Age Of Reckoning Is a FLAWED System 

I just wanted to make a video for visibility for you guys, currently you are genuinely punished just for playing a dwarf campaign normally. This is not good gameplay - I've played dwarfs since WH1 and absolutely love them to bits and want them to be as good as they can be! So creating this so you guys know what to do and not to do - you're welcome to play however you want but you need to be armed with info first! - video for dwarf rework for further context: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hdZ30XbW6aA.html&t

Sounds like a classic decimal error in a text file 😂

The fact that smashing the Empire rewards you more Grudges than Dark Elves is pants of head silly...

I liked playing the dawi slow and chill. I was already worried the age of reckoning would just add stress to a campaign and debuff me all the time. I hadn't imagined it would be this bad though. I hope they fix the dwarves cause I love them.

The solution is actually quite simple... just let it scale with your last age. Got 100%? Well, now the next age requires double the grudges. Got less than 20%? Now you only need half the grudges. The current system is just not balanced around itself. The fact that you can do a world conquest and end up failing all ages, because there is nobody left, feels quite stupid. It would be perfect, if your grudge requirement depends on a fraction of the total off all grudges in the game, but maybe that would require too much calculations.

Grudges required should maybe scale with the amount of armies you have. Since that's the tool you use to settle them. Makes more sense gameplay wise.

I was under the impression that the Age of Reckoning system was something you opted into, kind of like the Greenskin’s Wagh system. If I’m forced to participate in this literally every 10 turns or be punished then thats going to be a huge bummer.

I almost exclusively play multiplayer campaigns with friends, and this is going to bury me. I’m going to know so many factions by turn 2 that I’ll just be suffering penalties the entire time.

I'm surprised the system isn't based on how well your previous age of reckoning was. Get 100% and then it spikes up. But for it to increase exponentially for a race which is designed to have a slow build up seems crazy.

I've been skeptical of this system since I first saw it. Even to just get to tromm level, half-way, you have to fight 10-11 battles worth 1000 grudges apiece, in 10 turns, by turn 31. The scaling just seems off, especially when a Legendary Grudge in the book is worth a measly 500 grudges. Also, there is no overflow, so if you do max out your grudges before the 10 turn limit, any grudges gained after that are wasted in respect to the next Age.

I'm a little hesitant about the whole system. I belive players HATE being forced into a playstyle and new grudge system changes dwarfs into hyperagressive faction. And the numbers shown aren't the problem, (its all numerical which seems easily fixable) the problem is the ticking timer that punishes turtling. What I think is a neat fix is if the Legendary grudges pushed up the "starting point" of the grudge meter so after finishing 2-3 grudges you always start in the bonus section of the meter and no longer can be punished.

It sounds like like they wanted to scale the grudges need by the amount of visible grudges, but it only makes sense to scale DOWN in case you have few grudges available, and never scale UP beyond some initial reasonable limit.

Thinking on how to fix this, my ideas would be 1) For confederation - Only confederation using the book of grudges should increase the grudge cost 2) For Age of Reckoning - have grudge requirement be based on settlements owned (to balance the incentives of wanting to play tall vs playing wide), with a multiplier based on previous age of reckoning achievement (so it's difficult to always get it maxed out, or conversely, always fail the age of reckoning)

**Laughs in chaos Dawi** I suffer no such SHORTsighted weaknesses, that is nothing SHORT of a laughing stock!

this whole gameplay mechanic seems unbelievably stressful. goodbye to chill dwarf campaigns

it will be a damn shame if the campaign is ruined becuz of this oversight. might have to wait for mods

I like the idea, but I agree that the implementation needs changing. The same thing with the increased cost also happens with Belegar and Karak Hirn. On top of that: Are you even able to "solve" the grudge mechanic? Is there a state where you've righted every wrong and can enjoy the maxed-out meter indefinitely, or does it just keep generating an ever-higher threshold that you're never able to satisfy for good because no one really play-tested this feature? 'Cause by the very definition, I think there should be an achieveable end goal to that mechanic. Maybe have those legendary grudges raise the bottom of the grudge meter, so you can never fall into those sections again unless you lose the stated objectives, like losing control of the Silver Pinnacle and the landmark there for instance.

It sounds like the recurring punishment here is for choosing to enter an age of reckoning early. Why not just delay the age of reckoning? This is likely intentional to punish a huge early power-spike. The fact you even have access to this ability makes you stronger than all other factions, so it's likely intentional to help other factions hit their later game equivalents.

