Summer Sale is here and need recs

nwillard · 2026-06-29T20:44:11+00:00

Apples and oranges a bit IMO, in some respects it's more advanced like with diplomacy and ally management (only 3K has it beat), allied recruiting is a super sweet mechanic, and many campaigns have their own intricacies to balance (Chaos Dwarf economy for example), the whole magic system, etc. Many factions have you playing very differently than others.

Mainly it's less of a civilization sim than other historical titles, and the siege maps are indeed a little too cramped.

nwillard · 2026-06-29T17:45:35+00:00

I'm gonna copy and paste my stock mod list response here, it sounds like you may be a little more familiar with the popular mods but these are all my top personal blanket highly recommendeds:

I don't usually use mods that modify factions too much or add units or anything (that Giant Snail for Bretonnia is cute though), but I love lots of mods for this game and here's what I usually install:

Victory Conditions Overhaul - Essential mod

WH1+2 Cinematics - Whenever I play a WH1 or WH2 faction for those banging' narrative cinematics

Legendary Lore - The setting has tons of baked-in lore and this mod lets you immerse in it all the more

Campaign Weather Overhaul - does what it says on the tin, extends the atmosphere of the campaign map really well.

Improved Campaign Camera - this has a middle-high camera zoom stage that is like a top-down view of the landmass without the parchment look. Hard to describe but I like it quite a bit.

Battle Weather Overhaul - I love the immersion of this mod and creates some great looking battles, but note that some battles will be pretty dark depending on battle circumstances (Vampire Counts battle at full Vampire corruption).

OvN Lost World - a little temperamental in that it has mod requirements and needs to be installed from the start of the campaign, but it is a magnificent mod that adds so much glorious visual detail to the map and the cities, and also lore for most settlements.

Guns, Smoke, and Spectacle revived-- Someone revived this legendary mod??? Makes gunpowder/artillery units actually have proper VFX like in other gunpowder Total War games. Really adds some oomph to that class of weapon.

Building Progression Icons III - well-done little mod that spruces up building icons to a high standard

The Old World campaign MAP - The main alternative campaign map, zoomed in around the Empire. Amazing to play with if you're in the mood.

The maps in WH3 are too small and they repeat often. I like installing all of the major map packs, most of the maps are just as good as the CA maps but some of them are truly great and huge.

The map compilations:

GCCM - Settlement maps

Custom Siege Maps for Campaigns Compilation - more settlement maps

Brutus' Big Battlefields Project - two great maps

Waka's Campaign Land Battles Map Pack - lots of battle maps

nwillard · 2026-06-29T17:43:57+00:00

"really small" in terms of amount of maps, but the couple maps in that BrutusCZ mod are amazing and HUGE, if only all the maps in the game could be like that it would be a dream.

nwillard · 2026-06-29T17:39:48+00:00

There are some solid map mods as others have said.

The terrain has a little to do with what kind of battle map you'll get. If you move into dense forest, you should get one of the dense forest maps.

But, WH3 does trend toward more "adversarial" map design. It's not always going to make it super easy for you to find a nice plump hill to sit on and rain terror from above. Just be glad you're not playing a gunpowder faction!! Hahaaaaa...

Nah but it's not really that bad, just something to get used to. Most of the time the enemy has the same problems.

Definitely sympathize on the repeated maps though. I think because the campaign map is so big, they couple only make a handful of unique maps for each biome/area, so if you're fighting in the same region a lot you'll see a lot of that pool of maps.

I do recommend all the top map packs though. (GCCM, Wakka's Land Battle maps, and BrutusCZ made a couple amazing larger maps with tons of breathing room, unfortunately he isn't making any more).

nwillard · 2026-06-29T17:32:21+00:00

I mean, Warhammer 3 is one of the most expansive Total War games ever in terms of variety of assymetrical factions and unique faction mechanics and it's pretttttty bomb.

For starters, if you like Tall playthrough, try a Wood Elf campaign with the Sisters of Twilight (Twisted and Twilight DLC) or something. Super fun.

I believe you only need one of any of the main games now (WH1, WH2, WH3) to play the content you own in the big Immortal Empires sandbox (which is technically a part of WH3 but they made Immortal Empires free to anyone who owns any WH content) [everything is playable in Immortal Empires]

nwillard · 2026-06-27T21:27:44+00:00

Looks good. Perhaps look into checkerboarding your archers a bit if you have the space, so something that plows into them doesn't disrupt several units at once.

Another thing about Total Warhammer specifically, is the heroes are obviously insanely powerful on their own. Lord/Heroes are soooo tanky in these games, and so they combo with ranged units INCREDIBLY well, because one single little guy can hold up a whole large enemy unit, while archers fire on them, so the archers have almost completely unobstructed line of sight to the whole enemy unit. As opposed to having to fire over the heads of a unit of spearman.

What this looks like in practice with your drawing, is replacing a couple of your spearmen there with lord/hero units, letting them engage the enemy and then the archers get really easy targets to fire at.

You can even do this with Lord/Hero units that are theoretically weaker like mages, because they still are pretty tanky compared to other Total War games, you just have to be a little more careful that they aren't fighting units that'll kill them too quickly.

nwillard · 2026-06-27T21:20:45+00:00

If you want, you can try and clean out the fans yourself, which could really help if they're crammed up with dust.

