War is Hell. Five Life Lessons Total War: Warhammer 2 Taught Me.
It’s fair to say that being an avid gamer and a PC one to boot means I’m a self-confessed hoarder. Anyone who has access to Steam will tell you that your bank account braces itself when a Steam sale rolls around. Games are so cheap that it almost feels wrong not to buy them at prices anywhere between £10-£30. Invariably, this leads to hoarding games you’ve bought and them sitting in your library for some time before you get round to them. If you ever do.
As someone who has well over 100 games in their library, and more than a decade of loyal service to Gabe Newell, I can tell you there’s games in there that have been bought and left on the shelf like a bad Christmas present from your uncle. I’m looking at you, Batman Arkham Origins. But that’s never been the case with Total War games.
As a wargamer and avid strategist nerd, one of my favourite studios is Creative Assembly. Fond memories of 2D models hacking away at each other from Shogun: Total War come to mind, and I’ve always eagerly bought the next instalment. As the Premier League of RTS and turn-based strategy games, each addition has added something new as technology allowed it.
A major hobby of mine is Warhammer 40,000, and, having played as a kid, I got back into the hobby in 2018. But I was sad to learn soon after this that Warhammer Fantasy, which I was keen to look into buying, had been blown to smithereens, literally. So, when I picked up Total War: Warhammer 1, I was thrilled to be able to delve into the different races and play away. I bought the game, on sale, of course, and smashed out a campaign as the Empire, rolling forth with the ultimate Empire Chad, Karl Franz. I enjoyed the game a lot but soon fell off playing it.
When the second one came out, I paid it little heed but eventually bought the game on the cheap and, as usual, other games shined at me, and like a magpie, I was drawn to them. I played a thimble of a campaign as the high elves before moving on after two hours of gameplay and didn’t think much of it.
A whole pandemic came and went along with a brand-new Ferrari gaming PC replacing my previous computer before I contemplated playing the game again. Now, having burned the better part of 2021 playing through the backlog of desirable games, spending a collective 191.5 hours on three games, AC Odyssey, Valhalla and Red Dead Redemption 2, I was ready for a strategy game again.
Picking up the Total War mantle of Generalship one more seemed the perfect remedy for this. But it had been some time since I’d played one, and a few things had changed, not to mention titles released. Warhammer 2 now focused on two separate campaigns, the Vortex campaign, where you are in a celestial arms race to save the magical vortex and gain power over it by collecting waystones to perform rituals. The other was the Mortal Empires, the classic from the first game but with both maps of Warhammer 1 and 2 combined.
Like my previous go, I was drawn to playing the High Elves in the Vortex campaign, as it was new, and they were a new faction that appealed, but soon found out some tough lessons being a complete noob again and paid the price for it. There was a lot more content and a lot more I needed to learn. As I played through the game, however, there were a number of these lessons I found to be applying outside the realm of magic, Elven wonder and DLCs.
1. Having Multiple Options Doesn’t Mean They’re Good Options.
One of the things that’s always touted in games and life is choice. The modicum usually goes that more choice is better. But that’s not always the case. Warhammer 2 has a lot of legendary lords and factions to play as, even more in the Mortal Empires campaign, and they all offer something different, even within the same race.
Delving into the High Elves, I launched myself into my first campaign, which was disastrous on several levels that left my lands looking like the final months of the Third Reich and losing the game. So, I tried another lord, and another lord and another lord. Eventually, I ended up with several campaigns with different eleven, Bretonnian, Lizard and dwarf lords and none of them completed, finding their playstyles all different and hardly any enjoyable, even though I thought they would be.
Having a lot of choices doesn’t always mean there’s a good choice, especially when you’re going for something that looks appealing. Sometimes it’s important to look beyond the shiny outer layer and think about all aspects of the choice you’re thinking about taking. Thinking about which lord I wanted to play and why, looking at their playstyles, what they individually bring to the table, and pausing for a breather before jumping in would have saved me countless hours with nothing to show for it. Choices will always come and go; whether it’s jobs, relationships, what you eat or how you treat your finances, how you choose to approach them can change the game.
Having not taken this advice previously, I stepped back, looked at all the lords, weighed up the pros and cons and finally settled on an absolute badass that has brought me lots of joy and very few headaches.
Enter the Dragon Prince.
2. Finding The Right Way Forward.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Prince Imrik of Caledor has some of the best abilities and playstyle in the entire Warhammer 2 roster. Dragons you can capture for your army? Yes please. A LOT of fire to burn your enemies while being resistant to it? Most certainly. Upgrading Imrik to ride a dragon and be a god of war with terrifying abilities to go with his lethal killing potential? Sign me up.
