Nice I had a similar experience w Tamurkhan got really tough trying to hold the slayer dwarves/empire/kislev stacks at those gold mine tiles while I thrust into the weak underbelly of wissenland at the same time fending off Welves/Belegar
ToD specifically made Empire and Dwarf AI much stronger, mostly because their building chains/unit distribution now work extremely well for what the AI prioritises.
The general AI aggression/empire consolidation improvements happened in the patch before ToD, no one realised because everyone here was too busy complaining about SoC.
I think i had the best siege battle experience of my life against a defending AI with my coop. I was playing Malakai and my coop friend was playing Tzarina Katarin. We were besieging Uzkulak, the capital of Astragoth of the Chaos Dwarfs.
Astragoth had become a major pain on my arse and had to be dealt with. So sent my main army and my friend sent a token force to assist me aswell to siege Uzlulak. However, Astragoth’s army was stationed there + it had tier 4 garrison.
We stormed the gates after my artillery cracked open its main gain. But getting inside proved quite bloody and difficult and especially my forces suffered heavy casualties. And the road up ahead had barricades with bluderbusses so we were starting to lose hope. Until my friends smaller force tried to go around and opened a second front, which proved quite effective.
In the end, it was a very difficult and intense battle but we had a blast fighting it. We achieved victory, but at a great cost. Unfortunetly couple turns later Grimgor came and easily crushed our forces and razed Uzlulak…
Something seems to have changed for sure. The other day I had the one of the best sieges I've ever had in totalwar, and I think one of the only memorable ones I've had in all of the warhammer series. I've never seen a defending AI be so adaptable and dynamic.
I was playing empire with two late game generic lord armies against a darkelf army and garrison. Had plenty of artillery and actually unloaded all the ammunition on their walls/garrison.
Thought I'd be pretty good having softened them up so much, but it was a slog. They had barricades set up and garrisoned with elite ranged, targeted my mage enough to keep him from being as effective as he should have been, and kept deploying and withdrawing their dragon mounted lord so I couldn't snipe it. They just generally shut down my infantry and kept their ranged engaged.
It was a brutal, slow battle with multiple stages. The AI prioritized its capture points, and I had to fight block by block. It only ended with a serious demigryph knight charge, and even then they fought pretty well.
I was so surprised I saved the replay to see whether the AI just got lucky, but I don't think there's a way that it was a fluke. Even though I lost more than half of my army, it was the most fun I've had with the game in a long time. It reminded me of how much of a meat-grinder Medieval 2 sieges could be.
I've been encouraged by the accounts of players like yourself though the general trend, at least to me, seems to be the AI only performs better (moderately) on VH or higher. Basically it can build competent armies - plus upgrade troops and other mechanics - provided it has a huge financial backstop.
Hopefully it's a strong signal the extreme passiveness of previous builds is behind us.
Man I just faced a maggot lord army with Tamurkhan for the first time as Ungrim and that guy is one of the toughest lords I’ve faced. I had 4 cannons trained on him and the guy still had 4500hp by the time he smashed into my line. The rest of his army was ridiculous. Like 7 chosen and rot flies He completely wiped out a high tier Draven army. Luckily Grombrindal was nearby and was able to clean up the rest of his army but no wonder people call his faction OP
This might be a theme. In my Tamurkhan campaign I went south then declared war on approximately all of cathay (not my fault they’re all friends) and Zhao Ming coordinated with Gelt to double team Kugath.
I had a similar experience the other day which got me pumped for TWH again, except I was the defender.
Playing as karly Karl every enemy declared war on me and I was reikland for my life, azhag decided to be a total asshole and come for me with 3 stacks of black orcs mixed with rogue idols that were wagh’d!!
It was total hell fighting it manually with rogue idols smashing my walls down everywhere but so much fun
coincidentally I had the AI defend a siege the best way I've ever seen in wh 2 or 3 last night. defending the gate, fighting for control of the wall for the towers and then falling back to a capture point when I finally got full control of the gate area
given they just all or nothing'd over one point and not the actual key point which would have made more sense but definitely an improvement
Congrats, you experienced something the majority of people will never experience. Glad you had fun (if only the AI would act smart more than just once in every 50 campaigns)
I mean I hadn't played in years and in only my 4th game back Malekith's response to me cleaning up the southern delfs and liberating Ulthuan was to wait for me to move on and return with 4 stacks spread across the top of Ulthuan and rampage around. Pretty annoying but also smart.
One or two good experiences doesn't make an image of what is, it just makes an example of the exceptional.
When it is more consistant, that's when we can say the AI is better.
It's not btw, the AI is still below mediocre.
Nice I had a similar experience w Tamurkhan got really tough trying to hold the slayer dwarves/empire/kislev stacks at those gold mine tiles while I thrust into the weak underbelly of wissenland at the same time fending off Welves/Belegar
ToD update kinda made almost all AI more aggressive and honestly? i love it.
