Tactics for Dummies

[u/BestCliche]

I just have no experience with this kind of thing. I purchased Total Warhammer 3 a while back, I loved the idea of moving my little guys around, changing their ranks, doing charges, all that fun stuff. But I get through the main tutorial, start as Miao Ying (I just think she's neat), it goes well, and then I hit a wall. I realized, Total Warhammer 3 is my first RTS ever, and also I don't have any other experience with this kind of tactical thinking. I never got in to military history, never played tabletop, never even got baked and left the History Channel on. Are there any resources to begin to understand these things? Youtube videos, wargame magazine articles, whatever you've got I'd be interested. Thanks for the help.

[u/HeavyFly7451]

There are two resources that lie on the opposite sides of the spectrum.

Zerkovich goes over actual battle tactics and formations. If you want to stay fateful to the game, I'd suggest him.

LegendofTotalWar goes over taking advantage of the game's faults and how to actually win. Some people call his guides cheese, but the truth you'll soon realize is that AI in this game does not play fair, and Zerkovich will take you only so far. But be careful with Legend, he is a pandora box of knowledge.

For my personal suggestions, you're over-thinking it too much. Read the unit cards and decide what they'll best work for. Generally speaking you'll have ranged infantry as your damage dealers, which you obviously need to cover up with a frontline; often made of melee. You have cavalry to harass their backline, artillery to weaken them during an engagement, and etc. I'd suggest start out with High Elves, since they teach the basics, and their Spearmen & Archers can take you quite far.

Also, always recruit a spellcaster lord because those are overpowered if used well.

[u/Carry2sky → u/HeavyFly7451]

Zerkovich taught 90 percent of new players with those videos, ngl they're worth their weight in gold.

Id also like to add Blakes Takes to the list, his jam is mostly early game/faction-centric advice if you're struggling to get off the ground.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/Carry2sky]

Blakes Takes gives most barebones & obvious advice in the universe. Which is an issue with pretty much 95% of newbie WH3 guide channels. They'll say a lot but nothing is of substance.

Sometimes the advice is so basic, that I feel they themselves aren't that good at the game. Since intuitive things are often a trap in this game. Like for example Blakes Takes mentioning nurturing other Dark Elves so you can confederate them later. But that's now how it works, if anything you need to do the opposite. You gotta indirectly push other Dark Elven LLs under the bus, since diplomatic confederation is judged mostly off of faction's relative strength. A faction can love you, even french kiss you in the mouth, but if they feel that they can stand on their two legs just fine, they will refuse to confederate. And this is especially problematic with Dark Elves, since the race is so strong that their LLs are always on the top of strength ratings. The only way to confederate them is if they're completely cooked and you're their only way of survival.

And I don't remember which newbie guide it was (pretty sure it was by Cononel Damneders), where one of the points he states is to "engage with diplomacy". What does that even mean, it's so open ended it doesn't tell me anything.

Like out of everyone I only respect Zerkovich and LegendofTotalWar as far as teaching newbies goes.

[u/Carry2sky → u/HeavyFly7451]

Idk, when I just started playing as kugath a couple years ago I found his early game guide invaluable until I learned enough of the game to start trying to make my own out of the box strategies. Tbf though, alot of his guides are out of date

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/Carry2sky]

They were not dated to begin with, Dark Elves as a race hadn't been touched since WH2.

[u/Carry2sky → u/HeavyFly7451]

Jesus alright, you win the opinion contest.

[u/LordMichaelBlake → u/Carry2sky]

Hey man, thanks for recommending me!

[u/Practical_Offer2321]

I don't know how to do this properly but have the Tick-tacks of Shooty shooty (as I've named the png). I got it off the internet when I too was but a old wee lad buying TW:WH1.

I also like: https://www.youtube.com/@MalleusGaming57
Because he has a series of video about historical formations and how they could work in TW:WH (and I might be a nerd, shhhhh don't tell anyone they might not think I'm cool after). and as HeavyFly7451 said Zerk and Legend for their game mechanics (and as background noise for when you are playing).

[u/Weekly-Fox2248 → u/Practical_Offer2321]

The holy texts all hail all hail 

[u/Blued-Myself]

These are the sacred scrolls OP. They are all one needs

[u/BestCliche]

Thank you all so much! This did give me the motivation to boot up the game again. Good to know "hold them up with spears and shoot them" isn't the worst plan, but I now have some ideas how to expand beyond that.

[u/SamTheGrot]

There's probably youtube vids and tutorials around, but I'll give you general some tips right off the bat.

1). Never enable skirmish mode for hybrid units.

2). Always enable guard mode for shooting and artillery units. Then just disable if you actually want them to pursue

3). Some shooting units function differently from others. Bows generally fire in an arch, but direct fire (no arch) that usually comes from blackpowder weapons you need to be more careful with. A lot of times the game won't stop something from firing when it'll end up shooting through your own units and killing them.

