Chaos Warriors - Hard - Impossible to raise new army and other problems

McThrustin

After having some success as the Huns in TW: Attila, I have been trying to give the Horde-mechanic Chaos Warriors Faction a go of it.

However, I have been struggling to get a Chaos Warriors Hard campaign going (after restarting several dead-end attempts) and I'm starting to feel like it's less my play style and more to do with how the AI and the mechanics make it extremely difficult to get some momentum going. Couple this with even the small bonuses the AI gets on hard and it becomes very, very frustrating to play.

From what I understand, in the early campaign you are encouraged to 'unite' the northern tribes by Awakening them. While this is relatively easy at first, the fact that 'awakened' tribes are military allies and not vassals greatly reduces their utility. The first tribe you can awaken, the Bearsong, become military allies but they are at war with no one, so you can't set a coordination target even at Kislev. You instead have to bribe them with your pathetically small reserves and hope they will join in the war. Continue this on west through the rest of the northern tribes and the 'awakened' tribes become even less useful as they start declaring wars on each other and forcing you to choose sides.

I think the solution here is to awaken them as vassals so you can help coordinate them towards your foes (i.e. the other northern tribes) and unite them under your banner for a truly coordinated Chaos emergence. Even if vassalage is too much, at least make them start at war with the tribes you are at war with then you awaken them.

My second big problem as Chaos is that it's nearly impossible to raise a second army (at least on Hard). Every single time I have attempted it, I will get one or more enemy armies start to home in on it like a missile, even from across the map! They somehow knew of its existence even though they could not technically 'see' that area of the map. One example is that I had 2 full-stack Norscan army chase my newly created second army (Which consisted only of the Legenary Lord at this point) throughout the northern wastes, even through hostile (to the Norscans) enemy territory in which they were taking Winter/Chaos corruption attrition (somehow barely causing any damage to their roster however). The only way to avoid them was to take to the sea. Eventually, I got caught in a trap on both flanks and was annihilated. I can't keep the army close enough to main big army to defend it because of the ridiculous attrition you take when having armies too close together (A problem which does not appear to affect the AI when they play as Chaos Warriors I might add).

Both of these problems add up to make the Chaos Warriors a not-fun slog where you are constantly struggling to survive, even in late game. No momentum can be built, and you will be extremely lucky to raise more than one army. I think solving the issue of the awakened tribes will go a long way to helping get the Chaos Steamroller going while having at least a safe haven to fall back to should you need, and a safe place to start raising secondary / tertiary armies. Doing something to make the proximity attrition a little less punishing would be welcome as well.

Lexi_CA

Moved to Feedback

Hi, I moved your thread so your points can be discussed further. Thanks for posting and please post any other feedback you might have here in the feedback section of the forums to be reviewed

endurstonehelm#6102

This is a difficult problem. There are some solutions, but they are potentially less than ideal.

First, I've found that you can have a maximum of two stable Norscan allies if you are not using vassals. One Norscan ally with 17 provinces, and the second with two provinces (bearsonling, etc.). If you try to have more than one ally in the 17 provinces on the left side of Kraka Drak, then they will eventually go to war with each other. It is to the point that I only start with Sigvald as a LL, as his conditions for recruiting while appearing easy actually are more difficult than Archaon or Kholek, as awakening four allies makes a mess of the 17 province area (six Norscan factions with four awakened, Skaeling, and Varg)

Second, the AI should only be able to target troops it can't see if it has a quest (similar to the Player).

Raising new armies can be done, but you need to use your other armies to defend the newly raised armies. So you want to be close enough to defend, but far enough away to avoid infighting unless you are bringing both armies together to smash an enemy.

Combat_Wombat

Early on if you don't play it safe, you're done. Its easy to get forced into a corner and ganged by 3 armies. Running away IS an option. Later on after plenty of sacking and razing, your main army should be top notch and a second army is easy at that point because all you need to do is toss a bunch of really good units into the second army so it doesn't get stomped. Even then, running away is still an option. Currently I'm at 4 full sized armies with mostly top tier units and a 5th at about half with marauders so let me be the first to tell you the game mechanics are all set up in a way that make it hard as hell to play. Its still manageable but means more sacking and less waiting in place to grow the horde. Shouldn't be ever sitting in place anyway even when you're recruiting. And as a reminder, running away is ALWAYS an option. Don't stick around if you're being chased by 4 armies.

Ignore all the awakening/vassalizing/alliances with the tribes. They are nothing but cattle for you to slaughter. They are money and horde growth. That is it. The only reason to let one tribe grow go control all of norsca is so they can run armies down into the human lands and lay waste to it all.

There are many ways CA can improve Chaos as a faction and there are already plenty of posts for those. For you however, I think you need to just rethink your strategy because clearly it isn't working. I'm not trying to make this into "git gud" but I'm playing on VH with most of the map colorless because I've made it so. I don't consider myself the most competent player either so there's gotta be something your just missing and I hope you find it because Khorne save you when Tzeentch sends his birdman your way.