This Total War system has always bothered me

[@LegendofTotalWar]

I know people are a bit annoyed about the long disclaimer. I would have put a time stamp but I really needed people to hear that as much as they might not like it. I've done this kind of video before without disclaimers and it's made the videos efforts go completely to waste due to the bad faith actors straw manning the arguments. So far the disclaimer has worked quite well. There has been no post on reddit and the conversation has been pretty civil. Some people are disagreeing and that's completely fine. I have removed a few comments that were arguing against points I didn't make but that's fine if it's contained here. In future I don't think I'll need to do a long disclaimer and since this video is doing very well I probably will make another critique. Let me know in the replies here if there's a total war system that really pisses you off and you want me to dismantle it.

[@98cents]

The only thing that triggers my autism is when you upgrade a settlement to tier 2, it will sometimes move the building in slot 1 to slot 2, and maybe even again to slot 3 when upgraded again. I usually build the same buildings in the same slots in multiple towns/cities, and it bothers me when one town has the buildings in different spots. Annoying bug that has been around forever.

[@Archmister]

It feels like the only people who can be angry about it are those who don't understand a game design at all. Disclaimer was too long, yeah, but the message is more significant for it being undermined by people focusing on unimportant stuff.

[@mgs85]

No doubt, I get it, your last video about the TWW3 discussion showcased so much intellectual dishonesty and bad arguments from the community. Total shit show out here.

[@Garret007]

All good. My biggest issue right now would be that vassals or sometimes even military allies (at least for one of their armies) should have it their top priority to fulfill my war coordination target, whatever that might be. Doesn't matter if it means death or attrition for that army. Or that once it got damaged, the army will retreat, heal up but then go straight back to fulfilling the mission.

[@reedofwater]

It all sounds good to me man.

[@griff_the_boxer]

“With a basic, shit settlement…” Nottingham citizens: 😭

[@Grubnar]

... and it is the birthplace of Warhammer!

[@MrAH2010]

Could be worse, could be Birmingham

[@Grubnar]

@@MrAH2010 "The Black Planet [Birmingham] has almost no visible light and due to that no one wants to go there. The population has become both linguistically and culturally isolated." It could indeed be much worse.

[@GCOSBenbow]

As long as you take a stab proof vest, nottingham is a delightful place. Lots of nice hotels, coffee shops, parks etc.

[@nhaaaPl]

@@MrAH2010 Or Stevenage

[@Judgeharm]

if you have the ability to not soil yourself when someone has a different opinion to you the video starts at 6:30. I don't blame Legend for starting his videos that discuss specific features with a large disclaimer that can essentially boil down to "don't be intellectually dishonest and try to understand other viewpoints"; his detractors have consistently shown there is no depth to which they will not sink. But it is a bit annoying to listen to as a functioning human who can have a disagreement with someone and not instantly try and ruin their day. Not that I disagree with anything legend suggested as a change it is a really good idea that he proposed to have more unit choices from the base settlement building.

[@paddya3304]

Is Legend specifically targetted or is that just reddit being reddit (refuge of the worst kind of fan boys and fantasists)?

[@Rafalskimi]

@@paddya3304 Mostly reddit being reddit. Anyone who ever voiced even an ounce of criticism will invariably get unjustly dismissed or attacked by the worst reddit mobs.

[@Judgeharm]

@@paddya3304 I think that Legend gets it a bit worse because according to some he plays the game 'wrong'. He plays hyper optimal, with a lot of things like only 1 unit type in 6 different armies or 1 wizard getting 20k gold value turn 20. I have seen many say that this personally affects them because CA will then code the AI to try (and fail) to counter these hyper optimal play-styles. So it is seen as Legend 'ruining' the game for others. Which is insane. So as a result anything legend says is taken as a personal slight.

[@ZytphenA]

You're a scholar and a gentleman!

[@chalisblur]

Thank you

[@Вейн-э5б]

The real Total War Warhammer was the player traps we stepped into along the way.

[@WakingUpThirsty]

Now I'm gonna post on reddit about how Вейн-э5б said we need MORE player traps ahahahahaha

[@lordtitan3651]

It still bothers me that all the building icons look the same no matter what tier they are. Edit: Yes, I know there are mods that fix this, I use them myself. It's just a shame that this is not something that is in base game.

[@Killerkwoi13]

There’s loads of mods to improve this but agreed the base game should have this feature where the icons are grander when you upgrade them

[@George_Rakkas]

Building progression icons mod fixes this but yeah it's ridiculous

[@lordtitan3651]

@Killerkwoi13 Yep, I'm a huge fan of the mod Building Progression Icons III. You spend a significant amount of time during a campaign managing your settlements, so it's a huge shame CA hasn't implemented something like this already.

[@lordtitan3651]

@George_Rakkas Yep, one of my favorite mods. Such a small detail and yet such a big impact in my campaigns imo

[@justinlast2lastharder749]

I mean...some don't. But the big huge Roman Numeral in the top half of it is different atleast

[@olafthemoose9413]

I do agree on tier 0 units dominating most early campaigns. I usually entitely skip tier 1 units too and then start recruiting from tier 2 and 3 for most of the game from midgame onwards. I think the RoRs are supposed to be the "mercenary" equivalent in twwh3, filling out the ranks. Problem is RoRs (and similarly recruited units, like blessed spawnings or elector count units or ogre mercenariea) are way more valuable as emergency units due to how instant recruitment works. + why get RoRs to pad out the depleted ranks when you can just recruit tier 0 units in newly conquered settlements anyways.

[@scrollexdestiny]

uhhhh rors arent atleast supposed to be filler units they are supposed to be just better units that have made a name (yeah sometimes they arent worth it but usually they are decently better to sometimes op) effectivly yeah they can be used as a critikal fast army

[@olafthemoose9413]

@scrollexdestiny quick to recruit on demand units that you can get while out on campaign sounds an aweful lot like mercenaries to me (atleast mechanically)

[@DillsyYourDaddy67]

They're supposed to work like veterans, elite versions of regular units, but most of the time they aren't worth it and like you said, they're basically mercenaries to fill gaps when you need a few extra units quickly. The RoR system is really disappointing honestly. It should have been made similar to Shogun 2 Avatar Veteran units but CA lacked the skill or effort to implement a system with an army painter like that

[@Tosnoob]

Yeah, HElves are the best example, there's no reason to not just go Archers + Spearmen for a big chunk of the early game until you get Silverin Guards (and even those are optional) and Sisters...

[@Rafael_Fuchs]

@@scrollexdestiny What something is suppose to be in lore, and how it actually ends up being in gameplay can differ. They're suppose to be the best of their thing, but the reality is they're mechanically just mercs you hire in a pinch.

[@Bladerxdxi]

It realy annoys me when I Take a settlement with a port, That i cant destroy it. On some factions a port does nothing and I cant even build something usefull instead

[@jackobn.m.g.4806]

Reasource port settlement when playing warrior of chaos 😢

[@thickrebar2634]

For real. Ive been so used to that i dont even think about it anymore but yeah sometimes ports are just useless.

[@sythrus]

Dont forget how the basic port doesn't have a tier 2, making it so that it exists in a weird limbo of the player not wanting to prioritize leveling the minor settlement docks

[@Gpjr55]

And lets not talk about how for most races docks don't even add garrison only income bonus and others it does give garrison like the High Elfs , tbh id prefer if docks were like a bonus slot ... the same with materials

[@sizzle9475]

Still don't know why they nerfed special ports . Erengard, Marianburg and similar settlements used to matter because they were a crazy good port. Now they are just a slightly above average economic province

[@LungDrago]

Variety armies are hampered not only by build slots but also by the skill tree. The red army wide buffs usually apply to one unit type only which often means units from one specific building chain. Because I'm maximizing archers with my red line skills, I build mostly archers and some frontline so they do not die and cavalry, monsters etc. go unused because I don't buff them and I don't have buildings for them either.

[@timothym9398]

Yeah,I was thinking, perhaps the skills should be separated by tiers of troops instead of type. Militia, professional, elite, rather than how they are now. That way you can get a broad variety of troops and not feel you're putting suboptimal troops in comparison to their lord. Plus I could see a fun transition halfway through where you have to build up a new general because you're transitioning from militia to professional troops for your primary army

[@LungDrago]

@@timothym9398 Yes, that definitely sounds like it would work better than the current system. Maybe there would be an issue of millita/professional being the only real choices and elite being mostly unused, because you get access to them much later and they're expensive. But it's not necessarily a problem of the new skills, it's more becauese of the nature of WH3 being too quick and because elite units are generally awkward to field - require weird buildings, take long to recruit, require a lot of cash.

[@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch]

That's part of why I use the mod for more skill points per level, just to upgrade more units and incentivise a variety of unit types. It's otherwise incentivising a doomstack playstyle.

[@Axymoon]

@@timothym9398 for some reason this never came to my mind, but as soon as i read your comment i was like, ofc that would be so much better.

[@aimerw]

I feel like the red line would be better suited to heroes and not stack (so, like a buff applied in an area around them). That way, you can have as many heroes with different red lines as needed. Then do something more interesting as a replacement for the lord.

