5 Hidden Mechanics you NEVER knew! - Warhammer 2 Secrets

the depth of total war games knows no bounds there are many secret and hidden mechanics that most of us would never know about until now I'll be divulging five hidden mechanics in total war some of which could make a big difference to how you play the game you may have seen some of my secrets that videos already if you haven't I'll link them at the end if you're interested in more of this stuff for now though let's get on with it so the first one the melee defense penalty when attacked in the sides or back when an individual entity gets attacked from anywhere but the front it won't get its full melee defense and for those who don't know what melee defence is it's the stat that determines a units chance of dodging enemy incoming attacks the higher this number is the more they'll be able to dodge and thus the less damage they'll take helping them survive for longer now if we take the Empire captain here he has 40 melee defense which for a hero is pretty good but not fantastic so he can stay alive relatively well when making use of his full 40 melee defense which he can only do from the front if you attack an empire captain from either the left or right side he will have 40% less melee defense than his full unmount in this case that'll put him down to 24 melee defense so if an enemy comes in and launches an attack at his side they'll have a better chance of hitting him than if they did it from the front and it gets worse for the empire captain if he gets attacked from behind he'll have minus 70 percent of his full melee defense amount which is pretty freakin huge this puts him down to only 12 melee defense when attacked from behind which obviously means he's going to have a very slim chance of dodging any of those rear attacks so if you want to visualize it it could look something like this and this is the same for every single unit in the game whether they're a lord a hero an infantry a cavalry a monster they all work like this full melee defense from the front 40% less from the sides 70% less from the back and this is applied at the entity level the individual little model and what's happening to it so even with a unit of Demi grifs every single one of those demographics will have full melee defense from in the front 40 cent less from the side and 70% less from the rear so each individual models melee defense will react differently depending on where the attack on them comes from but the real danger of this mechanic is actually for those single characters the Lord's heroes and monsters because their animations have a tendency to dive them into the middle of units then they end up surrounded which means any attacks that come in from the back or sides will have a greater chance of landing take this dragon for example currently it's only fighting things in front of it but uh-oh here comes some spearmen behind it and here it goes diving into a crowd now it's going to take all sorts of skeleton attacks from the backend sides with reduced melee defense this is why it can be particularly dangerous to charge your Lords heroes or monsters into crowds and just leave them there especially if they're fighting a strong unit because they'll have so much less from melee defense this penalty can also be a worry when rear charged as well if cavalry comes up behind infantry smashes it in the back with some hammer and anvil any individual model that has its back turn and gets hit in the back will have that 70% less melee defense though probably will be taking a hit from that charge which will be getting charged bonus damage as well so yeah a recipe for taking a hell of a lot of damage very quickly on the charge when a unit has been flanked though the models will start to turn around to face their attackers getting their full melee defense back so it's only on the initial impact of a charge that this is really a worry so be sure to watch your laws heroes and monsters backs lest they take a lot of damage very quickly especially if you get flanked by a couple of characters one attacking you from the front to distract you and the other one comes up behind you that could mean a lot of damage very quickly for that character from behind so worthwhile knowing to help keep your single entities safe and also be wary of your single entities diving into crowds if you've got a terror Geist that dives into some blackguard of Nagrand it's probably going to get surrounded and stabbed up very quickly with its lack of melee defense from the back or sides next the charge pursuit bonus extra damage that's caused when chasing down fleeing enemies specifically fleeing enemies those that are broken or shattered when you break a units leadership and it runs away from the battle temporarily you can either opt to chase it down or to not and let it potentially come back if you do decide to chase it down you'll be getting the charged pursuit modifier this bonus gives you're pursuing unit 100% of their charge bonus on every single one of their melee attacks the whole time they're chasing them down if you don't know how the charge bonus works the charge bonus number or stat will add on weapon strength and melee attack to the charging unit on the impact of their charge and it will last at 13 seconds degrading by 7.7% every one second until it runs out so that's a normal charge bonus but in this charge pursuit situation we get that full 100 percent charge bonus amount for every attack that's launched against a fleeing unit not to mention you'll probably be attacking them in the back or sides so there's that reduced melee defense penalty there as well so tons of damage to be done and you can see missed opportunities all the time like here these spam and running away in the background they still got lots of health they're going to come back these Kaos Marauders stood here should have chased after them and smashed them in the back and prevented them from returning of course you do need to check the speed of your pursuing units to make sure they can catch them this is why cavalry and things like war hounds can be incredibly powerful when chasing down fleeing units especially cavalry as they have such huge charge bonuses war hounds only have a small charge bonus but they're so fast and can be incredibly cost effective they can munch off thousands of hit points of fleeing enemies at no risk to themselves because fleeing enemies don't fight back so for a 500 gold for a cheap fast unit like war hounds can be incredibly good value for money skirmish cab can also be good for this even mounted yeoman for Patania can do the job if you put them in melee mode and have them chase something that's fleeing