Good guy Vlad is a very strong and fun playstyle, but I'm not sure you should judge Vampire Count vassalization if you're doing it through settlement trading. Because it's really more settlement trading being a very broken mechanic.
I would really love to see a dlc giving us the different bloodlines, and if the bloodlines get separated it would kinda mean that even the Von Carsteins need a revised bloodlines system.
Do the Vampire counts need a rework? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, but more probably in terms of making the different bloodlines actually play differently enough from one another. The Vampire Counts now feel kind of like a monolith with the different Bloodlines not being well represented, and they should actually play pretty differently from one another. Like for examples give the Lahmians maybe some Skaven/ Snikch mechanics of really play into their infiltration, the Carsteins should be able to recruit even more human units and possibly have an easier time to forcefully vassalize humans, kind of like N'kari, the Blood Dragons should lean even more into martial strength etc. But we probably won't see any of that till the big undead rework. That being said, I kind of assumed, since the Chaos rework, that they'd do the same with all undead factions and really bring them up. But ever since the Hyenas debacle, Sega gutting a ton of their studio and the Shadows of Change mess, I'm no longer confident they could pull off a rework of the size and scope of the Chaos rework. I hope I'm wrong on that front and they can actually meaningfully improve the undeads and give us Nagash in all his glory.
Lahmians are more likely to get human units , Lahmians very rarely would raise armies of undead and they even had a end times supplement where you could field a mixed army. Preferably Neferata should get a spy network system where you can interact with factions and influence them to do stuff, She should also get a similar system to Katarina but for Lahmian vampire because The silver pinnacle acts like a massive training complex for the sisterhood.
The short answer is yes, they do. The Vampire Counts can't get too many units, but there's some stuff they could still receive, I think Vampire heroes with the lores of Deep and Dark would likely be the best thing to start with, then you can have Coven thrones, Spirits Hosts and Abyssal Terrors. Making some units such as the Terrorgheist not quite as meh would help, same with removing supply lines. I believe the standard Vampire and Strigoi Ghoul King should just go, and we should get a revamped Bloodline mechanic where the various lords theme harder and can do additional stuff. I also wouldn't mind more landmarks, and a few building/tech specific campaign only RoR units, such as the Tomb Kings have them. The Old One from Mousillon would be a fine start. Master Necromancers need some love as well, and if every campaign had its own narrative and soft mechanics I think nobody would have a problem.
13:04 "I think no unit should be tier 5" I hard disagree with you on this, but I'll acknowledge the reason you're saying it as absolutely correct. There's a complicated interplay of pacing and unit worth, where **currently** the game is over before most races can get a single tier 3 settlement, much less tier 4 or 5, and the investment into higher tier units is simply not worthwhile. If no unit is tier 5, that gives even less point for tier 5 buildings, which actually depowers the economic side even harder, it's one less reason to ever get a tier 5 building, not that we have any reasons right now. The problem isn't purely that the units are located behind a level 5 unlock, that's just a part of the "CA doesn't agree with themselves on what the pace of the game is supposed to be." Arbaal should achieve short victory by turn 10 in all campaigns. Even if you manage to take Zharr Naggrund on turn 3, that's going to harm your short victory progress and the short victory is still going to happen before you can recruit skullcrushers. Probably long victory too. It's not that they're locked behind tier 5: it's that tier 5 itself isn't a good strategy/way of spending your money, even if you can achieve it before long victory, which is unlikely.
When I say "the game is over" I mean when the game reaches a 0% chance of loss. 0% loss means 100% win, which means the game is over and it's just busywork. Which is to say that if you don't have a chance of losing, you've won. Total War is exceptionally bad about detecting victory state and often requires 100x as much work to prove a win as it does to achieve it.
