Does anybody else feel like WAAAGHS! are quite busted?

Processing#6286

Maybe it's just me, but every single GS faction is constantly dominating the map. Honestly, I don't find it fair that you double the amount of armies for 20 turns (which is bloody lot) for... free pretty much.

That mechanic was OK in game II because it was bugged and it reduced your movement range by 50%. The bug is now fixed and it kinda blows having to fight GS on Legendary (I have no problem with other factions).

Ai usually gets 2 full stacks and then calls the WAAAGH! which creates another 2 full stacks - How exactly are you supposed to counter that with 1 or 2 armies?

The problem is that WAAAGH! strengh doesn't really scale - sure, getting a full stack of gobbos and orc boyz later in the campaign is not a big deal, but early game, where your ACTUAL armies are gobbos and orc Boyz is basically doubling your army number for free...

This is very much an early game mechanic that gets weaker and weaker as you progress your campaign, but the thing is that in ANY Total War game I have played, early game is the hardest and late game is the easiest. What I am saying is that it's better to have strong early game mechanic than a strong late game mechanic - just look at Nurgle for example.

Nurgle has his cycles and recruitment which greatly benefit late game campaigns, but both of them are rather expensive and suck early game - which is the hardest part of the game and we have already established that any faction is strong in the late game.

Anyways back to WAAAGH! my supposed changes to system: (either, not both)

(Easier, but less favourable): Very simple change - make the WAAAGH! give you half of your army instead of exact copy - eg. A full stack would get 10 units, a half stack would get 5 units

(Harder, more favourable): Make it cost based - The WAAGH! strength would be half the cost of your actual army - eg. If your army value of units is 20 000 (that would be pretty much a stack of basic trolls or big'uns), your WAAAGH! would be of 10 000 cost.

The latter is better because spamming loads of trash armies won't favour building fewer stronger armies and it scales with the game length - early game you would get weaker WAAAGHS! while late game you would get stronger WAAAGHS!

What do you guys think? Do you also find GS overwhelming in campaign? Do you think WAAAGHS! are fair in their current state?

saj1987#4378

So my experiences as far as GS go : Skarsnik dominates Thorgrim and the mountains in general consistently in my campaigns and the rest of the race is hit and miss depending on RNG.

As far as WAAGH goes I don't have a problem with how they are. If you ambush the "mother" army the waags won't reinforce and gets destroyed with it, so that is one counter to it.

Lastly I personally prefer the races that I actually like fighting to be doing good and establishing big realms, in my case GS and VC.

Processing#6286

saj1987#4378 said:

So my experiences as far as GS go : Skarsnik dominates Thorgrim and the mountains in general consistently in my campaigns and the rest of the race is hit and miss depending on RNG.

As far as WAAGH goes I don't have a problem with how they are. If you ambush the "mother" army the waags won't reinforce and gets destroyed with it, so that is one counter to it.

Lastly I personally prefer the races that I actually like fighting to be doing good and establishing big realms, in my case GS and VC.

Hit or Miss? I have never seen Grimgor, Skarsnik and Wurzag not be within first 5 strengh ranks.

Grom is usually (not always) dominant in Bretonnia and it's true that Azhag dies early, but that's because he's sandwiched between Kislev and Dwarfs, arguably the best autoreolve factions in the game.

Plus Vlad doesn't like him either.

saj1987#4378

Processing#6286 said:

saj1987#4378 said:

So my experiences as far as GS go : Skarsnik dominates Thorgrim and the mountains in general consistently in my campaigns and the rest of the race is hit and miss depending on RNG.

As far as WAAGH goes I don't have a problem with how they are. If you ambush the "mother" army the waags won't reinforce and gets destroyed with it, so that is one counter to it.

Lastly I personally prefer the races that I actually like fighting to be doing good and establishing big realms, in my case GS and VC.

Hit or Miss? I have never seen Grimgor, Skarsnik and Wurzag not be within first 5 strengh ranks.

Grom is usually (not always) dominant in Bretonnia and it's true that Azhag dies early, but that's because he's sandwiched between Kislev and Dwarfs, arguably the best autoreolve factions in the game.

Plus Vlad doesn't like him either.

I'm just sharing my experiences. I've seen Grimgor do ok, but I've seen him get eaten by kholek and even greasus, so hit or miss. Grom tends to get all of southern and central Bretonnia early but then collapses and gets destroyed. Skarsnik is super consistent.

Experiences vary and honestly I can't even say what might be causing this. For example I see people complaining that vassals are usueless, my experiences are that I can't play WOC because it gets too easy. The moment I have 2-3 vassals, they can have 1 minor settlement each, doesnt matter they start facerolling the AI hard. Experiences vary.

As far as WAAGH goes maybe they could play with the rng a bit because facing a waagh stack that has 4 arachnaroks (I've seen that) early game can indeed suck big time, especially if you're a faction that doesn't have a strong early game but mostly I don't mind it.

MalalTheRenegade#5644

The 50% movement range reduction was part of the mechanic and not a bug.

So if this penalty disappeared, either that's the bug or worse CA made a new balancing decision which has a bad effect on the game.

Kannabyss420#5579

They're a little hit and miss.

I've seen campaign where Grimgor is no.1 becuse he just kept getting successful waaaaghs! I've seen campaigns where every waaaagh has failed and there's not a greenskin in sight. My overall thought is that GS's are in a pretty good place now for a game 1 faction, like Dwarf's are.

Yes, they both could use more stuff, but I wouldn't say that GS or Dwarf's are in dire NEED of anything, especially not a nerf. Both seem pretty strong to me atm.

GloatingSwine#8098

I've not seen any massive amounts of greenskin dominance.

