RPI - James Cox

[novel sequoia]

Hey everyone! So please only keep questions to one per post. Vote for questions you'd like answered. I'll do my best to get questions answered 🙂

[red cradle]

Can I become CA CEO?

[icy field]

What changes are you looking at to help rebalance the older factions for domination mode?

[unreal rose]

What are the chances of Nippon DLC? ❤️

[pure fjord]

Hi. thank you for your work. I have a question about Teklis, will he return on his position from Vortex campaign(Left side of Lustria) or no? It will help him and Vampirates faction to survive a little longer

[primal torrent]

Will empire legendary lords like Volkmar or Gelt get their campaing mechanics changed?

[manic falcon]

Can you say something about Be'lakor's faction mechanics ?

[zenith lake]

Will Rifts and entering chaos realms be possible (not for objectives but for items and just fun messing about in chaos realms be a future mechanic) like the chaos invasions you can turn it off or make it happen more or less, instead of going there for an objective you go there to mess with chaos

[tawny fractal]

Why wasn't Nippon added to the Immortal Empires campaign map? We didn't need a dlc for it, but if its lands were on the map then modders could've made it themselves.

[stark thistle]

Hello and thank you , are the 4 Sea Lanes that we see in the blog the only ones that will be made for the IE game ? or will there be more in the future ?

[random lance]

Uh when are the questions from the last interview going to get answered??

[open spoke]

Let us pet Gobbla

[real coral]

will we see night and day sycle on the grand map like the one in Troy total war? also love the weather in the battle mode good and calming. 👍

[digital raft]

Any changes to Nakai's campaign and Malus campaign in the works?

[zealous furnace]

Was naval combat ever considered as a Dlc or that would need to be a main team effort?

[raven fox]

Have you taken any specific steps to address the campaign map's rendering performance? I mean the FPS, not the turn times.

[flint jacinth]

When it was decided to create Grand Cathay from scratch as a faction for WH3. in what way did CA's previous title: Three kingdoms help you out as a inspiration?(that is, if you had a hand in it)

[novel sequoia]

Apologies for this. We had so many questions and on a platform like this, it's hard to keep track of all. We're trying different methods to make sure it's spread out a little easier and not too overwhelming for our interviewee 🙂

[tired marsh]

Are we going to see total war warhammer 2 base game legendary lords get unique faction mechanics? Since they feel like they are too basic when compared to the DLC ones.

[amber axle]

What is your general approach to Vortex vs Me start positions in IE?

[novel sequoia]

James - The Sea Lanes is a very flexible system, where we can add/remove/move Sea Lanes fairly easily (the biggest expense is just to recolour the marker for additional lanes). So, we are very willing/able to make adjustments and additions based on player feedback. There will probably be an upper limit at some point though as we would still want to preserve normal land/sea movement as the primary choice to get around for shorter distances.

[hazy root]

It will be possible to play Be'lakor in Realm of Chaos campaign or only in Immortal Empires campaign?

[rotund nest]

Do you have any plan to add some contents on the empty area of currently revelaed IE campaign map (i.e. southern area of Grand Cathay)?

[odd jackal]

Will Defeated Traits and Faction Specific Traits to Lords and Heroes finally get a buff back to being interesting and relevant? No more "immune to fear and terror" or "immune to x attrition" they don't make the game fun.

If Settlements having Landmarks make them interesting and places you want to conquer. Then Lords having good Defeat Traits make it worthwhile playing and expanding until you get the trait!

[supple basin]

What is the possibility of wh2 race packs receiving new DLCs? Talking about TK and VCoast. Is there any chance for that or are those factions considered done without option for further improvements?

[sharp solstice]

Will Dark Elves get their watchtowers?

[novel sequoia]

James - For now, Rifts and the Chaos Realms won't be present in the Immortal Empires campaign. We wanted to keep it a true sandbox experience and focus our efforts on getting the Mortal Realms as polished as possible.

[hybrid sedge]

Will the old factions rebalances and reworks for new factions be present at launch? Or will it be an ongoing process (ie Helman or grombrindal)

[sick fog]

Will the rivalry between Skarsnik, Queek and Belegar for K8P see an update in the future?

[magic oasis]

Where are these questions going to get answered? We never got the answers to the last interview

[night quail]

Will their be any updates to quest battles due to changes in start location?

[livid remnant]

Would there be any chance that the " create your daemon lord " mechanic would come to any of the other races? Like empire lord or WoC lords for example?

