0:35 Magical shortcuts - Alt + number 1:50 Unit card arranging 3:23 Lord dead debuff 4:42 Rank up n00bz - experience chevrons are less efficient on certain units 7:30 About face - "J" key 10:14 Draw route - hold shift and drag right click 11:44 No fly zone - Flying units get a steady leadership penalty if no units remain on the ground 13:38 Man the artillery - "insert" key on artillery units 19:33 Free aim - holding alt while targeting artillery or area of affect spells allows targeting a point on the ground instead of a unit 21:17 Alt melee - holding alt and right-clicking an enemy with a ranged unit selected commands them to attack with melee instead For people who know some things, and want to jump to what they don't.
Just a note, wind spells didn't have the manual aiming in TWW1, they only fired in the direction your caster was facing. Aiming wind spells was new for TWW2.
@@ckhawk00 I'm pretty sure I have downloaded all FLC for WH but I will check. It certainly made for some confusion on my part having watched some TWWH2 videos before I even got TWWH1 :P Not too bad if your casters have flying mounts though, can usually get in to position for pendulums and the like.
"you gonna facepalm.." Me: yeah right, i got all the games and dlc and hundreds of hours what could possibly.. " you can drag the unit cards to change formations.. " Me: facepalms
@@nighthowk117 yea free aim is htere but in temrs of moving your unit cards, becareful as it cna go wrong, just do it before you start the battle but free aiming is very useful
@@Tucher97 yeah 500 hours into the game but its the only one i didnt know. i know i have to do it at deployment if you do it after they just get stuck with each other
TOP TIP: Holding shift to give a unit waypoints is also beneficial when attacking multiple units. For example, hold shift to draw a path for a cavalry unit to get around the back of a group of archers, and whilst still holding shift proceed to click attack on each of the enemy ranged units. Your cavalry will then attack the first unit, route it, then automatically attack the second, and so on. Makes micro'ing cavalry much easier!
Is this still the case? When using shift I can only seem to attack a single unit, and the line disappears after that. I've been wishing it would work like that for a while.
You can also ctrl click units without ordering their unit cards and they will be ordered from left to right in the order you clicked: Your unit cards: A A A A B B Your ctrl click order: 2 3 4 5 1 6 Your formation: B A A A A B Discovered by random in an intense fight, when I was reordering units lol
That alt for artillery fire has be shame faced. I knew about for spells and melee, but was always wishing for an AOE artillery gauge. Always had it apparently.
Ranged units get a hidden buff when they level, towards their accuracy. It's not shown on the unit card, but it is there and is displayed on the stats website. It's most notable on artillery whose shots one can track easily. I noticed you've tested this on Hellcannons, but Hellcannon's have homing projectiles so they don't make for good reference/control.
Yep , wanted to add this but figured someone would already have said it. Artillery, especially inaccurate artillery which have wide zone of dispersion benefit huge from extra accuracy. Less for most regular ranges units and accurate artillery. Mortars for example can do nearly+30% damage on avg from adding xp.
Rotating the spells was the one I learned after spending a ludicrous amount of time on WH1. In fact, I'm fairly certain I learned it from Zerk in another video, pretty deep into WH2. Thanks again Zerk, great material as always!
Can you do more 'How to shut down [Faction]' videos? I was so excited to find those videos but theres only ones for a handful of factions unfortunately. The Vampire Counts video really helped me in MP. Thanks zerk!
I think you have missed a beat on the xp rank of missile units. It actually reduces their reload rate and the Missile Damage stat is over 10seconds so you have to bear that in mind.
8:30: That's actually a really innovative use of the about face command, and I've never thought of it... but it's no the point of the key... the point is for units whose facing matters during manoeuvre. In other words: guns, spears, etc.. And I'd argue it's not a very niche key; I certainly use it perhaps once a minute! When cavalry ambushes you from behind, you've finished shotting off fleeing targets who ran behind your line, or you're forming a detachment to hold off enemies etc.. When you combine it with the arrow keys it's VERY powerful for mechanically directing your linemen without the mouse.
Overcasting has a chance to deal self damage to the caster though. So while providing an extra boost to your spell, you run the risk of dealing significant damage to your caster.
@@LordIvor6 overcast is clicking a spell twice (if you upgraded the skill) then it gives a stronger spell. More range, or longer duration of a vortex, or more ap damage, more healing, netting becomes an AoE. Imagine overcasting Net of Amyntok on a blob of units, then overcast comet of Cassandora in the midst. Or croak's big boom...
Great video! I only knew half this stuff. Pretty useful and entertaining as always, BUT... *What about charges?* This could be a great topic for a video, since there's a lot of hidden stats and stuff going on around charges that the game does NOT mention at all. Even the mere definition in the game it's unclear. For two years I used to believe that the charge bonus was only applied on Impact. It was just recently when I was informed, thanks to one of Zerks videos, that it's applied on impact, lasts for about 15 seconds and decreases gradually on that time. It'll be good to know more things, like: -Minimum charge distance -Effective angle for charge defence -Is it applied per unit or per entity? -Does the influence of the terrain affects the charge bonus? (water, forests, angles of inclination like running up/down hill) -If a few charging entities of a unit hit something with charge defence, does the charge is denied for the whole unit or just those entities? -If a charging infantry unit clashes with a charging cavalry, even after being sent to the air, their full charge bonus still applies or, partially, or is completely denied?
