The secret of choke points CA doesn't want you to know

If you want to send me your disaster campaigns email it here. [e-mail]
Please only send campaigns on the verge of defeat. Modded campaigns are not currently accepted. Please only send campaigns/battles on large or ultra unit scale. Normal unit scale will not be accepted. Small unit scale only if it's part of the gimmick.
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[@tigermunky]

To be fair, my dogs see a squirrel out in the garden, and when you let them out, they ALWAYS run to a pre-programmed place, regardless of where the actual squirrel is. Then, once they've reached their target spot, they then try to work out where the squirrel is in relation to their new position. I've even watched them run past the squirrel and then try to run back on themselves. So, it seems to me as though the WH2 AI was programmed by dogs.

[@a_latyshev]

Checkmate CA!

[@maevethefox5912]

*big* chunks of AI programmers are furries, so ... entirely probable.

[@MrPoscaldious]

AI war dogs are the best programmed units in the game to be fair.

[@konan3792]

Ya we are all jacked into the matrix

[@redelephantsdotnl]

When my dog sees a squirrel, it'll back off to high ground, and just watch it from a distance. Probably thinks he has missle superiority.,

[@thedoyle3929]

"But Legend, you should..." - quote Legend quoting quotes about Legend

[@dariusgreysun]

In scratchy high pitched mockingly female voice...

[@19midnightsun87]

@@dariusgreysun It's more of a kid's voice, methinks.

[@Diegoshadow85]

@@19midnightsun87 actually rat skaven

[@zackdines]

It's just the 'But legend' voice, hahaha

[@minnumseerrund]

bUt leGeEeenD

[@jdw.karasu8034]

“The whole secret lies in confusing the AI so that it cannot fathom our real intent.” Legend Tzu, The Art of Cheese

[@tanith117]

"If We don't know what we are doing, the enemy sure as hell cant" A quote on US Army Doctrine WW2

[@ASnek-tu5sp]

It's only cheese until AI has control of every real industrialized military and Legends advice becomes prescient.

[@louis930408]

At this point we should have a whole muppet show of Legend arguing with himself XD

[@TheCJRhodes]

The Australian Straw Man Show ft. "bUt lEgEnD"

[@henryviiifake8244]

CA: "It's a chokepoint battle 😏" LoTW: *"And who decided that?* 🤔🤨"

[@lek1223]

to be fair to CA. its fairly difficult to trick a rock into thinking

[@Ramsiman00]

The guy you sent that save back to must really think that you are an actual wizard when seeing the army is 90% intact after two battles that was unwinnable for him

[@Schmeethe88]

Right? "Wow! That battle was insanely difficult and he pulled it off with such low losses! ... Wait, BOTH armies attacked?!?! HOW IS MY ARMY STILL ALIVE?!?"

[@Deathbykittens11]

"Cheese the fuck out of the AI at every opportunity" -Sun Tzu, probably

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Honestly, like, a third of Sun Tzu is "Play lame, win games"

[@Shadow.24772]

is it really cheese when CA is lazy programming? kek

[@Chaogoat]

The AI here is like in one of those videos where dog owners hide from their dog and the dog does not know what to do about it.

[@DocIzaz]

Doctors hate him

[@Narisshu]

I accidentally did this kind of thing once as Eltharion with 1400 vs 8k lead by Grom and they would walk up to my front line and then decided there was no need to attack whilst getting peppered with arrows. Strangest win ive ever had.

[@theacut]

Orc 1: Ay boyz! You think dem humies might be coming from where all dem rokkits are flying at us? Orc 2: Stop being stupid ya git! They's obiviously over there! (points to opposite side)

[@smartalec2001]

Da Warboss sez take da river, an' dat'z wot we gonna do. Waaagh

[@crukih7527]

Just beat back 20 stacks of chaos on my legendary empire campaign by have 4 armies encamped at the choke point in praag. Steam tanks, heroes and halberdiers held the line whilst all my missiles crushed them. Balthasar racked up 15k damage in one battle, and my pyromancer racked up up 12k in another. Managed to put Archaon and his horde down after 5 turns of gruelling fights. Ended up just having to replace my melee infantry with spearmen, as they were the only thing I could recruit in 1 turn, but by sigmar were their sacrifices not in vain!