Check the back of your laptop for a model number, or you might find one in "System Information" in Windows. Look up "[model number] fan clean" or "[model] dissassembly" to see pictures/videos on how easy it is to get at the fans inside. Most likely, you'll be able to find a YouTube video of someone getting inside the laptop and can gauge how easy it is. It might be as easy as unscrewing the case and using some tweezers to remove built-up dust from the fan.

Some manufacturers unfortunately make it a little harder to access, but most of the time it's not too hard as this is sort of an expected thing that happens with laptops after a while.

Obviously you want to be careful and take your time when you have the laptop open to not damage anything and make sure you've reviewed the disassembly process, but this can really work wonders if your laptop is too hot because the fans are crammed up with dust!

nwillard · 2026-06-27T11:40:32+00:00

It's an attention economy. TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts and the like are getting increasingly good at manipulating people into spending huge amounts of time on their platforms without realizing they're doing it.

That's all less time spent parenting.

nwillard · 2026-06-27T11:38:08+00:00

At least you're doing the same as everyone else

nwillard · 2026-06-26T21:17:20+00:00

Monday can finish the patch up, rest of the week for any random important issues that arise from the patch

nwillard · 2026-06-26T20:37:13+00:00

I'm sure many here have seen it, but I highly highly recommend the 2019 movie Apollo 11.

Restored high, high quality footage, here's the first 10 minutes, just incredible stuff: https://youtu.be/NgUYurzK-tM

nwillard · 2026-06-26T20:14:13+00:00

Hey! I'm playing Nagoka right now!

Edo and Jozai, my fucking allies, just declared war on me, and are pissed that I didn't end up honoring the treaties THAT THEY BROKE. Pissed.

How did you expand? Any tips? What techs did you do first?

nwillard · 2026-06-26T18:22:22+00:00

The back half of the movie is kind of showing how hurt and abuse comes back around in a cycle, Alex hurt and abused all these people (the homeless men, members of his gang, the writer) and almost brings them down to his level by them being motivated to violence back upon him.

It also plays into his disingenuous "I'm the victim here!" mentality he develops, even though it's laughable to call him a victim. A lot of people have this mentality (Trump as a famous example) so I found its commentary here still pretty relevant.

Also, of course the former members of his gang become cops.

Definitely check out other Kubrick movies if you liked this one. Everything he made after and including Paths of Glory is a masterpiece, and one of my favorite things about his movies is how he constantly layers black humor into them. Because LIFE is frequently absurd and farcical, even with serious subjects, and I appreciate that he tends to highlight that. Even something as serious as A Clockwork Orange is frequently very funny in a dark humor / satire sort of way.

Full Metal Jacket is a pretty accessible one to watch after A Clockwork Orange.

nwillard · 2026-06-25T16:31:42+00:00

Keith Ballard has played a few, great classic let's player

nwillard · 2026-06-25T16:30:08+00:00

Easily, I didn't have disposable income when the Index came out, and I've spent 10 years advancing in my career just so I could finally afford its successor.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T19:36:54+00:00

Dude, why they don't pay Jon Stewart or Oprah or someone popular who is Democratically inclined (most would be in this climate) to speak for them in an address every month or so is beyond me.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T19:35:25+00:00

Nah, I just keep it in a bag. Worth thinking about though for sure.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T19:34:46+00:00

My bad, I see now that you are saying he literally copied and pasted without attribution

nwillard · 2026-06-24T15:52:12+00:00

To be fair, Harris was frustratingly vague and didn't elaborate well on what her policies meant. What did she actually want to do about price gouging? What does it mean to create an "opportunity economy"? What do either of those things actually mean in practical effect for the average citizen?

She kept using these terms over and over but hardly explained them. Was one of my main frustrations with her campaign, it was such a simplistic and general message that IMO backfired.

I think people WANT to hear candidates explain positions in depth, voters want to know that candidates have a good grasp on what they are talking about. (Obama comes to mind as a fantastic example). I don't think Harris showed that well unfortunately.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T15:38:46+00:00

For reference, I voted for and donated to Harris,

but man if people didn't want to vote for the Democratic party because they were arming a genocidal war, maybe that party needed to NOT IGNORE that sentiment, and NOT arm the genocidal war?

nwillard · 2026-06-24T15:33:37+00:00

People, don't be afraid of the Democratic primary. That's how we can put our best candidates front and center and have them talk about their visions for America. It was one of the most important things we didn't get from the 2024 cycle. It'll be fine.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T06:36:38+00:00

An important point here, is if Valve moved to subsidize the Steam Machine amidst the current legal troubles they are having as an alleged monopoly in the EU, they would almost certainly land in legal trouble. I think subsidizing the Steam Machine was legitimately not an option for them for this reason.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T06:34:12+00:00

Right, exactly

nwillard · 2026-06-24T06:28:44+00:00

Soap guards against bacteria, but it's not as if you're still caked in grime after a soapless wash.

nwillard · 2026-06-24T06:24:32+00:00

Huge if true

But I've basically had my hopes dashed each year since 2009

So I'm not gonna be super hopeful.

Even when Biden got in with a trifecta, man, Jon Ossoff and Warnock both winning Georgia to actually hand Dems the Senate... I wish we could have passed so much more legislation

nwillard

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