You should try the “Change Starting Settlement” mod and just take the spot of another faction as any faction of your choosing. One of my favorite ones to do in Warhammer 2 is moving The Awakened (Luthor Harkon, Vampire Coast) to somewhere around Castle Drakenhof.
I actually sailed Yuan bo back home, dealt with the vampire threat and all other threats. Confederated or conqured the other cathay factions. and only then. around turn 70. Did i go back to lustria to do my campaign objectives. while sending Miao ying into the chaos wastes and Zhao ming west towards the chaos dwarfs and orcs. Currently trying to paint the map for the first time since i started playing total Warhammer. currently turn 102.
@@terbentur2943 yes and no. My yuan bo army was strong enough to autoresolve a lot of things. But i dont like to run around with 4 full stacks just autoresolving even when i got the money for it. I intentionally make it harder for myself, and im still encountering some strong foes here and there. Rakarth and tahensuin were still kicking and took a while to take down with 2 armies. (Yuan bo and a general).
I do that with chaos. First I confederate all of the chaos factions in the north. Then I turn south and raze the lands. Takes around 200-300 turns till I kill all the order factions then I delete the game, representing the end times
@@DestroToCreateIt only takes like. 4 turns to sail from Lustria to Shang-Wu province. And in the meantime you can just hire a general to fight the vampires. it's pretty easy actually.
A thing I really loved about Yuan Bos campaign was when I made a Bastion gate a Fortress District and discovered the lovely extras you get from the Bastion buildings for doing so they were most useful especially the growth buildings one really helps out when you come under attack
In fact with foreress city on bastions (30% spell resistance) and the astromantic relays (40%), and his personal line skill gives his own army 30% more, that's 90% cap reached, which is delicious: later on just completely ignore enemy spells and also not care about the comet's friendly fire. And global melee +2AP damage or shields on garrisons also very good
4 new directions on the compass, but they all point towards Lustria 🙄 Would have been much nicer to have to go to 4 different directions (ex.: Naggaroth, Dragon Isle or CD area, North of Khislev or Norsca, Lustria, for NE, SW, NW, SE).
@@arthanor9631Yeah, but then you run into the trouble with TK books of Nagash where you can't be bothered to go take e.g. the White Tower of Hoeth for a buff that definitely isn't worth the trek and war for.
I sold Shang Wu but because the sea lane is right there within a few turns I had an army sail over and start fighting The Blessed Dread and Clan Eshin to reestablish my own foothold in Cathay. Got my 20,000 gold and still was able to fight on two fronts, I had a lot of fun doing it that way.
It's disappointing to me that many of the Stone and Steel options don't tell you exactly what they're going to do until after you choose them. Like the Fortress City just says "improved effects", which could mean just about anything
@@dragonball7122 thats not true each major city does not provide anything different unless its either wei jin itself as a commerical district or a region with a resource building as a commercial district. all fortress districts do the same thing
@@MrBentalton777 You're mostly right, But the Great Wall, three individual provinces using the Yang stone buff, provide a massive buff for defence and some upkeep drop for faction as well ( Insame buff ), the same as the four new Dragon Stone City. The bonus for them is more significant than the average major city.
@@dragonball7122 i am aware the bastions are different for fortress but i was talking about actual settlements not what are essentially just walls. also they do provide defence yes but massive? i dont think you and i have the same definition for massive cause anything under 10 is not massive lol. also the upkeep reduction is so small it might as well not exist same for the defence. the barrier is literally the only thing the bastion does that is actually worth anything at all.
one option in terms of start that i found both fun and strong is to on first turn recruit a lord in cathay recruit as many units as possible (should be 5) and use the matters of state tokens to instantly finish 1 turn of recruitment and then add in another round of local recruits, then when the option to sell arrives i sell it but have the small army strong enough to capture a hostile settlement.
Yuan Bo is my favorite campaign of the DLC as well, because it feels like an actual campaign. I actually lost motivation to play with the changeling pretty quick, when I realized it’s basically impossible to lose on any difficulty.
How do you lose as Yuan when he has as many dlc/powercreep mechanics as he does over the 2 base factions while being the best duelist and caster of the 3?
@@toggle3927 _"How do you lose as Yuan"_ It's hard to lose, but he's a pretty normal faction compared to the Changeling. As the Changeling you can just put a hidden base on some minor settlement that has no chance of ever detecting it, and surviving forever even if the settlement gets razed.
Okay so in my experience, you'll be asked to sell your capital in Cathay around turn 4. I had a really good start by: 1. Turn one, build the Jade Warriors military building in Shan Wu, recruit a lord and 2 peasant bowmen 2. Continue recruiting 1 bowmen, 1 warriors every turn until the game offers to buy Shan Wu, then sell it 3. You should have an army of at least 6 units, which is enough to take the nearby Vamp Counts settlements. 4. You have a cool 20k and maintain a foothold in Cathay. Meanwhile in Lustria, Yuan Bo is going to spend a little longer fighting the Greenskins. I'd try for non-aggression with the Huntsmarshall, because he should keep hold the land to your south. Meanwhile in Cathay - the Vamp Counts aren't too hard to stamp out, but after them, you want to deal with Clan Eshin right away. After them, you've got Lokir's Delfs to deal with too.
Yuan Bo's greatest strength is stacking "mastery of elemental winds passive" up to 200% spell intensity for the whole army Yuan Bo's level 9 skill "Armies of the Celestial Court" Gives the elemental winds passive to Jade lions too so you do not have to stack Compasses, Zhangou war drum, and heroes to reach 200% intensity. The Jade Dragon has access to blossom wind and comet of Cassadora, overcast them with 200% intensity and you rack 500 kills in 2 casts
Empire and Dwarfs are the definition of bland... they'll get flying lords in the face of Elspeth (flying mage lords always op, but nothing we havent seen before) and Malakai, so something unique in dwarf department at least, and some really fringe large units (aka zeppelin or magic war wagon), aside from that who knows. Theyll probably make up some op units like with the Akshina Ambushers for Kislev. Or Ulric units will be just an upgrade over state troops and empire knights, because DLC power creep. More slayers also sounds excessively boring for Dwarfs. And with how demons work, other than Temurkhan himself being cool in battle Im not confident in a fun Nurgle campaign. Not if they dont make plagues worth it. Id put more faith in Slaanesh and Khorne DLCs if they would get units to shake up their one-dimensional melee-focused playstyle, but thats also unlikely.