Having found the right lord to play through the Vortex campaign with meant I could finally play with a lord I really enjoyed and, having learned previously what not to do in a campaign, combined my experience to lead me on a brilliant and fun playthrough. Capturing dragons and creating an army that just burned almost everything in its path, no pun intended, was fantastic. The campaign was a joy to experience, and while grinding in places, as nearly all games can do, it was amazing to reach the finish line and win the magical arms race, save the world, have a nice pint of Elvish ale, and wait for everything to blow over.
Finding the right way forward can take time, but applying experience previously gained in other endeavours, episodes of life or events that have happened can yield amazing results, as my campaign taught me. While life isn’t always easy, we can always try and find a better way forward than we’ve previously done, using what we’ve learned beforehand and applying it to future situations. Whether that’s self-reflection, financial education, choosing a healthier lifestyle or evaluating relationships and work-life balance.
3. Things Happen.
While living my best Warhammer life as the arrogantly Elvish and fantastic lord, prince Imrik of Caledor, I was at multiple times in the campaign thrown curveballs. Whether it was civil unrest, Chaos invasions, a full-blown war against the Dark Elves or losing a waystone producing settlement to the infuriating Skaven, things happen.
I was sitting pretty fat and happy in this campaign, having subdued a few dragons for my army, taken key settlements and pushed back my rivals in the Vortex arms race. But then several sucker punches to my settlements happened out of the blue, allies did a complete 180 on me, losing key trade partners and declaring war, several Skaven attacks saw me lose three armies in a row, and I’d overstretched my borders.
These things happened without warning signs, and it would have been easy for me to give up, accept the issues as the state of reality and bow out. But I chose to fight instead, change the narrative to regain the upper hand.
Life can throw things our way we never expect to happen to us, and how we choose to approach them can make all the difference. Things will occur outside of our control, but how we react to them matters. Acting rather than reacting to a situation can put you in a completely different mindset and enable resilience for future trials.
4. Planning is Key.
Starting out on my campaigns left me with all the usual element of excitement that comes with starting a Total War campaign. Having played almost every single title Creative Assembly has released, you’d think this would wain after a while, but it doesn’t. There’s just something about starting out with one settlement and seeing that progress into a giant empire that’s really appealing.
As I did with all the other campaigns, I started with Imrik rocking up with the one settlement and an enemy next door to smash. But unlike all the other campaigns I did, including Tyrion’s disastrous one, see below for details, I learned my lesson and planned strategically. Looking at the map, I decided before setting out where I would go and which key settlements to increase my waystone collection I needed to take asap. Planning my dragon crusade in advance allowed me to see potential rivals and threats before they emerged and helped with understanding better the ones that just happened.
Though some people have mocked me as being ‘rigid’ for being such a meticulous planner in real life, preparation is key. Having a road map of where you intend to go is much better than winging it; whether this is on campaign, giving a presentation, writing an essay, heading into an interview, or writing a six-part fantasy series, planning is important. Planning allows you to be flexible, adjusting course when things happen, or there is a need to mix things up without losing sight of an overall goal you want to achieve.
5. Know When to Cut Your Losses.
Starting out in my first campaign and playthrough, I assumed the whole endeavour would be like previous games. Build up your power base, churn out the armies like Haribo and smash all before you. Not so here. Several turns into my campaign as Tyrion, one of several High elf lords you can play, I was already falling behind in the arms race. Other races were performing the first of the five rituals, and I was sitting back, happy to keep on building. This put me at a distinct disadvantage, with multiple turns clumsily marching across parts of the map, trying to stop them instead of focusing on building towards my own ritual.
As I made headway in gaining waystones, several factions attacked and burned my coastline settlements while I was elsewhere with my premium armies, reducing my power base to ash and depleting waystones and gold reserves to Weimar Republic levels of debt. Before long, I was bleeding armies in protected sieges, low on resources, high in debt, and several enemy armies were bearing down on my poorly defended settlements while mine were rushing back to help.
In the end, I was devastated at home and abroad, with minimal options to get back into the arms race no matter what I did. Taking stock and thoroughly not enjoying myself, I pulled the plug on the campaign, having learned some very hard lessons about how Warhammer 2 was not Warhammer 1 and realised I needed to start afresh.
In the game, as in life, it’s prudent to look at what you’re doing and take stock sometimes, weighing up if a venture is worth pouring more time and effort into that’s not showing tangible results. Realising when to cut your losses can be a vital lesson for reducing stress, saving time and money, and allowing you to focus on something else that might be more fortuitous. And while risks are absolutely worth taking, not everything works out how we wish. So taking stock, learning from why it’s not working and cutting your losses might just be the catalyst for something that does work.
With Imrik sitting high and mighty upon the field of victory, and his dragon, it’s time to say goodbye to the Vortex and to Warhammer 2. While there are plenty of campaigns I could go back and do, Vortex or otherwise, there’s other games to play, including Warhammer 3. So I’m uninstalling the game and quitting while I’m ahead.
What game taught you some life lessons? Leave your comments below.
