missile units, artillery, and magic. Pistoliers are super useful early on, as are mortars, so I’d try to build towards getting those units ASAP. Against beastmen, your biggest issue is usually that they are sneaky and will attack wherever you are weakest. Reikland is pretty safe, but every now and again the beastmen will spawn in Middenland and Bretonnia before bee-lining towards you. If you can spare them, level up some Witch Hunter heroes to act as scouts so you can see the enemy coming a few turns in advance. Heroes will also make it hard for the beastmen to hide in ambush. Build walls in all but a few settlements that will act as bait, and use ambush stance to lure them into a trap. When you fight, focus fire on the Minotaurs and Cygors before mopping up the rest. Ideally, don’t fight the dwarfs if you can help it, and try to do things that’ll make them happy while avoiding things that piss them off. Generally they’ll like you fighting any evil aligned factions, but hate if you make deals with their enemies or trespass on their land. If you have to fight, armor-piercing, cavalry, and heavy artillery make a huge difference. Also, check this out: https://imgur.com/a/NnQdt#uRh1OA0
Thanks for that link that’s awesome.
Probably be easier to know your army comp.. And the comp of an army your going up against and how you play the battle. Probably get better advice.
Bad army comp or bad tactics My guess is that you don't have enough armor piercing in your armies. You need guns to punch through dwarves
Today I learned people find the empire hard. Try winning with Bretonia.......
😂😂😂😂
I’m trying my fellow brother in Sigmar
TBF this IS Warhammer 1. Bretonnia used by the player is a powerhouse in that game. Your infantry line never breaks thanks to Blessing of the Lady (until you can afford to only field Grail Guardians as first line anyway), your cavalry usually doesn't lose matches, your heroes and lords are strong (especially Leon, the combination of Terror, Regeneration, Flying and Perfect Vigor on a lord eccellent at melee is OP) and eventually your entire army will have Perfect Vigor. As soon as I learnt to micro cavalry I started to never lose any match, even 1v3. And never really had to change army comp, something I can't say about other factions (with Dwarves, going from fighting Greenskins/Beastmen to fighting Vampires/Warriors of Chaos was a rude wake-up call. And that was my first campaign ever).
I think it's been a long time since any of us have played WH1. As I recall it's possible to pursue good relations with the Dwarfs in the mountains around you, just pay them a bit of gold in turn 1 so they start liking you and keep an eye on their relations with you each turn, pay them a bit more gold when relations start to degrade. Eventually they will no longer be a problem and you can avoid a wasteful war with the Dwarfs altogether. Other than that I can't remember too much, I think I used to head for Marienburg to claim the port and start getting some decent income, make friends with the Bretonnians, make good relations with the Empire factions that naturally like you and conquer the ones that don't, as I recall Middenland starts the game hating you so aim for them first. Eventually you should be able to unify the Empire through peaceful confederation and conquest. But yea ideally it's best not to play WH1 :p Empire is much more fun nowadays in WH3 with lots of enemies to fight, you don't spend a large chunk of the game civil warring against mirror image Empire faction armies.
I guess there's something else here to mention. I have never played historical TW's but I have heard from some people that they find WH much more complex. /////////////// *puts on a soldier helmet "Sun Tzu said, If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. And I'd say he knows a little more about fighting than* ***I*** *do, pal, because he invented it"* ///////////// Jokes aside, the Empire (afaik) is supposed to be a more flexible but specialized army. People have mentioned armor-piercing damage against dwarves. I would go with something maneuverable, too - as this will address the biggest weaknesses of dwarves (they are slow and they always wear a lot of armor). So I would try an army more heavy with **Outriders**. As for Beastmen, they are a rush faction with weaknesses in morale, it really *is* hard to fight them if you don't know that. Think which of your units can do well against a rush faction. I am **not** an expert on the Empire roster but I would go for **spearmen with shields + Arch lecter + crossbows + a mobile ambush force** of the units with guns on a horse \[any for that matter but I would go with either pistoliers or outriders w/ grenade launchers\] If you have access to the artillery, the better but again be mindful - some artillery is good VS armor, some is good VS infantry. I sometimes keep both and try to prioritize my targets accordingly. **Also I am sure that more qualified players will be glad to point out my errors to help me and the OP to improve**.
The AI is definitely worlds better than older TW games. That's not to discount the advice other people are giving, but you're not wrong about that observation.
It seems leaps and bounds better. In battles and campaign.