[@stefanadler7015]

What bothers me the most is that once a city is fully developed it often becomes useless since it is at the center of your Empire. Sure I can build a new army there with all the big powerful punchers I want but then it takes 5 or 6 turns to get it t the frontline where I ACTUALLY need it. And with the AI having little to no restrictions on their army building. (Looking at you skarsnik and your 4 stacks of Skulkers and Nightgoblins). Its hard to match some of the other races fighting power. Especialyl in early game but Lategame too. The amount of times I wanted to scream cause I Conquered the northern Worlds Edge Mountains just to turn south towards Eight Peaks and find myself just outnumbered to hell and back by Clan Morrs is unreal. (Also Warp fire throwers are completelly unbalanced in Autoresolve so having to fight all those battles by hand is a slog.) Sorry for the ramble. I agree with Legend. Give us either nlimited buildslots or atleast all slots from the start so i can get to work on the units I need as quickly as possible. Funny enough that dwarves suffer from this a lot since there is many great buildings at tier 2 but no space to build them.

[@Spacemongerr]

Yeah, having all your upgraded military recruitment buildings half or even a whole continent away from where you actually need troops is a real annoyance

[@Stormer-vx5kw]

to be fair thats how it works in real life too (minus the AI shenanigans)

[@skypatrol250]

Funnily, chaos dwarfs suffer from this the least (but still do). Late game you can take a province capital, settle it at tier V, rush build a manufactory (and other buildings as necessary) and instantly be able to start recruiting a decent army wherever you are.

[@GrantClark-gs6my]

I felt this problem so hard on my recent Kairos campaign. Took so long to build the recruitment buildings for anything not a chaos warrior or a horror that by the time I could recruit anything high tier, the frontline was 10 turns away. Ended up with 8 armies of pink horrors. Kairos himself is a heroic victory machine, but every other battle got super boring real fast.

[@madelynreed1609]

I really enjoyed how some older games handle this - more developed provinces that are further away from the front line could have roads as an upgrade, or even a railroad in Fall of the Samurai (a FANTASTIC game you should play if you enjoy historical total war games). The more recent "hero general" who has to actually GO to a province to recruit units, rather than recruiting them and sending them somewhere, was probably meant to incentivize you not to have one single military province and a ton of economic ones fueling it, but I feel the logistics of the old style worked better, and gave you an opportunity to potentially ambush reinforcements (or have yours be ambushed!)

[@Glorfindeld2]

It's why I always have a soft spot for campaigns that have alternative recruitment methods. Rakarth, Markus Wulfheart, Throt, Nurgle etc are much more interesting and dynamic campaigns because of unit availability. The most recent new factions are outstanding for starting variety with Tamurkhan and Malakai and hopefully the next DLC continues that trend.

[@dhabu9017]

Agreed (this was one of the big reasons I like Nurgle); in addition, it favours races that can play well around chaff units, like Vampires with their super-skeleton endless armies etc (I also like VC, and this may be part of why).

[@sideways5153]

I think this might be why some of the campaigns I had the most fun trying as a new player were horde factions. Nakai and Beastmen might not have normal territory control or anything, but playing whack-a-mole with rival factions retaking settlements was a lot more fun than trying to figure out where to stuff all my essential buildings so that my armies can properly defend. Hordes get basically infinite building slots, too, so finances and tempo are the only opportunity cost to think about

[@Dwane77Loki]

Don't forget the vampire counts, you don't even need to invest in military buildings outside of for hero recruitment. The buff to raise dead was a great change for them.

[@zephurwallace9560]

Please make more videos like this. I really want Total War to be the best it can be and to do that people need to make reasoned critique.

[@MantisGod8815]

CA should absolutely not listen to this, they have been milking fans with garbage systems for years. Good, well designed systems would need more money and inspiration, it's all about the bottom line. LoTW will shill warhammer no matter what, he will always come back groveling to CA so they have no incentive to change. He will always give them free advertisement.

[@shadowblaster124]

I think people stopped the reasoned critique because Creative Assembly isn't interested in improving Total War games. They apparently make much more money off wicked DLC practices and art assets. If this weren't the case, 20-year-old games wouldn't be better than the games we have today. But they are.

[@Moritz19081980]

@@MantisGod8815 He made his hobby into his profession. Of course he will try to preserve that. Totally understandable and legitimate. But he isn't "groveling to CA". As far as I know he even has a difficult history with them.

[@Tagaloc]

I really LOVED the ability to get all buildings in the long run on Rome TW or Medieval 2. Having to choose what to get at each city has some strategic meaning, but it is strictly less fun. Really hope they revert this in the future.

[@denizozsakarya3378]

This is why I love Skavenblight aside from Ikşt being very fun. You can build absuper-city which fields armies all by himself,without ever facing an existencial crisis and in a very defensible position while surrounded by riches. Best part, you are free to build whatever you wanna build without sacrificing another.

[@skops7343]

Doubt it, it's been so long. It makes city building so simple it's incredibly boring 😢

[@ashina2146]

At the start it is a bit more strategic, but in late game it can be quite restrictive especially if the newly captured province literally has no buildings as you need to build it one at a time. iirc I once proposed a Building Manpower Mechanic for Project renaissance since the Developer wanted each province to have access to all building. Basically a Settlement would have 100 Building Manpower at first, where if you build a building all the manpower is used, if a Building needed 200 Manpower it will take 2 Turns for the Building to be build. However you can build another building, where the Building Manpower will be split so a Settlement Building 2 Buildings will give 50 Building Manpower for each building, so that 2 Turn Building now needs 4 Turns as the manpower is split.

[@rency1803]

When you consolidate your surrounding area the build slot thing is more annoying than challenging since you basically got everything you need. Plus if you are the kind of person who are not into role playing and trying units and just want to play for efficiency then some building will never get built because you have to prioritize slots for the good buildings first.

[@baconsoup8346]

I think they should make Tier 5 settlements have more building slots than how it is now, I actually like the strategic value the slot restrictions bring at earlier parts of the game.

[@Selvalis]

Can confirm it's in pharaoh, and its a bit worse since key economy buildings are in the settlement capital competing with the best recruitment buildings

[@Silath01]

Honestly I think the splitting of resources also makes the problem worse. I like have Wood Stone bronze ect but I never have enough building slots for them

[@saulinvictus1241]

You don't need recruitment buildings in each settlement, just a few in key province capitals in order to have good native units and your own faction good units (especially if they have some low value resource like wood or really easy to get resource like food) . The real problem is that most of the buildings are useless in some way or another and some resource types require quite a lot of buildings in order for them to become valuable (don't have enough experience but playng as Ninurta rn it really bothers me to make 3 separate buildings for bronze and waste like 14 workforce on them) while the others often don't have enough good buildings and you either have to build something you don't need or to not fill the slot entirely.

[@profhobo8681]

It's also worse because of the resource systems, where not all settlements can produce all resources you need. Idk what they were thinking with that one

[@rdgcury]

That's why I use unit caps for all, that mod is a bless, specially fighting against AI, it's so boring fighting an army full of a single unit, they even give extra unit cap for thematic lords, like Ungrim gets additional slayer cap.

[@philkim8297]

Whats it called? So many good mod suggestions from people in this comment section lol

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

@@philkim8297 Tabletop Caps

[@danielskipp1]

How about the excessive cost of high tier econ buildings? Except your first few settlements they're just not worth it, they'll never recoup their cost. Weird how devs have never noticed this.

[@Winston-lf7sb]

why would they? the lemmings keep spending tons of money on the dlc train. ca will simply never improve unless people stop paying them

[@Blowmyflute]

Yeah. Depending on faction, I just build pretty much everything to tier 2 or 3 depending on the ROI of the faction's built economy. A few core provinces and big outside cities to produce units. High tier economic buildings often need to be built for dozens of turns to recoup their cost. Gold now is better than gold later too so it makes no sense to me.

[@darimikalam8965]

Absolutely, I hate that the upgrades are like 2 or 3 times more expensive but only slightly more income which is fine when you have lots of settlements in late game but annoying in early game where you need to be more mindful of what you spend ur income on.

[@sentinel6059]

The same is true of growth buildings. For most factions, tiers 1 and 2 are all I ever buy. Tier 3 is far too expensive for a building that will be replaced the moment a settlement hits max tier.

[@КонстантинГребенков]

Yep. Absolutely agree on that one. It only kinda makes sense for the factions that can get a huge bonus % to their region/province income like DE or Tzeentch.

[@kevinslater4126]

What bothers me most is the computer knows where you are and has no fog of war. So they aim for your weakest cities and around your strongest armies. I know it's difficult to program and few games can manage it but it's egregious and there are ways to work around it yet they seem unwilling to.

[@zaleost]

It’s definitely something that’s also bothered me for quite a while once I started noticing it. I assume it’s due to the AI being unable to make an educated guess at what might be coming and scouting ahead beforehand. But it gets very annoying when it’s blatantly obvious it knows where your armies and this is also enables it to use forces March much more freely even deep with in your territory as it know when it won’t get caught.

[@ShantanuSuchil]

Thats why you build walls everywhere....If your weakest settlements are those you just conquered, you will actually have a proper border conflict.

[@doshmastercash1977]

The AI is easily exploited in other regards though, such as ambush baiting. I've lost count the amount of times Ive caught the AI sending a stack to attack a Lord with 1-2 trash units just to put the stack within range of my main stack that was hiding in ambush. If you fix the AIs vision cheats, then you also need to fix the ways the player can exploit its behavior, which I assume is very hard to do.

