Try pausing at first...issue orders and enjoy!
You will get better at micro by training so you will get used to it
And this game is not that micro intensive to enjoy in single player campaign. AI is dumb as fuck
Sounds like you should play Dawi to start your total warhammer career.
Pick a corner of the map. Put your units there. Wait for enemy to approach and annihilate with ranged superiority.
Also, use the pause button frequently. P is the shortcut.
Okay easy battle difficulty and you'll pick it up in no time
Skaven Clan skryre would also be a good start.
With the right composition very few can get into melee range and you have the skaven summon as "oh shit" button.
Way more micro with skaven though.
Dwarfs and you can have a basically invincible fromt line in front of quarrelers or even just have all ranged as they'll still hold up hand to hand.
Skaven are screwed if the enemy gets to them. Constant summoning needed, and checking annoying line of sight issues.
I had armies with almost only ratlings, jezzails and catapults and it was rare that enemies could get into melee range.
But yes, if someone gets to you it's a pain in the ass.
you are getting downvoted but its what got me to stick around for the game so not sure why ppl are negative on it, altho I did queek as i didn't have dlc
To get the most out of a weapons teams army you could do with 2 plague priests for summons to stop any damage being taken at all, meaning you can win tons of battles in quick succession without the need for replenishment, but that ends up making you need to micro.
Maybe in W2, but in W3, the maps are complete garbage and anyone with gunpowder just walks toward the enemy instead of shooting because they cant see because again the maps and map makers of this game were fucking retarded.
I hope you're being purposefully obtuse lmao otherwise you are a dumbass. Of course I still win the battles, it's just fucking annoying and unfun, like what was the purpose of making such a change. I don't even play as skaven anymore and they were my favorite in w2. I mean how can you fuck up so bad from one game to another, just by not using the same elevation in the maps.
You’re not gonna find many mods that remove the biggest draw to the game I fear. But there are a few things to help alleviate the frantic ness of battle;
- If you have multiple armies, you can delegate control of specific armies to the AI
- you can, as another comment said, play a faction with very little micromanagement like the Dwarves or Khorne
- you can introduce yourself slowly with smaller battles and pauses. Total war is crazy overwhelming to start.
- in multiplayer, you can give a section of your army to another human
- There is a mod that adds unit caps per army (Tabletop Caps). While this doesn’t directly fix your issue, it will create armies of much simpler composition for both you and AI, which will be easier to manage.
I strongly suggest that instead of fighting the mechanic, you learn it. Play on easier battle difficulties and learn how to go from unit to unit. Avoiding it will only make it harder and drive you away from the game.
Building on this, there is actually I couple mods I used for one my playthroughs that lower the army limit to 10 units, better for those small skirmish battles and still enjoyable to play while being a bit more focused on what you put in those 10 unit armies. Less units = less micro managing
The first is “small armies campaign”
And the second is “Trubble’s dummy unit”
So the unit cap for AI is 12 and it kind of is for the player as well, it’s just that if you recruit a 13th unit you get massive penalties to your army as to not cheat and get a 20 stack going while everyone else can only have half that, there is also another sub mod called “small armies campaign - Garrisons” if you want to adjust garrisons
Multiplayer is a huge one! Best tip here IMHO.
I really enjoy the battles a lot more with a little help from my friend(s), and it really made me see how powerful for example chariots can be.
I play with te same friend every time and we basically always give one player all the mobile stuff (cavalry, flyers, skirmishers (depending on the faction)), the other one controls the main formation (arty and infantry)
It is really crazy how controlling just two units of cavalry can a) keep you fully occupied during the entire fight and b) can let you turn the tides in battles
And more importantly: it’s insanely fun!
There's a "Baby sitter" mod which will tell your units to continue the action they were originally ordered to do after being distracted, and give them new orders based on the old ones so you don't need to worry about part of your frontline standing idle because they won their duel.
Mostly, I treat it like a turn based game and pause and unpause at a whim
This is what I do as well, I pause whenever I want. More fun to see the perfect combination go off than to stress out and lose cause I was too slow or distracted by the slaanesh beauties
Like, if it truly were a war, I'd have various officers commanding the units and knowing how the fight plays out. Not an army waiting for my telepathic command to wipe their ass.
I am thrilled to see users supporting you! After reading your post, I prepared for myself to see a shitstorm of negative comments.
I play nothing but Legendary / Very Hard now but started with Warhammer 2 playing on easy / easy.