Water affects all units of rougly man-size. They get 80% melee attack, and their charge bonus for melee attack will be 80% as well. Speed is 80% as well, and this affects charge bonus as well. Aquatic units get 120% melee attack and defence, so the charge bonus should have the same on its melee attack component. Woods do the same for larger units as water does for smaller. 80% again. Slopes in/decrease speed and accelleration. Charge defence is not a debuff on the charging unit. It is the defence of the attacked unit, so only applied to the models of said that actualy fight. They do get the crashed into effect, disrupting the formation. So if your charge hits 30 peasants and one spearman, the peasants are still toast. The charge bonus lasts for about 15 seconds, but it starts before the actual charge. Pause a campaign game before a charge, mouse over leadership, and see a +15 leadership bonus for charging. Thats when it triggers all other buffs as well. Infantry units doing a counter charge spend most of the bonus time flying around, landing badly, getting up, and 'time!' Those who do not fly around still get the buff tho, so counter charging swordsmen has a point
Most of these tips are new for me. But I know about alt-meleeing with ranged units since TW Medieval 1. It was good thing to order horse archers to melee fleeing enemies, this way you could capture more prisoners. And I think this option was described in the tutorial.
I have 1600h in WH TW, most things here I knew or suspected. But never knew that Hell Canon missiles can be guided too or how to select units to set up as their unit cards. Defenitely useful. Thanks.
I didnt know I had to shift-click every time I selected a group of units to retain their formation. I used to get so pissed when they wouldn't keep formation
I mean, he was wrong about the chevrons keep that in mind. They buff reload rate increasing dps, not damage. They also increase accuracy, which is annoyingly not a visable stat unless the unit has " poor accuracy" on its card.
One thing that i have a lot of my friend asking, is how I keep my archers from runing all over the place, say you target a unit with them and than forget about it, next thing you know, the unit have routed and your missile is chasing them right into melee, setting the unit to guard, means that if the unit runs out of range, your missile will stop trying to shoot them, if on free-fire, they than just find a new target. It also means, that even if they get charge by say a lord, they tend to keep shooting on the target given, even as the lord is killing them, which tend to get more value out of them from what i have seen, as they mostly won't get away from the lord anyway or beat him in melee. Don't know how many don't know this, but since I have people asking about it, I thought I might as well add it here.
3:00 No. Its not random. It's, from left to right, arranges automatically in the way you select those units. So if you ctrl+click them in a specific order either from the unit card or the models, no matter their unit card formation, they will deploy in the order, from left to right, IN THE ORDER YOU SELECT THEM.
Great video, I learned a few tricks (and am glad I already knew a few) except... Chevrons buff ranged units' accuracy and reload, which don't show on the unit card. For example, darkshards with 2 chevrons gets a 26 accuracy; base unit has 20. I think that's the percentage chance of hitting, which is modified by range and stuff. Reload decreases from 12.6 to 12.0. Take a look with a little play testing and you will see that chevrons benefit ranged units a lot. I think one of the tool tips will show you the accuracy and reload factors--range, maybe?
Thanks for the breakdown on all this especially the artillery aiming. I've known that since napoleon total war and I do find it useful for while the enemy is just closing on your lines and you have nothing else to do.
Another thing manually aiming your artillery does is that it allows you to shoot much further than the AI could. I was manning the artillery in a friend's coop defense of Helmgart and I was able to shoot the enemy reinforcments while they were only halfway to the wall, while the displayed artillery range only went a little past the wall by itself. We also found out that with some aim you can lob your shells barely over your defenders' heads into the enemies funnelled in the gatehouse.
About face is incredibly useful during setup if you want to add a unit to your left flank touching another unit. That way you can drag from right to left so it’s the exact shape you want then click J so it’s facing the correct way.
#6/#9 were the only two I didn't know and yet they were the most useful of the lot! Huge appreciation for that as they will undoubtedly help in future battles. Stumbled across your channel from one of your "How to shutdown..." videos, needless to say you got yourself a sub!
you are right about the chefrons, and that it makes more sense on meele units. but there is a stat for missle, specially for ati, the accuraccy goes up as well, but that is not shown on the statecard
I'm not sure if anyone has ever mentioned this but when your units are engaged in fighting another unit if you click past the unit they're fighting to get them to move forward in to the enemy unit it makes more of your troops from the middle and rear engage in battle rather than just standing watching the front models/men fight.. It increases the models/men of your single unit engage the enemy unit increasing your damage output
I did know about shift-clicking to cue up move orders and learned about dragging recently but I never used to use dragging commands, but now I have some more ideas and will try to use it more often. The alt for ranged is also useful since it won't swap the unit completely into melee mode so you can easily order them to start shooting again if the unit they're fighting starts running away. Thanks for these tips :)
Another notable aspect of directly controlling artillery - a lot of artillery pieces (mainly gunpowder) can be used to blast apart a unit that it is engaged in melee with, and it's damn effective.
As usual, mostly stuff I knew, but a couple tips that I had missed. Great video as usual Zerk. Using alt-click instead of fiddling with the melee mode settings is going to be really handly for me, especially when using chariot-heavy builds.