[@TheTigerus]

AI in Total War is very good at calculating your movement range and being annoying

[@paxluporum4447]

This!

[@CptKronoxGaming]

played warriors of chaos recently and really like the upgrade mechanik. wished for that for nearly all other races. also thought of a cool way to implement trade ressources to upgrades like you get wood, you can build bronze shield has additional iron you can get silver shields or so. nice video!

[@kevak1236]

Warband ultimate upgrade mod applies the 'warband upgrade' system to all races. It does make the game easier but also more fun IMO. Getting your starting unit of miners to Ironbreakers via promotions is very satisfying. It is open to exploits, especially with ranged levelling so fast compared to melee though.

[@truth6441]

Can we talk about the uselessness of there being ports in this game? There is no navy. Its not even that great for growth or cash and later on when the settlement is grown you are stuck with a building you don't need...and its forced on you in every coastal settlement which doesn't even make sense. And oh boy do they limit minor settlements in game.

[@itachiaurion3198]

Port used to be better but then CA took a rework on the economy and they are less desirable now. I have nos issue with the minor settlement, if everything was the size of a capital you would never do anything else than siege battle and it would be tireing very quickly. It make sense than not every city is big and can reach the maximum size.

[@olafthemoose9413]

@@truth6441 getting in and out of the water faster is nice upside but other than that ports are just okay eco buildings.

[@pnutz_2]

@@itachiaurion3198 pepperidge farm remembers the marienberg port funding entire armies on its own

[@truth6441]

@@itachiaurion3198 I have no issue with the limitations of building slots to minor settlements, my issue is with the fact that I can't choose to remove a port -- at the cost of the movement it provides --to choose something more suitable. The minor settlement is already restricted to 3 slots, with a port you're restricted to 2. A better solution would be to remove the port building from open building slots and incorporate it into the main settlement building so you can have all 3 open slots and the port but even being able to remove it for something else would be nice as an option. Either it should be combined into viable settlements or it should be open to being deconstructed at the cost of its utility in both minor settlements and provincial capitals.

[@truth6441]

@@olafthemoose9413 It is a nice utility where you need it, but so far away from the front its useless when it comes at the cost of a limitation to your building slots. I just want to destroy them and get the slot open if nothing else.

[@Maxidemt]

I totally agree. I always use increased build slots mods in my playthroughs. It is ridiculous that in vanilla I can't build all available buildings in capital.

[@JWSoul]

The idea is you have to make a choice. I see this as a non issue sorry.

[@Maxidemt]

​@@JWSoulI understand your concern but I am just greedy and want all without limitations hahah

[@StalwartTirith]

This, I seriously miss the old building style (M2TW). Arbitrary restrictions suck.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

@@JWSoul I already have to choose how to spend my limited funds and turns. Arbitrarily restricting what I can build where on top of that just feels "gamey". If I have the time and resources to build a huge super-city, I should be allowed to.

[@memeticvs6017]

@@JWSoul 🤡

[@Nick-mp1zh]

One problem with the economy buildings, is that it might cost you 1500+ gold to upgrade a money building from tier 1 to tier 2, and 2000+ to go from tier 2 to tier 3, with only a +100 gold bump each time from doing so. That means, depending on build times and other bonuses/negatives, it could take between 30 and 50 turns before you actually see a profit from investing in your economy. I've been having a good time with Dwarf factions recently, only holding on to a few really valuable provinces while selling all the other settlements I collect for huge profits, which I can then invest in the new Deeps buildings for huge profits.

[@zazoeobi]

I agree with u, but i dont see it like u do, i just want my income per turn go up so i can recruit an extra unit or hero and pay the upkeep

[@shadowblaster124]

@@zazoeobi But you could have paid for that unit and its upkeep for 20 additional turns if you didn't buy the financial building. You have the same units but less money.

[@bigquazz3955]

​@@shadowblaster124math is hard, and some people just don't like to see their income go negative.

[@Vinci480]

@Nick-mp1zh I think that would be an argument if it is not basically a necessity to instantly explode and conquer everything in reach from Turn 1. Basically fighting 1 or 2 battles and all of the costs you would incur, instantly offset by the armies you deleted in that turn. Especially if you have a strong roll in the beginning, it is so much more useful to buy these economic buildings and expand more and more, making the upkeep of armies easier, as more armies = more plundered and sacked gold. If these buildings would cost even more, or you wouldn't need to expand so quickly at the beginning, those costs might be something to consider.

[@TheWaffleRadio]

This isn't untrue, but at the same time you will exist for 30-50 more turns in basically all circumstances where the time to recoup your investment is relevant. By the late game, who cares really. I am sitting on 100k or more, getting a return on my 1000 gold investment in 20 vs. 30 turns is irrelevant. It's not wrong to point out, I calculate this sometimes playing the game. It's just not usually very impactful except for the turns where, if your campaign is over before the investment is repaid, it's because you've lost.

[@Matt-ln7lb]

On the WoC in particular: While the warband system does solve the issue of early game unit variety, it tends to result in the opposite problem in the late game, as the availability of units is just too low for the later stages of a campaign when you want to recruit more than 1 or two armies and unit quality begins to matter. It's also why the WoC AI factions completely fall apart after ~25-50 turns - once their main army dies, they can never produce another one of quality, and can't produce multiple armies near enough to support each other.

[@TheKaD23]

yeah... change one thing in one direction and it will most likely affect something else on the other side of the coin. On the other hand (unless we are talking about AI variety at the end of the campaign, which can be quite dull at some points) I do think this is a lesser death to take so long the player itself has more fun. But people would need to evaluate this one their own and for each case differntly.

[@patrickdaly1088]

The economy system itself may be a player trap. The fastest I was able to complete a Karl Franz long victory was turn 29, and I didn't engage with the economic system at all. The amortization times are too long, and if you're planning to win the game within 30 turns through military alone, the tier 2 economic buildings do not pay off before the game ends, making them a waste of money. The Franz strategy I found, you actually powerlevel Altdorf to tier three by about turn 7 I think it was(it's for the reiksguard building, prestige goes to the free growth point). Then upgrade no other settlements AT ALL, if you include the cost of levelling up to tier 2 settlement, and the times involved, levelling up settlements is money lost before turn 30. I found the value in shield spears to be enough to keep the troop building early, it was mostly b/c Franz needed them around turn 20ish. I did attempt with selling the building, and recruiting regular spears, but keeping the building ended up better in my testing. Armies usually represent a better return on investment than buildings, and also progress you towards the campaign goal. You have to run most of the campaign in the red, but the armies can keep you afloat b/c there's no infrastructure investment to speak of. That it is significantly more optimal to not engage with the economic system at all is a bad sign imo. I think not only are you completely right about setting the player up for failure (most starts I sell a building, disband a unit, or both) but I'd take it a step farther and say that the entire building system is fundamentally broken, and CA clearly understands it less than I do, which is sad considering I don't understand it that well. I don't have an answer, and my instincts were clearly wrong on some count because I would've made economics more powerful as a balance step, and you pointed out Medieval as a better version, with less powerful econ. I'm reminded of GWM/PAM from D&D, where something is so optimal players have less choice.

[@blaaaghy8300]

That's just how you play, concerning investing into cities I play quite the opposite from you it seems. Invest enough into armies to keep upgrading the cities with growth and economy and some recruitment. A slower play I understand, I've never finished a long victory on turn 29, but I like using most of the units available to me and that requires upgrading cities.

[@SpiceCh]

It's all about what you want to accomplish, I think. You can win the game early if you play savvy with your armies, but others enjoy the long haul, seeing numbers go up and building up to doomstacks. The regiments of renown help people who prefer faster playstyles at least have the option of seeing *some* higher tier units in their campaigns, if they want.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

Its not just with Empire. With most factions the tier 2 and tier 3 growth and economy buildings are very bad ROI, costing more than the tier 1 building and adding less growth and money. You are better off spending your money on more armies, going into negative income, and then sacking and occupying settlements to make money. This way you also gain income through conquest, your lords level faster, you complete quests faster, you gain items and followers, and you keep the factions around you small so you have less threats around you. Even investing in public order to prevent rebellions is a player trap, you are better off not investing in public order buildings, letting the rebellions happen, and farming them with a lord, the city garrison and maybe a few units if necessary, to gain more money and battle experience. In most of my campaigns I only build the tier 1 money and growth buildings in each settlement and only invest in upgrading the main buildings because they increase the free garrison size, and I do plan to play a bit longer than just the campaign victory conditions, I like to go to turn 80 or 100 or so before I get bored. Like you say if you only want the long campaign victory its faster to go full scorched earth, sack every settlement to tier 1 and keep it there. If it gets occupied by the AI thats not a big deal because its easy to reconquer it with how small tier 1 garrisons are. Which is another way that upgrading settlement tiers is a trap. If you invest a lot in getting a city to tier 4 or 5, it will take a lot of turns before you recoup your investment, and if the enemy occupies it during that period, it only goes down 1 tier, now you lost money and you have to use a big expensive army to fight a decently sized free upkeep garrison. The problem is that if the economy scaled better, then the game would be even more snowbally, and its already too much of a snowball. There should be much bigger penalties for large factions, both for the AI and the player. Like the corruption mechanics that older total war games had.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

Doesn't the fact that both options work point towards the system actually being quite balanced? Like, Legend is advising to build only economic, you're advising to build only military, and still you're both very successful in your campaigns.