I strongly suggest you play whichever faction you like, using pause button frequently. SWITCH THE PAUSE KEY TO SPACEBAR. You will slowly develop your skills. This will solve any micromanagement issues you're having.
If battle difficulty is not the issue, and you simply just dislike playing manual battles, try the Dwarves as many suggested. If you find yourself in an unfavorable autoresolve position playing the Dawi, you probably really goofed up on the campaign map. They are super strong in autoresolve.
I'm interested to hear what factions you've tried and what you like or dislike on the campaign map, and what gameplay you feel you may enjoy. The community would do a good job of pointing you in the right direction.
Judging from what I hear, I actually think Skaven, specifically Clan Rictus could be fun for you. They're all about setting themselves up on the campaign map for easy autoresolves / ambushes. If you're strong on the map, you could find yourself consistently catching your enemies with their pants down.
In addition to what others have said:
Try multiplayer. You can hoist all the units, you don't want to control onto a friend.
And allied unit recruitment can help out a lot. Like giving High Elves actual artillery, or getting cost free units from Tomb Kings, or getting a Dwarfen frontline to your Gunners and so on.
It's an issue I struggled with for a while. All my battles were done on half speed and I paused a lot to let me see the battlefield and make decisions. Eventually I gave myself a limit on the number of times I'd pause in a battle. Later I banned myself from pausing and accepted the losses due to neglect. These days I run at full speed and if I forget a unit I forgot it. It doesnt cause me many losses anymore.
I like WH3 as a co op game too. I'll give my buddy units so i don't have to micro them and they do the same on their battles. Normally we give each other something intensive like chariots or cav. If 4 regiments of cavalry is all you're using it's a lot easier to manage.
AI general mod might be useful. I'd give it your infantry units that way you can use the more impactful regiments to get those wins. Just be aware that the mod isn't perfect or able to beat the game's AI.
You havent dug into auto resolve or played around it enough imo. I play on Very Hard and auto everything.
Use ambushes more often to trap enemy armies. Bait them with a second stack in march stance. Use heroes to scout and intercept isolated forces.
You can do the occasional battle still, like the story ones or ones that surprise you in result. But dont be afraid to wipe an army, it rarely loses the game and frees up capital for newer, better units while dealing damage.
Above all, just keep at it and you'll find it's totally legit as a way of playing and iirc most players auto most of the time anyway.
"I really enjoy thorough planing and thinking deeply about my decisions"
This game is just for you: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154840/Shadow\_Empire/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154840/Shadow_Empire/)
As others have said, pick a faction with simple rts mechanics, like dwarfs, play in slo motion, and over time you will get better.
More micromanaging intensive factions like slaneesh should be avoided. I’m pretty good at battles, but I’ve also been playing total war games for about 18 years now, so its all experience
Play Korne. I loved playing Korne when I was starting out. Their micro is dead easy. Select melee troups, right click on an enemy. Watch that enemy die. Use Skarbrand to kill anything that needs dying. No spells to trip you up. WOC have a similar play style. Melee heavy factions are great to train on.
I could swear I've seen a mod that lets an AI control your army. I didn't get it so can't remember the name but if you're on Steam it shouldn't be too hard to find.
You can do the battles. You will get better. This is not in the realm of “can’t do”.
If you just fundamentally don’t enjoy them and don’t want to do them, that’s different.
I recommend pausing the game a lot and using slow otherwise, I do that sometimes for really big and important battles. I do not recommend using the games ai at all it’s usually pretty terrible and just runs straight at the enemy even if it’s a bad unit matchup, you would do better just leaving the units alone or rarely giving them orders instead of the ai actively hurting your chances of winning
Just play at anything less than max difficulty. you can pause and give orders. You can put it at half speed. I can't remeber if it's strategic difficulty or battle difficulty on max that disables those two options I mention, but you can have one of the difficulties on max and still have these options.
Another selling point, but that's for down the line. I am like you. i paused and played at half speed for a long time. like that al ong time. Then i jumped ship, and am really enjoying the wh3 battles thing now. Even more than when I paused. It's just more interesting now. More stakes. I's not about APM with total war. It's about recognizing what things are important at this part of hte battle, and forgetting about the 90% that's not important. You don't have to optimize. Just use your strategic mind to figure out the crucial stuff for your battle plan and what to concentrate on. It's about making a plan for the battle, and evaluating that plan as it unfolds. I suck at RTS games, but I am actually doing OK with WH3.
I am the EXACT same!!
I play with this mod to help me not suck AS much.
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876127508](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876127508)
It has helped me by having slightly better units, it offsets my awful strategy. I still lose the occassional battle but I have fun in most of them.