[@redmist2195]

Spearmen with shields are top tier infantry if you just need them to hold the line.

[@crukih7527]

@@redmist2195 It is what I used instead of halberdiers when dealing with the knife ears that declared war on me at the same time -_- . That shield is invaluable against missile heavy factions. Probably the only 2 melee infantry units actually worth going for with the empire, in campaign at least...

[@acrow5]

15k damage isn't that much for Gelt, especially if you are fighting a lot of units. You sure you didn't mean 150k?

[@manifoldexultant7331]

@@acrow5 shh dont tell him let him have his fun

[@mischkathebaer]

@@acrow5 maybe he means how much worth of gold the dmg was?

[@journeraesri]

CA : Choke me daddy Legend : No

[@hulksmash3783]

Fucking trees in the way -LegendofTotalWar 2022.

[@moimoi7973]

Sounds like playing factorio

[@SuperSnowshark]

Yo I had a battle like this once, playing as the High Elves against the Tomb Kings I decided to hide out in the corner, I thought the AI might be stupid and try to like, trickle their units alongside the ravine that divided our sides of the map so I could shoot them a couple at a time. What I wasn't ready for was watching the AI try desperately to form up their huge battle line along both sides of the ravine, and as soon as they couldn't hold one continuous line both sides would march back to the choke point. My Sisters shot many a Hierotitan in the back as they ran away from us, the boneheads.

[@acealpine6806]

Yeah, as Emp I had a 2 vs 3 battle with the Orcs.. As you said, they form on both of the ravines. It was easy to use melee to pin them there while the rockets tore them to pieces. They actually let me get in free shots as they waited for all 3 armies to move in.

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

heh, boneheads

[@AshenVictor]

I've found the AI is better at getting past single entity front lines for the last few patches, It doesn't overengage and blob as much as it used to. It needs a couple of extra guys (or tanks as the Empire) to form a solid barricade.

[@Schmeethe88]

Do you like using tanks? I've found them to be a bit lackluster and honestly not worth the upkeep. In my experience warrior priests are just as good if not better at the same job but cheaper and easier to recruit. I'd like to hear others' takes on it though.

[@matejspalek7265]

@@Schmeethe88 I agree, that priest are better and more convinient. But someone can go with steam tank to get extra flavour

[@Schmeethe88]

@@matejspalek7265 Fair enough. And I suppose they do get the ranged attack for a bit of damage dealing outside of the role of holding back enemies. It's just that they're so big they tend to die quicker than I'd like and can block my ranged forces from getting shots at those they're blocking. It's a bit of a give and tank :D

[@AshenVictor]

@@Schmeethe88 Yes, I use them in my empire stacks. I use quite a deep deployment as empire. 3 Helstorms in the back, a line of 5 handgunners with a couple of helblasters just in front of the minimum range point of the helstorms, and then 5 steam tanks and 2 Warrior Priests about at the 3/4 range point of the handgunners. (with fire and life mages) The steam tanks with their 380 range tend to start the battle if not in range to fire at least close to it and will generally get 90-100 kills each, mostly with their cannons as the enemy approaches. Nothing the Empire has is really good in melee, but their ranged infantry isn't that remarkable in terms of range, rate of fire, or damage, so I want every unit doing as much as it can to reduce the enemy before they reach that point. By the time they reach melee range it's dregs and stragglers and single entities, which the handgunners are good at mopping up via focused fire. If the enemy looks to go wide you can move the tanks from the end of the line into a back wide position to intercept them. They're not super fast but they're fast enough to reposition in time if you pay attention. As a bonus, I've found that single entity artillery like steam tanks doesn't seem to suffer from the arty bug in sieges so you can use their ammo to knock over towers and walls and save the helstorms for what they're good at.