1. J is good if you start the cav charge from a shorter distance as it will return it to the same spot so you can cycle faster. 2. Flying units move at the same speed regardless if you click or double click. Each has an advantage. Moving with 1 click makes them less tired. 2. Double click allows you to push through missile fire. A good rule is if you are just moving around use walk if you are near missile troops use run.
I’ve played this game for 3000 hours, beating almost every campaign on legendary and still did not know a few stuff like you can tell you artillery to aim where ever you want to. Very handy. Thank you.
On your manual artillary tip, you can change which one you are firing from with page up & page down. You can fire the other cannons as well, but not all at the same time. This info is in the bottom right corner when in manual firing mode.
#2 can also be done by Alt (?) clicking each physical unit in the order you want them placed left to right. Alt+ click spears, swords, spears, halberds, then when you right click and drag all the units will be placed in the order you clicked them in, on to the field.
About shortcuts: you can of course rebind them. I think using the number keys for your your control groups as well as spells in combination with alt is a bit awkward. At least it was for me. So I would rebind them to the F'keys - F1-F6. My brain found it difficult to switch between the two different functions of the numkeys so separating them allowed me to become more comfortable with it.
j is the default key to have your right hands pointer finger on, and as such, depending on keyboard, has a notch on the button to find it easily with sense of touch. same with f key but for left hand
So useful, I just got into the game a few days ago. Now... this is the best game, something that really surprised me. I guess I just dont have friends that are much into this genre or even this universe, but I never imagined a strategy game with this much strategy, attention to detail and this many factions and units!! Marvelous.
Quick thing you may not know @zerkovich You can get double shots with the hellcannon if you manual aim. Have the ai fire, then take over and immediately fire again. Go off the cannon, and back onto it after ai fires a second time. Rinse and repeat.
Thank you Zerk! Never knew about the artillery free aim nor the arrangement of unit cards to better unit placement on the map!!! Thanks a million man keep up the awesome work.
11. You once mentioned you group your Lord under #1. You don't need to make a group for your Lord. Hitting tilde [`] selects (and zooms to) the Lord. So you can have the Lord in a group, say Repanse and her Questing Knights is group #1, since they'll typically function in the same manner... and still select her individually with tilde for that sweet surround/ability micro.
Hey, for anyone who is thinking of using that "about face" key, remember that on most keyboards the F and J keys have little notches for you to find them with your index finger while typing, so you can feel confident in pressing the key without looking at the keyboard.
As always, again I learned something from your vid, and I think I got most of the game figured out. Two things I just can't get the hang of. One is campaign related(not your thing I know). The other is something even daily streamers have trouble with to explain to me and other players. 1. In campaigns, how to confederate and vassal efficiently. How do things like attacking straight and declare war and cooldown on reliability work? I know you don't do campaign tutorials much, but the way you explain the game is so clear even I understand it. I can implement your tutorials in my own games and succeed, even I only play PvE. 2. What I think would be a real help for PvE and PvP players. Magic. There are a lot of spells. Vortex(moving or stationary), buff or debuff, damage, healing, augment, missile, etc. That's pretty clear to me about magic. One thing I don't understand is this. Spells say target single unit, units, combatant, combatants. Lore of wild. Bray Scream. Strong vs multiple units. Viletide. Strong vs multiple combatants. Traitor-Kin. Strong vs single combatant. Dark magic. Doombolt. Strong vs single unit.
The last mechanic is actually bad for the newly added morter-wagons: It will make your morters charge forward instead of manually bombarding a specific area.
Zerkovich disagrees. On a war wagon, anything that helps you loose the thing to free a slot for a usefull unit is good. Watch his clip on what units not to buy.
Nice video. Comments: 5:30 ranged units have tons of hidden stats. Stats like accuracy and reloading skill are both upgraded with the chevrons, so 3 useful stats just like melee units. 20:38 free aim only works for spells that can target "ground", spells that only target "Enemy", "Ally", and/or "Self" cannot be free aimed. 22:59 sorry I didn't learn anything, but great video, probably is helpful for dem noobs under 1k hours.
the manual arty firing is super useful in chaos campaign. Whenever you play a siege, just send all your infantry at the walls and control one of your hellcanons. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes really easy to obliterate the elite infantry sitting atop of the wall.
The second tip with the Unit Cards does also work very good in Ambush-Battles (in Custom Battles). If you change their position while building the army (as the defending party) it will affect the position of that unit in the marching column. You can mix your units, so that you have a good amount of Umpf everywhere. Sadly the Card position in the list doesn't get saved (at least for me) and defaults back if loaded.
I know something in campaigns which my mate had never realised until i told him. If the scroll/name for a settlement have crenelations it means the settlement have walls. So you know at a quick glance what to expect out of certain settlements without clicking on them.
I think about face is to quickly turn and brace for a charge when your unit is facing the wrong way. Suppose Cav has wrapped around behind your army you dont need to "drag" them out into the correct direction.
For some ranged units they will get an added bonus to missile strength after 1 chevron. Which of course means that every model is now doing 1+ damage. With a larger unit size this becomes much more significant. Also upgraded range units decrease reload time for what it's worth. Also from my understanding the about face mechanic makes the unit return to it's original position prior to the attack/charge order (when only 1 unit is selected)
A great list and a lot of tips I didn't previously know, thanks. Can't help thinking however, that anyone who played FotS should know about manual artillery control, I've had some great fun manually spraying gatling guns into large melee formations and charging cav units over the years.
