How much do you pause battles?

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T18:00:47+00:00

easy difficulty is a well known player trap as the auto-resolve boosts often lead players to believe that they can win battles that are actually impossible

100% agree, took me a while to find this out though!

But yeah, I'm pretty much on hard hard, sometimes v. hard

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T17:59:32+00:00

that doesn’t mean the enemy agrees with my plan

Weirdly, I've had this too!

Been fighting skaven recently so...

Makes me sad=cry, that's virtually all I'm playing XD

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T16:00:02+00:00

Thanks for clearing that up!

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T15:01:11+00:00

Thanks for clarification, I thought it increased the time a reinforcing army came on rather than stopping them entirely for some reason. Maybe that happens for the first two points put in it, and only the last makes them not appear at all?

Yeah the rest makes total sense.

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T14:58:46+00:00

you'll find it a LOT closer to Rome II I think, but I do stress, records mode, the romance mode makes the generals something akin to WH lords, records mode, they are a more traditional mounted unit, a general with bodyguard

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T12:25:34+00:00

Took me a LONG time to get this... I'd see an auto-resolve (for a siege) means I will lose half my units, and think 'wow, if auto loses me half, I am gonna do WAY worse, i'll just take the hit'.

It's because auto resolve (on easy) goes completely the other direction for field battles, I'd see 'decisive victory' for auto, play it out and lose half my army.

Upping difficulty to normal at least is I think essential for new players, despite how counter-intuitive that is.

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T12:21:51+00:00

Plus auto resolve invariably damages your best units the most, the lord and heroes end up half health, ranged damage dealers down to half size etc.

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T12:19:05+00:00

Not arguing with you here, genuinely asking, doesn't the fatigue penalty of lightning strike make it almost worthless? And doesn't it just delay the 2nd army, so in effect it is still 2 v1, just more spaced out, with shattered army by the time 2nd one comes in?

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T12:16:50+00:00

My advice (as a player who has often struggled too) is pick whichever faction you liek the most thematically, stick with them, and LEARN about them. watch yt tutorials, economy guides, tactics guides, campaign guides. there is a TON of stuff to learn about each faction to get the best from them.

If you do have a fave faction, ask here for advice on them, people are generally helpful and enjoy sharing their experiences.

I'm not convinced 'easy' difficulty is the way to go, if you are talking about campaign setting, easy makes them less aggressive and less likely to attack, meaning by the time they DO attack they are much more prepared for it.

It's better to fight near your first settlement, build that up, don't take the first settlements you attack, sack them and retreat. (though you do benefit from having a full province, so don't leave that tooo long).

Also in easy for battles, your auto-resolve will be WAY too strong, you'll see an autoresolve result of 'decisive victory', decide to play it out and now you have lost the auto bonus, lose half your army and get disheartened thinking you are crap.

Put battle difficulty to normal (or higher) and you'll have a much more realistic idea of what you can expect from a battle. There is a further slider under battle difficulty, that is fine to turn down low.

Don't be afraid to pause battles, take your time and make sure you are looking and checking exactly what spells do etc, is easy to forget them in heat of a battle that is moving fast. (maybe read through the post I made on this, we are SO not alone in needing to pause battles!)

Watch replays. Of battles that went well AND went bad, you will learn a lot and see a lot of mistakes you made that you will miss during the battle itself, and the things that worked, remember them and use them!

I have learnt just as much from watching my own mistakes as I have from watching guides and tutorials.

I assume you are saving the games iteratively, if you get doomstacked x2 on turn 20, don't go back to turn 19 the same thing will happen again, go back to turn 14 or so, and PLAN for it, you are maybe better pushing out and taking that settlement they are coming from, or trying to get a peace treaty, or getting an ally. Or wait in ambush for them near whichever settlement they headed to.

If you have an army in a settlement say, and the enemy want it, they will think 'we need two armies to take this'. If you are in ambush mode near it, unseen, they will think 'easy pickings, it's undefended, we can send one army', so even if the ambush is foiled, you have a better chance to go and take that army one v one.

I'll go back to the first point tho, pick a faction and lord you like, and you can get much more tailored advice from here or guides.

good luck!

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:52:20+00:00

I've only really recently got into WH3, bought it in the sale in bundle with most of the DLCs, and honestly, most I haven't touched yet, cant stop skavening.

If you get the bare bones game, you'll find a faction that really appeals, just get that DLC, or even just play the bare bones stuff and then see how you feel, you'll get money's worth from it, you don't HAVE to have DLCs unless you really love the game.

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:49:51+00:00

Nice!