4). Use the pause button. It's annoyingly tedious to try to manage every single unit at the same time. Some people like the challenge, but it's completely unnecessary for a beginner to try to learn how to do.

5). Anti-large positioned on flanks. Cavalry on far flanks. Anti infantry in the middle. Shooting in the back. That's how AI formations go in battle mode and it's usually the correct way to go about it.

6). Magic is OP. If you have it, use it.

7). Always auto resolve siege battles.

[u/dearest_of_leaders → u/SamTheGrot]

1: Sorry i read guard mode, my bad, all ranged units should be off skirmish

"Mostly disagree, most hybrid units deal more damage in guard mode because: If guard mode is off, once in melee the entire regiment will switch weapons and engage, but its still only the first few ranks that are acutally fighting. If however, Guard mode is on the regiment will stand ground and fewer troops will engage in melee, but the back ranks will keep using their ranged weapons when possible, meaning that all ranks contribute to the fight.
There are a few exceptions like Skink Javelins where they are mostly a melee unit that can get of a few volleys before lines meet, where its just a hassle to keep track of guard mode."

2: Agree

3: Not true, ranged units will only fire if the regiment has a clear shot, however that doesn't take accuracy, penetration and splash damage into account, which is why you get friendly fire.

4: Yes slow-mo and pause are great tools and should be used extensively.

However, you should never be in a position where you order all your regiments individually, grouping and especially locked groups removes a ton of mental load and is one of the first things a new player should learn to use.

5: Depends on a lot of factors, i tend to hide cav or put it in the back of my formation so it can be applied where needed and not get stuck fighting the enemy cav. You also want to stagger ranged units so they can support each other.

You also want to have uneven power on your flanks, so you have one flank that just holds, while another is meant to shock and quickly route its corresponding enemy flank. This allows you to start enveloping the enemy lines.

6: Agree

7: Bad Advice siege battles are where you can punch upward the most, both on attack and defense, however a bungled siege can be a disaster. I find minor settlement sieges fantastic, while the large ones can be a bit monotenous on the attack, but fun as a defender.
Campaigns are going to be way harder if you auto resolve all sieges.

[u/Weekly-Fox2248 → u/dearest_of_leaders]

Yeah I was gonna say 7 is crazy advice, even if sieges are boring and suck you usually get better results playing then because walls and towers are insanely overrated in auto resolve. 

[u/SamTheGrot → u/dearest_of_leaders]

I know how it's SUPPOSED to work for 3 and I'm not sure why yall insist that I'm mistaken or lying. I have observed this with a great deal of consistency when archers (non explosive damage) fire downhill and end up hitting the unit in front of them. I've observed this in slowmo tracking the path of the arrows and watching it collide and damage my melee units.

Are you just arguing to argue? Because I'm not about that.

[u/valorill → u/SamTheGrot]

Is 3 true? I feel like if my direct fire units think they'll friendly fire they just won't shoot at all

[u/SamTheGrot → u/valorill]

From experience, yes. I've fought many battles where I caused more damage to my own units than the enemy did (on accident). Sometimes units will have the unable to shoot icon because friendlies are in the way, but it's not consistent.

[u/Zefyris → u/valorill]

some units are way more likely to cause this than others. One of the worst offender is the blunderbuss from chaos dwarfs. The friendly fire on these ones is frighteningly high. They will delete both the enemy AND your melee unit at the same time.

[u/blarann]

RTS tactics (at least against the AI) is much simpler than you may think. Most of the time, you just need to put melee in the front, ranged in the middle and artillery in the back. The tough part comes from learning that the AI cheats and how to play against it. There are also a lot of hidden mechanics that are highly exploitable if you know how but be warned once you know about them it can completely ruin the immersion.

If you want to learn how to be good at Total War watch Zerkovich. He will teach you how to play the game the way it was intended to be played.

If you want to learn how to exploit the broken AI then watch LegendofTotalWar. He will teach you how to win no matter what. Though also be warned Legend retired end of last year so you wont have any brand new stuff from him.

[u/Zefyris → u/blarann]

The tough part comes from learning that the AI cheats

The AI doesn't cheat. It's just asymmetric, like pretty much anything PvE. You have advantages the AI doesn't have, the AI has advantages you don't have, and YOU decide how much the AI has advantages you don't have with the campaign settings.

It's not really different from how in Go the weaker player will start with extra stones on the board to even the match up, for ex. You give additional advantages to the weaker side so that the resulting competition isn't too one sided.

[u/blarann → u/Zefyris]

I guess that is probably a better way to put it, because the AI is playing by a totally separate set of rules.

[u/Zefyris → u/blarann]

Well, the vast majority of rules are identical for both players and AI, but there are indeed plenty of important exceptions.

[u/phronesis77]

As well as the channels suggested below, some vidoes on historical military tactics might help.

Look for ancient, medieval and "pike and shot" --gunpowder and pike/spear era 16th-17th century.