Like Ostankya is somehow more OP than Groom's cauldron, Yuan Bo's edicts can win him the game, both needs to be limited down. Their mechanics that you're supposed to play them for made their campaign shallow as all hell.

But Changeling... Changeling prevents him from losing. The Cults are untouchable and the AI struggle enough with even the worst player to begin with.

How often do people actually lose outside of a few specific lords with a hard start?

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Ixalmaris#4807 wrote:

How often do people actually lose outside of a few specific lords with a hard start?

It’s not a question of losing so much as being engaged. I have to react to my starting enemies in order to not lose ground and advance my goals. The threat of nearby enemies and the fact that I can lose dictates my decisions and strategies.

The Changeling does not have any real impending threats as an impetus to forward his campaign. His impetus is his schemes, but those are easy to accomplish at one’s own leisure. This leaves his campaign feeling like it is not engaging, especially after you’ve done the campaign once and accomplished the schemes. The replayability is just not there.

My other complaint with the changeling, is it doesn't feel like you're actually doing things to real factions. Oxyotyl teleports around and fights real armies, but Changeling gets quest battles that you fight made up armies and then other factions get punished by the schemes.

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Ixalmaris#4807 wrote:

How often do people actually lose outside of a few specific lords with a hard start?

A meaningless question for a game with no mandatory ironman mode.

I think they should limit the amount of trickster cults you can make. like limit 1 province per theatre, or remove recruitment from them. Give him a stalking stance instead of pure invisibility. Or tie the invisibility to changing of the ways with a cooldown.  Have his recruitment be horde based, like coast or malakai, where you can build up his own cult camp. Give him changing of the ways abilities to shroud his faction or armies with the identities of other armies, and take on their diplomacy properties. You can declare wars or make alliances under the guise of other factions for a certian amount of turns. The biggest problem with the changeling is that trickster cults are his "settlements". Redesigning these cults should be priority 1. Give him army caps, and make it game over if you lose all your armies. Or something....

What a forgettable line up. Honestly I think even now, its the worst DLC in a long long long time.

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Surge_2#1464 wrote:

What a forgettable line up. Honestly I think even now, its the worst DLC in a long long long time.

Yeah it's still by far the worse WH3 DLC even after the glow-up... which also highlighted how outrageous it was before

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Passthechips#4366 wrote:

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Ixalmaris#4807 wrote:

How often do people actually lose outside of a few specific lords with a hard start?

It’s not a question of losing so much as being engaged. I have to react to my starting enemies in order to not lose ground and advance my goals. The threat of nearby enemies and the fact that I can lose dictates my decisions and strategies.

The Changeling does not have any real impending threats as an impetus to forward his campaign. His impetus is his schemes, but those are easy to accomplish at one’s own leisure. This leaves his campaign feeling like it is not engaging, especially after you’ve done the campaign once and accomplished the schemes. The replayability is just not there.

The Changeling has one of the most robust and varied campaigns in the entire game. You can literally teleport to another  continent between turns 5-10 and complete a campaign that is totally different than the late game.

We old-timers already know your dislike for The Changeling, but your constant disdain is growing tiresome.  

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Mastigos#4130 wrote:
The Changeling has one of the most robust and varied campaigns in the entire game. You can literally teleport to another  continent between turns 5-10 and complete a campaign that is totally different than the late game.

We old-timers already know your dislike for The Changeling, but your constant disdain is growing tiresome.  

I’m going to choose to interpret this post as some sort of obscure satire. Doesn’t make much sense to me otherwise.

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Mastigos#4130 wrote:
The Changeling has one of the most robust and varied campaigns in the entire game. You can literally teleport to another  continent between turns 5-10 and complete a campaign that is totally different than the late game.

Completely different ? The Changeling has the exact same objectives everytime in all of his theatres. It might be fun to play once for the novelty but his campaign has 0 replayability. You don't even interact with the AI beyond autoresolving armies and making Cults since it can't even see you. It's like playing the game with god mode enabled and his gameplay does not translate to Total War playstyle at all. Worst campaign ever made by CA and it's not even close.

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Mastigos#4130 wrote:

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Passthechips#4366 wrote:

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Ixalmaris#4807 wrote:

How often do people actually lose outside of a few specific lords with a hard start?

It’s not a question of losing so much as being engaged. I have to react to my starting enemies in order to not lose ground and advance my goals. The threat of nearby enemies and the fact that I can lose dictates my decisions and strategies.