It seems that in the early game the most wise is delaying TAoR until the dawi have their economy up and running and they start snowballing but that would mean -1 control and -10 growth for a very long time...somehow the dawi got a nerf in their own DLC

I don't like the Age of Reckoning mechanic in general. So the fact it's broken on top of that is just another turn off. All it does it promote more hyper aggression and constantly offensive gameplay. Warhammer 3 is already inundated with that and it has gotten old a long time ago. I much prefer the Dwarfs being a defensive race, taking dwarf holds and making impenetrable fortresses. I don't need a mechanic that promotes just full unga bunga aggro mode. I would've much preferred a mechanic that was just a sort of "crusade" mechanic meant to focus on retaking particular major Dwarf holds, and then rewards you with substantial defensive buffs to solidify your control over the region.

Do you think that this would work better if you could declare an age of reckoning like a crusade? You declare an age of reckoning with the goal of settling the grudges of a particular faction, like Clan Moors has a total grudge score of 25,000 that you need to get to fully complete the AoR. And based on the grudge "score" you get a specific set of rewards, like a score higher than 10,000 gives you 500 oath gold, some growth, and a couple of grudge settler units.

I just want to play dwarfs defensively, they should be able to turtle up in their holds

Good find. Hopefully it's easy to fix, they can compute the number based on territory neighbouring the one you own. That would even add a layer of strategy in the way you expand.

The moment I saw how the mechanic worked I suspected it was gonna be trouble. They did a good thing with reworking the grudges but then tied it to this system - I think the biggest issue is it's time gated. I think you could make it work if you removed the 10 turn cycle somehow. Maybe you have to manually turn it on and sometimes it's more beneficial to turn it on at a specific level to reset the wheel again - Maybe you nee dimmidiete boost for a tough battle or smth.

So, my issue here is I play Multiplayer on teams with friends: you see a LOT more factions that way. I’ll be forced to do free-for-all or basically never be able to do a single age of reckoning, and alliances also period give you more vision, so you won’t want any alliances to avoid vision of grudges that you won’t be able to manage

I kinda dislike the 10turn timer on this the most. I like the idea of grudges being spread around the world, armies/places gathering more grudges over time, but the spastic race to right them all looks weird and trippy. Maybe it could be more organic, with Age of Reckoning slowly increasing debuffs on your empire, unless you progress into next tiers of the Age, giving you more time to finish, and when you finally reach the end of given Age of Reckoning you get some buffs/etc. Free army also seems tacked on, as for early game it's insanely powerful, but later on having 1 extra free army isn't that much of a big deal, again, pushing you to be extremely aggresive early on. Previous grudge system had a fun balancing part to it - if grudges were unresolved you got more slayers to recruit. This system as it is just looks like a score-attack mode permanently on.

Why does it has to be this way and not the opposite? I would expect the dwarves to be more keen to join your banners if you have settled more than them. Kinda like the Kislev race mechanic.

I agree that LL confederation should increase, but it should be based on the amount of settlement, armies, gold etc you have. It should work based on the diplomacy mechanic of power level, trustworthiness, economic power and amount if settlements.

This was really discussed in the forums, and dwarfs are going to get broken again so people will ask again for the dwarf rework of the rework of the rework

I don't know why they keep adding mechanics that are 90% downside and only 10% upside

Just out of curiosity...how many does it need if you start one with the FOW off?

Any chance they have fixed this for release? or am i doing nurgle while i wait?

Does it get larger after each successful %100? because right now in my campaign 1500 grudge reward is like 7% but I done %100 except for once which was %50 on turn 60ish so 4 %100 and 1 %50? maybe after each successful it goes up not just how many factions you know?

It's like CA didn't play a campaign with this system

Hopefully they can release a hotfix. Seams like increasing the amount of grudges in the local area should help. Maybe there should be a multiplier for local grudges and a reduction to the amount needed to get to the center of the bar. Everything after center should be harder to get.

First they took the walls from Minor Settlements - as a Dawi player or a Lizard Player surrounded by Enemys they were crucial. Then they messed this system up. Yeah. Great. (Haven't played since the Wall removal)

I'm so glad you made this video. Been playing Malakai and felt like I was just doing it wrong or something 🤦‍♂

I was looking forward to playing Dwarfs again after a long time, but I didn't realise the knew mechanics had such a bad scaling problem... Ah well. At least Karl has some neat new options for me to play around with instead!