Player presses the J key. Captain of the units : alright lads. The player wants us to turn around. You know what that means? 2 laps of the map, 1 lap around that forest over then and then back in formation
Vet here and only thing I never knew was the chevron differences with the melee and range units. Probably because I don't do multiplayer so it never was that important to me to know. In campaign you don't need to know this. Good video though. Love the gobbo trick shot
You have to use the draw route feature, it saves so much time and baby sitting, you will not be able to flank properly without tons or micro otherwise, this is gold with artillery as well.
About artellery, som low profile artellery, like great cannons and ballistas there have direct fire, use them in melee figths. just keep them a little behind with a line to fire throug. and it will act like a shortgun, and hammering enemy units, and the Cannon you control would not be disabled as fast as the others when the crew is in melee
this free aim for artillery is an eye opener for me. great thanks. and after nearly 2 years of playing warhammer1 &2 i found out myself at coincidence that i can cast breath spells in any direction i want. as you say the game doesnt fucking tell you a word.
Here is somthing you may not know that's been in total war games for a while. If you select units in a certain order then click and drag them into position, they will be lined up in the order you selected them. So if you selected a spearmen, sword, sword then another spear, when you drag them into a line, they will be in that order.
also as a fun fact about using hellcannons yourself is that the manual fire mode has it's own cooldown for it's attack so if you wanna put all your micro into it you can double the fire rate of it by exiting and entering manual aim mode
0:35 Magical shortcuts - Alt + number
1:50 Unit card arranging
3:23 Lord dead debuff
4:42 Rank up n00bz - experience chevrons are less efficient on certain units
7:30 About face - "J" key
10:14 Draw route - hold shift and drag right click
11:44 No fly zone - Flying units get a steady leadership penalty if no units remain on the ground
13:38 Man the artillery - "insert" key on artillery units
19:33 Free aim - holding alt while targeting artillery or area of affect spells allows targeting a point on the ground instead of a unit
21:17 Alt melee - holding alt and right-clicking an enemy with a ranged unit selected commands them to attack with melee instead
For people who know some things, and want to jump to what they don't.
Nice dude, thx!
what about 11:39 ? how does he move his army like that?
Doing Gods work son
Good man! 👍
Thx hero
When the first tip is about shortcuts but you learn that you can overcast spells.
Yeah....guilty after about a hundred hours and not knowing this.
Lol overcast
I used to think that you automatically overcast it, if it's skilled XD
Until I found out that you can click the spell twice
Unfortunately yeah... I just assumed when you upraded the spell it always overcast it haha
All this time I had no idea about overcast. That's why my magic units suck
i pressed alt+f4 and casted foot of gorgc on the game
gorp
It's weird that you're technically not lying
I just did that...
Been there, done that.
Just a note, wind spells didn't have the manual aiming in TWW1, they only fired in the direction your caster was facing. Aiming wind spells was new for TWW2.
Well technically it came with the Norsca dlc so WH1 got it right before WH2 dropped
So you have to buy the Norsca DLC to get aimed spells in WH1? Because I can't manual aim my wind spells in WH1
N Curzon should have been a free update with the dlc. Weird
@@ckhawk00 I'm pretty sure I have downloaded all FLC for WH but I will check. It certainly made for some confusion on my part having watched some TWWH2 videos before I even got TWWH1 :P Not too bad if your casters have flying mounts though, can usually get in to position for pendulums and the like.
@@Zone1BC It's a TWW2 thing.
"you gonna facepalm.."
Me: yeah right, i got all the games and dlc and hundreds of hours what could possibly..
" you can drag the unit cards to change formations.. "
Me: facepalms
thats why you have those thousand of hours playing
don't worry I learned that a little before htis video, its useful when it comes to unit set up but it is a tad unpredictable in veyr few cases
for me it was free aim with alt so yea
h theres always something you can learn
@@nighthowk117 yea free aim is htere but in temrs of moving your unit cards, becareful as it cna go wrong, just do it before you start the battle but free aiming is very useful
@@Tucher97 yeah 500 hours into the game but its the only one i didnt know. i know i have to do it at deployment if you do it after they just get stuck with each other
TOP TIP: Holding shift to give a unit waypoints is also beneficial when attacking multiple units. For example, hold shift to draw a path for a cavalry unit to get around the back of a group of archers, and whilst still holding shift proceed to click attack on each of the enemy ranged units. Your cavalry will then attack the first unit, route it, then automatically attack the second, and so on. Makes micro'ing cavalry much easier!
Is this still the case? When using shift I can only seem to attack a single unit, and the line disappears after that. I've been wishing it would work like that for a while.
Zerkovich: Ha! Bet you never knew there are magic hotkeys so you can cast and overcast easier!
Me: Wait... You can overcast?!
Elite
☹️ me too
@@blackknight3311 I mean does the game ever tell you?