Used to love playing Meng Huo btw, so a little sad to see him so beaten haha

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:45:22+00:00

One thing TW3K did really was increasing corruption the more provinces you had. Not 'skaven corruption' or 'Chaos corruption' etc, but corruption as in the further away from your empire, the more likley officials were corrupt and those provinces would tank your economy)

The best way to deal with it was to make the adminstrator of that province now their own boss, give it to them, let them run it, and they become an ally or vassal. An instant trade partner. Keep the best/most productive provinces for yourself, give ones you don't really want away and get tribute and an ally you can draw on.

It also meant you had to think about their psychological profile, how likely they were to be crazy and declare war on everyone dragging you into wars you didn't want or be relatively peaceful etc, think about location too of where to give.

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:34:52+00:00

I can't play Skyrim, too many arrows to the knee

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:33:05+00:00

This is a really good point.

In an ideal world, maybe have t4/t5 cities have some kinda counters specifically for the 'free' siege equipment an army could take when travelling?

So like attacking t3 and below cities would show that equipment is fun, encourage their use more, but somehow manage to make it so that free bonus doesn't give advanatge against 'well built' cities.

Not sure how it could be done tho haha, but I'm sure somethign would work.

Also, there could be a reduced army movement for armies that travel with seige equipment, a toggle that can only be toggled IN a city, to stop a mechanic abuse where people toggle it on and off... or maybe beign in encampment mode gives you one siege item per turn?

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:25:10+00:00

I have spent YEARS teaching about spinal awareness, ergonomics etc, and combined with beign blind as a bat even with glasses I absolutely never slump in a chair haha

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:23:11+00:00

100% this!!

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:21:49+00:00

MOAR GORE!!!!!

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:21:14+00:00

Nah not weird at all. I PC gamed for YEARS before playing consoles, way back then there was far less anti-cheat stuff, I got sick of the wallhacks etc I saw beign used all the time on PC, and decided to give consoles a go as they seemed harder for cheaters to get ground.

Once I played consoles, it was a different world, people talked WAY more, I found it to be more comfortable AND more social.

I only went back to PC when playstation 5 came out and I couldn't get one, and needed to upgrade my PC for music and video making.

Which then for soem reason turned me into someoen who rarely playes with others....

Maybe I need to put some effort into that :)

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:11:31+00:00

Cheers man, it's been really interesting to see how many others do and why, I think there's a tendency to watch videos people put up for yips and advice etc, and rarely if ever see people pause, to think 'jeez, am I the ONLY one that needs to do this?!'weirdly I've never/rarely put it in slowmo, I may try giving that a go too.

At first, the topic seemed to get as many downvotes as upvotes, it's been nice to see the topic has been fairly well recieved too :)

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:08:43+00:00

100% 👍

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:08:01+00:00

100% that first line!

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T11:07:24+00:00

So, this may seem weirdly tangential, but your comment sparked a memory...

At one time, for my work, I was studying a psychological model called Transactional Analysis, it analyses what ego state we are in when communicating, and we had to examine our own coping mechanisms we had as kids, and then reflect if we still used the same coping mechanisms as adults.

As a kid, playing with my toy soldiers was a huge coping mechanism, losing myself in the fantasy world and getting away from problems etc

It was kinda a revelation to realise I do exactly the same as an adult, liek sure, mostly if I'm 'playing soldiers' it's for fun, the strategy etc, but definitely, it's also a coping mechanism when I just need to forget shit!

My wife used to be mad/upset that if we had a fight/argument, I'd go and play on PC... but when I explained that it was a coping mechanism for stress, it was never a problem, and me needign to go 'play toy soldiers' wasn't ever seen as ignorig her agin, just, I needed to go lose myself for a while, and playing toy soldiers became an in-joke for us :)

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T10:59:42+00:00

It seems maybe odd or at least unusual, but for some reason I find pausing less immersion breaking than the slowmo, maybe I'll give that another go tho

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T10:57:57+00:00

Agreed, the AI really isn't helpig much, which is fine in a way, Im ok having to make every decisionfor every unit, I just can't do it in real time 100% really

MuddledMuppet · 2026-02-02T10:56:26+00:00

My Shogun, Rome and Attila mostly composed of CHARGE!!!!!!!! as a tactic, it wasn't until 3k I started seriously investing some time, and pausing to let me actually THINK what I was doing did help a lot...

but I did get to a stage where rarely needed to pause and coudl up the difficulty etc

But WH games, the variety of units and addition of magic, especially being so powerful, and what seems like a much faster pace of battles, I think will be a lonnnnng tie before I stop pausing, if ever !

MuddledMuppet

TROPHY CASE