[@sanken4999]

@@AshenVictor I'm new to empire and for the life of me I can't get any melee unit even halberdiers to hold a line they instantly get depleted whether it be VS chaos, Vampire, greenskins e.t.c , ill try some tanks / priests, do you level them fully defence i presume?

[@Dking-sf6ie]

This is why chokepoints are my favourite type of battlefields

[@janheikel7751]

Gelt could have easily beaten both armies alone with the infantry in hiding, but I'm glad you didn't do it. We've seen enough of those videos and this was much more entertaining with the added bonus of teaching me something new.

[@joshuacollins9346]

These kind of maps are going to be interesting in WH3. For example, as Cathay you could move your sky junks from one side of the river to the other and while your other units hide in the trees.

[@darkelement878]

Not to mention that now you can toggle flying units to land so no doubt you can confuse them even more by attracting them back over to the other side with landed fliers.

[@darkelement878]

Nevermind, he literally said that at 14:01 haha.

[@jackharrow7147]

Two years of watching and I'm still learning new things from these disaster battle videos

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

Interesting I often struggle with multi-lane chokepoints because it's hard to hold all connections at once Also if I have a flanking based army like the one of oxyotl then chokepoints are hard in general because it's tricky to start your offense against their defense and even if you pull them in they can't be flanked while on the chokepoint

[@millerrepin4452]

You don't need to flank, if they bunch up in the choke point use magic

[@Meyna86]

When a map has more than one chocked point I usually set up to one side, ideally on a hill. It allows your artillery to shoot into enemy flanks when they cross and they are more blobbed up when they attack you. I get better results that way than when trying to hold the crossings.

[@AnarexicSumo]

@@millerrepin4452 I think they're talking about multiple chokepoint maps where the AI will typically split into one group per checkpoint and then hold back their ranged. You can bomb one chokepoint, sure, but you're hitting at most 1/3 the efficacy of a single chokepoint.

[@janosfakasz5133]

Remember in the good ol' days, when in Rome: Total War a single phalanx unit was enough to hold a bridge while the archers annihilated the attackers?

[@millerrepin4452]

@@janosfakasz5133 pepperridge farm remembers

[@fartz3808]

15:50 AAAAH LEGEND YOU MISCLICKED! YOU ORDERED THE ARTILLERY TO WALK TOWARDS THE ENEMY NOT SHOOT THEM NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@nyxofstarlight]

Something i found helpful to learn the way the ai works is to try custom battle with an ai partner or so and hold space/etc (key that brings up right side menu in battle) and see how they issue their movement patterns of troops since it shows what they do as well as yours.

[@bethbearmacethatguy]

That "Legend of total war here" has become a great source of comfort for me these days.

[@thedramaticcharismatic5664]

Legend, nobody has ever been upset to see you cheese the game. That’s why we’re here.

[@udozocklein6023]

if only this was true. too many people have two opinions.

[@LordBeff]

I noticed this yesterday as I put my VC skelly blob in a corner (not hidden) and the chaos army I was against took a really long time to get there, often running in circles, allowing me to kill a lot of them with a vampire on a hellsteed. While this looks funny (and definitely makes battles easier), it is kind of disappointing as it completely devoids battles of any meaning. This AI behaviour (along with ambushes and how they "forget" about units that go into hiding) is not on par with the standard of quality we would expect from this game.

[@jerondiovis6128]

I got this same feeling of disappointment when I saw a legendary cheese of opened gates. The fact that enemies can't pass through OPENED gates, because gates wasn't yet destroyed, and they can't destroy gates because opened gates can't be attacked - this is something beyond the very meaning of weirdness. For me that was a kind of breaking point, when a sincere excitement of winning tough battles turned into a knowledge that you can simply exploit the stupid, stupid AI. Sad truth about this game =(

[@etuanno]

@@jerondiovis6128 But when you place your heroes under the gate and then it suddenly opens, they can go in but can't get out. This happens less if they are on guard mode, but for good measure I always destory a bit of wall nearby in case shit hits the fan.