I think the AI get their WAAAGH! too fast, faster than a player could. But they also never use the in-battle WAAAGH! ability either.

Itharus#3127

There was a bug in game 3 where AI Greenskin factions were basically insta-popping Waaagh! as soon as one ended. Didn't they fix that recently, though? If not -- that's your problem. AI has never played by the same Waaagh! rules as the player though.

endurstonehelm#6102

Waagh's are fun. It is cool to see a ton of greenskins on the battlefield.

If you are playing the battle and not auto-resolving, you should be able to handle the extra gobbos and boys.

It does mean you have to be more careful, though. As you may be facing a LOT of greenskins early on if playing dwarfs.

#97244

I personally enjoy the challenge early game and do not see greenskins dominating every game.
What seems to happen is they get a Waaagh and overextend themselves and if they do not do it well then they end up getting pushed back and wiped out later by all the new factions they met when they overextended. Only one I have seen to be doing consistently well is grimgore.

If azhag goes south and crooked moon goes north at the start I have seen them become quite strong but only then.

Bloody hands always expands like mad and then gets pushed back because they can't maintain that many enemies.

Grom always expands decently but like someone else said gets smothered by empire, wood elves, undead, and brettonia in the long term unless he allies with ikit.

Grimgores got the best of it. Surrounded by factions that either focus to the east like cathay or other greenskins to the west. neutral ogres to the south. Chaos to the north who I rarely see at war with him.

Playing as karaz-a-karak, I had crooked moon dead by turn 6 or 7, something like that so if you play aggressively you won't have a problem with waaaghs. Wipe out the army that has the waaagh. Do not believe new ones get it if waaagh was going already.

Fingolfin_the-Golden#2157

Skill issue, sorry.
Answer - get good.

Pede#6322

Sorry but I find it so funny when you Legendary difficulty players complain about the game being too difficult xD.

I mean sure GS Waagh stacks are strong, but if they frustrate you because they are strong, then lower the difficulty before you complain about them.

Fingolfin_the-Golden#2157

Pede#6322 said:

Sorry but I find it so funny when you Legendary difficulty players complain about the game being too difficult xD.

I mean sure GS Waagh stacks are strong, but if they frustrate you because they are strong, then lower the difficulty before you complain about them.

It’s what the mechanic is meant to do.
Create a big waaaagh army.

You are exactly right, if the OP is having too much difficulty trying to beat one race, they definitely need to consider reducing the difficulty.


Or - get good.

Fingolfin_the-Golden#2157

‘How exactly are you supposed to counter with only one or two armies’?

Who says you as the player is only allowed one army?
What on earth are you doing?

#55244

I haven't seen the GS dominate in my campaigns. Skarsnik seems to do fine. Grimgor and Azagh usually disappear. For Grom and Wurzzag it's seems to be a bit of a dice roll. If god factions in their area stabilise and unite they usually get eaten. Though both manage to consolidate some provinces around their starting area.

ameland#5391

In all my recent dozen or so campaigns Skarsnik and Grimgor have dominated, always confederating other Greenskin factions along the way. Skarsnik in particular paints half the Old World map in his colours on every single campaign without fail.

A couple of potential fixes I thought of:

a) Make it so only Legendary Lords have the Waagh army, after all they are the ones inspiring others to join their cause.

Or:

b) Make it so Waagh armies have no elite units.

endurstonehelm#6102

saj1987#4378 said:

Processing#6286 said:

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Experiences vary and honestly I can't even say what might be causing this. For example I see people complaining that vassals are usueless, my experiences are that I can't play WOC because it gets too easy. The moment I have 2-3 vassals, they can have 1 minor settlement each, doesnt matter they start facerolling the AI hard. Experiences vary.

On the topic of experiences varying, I have to agree that I have noticed some discussions by people with varying points of view. Partly, it may be because people have played different versions of the game or with mods, or just prefer to play different factions. I like Archaon, but I do have to agree that vassals seem to prevent counter-attacks on my lands. Even if the vassals don't spread out and conquer, they help to hold the lands and prevent counter-attacks by the AI.

Tennisgolfboll#5877

If greenskins doesnt wipe their main adversaries the first 70 turns they are deadmeat. The dawi autoresolve will destroy them. The skaven rolls them etc.

Buff ai greenskins late game.

bli-nk#6314

ameland#5391 said:

In all my recent dozen or so campaigns Skarsnik and Grimgor have dominated, always confederating other Greenskin factions along the way. Skarsnik in particular paints half the Old World map in his colours on every single campaign without fail.

A couple of potential fixes I thought of:

a) Make it so only Legendary Lords have the Waagh army, after all they are the ones inspiring others to join their cause.

Or:

b) Make it so Waagh armies have no elite units.

Maybe only Faction Leaders and LLs. So when you confederate you can gain new Waaagh army because Greenskins can snowball pretty damn quick as every existing army gains a Waaagh army when a new Waaagh is called. If you manage to raise 3 armies of gobbos by turn 15 you can get 6 armies of gobbos with the first Waaagh, which is quite a lot even if they are mostly gobbos. Bu turn 80ish or so the free Waaagh army barely affects the AR result and while it can tip close battles, it is rarely useful.

Alternatively I've wondered if Waaaghs should only go to the Faction Leader/LL and then gain +1 additional Waaagh for each successful completed Waaagh of each size for a total of 4 Waaagh armies if successful Waaaghs have been completed for all 3 power ranks.

The benefit would be each Waaagh type completed gives a boost to the type of Waaagh units which appear so while Waaagh armies start weaker and fewer, as the game progresses more Waaagh armies that are more powerful become available and to get the best Waaagh army requires completing a Waaagh on a top 5 ranked faction.