Total War: Warhammer III

• Trade treaties are actually 20 turn (at least) non-aggression pacts. You get "low reliability" (no one wants to make treaties and some factions break treaties) if you attack someone while at treaty is in effect OR within 10 turns of cancelling a treaty OR cancel a treaty within 10 turns of signing it. You get that unreliable rating and the world goes to war with you. So think whether an extra 300 gold per turn is worth delaying your conquest of a faction you'll want to wipe out later.

• The game is really quite good about explaining itself, even if some stuff is hidden away in tiny text menus. For example, Karl Franz has no trespassing diplomatic penalties with other election counts, which means he can go out and save their asses \ reconquer and give them back their lost cities without bothering to negotiate a Military Access \ alliance pact. I could have learnt that before turn 20, and saved myself a lot of hassle had I read everything with due attention. As another example, it took me forever to learn enemy unit cards have the unit "tier" on them, right above the stats, allowing you to know approximately how valuable and dangerous a unit is at a glance.

• Alliances as actually incredibly useful, as you can both direct your allies to attack certain targets AND recruit 4 units per army from your allies, allowing you to negate any shortcoming your faction has. The Empire can really use some Grail Knights and Gyrocopters, and it can now have both.

• The AI really loves getting settlements in trade. Getting it to hand over settlements you want is a huge pain in the ass, but you can easily ally with any faction vaguely on the same side of the good guy \ bad guy divide by sailing up to their coasts, conquering a random minor settlement from a nearby faction and handing it over to them.

• For once, the AI is generally willing to make peace and stick to it (or at least signal its intentions if it doesn't want to). You can conquer an enemy province, then trade back their own minor settlement in exchange for a peace treaty (or maybe even trade and Military Access) and not have to worry about that front for at least 10-20 turns (more if you actually invest in diplomacy in the meanwhile).

• I came to this game from earlier TW titles, and while I kinda understood that my generals now have HP and won't get randomly killed just because they engaged some spearmen, I haven't realized just how much the game relies on you using them as speedbumps and force multipliers, holding back entire enemy units while artillery, ranged units and spells do their work.

• Regarding the above - regular human (dwarf, demonic, etc) infantry aren't ideal for taking out lords or heroes in any efficient fashion, and enfolding them in an infantry blob just gives them more to kill. Even the killier factions don't really have infantry that's quite good enough. You want to use one unit to hold the "single entity" in place, and either shoot them to pieces with your ranged units or bring in another single entity like a hero or monster to do damage. Importantly, enemy SEs have to decide whether they are doing damage to your single entity or to the entire infantry unit holding them in place, they can't actually fight both at once.

• Pursuing survivors after a battle is over doesn't just ensure you have to face fewer the next time around, it also nets you more money and xp, which might make a difference in the next battle. The exception is for the attacker in siege battles, where you get all the xp (randomly distributed) and money even if you hit "end battle" the moment everyone routs.

• Magic facts - the first is that your magic no longer regenerates any faster if you have more reserves. So if you're sitting on 60 winds of magic, throw out a 6 WoM spell and let things rest there, you won't those 6 back much faster than had you emptied your entire tank by casting spell after spell. The other is that enemy units tend to dodge area of effect spells, and you'll get a lot more out of a big damage spell if you wait until the enemy has piled on in a blob against your melee units.

• The relatively new "reassign skill traits" button that all lords and heroes have is just far superior to disbanding them. Put the hero on an injured list for 3 turns, not having to pay any upkeep, then feel free to rehire them anywhere else on the map, whenever you have need.