[cold pond]

Warhammer 3 item quest only had the fight part is this a thing of wh3 LL or is this coming to all LL?

[uncut burrow]

Answer him you cowards

[tardy sandal]

Will the items like the sword of slaanesh and the chain axe be obtainable in immortal empires considering the chaos realms aren't planned for use as of yet?

[shrewd charm]

How far are you going to go with the visual and audio parity with previous game factions? Like will DLC units such as the Sisters of Avelorn finally get their own voicelines or will they stay unchanged?

[mossy star]

If the Realms of Chaos did get added to the IE map, would it be possible for there to be a settlement there for the relevant daemon faction to hold? I.e. a settlement in the Khorne realm that only Skarbrand (and future Khorne factions) could capture? Could give good reason to go into the realms outside of a campaign objective as you'd be going in to raze or capture it depending on your faction.

[quartz vault]

Have you guys considered having the chaos realms in the immortal empires map?
Maybe making a ‘great game’ mechanic for chaos factions, where they compete for dominance within the realms of chaos or something along those lines.
Secondly since similar questions have been asked, can you give us any hints regarding Be’lakor mechanics?

[velvet geyser]

Do You plan to redo some of the voice work? Like for Throgg who has a pretty bad reputation of how lore inaccurate his portrayal is

[night stump]

What factions are you focused on for revamped campaign mechanics after the Warrior of Chaos rework in IE? Hoping for some lizardmen love

[sacred geyser]

Will Daemons of Chaos get lords beyond the Daemon Prince and Be'lakor?

[torn lava]

Are you updating Malus Darkblade?

[tawny fractal]

Will old factions models be updated to look on the same level as the wh3 models ie empire and that

[proper cargo]

how many turn does it take to use sealanes

[tawny fractal]

What was your favorite thing to work on for IE?

[tranquil condor]

Can you expound on the new incursions mechanic in any way? Such as greenskin uprising or undead attacks et cetera. Will these only occur in the very late, late campaign en masse (such as the chaos invasion) or be sprinkled throughout the campaign at any point but in varying degrees of intensity to add some randomness

[copper zealot]

Were you surprised at the initial reception of the forge of daith mechanic?

[granite shoal]

Some new features that we're looking forward to in immortal empires have already appeared in some form as mods for warhammer 2 (victory condition overhaul, new end game crisis). Are mods something that you designers look at when designing a faction or new mechanics? Or is it a matter of an obvious solution that both parties came to independently?

[nimble hinge]

Does my favourite Norsca have a chance of being updated or reworked ?

[tawdry ginkgo]

How realistic is it to expand the map at all to any of the (albeit small) chunks of land that are left?

[golden perch]

I see some questions answered here. Could you pin the answers and pin the link to where the main answers are (when they happen)?

[fiery bay]

What kind of performance difference should we expect compared to ME?

[novel sequoia]

James - Sea Lanes will take 2 turns to travel, however, certain cultures are better at sea than others. Those races skilled at sea will get a -1 travel time buff, so will only require 1 turn to travel between any of the points.

[sharp elk]

Are Cathay Caravans expanded? To have longer and more expansive roads, like from Cathay to Ulthuan?

[formal pivot]

With the addition of new settlements to already dense parts of the map in IE, are there any plans to reduce the amount of settlements battles that occur?

[leaden charm]

What about the sea lanes under the dark lands the canal under uzukalad 😉😗

[potent vessel]

Will the release of patch 2.0 be at start, middle or end of august happen? 🙂

[unreal cedar]

Hello, can we know if the beta 2.0 that will be released in August will be at the beginning or at the end? and can we expect total warhammer iii version 1.3 to be brought forward to the end of june or will it follow the july release plans, thanks in advance 🙂

[wraith coral]

Is the AI able to use the Sea lanes ?

[split jackal]

Will armies be able to intercept or ambush those arriving through sea lanes?

[fluid adder]

Do you think we might see one day those settlements : Black Chasm (Skaven stronghold in Bretonnia), Putrid Sump and Foul Peak (Skaven strongholds in The Vaults) ? Do you think Karak Varn (also known as Cragmere) could also become a 6 or 8 building settlements in the future ?

[proper robin]

Nagash?

[dapper junco]

Do you have any plans on reworking the supply lines system? It's really due. Troy's administration system would've been a fantastic replacement for the supply lines, at least for factions who're known for empire building.