@Grivehn one man's bland is another man's spice. The fact that their style survives in a universe like warhammer makes them interesting. Sometimes it's fun to be regular facing down the madness.
@@LinkLegend0 I wont refute that there is an argument to be made for renessaince humans thrown against all sorts of monsters being fun. I dont hate Empire or Dwarfs, Id like to make that clear. But to say dinosaurs riding dinosaurs, egyptian laser-eyed mummy giants, undead ships on legs or giant magic hentai monsters are not more interesting to play with is a stretch. My opinion of course, but if someone still wants to play Franz for the 50th time instead of trying anything else (aside from Dwarfs, because thats Empire, just with less diversity) theyre definitely wierd.
I'm currently on turn 127 or something and I've found this to be one of my favourites of all time. Everything about this faction is good. The spell intensity, boosted trade income, INSANE research speed (I didn't notice it earlier but I think currently I'm on something like 723% research speed??). The new units, the jet and jade lions are decent. I've come to find that having one or two jet lions is good for the mirror missile, if you don't have a lord with that spell. I also gave up the settlement at the start which I debated about for some time. It didn't matter much because by turn 20 I had trade with all of Cathay and turn 50 all of Cathay was mine due to confederations. Definitely would recommend.
the yang and yin buff look good but then you realize that yang buildings/alignment gives you research rate, reduced construction cost, higher income(that one is harder to verify because of the buffs but if anything they basically even out) and more/cheaper/higher rank recruitment while yin gives you a little extra growth and reduced construction time...... you would only go yin to hyper focus on growth in a couple provinces and once research is done and province is built up you would balance it out. I stopped playing my yuan bo campaign but turn 92 and all my research would have been done.
Ohh- i just took 20k hehe. Must test "challengemode"! Ty for the review and i love your honest-objective style and not "only" praise" or boo. Good job as always. 🙂
seems all this dlc's factions are god tier. stank is basically a 1 man doomstack at level 1 and the hexes and curses are nuts, changeling is an unlosable campaign, and sounds like this one is pretty strong too
This is the campaign i want to play the most from this last DLC (never enjoyed much Kislev, and even if i love Tzeentch, i hate how the Changeling campaign plays), but im waiting for a sale, specially since im probably only will be playing Yuan Bo. For the rest, only really want the Blue Scribes and Mutalith beast for my Kairos campaigns, don't think ill be playing Changeling, feel so boring....
Not only that, but I am waiting for a big discount. I see almost no value for me for other races. What is annoying - they screwed up the people who didn't buy the DLC in typical CA way. Confederating Celestial Generals - you can't progress their mounts. You are stuck on foot forever unless AI unlocked it before you confederated. Can't confederate Yuan Bo, perfectly fine with me..everything else is just leaving the sour tone around this. Things rotting from inside. We had two hot-fixes so far, but I still won't be buying anything coming out of this company for the longest time.
@@tchuxferenczy8669 That's a complex problem. Connection is one thing. On your side, switch from wifi to cable. Sometimes the router can be screwed up too and constantly reset the configuration - make few complaints to your provider and if it doesn't help, they need to replace it. It's been a while since I had bad internet connection, as I am living in a bigger city and I run stable 150mb/s optical fibre. Outside the not optimized weight of the game, that's on Steam and your internet connection 100%.
@@tchuxferenczy8669 Good. I would look for alternative maybe, I mean I used my phone as wifi source for a month. But I have a pretty good big data plan, and I didn't burn it all on watching stupid videos..
The bonuses provided by the astromantic relay buildings themselves wasn’t mentioned. Each one gives extra winds per turn and 10% spell resistance for all armies. There is a 5th one of these towers to be built in Uzulak for some odd reason. So you can can get a 50% base spell resistance for all units faction wide plus all armies have maxed winds every battle! Also the ‘permanent bonus’ mechanic is a lie since all options last only 10 turns
Fan of your Campaign reviews. Watch em sometimes to pick a Lord for a new run ;) but hey Legend-otw, all cathay trading lanes start at irondragons capital, beginning of the silk road, is it?!
I’m a bit more of a casual player who plays on (VH/VH) campaign settings and I enjoyed this campaign. I established a foothold in Lustria (conquered the first province you start in and then the Major city and port in the province to the north) and then just bunkered down while I began my conquest of Cathay. I took on Lokir first and I knew as soon as I moved my forces over to focus on Cathay, that Mazdamundi would attack me in Lustria. It was a fun balance of running back and forth, but once I defeated Lokir, the rest of Cathay was easy to either confederate or conquer. It funded my Lustria conquest and got me a lot of battles/tokens.
With VH/VH youre definitely not in the majority. VH and Legendary players are a rarity. So casual doesnt apply, unless you mean you dont play the game often and for long.
I liked his campaign but I think it is a little bit too easy. Very strong economy and diplomacy, you can capture the safe part of Cathay which is like 80% of the territories and don't really have to worry because Miao and Zhao are there to defend at the borders. Lustria is easy too the only real threat is Mazdamundi but he won't attack you immediately so you can just spawn in from the Ocean and crush him with 4-5 armies when he decides to declare war.
I conquered him right after the orcs with only Yuan Bo and a second army that was recruiting behind him and joining fights. Mazdamundi is real easy to get rid of if you don't waste time. I didn't even give him time to be offensive, his main army was still at Skeggi when I took Hexoatl.
