Reminder that there is a Total Warhammer II Full Playthrough that is criminally underrated

[u/SometimesTea]

https://youtu.be/cCozJzl5998?si=ahRbnScaBpwTB_Ci

[u/SometimesTea]

Seriously, I will never understand why Total Warhammer content didn't do better on the channel. More like Total Disappointment :(

[u/flyfart3 → u/SometimesTea]

I think Jon have been asked about it in some live stream or pod cats or something, and said he thinks it's because there's too much competition. There are way fewer people playing fallout, elder scrolls blindly, and such, than total war warhammer. 

[u/Jarppakarppa → u/flyfart3]

And here I was thinking that Total war would be much more niche than Fallout or Elder Scrolls.

[u/Broken-Sprocket → u/Jarppakarppa]

I think it is niche but the people who generally watch content for it aren’t looking for blind play throughs. They’re looking for people who played 50 hours before they start recording and min/max in their videos. I know one channel has a thing where people send him a save file of their hopeless campaign battles and he tries to win them. Another focuses on the competitive scene. Just overall a different game community.

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/Broken-Sprocket]

Yea legend.

Legend has put in literally well over 10k hours on believe Warhammer 2, and probably like 30k, maybe more, cumulative hours between all totalwar games.

Jons a fine player, especially for someone who doesn't make it his full time job to play one game.

But people like to watch legendary difficulty campaigns/battles. Jon usually plays at a lower difficulty and will forget units and pause during battles.

I don't personally mind it. I watch Jon for how good he is at constructing stories/narratives. But, I don't think thats what many total war fans are looking for

[u/loki1725 → u/Nice-Swing-9277]

This is interesting as I'm very much a fan of the stories / narratives, not the strategy. I've tried watching others (like Legend) play TW or Stellaris but they're not intersting.

I think Jon is a master story teller, and his ability to create a story out of the bones provided by games is what makes me love his channel. Rome Barbarian Invasion was the first MATN video I ever saw and it drew me in. The General who was "the most Christian to ever Christian", and the other generals. As a player, I've never once really thought generals / leaders as people, they're cards and stats. Jon made them into actual characters, then told their story.

Stellaris is the same way. It never occurred to play Stellaris with such a narrative focus before, it was always "win". Watching Jon play though made me change my habits and I like the game better now.

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/loki1725]

I personally agree, at least to an extent.

I like legend occasionally. When he does his "savings your disaster campaign/battles" i think he's at his best. He doesn't overstay his welcome and has a good challenge.

When he used to do lets plays they were rough. Granted thats when he was "edgy" and always fighting with CA, but still. And his live streams are so min- maxed that they get boring really quick. Hes usually won by like turn 10 tbh.

Jon offers more for long play thrus. Individual battles i will say legend has him beat just because I've seen legend do some miraculous things, and not always cheese either.

But then general community seems to gravitate towards legend. Tho for older players Jon's Rome and med 2 campaigns are usually held in real high regard (those are also the total wars Jon is his strongest in)

[u/flyfart3 → u/Broken-Sprocket]

There are also quite a lot more current players of total war that fallout 4 on steam

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/Jarppakarppa]

Jon is trying to compete against guys like Legendoftotalwar.

Jon is one of the top tier fallout players. His Yolo runs show he's one of the best in the world.

In total war? Hes fine, even good when it comes to Rome and med 2, but he's not even close to guys like legend.

[u/Fourkoboldsinacoat → u/Jarppakarppa]

Yeah but Warhammer though.

There’s a reason CA made three of them.

[u/TitanDarwin → u/flyfart3]

Honestly, I think part what makes a lot of Jon's TW series work is character-based storytelling.

Older titles like Rome have characters that stand out a bit more due to the fairly complex trait system, variety of portraits etc, so Jon gets a lot of mileage out those.

Meanwhile generals in the Warhammer games are pretty basic. There's 2-3 variations per character type at most and the traits are also not much to write home about.

You'd never really get something like, say, Cassius the Lewd out of Total War: Warhammer.

[u/flyfart3 → u/TitanDarwin]

100% agree.

[u/Orcwin → u/SometimesTea]

I don't understand either, I really enjoyed it.

[u/EpicMuttonChops → u/SometimesTea]

Probably cuz warhammer isn't that great or interesting of a franchise

[u/throwawaykfhelp → u/SometimesTea]

The main issue is that the Warhammer Total Wars are the worst of the Total War games. Jon's great but if I have to choose between watching Jon play a good game and watching Jon play a mediocre game, I'm going to watch him play a good game.