away that's a lot of extra damage they could do at no risk to themselves so realize the power you have in units with massive charge bonuses and how effective they can be a chasing down and doing extra damage to fleeing units it can be the key to getting some powerful units off the battlefield early if you can break a units leadership and get it fleeing when it's got half health or maybe even three-quarters health and you can keep pursuing it and doing that damage that is an absolute destruction of that unit and a huge waste of money for your opponent so be sure to realize the power of the charge pursuit next to fatigue and the penalties that it brings and what effect that has on your unit's performance when a unit spent fighting for a long time it will inevitably get tired so what happens to them well as you may or may not know units can go through six stages of fatigue fresh active winded tired very tired ending up at the worst stage of fatigue exhausted units get tired from two main factors running and fighting they can further be affected by elevation if the unit is running up a hill for example they'll get more tired than if they're running on a flat and a steep hill it can be more tiring than a shallow hill units can recover fatigue by standing still or walking so what are the effects on our units when they reach the exhausted state well here it is 25% less armor 15% less speed 30% less melee attack 10% less melee defense 10% less armor-piercing melee damage 30% less charge bonus and 35% less reload rate so when your unit is fresh you won't see any of these penalties at all but as they start to get more and more tired and move through the stages you'll start to get these penalties applied all the way up to this the maximum amounts at the exhausted state so as you can see there are some pretty substantial penalties here if a unit has a hundred armored once it's exhausted it only has 75% armor if they had 40 armor they'll only have 30 armor when exhausted the ability to do damage gets hindered quite a lot a lot of melee attack is lost a lot of charge bonus the armor-piercing melee damages well and of course the higher the stat for the unit the bigger in effect it has so again if a unit has a hundred armor and loses 25% of it that's 25 armor points that are gone if the unit only has 40 armor it only loses ten points of armor so it's less of an effect but interesting to think about what units it would greatly affect based on what their strength and role is so while fatigue is natural and is going to happen in the battle it's not something we need to worry too much about it's gonna happen it's fine don't need to really think about it too much however there are a few things that we can do to help ourselves out and to give ourselves that little advantage of maybe keeping our units fresher for long the first way is quite simple stop running up hills this can cost you up to a hundred and fifty percent more of your fatigue depending on the steepness of the hill then if you are running on a flat so try to walk where possible the only time you really want to run up a hill maybe is if you're being absolutely hammered by artillery and missiles and you're taking tons of damage otherwise walking is absolutely fine and there's no reason to rush it does raise the interest in question though of should you walk up the hill and just take artillery fire suffering more direct damage but less fatigue or should you rush up the hill take less damage but take more fatigue for the entire army might be another question for another day and this all connects to one of the most powerful attributes in the game perfect vigor which means a unit will never suffer any kind of fatigue penalty as you can see on the Grail Knights here so they can keep fighting for ten minutes straight in a battle and they'll still be fresh the whole time they can run up the steepest hill and still be fresh at the top never suffering any of those fatigue penalties and there are some spells and abilities that can have a similar effect take these questing nights here they don't have perfect vigor they are very tired right now but bring in a regrowth and it will not only heal them up but also restore their vigor 100% so they'll be completely fresh again even after the spell has timed out so as you can imagine regrowth can be very powerful if used on a strong unit in the late game it'll take away their penalties and bring them back to full fighting strength maybe giving them enough push to help win the battle for you so don't underestimate the power of perfect vigor and any ability that can take away the fatigue penalties other than that the simplest way to get rid of fatigue penalties is just to stand a unit still it's the quickest way to bring it back to fresh without using spells or abilities walking on flatland does also recover it but very very incredibly slowly so better off just standing still although it does take approximately three minutes of standing still to recover an exhausted unit back to fresh whether that's a good idea or not to leave a unit out of combat that long is really going to be a judgement call for the moment so consider your fatigue and whether you're wasting it do you need to sprint halfway across the map right at the start of the battle probably not unless you're under some heavy artillery fire otherwise you can probably just walk and save your boys the fatigue now for some sneaky stats with the hiding scaler hidden spotting distances how close do you have to be to a unit that's hidden to spot it well first we have to understand the different types of hiding there's hiding in the forest stalk and unspotted all for the most part hide in the forest and stalk are basically the same most units have hide in the forest and can do so but only special units have stalk and can hide anywhere on the map even in the open and then you have unspotted ball which does exactly as it sounds you can't be spotted until you are very very close so what are the numbers of these spotting distances for the different kinds of hiding well here we've got a puny human man who has a regular spotting distance like most units in the game he's being approached by some way Watchers who have stalk until now where they are just spotted this is the distance that stalking units will be spotted out in the open that number is 80 meters so until you get too close you won't be spotted until you hit that 80 meter mark and give yourself away although four-way watches if they shoot things first they will be discovered from that if a unit is hiding in the forest and this goes for any unit that can hide in the forest whether they've got stalk or not it'll be 60 meters