Elite I don’t think so
But it feel good if you learn somthing new
@@arbitrary531 Hahaha the pinnacle of good gamedesign xD
@@elite3421 Gotta read those tooltips :P
“Hey, why do you have 10 hand shaped marks on your face”
“Oh no reason”
You can also ctrl click units without ordering their unit cards and they will be ordered from left to right in the order you clicked:
Your unit cards: A A A A B B
Your ctrl click order: 2 3 4 5 1 6
Your formation: B A A A A B
Discovered by random in an intense fight, when I was reordering units lol
How about "What Zerk didn't know" you can use pageup and pagedown keys to switch artillery pieces when manual firing.
I mean, it says that on the screen while you're doing it so, who doesn't know that?
@@Zerkovich I didnt know you could control artillery
@@arvidhallden5342 oof, just click on the the unit and click 'Insert'
@@Zerkovich I mean, also the "alt+number" to do the spells is shown on screen and you mentioned it.
@@Zerkovich You just didn't mention it in the video so it was a good thing to mention.
That doom diver trick shot though
check out legendoftotalwar - he made Olympics of doom diver shooting.
Loops are fun to do xD
That alt for artillery fire has be shame faced. I knew about for spells and melee, but was always wishing for an AOE artillery gauge. Always had it apparently.
i know how you feel bro
I have over 2000 hours between TWW 1 and 2 and I almost punched my screen in frustration that we've had it all along.
I have played countless dwarf campaigns without knowing that.
I shit you not,I had this game since release and never knew overcast was an active ability -.-
xD
@@Zerkovich uwu
Same. I was like "huh?" I thought if you get the overcast ability its always overcast.
300+ hours into the game, didn't know about overcast at all.
400 hours in... I’m not mad I’m... not mad.... OVERCAST. WAS A FUCKING THING?’sjdksjdn
They need to display the missile units accuracy
Something like "maximum missile deviation" would be very useful to know
true but sometimes hidden stuff make it more fun so we don't have to calculate EVERYTHING if you know what I mean.
Add in fire rate while you're at it.
@@drafezard7315 reload time is listed under damage, when you hold the cursor over it for a few seconds.
@@jonnybravo595 An option for displaying extra stats then, for those of us who love the numbers almost as much as the fighting. :)
Ranged units get a hidden buff when they level, towards their accuracy. It's not shown on the unit card, but it is there and is displayed on the stats website. It's most notable on artillery whose shots one can track easily. I noticed you've tested this on Hellcannons, but Hellcannon's have homing projectiles so they don't make for good reference/control.
Yep , wanted to add this but figured someone would already have said it. Artillery, especially inaccurate artillery which have wide zone of dispersion benefit huge from extra accuracy. Less for most regular ranges units and accurate artillery. Mortars for example can do nearly+30% damage on avg from adding xp.
I'm a big fan of the goblin space flight program. Gork and Mork bless those brave test pilots.
Rotating the spells was the one I learned after spending a ludicrous amount of time on WH1. In fact, I'm fairly certain I learned it from Zerk in another video, pretty deep into WH2. Thanks again Zerk, great material as always!
zervan123 it was new in WH2. Wasnt a feature of WH1
Me after seeing alt aim: Cries in friendly fire.
Can you do more 'How to shut down [Faction]' videos? I was so excited to find those videos but theres only ones for a handful of factions unfortunately. The Vampire Counts video really helped me in MP. Thanks zerk!
I think you have missed a beat on the xp rank of missile units. It actually reduces their reload rate and the Missile Damage stat is over 10seconds so you have to bear that in mind.
8:30: That's actually a really innovative use of the about face command, and I've never thought of it... but it's no the point of the key... the point is for units whose facing matters during manoeuvre. In other words: guns, spears, etc.. And I'd argue it's not a very niche key; I certainly use it perhaps once a minute! When cavalry ambushes you from behind, you've finished shotting off fleeing targets who ran behind your line, or you're forming a detachment to hold off enemies etc..
When you combine it with the arrow keys it's VERY powerful for mechanically directing your linemen without the mouse.
I've been playing since the very first total war game and THIS video is why i subscribe to this channel.
You're quickly becoming my favourite TW content creator. Another real secret blend of herbs and spices
1200 hours in Total Warhammer one and 2 combined
goes to watch how to shortkey a spell, realises you can over cast spells ;-;
I kept seeing mention of overcast, I thought that was if I cast the same spell too many times or something.
well 1k hours is like barely experienced for this game, so don't feel bad.
Overcasting has a chance to deal self damage to the caster though. So while providing an extra boost to your spell, you run the risk of dealing significant damage to your caster.
@@LordIvor6 overcast is clicking a spell twice (if you upgraded the skill) then it gives a stronger spell. More range, or longer duration of a vortex, or more ap damage, more healing, netting becomes an AoE. Imagine overcasting Net of Amyntok on a blob of units, then overcast comet of Cassandora in the midst. Or croak's big boom...
I have about 900 hours into both Warhammer Total Wars and you just taught me 8 things lol.
I find "J" extremly usefull when cycle charging (or disengaging) with a single cav unit.
Great video! I only knew half this stuff. Pretty useful and entertaining as always, BUT...
*What about charges?* This could be a great topic for a video, since there's a lot of hidden stats and stuff going on around charges that the game does NOT mention at all. Even the mere definition in the game it's unclear. For two years I used to believe that the charge bonus was only applied on Impact. It was just recently when I was informed, thanks to one of Zerks videos, that it's applied on impact, lasts for about 15 seconds and decreases gradually on that time. It'll be good to know more things, like:
-Minimum charge distance
-Effective angle for charge defence
-Is it applied per unit or per entity?