[@rency1803]

I mean we have to take into consideration that not everyone will play the game fully optimally. The economic system is not a player trap, you dont suffer or detriment yourself for interacting with it. Just because it's not optimal for you to interact with it doesn't make it a player trap.

[@fatalisentertainment4631]

I definitely agree with your statement. I hate upgrading sertlements because by the time i am ready to recruit better tier 1 units, my main army is three provinces away. I feel like i play a majority of the early game with spears, archers, and magic.

[@LungDrago]

Literally the High Elves campaign experience, lol. Spears, archers and magic all the way to the end. The roster has the variety but you don't really have any incentive to get inventive aside from being bored to death with spears and archers.

[@fatalisentertainment4631]

@LungDrago I stopped playing as the high elves because of this XD.

[@NRSGuardian]

In the table top Warhammer game each faction had what were known as core units that you had to have a minimum number of, and could have as many as you wanted, then you had special and rare units that you could only have a certain number of in an army. Usually, there was quite a bit of variety among the core units with many factions having access to at least one type of cavalry, missile, and melee infantry unit. TWWH could adapt that system to the game by making all the core units available without any restriction from the beginning, and have access to special and rare units be tied to military buildings with their availability tied to the level and number of that military building that's built by the faction. So, say Swordmasters would become available once you've built the Mage building, but at the lowest level each one only gives you access to say 3-4, but the more you build and the higher you upgrade the building the more you can have. Also, in the table top game units like spearmen and spearmen with shields weren't separate units, but the shield was an upgrade option you could add if you spent the points on it. TWWH could do something similar where instead of having to disband a spearman unit in order to get the spearmen with shields it could be an upgrade where if you spend the money the unit gets upgraded. That would make it much easier for an army to upgrade as you go along, if its just a matter of spending some money to upgrade a unit to a higher tier version of it.

[@freyrTV]

I like this suggestion a lot!

[@mikabelanger4239]

@@freyrTV if you want to try the SFO mod does it, it also buffs units since they now have a cap and feel more impactful

[@Tyrgalon]

This is why I play with the SFO Grimhammer mod

[@namkl4128]

I don't play WH3, but i played Troy and I must say: the Amazonia recruitment system is really good for gameplay. You can only recruit the based tier 1 unit as the Amazonia; and all tier 2 units have to be upgraded from them once they reach lv.4, and tier 3 have to be upgraded from lv.5 tier 2. Not only it limit the amount of elite unit you can field, it will also require you to play around with all basic unit (as the tier 3 you want may have an underpowered tier 1, that you still need to use regularly to earn xp). And it makes getting tier 3 unit feel very rewarding, since they are not produced en masse in the peaceful heartland far away from the front, but are the ones who has been fighting with you since the beginning of the campaign, and now they have reached their final evolution after a brutal battle, slaying countless enemy to get to this point. That's also mean losing their veteran units a much harder blow than usual, since it will take half a campaign to replace them again.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

So I have to wonder why the AI is still so dumb that it needs so many cheats. If it's going to magically be able to support three full stacks on one settlement, then why does it need to know automatically where my weakest point is and the shortest path how to get there

[@jaywerner8415]

Probably because Armies can't send units to Scout anymore? That would be my guess.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

@jaywerner8415 oh yeah that's another thing they need to get rid of, the units needing Lords as a nanny. But since they have infinite money they can recruit heroes,

[@jaywerner8415]

@@QueenAleenaFan Trust Me, we ALL wish they would. But ya know, their AI is too DUMB to keep its armies together and will send tiny stacks wondering back and forth if Empire Total War was anything to go by. Although, I don't think Shogun 2 or Fall of the Samurai had this problem. So other then their AI just being DUMB and getting made DUMBER, I have no explanation. Hell, the AI used to RETREAT from battle in Rome 1 (and still does in Rome Remastered) But doesn't do that since Empire Total War. WHY?! Why must they Grind themselves into DUST? Not like it maters since they can just Spam Armies now.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

@@jaywerner8415 couldn't they hire some sort of game designer to make ai that doesn't suck? I can understand when some guy working on a project by himself can make good AI. But I feel like a corporation might be able to post a job listing or two and get a guy to come help

[@marwanuwaydah1535]

Sometimes it’s fun to role play, even if it is suboptimal.

[@TheKaD23]

Totally agree. I do quite a lot myself too, especially with lords which have some kind of unit theme behind them. Because " not playing the optimal way" can itself become a "player trap", because once you've convinced that you are not doing the best you could do it's no fun anymore.

[@sponge5]

I agree with you, though in this case I’d think it be better if getting better military units _was_ optimal because it is fun. Like I’ll personally get variety still because it is more fun, but it’d be better if I could do that and it was always the best decision because having less fun paths be optimal seems like a design mistake.

[@fr4ct1v09]

I' ve had the same issue but fortunately there are mods that fix this simply unlocking all buildslots and even adding more slots, so you can build (almost) every building. Which is basically what Legend said at 30:40. The only thing stooping you is your budget and city level. I prefer it much more this way. Thank you modders for fixing TW since Attila with those Hun traits and tech removing buildings!

[@mrkisukes]

A big player trap I've seen myself fall into for years is never building the generic structures that cap at tier 3 in major settlements (like your typical growth and standard military buildings). I always thought of it as a wasted use of a slot that can go up to tier 5. Now it may still be true into the late game, but in the early game it absolutely is not, you're still only at tiers 1-3 with your major settlements. And so I've personally seen improvements to my own campaign by building tier-3-capped buildings in my major settlements so I can speed up my pace in the early game regarding economy, growth, and military.

[@unmeclambda5837]

while that may be true for growth or economic buildings that provide value even if there are multiple of them in a province, developing a tier 3 military building in a capital province is a waste when you can easily build it in the other settlements of your province (unless you're at Skavenblight or something like that)

[@ryangallant1886]

This discussion reminds me of a somewhat recent mod that allows you to rerecruit a starting army at the very beginning of the campaign. Doing this removes the units from your army and then you can select any unit from your roster through a budget similar to how the skirmish budgets work outside of campaigns. Some mods can offer decent solutions to vanilla problems

[@SignumInterriti]

I like that mod a lot, also allows me to start with a thematic army.

[@DMfromTheAbyss]

What is the name of this mod?

[@KaHzAdaNe]

Never seen that mod, love the idea, what's it called ? And is it compatible with SFO ?

[@SignumInterriti]

It's called "Customize Starting Units"

[@ruas4721]

Its an amazing but realy op mod. You arent limited to the money you gain from removing your army, you can actually put your units in another army and than use the reset-ability and recruit a second army immidiatly and can even use your starting money to invest even more than the gold you get from the mod. You can literaly give you a full army with some incredible units in it.

[@cameroncasasola1620]

Also It has always kind of struck me as odd that every time you start a total war campaign its like your faction has forgotten how to make any cool of the cool shit.

[@Isengrim24]

They haven't forgotten; more like haven't developed them yet. But yeah this technology/growth system looks way more reasonable in historical setting, where it's easier to imagine your country becoming more advanced over the course of what is supposed to be history essentialy.

[@lenkagamine4145]

@@Isengrim24 that only works when the later units are more technologically advanced rather than simply better trained. Usually in total war, the later units are just more elite ones and the earlier units are the more basic ones. Only exception I can think of would be Medieval II, even in historical games like Rome II it works this way. The end result being "as our society has become more advanced, we have evolved from having a population entirely consisting of peasants to a population entirely consisting of aristocrats who trained their whole life for war." It really makes absolutely no sense, your entire military shouldnt be able to be pure elites, but thats how it is.

[@addochandra4745]

On top of that, Settlement Garisson in M2TW don't need a building slot. You can utilize free-upkeep of militia units in City settlement. From my observations, garisson building in Later TW only benefit the AI in harder difficulty than benefit the player. Y'all know why CA made Later TW like this? it's for streamlining of AI programming, to make the game cheaper and faster. In a game genre that should give developer more time to make the game good and also give player more tools to play with instead of limiting them...

[@itachiaurion3198]

I can't think of any grand strategy game that have an AI that doesn't need those kind of gardrail before it fall apart. Paradox, Civ, CA, whatever you like the AI need it's cheat and the safety net. It's a bit sad but we can't blame CA while every single dev team in the industry stuggle with this. It's not like medieval is even remotly as hard as the newer game anyway the AI is unable to pose a threat to a player who know how a strategy game work.

[@DillsyYourDaddy67]

@@itachiaurion3198 CA have had this garrison system since Rome 2 released 11 years ago. You telling me they couldn't make any improvements to AI in that time to have them understand how to garrison settlements properly? Same goes for the army system. They force you to have a certain number of stacks with a general just cause the AI couldn't handle individual units too well. Restricting the player instead of improving the AI. That's been CA's policy for the last 11 years.

[@addochandra4745]

@@itachiaurion3198 But, what i'm saying is not necessarily about AI. It's about Game Design that's so streamlined in Later TW, it would be easier to program the AI, faster and cheaper to produce, and limiting to the player. Remember, you suffer from supply line system in TWWH (player don't get benefit from it) and the AI don't have supply lines in higher difficulty...