@@meksil8776 Yeah what is good in this is that you get more options what to do how to start with your campaign but it feels like either way it is easy. I started to conquer Cathay because it feels like more worthy territory with the landmarks. I only captured 1 province plus 2 settlements in Lustria early on and went back with Yuan to Cathay. Nobody attacked me there for like 30 turns and I had 0 armies there until Mazdamundi decided to go to war.
Sell the cap then confed the one who own it Either that or just abandoned lustria (sell settlements to markus or the highest buyer), confed Cathays then just roll over lustria later cause the only important thing to do in jungle dome is the compass, and you already have the best compass unlocked which is the increase money building
Out of I think 20 starts of this guy I have never had them take that ruin from me. Every single time I smash their first army and I start moving towards it and they start running. They don't even stop at that place they just go to their place recruit a couple of people I kill them at their other place and then they never stop running. I did the first 15 to 20 turns of this campaign like 15 to 20 times.
Yuan Bo has an ability that actually makes sense, wow, too bad no other lords are going to get anything similar. It makes sense if your opponent is weak to be able to kill them quicker
I stayed in Cathay and for me it was not a challenge at all. I play on VH and it challenges me most of the times. for this campaign I found it very easy. Somehow I had massive income very quickly
I bounced off both base game GC factions - Too easy, too simple. Yuan Bo’s dual start has been pretty fun. I’ve fought Chaos, Norsca, Vampire Counts, Cathay, Dark Elves, Orks and Lord knows who else before turn 30. It’s great.
This is like the other 2 cathay lords/campaigns...except it's way more powerful for no reason. There is no extra threat to justify giving him so many extra tools. He's just straight up a better lord than the other 2.
Pretty much my favorite of the 3 too as it actually just Cathay but more fleshed out and challenging if you go for a split empire. The changeling is actually pretty fun and unique too (which is a good thing) but after a while it get a bit old to just be a ghost on the map with no real direct threat. Stanky granny herself if pretty damn good but something feel off about fighting lizards with kislev on the other side of the map for no real reasons.
Tbh I think the split start is actually easier than the single start cause if you don't split Miao gets wiped out by Vilitch and Xiao by Lokhir which makes you unable to confederate them and snowball like hell from it.
Yuan Bo is fun. It had been a while since I conquered Lustria (Warhammer 2 days, ah), so it was enjoyable. My only issue was the final battle for the long victory. It sucks ass.
Imrik's campaign is broken, which is why I want to play this now. Caledor, the minor faction, was still on Ulthuan when I got the opportunity to confederate. Sacking provinces doesn't add to his Return of the Prince mission. Also, I can't get the 5th fire dragon, it won't let me recruit it.
For whatever reason, it irks me that Stone&Steal actions are not in same quantity. There's 1 more Steel action than Stone actions. Why is there no 7-cost Stone action?
And commercial district is op as fuck too, each tie 5 settlement building gives you 20 relation to all factions. After building a couple of that, every faction even chaos want to trade with you.
You forgot to mention that applying Fortress City to a Bastion gate gives insane factionwide bonuses( -upkeep %, damage to all units, shield to all units during defence)
@@LegendofTotalWar Certain resources buff army units like additional charge bonus and ports provide additional movement for armies at sea for commercial districts.
He looked interessting at first but he is just too OP like all the lords of this DLC and his character is boring. A super secretive spy that appears frail but is actually the strongest warrior, best sorceror, most well liked etc whatever the other dragons strengths are he does it better. He is like a bad fanfiction Mary Sue. And why is the administrator of Cathay in Lustria? Makes about as much sense as Tzarina Katarins secret police serving Ostankya and fighting side by side with chaos monsters.
@@travisspicer5514 He is not the only one that get's spell intensity tho? Literally every magic capable character in Cathay roster get's mastery of the elemental winds. And Miao and Zhang have way better spell selection.
@@ruukinen He gets 50% on his own and his trait gives the units the spell mastery buff so I put it to him but true enough. Also, I made a full stack of them for his army because he makes them cheap so more association in my thought process.
I thoroughly enjoyed Yuan Bo, both in Realms and Empires. I do like the idea though of selling your Cathay territory, as due to just all abilities and what not that Yuan Bo gets access to, he can rather easily confederate either of the dragons once he has completed his Lustria conquest. Plus the units he brings to the party make Cathay just feel so good to play.
Cathay is one of my favorite factions to play and my personal gripe was that you're pretty much locked in cathay and it's not as easy to get out (it's annoying) and i usually quit cause i got cathay... guess i'm done Having a lord that starts outside of cathay (at least partially) is a dream come true giving you a less isolationist mindset
As someone who likes Cathay my feelings are mixed. On the one hand his campaign mechanics are actually fun (like stone and steel. The buildings aren't really worth it). On the other hand the new units are kinda shit. You can use them early, but it's not really an upgrade as opposed to going for more halberds/crossbows in many situations. Cathay really got dicked on units this dlc (celestial generals are good... Even if their voice lines are borked)
The lions can make a decently strong and extremally cheap (like less than 1k) "doomstack" for Yuan Bo. But yea once you reach the late game and have more cash there is no reason to really use them over existing units. I think you are underselling Generals though, they are far better than their other generic lord options.
@@jamiefenwick8359 i thought i made it pretty clear that i liked celestial generals. Yeah they are good. The other units though. Dunno. Imo they are never worth using except on yuan bo (as you said... They are very cheap) for a cheap midgame doomstack. It's not a very good doomstack though (I'd ptobably call it an upper tier crapstack or alternatively a shitty doomstack). They are simply too squishy and cathay doesn't have healing (one of the reasons terracotta sentinels aren't really used in campaign).
@@theStamax The crowmen are really good fliers. And you get them at tier 2 from a barracks you want to build anyway. I don't see how 10 archers 4 guards and 3 heroes/lords with two/three (or some other unit) artillery pieces isn't improved by changing one or two of the archers to a flier. And the flying lancers are tier 4?