The only units in the whole game that genuinely deserves tier 5 is the thunderbarge even then like you said its not really cost effective at that point of the game
@@darkomihajlovski3135 Half of the game is paced so that tier 5 actually makes sense; Some factions play in a way where a whole game worth of economic progression isn't exactly justified, but they have to really work to go Khorne mode. That the other 50% of the game **invalidates** tier 5 is why it feels so bad. If getting a tier 5 with the recruitment buildings felt like a worthwhile achievement because the rewards were worthwhile, then it would feel downright wonderful to have finally made it to the goal. Getting to tier 5 faster so you can get your tier 5 units out there, and those tier 5 units actually making a difference, that makes the strategy of actually focusing on a single region feel rewarding. I thought the doomstack meta was bad, but I think I like the crapstack meta less?
@@darkomihajlovski3135 That's actually a really good point, crapstack meta is less for players to do, and probably near the root cause of the problems, but I think it's still a symptom of the pacing mismatch. The only reason I think the slower econ pace is the one to try to fit everything else back to, is because it'd be nearly impossible to rebalance growth and the econ such that 1) it only takes 20-30 turns to get a level 5 capital, and 2) That feels rewarding. Perhaps slight faster than econ is now would be OK, meet in the middle a bit, but level 5's are only slow in the context of "I already took over the world with my crapstacks." Getting to level 5 should be a commitment worth the reward and it's better to commit those resources to a crapstack currently.
The reason most factions have units locked behind high tiers is because they are very strong units. I saw this being mentioned in the bretonia video as well. The reason you cant have grail cavalry recruitable early on is because they are incredibly powerful. The reason you cant have blood knights and hexwraiths recruitable early on is because they are also very powerful. If you are given units with high stats and incredibly strong abilities(actives or passives) early on then your campaigns will become completely trivial. Think about ghorst you mentioned that can beat everyone around him. How does he beat everyone easily? He has insane regeneration and healing cap on zombies. A unit that is normally really bad becomes insanely good with a strong passive and some stat buffs/resistances. Strong stats and passives in the early game can absolutely remove challenge. Strategy games are supposed to be challenging. Running around with insane power the AI cant keep up with removes challenge. And money does not limit you at all. And you know that. You settlement trade and sack settlements to make money. You wont get a stack of those late game units cause its not efficient but even 4 can completely destroy the AI that is fighting you with weak units early on. Tiers stop you from getting the "cool stuff" quickly because if you had them every campaign would be as trivial as the WoC factions which you yourself have said are broken. Im surprised you consider yourself a veteran total war player and then constantly ask for campaign management and powerspike blockers to be removed. Total war arent the only strategy games that have them. You can look at civ or RTS games. They all use a tiering system to give you a challenge. Because if tiers are gone even 1 of those strong late game units can wipe out 100s of enemy units. Sure some units like the foot squires you mentioned in the bretonia video should not be tier 4. But we should not be taking the stupidity of khorne tiers that give you chaos warriors at tier 2 as an example of how tiers should work. This isnt an attack on you. Im just giving my opinion as someone that has been playing total war since rome 1
The problem with Warhammer is you can buff low and mid tier units so much you can basically ignore most tier 4+ units untill super late game but you'd win the game at that point so they never get used unless your planing to play over 100 turn campaigns which most people aren't playing these days Like obviously units like swordmasters shouldn't be tier 2 but at tier 3 they'd be a big enough powespike for people to actually use them and not forget they exist
@@darkomihajlovski3135 for high elves specifically its not worth making them because they are better as a ranged + spears faction. But i've definitely had high elf campaigns where i made swordmasters pre turn 50 because i wanted to do a more melee oriented run. You can focus on them but the faction doesnt need them. Maybe the barracks building should have a T4 and have them there instead. I think the reason you dont really get to them often is because they are also tied to the mages building which takes less priority to upgrade to T4 than a barracks which gives you units from T1 to T3. Sure millitary tech is tied to the mages tower but honestly the millitary tech buffs for high elves arent that important past the first 2