They can easily fix this before launch CA!!!??? I can’t believe they are messing this up

Maybe they should make it that when every mayor grudge is settled then you always start out on the middle part of the mechanic

glad someone put time into the system to discover this kind of situation. this is a kind of thing that is really good on paper but has flaws in the pipeline to make the end result, like early dark elf slave mechanics in WH3. hopefully they can scale these cool grudges better

I think one of the ways to fix age of reckoning grudges is: The grudge progress should be cumulative, not reseting before each new age. (The numbers are just for the sake of the example). For example, for the first age takes 3000 grudges, the second takes 7000 and the third is 14000. When you complete the first age, the amount of grudges you settled (3000 or more) would carry on onto the next age. So on the second age of reckoning the progress at the start would be 3000/7000. For the third age it would be 7000/14000 and etc…

With the faction confederation cost. Have you tested to see if the cost goes down again after the confederation penalties have expired?

Good callout. Hopefully CA catches this in time before release, if not shortly after.

It makes the Dwarves like sharks now. Hyper aggressive, must always be conquering, and you’ll be in an uphill battle being punished for your expansion. Leaving no room for just taking back the mountains, time for chill economic expansion. It’s military expansion all the time or be penalized. And that’s just not the fantasy vibe I look for when I play dwarves. I want my mountains and I want to chill.

Currently playing a campaign on VH as Malaki, was in a battle probably 8/10 turns of the Age of Reckoning and still can’t achieve the minimum amount of grudges to not incur negative penalties. Pretty absurd the lack of grudges you get, and that included killing Wulfrick twice!

Surely they will change that though? They have to 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

there is another one that i experienced with tehenhauin, sometimes it just kind of skipped segements of the missions to get new rites and i got to rites 5 on somewhere around turn 8

My problem is the 10 turns, it should be like 25, the real issue is you need to bounty hunt for good value targets, bout if you only have 10 turns you might not make it to the target in that time.

Fundamentally, I'm also unsure whether I will like the age of recoking mechanic. Turning dwarfs in to a hyper aggressive faction that gets a broken free army early game and those growth bonuses just feels like too much and actively punishes the player for going taller and slower with them which is more in line with how it's always been and should remain imo. I guess we're just gonna be stuck with this core mechanic now but I'd like it if they toned down the buffs and debuffs and reworked how the grudges scaled. This mechanic is the one thing making me wary of playing my favourite faction when the dlc releases. Hopefully they fix the issues presented in this video but also are open to another slight rework of this aggressive incentive.

One thing that would help a lot would be to be able to toggle the age of reckoning the same way we toggle wahhh with orcs. another, better option, would be to have the grudge price of the age of reckoning not move until you've completed it. meaning that if you want to go for the grudge azrmy every ten turn, you can but the price will go up every time but if you want to go slow for your 20 first turns and then go wild for the first time on turn 21/30 to get your first grudge army, the price will be the same as if you went for it at turn 1/10

Holy... Three possibilities spontaneously come to mind as to how this could have happened: 1) Someone doesn't know numbers 2) Someone made a typo 3) Dwarven campaigns are meant to last a month plus I mean, I think it's great that you should be motivated to play an aggressive campaign, but as it stands right now, it's a doomed if you do, doomed if you don't situation.

If you need to play Belegar like Skarbrand you know smothing went wrong.

I’ll have to look for them, but CA stated that the Age of Reckoning mechanic isn’t something you’re not always able to accomplish

They're ruining Dwarfs and replacing a cool modded Hero available for both human and dwarf factions with a mundane LL for Dwarfs only.

Thanks for this info. One thing i couldn't work out is whether the situation is made worse by you declaring war on all those far off factions?