@@ruukinen honestly onyx crowmen have a similar issue to terracota sentinels. Are they solid units? Yeah absolutely. Do they really add variety to cathay's armies or are better than alternatives in most situations? No. They are only rarely better than the alternative (albeit having a few in a peasant spam is fine), which is the crux of the issue. They are simply not needed for the way cathay's armies play (just get artillery instead to kill enemy ranged units for example). What cathay really needed was a good melee hero (more so than the general, because cathay already had a good lord while their heroes are shit. Some of the worst in the game really), more infantry options (especially offensive infantry) and better ways to apply harmony (which granted they sorta got with the drum and jet lions. Issue of course that neither of those are particularly great on their own).
@@jamiefenwick8359 I enjoy the movement which the jade and jet lions provide. Putting the yang version in the back to deal with calvary and protect archers and putting the yin version up front to sally forward and attack archers and deflect fire back. The spell resistance provided and the spell buffing are also nice boosts that aren't game breaking.
Cathay is my favorite race, but it didn't have much support. I would love to have better hero support but nontheless this campain is so far my very favorite: just because of this i didn't mind spending the money for dlc. i don't know if his dragon form is still bugged, but he is so far very perfect. Very good buildings to scale very very well to endgame. Interesting mechanics that are very hard to master. "fuck with politics as you want" with jade mask Multiple playstyles very interesting conquering, my first game was around very quickly taking over lastria and confedering all the cathay, which i had on turn 50 done - very strong tbh Only shame is, that imo his long campain victory is very very easy to do and is kinda short. So to maximalize fun from this campain, you kinda need to go past that.
completely unrelated note. i stared drycha campaign and am blowing up bunch of settlements in order to heal forests faster. and to my misery AI is going bananas trying to recolonize them. neutral factions sending stack after stack to claim the ruins. so wh3 ai tweaks are gone
Love Cathay but man is this guy a mary sue. Like yeah lets make this guy a perfect strategy, master bureaucrat, the best fighter of the brothers, spymaster, expert city planner... utterly annoying, like wtf were the writers thinking.
They were thinking that the Jade Dragon in lore is often mistaken by outside diplomats to be the Dragon Emperor himself. He is senior amongst all the other siblings, in charge of the spy network, Astromancers and overall day-to-day runnings of the Empire. There is nothing Mary Sue about him. He is the child who has the most authority of the children.
@@kidnamedfinger2625not everything. He is an unenthusiastic caster, and although he is the most hardworking of the siblings, xiao ming is still the favorite. So he is not the most loved nor the most powerful magically.
@@MrBentalton777 They did. The harmony mechanic is now local. Some would consider that a downgrade. I happened to like balancing yin and yang and getting powerful bonuses for it. I don't particularly mind the new mechanic though since it's just a passive buff no matter what you do.
@@MrBentalton777 You no longer have +8 public order bouns or free summon of ancestral warriors while being in balance. And the bouns to econ was 25% instead of 15%. It gutted hard.
@@chadhiggins7379 they did not remove anything though they simply moved it to compass. Also it's now 15% sure but it also has 30% upkeep reduction which didn't exist before. Which for late game armies is more income boost than the precious additional 10% was
@@MrBentalton777 U cant cant have them all. And they didnt add the public order back in. So you lose another 15% from the compass option just to get the warrior.
Yuan Bo woke up on a tropical beach and doesn’t know the meaning of ‘vacation’ and he is about to make it everyone’s problem
Hhahha made me laugh
😂
Split starts are my favourites. Good amout of challange and variety in enemies. Plus for once you actually have to defend
You always have to defend cause the ai goes and attacks your small undefended settlements
@@BillyLndn He's talking about strategically. Tactically, you always defend.
Gringor: I AM CAMING
You should try the “Change Starting Settlement” mod and just take the spot of another faction as any faction of your choosing.
One of my favorite ones to do in Warhammer 2 is moving The Awakened (Luthor Harkon, Vampire Coast) to somewhere around Castle Drakenhof.
I actually sailed Yuan bo back home, dealt with the vampire threat and all other threats. Confederated or conqured the other cathay factions. and only then. around turn 70. Did i go back to lustria to do my campaign objectives. while sending Miao ying into the chaos wastes and Zhao ming west towards the chaos dwarfs and orcs.
Currently trying to paint the map for the first time since i started playing total Warhammer. currently turn 102.
Was there still a challenge left for you at that point tho? I'd imagine at that point you would just auto yourself through Lustria
@@terbentur2943 yes and no. My yuan bo army was strong enough to autoresolve a lot of things. But i dont like to run around with 4 full stacks just autoresolving even when i got the money for it. I intentionally make it harder for myself, and im still encountering some strong foes here and there. Rakarth and tahensuin were still kicking and took a while to take down with 2 armies. (Yuan bo and a general).
I do that with chaos. First I confederate all of the chaos factions in the north. Then I turn south and raze the lands. Takes around 200-300 turns till I kill all the order factions then I delete the game, representing the end times
This is what I plan to Do when I play him. Very exciting it worked for you.
@@DestroToCreateIt only takes like. 4 turns to sail from Lustria to Shang-Wu province. And in the meantime you can just hire a general to fight the vampires. it's pretty easy actually.
A thing I really loved about Yuan Bos campaign was when I made a Bastion gate a Fortress District and discovered the lovely extras you get from the Bastion buildings for doing so they were most useful especially the growth buildings one really helps out when you come under attack
yeah, very powerful buffs there. Ports in commercial districts also provide buffs for the army.
In fact with foreress city on bastions (30% spell resistance) and the astromantic relays (40%), and his personal line skill gives his own army 30% more, that's 90% cap reached, which is delicious: later on just completely ignore enemy spells and also not care about the comet's friendly fire. And global melee +2AP damage or shields on garrisons also very good
Yuan Bo's campaign, also known as, "WTF am I Doing Here?"
have a like xD
4 new directions on the compass, but they all point towards Lustria 🙄
Would have been much nicer to have to go to 4 different directions (ex.: Naggaroth, Dragon Isle or CD area, North of Khislev or Norsca, Lustria, for NE, SW, NW, SE).
