In this video we discuss the enhanced diplomatic options available to you in Thrones of Britannia. Learn how to manage your disloyal subjects with force or bribery, arrange marriages for your heirs and allies and perform underhanded actions.
Politics and Intrigue
The Province System
Provinces have been made more influential, with key settlements within your regions that cannot defend themselves
Provinces have been made more influential, with key settlements within your regions that cannot defend themselves. If an enemy army invades your lands, they can take key strategic settlements such as, farms that supply your armies with food, when that is lost, and you do not have enough reserves, your men will begin to starve. Mines, that supply you with the coin to pay your armies, if men are not paid their swords are not yours. When you take one of these settlements you then take the surrounding lands with it, and you can garrison your troops inside, which will grant you replenishment from the local region. This now gives you the opportunity to (instead of having to siege your enemy and losing a lot of men) take away their coin and food, and watch as their army melts away.
Tomb Kings: Campaign Tactics
The Tomb kings have risen, and are set to restore the ancient Kingdom of Nehekhara which has been decaying for centuries, carved up by foreign invaders, and now plunged into war once again as each Tomb King to fight for dominance.
The Tomb kings have risen, and are set to restore the ancient Kingdom of Nehekhara which has been decaying for centuries, carved up by foreign invaders, and now plunged into war once again as each Tomb King to fight for dominance.
Books of Nagash
The books of Nagash are powerful tomes containing the secret spells of Nagash, the first necromancer. They’ve become scattered throughout the world, and are sought by the Tomb Kings to claim control of the Black Pyramid of Nagash, part of the victory conditions in the Eye of the Vortex campaign.
The books are in the possession of other factions, some held within settlements and some held by Rogue Armies. All of them must be defeated or conquered to take possession of the book.
TIP: Rogue Armies carrying the Books of Nagash wont declare war on you. Make use of this time to watch where they patrol and bolster up your forces, as they’ll likely prove a tough fight with experience troops in their ranks.
In either campaign (Eye of the Vortex or Mortal Empires) 8 of the 9 books can be collected, with one being already held by Arkhan the Black which cant be taken from him. Each book offers a different bonus when they’re collected, from increasing unit capacity, to bonuses to trade and income. Take the time at the start of each campaign to see where the books are and what each book offers, as the effects they carry are randomized at the start of each campaign and each Tomb Kings Legendary Lord will have books in different parts of the world to collect.
Day of Awakening
Tomb Kings have a unique recruitment process, raising legions of the dead takes a lot of power, but it is free. There are restrictions to the amount of higher level units that you can recruit. To begin Tomb kings can recruit two limitless units, Skeleton warriors, and spearmen.
To recruit higher level unit’s and increase the capacity, you’ll need to construct specific buildings to unlock the unit and grant you an initial capacity. The more of these buildings you have the larger your capacity will become.
Now if you should lose a settlement containing these buildings, your capacity for that unit will be reduced. Your armies will be unaffected, but you may find that you have now exceeded the current units capacity.
TIP: You may find it more advantageous to disband wounded units without much experience and recruit a fresh unit of the same type within a couple of turns, rather than waiting for the wounded unit to replenish itself which can often take much longer.
Dynasties
Tomb Kings have a limitation with the number of armies that they can field at one time, and must awaken more Tomb Kings to command further armies. To do this they will spend time looking into their past, to discover long lost dynasties, their army traditions, and former Kings.
Having discovered one of the six major Nehekharan dynasties, you will be awarded with a new army slot, standard Tomb King Lords can be recruited straight away like any other faction, but a more powerful Lord, of the dynasty you have just researched can be recruited instead, by researching the top slot of that dynasty. Make use of the Canopic Jars you have been earning in the campaign to unlock this more powerful commander for your new army.
Take note though that once a Dynasty has been researched, the time is will take to research your next Dynasty will be greatly increased. The time spent on researching these dynasties can be improved by capturing additional settlements, with major settlements providing larger research boosts, over minor settlements.
TIP: Try capturing iconic Warhammer capital settlements (Khemri, Atldorf, Lothern, etc..) to gain much larger research boosts when playing as Tomb Kings.
Additionally, further benefits can be had within the Dynasties panel from unlocking Tomb Heralds which improve the quality of units within your Lords army, announcing both military and civic decrees to enhance your kingdoms infrastructure and Heroes which can be unlock and the capacity of them you can field via Gold or Canopic Jars.