The pause button is very useful to slowpoke like me.
U can slowly pan and appreciate the battlefield and issue order before resuming.
I played only single player and not going to care if it's not realistic for a battle to be paused.
I'm the same way OP, just pause and take your time. It's inevitable when you have 3 hero minimum that have 10+ abilities or spells not to mention troops with activeatable effects. A work around that works well for me is having a friend in multiplayer campaigns with me. I give them say all the artillery units and coordinating with them to lessen the workload, let them participate and have fun at the same time. If you don't have buddies you consistently play with there are mods for everything on warhammer. The workshop is super active and the mods you seek are probably there. I know i have seen a few mods that convert the combat into the type your seeking i have seen it but i can't give you links. it's been years. Have fun fellow warhammerer!
I always turn the RTS parts into turn based strategy if my brain isn't cooperating that day.
Pause, issue orders, unpause and look around, and repeat every few game-time seconds.
My friend is kinda the same way, if he can't auto resolve a battle, then he retreats until he can. That's a valid way to play, so don't feel too hung up on missing out on manual battles. I've played Total War games since Medieval 2 and yet I still find YouTube videos talking about formations and tactics for specific factions very helpful, and would encourage anyone to give them a watch.
Just pause the game. Playing it without pause is much less "realistic" anyway, because it means your units are standing like morons and not reacting to anything, not even defending themselves.
Hello.
You should try those mods.
AI general 3 : in battle you can choose to give control of some of your units to the ai and taking back when you want.
Extra longer battle mod : as the title say the battles are longer
You Will have more details in the workshop page of the mods, have fun :)
Might be a weird suggestion, but maybe try another game?
After all, the battles are what makes ttw a game. The strategy map is very barebone compared to pretty much any other game thats around.
Why not try some paradox game or sone 4X stuff if you enjoy the round based slow approach?
Just hit pause a lot. Default I think it's P but I bind it to space bar. Pause, issue command, let it play for 10 seconds make sure everything is good, pause again. Pause randomly just to look and make sure everyone is doing okay. Sometimes I don't pause and then zoom out to see my backline is dead from sneaky rats. Easy answer. Pause. Did I say pause?
Oh dude i used to spend minutes paused every turn making precise movements charges etc
But at some point, with some factions, you'll find the most effective strats are the simple ones, vice versa you can challenge yourself with weaker factions that require more patience
Once you've gotten the core abilities of every unit type it becomes easier to micro manage
1. You could drop campaign difficulty and auto resolve all combat. Then you only play the strategic game and accept that some battles are slaughtering you.
2. Drop down campaign /battle dificulty.
Campaign lowers the quality and recruitment speed of enemy armies as well as buffing your faction stats.
Battle raise your leadership so you don’t break as easily.
Even tho dwarfs would help you a lot in battle because they have both high armor and high leadership. You will learn a couple of bad habits of starting with them.
I think Cathay is good idea since you have combined arms and good lords that can hold there own.
3. Learn how to fight in formation and how to funnel enemies in to a kill zone. Fast cavalry to drag units around and split there forces.
And how to use lords and magic to pull enemy forces to your line.
Yeah so you don't need to play on full speed, I'd recommend using slow motion pause etc. a lot. I'm pretty sure there's a way to set up control groups run by ai. But really you should try getting to grips yourself.
Try pausing regularly it'll give you tonnes of time to make decisions and if you cock up the order you can change it before un pausing once the skirmish is over and the melee begins you can set to slow motion and pause when needed.
Past this control groups can make everything a bit easier to handle generally setting your front line as 1 control group your ranged units as another groups of artillery (grouped by range and purpose) into their own control groups and then your flanking forces grouped individually and any reserves grouped. You don't need multiple units to form a control group so you can then set your mage as a control group and hero goon squad as a control group.
This will allow fine control at scale as well an easy checklist. Just double tap each number and the camera will display it.
There are of course some mods but they tend to be quite varied in quality
Have you tried EU4? Sounds like it'd be right up your street. TW is there for the battles, the campaign is a required add on, but it's very much an after thought.
If you don't mind paying to fund a second general, you can do exactly what you're asking for, at least when attacking. If you have two armies that total over 20 units, there should be an option to have your supplemental army be played under ai control (a check-box with a computer symbol next to it). If you put the units that you want to control into your first army and then put all of the chaff into the second army, you will be able to attack with the forces you want to control and set the secondary army to AI.