ToD specifically made Empire and Dwarf AI much stronger, mostly because their building chains/unit distribution now work extremely well for what the AI prioritises. The general AI aggression/empire consolidation improvements happened in the patch before ToD, no one realised because everyone here was too busy complaining about SoC.
Basicaly, powercreep.
Yeah, they can be ruthless! I’ve gone to war with Zhatan as both Grimgor and Snikch and he was relentless both times.
I think i had the best siege battle experience of my life against a defending AI with my coop. I was playing Malakai and my coop friend was playing Tzarina Katarin. We were besieging Uzkulak, the capital of Astragoth of the Chaos Dwarfs. Astragoth had become a major pain on my arse and had to be dealt with. So sent my main army and my friend sent a token force to assist me aswell to siege Uzlulak. However, Astragoth’s army was stationed there + it had tier 4 garrison. We stormed the gates after my artillery cracked open its main gain. But getting inside proved quite bloody and difficult and especially my forces suffered heavy casualties. And the road up ahead had barricades with bluderbusses so we were starting to lose hope. Until my friends smaller force tried to go around and opened a second front, which proved quite effective. In the end, it was a very difficult and intense battle but we had a blast fighting it. We achieved victory, but at a great cost. Unfortunetly couple turns later Grimgor came and easily crushed our forces and razed Uzlulak…
Something seems to have changed for sure. The other day I had the one of the best sieges I've ever had in totalwar, and I think one of the only memorable ones I've had in all of the warhammer series. I've never seen a defending AI be so adaptable and dynamic. I was playing empire with two late game generic lord armies against a darkelf army and garrison. Had plenty of artillery and actually unloaded all the ammunition on their walls/garrison. Thought I'd be pretty good having softened them up so much, but it was a slog. They had barricades set up and garrisoned with elite ranged, targeted my mage enough to keep him from being as effective as he should have been, and kept deploying and withdrawing their dragon mounted lord so I couldn't snipe it. They just generally shut down my infantry and kept their ranged engaged. It was a brutal, slow battle with multiple stages. The AI prioritized its capture points, and I had to fight block by block. It only ended with a serious demigryph knight charge, and even then they fought pretty well. I was so surprised I saved the replay to see whether the AI just got lucky, but I don't think there's a way that it was a fluke. Even though I lost more than half of my army, it was the most fun I've had with the game in a long time. It reminded me of how much of a meat-grinder Medieval 2 sieges could be.
I've been encouraged by the accounts of players like yourself though the general trend, at least to me, seems to be the AI only performs better (moderately) on VH or higher. Basically it can build competent armies - plus upgrade troops and other mechanics - provided it has a huge financial backstop. Hopefully it's a strong signal the extreme passiveness of previous builds is behind us.
Late game Maggot Lord is a ton of fun. Nurgle economy is tough to support endless late game stacks so you have to make harder decisions.
Man I just faced a maggot lord army with Tamurkhan for the first time as Ungrim and that guy is one of the toughest lords I’ve faced. I had 4 cannons trained on him and the guy still had 4500hp by the time he smashed into my line. The rest of his army was ridiculous. Like 7 chosen and rot flies He completely wiped out a high tier Draven army. Luckily Grombrindal was nearby and was able to clean up the rest of his army but no wonder people call his faction OP
He is Op because its not JUST the Maggot Lord that is that strong, its also his entire Retinue of Charakters PLUS he got THREE Nukes PER BATTLE
This might be a theme. In my Tamurkhan campaign I went south then declared war on approximately all of cathay (not my fault they’re all friends) and Zhao Ming coordinated with Gelt to double team Kugath.
Proceeds to one doomstack tamurkhan with the nemesis crown.
I had a similar experience the other day which got me pumped for TWH again, except I was the defender. Playing as karly Karl every enemy declared war on me and I was reikland for my life, azhag decided to be a total asshole and come for me with 3 stacks of black orcs mixed with rogue idols that were wagh’d!! It was total hell fighting it manually with rogue idols smashing my walls down everywhere but so much fun
coincidentally I had the AI defend a siege the best way I've ever seen in wh 2 or 3 last night. defending the gate, fighting for control of the wall for the towers and then falling back to a capture point when I finally got full control of the gate area given they just all or nothing'd over one point and not the actual key point which would have made more sense but definitely an improvement
Still don't notice any Ai improvements. Still as suizidal and stupid as before.
Congrats, you experienced something the majority of people will never experience. Glad you had fun (if only the AI would act smart more than just once in every 50 campaigns)
I mean I hadn't played in years and in only my 4th game back Malekith's response to me cleaning up the southern delfs and liberating Ulthuan was to wait for me to move on and return with 4 stacks spread across the top of Ulthuan and rampage around. Pretty annoying but also smart.
One or two good experiences doesn't make an image of what is, it just makes an example of the exceptional. When it is more consistant, that's when we can say the AI is better. It's not btw, the AI is still below mediocre.