[@votefortv]

@@etuanno if you destroy the wall next to it what the point of in breaking the gate? Am assuming you putting your heroes under the gate to destroy them*

[@sympunny8636]

@@jerondiovis6128 There's cheese in every total war game. I remember how dumb the ai was back in medieval 2, and shogun 2, stupid doesn't even begin to cover it. But just because you know about the cheese doesn't mean you need to use it.

[@Jarelk]

Coding good AI is really, really, REALLY hard. Especially in a strategy game like this where you can't categorise unit setups easily. I can't imagine how you'd even begin to try to use machine learning or other "true" AI to teach it how to play in a way that's fun and exciting to play against. And even if you found a way to translate tactics into math you can train with, training AI to beat armies with the least amount of losses would probably just end up with the AI learning cheesy corner camping.

[@manifoldexultant7331]

the arty bombardment at 14:00 is the stuff of dreams

[@Phantom11718]

Transcript of the AI "Oi warboss der not ere" "Das sum umie tolk, look again, der hidin" " warboss wez standin der" "Ah sed look again" "We found em warboss, day in da corner" "No der on da bridge, look again"

[@cletcher]

Love the commentary in the video. Great voice intonation and rhythm, like a professional!

[@JamesLaserpimpWalsh]

I been using the corner as a choke point jape for yonks man. That little fulcrum point of delight. Cheers for the vid Legend.

[@unidentifiedbiomass4106]

You can't get flanked if you send the majority of your army to where you know the enemy isn't!

[@JohnnyTightIips]

I love Legend's whiny 'BuT LeGeNd....' voice, it's the best.

[@Drahnier123]

Looking at the preview on my phone; KZbin autocaption: "Seven-year disaster battle playing as battlestar guilt going up against azlautera."

[@Daniel_deez_nutz]

Great execution, the only thing I'd suggest is plague of rust of the spiders or Azhag and the crossbowmen would've absolutely melted them.

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

appreciate that this wasn’t edited to entirely back up his own point. the “oh shit. fuck fuck fuck” moment when the enemy actually reached his defenseless position was pretty funny

[@Vernon013]

This is why I watch this channel. I would have never thought of this.

[@Sapherzz]

Loved this Legend!

[@suprhomre]

If I could subscribe to your channel one hundred times I would damn it. You are so entertaining to watch. 10/10

[@nipplewizard9147]

plague of rust would have been great for the crossbowmen shooting the spiders as they ran in first

[@drandersjiang]

"Let's do it again to make sure it's not a fluke." Legend and LockPickingLawyer collab when?

[@ollyrukes]

Little Cheese on 1, nothing on 2, AI exploit on 3.

[@michelemariotti8198]

Every video in a nutshell: step 1 corner Camp Step 2 use up all enemy ammo with a flying unit Step 3 repeat

[@TheRotbringer]

If the AI is the same or very similar to WH2 in WH3 the ability to land and go back up is going to make flying units so powerful. The amount cheese is to come is so strong I can almost taste it.

[@notthatplease]

Damn this is a good trick. I'm gonna go try it out in multi-player right now

[@blueldrrich84]

When that spider hit the artillery and then azog went in i was like 😬 eef.... then you pulled off a victory! Wow! Great job man! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@zarahandrahilde9554]

auto captions is still one of my favourite things about Legend's videos

[@Meyna86]

I've had to fight on that map against a greenskin army that was mostly boar boyz. Used the same spot and tactic just to have them cover more distance and attack in a nice thin line instead of going wide. Still, I didn't realize the AI derps out so much when you don't hold the choke point. Another trick learned. Thanks.