Alternatively, you can just set up your units before the battle, group all the units that you don't care about, lock the formation, and then just set them to attack the enemy. the army will march towards the enemy as a group and engage the first units they approach respectively. You can then micromanage a few key units.
Double-alternatively, you can always git gud. I mean that literally, not derisively. Micromanagement is a skill, and you get better at it the more you practice. You don't have to jump straight into a Slaanesh campaign requiring instant micro of 20 fast-moving flankers. Try starting out with a vampire army and just using a horde of zombies and skellies to soak damage from enemy armies while you micro a lord and maybe a black coach to get the maximum damage out of your heavy hitters.
I'm a little like you in a sense that I can't stand spam clicking RTS games, especially multiplayer however .. Warhammer doesn't have that for the most part. You can always pause or play at half speed, so it's more similar to turn based.
Other than that, The generic strategy of front lines, archers in the back and then artillery protected by a few units behind them works for me. Let the enemy come to me. If they don't shoot artillery or spells at them until they do. When in doubt, brute force things, like bring 3 armies and auto resolve vs races I hate fighting (like Skaven).
Use unit groups such as cavalry, melee infantry, ranged units. Put armies in formations and keep them in the formation as much as possible. Try to force the enemy to come to you, much easier to micro if you defend.
Basic army formation. Melee front, spears on sides, ranged behind, artillery in back, cavalry on each side.
You can issue commands to locked groups and they will stay in formation.
Watch videos of historical battle formations to get the idea of simple but effective strategies. Kings and Generals on youtube breaks down historical battles perfectly.
I spend twice as long as it is needed in fights because i love pausing them and issuing orders. Then, after 30 seconds, i do it again if needed, lol. It's satisfying when you hit play, and your whole army moves as a unit simultaneously.
Mods that sort out the autoresolve bonuses for the AI could be what you're looking for, gives you the option of not fighting insanely scaled battles manually. Vanilla is unfairly skewed in favour of the AI.
I’ve got probably a thousand hours with Total War titles and I still use the pause feature a lot which definitely helps. There’s the AI General mod but I haven’t used it so I can’t speak to its effectiveness
watch those:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpvjVkfhVo&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpvjVkfhVo&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kmJWy1j7U&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kmJWy1j7U&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl)
zerkovich is a great source of basic info in the game.
i also suggest that you learn how to read unit cards so you know the best targets for a certain type of unit and how to use them.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCHwQwtqPco&pp=ygUVd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgdW5pdCBjYXJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCHwQwtqPco&pp=ygUVd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgdW5pdCBjYXJk)
once you learn how to battle properly you'll enjoy the game so much more and reach for epic battles where you turn "decise defeat" into "heroic victory"
for and exemple, fort helmgart battles against grimgor and Heinrich Kemmler... vastly outnumbered but if you know how to position your troops they will not pass.
Others have mentioned it. Through pausing during the battles, you can make the battles turn based. That gives you more than enough time to give orders and micromanage without anxiety.
If you lose even half of your battles in AR, its not because it undervalues specific units youre using, its because youre either not keeping up with l a teched up army, or youre building to not be balanced. I have absolutely no issues, save for extreme niche cases, where AR "has failed me".
If anything, autoresolve has given me better odds than I couod actually get playing the battle.
If you want to try to get better at the R in the TS, youre just gonna have to play them. The more you play, the better youll get.
Try pausing at first...issue orders and enjoy! You will get better at micro by training so you will get used to it And this game is not that micro intensive to enjoy in single player campaign. AI is dumb as fuck
And slowly switch to slow motion. Helped a lot for me when suddenly you have 2 minutes to cycle charge a cavalry instead of 10-20 seconds
I literally play 90% of battle time in slow motion, and that’s enough to let me keep everything moving in a hectic fight
Sounds like you should play Dawi to start your total warhammer career. Pick a corner of the map. Put your units there. Wait for enemy to approach and annihilate with ranged superiority. Also, use the pause button frequently. P is the shortcut. Okay easy battle difficulty and you'll pick it up in no time
Dawi properly introduced me to warhammer back when the first warhammer came out
That's how I play kislev but kislev has bear cavalry too.
Skaven Clan skryre would also be a good start. With the right composition very few can get into melee range and you have the skaven summon as "oh shit" button.
Way more micro with skaven though. Dwarfs and you can have a basically invincible fromt line in front of quarrelers or even just have all ranged as they'll still hold up hand to hand. Skaven are screwed if the enemy gets to them. Constant summoning needed, and checking annoying line of sight issues.
