Total War: Warhammer II

Total War: Warhammer II arrived in 2017 as the middle chapter of Creative Assembly’s ambitious Warhammer Fantasy trilogy, and for a significant portion of the community it remains the high point. The combination of the Vortex campaign, the massive Mortal Empires sandbox (which merges the maps and factions from the first game), and years of DLC support created something with a breadth of content that few strategy games can match. Each faction plays so differently from the next that starting a new campaign often feels like launching an entirely different game.

Community sentiment runs strongly positive, with most criticism directed at specific systems rather than the overall experience. Players who invested in the full DLC library found themselves with a strategy game that could sustain hundreds of hours across different factions, different starting positions, and different strategic approaches. Those who played it more conservatively still found a rich core experience in the Vortex campaign’s structured narrative objectives. Either way, Warhammer II earned its reputation as one of the strongest entries in the Total War franchise.

Factions That Play Like Different Games

Faction diversity stands as Total War: Warhammer II’s defining achievement. High Elves operate through trade and influence, building economic power that funds elite armies. Dark Elves raid and enslave, generating resources through aggression that fuel further expansion. Lizardmen command powerful monstrous units and use the Geomantic Web to strengthen their empire’s infrastructure. Skaven swarm enemies with disposable hordes while deploying devastating weapons technology from beneath their enemy’s feet.

Each race approaches both the campaign map and the battlefield with fundamentally different tools. The Dwarfs reward defensive play, fortifying mountain holds and grinding enemies down through attrition. Wood Elves can develop into economic powerhouses while protecting their sacred forests. With each DLC adding new Legendary Lords who bring unique mechanics even within the same race, the variety compounds. A Skaven campaign under one leader plays differently enough from another that both feel worth experiencing.

Battles bring the Warhammer Fantasy setting to life through massive engagements where infantry lines clash, cavalry flanks, monsters rampage, and magic reshapes the outcome of entire battles. The magic system adds a layer of tactical decision-making absent from historical Total War titles, with spell timing and wind management creating moments where a single well-placed spell can break an enemy formation or save a crumbling line.

Mortal Empires deserves special attention. This combined campaign merges the maps, factions, and mechanics from both the first and second game into a single enormous sandbox. For players who own both titles, it represents one of the largest strategy campaign maps ever created, populated with dozens of playable factions and hundreds of AI-controlled civilizations. The scope is staggering, and the interactions between so many different races and cultures produce emergent narratives that keep campaigns unpredictable.

The Siege Problem and AI Fatigue

Siege battles represent Warhammer II’s most consistent and widely acknowledged weakness. The single-wall siege map design limits tactical options to a degree that frustrates players who enjoy the complexity of field battles. Defenders have limited options for creative positioning, while attackers can often overwhelm defenses through ranged bombardment or magic without meaningful counterplay. The AI’s behavior during sieges compounds the problem, frequently making poor decisions about when to sally forth and how to position units on walls.

Campaign AI struggles with aggression and decision-making in the late game. Once a player establishes a strong military presence, computer-controlled factions become passive, sitting in settlements rather than contesting territory. This transforms the endgame into a series of siege battles against stationary defenders, which combines the weak siege design with repetitive gameplay in ways that drain momentum from otherwise compelling campaigns.

Turn times on the Mortal Empires map, while improved through patches, remain a source of friction. With dozens of AI factions taking their turns sequentially, end-turn processing can stretch long enough to break the flow of play. The game processes these calculations on a single CPU core, creating a hardware limitation that no amount of system upgrades fully resolves. Players learn to use this time for planning, but it remains dead time in a way that historical Total War titles with smaller maps avoid.

DLC pricing, while the content itself is excellent, creates a high total cost of entry for the complete experience. Purchasing every Lord Pack, Campaign Pack, and Race Pack alongside both base games represents a significant investment. While the base game is complete and enjoyable without DLC, the best factions and Legendary Lords often sit behind paid expansions, creating a situation where the optimal experience requires substantial additional spending.

A Living World on an Enormous Scale

What sets Warhammer II apart from both its predecessor and many competitors is how its systems interact to create stories. A Lizardmen empire in Lustria might find itself drawn into conflict with Dark Elf raiders from across the sea, only to discover that Skaven have been undermining settlements from below while attention was focused northward. These cascading events emerge from the simulation rather than being scripted, giving each campaign a narrative arc that feels organic despite being procedurally generated.

Should You Play Total War: Warhammer II?

If you have any interest in either the Total War formula or the Warhammer Fantasy setting, this is one of the strongest implementations of both. Players who enjoy commanding armies in real-time battles, who find satisfaction in campaign-level strategic planning, and who value variety across multiple playthroughs will find extraordinary depth here. The faction diversity alone justifies the price of entry, and the Mortal Empires campaign provides a sandbox that can sustain interest across hundreds of hours.

Skip it if siege battles in strategy games frustrate you, because you will fight many of them and they are the weakest part of the experience. Skip it if the total DLC investment feels prohibitive, though buying selectively based on which factions interest you is a viable approach. And consider that campaign completion requires significant time commitment per playthrough, with Mortal Empires campaigns routinely exceeding fifty hours.

The Verdict on Total War: Warhammer II

Total War: Warhammer II succeeded by making its factions feel fundamentally distinct rather than cosmetically different. Every new campaign asks players to learn new mechanics, adapt new strategies, and approach familiar problems from unfamiliar angles. Its weaknesses in siege design and AI behavior are real and persistent, but they exist within a framework so rich with variety and scale that most players accept them as the cost of an otherwise exceptional strategy experience. For those willing to invest in the full package, few games offer this much strategic diversity under a single banner.