[@the_tactician9858]

@@addochandra4745 I do kinda agree with that even if I see why CA would do this. It's a solution to a big problem in which players want the AI to be able to parttake in the same strength-weakness game as the players, and as a result the game mechanics are made with the idea that the AI should be able to comprehend them. The only solutions for this would be to either massively develop the AI and pour in massive amounts of resources that would otherwise be allocated to another field the game could excel in, or to guardrail the AI into 'engaging' with the rules. Perhaps once AI gets good enough to tackle complex dilemmas this pitfall could be avoided, but it is a fact that the player desire for deep mechanics might collide with the player wanting a fair matchup against the game AI. Same goes for things like player bias, it's a necessary evil to have the AI feel like a legit combatant)

[@zrize101]

All the points that defend CA by saying it was necessary because AI is hard to code are illogical. The baseline used to be independent movement of units and manually building garrisons with units you recruit. When THAT is the baseline for what we had, AND it works just fine, then all points about having to ditch it are completely invalid. It's part of developing games that your expand on what you already have to make it better. When you handicap your own games with a patchwork solution like CA just so you can make money faster, you are officially neglecting any integrity you might have had.

[@evilkingcaliban]

Having recently gone back to playing Shogun 2, it’s interesting to look at how this system affects the two games differently. It’s still *usually* optimal to build economy first, but because the unit granularity is on a larger scale, and different units matter more, there’s more of an opportunity cost inherent in going all markets and only using ashigaru compared to getting a few early light cav or katana samurai. It feels like more of a legitimate strategic choice.

[@jakubs.5966]

Shogun 2 follows perfectly that rock&paper&scissors logic, while having a strong base as a game. It turned that simplicity into strength. So you don't get multiple units of the same type on the same tier that perform vastly different (animations making a huge difference in Warhammer..) because the attention to detail when it comes to those mechanics were on another level. When you use those units against units they are supposed to fight, they feel impactful, there isn't screwed up 'momentum' system, there is no 'pushing units around'..

[@khankhomrad8855]

Having played a lot of Shogun 2, I don't think this system works there either. There is a very simple optimal castle build consisting of: Market, PO building (if needed) everywhere and then build the mil chain buildings only on settlements which have a mil related resource (wood for archers, stables for cav, iron for katana). Aditionally, for 90% of the campaign you have no reason to recruit anything outside of Bow, Spear and Katana for two reasons: 1) Building limits; 2) everything else is situational at best. I have lost count of the number of games that I won a total domination victory with nothing past ashigaru spams. Katana is amazing but it doesn't stand up against archers, and the AI can never field enough Katana to pose a serious threat against you. And, if you can't face an enemy army, just ninja spam it so it won't move.

[@jaywerner8415]

To be fair Shogun 2 has its own issue where its VERY EASY to Optimize your Towns. Namely building Markets everywhere and if needed or for max income the Sake Den, then you build Military buildings or Temples at the Locations which have a special building that boosts those units. That being said, Their is nothing stopping you from NOT doing that and shogun 2s Unit pool "keeps it simple stupid" while you have effectively 3 different tiers of troops, each one does something different. And while Yari Ashigau are TOTALLY OP when in Yari Wall and I don't understand how the AI never figured this out, nothing is really stopping you from "gimping" yourself other then your own Economy. Like by all means make Yari Samurai with Charge Bonus, or Artillery with Better Melee attack for the LOLS. The World is literally your oyster.

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

This is why I prefer playing very hard map difficulty with normal battle difficulty. Infantry is useless when enemies have stat boosts.

[@sizzle9475]

Same . The battles are the most fun part of Warhammer and having all my infantry for example dumbed down to line holders or chaff makes it so much more boring. I would rather have the AI give better armies to challenge me instead of making a lot of my units just empty numbers

[@Xalfe]

@@sizzle9475 Same here as well. I play almost exclusively modded (SFO and QoL's) Very hard campaign difficulty + normal battle difficulty + SFO Very hard difficulty, I basically alter the game settings according to my taste. Much more fun this way.

[@Mahons]

Fyi if you did not know they added a setting to change the AI battle cheats and there you can set to no ai cheats for the battles

[@piotrkrzeszowski8112]

​@@sizzle9475 but you have option button in game witch you can turn off stats boost on high level of difficulty battles

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

@@piotrkrzeszowski8112 yes. I don't think there is that much difference in AI battle difficulty without stat boosts other than they being more aggressive.

[@yozko4183]

I am a new total war player. Started this year on tww3 and I always hated the building system. Now I play with more building slots mod and I am happy. Hate to choose between growth and unit building etc.

[@Grz349]

You do have to choose, it’s just that it’s a soft choice between competing need vs being limited to just one.

[@Cursedpeopleakajuice]

It is part of difficulty tho , part of strategy too

[@marcin7054]

If you are not graphic and texture fanatic then it should be mandatory for you to try Medieval II or Rome I

[@yozko4183]

@ I might, but the biggest draw for me is Fantasy with a lot of different races, spells, units and a big map. Exactly what immortsl empire is

[@millerrepin4452]

​@yozko4183 you would love age of wonders 4

[@Sathrenor]

I just wanted to say - Thank You for explaining it in depth. Personally some of the issues I started intuitively avoid without even noticing it, but it really gets to think when flashed out like that. And thus this video pushed me to get some mods that are going to make the game much more enjoyable!

[@adam46437]

One thing I find in my campaigns after Empire and Med 2 is that it draws the focus away from fighting on the field. Everything gets focused on the city and less about the terrain.

[@lovelybitofsquirrel8272]

Interesting video Legend. I'm not really someone that has ever tried to play total war as optimally as possible so I've never really saw these as issues with the games but more as challenge to overcome within the system that's presented. I typically roleplay my campaigns however so maybe that's a big factor in why I don't "see" the issues. Also and I think this was a big point is that I see the end game as the worst part of these Warhammer games I feel like there ends up being the least amount of variety in my armies (that's when I end up optimising unintendedly), I think the early mid game is where the fun is and the most engaging but the key difference is that you play very very aggressively. I play very defensively and prefer a slow burn. If I was constantly chasing optimal play and being super aggressive then I would probably agree with you whole heartedly....... that isn't to say that you play the game wrong in fact it's far from it, the games need to better support your kind of playstyle to be more engaging. If you play like me at a glacial pace then the games are set up perfectly to support it but at your pace nope all those Dev gameplay design choices might as well be thrown out of the window. now with that said I can agree that the current system can absolutely be improved but for me all I want is more complexity and a deeper system. Less player traps is always welcome however no matter what way the cake the is sliced.

[@denizserkan1691]

currently this might be one of my biggest problem paralel to the speed of the game. wh3 is very fast compared to wh2, many things buil faster and many army clash faster. And while building faster should mean earlier better units, because of more clashes, i recruit less variet and more utility. i love my dwarfs but i cant keep enjoying it when game is pushing me to recruit stack of 20 dwarf warrior even after they removed them from the capital recruitement. i love my lizardmen but i cant keep up with just a hoard of skinks because it takes insaley long to recruit as lizardman. İn this pile of variety with to be 100 lords in this game, i feel optionless and it sucks so much

[@lowbearful]

i really like the way it's done for warriors of chaos as you pointed out. not that i want every other race to be as broken as them in terms of recruitment but having more options initially at least without crippling your economy would make the early armies a lot more fun to fight with

[@Dead94820]

I'm too dumb to come up with a solution, but out of Legends 2 suggested solutions, I think the 2nd one with unlimited build slots and only being restricted by time and resources and building tiers being unlocked by settlement tiers would be pretty good. I don't expect CA would even entertain the first option of having more available at tier 0, we saw what happened when the dwarves got their warriors at tier 0, they removed it super fast which was really disappointing, they coulda just made miners have an actual use cause currently they're just worse than warriors.

[@Dr.AvenVon]

the dwarf warriors got cut because they are objectively the best unit you could've recruited in any scenario. them being available at tier 0 removed variety, not added to it

[@khankhomrad8855]

@@Dr.AvenVon Miners with blasting charge still fill a niche when paired with dorf warriors. The biggest issue here is that base miners are just bad. Their only redeeming quality, AP, doesn't justify not getting a warrior instead. This is also the case for every single roster in this game; some units are straight up obsoleted by same tier units, or a tier higher ones. I think the unity variety issue goes even deeper than what Legend said. Tech trees and Lord skills, too, work against having a balanced army.

[@Nikolas5842]

I 200% agree that unit variety is very limited, and getting military building most of the time is very unoptimal even on lower difficulties than legendary.

[@lazyslav]

The idea of the video starts at 9:00 more or less

[@grayraven2418]

But legend! Favoring low cost, low upkeep spear militia is historically accurate! Agreeing with everything though, but it's difficult finding a good balance. Ideally things should be way more dynamic, giving ways to develop the value of whatever part of your faction.

[@dantaylor9665]

Three Kingdoms largely avoided this issue, where units are based on technology and characters instead of buildings. But, frankly, you end up building up your settlements to just maximise economic value every time, and you can just build more or less the same army with each character type, which also isn't very interesting. Thrones of Britannia iirc had a global recruitment pool that had fairly randomised chances of different types of units appearing, instead of being building-based. It's just a shame the games with better systems for this problem have no unit variety otherwise!!

