We know predevelopment for Warhammer 3 started at the latest March 2018 from this blog post
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/wttwo-03-18/I acknowledge that Warhammer 3 will be bigger with more faction variety at the start than Warhammer 1 or 2 so it makes sense for more time needed. However 4 years seems a bit much.
This will be the first year since 2014 that CA has not released a new Total War Title and Rome 2 was release in 2013.

There was 16 months between Warhammer 1 release and Warhammer 2 release so they probably spent maybe a year on Warhammer 2 production. We are looking at 52 months between release of Warhammer 2 and 3 and 4 years of production. Perhaps in hindsight putting a little people onto the Warhammer "Team" would have been a better idea
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Besides, what does it matter how long has the game been in development? It's been delayed to early next year, not 10.
- Anonymous
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12 · 13Disagree 12AgreeSeperate teams for sure. No one ever doubted that. But seperate most certainly never meant equal.
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5 · 4Disagree 5AgreeThe Saga games are actually benefitial to TWH since they are used as test beds for new mechanics that can be latter added to the main games.
- Anonymous
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5 · 5Disagree 5AgreeWhat I'm curious is, if we have a Kislev which is mostly made up of weapon variants for a small selection of units (and lots of bears), and we have Khorne reusing 40% of its units from Warriors of Chaos/Beastmen, then what have CA spent the past 3 years working on for TWW3? There's a part of me that's hopeful they've done something unexpected, or the game is incredibly well optimised, but otherwise there's this question that hangs over my head whenever anyone speaks of TWW3, and I find it a struggle to get interested in its release.
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2 · 6Disagree 2Agree- Anonymous
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5 · Disagree 5AgreeLooking just at the diferent teams as exemple: they are so many ways they could split up.
- Workers changing project time to time so the core TWW3 team is more or less filled up ?
- Does CA put all workers on one project at a time ?
- Do we have a separate DLC team and TWW3 team ? Or are they shared ?
- How many dev were at the beginning of production ?
etc...
Talking about the production, we don't know how this is managed too :
- Did they put all effort on TWW3 at the beginning ?
- Does the production increased as time passed ?
- Did they put all effort since last year ?
- etc...
Even if we know that the game has been in production since 4 years and CA have different teams working on different projects, their management is unknown. So as only forum members, it's hard to say if it is efficient or not.
Edit : I just want to add over this, that like @JungleElf said, Covid passed too, and it would probably have slowed the production.
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1 · 7Disagree 1AgreeBy the way, Troy having a Mythos mode is the proof that an historical team can do a fantasy game. It's litteraly the same skillset.
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0 · Disagree AgreeNow, incomplete rosters, no sea battle, no army painter, probably another shrank ME map, probably a copy pasted diplomacy system, no fully synced combats, no graphical improvement. So exactly 3-4 years for what? Core game at 2016, final one 2022. Isn’t it too late?
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4 · 6Disagree 4Agree- Anonymous
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0 · 2Disagree AgreeYes, they could’ve released WH3 a year or 2 after but we’d be getting the 4 Chaos Gods only as well as no VCoast, no upgrade for the BM/WE, no cross DLC Empire/GS and no TSatB.
Do I care they’ve built the trilogy more carefully with a lot more content? Don’t be silly.
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2 · 1Disagree 2Agreeyeah fantsy team was helping them even a little bit
#givemoreunitsforbrettonia, my bret dlc
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1 · 3Disagree 1Agree- Anonymous
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0 · Disagree AgreeHow I know you are wrong? You don't know **** about what the game is going to have at release or how the development has been or anything.
You are just a little person thinking that it's big because it shouts very loud.
- Anonymous
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3 · 1Disagree 3Agree48 months and counting. 7 LPs, Tomb Kings and Vampire Coast + several reworks + TWW3.
I only take issue with the ’a lot more content’. At least compared to TWW1s lifecycle I don’t think that is valid. Sure there’s lots of very good content in TWW2. But it did take them three times as long to push it out and I don’t think there’s three times the content.
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2 · 2Disagree 2AgreeFor game 3 it was the 4 Chaos Gods, Ogres and CD’s
I think we’ve got a lot more content than was originally planned.
Cathay
Kislev
VCoast
BM and WE upgrade
Empire GS upgrade
DE vs Skaven
Possibly 2 extra detailed FLC
And that’s just the stuff we are aware of.
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4 · Disagree 4Agree