The Changeling does not have any real impending threats as an impetus to forward his campaign. His impetus is his schemes, but those are easy to accomplish at one’s own leisure. This leaves his campaign feeling like it is not engaging, especially after you’ve done the campaign once and accomplished the schemes. The replayability is just not there.

The Changeling has one of the most robust and varied campaigns in the entire game. You can literally teleport to another  continent between turns 5-10 and complete a campaign that is totally different than the late game.

We old-timers already know your dislike for The Changeling, but your constant disdain is growing tiresome.  

I'm going to have to play its campaign in order to see what all of the outrage is actually about. I'm starting to think that its campaign isn't as bad as the people that have played it are saying that it is. 

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Funzo#7954 wrote:

I'm going to have to play its campaign in order to see what all of the outrage is actually about. I'm starting to think that its campaign isn't as bad as the people that have played it are saying that it is. 

The campaign is just impossible to lose because you're invisible in any region you have a cult in, cults aren't destroyed if a settlement is razed, despite having tons of forms, you have no reason to ever use any that aren't the strongest one available, and unlike Golgfag who's a bit of a neutral campaign that fights existing factions, the changeling gets these quest battle type things, and after winning it, the scheme affects a bunch of factions in an area, so it feels like you're just playing a different game and not actually interacting with the existing one.

Least that's what it was at release. Haven't played it since

That’s why Ostankya should be moved to Fort Dwarrslav. Astragoth, Arbaal, Archaon, Grimgor…. So many strong enemies! 

The impossible lose fact is such a shame for that game. I will never buy Changeling DLC just for that. Maybe the two others when they release the addition to SoC for Cathay and Kislev but Tzeench no.

What happened in their mind when they decided to add such a campaign!!!?

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Enée#5981 wrote:

The impossible lose fact is such a shame for that game. I will never buy Changeling DLC just for that. Maybe the two others when they release the addition to SoC for Cathay and Kislev but Tzeench no.

What happened in their mind when they decided to add such a campaign!!!?

How often do you lose a campaign? Does it in the end really matter?

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John_Kimble#3765 wrote:

I actually don't agree at all.

Yuan Bo was a very fun campaign for me. Standard TW experience with a bunch of new units and mechanics. He himself is also very cool. I don't see how more boringly easy his campaign is compared to like 90% of other LL starts. I jumped back to Cathay and had an awesome campaign over there with plenty of threats from all sides. He has a bunch of potent "statewide" buffs, just like Franz. He's just a standard, fun TW experience with a bunch of new buffs sprinkled on top.

Ostanyka i dislike her Naggaroth start. I have only ever played her with the mod that moves her to Skull Road. Once again, a really fun campaign with a bunch of very cool units and a new very cool lore of magic. It's also not boringly easy over there once you have CDorfs, Skaven, WoC, Norsca all coming for you. Quite the contrary actually, her IEoB is a big carry in the early game.

Finally Changeling, a very heated and debated topic. I hadn't played him in the longest time with all the moaning of people saying it has zero challenge and what not. I just recently decided to start his campaign and what can i say, i genuinely loved it. It's a complete 180 on your standard TW playthrough. You have to completely change your mindset, and it's just you playing with the world your in, with absolute liberty (aka being, you know, the Changeling). Shifting alliances, causing wars, wreaking havoc then TP'ing out to go on the other side of the world. It also has a bunch of quest battles, and an epic final fight which you can influence throughout your playthrough. It's just really damn fun, very thematic and just a breathe of fresh air.  Could it be better? Obviously. But it's perfectly fine even as is. If there ever was going to be a gimmicky campaign it was going to be the Changeling. He's 1 out of 100 LLs that has this gimmick and i'm glad he does.

The campaigns where i feel any sort of remote risk of actually loosing, i can genuinely count on my hand.  Seriously, lets be real here lol. This game is extremely easy and campaigns are just fun escapsim in a World we all love. You don't play this game for challenge, and if you want to then you only consider 4-5 campaign starts. 

Also, a technicality, but it is possible to loose as the Changeling fyi. If you'r cult gets spotted and removed and you loose a battle you lost. Does it ever happen? No. Is it possible? technically yes.

SoC had a TON of problems on launch. It still has some for sure but the campaigns it introduce are good fun, the characters are cool. Genuinely think its cool to hate SoC at this point.

 

Also, i assume you have not bought OoC. If you think every SoC campaign is boringly easy, stay faaar away from OoC...

