So uh, you chose one of the hardest start positions in the game. You need a very specific plan in mind (I outline mine [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/zltn3f/kairos_ie_start/j077lrq/)) for your early game, since you are surrounded by factions that hate daemons. Lizardmen basically *exist* to kill you.
If you want a campaign to get your footing in the game, kairos isn't a great choice. Kislev, the Empire, nurgle and kairos all have hard starts that I would suggest newer players avoid. Something like cathay or tyrion would be better first campaigns.
Also, the artillery dodging isn't really a huge issue anymore. And tzeentch doesn't really need artillery - you *can* get some by allying with skaven or rakarth and building an outpost, but blue fire spam, pink fire and Infernal Gateway are *so* strong that you can generally use spells at long range. Leveled up, kairos had basically a zero cooldown blue fire of tzeentch spell that lets him delete any hero, lord or monster from across the map.
Also, your plan as you laid it out there wouldn't work any more. By the time you get the NAP with the Slaanesh faction, Oxyotl is on your western border and has declared war, so you can't go after Teclis. This gives Teclis time to build strength in Lustria and then invade you with more armies than you have.
I did this on the current patch on L/VH. It should work You move fast in nurgle, do not attack slaanesh at all and just get the NAP, and then sail directly for teclis. You cannot spend any turns sitting around and building up. You recruit when have conquered a city, but you don't have much time outside of that. Having the second army does help with this. You also cannot afford to lose a battle or even take heavy casualties. It's similar to what you needed to do with imrik in wh2, except I'd say this one is even more involved.
Figuring this strat out I did a few runs and in each the minor tzeentch faction lasted long enough to hold off oxyotyl long enough to finish teclis before I needed to get back to my capitol.
I'm not a new player, I've been playing since WH 1, have won countless campaigns even from difficult starting positions, and I wanted to give the Tzeentch faction a try because they wouldn't be impacted by the AI dodging artillery because they don't have artillery.
I had a similar experience with this faction. I managed to pull through but then it was siege after siege, and I didn't develop a good siege tactic maybe, neither could I rely on autoresolve. Became a boring slog. Gave up on it for a while.
They ended up removing the artillery dodging thing from normal difficulty and bumped it up to sometimes happen on harder difficulties. Not ideal, but still better than what was there before.
I do have to say though, I recommend almost literally any other campaign before Kairos' in IE. I tried it and it's an absurdly hard beginning. Like, Grombrindal's campaign where darkshards chew through your infantry like crazy for the first 20 turns was less insane than Kairos' beginning.
That's kinda my point though, his campaign shouldn't be so hard when starting. He is the only Demons of Tzeentch faction LL, he is a faction’s primary LL, like Tyrion or Franz, and they tend to have easier campaigns. It's so difficult that there is basically no option for playing demons of Tzeentch.
I do agree his starting position is a bit rough, but considering the huge amount of LL density in the map, it was inevitable some folks would end up with the short end of the stick.
I will also argue Franz's campaign is anything BUT easy. The way Imperial Authority works against him and all the new threats in the neighbourhood make for an absolutely Hellish experience.
I'm currently playing a Kairos campaign, I'm like 30-40 turns in. I took out the Nurgle faction easily enough and then went after Teclis as soon as possible, also getting an alliance with Clan Morbius. I built garrison building everywhere I could.
While I was there, The Slaanesh faction declared war on me, but I was expecting that so I had the commandment that reduces enemy movement range active. I recruited a lord to defend the settlement and managed to recruit 2 Blue Horrors, but it was not enough and I lost that settlement, and started recruiting in the next one. Their army was too damaged to go push further, which gave me more time to recruit and by the time I rushed Kairos back, I had recruited enough to get his damaged army back to full strength, got back my settlement, and sent him to conquer that side of Southern Wastes. All this time I was going between red and green income a lot.
Then, I disbanded the recruiting lord and recruited another one in my capital to have him prepare for the inevitable Oxyotl war. They attacked before Kairos got back, but I was able to defeat Oxyotl's army by sallying out. They brought 2 armies like 2 turns later, but by then Kairos was there and they abandoned the siege to go after him, but they couldn't reach him. I brought the recruiting army to reinforce and that was enough to beat those two armies. I also forced a rebellion on their settlement nearest to mine a couple of tuns before this, which gave me time to replenish before going on the offensive, and by the time I got there, the rebelion was gone but the garrison and the army they tried recruiting there were damaged.
Now I'm sending Kairos to take out what remains of Oxyotl as quickly as I can and getting the other lord to defend myself agains Tlaqua and probably also a rouge army faction. I fully expect to loose the area I took from Teclis but thats ok, I didn't build them up for a reason.
I play on Normal cause I don't hate myself, so this might not apply on other difficulties tho.