@@arthanor9631Yeah, but then you run into the trouble with TK books of Nagash where you can't be bothered to go take e.g. the White Tower of Hoeth for a buff that definitely isn't worth the trek and war for.
@@arthanor9631it was designed around realms of chaos, where each new location was in their relative cardinal direction from Wu Xing
"Nakai has invaded Cathay, so I shall invade Lustria!"
I sold Shang Wu but because the sea lane is right there within a few turns I had an army sail over and start fighting The Blessed Dread and Clan Eshin to reestablish my own foothold in Cathay. Got my 20,000 gold and still was able to fight on two fronts, I had a lot of fun doing it that way.
It's disappointing to me that many of the Stone and Steel options don't tell you exactly what they're going to do until after you choose them. Like the Fortress City just says "improved effects", which could mean just about anything
because each major city provide all different bonus, major cities with wood resource are extremely powerful.
@@dragonball7122 thats not true each major city does not provide anything different unless its either wei jin itself as a commerical district or a region with a resource building as a commercial district. all fortress districts do the same thing
@@dragonball7122 do you know what the resource global bonuses are for commercial districts?
@@MrBentalton777 You're mostly right, But the Great Wall, three individual provinces using the Yang stone buff, provide a massive buff for defence and some upkeep drop for faction as well ( Insame buff ), the same as the four new Dragon Stone City. The bonus for them is more significant than the average major city.
@@dragonball7122 i am aware the bastions are different for fortress but i was talking about actual settlements not what are essentially just walls. also they do provide defence yes but massive? i dont think you and i have the same definition for massive cause anything under 10 is not massive lol. also the upkeep reduction is so small it might as well not exist same for the defence. the barrier is literally the only thing the bastion does that is actually worth anything at all.
one option in terms of start that i found both fun and strong is to on first turn recruit a lord in cathay recruit as many units as possible (should be 5) and use the matters of state tokens to instantly finish 1 turn of recruitment and then add in another round of local recruits, then when the option to sell arrives i sell it but have the small army strong enough to capture a hostile settlement.
Yuan Bo is my favorite campaign of the DLC as well, because it feels like an actual campaign. I actually lost motivation to play with the changeling pretty quick, when I realized it’s basically impossible to lose on any difficulty.
the real campaign goal of the Changeling is to lose... because thats a LOT harder than to win
How do you lose as Yuan when he has as many dlc/powercreep mechanics as he does over the 2 base factions while being the best duelist and caster of the 3?
@@toggle3927 _"How do you lose as Yuan"_
It's hard to lose, but he's a pretty normal faction compared to the Changeling. As the Changeling you can just put a hidden base on some minor settlement that has no chance of ever detecting it, and surviving forever even if the settlement gets razed.
I just thought even on realms changing was too long and frankly boring with little challenge
It would be VERY nice to see the execution mechabic brought to Eltharion.
It is beyond frustrating to miss the imprisonment due to rng.
It'd be nicer if attack animations actually worked.
Okay so in my experience, you'll be asked to sell your capital in Cathay around turn 4. I had a really good start by:
1. Turn one, build the Jade Warriors military building in Shan Wu, recruit a lord and 2 peasant bowmen
2. Continue recruiting 1 bowmen, 1 warriors every turn until the game offers to buy Shan Wu, then sell it
3. You should have an army of at least 6 units, which is enough to take the nearby Vamp Counts settlements.
4. You have a cool 20k and maintain a foothold in Cathay.
Meanwhile in Lustria, Yuan Bo is going to spend a little longer fighting the Greenskins. I'd try for non-aggression with the Huntsmarshall, because he should keep hold the land to your south.
Meanwhile in Cathay - the Vamp Counts aren't too hard to stamp out, but after them, you want to deal with Clan Eshin right away. After them, you've got Lokir's Delfs to deal with too.
Yuan Bo's greatest strength is stacking "mastery of elemental winds passive" up to 200% spell intensity for the whole army
Yuan Bo's level 9 skill "Armies of the Celestial Court" Gives the elemental winds passive to Jade lions too so you do not have to stack
Compasses, Zhangou war drum, and heroes to reach 200% intensity.
The Jade Dragon has access to blossom wind and comet of Cassadora, overcast them with 200% intensity and you rack 500 kills in 2 casts
Love these videos, I hope the next DLC Lords are more interesting.
And cheaper, I ain't paying these clown prices
It's gonna be empire, dwarves and nurgle, its gonna be great.
Empire and Dwarfs are the definition of bland... they'll get flying lords in the face of Elspeth (flying mage lords always op, but nothing we havent seen before) and Malakai, so something unique in dwarf department at least, and some really fringe large units (aka zeppelin or magic war wagon), aside from that who knows. Theyll probably make up some op units like with the Akshina Ambushers for Kislev. Or Ulric units will be just an upgrade over state troops and empire knights, because DLC power creep. More slayers also sounds excessively boring for Dwarfs.
And with how demons work, other than Temurkhan himself being cool in battle Im not confident in a fun Nurgle campaign. Not if they dont make plagues worth it. Id put more faith in Slaanesh and Khorne DLCs if they would get units to shake up their one-dimensional melee-focused playstyle, but thats also unlikely.
@Grivehn one man's bland is another man's spice. The fact that their style survives in a universe like warhammer makes them interesting. Sometimes it's fun to be regular facing down the madness.
@@LinkLegend0 I wont refute that there is an argument to be made for renessaince humans thrown against all sorts of monsters being fun. I dont hate Empire or Dwarfs, Id like to make that clear.
But to say dinosaurs riding dinosaurs, egyptian laser-eyed mummy giants, undead ships on legs or giant magic hentai monsters are not more interesting to play with is a stretch. My opinion of course, but if someone still wants to play Franz for the 50th time instead of trying anything else (aside from Dwarfs, because thats Empire, just with less diversity) theyre definitely wierd.