[@gregchezick7757]

It kinda sucks that with your example of the Empire that the archer unit is DLC only, so if someone doesn't have that they only have access to the regular spearman without any unit buildings.

[@TheHabibass]

It's not though? The huntsman is a DLC unit, the archer isn't.

[@moawik4864]

but isnt the archer in the base game? no way thats a dlc unit

[@redcyric1222]

@@moawik4864 no, I don't have archers avalaible

[@faxiahoudun4845]

@@moawik4864 Archers are also a DLC unit from Markus Wulfhart DLC, unfortunately. So as the OP said, when you don't have that DLC, you're stuck with spamming spearmen which are... uhh... suboptimal, to say the least.

[@rawiliadis]

the 2 earliest missile units (Free Company Militia and Archers) are DLC units

[@guffi00]

I'm so glad you are calling this out. 99% of my campaings are just crap-spamming until I get bored and move to another campaing. By the time I got my first province to level 5 I've already moved on. I don't even remember, when was the last time I recruited a legit steam tank (not an Elector Count) or a dragon. At the end of tha day, I, basically, do not have this units in my game, only as an enemy.

[@nikewilly8404]

This is the reason why i never play without the warband upgrade mod

[@Manslayer-eo1nh]

I started doing that myself, too. Makes your units way more dynamic.

[@scrollexdestiny]

gives also alot more rp like you have that of meh units that helped you threw the game and earned themselves a name instead yeah you are legendary but that tier 2 is better than you are on lvl 9 BYEBYE

[@user-yw9ys3dz7x]

Any particular mod you recommend? I see a bunch of different ones.

[@Manslayer-eo1nh]

@user-yw9ys3dz7x Some warband mods are a submod for unit expansions. I am using one expansion for cathay. There should only be one or two noteworthy warband mods on steam but I don't know the name of them.

[@Erioni01]

There is a lot flaws when it comes to cities and settlements in this game, icons never changing no matter the rank, cities like altdorf having a settlement cap makes no sense, yeah maybe a norscan region in the wasteland can’t have more than 6-7 settlements, but altdorf ? Lothern ? It makes no sense, as these cities actually have everything their respective empires produce or their ‘’industries’’ then you have the rank 3 limit for some settlements that have rank 5 buildings in it, which means you can’t get the whole benefit of that building since it’s limited for no reason, and there is a lot more to talk about.

[@maxpont8989]

I think the issue here is mainly about the different uses of military units, which is really prevalent in newer TW games. In the end you only ever have 3 roles for combat units: melee, ranged and cavalry. That makes it so that even with a big roster, there is always a more valuable option compared to others to fulfill each role; for instance in the empire, halberdiers are virtually the only melee infantry you'll ever need, while a few reiksgard are enough for cavalry and crossbowmen for ranged. One way AoW4 and older TW games avoided this was with unit abilities; you could have phalanx, shieldwall, whips, flaming/heavy arrows... Higher tiers not only meant better stats but also more tactical options, which is what made them valuable compared to low tier spam. Rome II does that very well, even though spam is really strong in autoresolve

[@khankhomrad8855]

Way older games adressed this was by having a much more limited roster. In Rome greeks had only 1 Hoplite type per tier. In Med you were lucky if you had 1 light and 1 heavy inf/cav that you could recruit from. In Warhammer everyone is so spoiled for choice that most of your roster can be safely ignored.

[@maxpont8989]

@khankhomrad8855 The reason why I took Rome II as reference is that it's a game where (some factions at least) really have a huge roster on par with WH3, and with mercenaries you could build virtually any army you wanted. But you always had an incentive to choose variety (which was synonymous for higher tiers) whenever available thanks to unit abilities which made each high tier unit distinctive and strong in a specific role. As Egypt for instance, Galatian guards were really strong as assault troops vs walls, Pikemen were immovable, Royal Peltasts were fast legionaries with more ammo, chariots could mow down chaff, charge cavalry could decimate even high tier units with a single rear charge, slingers were great when flanking while archers had long range and building/morale damage...

[@Rafalucija]

Another option for Empire is to add a low tier cavalry unit, always felt they missed that. But you're right, on my last legendary Franz campigns I would either demolish the barracks right away, or build a few spears with shield before demolishing it anyway.

[@theniceadmiral8488]

Id like the changes legend suggested so much I completely agree with him

[@StilleR666]

Expectations: TWW has sooo much variety. Imagine how many cool armies you can build. How many ways of building your empire! Reality: Armies with copy paste spam. Cities with copy paste building.

[@AlphaLao]

I did do a little chuckle when I heard you input 1771/100 into the calculator. I mean was that really necessary haha

[@iRiDiKi]

Tbh it's easier for those of us who have or are close to aphantasia. Actually SEEING something is the best way to visualise and thus communicate it, even if it's a simple thing it can take different people different levels of thinking to have the conclusion. Plus you don't actually divide/multiply by 10/100/1000 a lot outside of school so it's not an automatic thing to add and move decimal points anymore. Maybe I'm just lazy though 🤣

[@aidantesdahl4283]

What if they added unlimited build slots, but made all buildings cost some growth to construct, like Vampire Coast flagships? It would still have a stratigic limitation because you would need to budget the growth early on, but once the provence is well insulated, it wouldn't force you to demolish and reconfigure everything to keep the place relevant to your current needs. Do that, maybe add a building chain that can (somewhat) increase global recruitment cap, and I think that would solve the problem without needing any additional changes, other than maybe a slight boost to growth speed.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

I'll argue that the variety matters. Basic example, you'll probably find yourself dealing with larger monstrous units fairly early on in many cases. I do however agree that starting various factions out with a military building and a fixed structure isn't great. In Shogun 2, every faction started out with a military building, and either a local resource speciality, or an economy building. By having both, it sets you up nicely for balancing the economy as you scale, and hints at the value of each. Also, every location could be a major city, rather than the capitol and minors system of today, and its fewer military buildings tended to have more tiers, justifying the early investment. this brings me to the main point. The limited build slots don't seem to be an inherent problem, but combining them with buildings that don't scale all the way and different max sizes per location causes issues.

[@s.a.denhollander5209]

brother mad props; you are one of the most reliable/viable sources for total war content. I've been a long time fan of your content for forever ( or at least ever since I've come across your videos.) Keep up the good work and if your revenue is on any basis depending on your reddit followers; 1. I feel sorry for you brother you deserve better than dealing with salty brothers and 2. Your content and knowledge on TW games is on another level. Keep up the great content is all I can say. In all honesty you and tariff are my greatest sources of TW WH games knowledge and best TW:WH memes. Bless you both!

[@deamongimli]

You know what would fix this? Dogs of War DLC. A Mercenary system which would offer availability of diverse units, possibly/probably up to and including units from other factions, right from the start of the game, if in limited amounts and with a degree of unreliability.

[@kapixniecapix3869]

Not for me I want to play only with my race roster I use mod to block AI from ally recruting as well.

[@matykerogaming8691]

Beautiful vid dude. Peak 'Legend' content. Great to see you back on form. Reminds me of watching you solo an army with a goblin shaman using fireballs. You bring a whole new level of thinking to TW games. A pleasure to take in such content, thank you

[@lonelee141]

the shit I always do IS just spam the weakest possible units and gobble up entire regions, once I have an entire region I spam the growth buildings to maximum first in each settlement, rushing the minor settlements to lvl3 so that I can have a military building, economy building and walls while the capital building builds the uh, actually important buildings that go past T3

[@blackmoon2128]

The thing about unit caps is something that made playing Chaos Dwarves so refreshing and interesting. It was like rediscovering how each army having their own "identity" by necessity because how you molded your campaign and such. Hell, I even started playing with the other factions like that because of the feel, accostumed I was with the more "efficient doomstack" I forgot how fun it was to play with variety of things. Hell, I got so accostumed with it that even now that I'm playing medieval II again I'm having kind of trouble de-coupling with the cookie cutter settlement and armies to expand further.

[@ditmarvanbelle1061]

But Mr.Legend ... if we already had all the unit variety from the get-go, why would we build anything other than the same two buildings in every settlement? I'm one of those guys that will build a building because it suits a need right now, but sell it later on to either replace it or move it in a free slot in a minor settlement just because it won't go past level III and it would be a waste of buildslot in a major settlement. In fact I rarely find that I don't have enough free slots -- I'm mostly annoyed the game will keep on reminding me "I have a free build slot" and the player trap, in my opinion, is that it encourages you to spend money to fill that slot, and then you're gonna want to upgrade that building to level III of course, just to make a notification go away. The points you raise are specifically about the early game, but I would argue the problem is that you start with a measly tier I city. And quite often the game sets you up with another player trap that being the faction you're at war with. For example, I've gotten quite good results starting as Kairos and immediately sueing for peace with my pox riddled neighbours. Or, starting as Count Noctilus, the scenario wants you to go to war with the donut right away. You can simply choose not to and choose your own destiny instead.

[@BalthasarGelt-x2d]

I tried to go all-economy in my second medieval 2 campaign playing as Venice, and it was a big mistake.

[@tome5198]

For Smigmar!!!