-Does the influence of the terrain affects the charge bonus? (water, forests, angles of inclination like running up/down hill)
-If a few charging entities of a unit hit something with charge defence, does the charge is denied for the whole unit or just those entities?
-If a charging infantry unit clashes with a charging cavalry, even after being sent to the air, their full charge bonus still applies or, partially, or is completely denied?
Water affects all units of rougly man-size. They get 80% melee attack, and their charge bonus for melee attack will be 80% as well. Speed is 80% as well, and this affects charge bonus as well. Aquatic units get 120% melee attack and defence, so the charge bonus should have the same on its melee attack component. Woods do the same for larger units as water does for smaller. 80% again. Slopes in/decrease speed and accelleration.
Charge defence is not a debuff on the charging unit. It is the defence of the attacked unit, so only applied to the models of said that actualy fight. They do get the crashed into effect, disrupting the formation. So if your charge hits 30 peasants and one spearman, the peasants are still toast.
The charge bonus lasts for about 15 seconds, but it starts before the actual charge. Pause a campaign game before a charge, mouse over leadership, and see a +15 leadership bonus for charging. Thats when it triggers all other buffs as well. Infantry units doing a counter charge spend most of the bonus time flying around, landing badly, getting up, and 'time!' Those who do not fly around still get the buff tho, so counter charging swordsmen has a point
Most of these tips are new for me.
But I know about alt-meleeing with ranged units since TW Medieval 1. It was good thing to order horse archers to melee fleeing enemies, this way you could capture more prisoners.
And I think this option was described in the tutorial.
I have 1600h in WH TW, most things here I knew or suspected. But never knew that Hell Canon missiles can be guided too or how to select units to set up as their unit cards. Defenitely useful. Thanks.
I didnt know I had to shift-click every time I selected a group of units to retain their formation. I used to get so pissed when they wouldn't keep formation
Just as I think that I know everything about this game, Zerkovich comes along and blows my mind. Thanks, you're a real bro!
I mean, he was wrong about the chevrons keep that in mind. They buff reload rate increasing dps, not damage. They also increase accuracy, which is annoyingly not a visable stat unless the unit has " poor accuracy" on its card.
I have about 500hrs in the first and second game together, and this video blew my mind so damn quick.
One thing that i have a lot of my friend asking, is how I keep my archers from runing all over the place, say you target a unit with them and than forget about it, next thing you know, the unit have routed and your missile is chasing them right into melee, setting the unit to guard, means that if the unit runs out of range, your missile will stop trying to shoot them, if on free-fire, they than just find a new target. It also means, that even if they get charge by say a lord, they tend to keep shooting on the target given, even as the lord is killing them, which tend to get more value out of them from what i have seen, as they mostly won't get away from the lord anyway or beat him in melee. Don't know how many don't know this, but since I have people asking about it, I thought I might as well add it here.
I knew about guard but I didnt know about the lord/hero bit. Good to know!
3:00
No. Its not random. It's, from left to right, arranges automatically in the way you select those units.
So if you ctrl+click them in a specific order either from the unit card or the models, no matter their unit card formation, they will deploy in the order, from left to right, IN THE ORDER YOU SELECT THEM.
Great video, I learned a few tricks (and am glad I already knew a few) except... Chevrons buff ranged units' accuracy and reload, which don't show on the unit card. For example, darkshards with 2 chevrons gets a 26 accuracy; base unit has 20. I think that's the percentage chance of hitting, which is modified by range and stuff. Reload decreases from 12.6 to 12.0. Take a look with a little play testing and you will see that chevrons benefit ranged units a lot. I think one of the tool tips will show you the accuracy and reload factors--range, maybe?
Thanks for the breakdown on all this especially the artillery aiming. I've known that since napoleon total war and I do find it useful for while the enemy is just closing on your lines and you have nothing else to do.
20:10
"... but also avoiding friendly fire on your own side."
*Laughs in hellstorm rocket battery*
The Doom Diver trick shot was the cherry on the top of this video ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT
Zerkovich, your tutorials are the best and always have something new to teach me about my favorite game. Keep up the good work!
Because of how often I think I'll be coming back to this now, this is joining my highly exclusive favorites list
Another thing manually aiming your artillery does is that it allows you to shoot much further than the AI could. I was manning the artillery in a friend's coop defense of Helmgart and I was able to shoot the enemy reinforcments while they were only halfway to the wall, while the displayed artillery range only went a little past the wall by itself. We also found out that with some aim you can lob your shells barely over your defenders' heads into the enemies funnelled in the gatehouse.
About face is incredibly useful during setup if you want to add a unit to your left flank touching another unit. That way you can drag from right to left so it’s the exact shape you want then click J so it’s facing the correct way.