I'm currently on turn 127 or something and I've found this to be one of my favourites of all time. Everything about this faction is good. The spell intensity, boosted trade income, INSANE research speed (I didn't notice it earlier but I think currently I'm on something like 723% research speed??). The new units, the jet and jade lions are decent. I've come to find that having one or two jet lions is good for the mirror missile, if you don't have a lord with that spell.
I also gave up the settlement at the start which I debated about for some time. It didn't matter much because by turn 20 I had trade with all of Cathay and turn 50 all of Cathay was mine due to confederations. Definitely would recommend.
the yang and yin buff look good but then you realize that yang buildings/alignment gives you research rate, reduced construction cost, higher income(that one is harder to verify because of the buffs but if anything they basically even out) and more/cheaper/higher rank recruitment while yin gives you a little extra growth and reduced construction time...... you would only go yin to hyper focus on growth in a couple provinces and once research is done and province is built up you would balance it out. I stopped playing my yuan bo campaign but turn 92 and all my research would have been done.
>new dlc to belowed warhammer, providing new stuff to cathay, kislev and tzeentch
>buy instantly, even if overpriced
>start new campaign as Karl Franz
Lol made me laugh hahahaha
Ohh- i just took 20k hehe. Must test "challengemode"! Ty for the review and i love your honest-objective style and not "only" praise" or boo. Good job as always. 🙂
The compass has one big bonus: One direction makes your characters immortal. Even heroes you are borrowing.
seems all this dlc's factions are god tier. stank is basically a 1 man doomstack at level 1 and the hexes and curses are nuts, changeling is an unlosable campaign, and sounds like this one is pretty strong too
This is the campaign i want to play the most from this last DLC (never enjoyed much Kislev, and even if i love Tzeentch, i hate how the Changeling campaign plays), but im waiting for a sale, specially since im probably only will be playing Yuan Bo. For the rest, only really want the Blue Scribes and Mutalith beast for my Kairos campaigns, don't think ill be playing Changeling, feel so boring....
Not only that, but I am waiting for a big discount. I see almost no value for me for other races. What is annoying - they screwed up the people who didn't buy the DLC in typical CA way. Confederating Celestial Generals - you can't progress their mounts. You are stuck on foot forever unless AI unlocked it before you confederated. Can't confederate Yuan Bo, perfectly fine with me..everything else is just leaving the sour tone around this. Things rotting from inside. We had two hot-fixes so far, but I still won't be buying anything coming out of this company for the longest time.
@@tchuxferenczy8669 That's a complex problem. Connection is one thing. On your side, switch from wifi to cable. Sometimes the router can be screwed up too and constantly reset the configuration - make few complaints to your provider and if it doesn't help, they need to replace it.
It's been a while since I had bad internet connection, as I am living in a bigger city and I run stable 150mb/s optical fibre.
Outside the not optimized weight of the game, that's on Steam and your internet connection 100%.
@@tchuxferenczy8669 Good. I would look for alternative maybe, I mean I used my phone as wifi source for a month. But I have a pretty good big data plan, and I didn't burn it all on watching stupid videos..
The bonuses provided by the astromantic relay buildings themselves wasn’t mentioned. Each one gives extra winds per turn and 10% spell resistance for all armies. There is a 5th one of these towers to be built in Uzulak for some odd reason. So you can can get a 50% base spell resistance for all units faction wide plus all armies have maxed winds every battle!
Also the ‘permanent bonus’ mechanic is a lie since all options last only 10 turns
I like this use of "ticks" instead of "turns" or "fights" exclusively, with both counting for the goal it really incentivises to use them both.
Fan of your Campaign reviews. Watch em sometimes to pick a Lord for a new run ;)
but hey Legend-otw, all cathay trading lanes start at irondragons capital, beginning of the silk road, is it?!
I’m a bit more of a casual player who plays on (VH/VH) campaign settings and I enjoyed this campaign. I established a foothold in Lustria (conquered the first province you start in and then the Major city and port in the province to the north) and then just bunkered down while I began my conquest of Cathay.
I took on Lokir first and I knew as soon as I moved my forces over to focus on Cathay, that Mazdamundi would attack me in Lustria. It was a fun balance of running back and forth, but once I defeated Lokir, the rest of Cathay was easy to either confederate or conquer. It funded my Lustria conquest and got me a lot of battles/tokens.
With VH/VH youre definitely not in the majority. VH and Legendary players are a rarity. So casual doesnt apply, unless you mean you dont play the game often and for long.
@@Grivehn
Definitely don’t play often and save scum it lol
I liked his campaign but I think it is a little bit too easy. Very strong economy and diplomacy, you can capture the safe part of Cathay which is like 80% of the territories and don't really have to worry because Miao and Zhao are there to defend at the borders. Lustria is easy too the only real threat is Mazdamundi but he won't attack you immediately so you can just spawn in from the Ocean and crush him with 4-5 armies when he decides to declare war.
I conquered him right after the orcs with only Yuan Bo and a second army that was recruiting behind him and joining fights. Mazdamundi is real easy to get rid of if you don't waste time. I didn't even give him time to be offensive, his main army was still at Skeggi when I took Hexoatl.
@@meksil8776 Yeah what is good in this is that you get more options what to do how to start with your campaign but it feels like either way it is easy. I started to conquer Cathay because it feels like more worthy territory with the landmarks. I only captured 1 province plus 2 settlements in Lustria early on and went back with Yuan to Cathay. Nobody attacked me there for like 30 turns and I had 0 armies there until Mazdamundi decided to go to war.
Sell the cap then confed the one who own it
Either that or just abandoned lustria (sell settlements to markus or the highest buyer), confed Cathays then just roll over lustria later cause the only important thing to do in jungle dome is the compass, and you already have the best compass unlocked which is the increase money building
Out of I think 20 starts of this guy I have never had them take that ruin from me. Every single time I smash their first army and I start moving towards it and they start running. They don't even stop at that place they just go to their place recruit a couple of people I kill them at their other place and then they never stop running. I did the first 15 to 20 turns of this campaign like 15 to 20 times.