Age of recknoning not only made dwarves a greenskins lite, it is also broken.

not sure how/if the grudges increases, but I would probably see if I could scale them on the perceived threat level that is found in the diplomacy screen. That would localize the grudges to be more near you, and perhaps could also allow to use the diplomacy traits as well. e.g. raiding, opportunistic, disloyal could increase the rate of grudges generated

I feel the best way to solve this issue is to make the Age of Reckoning something that gets activated by the player. Start in Hibernation mode, no negative or positive effects. If you start the Age of Reckoning, you are basically saying: I'm ready to take on this mechanic and accept its potential costs or rewards. That's when you start racing to right as many wrongs in the selected time. At the end of each Age of Reckoning, there can be a third option (rather than the current continue or end), which is to return to some "hibernation" or dormant Dwarfs mode. This allows the player to choose the pace of their campaign, at different points in their campaign. About to expand? Activate the mechanic. Choosing to consolidate your land and play slower? Stay dormant (losing out on potential rewards, but also not getting penalized for not being on the constant expansion track). Activating the mechanic could be behind some small cost of resources or a cooldown, if they want to do that.

I knew there was no cap on this and the moment I saw the system I said there should be a cap. Hopefully if CA doesn't fix it, a kind modder fixes it by capping the age of reckoning max grudges

I think you're right about the incentives the new system is creating but I'm not particularly convinced the debuff is impactful enough to cry about. I think more than being incentivised to expand you're being incentivised to not meet new factions and stay very insular to contain the problem. The strangest thing about this system is that the Dwarfs are getting grudges against friends like Empire. Also by occupying settlements and fighting armies you are striking grudges from the book (ie losing them) but your reward is to gain a currency called grudges.

I think the most simple fix would be to change it to have it start at a base amount,(like 1000 grudges) increasing by a set amount(250 per age of reckoning) up to a limit of say Max 3000 grudges.

I thought so, that was the first thing I thought was the reason for the increase in cost.

So I will be punished for using heroes to scout out my enemies territory, when I am doing it with the intention of not going in blind when I invade. Do you still earn grudges towards your total for confederation, if you reject the start of the next age of reckoning? for example lets say I get far enough that the bonuses are positive, then I just reject starting the next age over and over keeping those bonuses is that possible or will it force the start of the next age after awhile.

This could be fixed by just not debuffing the player. It should just give different bonuses, depending on the amount of active grudges, verses grudges settled. Lots of active grudges gives the player 'grumbling' bonuses. Extra campaign movement speed, decreased recruitment cost, recruitment time and combat bonuses (more leadership, movement speed and melee attack), encouraging them to get out and settle some grudges. Having lots of settled grudges grants 'satisfied' bonuses. Factionwide growth, income, and those new grudge settler units. This rewards the player for both styles of play, while granting bonuses that encourage them to move out when they've been turtling too long and build up their settlements after a big period of expansion. It's thematic as well, because dwarfs can wait for hundreds of years before demanding a grudge to be put right. The player could even be encouraged to allow lots of raiding and sacking of their territory farming extra grudges, allowing them to achieve the best possible bonuses. All the while writing every wrong down in the book to be avenged. I think the system, as it is being advertised, is so close to being perfect, it just needs a little longer in the oven

I was awarded 20 grudges for fighting chaos dwarves

The thing i've found is you just don't really get enough grudges fast enough, like at all. They very way it is meant to be used, making you be aggressive and win a lot of battles, actually works against it. As if factions don't beat you in battles they don't gain many grudges, so you can't get enough unless you lose on purpose every now and then.

The only real solution that I have had for this problem is to let the ai sack your settlements and build up grudges. If you play like the beastmen, you can effectively get a lot of grudges in generally the same area, while keeping your core province intact. The only problem I've been facing is to not have all the chaos factions declare war on you and then bum rush you with all they have, which makes the campaign a little unplayable.

Thank you for this, as a dawi fan. I totally agree that this does not seem intended. I’ve had some concerns since this system was announced. This requires rebalancing, it’s currently punishing you for playing the game normally.

Now imagine a coop campaign.

Does delaying an Age of Reckoning by 10 turns have any weird effects on the requirements for grudges?

so conquer by sheer military might? roger that...

To be honest, it's probably some maths bugs and should be fixed soon. like a x0.3 turned into a x3 of it's in percentage a a 130% turned into a +130%

yes, this needs some serious fixes and i think the penalty for confederation shouldnt apply to minor factions, and should be lower than 15k. grudges should only rack up on factions near you (at least until like turn 50-100 when you have the teleport mechanic). BUT, the farthest he got in this video was turn 21, and i highly doubt CA meant for you to be filling the bar to 100% every time this early in a campaign.

The lack of Hotseat mode is also a pretty big flaw. 🐶

Seems to be the case if great idea bad implementation. Nothing a few updates can't fix

Typical CA. They didn't test it.