[@BeStOHoLd]

My beloved aussie booooy, it has been a while since i see for the last time and come back here seems like i´ve reverted to heaven once again.

[@Apocalypse0505hun]

"You don't want to put missile units in front of hailstorm batteries" I did learn that in the hard way, in one of my battles, they basically deleted my entire army.

[@manopeace9175]

how you continue to show me new things in a game I have almost a thousand hours in perplexes and intrigues me

[@toggle3927]

Haven't watched yet lemme guess if you don't run to the chokepoint they can't handle it, either running in circles, crossing the bridgepoint and turning around, running left or getting to the choke and stopping? Edit: Yup.

[@zogger]

Can we get a tier list of all the "But Legend..." moments ?

[@mitko1955]

That Lockpicking Lawyer reference though!

[@marshallweimer99]

Amazing the AI doesn't just recognize its under attack and just b-line towards the origin of damage.

[@jimmehjimjim4810]

You have to be very careful about programming such things. Quite often, the origins of “shit AI” begin with such a simple idea or recommendation. But the reason you have to be careful about making the AI react in such a way, is that it can cause a hard-wired reaction or behaviour, in your instance, if programmed that way, the AI could potentially then just ALWAYS move in the direction that damage is coming from - this would make it even easier to break the AI and confuse it, with just a few fast skirmish cavalry, or multiple artillery from multiple angles.

[@leow1535]

Ouch that friendly rocket fire at 8:47 really hurt :D

[@irhinohammer]

Legend advocating for a staunch line of spears.

[@toko099o]

To be fair, its a very orkey thing to ignore the army shooting at you if you think there is a bigger fight just around the corner.

[@TheWoWisok]

I like how the Greenskins became Skaven half way though the video with their voices. Also like how he does the Skaven voices.

[@metatechnocrat]

One can always rely on Legend to pull the old "Kobiashu Maru" any any impossible scenario.

[@smartalec2001]

"I don't believe in the no-win scenario" *eats apple*

[@Milenos]

When they were targetting Azag, wouldnt the spell of rust (the one that lower armor) work to accelerate his death?

[@Witch_King]

I think it's inhumane to mock at the AI, especially the Greenskin one

[@dmitriyk.2890]

But it behaves like real GS...

[@juwebles4352]

@@dmitriyk.2890 Nah deyz got no cunnin'

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Honestly, in general, I find that Greenskins have some of the best AI. It's not a high bar, and mostly comes down to how determined they are to stick Boar Boyz into the backs of ranged units, instead of charging into infantry, but, still.

[@pnutimusthe1st]

My only problem with how legend play this game is that when the AI overlords take over they are gonna see this and all the AI abuse over the years of playing Total war and well you gonna need a good hiding spot.

[@Raoul9753]

AI: "Weird, the enemy should be here but is not... where could it be?" Logic: "Maybe they are where all the rockets are coming from?" AI: "WEll, that makes no sense at all, lets look closer around here..."

[@BB8enjoyer]

Looked like you tied all their shoes together so they trip in every move they make

[@chilidoghamsalad9952]

Get your dang crossbow man into that choke! Clog the friggen choke with crossbowman. Reported to steam.

[@a_latyshev]

I accidentaly found the same strat when playing Skaven; 60% of the time it works every time

[@nunuarthas8680]

4:27 one of the funniest "But Legend..."

[@renierlategan2339]

Played as skaven and did this, took 15 min before that came for my weapons teams, which by then thy were almost dead anyway

[@gabeteso6968]

I had something similar to this happen to me. I was playing as Settra with a mostly chariot army and rather than try to defend the choke i sent my chariots across the choke points early and just left 1-2 skellys and my necrotect on the other side. The AI (dawi) still sent most of 2 full armies to my infantry... XD

[@vikingcathq]

Legend: *uses tactics* AI: wait u can't do that

[@alex_zetsu]

I wonder if the battlefield has a special AI that's just super dumb if you hide or if it is the normal field battle AI that is struggling here and acting differently since the units are funneled.