[@joolsv4125]

*smegmar

[@christiantarantino4309]

I think the variety from base settlements on your starting settlement would be cool but more than that could make rapid expanding away from your base territory a lot more forgiving when losing units away from home which I don't like. I think if there is change of tier 0 units where the main settlement gives you tier 1 barracks units it should only be at your starting provenance

[@Xeonzs]

Imagine telling people to calm down on the internet, good on you for trying though.

[@booradley6832]

Made this comment prior to watching the video. Its not actually what was addressed but I tihnk its a valuable talking point anyway about settlements being capped at all. I understand the benefits of both options. Unlimited build slots feels more like you actually control your empire and arent arbitrarily restricted. Limited build slots creates opportunity cost for putting a building down and allows them to balance building strength by not letting you have all of them. I think there's an obvious solution though. Going back to Medieval Total War: Viking Invasion you have your little encampment where you can build a warrior hall, blacksmith and other basic buildings but before you can make farmland you have to make a forest clearing. It takes 16 years to clear the forest and even more to create basic farms which in most regions arent even going to make much money when fully upgraded, making agriculture a player trap for certain regions of the British Isles and Norway. However, if you took that system to other total war games where you made the option on t5 cities(So you already have to climb the building chain and play within the rules so they can constrain the power of growing cities until endgame) to select "Extend city walls" that takes 30 or so turns and opens up 2 new build slots and could be done 2-3 times, that would be the way of both "Being in control of your own empire" and "Not letting player power expand too fast in early stages. That's my opinion and please feel free to iterate on it since its just something I thought up in literally about 30 seconds. Took me 10x as long to type up as to dream up.

[@Dan89765]

I feel like the easiest work around for this issue is to allow the player to buy extra buildslots, maybe 2500 per slot and have buildings have unit slots depended on settlement size. E.G At tier one Settlement with T1 barracks allow the recruitment of 1 crossbow men, 4 shields/swords. Allow player to level up the settlement to tier 2 to have 2 Crossbow men, 6 T1 troops for the T1 barracks. Have barracks be upgradeable to increase unit cap as well, but only when the settlement is T2. So a T2 settlement with a T2 barrack could recruit 4 crossbow men and 8 T1 troops.

[@Rafael_Fuchs]

Buying build slots isn't a bad idea. Keep growth for the tier, and slots are just a cost thing.

[@franciscotaccolinipapp3892]

Sorry for any mistakes in my English, I'm from Brazil. If the answers here are interesting (mine and others'), it might be worth considering making a video reading them and giving your opinion. I agree with most of what you said, even though I only started playing this year and haven’t had the time to try all the races yet (especially the evil ones). Still, it’s very clear that the game has immense potential. (I commented about many changes...) In my opinion, building slots should unlock if you pay 100 coins, and the limit on how many slots per settlement should be equal to the number of available buildings. For factions with other types of settlements (outposts, chaos altars), this should also be true, but they still wouldn’t be able to upgrade their levels. I’d like to have the option at the start of each campaign to set how many turns it takes before factions can upgrade settlement levels (for all factions). This way, there wouldn’t be a rush at the beginning of every campaign to upgrade all settlements, and all factions would be forced to rely on low- or mid-tier units (not sure how this would work for heroes, though). I’d also love to have the ability to upgrade most troops (similar to Chaos Warriors). For example, when training a Peasant (playing as Cathay), I could choose to upgrade them into spearmen, swordsmen, armored units, range units, shield variants, or even mounted units (all have different stats). Perhaps they’d start as poorly equipped with improvised weapons, and you’d need to spend money and XP to evolve them as you see fit. Each upgrade would make the unit more expensive, and once a Peasant unit reached rank 5 or 6 in XP, I’d like to evolve them into Jade Warriors, keeping their chosen weapon but losing XP (changing weapons would also cost 1 XP). Since this is a higher-tier unit, I’d expect more weapon and mount options, and when it reached rank 6, I could evolve it into Celestial Dragon Guard. The same system could apply to Kislev: Kossars into Tzar Guard into Ice Guard, with mounts like horses, bears, and sleds. Military buildings would allow bypassing the XP requirement to upgrade units, just recruit them with the weapons you want. With this upgrade system, I wouldn’t need to build military structures early unless I wanted a lot of those units, saving money and turns. Not all units should have consecutive upgrades, though. For example, Skinks shouldn’t become Saurus Warriors, and Goblins shouldn’t turn into Orcs, but they should still have weapon options (bows, crossbows, spears, swords, axes), armor (body armor, shields), and mounts (cold ones, horned ones, terradons, ripperdactyls / wolves, squigs, spiders, chariots, boars). Some monsters, like Stegadons and Bastiladons, should also have upgrade options. Ideally, I’d like to mix options, like giving a Jade Guard bows, shields, horses, and spears. But the more equipment they have, the greater the debuffs from being too heavy (Kislev would suffer less from this). I’d prefer the red skill line for lords to always give buffs, but also provide bonuses for unit combos. For example, a skill could increase cavalry speed and damage by 12%, but if there’s infantry in the lord’s army, cavalry units would gain bonuses like extra damage against flanked enemies or increased charge damage (the infantry would also receive some bonuses). Another skill could boost defense and health for infantry units and increase their speed if there are ranged units in the army. This way, players wouldn’t be penalized for having armies of one unit type but would be rewarded with buffs for using diverse units. These buffs shouldn’t just apply to same-faction units-if I had allied units, they should benefit from the buffs too. I’d like to see more factions with unique resources, adding more diversity to campaign mechanics. Some could even be reused, like Mother Ostankya’s and Grom the Paunch’s mechanics, but just having more would already be a plus. Keeping and updating certain mechanics (like Rites) would also be great. For example, I see the Geomantic Web as a strong resource for the Lizardmen, allowing them to invest more power into defense or teleportation. Players should have more control over garrisons, choosing which units to station there. I’d like military buildings to always provide some units for recruitment in the same turn, and if not recruited, those units would remain in the city’s garrison. Forts should also have some construction options, even if limited to military ones. Finally, hero and unit capacity needs updating (especially for Tomb Kings). Capacity could be increased through resources (like with Chaos Dwarfs) or buildings, but each building should have a chance to permanently increase capacity over time. For example, after building a structure, capacity increases by 1 and then by another 1 after 5 or 10 turns. Losing the settlement could reduce capacity by 1 or maybe not at all. (The Great Book of Grudges told that and I agree) I think it would be more interesting if factions could confederate quickly like in the second game, and some factions should be buffed to challenge the player. For example, while playing as Karl Franz, an early enemy could be strengthened (Black Pit Tribe, Clan Kreepus, Black Venom Tribe, Vlad, Festus, Drycha) to act as a mid-game obstacle, while a final enemy (Vlad, Festus, Drycha, Azhag, Be’lakor, Wulfrik, Heinrich Kemmler, Grom the Paunch-only Legendary Lords) should be powered up for late-game challenges. Factions should also rebuild large empires so that the late game offers multiple strong opponents. It would be even better if we could choose which factions get these buffs and select more than one, including factions aligned with ours (like Bretonnia and The Empire (but they will not like each other)). The alliance system needs a complete overhaul-I’m not sure how it could be improved, but I’d like to be able to choose my vassal’s buildings, sell multiple settlements at once (not just adjacent ones), and manage vassal territories better. Nakai shouldn’t have a vassal at all; he should directly occupy settlements while keeping his construction limitations. This way, I could sell unwanted regions, fight siege battles, and switch blessings in his structures. Lastly, I’d like to pre-select buildings and skills. Upon capturing a settlement, I could decide what to build and then forget about it for the rest of the game (it would only prompt for permission to spend resources or treasure). When recruiting a lord or hero, I’d like to pre-assign their skill points so they distribute them automatically every time they level up. Fell free to desagree with me.

[@loowick4074]

Critique happens but theres not much place to talk about. YT comments arent a great place for comments. Reddit is basically a warhammer only subreddit. They only talk about lords and units and dont care about mechanics. Like they are so clueless on combat mechanics based on my limited time reading reddit. Also very toxic. Steam discussions is just rage baiting children and also toxic cesspool. Forums are kinda dead.

[@Draxynnic]

I think a lot of people just... didn't bother switching over when they shut down the old forums and wanted people to switch over. They made the switchover procedure nontrivial to say the least, and it happened at a time when there was a lot of disappointment with how the game was going so some people regarded it as a push factor to disengage. That's essentially what I did, anyway. Poked my head in the other day, saw that it was dead, mentally shrugged, and disengaged again.

[@XBushWookieX_Of_Order]

There’s a reason I no longer participate in total war forums, Reddits, or discussions. I just get the low down on what’s happening through legend and a few other KZbinr’s then I play the game myself to verify if I really feel the same or feel different than the information and opinions presented to me. Love ya bud keep the awesome content coming. Came for some total war tips to get me back in the flow back when warhammer2 came out and stayed cause I enjoyed you as a creator been awesome seeing ya grow but still stay true to you. You were one of many inspirations for me getting my channel made and start making content. I hope I can grow and still stay true to who I am if this journey works out. As always great vid and keep rocking brotha!

[@povilzem]

This problem is created entirely by the fact that the devs don't actually know what they're doing.

[@Nobdythere]

I’ve never understood why I have to wait till tier 5 to fill my build slots.

[@Vontiren]

Yah videos always brin' a piece of joy 'n positivichoo into my life. Ta fawr yah wahrmth 'n light! Fahkin' bloody oath cobber.

