This entry wasnt written normally and is closer to a free writing journal entry that took place over a week
ive had decided to make this place my AAR diary of my warhammer campaigns.
today i tried the realms of chaos campaign again as grand cathay.
its so cool creative assembly did so well with their games Games Workshop said FUCK it go ahead and make a whole fucking faction using our flavor text used to fluff out the world.
anyway grand cathay is the best human faction ive played by far
just a monsterously well rounded roster
infantry can actually do damage outside of simply being a wall of steel meant to hold the line
the missile units are better than any other human faction aswell
the cavarly is mid but mid is pretty alright since most of your enemies you really dont want to charge head on, best keep as a pest control unit
artillery is also amazing if not a bit short range but it damage output is so damn good
seriously just the empire but better on every facet except cav
the mega units are very good but with just base game i only get 1 unit in that category
terra cotta warrior but make it the size of a gundam and give him a goku power pole
it fucks hard
as for the flying units theres a top tier (as in the highest level building to make) cav which is okay, being flying really helps it but its still regulated to pest control to let my real damage dealers (artillery and archers) FUCK SHIT UP
then theres these silly air ballon/ship units based on chinese lanterns
one is probably the biggest waste of money in the game
the other puts the really good artillery piece flying in the air, has gunners in the basket sniping pretty far and also if somehow you get it too close to the melee it can drop a large bomb on the ground below it
the only real flaw in the roster is the hero and general units outside of your legendary guys (aka unique faction leader) are really squishy and cant really help your melee units hold the line, theres some fun spell casters but really alot of times you need your leader to hold it down in melee
(this is fixed with like a $5 dlc that will add a melee hero and melee lord that fill this exact role but while ive enjoyed my time with cathay i dont see myself playing it alot more after this campaign, i rather play with the much more flesh out units i spent years nerding out with)
anyway this isnt necessarily a bad thing, it kinda reminds me of the much older total war games where i wouldnt even have a general in the army and some random capatin will be made head of the army on a piece of shit cav unit that i would have to protect
anyway as for my thoughts on the campaign itself
i did not have a good time the last time i tried the Realms of Chaos campaign, mostly because the realm of tzeentch is actually utter bullshit (imagine trying to solve a medium sized portal puzzle but with a limited amount of movement and a running countdown) and also playing with kislev is hell on earth with the chaos factions on every side of you poking and probing
Cathay is a much much more easier faction because you have the fantasy great wall (also kinda stealing from GRRM with the empire of the dawn lore) where you have 3 massive fortresses that act as choke points for you and the game incentives you to actually put real armys to protect it aswell. where once you have the fortress under your control you can just hold it down, with that trivializing your enemies incursions against you.
personally i do like the set goals of the campaign, every 20 turns or so chaos rips holes in reality and portals to hell open up all over the map, your legendary lord must enter these portals and traverse the 4 chaos gods personal realms of hell to kill their champion daemon. and i think they did a pretty good job of making each realm match with the themes of each god. (for tzeentch you do a bullshit puzzle, for nurgle you take in the wonderful sites of his garden, khorne puts you in the thunderdoom and makes you play a nice big halo 3 FFA, for slaanesh he makes you walk all around to get a good look at you and offers you tantalizing gifts to be a good little boi.
BUT there is one huge problem, the final fight to kill their champion. in a vacuum its fine
you have to trodge through a large map capturing points and then defending them along the way till you reach the end of the map where you have one final huge fight. this is a fun fight, you get this regular RTS vibe going where you collect points by killing enemy units and capturing and holding areas that will allow you to bring in more units (and you will need to bring in more units, i think i fully cycled my full stack army twice doing the khrone and nurgle fights. as in they fought till they all died and got resummoned again from spawn points, TWICE) that ends with you killing their daemon champion. all this is well and good so whats the problem. well each of these fights took me 90 MINUTES. after the neat cutscene i got i immediately got up went outside and smoked a cigarette because thats just what i do after getting so thoroughly SKULL FUCKED. the rts aspect is my favorite part of total war BUT this left me totally brain fried. having a balls to the wall 90 minute battle where my faction relys on me keeping good formations to keep the whole army in sync actually left my mind numb.
ANWAYS
im only half way through the campaign so we will see whats left for me
finished the realms of chaos campaign
a god died and we made him use the last of his essence to tell the celestial siblings about their sister in the chaos waste.
once again the big fights were very much the same, big long map to get through and hold positions as my army makes its way to the final demon
after killing all 4 chaos champions i was once again treated to a wonderful same style fight
but at this stage of the campaign this style of battle is really easy. all the struggles i had in the beginning of the campaign faded after i picked up 2 heroes (that im like 90% sure able to be gotten by any human or dawrf faction) gotrek and felix. (fun book series) also by turn 70 i had my top tier buildings and by turn 90 had all my best troops on the field in mass. so the 2nd half of the campaign is a snowball. very satisfying for your power fantasies kinda mind numbing otherwise. it was fun to just steamroll chaos armies after fighting tooth and nail against them in the first half. was even able to launch my own expedition against them and burn their settlements to the ground so they wouldnt bother me and i could just turtle in my side of the world and focus on the main quest.
on a side note i read up on the how the portals to hell work and to my surprise i was not stupid for once. the tzeentch realm was actually bullshit. basically creative assembly didnt program the AI to solve the puzzle and instead made it so that if they enter 5 portals, they solve the puzzle no questions asked auto win. this meant when i was playing the first time i only had 5 turns to hone in on the correct portal jumps to solve the puzzle before i would get kicked out of the realm when the AI went through its 5 random portals. they have since patched this bullshit to where it must go through 8 random portals before it auto wins for them. making the puzzle alot less stress.
overall for the gameplay i appreciate a campaign thats smaller in scope but with much more detail for the region. though i will have to play another campaign that doesnt put me in the corner of the map. that is what im keying in on for making the campaign so easy in the 2nd half. i do not remember kislev being this easy.
i think its cool creative assmebly got to make a real story in this. the first daemon prince be'lakor captures a god, manipulates one of that god's servants into mortally wounding him, and then feasts on his power to enact revenge on the chaos gods and the world at large. good shit.
overall im glad these games exist for me to be a little spazz about. for a little context, the entire setting of the games basically got wiped off the face of the earth back in 2014 (its called The End Times). we're talking about decades of books, lore, and tabletop minis being thrown to the curb. the setting from which the titular "warhammer" comes from simply no longer exist. on top of that its handled BADLY, character assassinations, lore retcons, your favorite character is now a jobber on the level to vegeta. shit sucked. anyway 2 years later the first total war game will come out, a year later the 2nd comes out and it comes with a hemisphere sized map to include both maps, the 3rd is released in 2022, a world map campaign including every faction from ALL 3 Games is released a few months later. its basically a nerds wet dream come true. getting to play in a sandbox of your favorite fantasy setting made by a developer that actually gave a shit and respected source material. the games are packed with these tiny little references, some to army book lore from 1993. its crazy. anyway the successs of this game series and vermintide i 1000% believe leads to warhammer fantasy being revived in 2024. the fantasy setting i became enamored with when i was 12 is back, does it make me a marvel soyboy for being happy when glup shitto lord gets announced as dlc? probably. but from time to time, i think its good for me to just let myself be happy and fill my thoughts with trivial things like high fantasy video games
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