I was surprised the dwarfs suddenly became extremely aggressive.

Seeing such a jump like that in grudges is so weird that I thought it was a bug. There is just no reasonable way for you to get all the way to the max level of the age of reckoning especially if the level of grudges around you remain so low. I was really looking forward to playing the Dawi, but not if they're going to play like this. I'll probably just buy the other two races and wait until they rework the rework that was reworked since it didn't work. XD

I can't say I'm surprised. I was thinking about this kind of thing when people were talking about it. It's just so much worse than I thought it might be. THEN hammered with debuffs. I had so many issues with the OLD grudge system I found it unfun.

Somewhow i was expecting this. Im glad that CA gave the effort and all but this huge of an update was bound to have some sort of bug. If they continue with the pace they were doing the last few months we should expect a hotfix soon. Now to see who will be in a t-pose and were good.

quick fix is to make it like prestige for the empire that give faction buffs and can be used to confederate Dwarfs you have a military alliance with.

Much appreciated, you probably saved a few hours of fameplay. Will play Empire until dwarfs are fixed.

Heres a bandaid fix idea. Slayer buildings provide passive grudge settling.

I haven't played pre release build, but I think amount of grudges for age of reconing could be based on how much your neighbors have. That might be too generous for the player, but current system does seam broken.

I finally get to play the dwarves and now I have to be hyper aggressive or be nerfed for eternity.

Did you try to delay the Age of Reckoning to see how it goes?

I love the concept for the Age of Reckoning! But yes, they definitely need to adjust the scaling to make it more achievable. I think they should also completely remove the penalties, and just gradually increase buffs over the 4 higher tiers of the Age of Reckoning. That way players can choose to ignore the Age of Reckoning system if they just want to play a chill dwarf game, and also won’t be punished by poor circumstances (like enemies running away or having few grudges because you’re defending yourself well).

I mean, a free dwarf army spawn in kind of nuts. Yeah it should be tweaked a little but not even I think you should get your third age of reckonging by turn 20

So glad you made this video, had the same thoughts when I had a go with the new dwarf LL. I just got frustrated and stopped playing the campaign. Hopefully its patched soon.

When I first saw this I thought it seems like counter of how the dwarfs are suppose to kind of play. Turns them from a turtle faction to a rush faction it almost feels like. Also the whole gaining basically entire armies for free seems a bit broken as well. I think the grudge settler units idea was not well thought out.

Is it out yet?

i laughed pretty hard at your dwarf mumbling

Have the dwarves ever considered that, if everyone makes them swear eternal vengeance, maybe they're the common denominator and the problem?

I started a Thorgrim campaign last night and I didn't understand the reckoning thing at all. I thought it seemed shit and stopped after 20 turns. I didn't know if I was getting positive or negative effects. Guess I 'll skip dwarves for now until a fix is in.

This "age og reckoning system" going to the book

Hopefully they can fix it before/right after the implementation, it shouldn't be too difficult, just change the rewards to be based on whatever your previous result was in the age of reckoning (For those familiar with Civilization 6, basically the same thing as golden ages where each successful one increases the requirement for the following golden age). Confederations really shouldn't scale at all besides when you confederate another legendary lord, i think, just make the required gap in grudges settled increase by 5k with each major confederation or something

I feel like the mechanic should work the opposite way it does now. As grudges are made you get a stacking buff towards growth and recruitment cost ect ect. Then once you reach a certain number of grudges that other factions have accumulated you get the grudge settler army and then maybe take from the Greenskins “waaaagh target” mechanic and set a specific factions city to take, or maybe a specific faction to settle your grudges with. The more you settle in that period the better the bonus I think it fits better with the dwarfs, just sitting in a hole in the ground getting pissed off at all the people walking on your lawn, until you snap and lash out, then go back into your hole afterwards

I get that it's thematic but i'd rather just... not. This feels like a Khorne or Ogre mechanic where you just constantly fight They should just keep the system, but instead of negatives when you don't grudge enough it gives you benefits for going out of your way to get them. If you turtle and build up your city you get no drawbacks or benefits, if you play hyper aggro you get stuff.

oh thank god im not the only one suffering, I am literally claiming the chaos wastes, I killed Archaon, I killed daniel, then I killed kholek. I wasn't even halfway to getting the age full.