Millennia ago, besieged by a Chaos invasion, a conclave of High Elf mages forged a vast, arcane vortex. Its purpose was to draw the Winds of Magic from the world as a sinkhole drains an ocean, and blast the Daemonic hordes back to the Realm of Chaos. Now the Great Vortex falters, and the world again stands at the brink of ruin.
A diamond in the rough, not as polished as it may seem. Greatly optimised, more than the first Warhammer. With the arrival of Mortal Empires, it is quite rich in pronouncedly distinct races and factions, yet still expensive (counting the base game, all DLC packs, and the expansion-like sequel). Moddability adds a whole new dimension to the game; mods are the only reason why the game series is worth buying. Yet...
... its cons and issues, still:
- no tax gauging
- no region gifting
- no puppet states, no liberation (only the Chaos hordes have it, and it's half-baked, can't seem to be able to create more than one tribe? iirc)
- the trade system across different races is wacky and wobbly
- no naval battles (yeah, Warhammer is all about land battles, why not talk it over with the IP owner and change it just for this game?)
- barely any distinct factions of the same race to choose from, and most of them are eaten up and locked behind the DLC, for instance, can't play as Skaven in the Old World, my rats had to swim to get there
- balanced and imbalanced at the same time; the issue of archers across races (OP Wood Elves versus Sea Archers on sea versus Normal Archers versus Bad Archers of greenskins for example)
- reinforcement range antics continue on and they still suck; settlements can't be besieged now immediately after disembarking (even when the army had full movements points, supposedly). Other issues such as having enough movement points to besiege (the movement arrow is all yellow) but not be able to do it because of lacking that 1% or less than 1% of M-points (which translates to one turn wasted, strategically), or that broken movement gauge which says 50% does not equal 50% most likely because it is an inaccurate floating point value (because you can't strike a fortified camp after using up 50% of your movements points, at least here)
- aye, you barely receive 4 races, 8 factions in Warhammer II, and probably still more than in the base, DLC-cut Warhammer I game (when you exclude all the races and factions from DLC packs, excluding free Bretonnia as well)
Having to wait for the Norsca to arrive in Mortal Empires is not an issue, having to wait for one single new lord to play a new, "different" faction is a problem. It would be better if we got a big set of Lords and their factions of the same ilk as those in the base or expanded game instead of one or two just to play another faction of the same race. Rationing the game content like this is terrible.
Recommending the game? Yes. Recommending to wait for some more free packs (such as Bretonnia) to justify the buy? Yes. Recommending to play it with mods? Yes. Recommending to buy the whole series (all DLC)? Hell no, unless you really want to, or unless CA adds more content (more factions of the same type to select from) or fixes the goddamn overpriced, downsized DLC.
Fantastic Total War game, one of my favorites!
awfawd
Extremely fun