#6/#9 were the only two I didn't know and yet they were the most useful of the lot! Huge appreciation for that as they will undoubtedly help in future battles. Stumbled across your channel from one of your "How to shutdown..." videos, needless to say you got yourself a sub!
you are right about the chefrons, and that it makes more sense on meele units. but there is a stat for missle, specially for ati, the accuraccy goes up as well, but that is not shown on the statecard
I'm not sure if anyone has ever mentioned this but when your units are engaged in fighting another unit if you click past the unit they're fighting to get them to move forward in to the enemy unit it makes more of your troops from the middle and rear engage in battle rather than just standing watching the front models/men fight.. It increases the models/men of your single unit engage the enemy unit increasing your damage output
I did know about shift-clicking to cue up move orders and learned about dragging recently but I never used to use dragging commands, but now I have some more ideas and will try to use it more often. The alt for ranged is also useful since it won't swap the unit completely into melee mode so you can easily order them to start shooting again if the unit they're fighting starts running away. Thanks for these tips :)
The Shift Move info alone made this worth the watch. Thanks bud!
Thank you very much for the tips. The breath attack always stumped me on how people could get the best line ups when I couldn't.
Another notable aspect of directly controlling artillery - a lot of artillery pieces (mainly gunpowder) can be used to blast apart a unit that it is engaged in melee with, and it's damn effective.
"As you probably know you can aim your artillery yourself pressing insert"
Oh, so that's the button
I'v discovered that cities with walls and regular cities have different frames only after 300h of gaming
As usual, mostly stuff I knew, but a couple tips that I had missed. Great video as usual Zerk. Using alt-click instead of fiddling with the melee mode settings is going to be really handly for me, especially when using chariot-heavy builds.
1. J is good if you start the cav charge from a shorter distance as it will return it to the same spot so you can cycle faster.
2. Flying units move at the same speed regardless if you click or double click. Each has an advantage. Moving with 1 click makes them less tired. 2. Double click allows you to push through missile fire. A good rule is if you are just moving around use walk if you are near missile troops use run.
I’ve played this game for 3000 hours, beating almost every campaign on legendary and still did not know a few stuff like you can tell you artillery to aim where ever you want to. Very handy. Thank you.
1:50 wow that's super useful! I always ordered my cards to make sure I had swords, spears, archers, cavalry in that order
On your manual artillary tip, you can change which one you are firing from with page up & page down. You can fire the other cannons as well, but not all at the same time.
This info is in the bottom right corner when in manual firing mode.
#2 can also be done by Alt (?) clicking each physical unit in the order you want them placed left to right.
Alt+ click spears, swords, spears, halberds, then when you right click and drag all the units will be placed in the order you clicked them in, on to the field.
About shortcuts: you can of course rebind them. I think using the number keys for your your control groups as well as spells in combination with alt is a bit awkward. At least it was for me. So I would rebind them to the F'keys - F1-F6. My brain found it difficult to switch between the two different functions of the numkeys so separating them allowed me to become more comfortable with it.
at 21:00 im quite sure TW:WH1 doesn't have that option , you only use the ability in the side it shows its was added in TW:WH2.
j is the default key to have your right hands pointer finger on, and as such, depending on keyboard, has a notch on the button to find it easily with sense of touch. same with f key but for left hand
So useful, I just got into the game a few days ago. Now... this is the best game, something that really surprised me. I guess I just dont have friends that are much into this genre or even this universe, but I never imagined a strategy game with this much strategy, attention to detail and this many factions and units!! Marvelous.
learned all of these from watching other videos of yours, except for the alt-targeting for artillery. That's gonna help a ton for sieges.
Quick thing you may not know @zerkovich You can get double shots with the hellcannon if you manual aim. Have the ai fire, then take over and immediately fire again. Go off the cannon, and back onto it after ai fires a second time. Rinse and repeat.
Watching this made me giggle, there's a lot I miss and I'm already over 200 hrs in the game. Thanks
Thank you Zerk! Never knew about the artillery free aim nor the arrangement of unit cards to better unit placement on the map!!! Thanks a million man keep up the awesome work.
11. You once mentioned you group your Lord under #1. You don't need to make a group for your Lord. Hitting tilde [`] selects (and zooms to) the Lord. So you can have the Lord in a group, say Repanse and her Questing Knights is group #1, since they'll typically function in the same manner... and still select her individually with tilde for that sweet surround/ability micro.
Problems finding the j key? F and J usually have a little ledge on them used for orientation of the index fingers while 10 finger tipping
Hey, for anyone who is thinking of using that "about face" key, remember that on most keyboards the F and J keys have little notches for you to find them with your index finger while typing, so you can feel confident in pressing the key without looking at the keyboard.
As always, again I learned something from your vid, and I think I got most of the game figured out.
Two things I just can't get the hang of. One is campaign related(not your thing I know).
The other is something even daily streamers have trouble with to explain to me and other players.
1. In campaigns, how to confederate and vassal efficiently. How do things like attacking straight and declare war and cooldown on reliability work?
I know you don't do campaign tutorials much, but the way you explain the game is so clear even I understand it. I can implement your tutorials in my own games and succeed, even I only play PvE.
2. What I think would be a real help for PvE and PvP players.
Magic. There are a lot of spells. Vortex(moving or stationary), buff or debuff, damage, healing, augment, missile, etc. That's pretty clear to me about magic.
One thing I don't understand is this.
Spells say target single unit, units, combatant, combatants.
Lore of wild.
Bray Scream. Strong vs multiple units.
Viletide. Strong vs multiple combatants.