[@GamerRMT]

You have an interesting idea as to how to solve the issue I think. As another idea thrown into the ring: each settlement has fewer slots, but each settlement has two tabs, an Infrastructure tab, and a Military tab. You can only build structures of the corresponding type in the corresponding tab. Improving a settlement adds one slot to each of the two tabs. This way, you'd develop evenly without giving up unit variety, while also still keeping limited build slots a consideration and making different provinces unique in terms of what they offer. Thoughts?

[@russ2120]

Damn, can't believe Legend said that there shouldn't be any girls in the game OR girls playing the game!!!!!

[@Asasz6]

This is why I always mod for all factions to have 16 slots in major settlements and 6 in minor settlements. Solves most of the issue for me and also has the benefit of derping out AI less, so they actually make interesting armies... well, *more* interesting than they would otherwise.

[@darthnihilus6211]

God, what a giant disclaimer. Sad, we need to be this careful.

[@highfist6754]

I remember in Med 1, the max teir castle was called a Fortress. It took 20 turns to build, and the picture for it really gave the impression of a sprawling, epic place. I read an article before Med 2 came out that the devs were thinking of having sieges where you could take one layer of walls when you attack and stop there, controlling that section when you attack again next time. Sounded like that would be awesome.

[@shaulkramer7425]

This was a necessary video, and I hope CA takes note and implements your suggestion at the earliest opportunity.

[@Lasamoure]

Legend not factoring supply lines into his two small armies calculation smh. But on a more serious note I realize my gameplay has adapted into exactly what you describe because economy spam is the best way to military spam in TWW3 and snowballing from that just makes the game easy. Factions like Markus Wulfheart are easier and more fun because you can spam economy and still get a variety of units through the imperial reinforcements.

[@bohort]

'in most cases it is better for the player to have 2 weaker armies than one strong army' Skaven - 'yes, yes' then ambush

[@MrAchsas]

ive never really played medieval 2 but ive been watch some lotr medieval 2 lets plays and the building system definitly seems more fun than here just the way the population is in numbers not just 1-5 and you actually see the growth not ah wait 8 turns for 3 growth it just seems more immersive in medieval 2 idk its a minor thing but yeah

[@MrAchsas]

yeah infinite build slots would actually feel super freeing imo

[@sonahtdas5816]

How about giving you free military building slots on major settlements? One at tier 1, two at tier 3, maybe 3 at tier 5, although that may not be necessary. You could have SOME unit variety provided you pay the money for building the unit building and you can still get that economy building as well and because its symmetrical for all factions, its balanced, I think. I dunno, just throwing it out there

[@TheSolitaryEye]

Knowing CA, they'd take formerly free slots and just force you to put only military buildings there. Half the time you'd just not bother putting anything there.

[@mandowarrior123]

Feels like another forced restriction. I like being rich with crap units sometimes by choice.

[@JaffaJannu]

@26:00 Legend dropped his warpstone purse 😄

[@splattbinat1542]

You really put well in words something that always bothered me about my campaigns, I just did not really realize it yet. As a side note: For me interestingly enough campaigns are the most fun where I do not play optimal in the beginning which of course feels very counterintuitive. This is of course just my personal feeling about it. I totally understand why people play optimal.

[@Gho73t]

Well don't get me wrong. But are you arguing that there is not enough variety if you go for an "efficient" playstyle? Because let's be honest with Vampire counts you can raise the dead different units, but the best way is still skeleton spam so, I don't really see the point here. What I would criticize is that you have spearmen and spearmen with shields. It's just artificial variety that doesn't do anything and should therefore be implemented like the upgrade system in rome2 for example.

[@cmdrflare5773]

I agree with what you sad about the warriors of chaos system and think it should be implemented across the board. I love the aspect of taking a deal unit and through time and effort make them awesome I think a cool way of changing the way unit recruitment buildings should allow a passive provenance training were units can be recruited instantly instead of over time if you needed a certain unit quicker. On the down side for a steam tank for example you need to build its building first before it would start it. In this way it gives you 3 ways of getting units. Passive, active, and enhancement. I think this idea can be good if implemented right but I hope this inspires a bigger and broader discussion into this.

[@snowjix]

I rarely play the very late stages of a campaign, so this change would probably make my experience better overall.

[@arrowfrogampd674]

Thank you so much for this video. You put into words something I couldn't really articulate properly until I watched the video! Since Shogun 2 I always disliked managing settlements and I could never really say why until now.

[@Pedro_Colicigno]

I guess I'm in the small group that loves Atilla. I honestly liked how the building trees were very complex in the sense that making a income or food area was very different from investing in military. The sanitation mechanic was something I enjoyed because there was more to do than just build everything to tier 3 and thats it.

[@loganm986]

It still blows my mind how there isnt different settlement types. Military, economic, agri settlements. Capitals are an umbrella to give inclinations and bonuses

[@meksil8776]

It would be so cool to have a mercenary system that would look like how it is in Medieval. You'd have access to units that would be available depending on the local population and maybe also of the surrounding regions, that would be more expensive than what you can recruit from your actual settlement, with a limited capacity that would replenish itself such as the warriors of chaos recruitment pool, a limited tier depending on the tier of the capital from the province and some additional cost depending on what faction the units are from. For example maybe empire units would simply cost a bit more money, while nurgle units would cost more money but also spread some nurgle corruption where your army goes. Greenskin/ogre units could reduce local growth cause you have to feed them more than humans or something, it would allow for way more variety and replayability for our campaigns. Also, we would need 2 more skills in the red line of generals : 1 that would boost all mercenary units, 1 that would boost all allied troops. And some of the already existing red line skills need to be merged. Most factions have 6 or 7 skills right there if I'm not mistaken, I believe there should be all melee infantry, all ranged units (except cav), all cav and monsters, which would make only 3 skills + the 2 new ones, for a total of 5. Requiring less skillpoints to boost units would massively help to build variety aswell. You could have some armies fully made of mercenary units and only need 1 of these skills, which would still be balanced by their additional cost, or build armies w/o any mercs or allied units and need at most 3 of them which is fine. Maybe also add a loyalty mechanic such as the one we have on Skaven, Dark elves or Vampire Coast generals, but that would be specific to each unit from the army and that could be influenced by a variety of things that would also depend on the faction they're from (fighting often for Khorne, taking captives for Slaanesh/Dark Elves, maybe add in something similar to WoC Authority aswell, ...), and also some things that would affect all of them the same way (winning/losing battles, the amount of casualties, etc).

[@wmcneill26]

Thanks for making this video. I thought this for a long time but it's good to hear someone else saying it. I was destroying the first building and building it in a lower tier settlement later in lots of my campaigns.

[@blaaaghy8300]

Variety is the spice of life, the whole reason I don't like playing the first 20 turns of any faction. Having to fight the same armies using a basic army and conquering the same cities is just a drag.

[@Bobahat]

One thing I loved about Medieval 2 was the fact that you could upgrade Tier 1 units throughout the game with improved armour and weapons alongside unit experience. This meant that I often would have the same exact unit of Spear Militia fighting for me at the endgame as in turn 1. I also don't like how Tier 1 units completely lose any use in the endgame nowadays and are usually replaced entirely by better ones (with some exceptions... Zombies!). This is another reason why the Unit Cap Mod is a must. It also makes rare units feel more special, which adds to the flavour.

[@ivch9027]

So nice of you to touch this topic, I was so bothered by limited building slots in Rome II and Attila for months! The games are great, the battles are cool but the strategy map is so limited. There is no way I can “specialize” my cities in those games, there is always like one or maybe two types of buildings configurations I use and that’s it. For example, I never use production buildings like mines or whatever because their bonuses are so low compared to trading/culture! I was so willing to find a mod that could fix it but after a decade of trying it seems nobody was able to alter buildings slots count.

[@jewosjowos2832]

im pretty sure you can play attila 1212ad mod with unlimited building slots, but i dont know if theres a mod for the vanilla game to remove the limit

[@thebodyH2O]

I havent really thought enough about it to give you an honest answer, but ill leave a commwnt to help out your video.

[@ashmonkey2572]

Legend asking ppl to argue about the talking points on reddit rather than this Video is why i admire him so much.

[@ashina2146]

For Unit Recruitment, Medieval 2 is by far the best as it does have somekind of Roster Bloat where Town Militia, Spear Militia, Sergeant Spearmen and Armored Sergeant basically being the Same unit but you will not just recruit the stronger or weaker unit en masse when you have or don't have the fund. Warrior of Chaos Warband Recruitment is somewhat similar but more like a wandering to get your merry men from around the World, for Other Factions like Settled Faction Barracks building could also have the Warband Recruitment, for Example the starting Empire Barracks can have a chance of Producing Swordsmen and Spearmen(Shields) into the "Local Regiment Pool" perhaps where unlike Recruiting and using the 2 Local Recruitment Slots, if the Region/Province have a Local Regiment of Swordsmen you can pick them up and not use the Recruitment Slots, which can be a good quick army building but also somewhat varied in some way.

[@Zefar77]

I find that Skaven and Chaos Dwarfs have an improved system too. Skaven being the best at it where you can just jump to last tier on the building if you have enough food which I believe most good players have when playing as Skaven. I'd be all for having all build slots be open from the start. You still have to balance the economy and you can't just blast past it because you probably won't have the cash for it.