[karmic granite]

Will Alberic get a more unique portrait, model and voicework (not necessarily Voice actor entirely, sicne i'm pretty sure Repanse dubs the Archmages, but at least have Alberic's lines redone so he doesn't sound identical to every single generic bretonnia LL on the battle, diplomacy and campaign maps)

[desert copper]

Is there any faction that is completely finished, in other words no more updates for the life of the trilogy? If so which do you think are done?

[full flower]

Ever thought of adding more naturally present (AKA not buildable) Landmarks that have effects on their province/region like the Pillar of Bone in the Badlands?

[novel sequoia]

Just an update on some of these questions: a few we can't answer right now as they'll be getting their own special spotlight soon, so watch this space! 🙂

[wary vale]

To add to it, considering previous iterations player bias from the computer enemies , does this mean now every faction across the world can send their doomstacks across enemy lands easier to invade the players land thanks to the sea lanes facilitating said mass invasions from more distant enemies?

[fair orbit]

By soon you mean in the next week or in the days to come ?

[novel sequoia]

Well a clue would be how often do we get blogs coming out and on what day? 😉

[novel sequoia]

James - Currently the caravans have a similar scope to what they have in the RoC campaign (but obviously work with the new layout of Cathay and the surrounding areas). If there's a big outcry for the caravans to reach further west than they currently do then that's something we could look to do at a later time though.

[north arch]

Is the UI going to be Warhammer 3 style or Warhammer 2? The UI for heroes and lords in 3 is fantastic but the UI for quests technology banners settlement option icons are way better in 2. Will we be seeing a combination of these two or will the red icons of warhammer 3 take over?

[novel sequoia]

James - The regularity of settlement battles is something that is definitely on our radar, and we are actively looking at ways to improve the variety of battle types as you expand through the map. There are no set dates on when to expect these changes though.

[cosmic temple]

Are the IE map dimensions final, or could the map be expanded a bit at some point in the future? For example to the east

[brisk heath]

How high on the priority is reworking wh1 faction settlements and garrisons to bring them more inline with wh3 factions?

[lament seal]

Will there be an ultimate bundle for all DLCs from WH1-WH2 at the time of release for Immortal Empires?

[clear basin]

Loremaster of Sotek mentioned a canal the chaos dwarfs dug through their territory from the northern ocean to the southern ocean
I assume that won't be on the ingame map?

[hot olive]

Will plagues and diseases (and other faction mechanics) work the same against all factions in IE? The Dwarfs are known to be resilient against them so will that be reflected in the game?

[slender marlin]

Will there be naval battles at any point?

[simple bison]

will you be able to make some campaigns a lot more difficult than others, such as oxyotil.

[tawny fractal]

When will we finally see Troglagobs (sea-goblins)?

[golden perch]

It was mentioned that sea lanes are easily edited for the Dev team. Will this be just as easy for modders to take advantage of?

[lament smelt]

Will old faction leaders have access to units from other factions like Alarielle and Arkham the Black? It could make sense for Morathi and Sigvald

[fresh loom]

Will we be able to choose to enable Chaos Portals in Immortal Empires?

[random lance]

What kind of improvements can we expect from the blood dlc if there are any?

[tall garnet]

Any chance you will give us more options (modding) to edit the map campaign (or creating a new one).
I would like to see some custom campaign focused on some races of the warhammer world like you did with the Wood Elves in game 1.

[tawny fractal]

I also like the idea of khornate factions fighting for their god's favor (fighting over a settlement which only they and the DoC can hold)

[lament smelt]

Will the Von Carstein faction specifically have civilian levy buildings to enhance the living troops they have? Something like the Tomb king building mechanic specifically Arkham the Black’s buildings could help the them have a bit more variety while not causing armies to be composed solely of living troops. Of course the options would be limited similar to what is in Warhammer fantasy army rulebooks for Sylvanian levies

[hidden hull]

Not sure if we're still gonna get some answears, but i would like to ask is patch 1.3 still aimed to release this month?

[sharp solstice]

Question about new Chaos DLC - will each champion come with their own new units?

[novel sequoia]

James: Performance whether it be general FPS, load times, or turn times is something we are constantly looking to improve across multiple departments, while this sometimes only equates to small gains at a time, it's something we'll continue to investigate over the lifespan of WH3.