is the spotting distance so you can be a little bit closer to units before they find you when hidden in the forest now there are some exceptions and of course one of them is gobos night goblins have stalk and they can get 20% closer to the enemy than most other units bringing them to about 64 metres before they get spotted that little bit of extra time could allow for some extra sneaky stabbing and can you guess which other faction gets 20% better hiding than most that's right it's those damn dirty rats they'll have that slightly better spotting distance to allowing them to get a little bit closer before they're found out but naturally scavenger scavenger backstabbers so they can go one up on everyone else with concealment bombs these give you the unspotted ball trait which reduced a spotting distance to 20 meters which is basically right on top of your enemies pretty brutal if you time it all but alas the trees can be pretty scary two tree units for the wood elves like dryads tree kin and tree men have the best spotting distance in the game at only 30 metres obviously that's not as good as concealment bombs at 20 meters but those are an ability that can only be used a few times dryads are always hidden in the forest at more than 30 metres pretty terrifying if you are fighting the wood elves in the forest and then a ton of trees appear on top of you trying to smash your skull off you can see here this is the 30 meter distance so very very close not a lot of time to react if a bunch of trees should appear out of the trees but hold up there is one faction that gives zero shits about any trees or hidden units it's the lizard boys and their predatory senses a trait that's held by a lot of units in their army this allows them to discover any hidden units way sooner than any other faction the only exception is unspotted all units the even lizards can't uncover here's these weigh watchers and you can see they've been discovered already this is way sooner than the Empire Lord that I showed you just now this is because units with predatory senses get the spotting distance of 160 meters whether a unit is in the open or in the forest it's all 160 meters so good luck trying to hide from the lizards now if you'd like an in-game point of reference because it can be difficult trying to imagine 80 meters you can use your Lords aura which is 70 meters so it's just a little bit further than that or a little bit shorter at 60 meters if you're in the forest this can just be handy to gauge to know how close you can get with your hidden stalking or forest hidden units this can be useful to remember so that you don't pull your units too far out of the way perhaps more than is necessary because of course the further a unit is away the longer it takes to get into battle and of course you can divide this 70 meter or up a little bit smaller his 60 his 30 so you can get an idea of some distances and where you might need to be if you want to try and move a sneaky hidden unit so be aware of your distances not only to know how close you can get with your hidden units but also what the enemy may be trying to do to you with their hidden advantages and just remember that if you do have hidden advantages they probably won't work against the lizard men and lastly elevation and high ground it's just like Oh b1 tortoise if you've got the high ground your enemy can't win okay maybe it's not just like Oh b1 tortoise but you'll at least have an advantage taking the high ground now there are obvious advantages like the enemy has to run up a hill so that's going to take them longer and make them use more fatigue trying to get to you not to mention it's harder for them to flank you because of the slower movement but oh boy is there some hidden advantages to be had here starting with melee when two units are fighting and one is elevated above the other the unit fighting downhill can do up to 30% more damage up to being the important word there and they will take 30% less damage from the unit fighting uphill so some pretty significant advantages being somewhat elevated above your opponent the difference in damage is determined by how elevated the unit is above the other up to a difference of one meter so you can see the pretty hefty advantages from having the high ground even if it's only a small shallow slope it's still something and while of course running up hills will slow you down and cost you more fatigue it'll also affect your charge damage because you're moving slower so when you charge uphill you'll be doing less damage than if you were on a flat but it works both ways while you run uphill slower you will run down it faster which means more potential damage for your charges because of the way collisions are calculated more speed means more damage basically so the faster you can get your units traveling the more damage they're gonna do so this could be pretty significant for those heavy calves with lots of charge bonus or chariots charging downhill into things just gives them that slight bit of extra damage which of course is always going to help with your ultimate goal of murdering your enemies so for any kind of melee unit fighting downhill is a big advantage if you can find the opportunity to do it and guess what missile units also have similar advantages missile units elevated above their enemies firing down hill will do up to 30% more damage and also take 30% less damage from any missile that's fired uphill towards them and the difference of damage is determined by how high the elevated unit is above the lower one up to a difference of 40 meters rather than just one meter for the male a difference this is why missile units on walls in sieges can be very powerful because they're elevated so much higher than their opponent shooting down on them and also gain their defensive advantages as well so be sure to remember what obi-wan taught you the high ground is very important this information also shows you how powerful the strider perk can be as it eliminates any combat or speed penalties when moving around difficult terrain pretty powerful in the right situation so there you go five sneaky hidden mechanics in total war that you probably maybe didn't know about hopefully this has been useful and you'll find some way to use this information in battle do check out these videos as well if you want more hidden stuff thanks for watching I hope you've enjoyed this I will see you in line future

Channel: Zerkovich

Views: 210,994

Rating: 4.9194875 out of 5

Keywords: total war warhammer, secrets, hidden, mechanics, how does it work, how to, how, guide, info, secret

Id: aqR221poLlg

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020