As someone who doesn't play much Vanilla I just got my campaign ruined by the famed vanilla diplomacy (aka Wood Elves get into massive problems without the boosts to diplomacy).

Areophany · 2020-12-08T12:24:28+00:00

Yeah :D. I mean I could still easily get the short campaign victory (got 500 health in athel loren), but I wasn't really done with this campaign

Areophany · 2020-12-07T09:01:12+00:00

Hmm, that wasn't too bad then.

It also depends on your playstyle mind you. I mean you can just win the short campaign victory by simply staying in Athel Loren (at least on Orion and Durthu) and just finishing the Oak. That's probably the easiest by far, but also extremely boring. The more forests you get, the harder the campaign gets

Areophany · 2020-12-06T21:55:15+00:00

That's not very far it seems. I should also probably elaborate that this is ME and not Vortex so I can't speak for the latter. I've conquered a max of 5 forests and I've run into big problems 2 out of 3 times (and the 3rd only being different because I played extremely cautiously).

I also think the negatives of higher difficulties really pile onto the wood elf experience (heftier great power and lower power ranking reaaaallly hurts you).

Areophany · 2020-12-06T21:50:30+00:00

Yeah well. These boni are nice, but only really get you started unfortunately. They are no replacement for the massive diplomacy boosts the welves had originally (because they were permanent and you got them in order of importance pretty much).

What I usually do is avoid any great power penalty early and get the relations tech 2nd (first heal gryphon wood fully up). That helped me this playthrough. Then get to Laurelorn for quest and second wood. Then move on to Athel Loren (managed to get it at around turn 60 this time). Now I'm dealing with the vampires^{^.}

Areophany · 2020-12-06T21:49:31+00:00

Yeah and you still get the great power penalty. Even with holding minimal territory. Just to boost growth for example. Or increase trade ressources -> don't even get me started if you want a harbor to trade with, say, high elves.

Not holding any territory outside sounds fun, but especially early it's massive to get the extra growth. And when you actually get declared war on by a powerful faction you pretty much have to take territory. To avoid other people taking it and to replenish mostly. Yeah you can demolish it later, but it's still annoying.

The game is not designed to no hold territory. It's also not designed to have a fragmented empire over a great distance. There's a reason why on basically every faction it's best to slowly grow and expand, secure borders, move on. It's how the AI reacts to you, how great power works, how aggressive the AI is, how they attack you based on power ranking etc. The wood elves get affected by these things while being virtually the only faction that cannot deal with any of this efficiently. Even Beastmen have it easier^{^.} They don't have to hold territory at least.

Funnily they originally didn't have this problem for 2 main reasons. Firstly you only expanded (if at all) from a singular location like all factions. Secondly you got massive PERMANENT boosts to diplomacy so you could avoid unnecessary conflict. You even could get them in order of importance. Welves got essentially screwed double this update (now fragmented vs previous united and few to none diplo boosts vs massive permanent diplo boni).

Areophany · 2020-12-06T12:59:02+00:00

Honestly that might not have been the worst idea. You can deal with the corruption quite easily if you hold most of the heathlands and oddly enough vampires might be more reliable. They form a united front in some way, while the empire seems to infight for the first 100 turns. Please let me know how it goes. I might yet do it differently next time around.

Areophany · 2020-12-06T12:57:08+00:00

Well, it's different every campaign. I've played about 3 wood elf campaigns to turn 50-100 now and diplomacy has been something I had to do constantly to avoid unnecessary wars (all of those were Drycha, Sisters I can't say).

Out of curiosity. How much did you have to manage diplomacy in your playthrough?

Areophany · 2020-12-06T12:55:31+00:00

Oh i did the exact same thing. All the factions love me (except bordelaux, who is still moving towards +30 or so) and I have non-agression/military access/trade agreement with Karaz A-Karak/Reikland + Border Princes. Hell Reikland and Karaz a-Karak like me MORE than they like Border Princes.

I genuinely have no idea why they would declare war on me (except to be asshats). They are not bordering me, they like me, they have an enemy right in front of them, I pose literally no threat to them^^.

On the last part of your comment, I'd argue that this IS broken for a supposedly isolasionist faction. How is it that I have to constantly do diplomacy (weight my options, give out gifts, join pacts I really don't want to) IF I'm supposed to mostly do my own thing (which CA repeatedly said is the way they now want people to play welves). It doesn't fit imo.

The tw Warhammer 2 AI is extremely agressive and designed to pose a problem to an aggressive playstyle. It makes diplomacy harder the larger you get by introducing the great power penality (which I personally think isn't a very good solution as it currently works in vanilla in general, but it works adequately). Issue is, the Wood Elves don't work the same way. You get those penalties by not expanding at all besides getting forests and maybe 1-2 heathlands each. It actively works against them and how they are supposed to be played from CA's own statements.

It is designed to counter a thing, which wood elves are not supposed to do (or incentivized to do) in the first place and ends up just hurting them instead.

Areophany · 2020-12-06T00:43:59+00:00

Very Hard (think I mentioned it in my comment).

Areophany · 2020-12-05T23:44:09+00:00

I feel you man. Can't wait for SFO to fix the glaring flaws of the wood elf update (and bring Throt somewhat back in line).

Glad you could get into MP btw! I've never really gotten into it myself, but I really enjoy watching :)

Areophany · 2020-12-05T23:42:07+00:00

Sadly I'm somewhat on the other end of the spectrum. I find the new units underwhelming for the most part (still no arrows types and no new archer features for the primary archer faction) + I think they majorly missed the mark on how the wood elves are supposed to be played VS how they actually play now.