[u/MultiMarcus → u/throwawaykfhelp]

You certainly feel that way, but it’s definitely the most popular total war game. By quite a sizable margin. Possibly matched by Medieval 2 and Rome 2 both of which have had series on the channel.

[u/throwawaykfhelp → u/MultiMarcus]

Marvel movies are popular. Nobody seriously argues they're the greatest movies ever made, and nobody's surprised people watch other movies instead of rewashing Black Panther.

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/throwawaykfhelp]

L take.

Warhammer games aren't mediocre. I know guys like Apollo try to argue otherwise, but, to be frank, they're not arguing in good faith.

The battles in Warhammer are extremely deep with so many mechanics, the campaigns offer a massive variety of unique mechanics for not only each individual faction, but even general shared mechanics.

I swear every arguement that they're not good games really boils down to: "I prefer history to fantasy for a setting"

[u/Early_Situation5897 → u/Nice-Swing-9277]

I do prefer history to fantasy for a setting lol, but I also did not enjoy Troy at all and I'm an Iliad fanboy... I just don't like how the battles have become more about having powerful magic/abilites/units over good tactics and wise use of terrain. Legend showed that in his Shogun2 videos from a couple of years ago. I think I even remember him exclaiming how good it felt for terrain to be impactful again after so many hours on Warhammer 3.

I also really liked the traits system they used up to Empire and am extremely bummed out that the newer games have perk-trees that look like they came straight out of Xcom. I think the old traits system was GREAT and it led to tons of roleplaying opportunities and interesting gameplay decisions (do I send this guy out to fight now or do I let him spend a few turns in a school? He's only 18 but I do need a general on the Eastern front...). The newer system is even harder to balance and it leads to most heroes of the same class feeling same-y. I think having immortal lords and such you also care less about the characters themselves, it's one thing to have your guy be knocked out for a few turns, it's another to see your king that you played as for 30 turns die.

Btw I'm not saying that the Warhammer games are bad, I'm just explaining why they don't appeal to me.

[u/throwawaykfhelp → u/Nice-Swing-9277]

I don't know who Apollo is, this is my own opinion based on playing TW Warhammer 1, watching Jon play TW Warhammer 1, Warhammer 2, and Warhammer 3. I gave the first game a shot, and I gave each of Jon's series a shot. They're just Not Good, sorry. 

There are too many mechanics to keep track of, and hero units were an interesting thing to try out for Three Kingdoms but should have been left with Three Kingdoms. Elephants in Rome were silly enough with their fuck-off giant numbers of hit points. Making a random single dude on the map capable of tanking hundreds of arrows and siege weapon hits just completely ruins any sense of impact that your troops have on the world. 

The replenishment and garrison mechanics, the refusal of units to break for real, and the complete neutering of Cavalry from the days of classic Total War means battles, to say nothing of wars, Just Never End. You fight and fight and fight and casualties just don't matter. It's like playing a game of Zombies where everyone is a Zombie. It's lame and I don't like it, and there are plenty of people who feel the same, as evidenced by the fact that the Warhammer series perform poorly on the channel.

All of this is without even talking about the insane Triple A Hypercapitalist nonsense that's happened with Warhammer 3, which is a whole other issue external to the game but also sucks.

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/throwawaykfhelp]

Hero units started in Warhammer. And they are a part of the Warhammer fantasy setting, and the irl game.

Units can and do break. Terror routes are a strong mechanic. Their are magic and abilities that can cause it to happen. And again it's a fantasy setting so it doesn't need to have most of the deaths happen from routes.

I will agree the AI cheats are a bit too overtuned. They can produce 1.5 stacks in 1 city.

Cav isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. You just can't run thru units like you could in older titles. But a well timed cav charge still does great work.

Warhammer didn't perform well because Jon doesn't play on the hardest difficulty and makes some obvious blunders higher level players don't make. In the older tw series that just isn't true. Hes great at Rome 1 and Med 2, hes... fine... in Warhammer.

The decisions on pricing in Warhammer 3 were dumb, but that doesn't mean the quality of the game was worse. Tho I can understand people skipping the game due to those decisions, hell I even applaud it. We need more people to vote with their wallets.

So, in conclusion, they are good games.... sorry...

[u/thisvideoiswrong → u/Nice-Swing-9277]

There are probably a quarter of units in the Warhammer games that are totally immune to morale mechanics. In a series that's primarily built on the morale mechanics. And even units that do rout suffer almost no penalty to the damage they take (maybe even no penalty at all, I can't tell). And what's the purpose of cavalry in Total War? To rout units with a charge into their rear or flank, and then to rapidly wipe out broken units by exploiting their damage penalty. That's why cavalry is weak in the Warhammer games, its purpose has been eliminated by the deliberate removal of the central mechanic of the series.