Traitor-Kin. Strong vs single combatant.
Dark magic.
Doombolt. Strong vs single unit.
A few hundred hours of gameplay, campaign only though, and I learned atleast 3 things. Thx for this Zerkovich ☺
The last mechanic is actually bad for the newly added morter-wagons: It will make your morters charge forward instead of manually bombarding a specific area.
Zerkovich disagrees. On a war wagon, anything that helps you loose the thing to free a slot for a usefull unit is good. Watch his clip on what units not to buy.
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 My post is 8 months old, but I get the joke. It was also on Turin's "Worst Units" list.
Nice video. Comments:
5:30 ranged units have tons of hidden stats. Stats like accuracy and reloading skill are both upgraded with the chevrons, so 3 useful stats just like melee units.
20:38 free aim only works for spells that can target "ground", spells that only target "Enemy", "Ally", and/or "Self" cannot be free aimed.
22:59 sorry I didn't learn anything, but great video, probably is helpful for dem noobs under 1k hours.
the manual arty firing is super useful in chaos campaign. Whenever you play a siege, just send all your infantry at the walls and control one of your hellcanons. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes really easy to obliterate the elite infantry sitting atop of the wall.
The second tip with the Unit Cards does also work very good in Ambush-Battles (in Custom Battles). If you change their position while building the army (as the defending party) it will affect the position of that unit in the marching column. You can mix your units, so that you have a good amount of Umpf everywhere. Sadly the Card position in the list doesn't get saved (at least for me) and defaults back if loaded.
I know something in campaigns which my mate had never realised until i told him. If the scroll/name for a settlement have crenelations it means the settlement have walls. So you know at a quick glance what to expect out of certain settlements without clicking on them.
The Alt-click for ranged cavalry is perfect. I did not know that, thanks Zerk!
These are great! Thank you so much for making this. I forwarded it to some of my friends who I play with,
had abolsutely no idea you can alt fire artillery... makes it so much better actually
Zerk: "Just press alt and 4"
Grandma: *Heavy breathing*
I think about face is to quickly turn and brace for a charge when your unit is facing the wrong way. Suppose Cav has wrapped around behind your army you dont need to "drag" them out into the correct direction.
For some ranged units they will get an added bonus to missile strength after 1 chevron. Which of course means that every model is now doing 1+ damage. With a larger unit size this becomes much more significant. Also upgraded range units decrease reload time for what it's worth.
Also from my understanding the about face mechanic makes the unit return to it's original position prior to the attack/charge order (when only 1 unit is selected)
About artillery aiming - you can do even more damage if you do one manual shot and one ai shot right after.
About the second point: you can also just control select them in the order you want them to be lined and then group them.
Page up/down cycles through the pieces on first person artillery. So you can turn off fire at will and just cycle through the unit.
A great list and a lot of tips I didn't previously know, thanks.
Can't help thinking however, that anyone who played FotS should know about manual artillery control, I've had some great fun manually spraying gatling guns into large melee formations and charging cav units over the years.
I absolutely love this! Thank you so much for this video, my guy
Player presses the J key.
Captain of the units : alright lads. The player wants us to turn around. You know what that means? 2 laps of the map, 1 lap around that forest over then and then back in formation
about ranged units and chevrons, don't forget that stats that aren't visible normally will be affected, like reload speed and accuracy
Vet here and only thing I never knew was the chevron differences with the melee and range units. Probably because I don't do multiplayer so it never was that important to me to know. In campaign you don't need to know this. Good video though. Love the gobbo trick shot
These tips are really useful, especially the "Free aim".
Thanks.
You have to use the draw route feature, it saves so much time and baby sitting, you will not be able to flank properly without tons or micro otherwise, this is gold with artillery as well.
That doom diver trickshot was the kind of quality trickshot Dude Perfect dream of achieving
About artellery, som low profile artellery, like great cannons and ballistas there have direct fire, use them in melee figths. just keep them a little behind with a line to fire throug. and it will act like a shortgun, and hammering enemy units, and the Cannon you control would not be disabled as fast as the others when the crew is in melee
this free aim for artillery is an eye opener for me. great thanks. and after nearly 2 years of playing warhammer1 &2 i found out myself at coincidence that i can cast breath spells in any direction i want. as you say the game doesnt fucking tell you a word.
Chevrons improve "reloading skill" and "accuracy" hidden stats for (most) missile units and artillery.
Here is somthing you may not know that's been in total war games for a while.
If you select units in a certain order then click and drag them into position, they will be lined up in the order you selected them. So if you selected a spearmen, sword, sword then another spear, when you drag them into a line, they will be in that order.
i literally got 502hours on this game and i didn't knew about the ALT+AIM stuff for artillery. Nice Video dude
To add to your Magical Shortcuts, if you press Alt, the number of the spell, like 1,2,3,4,5,6 and f4 your spell is immediately overcasted
also as a fun fact about using hellcannons yourself is that the manual fire mode has it's own cooldown for it's attack so if you wanna put all your micro into it you can double the fire rate of it by exiting and entering manual aim mode
I have around a thousand hours spent playing Warhammer 2. I didn't even know you could manually man the artillery....
Same here. AND the magic aiming thing. Aaah, so much facepalm right now 🤣
Youve been able to do it in basically every tw since shogun fots