@@Pontiki-bv2ed how would that help swordmasters? As high elfs you already don't want to build barracks over economy buildings and mages towers are better cause they increase your mage capacity There already a unit you don't need buildings tier 4 just for them with no other benefits would make people ignore them even more
@darkomihajlovski3135 if you have archmages you dont need to go hard on mage capacity. Mage buildings give you mage capacity and swordmasters. Barracks you could have in a T4 settlement if it had a 4th tier and it still provides a couple of units in the earlier tiers which you can use early game. At the end of the day non shielded spear units will always be a bad pick for high elves because their strength is in their archers. This just moves the swordmasters in a building you can use early game and thus you are more likely to upgrade up to mid game. Obviously if you dont have the DLC with archmages you'll still need mage capacity. But its not like you need mages in mass as high elves. Its 1 per army. And most of the work in battles is done by ranged units which barracks can give extra variants of them
If I had my way I would like a Champions of chaos style dlc giving us the founders of each bloodline as a legendary lord with Vlad being reworked to get unique animations like archaon did and be able to recruit empire units and vassalize empire factions (because he wants to be emperor) , lahmians should have the slaanesh seduction mechanic for diplomacy, blood dragons should basically be Vampires of Khorne with OP vampire infantry but with little to no magic like in the Champions of Undeath Mod. Necarchs should be all about buffing magic, and the strigoi buffing monster units. that's my take
Go Vlad instead of Isabella, he can lose to templehof faction leader and then farm him for BKs. This costs your campaign about 10-15 turns at the start, but you will unlock 3 bloodline lords before you finish templehof.
Remember how the original WH3 developers thought that confederations should be almost impossible in WH3? We're still seeing downstream effects of that idiotic design philosophy.
Good guy Vlad is a very strong and fun playstyle, but I'm not sure you should judge Vampire Count vassalization if you're doing it through settlement trading. Because it's really more settlement trading being a very broken mechanic.
I would really love to see a dlc giving us the different bloodlines, and if the bloodlines get separated it would kinda mean that even the Von Carsteins need a revised bloodlines system.
Do the Vampire counts need a rework?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes, but more probably in terms of making the different bloodlines actually play differently enough from one another. The Vampire Counts now feel kind of like a monolith with the different Bloodlines not being well represented, and they should actually play pretty differently from one another.
Like for examples give the Lahmians maybe some Skaven/ Snikch mechanics of really play into their infiltration, the Carsteins should be able to recruit even more human units and possibly have an easier time to forcefully vassalize humans, kind of like N'kari, the Blood Dragons should lean even more into martial strength etc.
But we probably won't see any of that till the big undead rework.
That being said, I kind of assumed, since the Chaos rework, that they'd do the same with all undead factions and really bring them up.
But ever since the Hyenas debacle, Sega gutting a ton of their studio and the Shadows of Change mess, I'm no longer confident they could pull off a rework of the size and scope of the Chaos rework.
I hope I'm wrong on that front and they can actually meaningfully improve the undeads and give us Nagash in all his glory.
Yes pls CA give us a Strigoi faction with LL.
And pls GW let CA use some ideas from the Flesheater Courts
Lahmians are more likely to get human units , Lahmians very rarely would raise armies of undead and they even had a end times supplement where you could field a mixed army. Preferably Neferata should get a spy network system where you can interact with factions and influence them to do stuff, She should also get a similar system to Katarina but for Lahmian vampire because The silver pinnacle acts like a massive training complex for the sisterhood.
imagine vampire counts being FLESHed out (*runaway*)
*Cry As ze'lady (dudee c'mooon we have priorities)
The short answer is yes, they do.
The Vampire Counts can't get too many units, but there's some stuff they could still receive, I think Vampire heroes with the lores of Deep and Dark would likely be the best thing to start with, then you can have Coven thrones, Spirits Hosts and Abyssal Terrors. Making some units such as the Terrorgheist not quite as meh would help, same with removing supply lines.
