Even before WH3 launch - the rot was visible in the tail end of WH2. SoC is just where it reached a point where only the most determined CA apologists could ignore it.

@Draxynnic beastmen dlc was fantastic and that was end of WH2

@@stuntman083 Beastmen DLC was fantastic. Lizardmen... they somehow decided, even while they were working on Lizardmen, that they didn't need a campaign mechanics rework before TWW2 ended despite Lizardmen campaign mechanics having been viewed as boring since release (they just had lower priority compared to, say, Skaven mechanics which were actively anti-fun for most players on release). Instead, they shoehorned in a dwarf rework which should have waited for TWW3 (as can be seen by the fact that they still needed one in TWW3). More importantly from a "signs of rot" perspective, they never even attempted to fix Nakai's campaign "my allies will declare war on the vassal faction I'm shackled to" issue. They finally got around to that in TWW3, yes, but they left the narrative campaign for Nakai in TWW2 permanently broken for anyone who wants to experience that. That's paid DLC content that they never got around to fixing. The SoC disaster was basically a progression of the signs of rot that were evident back then to those who were paying attention: namely, a willingness to just ignore the problems with a race and just paper over them with a new lord that bypasses those issues instead (Oxayotl has good mechanics, shame about the rest of the faction). They got away with it when it was just the Lizardmen who suffered from that and it was at the end of the game - only the Lizardmen fans cared, everyone else just played the Oxayotl campaign once and was ready to move on to the new game. In addition to a big price rise for weak content, SoC was basically their attempt to do to Tzeentch and Kislev what they got away with doing to the Lizardmen in what you aptly called the "beastmen dlc". The signs were there, most people just missed them because it was an old race that wasn't their race.

I think Khorne sells well regardless (unless the dlc is as bad as SoC or worse). The mechanics can be simple, the new character just has to play differently enough from skarbrand (and taurox tbh). Maybe Arbaal is focused on picking your battles carefully so you can keep winning, instead of just painting the map red in 5 turns. Also, Khorne characters need cool mounts to make up for the lack of lores of magic Slaanesh has to be a banger though, specially if only one character is added as LL. I don't know much about lore, so I can't think of which race would be best to pair them with in a DLC (though of course elves are an obvious match).

Not really, when you start digging there's actually more content than you initially though.

Yeah, Khorne and Slaanesh badly need LLs. I want Nefertara to show up, but I think Arbaal's DLC should be against Kislev, and his most famous battle when he leveled Praag to the ground. I always thought that would be the most thematic face-off.

I want a norsca rework too with they would lean into the “Viking” raiding type mechanic.

Nice opinion from other side of globe :D

i got soc, the LL are boring and very op, the changeling mechanic is just trash

same. I'm interested in Cathay, and while I doubt I'll ever play the DLC Kislev campaign, I'll probably play other Kislev campaigns, so that stuff isn't completely worthless to me... but even with the 20% off is still way too expensive for what I'm getting out of it. I'd probably buy it for 15$ right now, but it doesn't look like they'll reduce the price that much anytime soon.

Hyennas. Nothing except E.T. surpasses that failure.

I mean yeah that is a major flop but it did still sell 2 million copies, from multiple sources. So they probably made 100 million dollars back at least. How much they spent on it is hard to say. Probably around the same amount or something like 150 million dollars. So yeah a major loss and certainly very high on the list, but Suicide Squad is at least selling copies. Hyennas made them nothing.

They were quite happy with Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs, which had similar numbers. 30K concurrent players a month is a very good number to have for Total War games.

I doubt skulls + ToD won't be enough to give the game some extra hype during the next few months though. smaller and cheaper dlcs could prove to be financially viable if they keep the hype at this level (just don't try to scam people for a 25$ product that isn't worth it). They're insane if they don't release at least a Khorne and Nagash dlc, but apparently they gotta milk those asian markets first

That's pretty much what I was thinking around the 20-minute mark. TWWH had the benefit of having very little competition - Warhammer Fantasy strategy games are basically Dark Omen and its sequel from the 90s, Mark of Chaos from the 2000s, a couple of mobile games, and TWWH, with TWWH being the only one that's attempted a sandbox mode with more than just a handful of races. TWWH40K, on the other hand, would be competing with Gladius and Battlesector just considering large-scope games from one publisher. They aren't exactly perfect either, but for CA to win with 40K they'll have to actually be better rather than just being the only game in town. As for a TWSW - I'm not as familiar with the Star Wars field, but Empire at War still has an active base from what I hear, so it'll have to compete with that at least. Grand strategy science fiction games also tend not to do well without a focus on the space layer unless they have the 40K label.