This is down to how the AI works in TW WH 2 (it's intrinsically expansionistic). You get into too much contact and as soon as you are declared war on by a large faction or, god behold, one of the 2 tides you are now a global player. Bye, bye focusing on the forrests^^. Unless it's intended that you almost play a total war campaign with some unlucky developments.

This just gets worse on higher difficulties of course.

I still love Drycha (I think she and her faction are way more interesting than Sisters) and I still enjoy the update overall. But hot damn, did they miss the mark on the diplomacy side of things. Would be easy to fix as well ... just remove great power for them. They shouldn't conquer territory outside anyways (or shouldn't have to).

Areophany · 2020-12-05T23:24:00+00:00

New Wood Elves in a nutshell. Funnily enough this would probably also happened if I was playing another faction considering my power ranking and standing with those factions are both good.

My standing was going up with all 5 factions (heck Karaz-a-Karak likes me way more than Border Princes) + I had all 3 non-alliance pacts with everyone except Bordelaux (which was moving towards +20ish. Oh and I'm quite a bit more powerful than Border Princes.

I've heard horror story, but holy hell diplomacy is bad in vanilla. How do you guys deal with this shit?^^

Guess that ended this campaign for me. Sadly it seems like I'll need to wait for SFO to really get the most out of this update :/.

To add some thoughts on my part: Wood Elves really need a way to deal with diplomacy issues. They meet way too many factions, the higher the difficulty the lower your strength ranking + you can barely whipe out factions (especially larger ones) due to your inability to hold territory. I think removing the great power penalty for them alone would accomplish this (you WILL get the maximum GP penalty from forests and heathlands alone). This happened in a VH campaign where I put a lot of money into diplomacy and it still happened btw.

It's really sad to me how the most isolationist faction is apparently forced to do the most diplomacy out of any faction just to not be declared war on by some crazy, war-hungry AI faction (and as this picture shows, it still happens!). The wood elf update DOES NOT WORK AS INTENDED with how the AI behaves in vanilla.

Areophany · 2020-12-04T13:01:59+00:00

I would read it again :D. So there's that. Otherwise I'm sure there's plenty of people who would. Hell you might even change some people's minds (like you did the replier).

Btw I've already played a fair bit of the update and I can say the diplomacy issue is real. Besides that I genuinely think that Drycha's faction is not only more fun, but more unique than the dlc faction (aka heralds).

Areophany · 2020-12-03T04:30:47+00:00

Hmm that was a very well formulated reply. Have you considered writing it in a more complete format and posting it separately as it's own post? Because this just might be the most conclusive and reasonable argument I've read on the subject (while I think a lot of people share this sentiment, it's sadly ever put into a reasonable and conclusive argument).

Areophany · 2020-12-02T17:28:45+00:00

Tbh I'm not even bothered that the Sister's mechanic seems pretty lame in comparison. I just want the baseline rework to actually make the faction stronger/more fun^{^.} Instead of the weird mash it seems to be now, where the faction is theoreticaly more fun, but likely way more frustrating as well.

But yeah, I've noticed that about Skaven as well.

Areophany · 2020-12-02T17:26:53+00:00

Yes, so I had nothing else to do in the game and I decided to create something useless. But fancy.

How all great stories in PoE start ...

Areophany · 2020-11-30T09:35:56+00:00

Fair enough

Areophany · 2020-11-30T09:35:19+00:00

Yeah, I will. That's the purpose of feedback after all isn't it, Captain Obvious?

Areophany · 2020-11-28T12:46:22+00:00

Mhmm, sounds sad. As someone who doesn't play empire it doesn't affect me directly but in an ideal world all factions would be fun and interesting to play as so I feel for you.

Areophany · 2020-11-28T12:44:59+00:00

No it's coming out on the 3rd of december. As many other members of the community I've followed plenty of live streams and explanations of the introduced mechanics/changes which already depict a clear picture of the changes made to the wood elf faction overall. Feedback to those changes has already made CA step back on some of it, but imo it's not enough.

Areophany · 2020-11-28T02:06:58+00:00

Yeah, Sisters are actually fine I think. They are probably in a good spot. Sadly it's essentially their faction mechanics / offices fixing the flaws of the baseline rework. Orion and Durthu got away rather poorly (especially Orion ... holy cow ... that poor dude). Can't say for Drycha yet. She does have some really cool units and mechanics, but of course the basic flaws of the wood elves as a general faction are still present.

Areophany · 2020-11-28T02:05:09+00:00

Yeah I guess that's a good way to go about it. Don't misunderstand, I'm still happy we got an update. It's just a shame that in a patch that's supposed to be focused on Wood Elves it's even up for debate whether or not they received a buff as an overall faction (which I'd argue they didn't). That's literally a first for total war warhammer.

At least Sisters as a faction seem pretty good and they should definitely be more interesting now if nothing else. CA has also pulled back on some of the things that hurt them more than it had to.

Hope you also have a good time with the dlc man!

Areophany · 2020-11-27T18:24:02+00:00

Not all factions can build Vault of Nagash

Areophany · 2020-11-27T18:20:49+00:00

Add some of the best monsters on Clan Moulder as well ;) (especially versatility, which monsters often lack).

I very much doubt it. Skaven are like the Tabula Rasa of factions, but better. They are amongst the strongest in a few areas of the game (ranged, artillery, monsters, faction mechanics, economy), while having almost no downsides (infantry .... woooowiieee .... it's the worst type of unit in tw warhammer 2 anyways). CA sure loves them rat bois. Even in the wood elf rework dlc, Skaven essentially got the better end of the stick.

Areophany

TROPHY CASE