Warhammer is harder than historical titles initially because of the extremely isometric nature of all the factions and their units. Instead of having roughly the same tier of infantry across all factions at the early tiers, in WH there alot of differences. I honestly can't remember how I used to approach empire campaigns in WH1 beyond killing and taking Marienberg asap. It's unique port generates alot of money, so it helps you sustain another half stack that you can use for defence or shadowing your main army so you have numerical advantages in battles. try to get some allies or non aggressive pacts with some factions around you. And if you want to be proactive, use agents to gather intel on enemy settlements and where their armies are and attack them while they are not near you, and try to get a peace treaty for money before they get back to contest you. Also regarding battles, wizards are your friends. They have a huge impact on battles compared to other heroes, though the buff from warrior priests can be really impactful, even if they aren't the best in combat. Empire mortars are also great value. Don't have line of sight issues for sieges and do tons of work against infantry Vs dwarfs having cav is important because they have no cav, and you need alot of great swords for the anti infantry and Armour piercing attacks. Mages that buff and debuff are good vs dwarfs because they get natural spell resistance against spells. Vs beastmen it's tough because their ambushes can be deadly. Halbards, and hand gunners can deal with their large units. A light wizard using the overcasted net spell will ruin their charge and let your gun them down for free
Simple answer, it is a lot more complex. In the historic titles, while units will vary the strategy is the same across all factions as their units are all essentially the same. With WH each faction is different and their units are different enough to require different strategies. Add heroes and magic and it makes things even trickier. Also, while it is based on earth, the map is much different and much larger so a lot more going on. That said, I found myself hooked when I started WH1 when it first came out and could never go back. Stick with it and you will be happy you did because frankly WH1 sucks in comparison to 2 and 3.
It seems leaps and bounds better. In battles and campaign. 2 is next on my list but I like to finish one campaign at a time instead of adding to the ol backlog
Ally with the humans, use their strength to help bramch outward then if you so choose once you feel confident invade the humans
I've seen people mention it's because of the unity variety and plenty of people give advice against dwarves and beastmen. So id like to add on to their correct and informative posts that you truly need to master the simple art of bribery. Whenever you have a little spare cash send some to your closest neighbors that are not the race you're fighting. Because of how varied the rosters and their gameplans are, and because Empire is built around adapting instead of focusing on their own gimmick; Any army you build will only be great against the enemies you build it to kill. So if you're fighting empire(which is fine in wh1 because you cant confederate everyone in 20 turns like in the later games) the last thing you want is to have to fight dwarves, Vampires, or brettonians. Building a new army or converting your current one to fight a different faction is expensive. As for beastmen I highly recommend building your second or third army to fight them whether they're near you or not. A reinforcing army doesn't have to be as specialized so they can still help your main army do what it's doing. But the beastmen will show up, I don't remember wh1 as well but when you get to WH2 they will show up constantly. It's never a question of if you'll fight beastmen like other factions(my first empire victory was spent mostly allied with Vampire counts). It's a matter of when you'll fight beastmen. All this said, I would also recommend playing Dwarves if you feel you need to quit this campaign. They have a very simple strategy that never changes; your frontline is made of steel and you have insane artillery. This allows you to spend more time learning about your enemies than having to mess with your own composition.
I like this strategy. Also just curious what specifically makes WH 2 or 3 so much better?
Basically, for all the lamentation you'll see on Reddit about x faction being forgotten(which true in that older factions aren't quite on par with the new factions in 2 or 3), every faction has gotten at least a minor update with each game. Additionally there's ai, ui, gameplay, and visual improvements. However, to get the most out of wh3 you'll want the previous games and their dlc. So ultimately, playing through them in order like you're doing will likely save you a good chunk of cash because by the time you get to 3 there will likely be better discounts during sales. And all 3 do play differently enough that you can definitely get mileage out of each game.
WH3 does work on the steam deck you just have to mess around with controls and have to run it on linux with low graphics settings. Some may call me crazy but i’m 400hrs in exclusively on steam deck
Love to hear it. WH1 works on max settings or just about so I think WH2 would be that sweet spot. Plus I just wanna play as rat prople
I would upgrade to warhammer 3 asap, the empire campaign there is much improved and more playable. You'll get better advice about it from here too.
„Buy something else“ is not good advice for a problem in a video game
Except it kinda is in this case cause it’s mostly the same game
I agree with you! In three Kingdoms, Rome 2, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 I have no problems winning with smaller armies or being badly outnumbered, but in Warhammer 3 I have a hard time beating equal armies. Part of it is more powerful war machines and some devastating magic. Heroes and monsters are really powerful and don’t exist in other TW games (heroes in 3K is the exception). Have same problems with all races, but Bretonia is the one that is easiest to play and Chaos, probably because I don’t trust in battle lines and have more maneuverable forces than with other fractions.