[novel sequoia]

James: Without going into any details as that's coming in a future blog, Both! There have been plenty of updates to older content already, but with 86 legendary lords (and more to come), there will always be more we can update over the game's life cycle. A lot of the updates we have made already have been based on feedback from over the years, so if there's specific stuff that we haven't addressed yet that you'd like us to look at, let us know about it!

[novel sequoia]

James: Anytime we start to think of new mechanics, one of the most effective things we can do is look at what features we already have and work out how we can build upon those systems so that our poor coders don't need to keep making every new mechanic from scratch for us. So as a general statement for any of our existing features (including the build-a-bear), never say never, but it would obviously have to fit well with whatever new faction or culture we are working to create.

[novel sequoia]

James: There are no plans to introduce anything like that for the beta release, but if there's a big enough outcry for players to gain those items outside of the narrative campaign then we can of course look into how or if we could make that possible/thematic.

[late gazelle]

Will dogs of war be a thing in the future?

[novel sequoia]

James: Sadly not, for IE a lot of our programming time has been used for other things (most importantly just making sure all the old content works!) but we decided that given the choice to travel across the Sea without the AI knowing about it, or not having it at all we thought most players would still like the option. That being said though, for those who don't want access to a tool that AI can't use, there will be a frontend option to turn the Sea Lanes on/off as you see fit. Having the AI predict and/or use our teleportation mechanics is something we would like to investigate in the future though, but it will be something that will require quite a lot of work so there's no timeframe on that.

[novel sequoia]

James: So I've worked on quite a few bits such as start positions and a few of the reworks, and have enjoyed working on all of it. That being said, If I had to pick one thing... I did a rework of all the Sea Regions to ensure that coastal regions weren't granting ridiculous amounts of vision both down the coastlines but also over on other continents. Now that we've got the beautiful parchment map that one of our artists drew up, I think the sea areas look amazing! Especially the larger central seas between the coastal regions, they really draw the eye and look great on the map. It might sound a bit sad compared to a faction rework or something but It's the simple pleasures in life I suppose 😄

[novel sequoia]

James: Yes and No, It was clear that Thrott got more than the Sisters (especially from a UI PoV) but we thought the race rework for the wood elves might balance it out. That obviously didn't end up being the case as players understandably didn't see the rework as part of the paid DLC despite it being done during that DLC's production, so we took the time to improve the FoD during the Rakarth FLC and lessons have been learned. This led to us treating the Beastmen Rework in S&F a lot more like its own element rather than part of the "Beastmen half".
I'm personally really happy with how the forge has ended up in v2 (and the feedback I've seen on the reworked version has been positive), the core of what it does is the same, but having the UI interface added to it really elevates it to what I originally had in mind for it.

[novel sequoia]

James: Bit of both, we do look at mods and especially the "must-have QoL mods" as that can very easily show us what pain points players are having. But also sometimes we've come up with solutions based on internal/external feedback and that might just happen to match a mod that someone else has made. Quite a few of our designers actually come from the TW modding scene, so I wouldn't be surprised if any of them turned around and admitted that they officially implemented something that they had previously modded themselves!

[novel sequoia]

James: We hope to support the game for many years to come, so I wouldn't say anything is final. That being said there's still plenty of land for us to work within the current map.

[novel sequoia]

James: The Sea Lanes are all data-driven (no hard-coding) so I believe so! If that doesn't end up being the case though I'll happily touch base with modders to talk through what's blocking them and see what can be done.

[novel sequoia]

James: While we are aiming to maintain -some- level of balance across the starts. However, with 86 current Legendary Lords it is inevitable that some will be harder than others.

[novel sequoia]

James: We currently have no plans to enable Chaos Portals in Immortal Empires as they were primarily a narrative tool in the Realms of Chaos campaign and we wanted to maintain IE being the classic Total War sandbox experience. That being said, if there is ever a large outcry for them to be present in IE we can of course consider it.

[novel sequoia]

Thank you everyone for your questions! For all answers, check out the pinned thread up top 🙂
This has been awesome. Join me next week for another Rally Point Interview! 😄

[tawny fractal]

amazing! and no that's important behind the scenes work

[magic oasis]

In the preview for 1.3 it says ai now needs to jump 8 times in tzeentch’s realm to reach the end:

But have you guys addressed the AI keeping its progress through multiple attempts in the realm? That’s the real issue with Tzeentch

[wide crypt]

Will legendary Hero's play a role in IE? Will we see more faction wide unique hero's that different Legendary lords can recruit?