I believe the standard Vampire and Strigoi Ghoul King should just go, and we should get a revamped Bloodline mechanic where the various lords theme harder and can do additional stuff. I also wouldn't mind more landmarks, and a few building/tech specific campaign only RoR units, such as the Tomb Kings have them. The Old One from Mousillon would be a fine start. Master Necromancers need some love as well, and if every campaign had its own narrative and soft mechanics I think nobody would have a problem.
13:04 "I think no unit should be tier 5" I hard disagree with you on this, but I'll acknowledge the reason you're saying it as absolutely correct. There's a complicated interplay of pacing and unit worth, where **currently** the game is over before most races can get a single tier 3 settlement, much less tier 4 or 5, and the investment into higher tier units is simply not worthwhile. If no unit is tier 5, that gives even less point for tier 5 buildings, which actually depowers the economic side even harder, it's one less reason to ever get a tier 5 building, not that we have any reasons right now. The problem isn't purely that the units are located behind a level 5 unlock, that's just a part of the "CA doesn't agree with themselves on what the pace of the game is supposed to be." Arbaal should achieve short victory by turn 10 in all campaigns. Even if you manage to take Zharr Naggrund on turn 3, that's going to harm your short victory progress and the short victory is still going to happen before you can recruit skullcrushers. Probably long victory too.
It's not that they're locked behind tier 5: it's that tier 5 itself isn't a good strategy/way of spending your money, even if you can achieve it before long victory, which is unlikely.
When I say "the game is over" I mean when the game reaches a 0% chance of loss. 0% loss means 100% win, which means the game is over and it's just busywork. Which is to say that if you don't have a chance of losing, you've won. Total War is exceptionally bad about detecting victory state and often requires 100x as much work to prove a win as it does to achieve it.
The only units in the whole game that genuinely deserves tier 5 is the thunderbarge even then like you said its not really cost effective at that point of the game
@@darkomihajlovski3135 Half of the game is paced so that tier 5 actually makes sense; Some factions play in a way where a whole game worth of economic progression isn't exactly justified, but they have to really work to go Khorne mode. That the other 50% of the game **invalidates** tier 5 is why it feels so bad. If getting a tier 5 with the recruitment buildings felt like a worthwhile achievement because the rewards were worthwhile, then it would feel downright wonderful to have finally made it to the goal. Getting to tier 5 faster so you can get your tier 5 units out there, and those tier 5 units actually making a difference, that makes the strategy of actually focusing on a single region feel rewarding.
I thought the doomstack meta was bad, but I think I like the crapstack meta less?
@@patrickdaly1088 at least with the doomstac meta you had a goal with the crapstack mate you already have your build your just doing the busy work
@@darkomihajlovski3135 That's actually a really good point, crapstack meta is less for players to do, and probably near the root cause of the problems, but I think it's still a symptom of the pacing mismatch. The only reason I think the slower econ pace is the one to try to fit everything else back to, is because it'd be nearly impossible to rebalance growth and the econ such that 1) it only takes 20-30 turns to get a level 5 capital, and 2) That feels rewarding.
Perhaps slight faster than econ is now would be OK, meet in the middle a bit, but level 5's are only slow in the context of "I already took over the world with my crapstacks." Getting to level 5 should be a commitment worth the reward and it's better to commit those resources to a crapstack currently.
Vamps need more LLs variety for sure, with one LL for each bloodline. their mechanics while simple do works for them, akin to Delves
The reason most factions have units locked behind high tiers is because they are very strong units. I saw this being mentioned in the bretonia video as well.
The reason you cant have grail cavalry recruitable early on is because they are incredibly powerful. The reason you cant have blood knights and hexwraiths recruitable early on is because they are also very powerful. If you are given units with high stats and incredibly strong abilities(actives or passives) early on then your campaigns will become completely trivial.
Think about ghorst you mentioned that can beat everyone around him. How does he beat everyone easily? He has insane regeneration and healing cap on zombies. A unit that is normally really bad becomes insanely good with a strong passive and some stat buffs/resistances.
Strong stats and passives in the early game can absolutely remove challenge. Strategy games are supposed to be challenging. Running around with insane power the AI cant keep up with removes challenge.