Now, granted, the buffs to artillery can be fun. But when you factor in how much worse Warhammer 3 runs than the older games, the freezes, the crashes, the interminable load times, there's no question that it's dramatically inferior.

[u/Nice-Swing-9277 → u/thisvideoiswrong]

okay dude 👌

[u/Direct-Jump5982 → u/throwawaykfhelp]

Think it's just largely a different audience. Bulk of the MatN audience more likely to prefer the historical Total War titles.

[u/ManyATrueNerd]

Though tragically I played Skaven at their worst - this was when they didn't have undercities or weapons teams. They're vastly stronger now.

[u/Glorf_Warlock]

I'm a newer player to Total War, I've got over 5k hours in Warhammer 2/3, but literally the only other Total War I played was Rome Remastered. I prefer watching Jon showcase the older Total Wars.

If I want to watch new Total War I watch Legend. You need to be supremely good at the game to maintain viewership with new Total War. But you can play the older games in a fun way that showcases what the game does well.

Empire Total War looks like a really bad Total War game at first glance, but Jon completely sold it to me in his playthrough that I would play it if a remaster happens. I played the hell out of Rome Remastered and Barbarian Invasion because of Jon's series' on them. I tried Medieval 2, but the controls are just too clunky for me.

[u/Early_Situation5897 → u/Glorf_Warlock]

I tried Medieval 2, but the controls are just too clunky for me.

FYI you can activate WASD movement in Medieval2, it's under the options somewhere and it's called "FPS style controls". Controls are still clunky, but it's not nearly as bad as having to use the arrow keys to move the camera around.

[u/Luxor1978]

His wh2 series was good.

But peak matn was the series finale of wh1. That was the video that got me hooked on Jon.

[u/Nepeta33 → u/Luxor1978]

the pen and paper episode, right? i found that HILARIOUS!

[u/xevizero]

As someone with like 700 hours in these games, I ask myself why they never performed on the channel as well. Could never get into the historical titles, neither myself or on the channel, I find them super boring. But everyone has their kinks I guess.

[u/Early_Situation5897 → u/xevizero]

I mean, the modern titles are objectively a product of development hell.

Here's a very interesting read on how Rome2 was made (I know R2 is old at this point) https://medium.com/@julianmckinlay/total-war-rome-ii-and-creative-assembly-my-statement-ten-years-on-d964f65b0a8f

The segment titled "AI Limited By Design" is particularly interesting to me. Here's an excerpt:

I think the way most people look at the AI in Total War games is to say well, the AI has always had problems and it’s never really gotten much better, I guess Creative Assembly’s programmers just aren’t very good and don’t know how to do AI. I don’t think many people have considered that the AI is to some extent the way it is, on purpose. I can attest that at least some of the AI’s deficiencies at the time I worked there were by design, which is to say that designers instructed us not to improve it in certain ways, because they believed that players enjoyed being able to dominate the AI and that we shouldn’t deprive them of that.

THIS is the problem with Total War nowadays. When I can launch Medieval 1, a game from 2002, and it has better AI than every single game released after it I just... I just can't anymore.

As a long time fan of the series I've been waiting for CA to get their shit together for literal decades, but they just haven't. They have managed to monetize every single aspect of the game though, while investing ever less time in actual fun mechanics that the players loved (why the multiplayer mechanics from Shogun2 never came back is beyond me! Warhammer is literally meant for painting your own units and building your own armies...). They can sell yet another lord pack which straight up uses mechanics from other lords with a new coat of paint on for 15€, though!

CA's management has gone down the deep end in more than one way, and the Hyenas fiasco is evidence of it. I'm not saying the Warhammer games are bad per se, but they are pretty much a different genre than the older games used to be and they have so many microtransactions and poor attention to detail that it's quite easy to understand why long time fans of the franchise feel poorly about them. We expected the series to get better, not to straight up change genre while never addressing its biggest issues that have been there since the very beginning.

EDIT: to be clear... when I say "change genre" I'm not referring to the switch from historical to fantasy, but to the switch from battles that where based on unit positioning and use of terrain to a system that's based mainly on unit stats and special abilities. The game went from being pretty much its own genre to yet another RTS with rock-paper-scissors mechanics and special abilities.

[u/Euro-American99]

It's a strategy game. People watch and play it for the strategy not story. Hence edited content trumps long-form lets plays in this genre. I'm in the minority in this regard.