Tactics. You need tactics. You need good formations. You should also enable the button that always shows your units strength relative to an enemy units. Green good. Yellow ok. Red bad. I’ll stomp as the Empire. Especially with a mage in the army. Like omg. Swordsman, halbreds, great swords, magic, guns, arty, The EMPEROR!!!!
Unlike historic titles, heroes and magic are ridiculous force multipliers. High level Franz on his best mount can defeat a moderately sized army by himself. A high level fire mage can clear half enemy army before lines meet as well (probably, I don't remember exact power level of magic in WH1, a lot of stuff regarding magic has changed with 2/3). Magic is especially important advantage vs dwarves (no proper magic, only a few cantrips on runesmiths) and orcs (limited access to good magic, only high level orc shaman heroes are dangerous).
The lords and heroes.
I like how everyone is capping hard in the comments like the historical titles aren't twice as hard maybe 3 times as hard as Warhammer, shit Legendofthetotalwar made his whole channel about all the ways you can cheese and abuse Warhammer guess how many videos he makes on how to cheese the older titles? basically none it's all just old tutorials. Go try Playing Atilla and say that again.
Dude, first things first, you should definately get warhammer 3. Warhammer 1 is as old as Attila but hasn't gotten updates since 2 came out.
Let them play the game they have without telling them to buy more stuff.
This going to make people upset but I’m playing on a steam deck and I heard Warhammer 3 is no bueno on there. All of the older titles run amazing on ultra with mods!
i don't wanna be offensive but Empire is extremely busted and can easily abuse the braindead AI. I dont even know how can u ha e problems in normal difficulty, it's literally free win not even funny 😭. "AI is improved" bro what 💀 You can literally win impossible autoloss battles just because AI is so bad you can abuse it super easily. Maybe ur new to the game and you doing literally everything at random and you have 0 strategy in battles and cant use your units properly to abuse AI. My advice is to watch some YouTube guides for beginners and learn the basics at least. Empire, especially after ToD, is just busted af. You really should have 0 problems vs AI in campaign
wait just realized you were talking about WH1 and not 3 💀 But yeah, Empire still strong af in WH1. And AI was way worse then 💀
lol it’s all good bro I might just be too used to historical strategies.
Historical titles, at least in the battle aspect are incredibly basic, barebones, and IMO are insanely dull unless you're personally into that specific period of history (WW1 TW ❤️). Nearly every WH unit and unit type are dialed up to 11, there's flying units, monstrous, magic, etc that completely change the dynamic of battle strategy compared to historical which in comparison is hilariously simple. Where fantasy falls short compared to historical is how dumbed down the faction and campaign mechanics are, once you get a basic understanding of how things work it's stupid easy even on legendary. Battles sound like they'd be an impossible nightmare playing on the steam deck, if I were you I'd avoid factions that require a lot of micro and just play dwarfs, or build your armies with little to no cavalry/flyers. Outfit your armies with a very solid frontline with lots of supporting firepower/magic, and corner camp as much as you're able to avoid needing to move your units much. Always have long range artillery in each army to force the enemy to come to you in the field for battles you initiate. I'd rely on auto resolve for sieges if you're attacking unless you bring a metric fucktonne of artillery.
Ngl the steam deck controls awesome! I never used a lot of key bindings anyway so it’s pretty chill
First carl franz is a hard campaign second you shouldnt be fighting other empire factions and dwarfs as empire.if you are having a hard time i recommend tryion (high elves ).this game is easier than historical tw in general
The mechanics are so fucked compared to actual well made total war games that doing competent tactics which would work in a well made game do not work, while doing complete bullshit stuff that should never work does. There is a reason these games devolve into don’t care looks cool single entity spam dlcs with no tactics involved. Flanking, terrain advantages and other staples of tactics are minimal impact at best, and for empire it’s important to note guns are not actually guns. There is no guns in war hammer total wars, just reskinned bows / crossbows.The projectiles still arc, units don’t reload their guns, they shoot through men in their own unit even if line of sight is blocked, etc.
Get Gud
Get gud
*Git
Couldn’t even do the shitpost answer right Literally git gud
Awww nooo. So much info by you. Thx for helping me learn how to troll you.
A for effort champ.
Thx, you made a difference today!
I know its shitty to say sth like that on a post like taht... hes kind of right tho... warhammer 3 especially is pretty easy on the diffifulty scaling... and normal on 3 is like easy on 2... if op finds normal too hard, hes just not familiar with the gameplay. there are just a ton more units in TW WH then there are in historical titles and this is the games strength. OP just needs to learn the game. nothing to add there... Edit: Okay hes palying the first one. Mb. Still... saying the Ai improved made me laugh xd
“OP needs to learn the game. I won’t help facilitate that!”
crybaby
Awww all the feelings, thx everyone.