And money does not limit you at all. And you know that. You settlement trade and sack settlements to make money. You wont get a stack of those late game units cause its not efficient but even 4 can completely destroy the AI that is fighting you with weak units early on.
Tiers stop you from getting the "cool stuff" quickly because if you had them every campaign would be as trivial as the WoC factions which you yourself have said are broken.
Im surprised you consider yourself a veteran total war player and then constantly ask for campaign management and powerspike blockers to be removed. Total war arent the only strategy games that have them. You can look at civ or RTS games. They all use a tiering system to give you a challenge. Because if tiers are gone even 1 of those strong late game units can wipe out 100s of enemy units.
Sure some units like the foot squires you mentioned in the bretonia video should not be tier 4. But we should not be taking the stupidity of khorne tiers that give you chaos warriors at tier 2 as an example of how tiers should work.
This isnt an attack on you. Im just giving my opinion as someone that has been playing total war since rome 1
Agreed. But Khorne gets regular chaos warriors at tier 0, while not yet reworked Slaanesh and Tzinch at tier 3.
The problem with Warhammer is you can buff low and mid tier units so much you can basically ignore most tier 4+ units untill super late game but you'd win the game at that point so they never get used unless your planing to play over 100 turn campaigns which most people aren't playing these days
Like obviously units like swordmasters shouldn't be tier 2 but at tier 3 they'd be a big enough powespike for people to actually use them and not forget they exist
@@darkomihajlovski3135 for high elves specifically its not worth making them because they are better as a ranged + spears faction. But i've definitely had high elf campaigns where i made swordmasters pre turn 50 because i wanted to do a more melee oriented run. You can focus on them but the faction doesnt need them. Maybe the barracks building should have a T4 and have them there instead. I think the reason you dont really get to them often is because they are also tied to the mages building which takes less priority to upgrade to T4 than a barracks which gives you units from T1 to T3. Sure millitary tech is tied to the mages tower but honestly the millitary tech buffs for high elves arent that important past the first 2
@@Pontiki-bv2ed how would that help swordmasters? As high elfs you already don't want to build barracks over economy buildings and mages towers are better cause they increase your mage capacity
There already a unit you don't need buildings tier 4 just for them with no other benefits would make people ignore them even more
@darkomihajlovski3135 if you have archmages you dont need to go hard on mage capacity. Mage buildings give you mage capacity and swordmasters.
Barracks you could have in a T4 settlement if it had a 4th tier and it still provides a couple of units in the earlier tiers which you can use early game. At the end of the day non shielded spear units will always be a bad pick for high elves because their strength is in their archers.
This just moves the swordmasters in a building you can use early game and thus you are more likely to upgrade up to mid game. Obviously if you dont have the DLC with archmages you'll still need mage capacity. But its not like you need mages in mass as high elves. Its 1 per army. And most of the work in battles is done by ranged units which barracks can give extra variants of them
If I had my way I would like a Champions of chaos style dlc giving us the founders of each bloodline as a legendary lord with Vlad being reworked to get unique animations like archaon did and be able to recruit empire units and vassalize empire factions (because he wants to be emperor) , lahmians should have the slaanesh seduction mechanic for diplomacy, blood dragons should basically be Vampires of Khorne with OP vampire infantry but with little to no magic like in the Champions of Undeath Mod. Necarchs should be all about buffing magic, and the strigoi buffing monster units. that's my take
Go Vlad instead of Isabella, he can lose to templehof faction leader and then farm him for BKs. This costs your campaign about 10-15 turns at the start, but you will unlock 3 bloodline lords before you finish templehof.
I am gonna say it. Nagash DLC. Thank you everyone.
Remember how the original WH3 developers thought that confederations should be almost impossible in WH3? We're still seeing downstream effects of that idiotic design philosophy.
*glares in Bretonnian*
We are waiting since WH1, you haven’t been around yet dear bretonnian
Not as bad as coast do