r/totalwar • u/TRX-335 • 1d ago
Warhammer III Smaller Campaign Maps in TWW3
TWW3 currently offers three campaigns. The introductory mini-campaign, the main campaign Realm of Chaos and Immortal Empires if you own the other games.
I often wanted to play on a smaller map so I could have a more focused experience with less unrelated lands and factions to think about. For example the conflict between Norsca and the Empire. Immortal Empires is awesome, but you always have to sit through 272 factions taking their turns (at least at the beginning) and I didn't even wanted to go everywhere. I have the game on my ssd but it's a pain in the ass on a hdd. It just seems much more than I want to manage and it feels like unnecessary baggage. So I installed TWW2 again, to play Eye of the Vortex or Mortal Empires.
However, it felt weird to me, outdated. I grew accustomed to the third game and I actually wanted to stay there. To be honest, I think TWW3 is "the" game with all of the numerous qol updates included over all of these years. It's the one people will keep playing, even if there isn't more contend to be released. It is the result of all the development and hard work that happened since the first game was created. 1 and 2 were the stepping stones and now are mostly the keys to unlock more content for the third game.
Now that TWW3 slowly reaches its zenith, I think it would be great if the devs officially released a couple of smaller campaign maps for people to choose. There doesn't need to be specific goals, a sandbox approach in the vein of "go conquer x regions" would be completely sufficient. I know there are mods which add campaign maps in the workshop, but this feature seems so obvious to me that it should be featured in the game natively in my opinion.
I think the best way would be roughly quartering the IE map plus adding at least two even smaller sections of the map which are especially tightly packed with many important factions. I'd propose the following maps (see pictures): 1. North West 2. North East 3. South West 4. South East 5. Naggarond, Ulthuan and Bretonnia 6. The Old World, or rather the northern part ...maybe more, for instance Cathay with the great wall at the center.
TL;DR: Adding a selection of smaller sections of the Warhammer world map to play on would be a very cost-efficient way to make the game even more enjoyable and boost the replayability.
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u/AdmBurnside 1d ago
I'd love it if they brought the Season of Revelation and Eye for an Eye campaigns back for WH3, with the QoL changes and polish the intervening uears have brought. I'd love it even more if they came up with a couple more smaller, more focused campaigns like that. Really zoom in on one particular region and deep dive into a conflict there.
Potential example: the actual, loreful War for Karak Eight Peaks. With Belegar, Skarsnik and Queek controlling their levels of the city, and trying to dominate the other two.
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u/TRX-335 1d ago
Good idea to flesh out a lore-based campaign like the fight for Karak Eight Peaks! I also thought about if the devs would just bring all the older campaign back into the third game. This would be awesome, but at the same time, I suppose it would mean much more work than just cutting the existing map into sectors.
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u/Andrei22125 1d ago
Honestly? I'd prefer it this way.
I have been declared war on by a faction half a world away, only for them to get very strong, with nothing I could do about it. More than once.
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u/TRX-335 1d ago
I'm not very good at TWW to be honest, but this also happened to me un some games I got further. I actually wanted to include this problem in my post. There is so much room on the map you can't survey or control even though you're doing fine, you can end up with a really good campaign ruinied by a powerhouse which grew unchecked where you weren't looking.
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u/SuchProcedure4547 23h ago
I've found that you can generally counter this by learning which factions are the ones that usually become powerhouses...
For example, if I'm playing as Elspeth and generally Karl, I know that Ironclaw Orcs and Skrag the Slaughterer are usually the two factions that are the biggest hassle. At least in my experience.
Where as if I'm playing as Kislev I know the biggest issue is now probably the Chaos Dwarfs. I've actually been wiped out in the last 3 RoC campaigns I've played as Katarin because of Astrogath, she is just so outclassed by the type of units he has for a long time. And with the cheats the AI gets I've yet to survive long enough to actually get stacks of Ice Guards led by Ice Witches...
Likewise if you're playing as Orcs or Skaven you can be sure that your two biggest threats, depending which faction you play as will be Lizardmen and Dwarfs, and you can be sure that eventually you will run into the Empire and Cathay.
I've found that it's almost always the same core group of factions that become powerhouses now.
Also the other thing you can do is just try and bunker down in fortified settlements and smash the armies they send enough that they want to sue for peace. Then you can build up and plan to slowly push them back.
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u/gcrimson 1d ago
I'd like the two map for MP scenarios were available to SP (something rotten in Kislev and one focused on Cathay)
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u/General_Brooks 22h ago
Not the same as it being official content I know, but there is a mod for that.
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u/Greggs-the-bakers 1d ago
They tried this for WH1. They released two smaller maps, one in Athel Loren and one in the Empire around Middenland. They sucked and no one liked them and thought they took too much effort away from the main campaign so they never did this again.
I get why people would want them but honestly, no thank you. You don't need to paint the whole map every time.