[@maevethefox5912]

Legend with the Geralt "hmmm" is gold.

[@dmitriyk.2890]

Oh, it is my favourite map to use Skaven weapon team doomstack. I always position myself on that hill with rocks at the back and just melt any armies trying to cross.

[@KingofGeo]

Empire gets a ton of heroes ( 100 baldy boys and 100 witchy pilgrims at the cap) with the arch lector trick. There is no reason not to have 4 heroes and a lord and a mage in every army, and if you put poison or a tormentor sword on one or 2 of them you can keep the enemy back long enough to get your shots in. ( you will still have plenty left over to put nobles on the gold mines).

[@Daergarz]

Nicely done, though I am so glad I play SFO. The amount of magical clicking you can do in vanilla is crazy.

[@Decimus92]

God man I love the Empire so much lol My best and favorite campaign so far I’m currently playing and it’s Gelt. Turn 80 I have Karl & Gelt with Isabella’s trait. I’ve saved Kislev also lol Great RPG campaign.

[@jonathaneastman2952]

Warhammer 3 minor settlement battles are going to be interesting

[@robbiebrown4533]

AND HE IS STILL GOING

[@delta4135]

Legend, I am curious do you like Total War series or just world of Warhammer? Or both?

[@brightpulse384]

why in so many points did i laugh out loud at this lol

[@kwdblade4683]

Legend roasting the AI is just the best

[@SomeIdiotLUL]

I've noticed that, at river crosses the ai troops pause ... but I've never knew could exploit it that much

[@danmartinac3266]

7:30 Jade Wizard gets punted by an Arachnorok Spider

[@nvmtt1403]

AI: Nooooooooo!!! You are not supposed to take actions that go beyond my meager ability to comprehend!!! That is illegal!!!!! Legend: Hehe, hellstorm rockets go brrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@xherdos400]

what i do is a healthy 50/50 mix of Infantry/Ranged units and a couple of Cavalry, maybe a tank/arty here and there or some flying units and some mages :D

[@modest_spice6083]

I've been playing Empire with Guns of the Empire mod in normal, and I wonder if all the units here holds up in Legendary.

[@jasonr8525]

cheese tactics are what made the most history in real life. Hunnic and Mongolian tactics were basically the cheese of their respective times

[@darkarchonisme]

wouldn't plague of rust have helped your ranged murder the arachnarok spiders much quicker? -60 armor makes those crossbows very dangerous!

[@Kvs-vf9nt]

I saw this map before without the grass and trees.

[@Johnjohnthejohn]

legend slowly losing his mind as he is not streaming. now he is both streamer and audience xD

[@ews6724]

Thumbnail is on point

[@uhtred7860]

I remember sussing out the same thing way back in the Empire or Napoleon days. :-)

[@divout6688]

I mean at one stage you could position yourself at the same place and the AI would charge at you without crossing the river. Had plenty of battles where they just stod at the other side of the river shouting mean words at me 😛

[@13g0man]

If someone accuses Legend of Cheesing, its only because they haven't seen your videos before.

[@godotlaifungbam8103]

Victory is sweeter than honor... If you put some cheese on it.

[@orarinnsnorrason4614]

Reminds me how back in the day Gary Kasparov beat Deep Blue by making just weird moves just to confuse the AI :)

[@ShadowWalker-ng1it]

and CA adds victory points to chokepoint battles now. Also this army seem to want steam tanks to hold the line

[@Patrick-fs8fz]

Skaven say yes yes to this

[@bldbar118]

Brilliant!

[@chaycelucas8257]

pikes, and choke point = unbeatable theres a lot of sneaky things you can do, if im way outnumbered Ill bring my entire army to the corner of the map, they cant flank you if you dont have a flank and you still might lose but youll cripple the enemy army