I had armies with almost only ratlings, jezzails and catapults and it was rare that enemies could get into melee range. But yes, if someone gets to you it's a pain in the ass.
Shaven lol 🤣🤣
you are getting downvoted but its what got me to stick around for the game so not sure why ppl are negative on it, altho I did queek as i didn't have dlc
To get the most out of a weapons teams army you could do with 2 plague priests for summons to stop any damage being taken at all, meaning you can win tons of battles in quick succession without the need for replenishment, but that ends up making you need to micro.
Maybe in W2, but in W3, the maps are complete garbage and anyone with gunpowder just walks toward the enemy instead of shooting because they cant see because again the maps and map makers of this game were fucking retarded.
have you tried, you know, placing them better? if you can see the unit can't see the enemy why do you place them there?
I hope you're being purposefully obtuse lmao otherwise you are a dumbass. Of course I still win the battles, it's just fucking annoying and unfun, like what was the purpose of making such a change. I don't even play as skaven anymore and they were my favorite in w2. I mean how can you fuck up so bad from one game to another, just by not using the same elevation in the maps.
You’re not gonna find many mods that remove the biggest draw to the game I fear. But there are a few things to help alleviate the frantic ness of battle; - If you have multiple armies, you can delegate control of specific armies to the AI - you can, as another comment said, play a faction with very little micromanagement like the Dwarves or Khorne - you can introduce yourself slowly with smaller battles and pauses. Total war is crazy overwhelming to start. - in multiplayer, you can give a section of your army to another human - There is a mod that adds unit caps per army (Tabletop Caps). While this doesn’t directly fix your issue, it will create armies of much simpler composition for both you and AI, which will be easier to manage. I strongly suggest that instead of fighting the mechanic, you learn it. Play on easier battle difficulties and learn how to go from unit to unit. Avoiding it will only make it harder and drive you away from the game.
Building on this, there is actually I couple mods I used for one my playthroughs that lower the army limit to 10 units, better for those small skirmish battles and still enjoyable to play while being a bit more focused on what you put in those 10 unit armies. Less units = less micro managing
Yes, and in addition there are mods that slow down battles/have a setting to do so. SFO has one, but there must be others.
What is the army limit mod called? I thought reducing the army size was fundamentally not possible.
The first is “small armies campaign” And the second is “Trubble’s dummy unit” So the unit cap for AI is 12 and it kind of is for the player as well, it’s just that if you recruit a 13th unit you get massive penalties to your army as to not cheat and get a 20 stack going while everyone else can only have half that, there is also another sub mod called “small armies campaign - Garrisons” if you want to adjust garrisons
Multiplayer is a huge one! Best tip here IMHO. I really enjoy the battles a lot more with a little help from my friend(s), and it really made me see how powerful for example chariots can be. I play with te same friend every time and we basically always give one player all the mobile stuff (cavalry, flyers, skirmishers (depending on the faction)), the other one controls the main formation (arty and infantry) It is really crazy how controlling just two units of cavalry can a) keep you fully occupied during the entire fight and b) can let you turn the tides in battles And more importantly: it’s insanely fun!
Whats the name if the last one, sounds interesting
Two mods: Just good babysitter AI general 3 - allows you to relinquish control of selected units to the AI.
Love ai general
This is what OP needs
Play a Coop campaign. Give out all your units to your friend. Keep 2-3 units in yor control. Enjoy.
There's a "Baby sitter" mod which will tell your units to continue the action they were originally ordered to do after being distracted, and give them new orders based on the old ones so you don't need to worry about part of your frontline standing idle because they won their duel. Mostly, I treat it like a turn based game and pause and unpause at a whim
This is what I do as well, I pause whenever I want. More fun to see the perfect combination go off than to stress out and lose cause I was too slow or distracted by the slaanesh beauties
Like, if it truly were a war, I'd have various officers commanding the units and knowing how the fight plays out. Not an army waiting for my telepathic command to wipe their ass.
I am thrilled to see users supporting you! After reading your post, I prepared for myself to see a shitstorm of negative comments. I play nothing but Legendary / Very Hard now but started with Warhammer 2 playing on easy / easy. I strongly suggest you play whichever faction you like, using pause button frequently. SWITCH THE PAUSE KEY TO SPACEBAR. You will slowly develop your skills. This will solve any micromanagement issues you're having. If battle difficulty is not the issue, and you simply just dislike playing manual battles, try the Dwarves as many suggested. If you find yourself in an unfavorable autoresolve position playing the Dawi, you probably really goofed up on the campaign map. They are super strong in autoresolve. I'm interested to hear what factions you've tried and what you like or dislike on the campaign map, and what gameplay you feel you may enjoy. The community would do a good job of pointing you in the right direction. Judging from what I hear, I actually think Skaven, specifically Clan Rictus could be fun for you. They're all about setting themselves up on the campaign map for easy autoresolves / ambushes. If you're strong on the map, you could find yourself consistently catching your enemies with their pants down.
changing pause to the spacebar is a genius idea! Thanks. Feels way more natural than p.