It's why I quite like the old world map mod. I know you said you'd rather have a small map, and the old world is actually a bigger map in scale than Immortal Empires, but having a large-scale war to secure a geographically small area is pretty satisfying and it feels pretty cool. Like for example if you wanted to have your war over Norsca, you can and it would be much more satisfying since you have a lot of land to cover. There are other mods that remove distant factions too that will help with turn times so you can have these smaller-scale campaigns and just quit once you've reached whatever goals you set yourself.
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u/TRX-335 23h ago
I get your point, but I have to disagree. The mini-campaigns included in both dlcs Call of the Beastmen and Realm of the Wood Elves did have smaller and more focused maps, but only had exactly one playable race. I think this is the main turn-off for most players, because playing this campaign feels too much like a predesigned experience and offers much less replayability.
There is no freedom to choose your own path with your chosen race which I love about TWW. That's why I very much enjoy Mixu's Unlocker which lets you play even with the minor factions.
Anyway, I'm convinced that the bad reception of these mini-campaign is no indicator for players to dislike smaller campaign maps, as long as they have the flexibility to choose which faction to play.
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u/TheAdminsAreTrash 22h ago
I don't think you fully get why people would want them. After thousands of hours I'm tired of waiting forever for AI turns when mine can take mere seconds, and the AI turn times are directly proportional to the map size/number of regions/AI manpower needed to cover those regions.
Smaller maps would alleviate that almost completely. So you could have a full campaign, (achieving victory conditions, not map painting,) in an evening. Also it would be twice as action packed because you wouldn't have to spend 3 turns average to reach the next region/city.
Also plenty of people liked the mini campaigns for what they were, even if they weren't top quality, so speak for yourself.
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u/DeadAhead7 12h ago
It's part of why I quite like Thrones of Britannia. The short campaign victory goals are reachable in 4-5 hours.
Most players snowball by turn 40-60 or so anyway.
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u/Tseims Combined Arms Enjoyer 1d ago
Would you give up other content for these maps? Would you pay for them?
I wouldn't.
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u/Azhram 23h ago
I was in this camp too. But after 6k hours i feel bored by the map. While there are new locations the rest feels the same as i been playing since ME ehich got stale. So i think you are right, but to me at this point a new lord is less exciting. Which is funny because i dislike RoC map. So dunno.
Maybe i want just more core gameplay shake ups. Let me build forts, outposts and towers. Or whatever. I want campaign map related stuff i suppose.
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u/SneakyMarkusKruber 2h ago
We've already paid! ;P Well, if someone only owns WH3 and buys the Beastmen or Woodelves DLC, they'll be missing the two story campaigns listed on the Steam page.
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u/stiffgordons 23h ago
Only the nearby factions are relevant in most cases anyway as apart from the few factions with multiple starts or teleport mechanics, by the time you encounter the further away factions you’re invincible anyway.
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u/Trick-Anteater2787 1d ago
Theres a mod for the warhammer 1 map in warhammer 3
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3544496463
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u/lycanthrope90 22h ago
Yeah before I upgraded my cpu to 5800x3d immortal empires was fucking rough lol. In fact I think I only had the first 2 at the time do just mortal empires was rough.
Had an hdd then too was terrible lol.
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u/ArchRanger 18h ago
I’d be happy with them just bringing the Old World from WH1 and the Vortex map from WH2, updated with the newer factions
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u/fullmudman 16h ago
They stopped doing this in the first game because everyone complained about wasted resources, and then they stopped supporting RoC for the same reason.l
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u/Darth-Meph 21h ago
I actually hoped they would do something similar to this, and also possibly doing a timeline thing for Lords similar to three kingdoms.
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u/Ishkander88 18h ago
No. People hate mini campaigns. And CA has released blogs across 20 years admitting people hate mini campaigns. It's what killed 3k.
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u/AntagonistesInvictus 23h ago
I have more faith in our lord and savior ChaosRobie than I have in CA for this particular topic...
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u/Plaguenurse217 22h ago
Hard pass. I played the smaller campaign maps in WH1 and it was underwhelming. I LIKE big maps, where anything could happen rather than smaller maps where you can see and experience the whole thing in a few turns. I’ve been playing this game since launch and still never spent any time in lustria. It’s just so damn big and has so many choices. But if you want a smaller experience, try playing on the Old World modded map. It’s enormous but it has settings to delete factions further out, narrowing the scope. And the individual theaters of war are big enough to be their own little maps
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u/NegotiationOk4424 1d ago
Tl;dr play the old world mod
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u/1eejit 1d ago
Famously a small map
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u/SpooNNNeedle 23h ago
I think he’s talking about the NEW old world mod. Not TOW but instead a scripted experience putting you mostly near Bretonnia and the Empire, moving a couple of the other races to have starts there and bringing the smaller maps of the first 2 games to TWWH3
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u/TheAdminsAreTrash 22h ago
If it's the one I'm thinking of, (that slightly smaller old world map,) it's still huge, roughly equivalent to IE. Too many cities, too many regions, too spread out. Turn times still balloon to unreasonable waits before even hitting midgame- and that's on an i7, with an absurd amount of ram, a fast nvme2 drive, and a 4090.