Yuan Bo has an ability that actually makes sense, wow, too bad no other lords are going to get anything similar. It makes sense if your opponent is weak to be able to kill them quicker
Would be good if you did another campaign review of Zhao Ming and Miao Ying, considering the changes to Cathay.
Taking notes for a DLC I won't buy unless heavily discounted 💯
Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaaah🎉🎉🎉
I stayed in Cathay and for me it was not a challenge at all. I play on VH and it challenges me most of the times. for this campaign I found it very easy. Somehow I had massive income very quickly
Maybe a weird request. Could you please livestream a yuan bo campaign? Would totaly watch that!!
he did, he streamed all 3 dlc factions
@@niofo7713 oh. I must have missed it then. Time to watch the VOD
Gonna be quite a while before I try this out. I don't think CA is gonna give me the 50% discount I'm looking for any time soon.
I feel you on that one buddy, I too am waiting for at least 50% off before I buy
Yeah I really enjoy split starts. Malus and Eltharion were my favourite campaigns in WH2, I really enoy this one too.
Ah, you didn’t go into his skill line. Liked that part of the old reviews.
I bounced off both base game GC factions - Too easy, too simple. Yuan Bo’s dual start has been pretty fun. I’ve fought Chaos, Norsca, Vampire Counts, Cathay, Dark Elves, Orks and Lord knows who else before turn 30. It’s great.
I Didn't really like Cathay at all but Juan Bo is now one of my Favourite Legendary Lords to play. Highly recommend.
Legend always thinks it'll be Tzeentch.
It's never Tzeentch.
This is like the other 2 cathay lords/campaigns...except it's way more powerful for no reason. There is no extra threat to justify giving him so many extra tools. He's just straight up a better lord than the other 2.
Pretty much my favorite of the 3 too as it actually just Cathay but more fleshed out and challenging if you go for a split empire.
The changeling is actually pretty fun and unique too (which is a good thing) but after a while it get a bit old to just be a ghost on the map with no real direct threat.
Stanky granny herself if pretty damn good but something feel off about fighting lizards with kislev on the other side of the map for no real reasons.
Tbh I think the split start is actually easier than the single start cause if you don't split Miao gets wiped out by Vilitch and Xiao by Lokhir which makes you unable to confederate them and snowball like hell from it.
I love how they just basically ported the Yin'yin mod into a actual DLC pack
Love this campaign!
I feel like Yuan Bo's campaign is really the only one of the SoC campaigns I'm interested in.
Yuan Bo is fun. It had been a while since I conquered Lustria (Warhammer 2 days, ah), so it was enjoyable. My only issue was the final battle for the long victory. It sucks ass.
Ruinous insight (best campaign you tuber for warhammer imo) is doing a great series with him and it looks super fun.
Me watching Legend’s Shadows of Change campaign reviews knowing I’m not going to play these campaigns or buy this DLC: 😎
Imrik's campaign is broken, which is why I want to play this now. Caledor, the minor faction, was still on Ulthuan when I got the opportunity to confederate. Sacking provinces doesn't add to his Return of the Prince mission. Also, I can't get the 5th fire dragon, it won't let me recruit it.
For whatever reason, it irks me that Stone&Steal actions are not in same quantity. There's 1 more Steel action than Stone actions. Why is there no 7-cost Stone action?
And commercial district is op as fuck too, each tie 5 settlement building gives you 20 relation to all factions. After building a couple of that, every faction even chaos want to trade with you.
The tooltip for Fortress City say "belonging to you." Is that another bad tooltip then?
You forgot to mention that applying Fortress City to a Bastion gate gives insane factionwide bonuses( -upkeep %, damage to all units, shield to all units during defence)
I didn't know about that. Stopped playing my campaign around turn 40.
@@LegendofTotalWar Certain resources buff army units like additional charge bonus and ports provide additional movement for armies at sea for commercial districts.
@@LegendofTotalWar Bastions as fortress cities also give 1 melee defence all units factionwide each (from the settlement building)
This is the one I’m interested in most
He looked interessting at first but he is just too OP like all the lords of this DLC and his character is boring. A super secretive spy that appears frail but is actually the strongest warrior, best sorceror, most well liked etc whatever the other dragons strengths are he does it better. He is like a bad fanfiction Mary Sue.
And why is the administrator of Cathay in Lustria? Makes about as much sense as Tzarina Katarins secret police serving Ostankya and fighting side by side with chaos monsters.
His magic is mid at best. He is slightly better in melee than the two other dragons though. Both other dragons have better magic though.
@@ruukinen Dude, get him with the jade and jet lions and he will erase units with magic with the spell intensity.
@@travisspicer5514 He is not the only one that get's spell intensity tho? Literally every magic capable character in Cathay roster get's mastery of the elemental winds. And Miao and Zhang have way better spell selection.
@@ruukinen He gets 50% on his own and his trait gives the units the spell mastery buff so I put it to him but true enough. Also, I made a full stack of them for his army because he makes them cheap so more association in my thought process.
@@travisspicer5514 Spell intensity also caps at 200%.
I thoroughly enjoyed Yuan Bo, both in Realms and Empires. I do like the idea though of selling your Cathay territory, as due to just all abilities and what not that Yuan Bo gets access to, he can rather easily confederate either of the dragons once he has completed his Lustria conquest. Plus the units he brings to the party make Cathay just feel so good to play.
i play for 3 days in this campaign is very enjoyable
does anyone know what turn you get the dilemma to sell shang-wu for 20000? i played until turn 13 but didn't get any dilemma.
You have to reach level 5 for the event
I want this just for the hero stealing capabilities. Steal Cavill from Eltharion, Michaela from Imrik, Wulfharts 4, the ghost dwarfs, etc
I miss you!
it is kinda sad that in this dlc is only one worf of play lord and price is x 3 xD
We all know his REAL NAME is Juan Bo (the mexican dragon) - considering his starting position. ..
can someone list all the resources global bonus for commercial district
I would love to play this but I'm just not interested in buying this dlc right now
"Yuan Bo a Go"
Yuan Bobi?