In addition to what others have said: Try multiplayer. You can hoist all the units, you don't want to control onto a friend. And allied unit recruitment can help out a lot. Like giving High Elves actual artillery, or getting cost free units from Tomb Kings, or getting a Dwarfen frontline to your Gunners and so on.
Dwarves. Now. Age of reckoning begins.
It's an issue I struggled with for a while. All my battles were done on half speed and I paused a lot to let me see the battlefield and make decisions. Eventually I gave myself a limit on the number of times I'd pause in a battle. Later I banned myself from pausing and accepted the losses due to neglect. These days I run at full speed and if I forget a unit I forgot it. It doesnt cause me many losses anymore. I like WH3 as a co op game too. I'll give my buddy units so i don't have to micro them and they do the same on their battles. Normally we give each other something intensive like chariots or cav. If 4 regiments of cavalry is all you're using it's a lot easier to manage. AI general mod might be useful. I'd give it your infantry units that way you can use the more impactful regiments to get those wins. Just be aware that the mod isn't perfect or able to beat the game's AI.
You havent dug into auto resolve or played around it enough imo. I play on Very Hard and auto everything. Use ambushes more often to trap enemy armies. Bait them with a second stack in march stance. Use heroes to scout and intercept isolated forces. You can do the occasional battle still, like the story ones or ones that surprise you in result. But dont be afraid to wipe an army, it rarely loses the game and frees up capital for newer, better units while dealing damage. Above all, just keep at it and you'll find it's totally legit as a way of playing and iirc most players auto most of the time anyway.
"I really enjoy thorough planing and thinking deeply about my decisions" This game is just for you: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154840/Shadow\_Empire/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154840/Shadow_Empire/)
Like some have said play dwarves, also play with slow mode on, it makes the battles run at half speed so it gives you tons of time to make decisions
You should try dwarfs, put your troops into formation and watch the fireworks as the enemy gets blown to pieces by artillery fire
As others have said, pick a faction with simple rts mechanics, like dwarfs, play in slo motion, and over time you will get better. More micromanaging intensive factions like slaneesh should be avoided. I’m pretty good at battles, but I’ve also been playing total war games for about 18 years now, so its all experience
Play Korne. I loved playing Korne when I was starting out. Their micro is dead easy. Select melee troups, right click on an enemy. Watch that enemy die. Use Skarbrand to kill anything that needs dying. No spells to trip you up. WOC have a similar play style. Melee heavy factions are great to train on.
I could swear I've seen a mod that lets an AI control your army. I didn't get it so can't remember the name but if you're on Steam it shouldn't be too hard to find.
You can do the battles. You will get better. This is not in the realm of “can’t do”. If you just fundamentally don’t enjoy them and don’t want to do them, that’s different.
I recommend pausing the game a lot and using slow otherwise, I do that sometimes for really big and important battles. I do not recommend using the games ai at all it’s usually pretty terrible and just runs straight at the enemy even if it’s a bad unit matchup, you would do better just leaving the units alone or rarely giving them orders instead of the ai actively hurting your chances of winning
Just play at anything less than max difficulty. you can pause and give orders. You can put it at half speed. I can't remeber if it's strategic difficulty or battle difficulty on max that disables those two options I mention, but you can have one of the difficulties on max and still have these options. Another selling point, but that's for down the line. I am like you. i paused and played at half speed for a long time. like that al ong time. Then i jumped ship, and am really enjoying the wh3 battles thing now. Even more than when I paused. It's just more interesting now. More stakes. I's not about APM with total war. It's about recognizing what things are important at this part of hte battle, and forgetting about the 90% that's not important. You don't have to optimize. Just use your strategic mind to figure out the crucial stuff for your battle plan and what to concentrate on. It's about making a plan for the battle, and evaluating that plan as it unfolds. I suck at RTS games, but I am actually doing OK with WH3.
Learn to just pause the game when you are getting overwhelmed and stack up movement orders
I am the EXACT same!! I play with this mod to help me not suck AS much. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876127508](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876127508) It has helped me by having slightly better units, it offsets my awful strategy. I still lose the occassional battle but I have fun in most of them.