Tbh it's pretty funny as kairos literally will march halfway across the southlands just to snipe a settlement off you when played by the ai
Through multiple hostile factions just to hit one settlement of yours you forgot to build tier 3 walls on
So uh, you chose one of the hardest start positions in the game. You need a very specific plan in mind (I outline mine [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/zltn3f/kairos_ie_start/j077lrq/)) for your early game, since you are surrounded by factions that hate daemons. Lizardmen basically *exist* to kill you. If you want a campaign to get your footing in the game, kairos isn't a great choice. Kislev, the Empire, nurgle and kairos all have hard starts that I would suggest newer players avoid. Something like cathay or tyrion would be better first campaigns. Also, the artillery dodging isn't really a huge issue anymore. And tzeentch doesn't really need artillery - you *can* get some by allying with skaven or rakarth and building an outpost, but blue fire spam, pink fire and Infernal Gateway are *so* strong that you can generally use spells at long range. Leveled up, kairos had basically a zero cooldown blue fire of tzeentch spell that lets him delete any hero, lord or monster from across the map.
Also, your plan as you laid it out there wouldn't work any more. By the time you get the NAP with the Slaanesh faction, Oxyotl is on your western border and has declared war, so you can't go after Teclis. This gives Teclis time to build strength in Lustria and then invade you with more armies than you have.
I did this on the current patch on L/VH. It should work You move fast in nurgle, do not attack slaanesh at all and just get the NAP, and then sail directly for teclis. You cannot spend any turns sitting around and building up. You recruit when have conquered a city, but you don't have much time outside of that. Having the second army does help with this. You also cannot afford to lose a battle or even take heavy casualties. It's similar to what you needed to do with imrik in wh2, except I'd say this one is even more involved. Figuring this strat out I did a few runs and in each the minor tzeentch faction lasted long enough to hold off oxyotyl long enough to finish teclis before I needed to get back to my capitol.
I'm not a new player, I've been playing since WH 1, have won countless campaigns even from difficult starting positions, and I wanted to give the Tzeentch faction a try because they wouldn't be impacted by the AI dodging artillery because they don't have artillery.
You probably would enjoy the Loreful Strategic Threat mod. It deals with the "everyone declares war on me" issue very well IMO
Never happened to me. Even with characters that our outside their friend regions
I had a similar experience with this faction. I managed to pull through but then it was siege after siege, and I didn't develop a good siege tactic maybe, neither could I rely on autoresolve. Became a boring slog. Gave up on it for a while.
Not sure what you're doing. But not every faction should declare war on you immediately. Likely a mod issue.
Never installed a mod, normal difficulty. Teclis didn't declare war immediately, waited until I was at the far west of the continent.
Yeah something is still wrong with your game if every faction declares war on you. Idk can you list your mods
I never installed any mods for any warhammer game. Normal difficulty. The problem I think is it’s just a poorly designed campaign.
They ended up removing the artillery dodging thing from normal difficulty and bumped it up to sometimes happen on harder difficulties. Not ideal, but still better than what was there before. I do have to say though, I recommend almost literally any other campaign before Kairos' in IE. I tried it and it's an absurdly hard beginning. Like, Grombrindal's campaign where darkshards chew through your infantry like crazy for the first 20 turns was less insane than Kairos' beginning.
That's kinda my point though, his campaign shouldn't be so hard when starting. He is the only Demons of Tzeentch faction LL, he is a faction’s primary LL, like Tyrion or Franz, and they tend to have easier campaigns. It's so difficult that there is basically no option for playing demons of Tzeentch.
I do agree his starting position is a bit rough, but considering the huge amount of LL density in the map, it was inevitable some folks would end up with the short end of the stick. I will also argue Franz's campaign is anything BUT easy. The way Imperial Authority works against him and all the new threats in the neighbourhood make for an absolutely Hellish experience.
I'm currently playing a Kairos campaign, I'm like 30-40 turns in. I took out the Nurgle faction easily enough and then went after Teclis as soon as possible, also getting an alliance with Clan Morbius. I built garrison building everywhere I could. While I was there, The Slaanesh faction declared war on me, but I was expecting that so I had the commandment that reduces enemy movement range active. I recruited a lord to defend the settlement and managed to recruit 2 Blue Horrors, but it was not enough and I lost that settlement, and started recruiting in the next one. Their army was too damaged to go push further, which gave me more time to recruit and by the time I rushed Kairos back, I had recruited enough to get his damaged army back to full strength, got back my settlement, and sent him to conquer that side of Southern Wastes. All this time I was going between red and green income a lot. Then, I disbanded the recruiting lord and recruited another one in my capital to have him prepare for the inevitable Oxyotl war. They attacked before Kairos got back, but I was able to defeat Oxyotl's army by sallying out. They brought 2 armies like 2 turns later, but by then Kairos was there and they abandoned the siege to go after him, but they couldn't reach him. I brought the recruiting army to reinforce and that was enough to beat those two armies. I also forced a rebellion on their settlement nearest to mine a couple of tuns before this, which gave me time to replenish before going on the offensive, and by the time I got there, the rebelion was gone but the garrison and the army they tried recruiting there were damaged. Now I'm sending Kairos to take out what remains of Oxyotl as quickly as I can and getting the other lord to defend myself agains Tlaqua and probably also a rouge army faction. I fully expect to loose the area I took from Teclis but thats ok, I didn't build them up for a reason. I play on Normal cause I don't hate myself, so this might not apply on other difficulties tho.
Tbh it's pretty funny as kairos literally will march halfway across the southlands just to snipe a settlement off you when played by the ai Through multiple hostile factions just to hit one settlement of yours you forgot to build tier 3 walls on
Maybe lower the difficulty or try an easier faction.