Mortuary Cult and Canopic Jars
Throughout the campaign you will gather canopic jars from winning battles, taking settlements and engaging with dilemmas. These can then be used, along with tradable items, and gold, within the Mortuary Cult to craft magical items, that can be equipped to your Lords and Heroes.
TIP: Trade Resources can be secured either through military conquest in capturing a region and constructing a trade resource building within it or by the agreement of a trade agreement with a faction which already has access to the trade resource.
They can also be used to awaken Legions of Legend, elite units with specialist abilities and attributes to bolster your ranks and strengthen your armies, or to craft a new Dynasty, allowing you to field an additional army within the campaign.
TIP: To find a trade resource location quickly, left-click on the trade resource icon from the crafting recipe to have the game show you the closest location of that trade resource to your factions capital.
Rites
The tomb kings also come with their own rites to help them along the way, which provide a wide variety of benefits, using these at the right time can make a huge difference down the line, giving you bonuses to create stronger armies from the start, help with colonizing ruins, summon sandstorms to cause attrition to invading armies, and spur growth within your regions.
TIP: Try using the Great Incantation of Ptra on ruins of a major settlement if one is available, it will produce a far greater return on your investment for performing this Rite.
Buildings
The Tomb Kings economy can certainly play out quite differently to other races, with only basic infrastructure buildings on offer to aid growth and your treasury.
TIP: Make use of the cheap income buildings throughout your regions to provide a constant cash injection however small it may seem to start with.
More enticing military buildings can be used to bolster forces in the early game, but it can quickly stifle growth and development, thus preventing you from getting to the later, and far stronger, units in the roster.
TIP: If you’re after the higher tier units then focus on depth rather than breadth with your faction capital. It can be tempting to upgrade your minor settlements main building, but keep the growth back in reserve to quickly get your capital to level 5 and have the option of constructing the buildings that go with it.
Victory Conditions
For victory in the Eye of the Vortex campaign you’ll need to secure 5 of books of Nagash, gain ownership of the Black Pyramid and win the campaigns epic final or meet the domination victory conditions, which focus you on destroying a number of the main factions in this campaign.
Victory in the Mortal Empires campaign is somewhat different with the focus being much more on securing your local lands and then expanding out into the world to conquer your biggest rivals. The Books of Nagash still feature here in this campaign, but are not a part of your victory requirements.
Campaign: Public Order, Taxes and Corruption
In this video we'll be showing how public order affects your provinces and how you can keep it under control to avoid rebellions.
In this video we'll be showing how public order affects your provinces and how you can keep it under control to avoid rebellions.
Clicking on a settlement opens the province overview panel: on the left of which, is all the information about the owned settlements in full.
Checking the box titled Tax Province will provide your faction with increased income, but also negatively effect the public order. Hovering over Income will show you what buildings in your settlements are providing you with money. Un-ticking this box increases the number next to the public order total. This number is the amount that public order will change by next turn. Hovering over this will show what is affecting this number.
Public order is a measurement of how happy or repressed the citizens are in a faction, if it reaches minus 100 the province will revolt. If this happens, a rebellion army will appear and, if left to gather strength, may attack nearby settlements. If a revolutionary army appears, do not hesitate to crush it!
Below public order is a measurement of Chaos, Vampiric or Skaven corruption in a province; excessive corruption can lead to unrest and attrition, and even an eventual uprising if left unchecked. Corruption also effects public order; the lower the level of corruption, the higher the public order bonus will be. If public order drops too low in a corrupted province, then a Chaos, Vampiric or Skaven uprising will occur in place of a standard revolt.
Factions can use Heroes, construct certain buildings or deploy Lords with certain skills or followers to combat corruption and raise public order in their provinces. Having an army garrisoned in one of your provinces will also work to suppress those rebelling against you and raise public order.
Campaign: Diplomacy
In this video we will be discussing the intricacies of diplomacy and how to use the systems to your advantage.
In this video we will be discussing the intricacies of diplomacy and how to use the systems to your advantage.
To initiate negotiations with another faction, click on the diplomacy button at the bottom right of the campaign UI. Information about your faction is shown on the left; you can see your allies, enemies and trade partners as well as the resources you are currently trading. The central panel shows a list of known factions and your relations with them: the green colour represents that a faction is friendly towards you, the brown indicates relations are neutral and the red, hostile. If you hover your cursor over a faction you can see a list of things that have a positive and negative impact on your relations - useful to know if you would like to be on better terms with a faction!