I tried him twice and quit both times because it’s borderline easy with absolutely zero challenge. His start in Lustria is boring and his home base in Cathay is also entirely empty with only minor factions. 

His campaign looks good on paper but it’s just boring. 

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Captain_Rex#1635 wrote:

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John_Kimble#3765 wrote:

I actually don't agree at all.

Yuan Bo was a very fun campaign for me. Standard TW experience with a bunch of new units and mechanics. He himself is also very cool. I don't see how more boringly easy his campaign is compared to like 90% of other LL starts. I jumped back to Cathay and had an awesome campaign over there with plenty of threats from all sides. He has a bunch of potent "statewide" buffs, just like Franz. He's just a standard, fun TW experience with a bunch of new buffs sprinkled on top.

Ostanyka i dislike her Naggaroth start. I have only ever played her with the mod that moves her to Skull Road. Once again, a really fun campaign with a bunch of very cool units and a new very cool lore of magic. It's also not boringly easy over there once you have CDorfs, Skaven, WoC, Norsca all coming for you. Quite the contrary actually, her IEoB is a big carry in the early game.

Finally Changeling, a very heated and debated topic. I hadn't played him in the longest time with all the moaning of people saying it has zero challenge and what not. I just recently decided to start his campaign and what can i say, i genuinely loved it. It's a complete 180 on your standard TW playthrough. You have to completely change your mindset, and it's just you playing with the world your in, with absolute liberty (aka being, you know, the Changeling). Shifting alliances, causing wars, wreaking havoc then TP'ing out to go on the other side of the world. It also has a bunch of quest battles, and an epic final fight which you can influence throughout your playthrough. It's just really damn fun, very thematic and just a breathe of fresh air.  Could it be better? Obviously. But it's perfectly fine even as is. If there ever was going to be a gimmicky campaign it was going to be the Changeling. He's 1 out of 100 LLs that has this gimmick and i'm glad he does.

The campaigns where i feel any sort of remote risk of actually loosing, i can genuinely count on my hand.  Seriously, lets be real here lol. This game is extremely easy and campaigns are just fun escapsim in a World we all love. You don't play this game for challenge, and if you want to then you only consider 4-5 campaign starts. 

Also, a technicality, but it is possible to loose as the Changeling fyi. If you'r cult gets spotted and removed and you loose a battle you lost. Does it ever happen? No. Is it possible? technically yes.

SoC had a TON of problems on launch. It still has some for sure but the campaigns it introduce are good fun, the characters are cool. Genuinely think its cool to hate SoC at this point.

 

Also, i assume you have not bought OoC. If you think every SoC campaign is boringly easy, stay faaar away from OoC...

I tried him twice and quit both times because it’s borderline easy with absolutely zero challenge. His start in Lustria is boring and his home base in Cathay is also entirely empty with only minor factions. 

His campaign looks good on paper but it’s just boring. 

Honestly it's just a matter of 1) personal opinion, 2) campaign RNG.

The one i played was very fun. Started in lustria (not a fan) vs Orcs, Skaven, LM. Suddenly realized Cathay was getting wrekt by Skaven, Lokhir, Ogres, Vilitch, Zhatan with Iron and Storm dragon on their very last stand. So decided to switch my focus there, bring Yuang Bo back and start a long process of saving dragon brothers, reconquering Cathay. Was extremely fun.

I love Franz's campaign, but i've quit quite a few very early because i realized it was Ordertide galore everywhere and they became extremely boring. Other times i went well beyond 200 turns.

It's just a matter of RNG and on how thematic you want to be in your campaign. Would you say Franz's campaign is terribly boring because out of 1 campaign you tried there was no Destruction or Chaos faction surviving in the early game?

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John_Kimble#3765 wrote:

Honestly it's just a matter of 1) personal opinion, 2) campaign RNG.

The one i played was very fun. Started in lustria (not a fan) vs Orcs, Skaven, LM. Suddenly realized Cathay was getting wrekt by Skaven, Lokhir, Ogres, Vilitch, Zhatan with Iron and Storm dragon on their very last stand. So decided to switch my focus there, bring Yuang Bo back and start a long process of saving dragon brothers, reconquering Cathay. Was extremely fun.

RNG is definitely a relevant factor here. I got really unlucky in both campaigns. Lokhir did absolutely nothing and Snikch was defeated by Miao Ying on turn 20. So all of Cathay was safe and both Miao and Zhao conquered everything.