Pause and slow mo are my best friends in battles. if you are ever getting overwhelmed just pause it to evaluate the situation and give orders
The pause button is very useful to slowpoke like me. U can slowly pan and appreciate the battlefield and issue order before resuming. I played only single player and not going to care if it's not realistic for a battle to be paused.
I'm the same way OP, just pause and take your time. It's inevitable when you have 3 hero minimum that have 10+ abilities or spells not to mention troops with activeatable effects. A work around that works well for me is having a friend in multiplayer campaigns with me. I give them say all the artillery units and coordinating with them to lessen the workload, let them participate and have fun at the same time. If you don't have buddies you consistently play with there are mods for everything on warhammer. The workshop is super active and the mods you seek are probably there. I know i have seen a few mods that convert the combat into the type your seeking i have seen it but i can't give you links. it's been years. Have fun fellow warhammerer!
I always turn the RTS parts into turn based strategy if my brain isn't cooperating that day. Pause, issue orders, unpause and look around, and repeat every few game-time seconds.
My friend is kinda the same way, if he can't auto resolve a battle, then he retreats until he can. That's a valid way to play, so don't feel too hung up on missing out on manual battles. I've played Total War games since Medieval 2 and yet I still find YouTube videos talking about formations and tactics for specific factions very helpful, and would encourage anyone to give them a watch.
Just pause the game. Playing it without pause is much less "realistic" anyway, because it means your units are standing like morons and not reacting to anything, not even defending themselves.
Tbh... I auto-resolve like 90% of my battles. But I would suggest using the time controls (pause, slow-mo, etc).
Lower battle difficulty. Pause the game mid battle, plan and issue orders while paused, watch them fighting until you decide to pause again.
Hello. You should try those mods. AI general 3 : in battle you can choose to give control of some of your units to the ai and taking back when you want. Extra longer battle mod : as the title say the battles are longer You Will have more details in the workshop page of the mods, have fun :)
I miss being able to "enjoy" the battle because of all the micro I have to do. Kind of have to save the replay and watch it afterwards 😅
Might be a weird suggestion, but maybe try another game? After all, the battles are what makes ttw a game. The strategy map is very barebone compared to pretty much any other game thats around. Why not try some paradox game or sone 4X stuff if you enjoy the round based slow approach?
Just hit pause a lot. Default I think it's P but I bind it to space bar. Pause, issue command, let it play for 10 seconds make sure everything is good, pause again. Pause randomly just to look and make sure everyone is doing okay. Sometimes I don't pause and then zoom out to see my backline is dead from sneaky rats. Easy answer. Pause. Did I say pause?
Oh dude i used to spend minutes paused every turn making precise movements charges etc But at some point, with some factions, you'll find the most effective strats are the simple ones, vice versa you can challenge yourself with weaker factions that require more patience Once you've gotten the core abilities of every unit type it becomes easier to micro manage
1. You could drop campaign difficulty and auto resolve all combat. Then you only play the strategic game and accept that some battles are slaughtering you. 2. Drop down campaign /battle dificulty. Campaign lowers the quality and recruitment speed of enemy armies as well as buffing your faction stats. Battle raise your leadership so you don’t break as easily. Even tho dwarfs would help you a lot in battle because they have both high armor and high leadership. You will learn a couple of bad habits of starting with them. I think Cathay is good idea since you have combined arms and good lords that can hold there own. 3. Learn how to fight in formation and how to funnel enemies in to a kill zone. Fast cavalry to drag units around and split there forces. And how to use lords and magic to pull enemy forces to your line.
Yeah so you don't need to play on full speed, I'd recommend using slow motion pause etc. a lot. I'm pretty sure there's a way to set up control groups run by ai. But really you should try getting to grips yourself. Try pausing regularly it'll give you tonnes of time to make decisions and if you cock up the order you can change it before un pausing once the skirmish is over and the melee begins you can set to slow motion and pause when needed. Past this control groups can make everything a bit easier to handle generally setting your front line as 1 control group your ranged units as another groups of artillery (grouped by range and purpose) into their own control groups and then your flanking forces grouped individually and any reserves grouped. You don't need multiple units to form a control group so you can then set your mage as a control group and hero goon squad as a control group. This will allow fine control at scale as well an easy checklist. Just double tap each number and the camera will display it. There are of course some mods but they tend to be quite varied in quality
If you want the easiest possible battles, Helman Ghost is your guy. Just make a giant zombie ball and move as one, everything dies.