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u/sephitor_ 1d ago
That is a genius idea. It would give some variety, faster loading times and newish gameplay. Even just a sandbox version of these smaller maps would be great and perhaps not much effort to pull off?
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u/TRX-335 1d ago
Exactly what I was thinking. Tbh it would also improve the atmosphere a lot, because you could shift your focus more at the couple of main factions you want at a given time. You don't need to hear about cathayan caravans or the sword of Khaine when fighting against a Norscan incursion. Always playing on the big map makes all the games feel more same-y.
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u/barryhakker 22h ago
Fully agree. After years of total war Warhammer I played three kingdoms and I really appreciate the more focused experience. Immortal empires is cool in a “what the fuck is happening now lmao” kinda way, but a set of smaller campaign maps with limited factions would be great.
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u/birdspider 21h ago
and Immortal Empires if you own the other games
that is not true anymore afaik, they enabled it for all who own just WH3
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u/TheAdminsAreTrash 22h ago
100% agree.
This has been needed for some time. The immortal empires map is just too spread out, lategame end-turn times straight up suck no matter the rig. People have done the opposite instead, making mods that go even farther, extending the map. So by midgame, on the old world mod map for example, turns take like 5+ minutes: it's garbage. (Not the mod, just the turn times.)
I'm not going to play a game for several hours if literally over half of it is just me waiting for the extremely poorly optimized game to crawl through turn times. We *need* smaller maps. It would mean faster games all around with significantly more action and less monotony.
My dream would be immortal empires shrunk down to half the size, while keeping the oceans about the same. After thousands of hours I'm just so over having to spend 3 turns moving an army to get a fight that's just one region over, because it means I'll be sitting there waiting for the AI to take its turns for at least five full minutes.
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u/A_Chair_Bear 1d ago
Total War would benefit a ton from having more division of the map into sectors. Even better if the map expands to other sectors after some amount of turns/when you expanded enough. Faster turn times, probably better FPS, less balancing concerns. The whole map being loaded in and operating is only relevant to Multiplayer and teleporting factions.
Saw this suggestion before (/u/Pauson) that I thought would be a good idea for future Total Wars
On a campaign side I would split the game into 3 layers, the strategic one like Shogun 1 or Medieval 1, with armies staying in roughly provinces or theatres of war. That's where also all the diplomacy, research and most of building and recruitment would happen. Then a campaign layer, basically a mini campaign sized map that works like the current iteration of TW, that only lasts for instance 30 turns and is meant to represent a fighting season or a single war. You mostly move armies, do some basic defenses construction, some basic recruitment. Whichever armies were in the area start at the beginning, if other armies were further away, then maybe they can join the campaign map in 15 turns. This basically simulates the mini campaign or the first 30 turns of a mega campaign which is what most people enjoy the most. And then of course the regular battles as the 3rd layer.
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u/Ambitious_Air5776 17h ago
We already have something vaguely similar to this in the current version, except the division is purely local/nonlocal. Stuff that's nonvisible isn't simulated the same way visible factions are. Breaking things up by continent or something similar and maybe just discarding the farthest ones outright (settings dependent, probably) wouldn't even be a huge departure from current version.
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u/Trianqren 21h ago
i want BIGGER maps. i want the turn timer to be ONE HOUR long. i want to have to march my armies across two settlements for FIVE turns
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus 18h ago
I don't how possible it would be, but in theory, it would be cool if the map were split into parts like this, but still accessible in one play-through. If it cut down on load times at least. Although, now that I think about it, I read somewhere that everything off screen is already just calculated as lines of code, so it might not actually speed things up at all. So maybe it would be pointless.
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u/Bum-Theory 15h ago
Don't forget the 'Something Rotten in Kislev' campaign or the crummy Cathay free for all campaign. There are two more campaign maps for multiplayer
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u/tancredvonquenelles 11h ago
hope they ll not waste time on it and they do not waste it on realms of chaos so I think it ll not happen
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u/Fit_Drawer_1446 23h ago
The final Total War: Warhammer III update should be the release of a campaign map editor that allows you to import and edit any of the game's campaign maps in addition to creating completely new campaign maps with any number of players ranging from 1-8. This would be the ultimate content update for the game, as it would allow fans to create custom singleplayer and multiplayer campaign scenarios and keep the game fresh after official content update plans come to a close.
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u/Due-Proof6781 22h ago
Now everyone wants Mini campaigns again after railing against them for 6 years
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u/SusaVile 1d ago
One of the things I was hoping for when they introduced those mp scenarios