Hey—I'm sure this gets asked all the time, but does anyone have any advice for someone who wants to get into this? I played a lot of MTWII a couple years ago, and did a few hours on a Dark Elf campaign in this a year ago before getting overwhelmed by upkeep.
I know there are a lot of "tips for people starting Total War: Warhammer" articles/posts out there, but they seem to overwhelmingly fall into one of two categories: Step-by-step directions for a given campaign ("Turn one, build a harpy, go three kliks north, siege the barbarian camp, start researching Elf Hats, turn two, pivot left,") or extremely rudimentary stuff ("Use your units to attack enemies!"). I'm looking for advice in the sweet spot. I have operated a computer before, but I also don't want to follow directions for how to play.
I think I mostly need some fast-and-loose advice for economy management; this game throws a lotta resources up fast.
Thinking I'll do Dark Elves or Vampire Counts, if it matters. Do have Mortal Empires, don't have any other DLC.
Upkeep can be tough to manage, but there's a few simple rules to follow at the beginning:
first, there's an upkeep tab that lists exactly what's costing you money. If there's anything not army related that's brining you down, that's the best place to look.
The thing that's most likely costing you money though, is army upkeep. Unlike in Medieval, having multiple armies is very expensive, even if they are small. I don't remember the exact amount but each "general"/Lord you have costs you some 15-20% of additional upkeep (i don't remember the exact number, the game tells you). You get the upkeep penalty even if the Lord is the only unit in the army.
For the early game it's cheaper to have one army and using that to unify your first province. Dark elves have pretty strong cheap units anyway. Spearmen and their crossbow units are incredibly potent. I like to get the second army only when i've unified my second province, but depending on starting position that can be tough. If you get a second army early it's incredibly important to fight and conquer a lot! You will run out of funds otherwise.
Technology: I like going for economic technologies first. Unless you are having lots of trouble in battle i like to kickstart the economy before my units. I don't know if this is acutally optimal play (especially for Vampire counts, getting the cheap unit buffs early might be worth it) but it's served me well so far.
Buildings:
Building is fairly straightforward but there's a few things that are important to know :
-special building chains (marked red) are settlement specific, you can only build them in that settlement. Check to see if a settlement has some! That can be for example : tradable resources, rescources that lower costs of building units or buildings, access to special units.
An often overlooked building early game is growth. Growth not only lets you upgrade your settlements faster, it also heals your troops more quickly. This lets you fight more an thus, earn more money. This building can also be torn down later, when you don't need it anymore. But early game it's very useful.
If you struggle with upkeep, build the economic buildings. They are building chains for every race that just plainly exist to give you more money. Also, ports are huge money makers. getting settlements with acess to the sea can be a big boon to the economy.
The last (but important) point is diplomacy. Diplomacy can be incredibly important for your economy. Somewhat less so for the "evil" races but still.
Trade: you can trade with other fractions friendly to you - but you need to be able to have a trade route with them. The diplomacy tab shows you which factions you can trade with - and which are unreachable (due to geography or alignment). As you uncover more of the map this changes regularly, so keep checking if there's new factions you can trade with!
It's also fairly easy to get money for diplomatic favours. A lot of factions are willing to pay for Military acess or alliances or war assistance Especially if they are weak.