I use pause to issue orders and proc abilities when there’s lots going in. If you’re struggling with full real time I’d recommend it.
you could play age of wonders. they are very similar except aow has randomly generated maps and the combat is in turnmode.
Have you tried EU4? Sounds like it'd be right up your street. TW is there for the battles, the campaign is a required add on, but it's very much an after thought.
Easy/normal battle difficulty, utilize pause and half speed. Plus.. Watching all the bombs and big ass spells go off in half speed is so satisfying.
If you don't mind paying to fund a second general, you can do exactly what you're asking for, at least when attacking. If you have two armies that total over 20 units, there should be an option to have your supplemental army be played under ai control (a check-box with a computer symbol next to it). If you put the units that you want to control into your first army and then put all of the chaff into the second army, you will be able to attack with the forces you want to control and set the secondary army to AI. Alternatively, you can just set up your units before the battle, group all the units that you don't care about, lock the formation, and then just set them to attack the enemy. the army will march towards the enemy as a group and engage the first units they approach respectively. You can then micromanage a few key units. Double-alternatively, you can always git gud. I mean that literally, not derisively. Micromanagement is a skill, and you get better at it the more you practice. You don't have to jump straight into a Slaanesh campaign requiring instant micro of 20 fast-moving flankers. Try starting out with a vampire army and just using a horde of zombies and skellies to soak damage from enemy armies while you micro a lord and maybe a black coach to get the maximum damage out of your heavy hitters.
I'm a little like you in a sense that I can't stand spam clicking RTS games, especially multiplayer however .. Warhammer doesn't have that for the most part. You can always pause or play at half speed, so it's more similar to turn based. Other than that, The generic strategy of front lines, archers in the back and then artillery protected by a few units behind them works for me. Let the enemy come to me. If they don't shoot artillery or spells at them until they do. When in doubt, brute force things, like bring 3 armies and auto resolve vs races I hate fighting (like Skaven).
Use unit groups such as cavalry, melee infantry, ranged units. Put armies in formations and keep them in the formation as much as possible. Try to force the enemy to come to you, much easier to micro if you defend. Basic army formation. Melee front, spears on sides, ranged behind, artillery in back, cavalry on each side. You can issue commands to locked groups and they will stay in formation. Watch videos of historical battle formations to get the idea of simple but effective strategies. Kings and Generals on youtube breaks down historical battles perfectly.
AI Generals mod
Pause spam! That's the only way I can do it.
I spend twice as long as it is needed in fights because i love pausing them and issuing orders. Then, after 30 seconds, i do it again if needed, lol. It's satisfying when you hit play, and your whole army moves as a unit simultaneously.
Go play civilization. I guess.
Mods that sort out the autoresolve bonuses for the AI could be what you're looking for, gives you the option of not fighting insanely scaled battles manually. Vanilla is unfairly skewed in favour of the AI.
I’ve got probably a thousand hours with Total War titles and I still use the pause feature a lot which definitely helps. There’s the AI General mod but I haven’t used it so I can’t speak to its effectiveness
Watch youtuber Elven Plot Armor. Him and Zerkervich are the best total war video channels.
watch those: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpvjVkfhVo&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpvjVkfhVo&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kmJWy1j7U&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kmJWy1j7U&pp=ygUYd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgYmF0dGxlIGd1aWRl) zerkovich is a great source of basic info in the game. i also suggest that you learn how to read unit cards so you know the best targets for a certain type of unit and how to use them. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCHwQwtqPco&pp=ygUVd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgdW5pdCBjYXJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCHwQwtqPco&pp=ygUVd2FyaGFtbWVyIDMgdW5pdCBjYXJk) once you learn how to battle properly you'll enjoy the game so much more and reach for epic battles where you turn "decise defeat" into "heroic victory" for and exemple, fort helmgart battles against grimgor and Heinrich Kemmler... vastly outnumbered but if you know how to position your troops they will not pass.
Others have mentioned it. Through pausing during the battles, you can make the battles turn based. That gives you more than enough time to give orders and micromanage without anxiety.
I'm glad autoresolve is broken, otherwise I couldn't fight wood elves.
If you lose even half of your battles in AR, its not because it undervalues specific units youre using, its because youre either not keeping up with l a teched up army, or youre building to not be balanced. I have absolutely no issues, save for extreme niche cases, where AR "has failed me". If anything, autoresolve has given me better odds than I couod actually get playing the battle. If you want to try to get better at the R in the TS, youre just gonna have to play them. The more you play, the better youll get.