Total War: Warhammer puts a hold on total conquest

In their latest dev blog entry Creative Assembly explains regional occupation mechanics in Total War: Warhammer. Unlike historical Total War games, where humans fought humans, the upcoming title will not let players conquer every region on the campaign map due to significant cultural differences between races. Game area will be basically divided into two types of lands: Holds – capturable only by Dwarfs and Greenskins – and Human Settlements where other races can dwell. Besides, settlements in Inhospitable Norsca cannot be captured by anyone else than the Norscan tribes. On the other hand, Chaos Warriors don’t settle at all.

Instead of total conquest, each faction will have race-specific victory conditions consistent with Warhammer lore. For instance, Greenskins will focus on conquering mountainous Holds – for them Human Settlements will be nothing more than places to raid or burn to the ground in order to create a dead buffer of no man’s land. All this (let alone differences in units, architecture, and tactics) will create much greater variety between factions, but is primarily justified by the Warhammer lore – it would be strange to see Dwarfs occupying plains or Humans residing in underground keeps.

This also brings an end to tedious end game prevailing in previous installments in Total War series, i.e. the moment when you meet all victory conditions, but there are still many territories to conquer, which, however, poses no real gameplay challenge. Creative Assembly strongly believe this decision will pour a new life into well-worn mechanics.

Total War: Warhammer will be out on PC on April 28th, 2016.