Is he still bugged?
what bug?
I think the old yin yang mechanic is better than the new one.. The new one is very easy not challenging and not require to think and balacing things
Cathay is one of my favorite factions to play and my personal gripe was that you're pretty much locked in cathay and it's not as easy to get out (it's annoying) and i usually quit cause i got cathay... guess i'm done
Having a lord that starts outside of cathay (at least partially) is a dream come true giving you a less isolationist mindset
As someone who likes Cathay my feelings are mixed. On the one hand his campaign mechanics are actually fun (like stone and steel. The buildings aren't really worth it). On the other hand the new units are kinda shit. You can use them early, but it's not really an upgrade as opposed to going for more halberds/crossbows in many situations.
Cathay really got dicked on units this dlc (celestial generals are good... Even if their voice lines are borked)
The lions can make a decently strong and extremally cheap (like less than 1k) "doomstack" for Yuan Bo. But yea once you reach the late game and have more cash there is no reason to really use them over existing units. I think you are underselling Generals though, they are far better than their other generic lord options.
@@jamiefenwick8359 i thought i made it pretty clear that i liked celestial generals. Yeah they are good.
The other units though. Dunno. Imo they are never worth using except on yuan bo (as you said... They are very cheap) for a cheap midgame doomstack. It's not a very good doomstack though (I'd ptobably call it an upper tier crapstack or alternatively a shitty doomstack). They are simply too squishy and cathay doesn't have healing (one of the reasons terracotta sentinels aren't really used in campaign).
@@theStamax The crowmen are really good fliers. And you get them at tier 2 from a barracks you want to build anyway. I don't see how 10 archers 4 guards and 3 heroes/lords with two/three (or some other unit) artillery pieces isn't improved by changing one or two of the archers to a flier. And the flying lancers are tier 4?
@@ruukinen honestly onyx crowmen have a similar issue to terracota sentinels. Are they solid units? Yeah absolutely. Do they really add variety to cathay's armies or are better than alternatives in most situations? No.
They are only rarely better than the alternative (albeit having a few in a peasant spam is fine), which is the crux of the issue. They are simply not needed for the way cathay's armies play (just get artillery instead to kill enemy ranged units for example).
What cathay really needed was a good melee hero (more so than the general, because cathay already had a good lord while their heroes are shit. Some of the worst in the game really), more infantry options (especially offensive infantry) and better ways to apply harmony (which granted they sorta got with the drum and jet lions. Issue of course that neither of those are particularly great on their own).
@@jamiefenwick8359 I enjoy the movement which the jade and jet lions provide. Putting the yang version in the back to deal with calvary and protect archers and putting the yin version up front to sally forward and attack archers and deflect fire back. The spell resistance provided and the spell buffing are also nice boosts that aren't game breaking.
Why does Yoan Bo gets no bow?
Cathay is my favorite race, but it didn't have much support. I would love to have better hero support but nontheless this campain is so far my very favorite: just because of this i didn't mind spending the money for dlc.
i don't know if his dragon form is still bugged, but he is so far very perfect.
Very good buildings to scale very very well to endgame.
Interesting mechanics that are very hard to master.
"fuck with politics as you want" with jade mask
Multiple playstyles
very interesting conquering, my first game was around very quickly taking over lastria and confedering all the cathay, which i had on turn 50 done - very strong tbh
Only shame is, that imo his long campain victory is very very easy to do and is kinda short.
So to maximalize fun from this campain, you kinda need to go past that.
Yuan Bo one man doomstack pls!!!
completely unrelated note. i stared drycha campaign and am blowing up bunch of settlements in order to heal forests faster. and to my misery AI is going bananas trying to recolonize them. neutral factions sending stack after stack to claim the ruins. so wh3 ai tweaks are gone
He shouldnt be in Lustria period
LL looks decent. The balance mechanic though made Cathay just bland
Love Cathay but man is this guy a mary sue. Like yeah lets make this guy a perfect strategy, master bureaucrat, the best fighter of the brothers, spymaster, expert city planner... utterly annoying, like wtf were the writers thinking.
They were thinking that the Jade Dragon in lore is often mistaken by outside diplomats to be the Dragon Emperor himself.
He is senior amongst all the other siblings, in charge of the spy network, Astromancers and overall day-to-day runnings of the Empire.
There is nothing Mary Sue about him. He is the child who has the most authority of the children.
@@TheMoriShow ok so I guess the word I'm looking for is flawless. I haven't read the novel so which is his negative part?
@@kidnamedfinger2625not everything. He is an unenthusiastic caster, and although he is the most hardworking of the siblings, xiao ming is still the favorite.
So he is not the most loved nor the most powerful magically.
None of this acreams "premium"
yeah im not spending 25 bucks for one good lord, one ok lord, and one cheese lord.
yuan bo is honestly a great campaign even if miao ying wont fucking confederate with me when I out power her 16 to 1
To bad they gutted the faction mechinic for the other 2 LL in cathy.
they did not remove anything from the other 2 so?
@@MrBentalton777 They did. The harmony mechanic is now local. Some would consider that a downgrade. I happened to like balancing yin and yang and getting powerful bonuses for it. I don't particularly mind the new mechanic though since it's just a passive buff no matter what you do.
@@MrBentalton777 You no longer have +8 public order bouns or free summon of ancestral warriors while being in balance. And the bouns to econ was 25% instead of 15%. It gutted hard.
@@chadhiggins7379 they did not remove anything though they simply moved it to compass. Also it's now 15% sure but it also has 30% upkeep reduction which didn't exist before. Which for late game armies is more income boost than the precious additional 10% was
@@MrBentalton777 U cant cant have them all. And they didnt add the public order back in. So you lose another 15% from the compass option just to get the warrior.
35 dollars for one good campaign 💀💀💀💀💀💀
Id consider buying an overpriced dlc to try this if the game werent broken
Yuan bo is too boring imo
I hope legend knows you can double click on the portals to move the camera from cathay to lustria lol
i thought we were boycotting this game