You'll also be able to see their relative strength over them – the more yellow you see on the bar next to their strength rank, the stronger you are in comparison. You can also view the treaties that have already been signed between your faction and others and whether you are currently at war. The second-last column shows if trading is possible between your factions and if you are currently trading with one another, and lastly, we have the aforementioned attitude.
Click on a faction to move your camera over to their location or double-click to open negotiations. To add an offer or demand, just press the button at the top of the diplomacy section to see your options. The colour of the diplomacy icons here represents how likely the other party are to agree to the offer, green being high and red low.
Non-aggression pacts are the ideal first step in building friendly relations with another faction; a faction breaking a non-aggression pact will incur significant diplomatic penalties which make it less likely that other factions will trust them in future. Military access allows you to move through one another’s territory without any diplomatic penalty and defensive allies are sworn to protect each other if war is declared on one of them.
Military alliances are a stronger version of defensive ones and will replace the latter if signed. Military allies are under oath to support each other if attacked or attacking another Lord or Race, however significant diplomatic standing must be built up between the two before an alliance proposal is likely to succeed.
Lastly, if you are negotiating with another faction of the same Race, you may have the option to confederate – this means that their faction will be assimilated into your own, including their settlements and some of their armies. However, watch out as you will also inherit their armies and upkeep! For example, if they had minus 2000 gold per turn, your income will also decrease by that value. Confederating also incurs a significant penalty to public order, so make sure your faction can handle the hit before proceeding.
You can also ask a faction to break a treaty it has already agreed with another faction. You can demand or offer a payment either to extract money from another faction to make your own offer more desirable; using the arrows to adjust the amount you send. You can also offer a small, medium or generous gift to a faction to improve your standing with them. You can also ask them to join a war against a third-party, and lastly and perhaps most importantly your faction can declare war upon theirs! This will end any current agreements you have with their faction and may cost you your deals with other factions, as they will pick sides.
When you have decided your negotiation, its success rate will appear at the bottom of the panel. Try adding in an appealing monetary gift to sweeten the deal if it’s not looking likely to succeed.
Campaign: Recruiting Armies
In this video we'll be showing you how to recruit new units to your armies and how to raise new armies to take the fight to multiple fronts.
In this video we'll be showing you how to recruit new units to your armies and how to raise new armies to take the fight to multiple fronts.
Recruitment takes time, costs money and the recruiting army must remain stationary whilst recruitment is taking place. To recruit new units to swell the ranks for an army, simply click the Recruit Units button at the bottom of the screen and a new panel will open. Depending on what military buildings you have constructed in your settlements, different and more advanced units will appear here – but watch where you choose to recruit! The local recruitment options show all units that are available in the local province. It will remain empty when not in controlled territory. The global recruitment pool is shared across all armies in a faction, even when in foreign territory! However, these units cost much more and take longer to recruit. Lastly, watch how many units you are recruiting at once: each unit requires an upkeep payment per turn, so make sure there’s enough in your treasury and predicted income.
If you would like, entirely new armies may be raised from the Recruit Lord panel to allow wars to be fought on multiple fronts. Recruit a new Lord to appoint them to lead the new military force, and then recruit units under them by the method we just mentioned.
Campaign: Buildings
In this video we learn how buildings are built, maintained and how they can be used to grow your empire, recruit new armies and keep your populace happy or detained.
In this video we learn how buildings are built, maintained and how they can be used to grow your empire, recruit new armies and keep your populace happy or detained.
Buildings may be constructed within a settlement to boost its production capabilities or defences; they cost time and money to build, but grant a variety of benefits when completed which are shown on their icon tooltips. Buildings are constructed in slots: new slots are unlocked in a settlement when the central building is upgraded. Growth causes population surplus to accumulate in a province – this surplus can be spent on upgrading that central building to unlock new slots; this increases the settlement size. A settlement decreases in size when sacked or occupied.
Existing buildings can be upgraded to other buildings of the same type, but watch out for limitation in a settlement’s maximum level size! A building can only be upgraded to the level of the settlement building.
Buildings are usually specialised towards a specific purpose, such as unit recruitment or generating income. Military buildings specialise in allowing recruitment of new unit types, improving recruited units or in allowing more recruitment. Defensive buildings such as walls specialise in providing garrison units or improved fortifications. For more information on garrisons, check out our provinces and settlements video. Lastly, economic buildings generate taxes or produce resources, if available in the local province - these resources can then be traded with other factions for income.