u/Lonely_Strategy3446

So, it's taken me a very long time to understand what grixis truly is. I am grixis myself. It took a long time, given my own history of trauma to understand what was maladaptive psychology from that, what was the shadow rearing it's head and what was maturation across the lifespan.

So with grixis I started out as a typical izzet, full of creativity and a thousand ideas a second, your typical creativity for creatives sake enjoyer. Due to trauma I alternated between the extremes of both blue and red more heavily than the normal person. Exreme impulsivity and thrill seeking vs extreme coldness and intellectualisation.

At a certain point as an mbti entp (as I am, though I am certain grixis can present elsewhere), you end up sick of theories that lead nowhere and impulsivity that suppresses your natural strategic inclination. I believe izzet to grixis is one of the most common entp paths. This I think is where the real shadow integration occurs and the development towards black comes into play. This is when you stop being the bad internet stereotype of entp and move from trolling and wasting energy everywhere to a more refined, emotionally and intellectually selective mindset, only engaging with things that give you meaning or value. Sounds cold but it's not really, it's strategic. Conservation of resources.

Thing is is then you can end up in the black shadow integration too heavily, this is where concepts resembling Laveys satanism can kind of take you over and you can get stuck there if you make the wrong move and take the short term view. Laveys satanism is literally grixis distilled. Issue is is it becomes an excuse for self inflation and callousness and god help you if you start diluting yourself by taking actions against your natural moral inclinations as this will permanently lower you in your own eyes. I managed to avoid that fortunately.

The truth of it is that although grixis has a tendency towards selfishness or moral certitude, that it's actually just the black part forming late and the shadow gaining sway, unless you take enough actions that dilute you, your ego will end up in check soon enough. Edgelordism does not tend to survive until middle age unless you have done enough to force your ego into a defensive position it can't dig it's way out of. The counter is shadow integration and being honest about yourself, you will be forced to if you have any conscience personally and self awareness, better to face yourself on your own terms.

I believe grixis to be three wildly differing personality structures combined that take a lot of time to integrate healthily. I believe there is nothing inherently bad or negative about grixis but it has potential towards three extremes that are highly maladaptive. I believe grxis becomes it's strongest when it integrates it's ego and darker impulses fully and then it becomes a very specific form of powerful.

The traits that give it away are a crazy quickness in thinking, izzet core. Extreme selectivism in how it's energies are used, not performative signalling, dimir core. Emotional intensity applied in selective places, with trusted friends, rakdos core.

Grixis people are usually quite intelligent, extremely adaptable. Intense in a way people feel in their bones. Quick witted and capable of charm, highly strategic when not ruled by their shadow. May not suffer fools very well and above all, absurdly determined and willful.

Grixis is forged in the fire of it's own disparate personality structure, it can look awful in youth, but fully integrated? Terrifyingly effective and just feels different and outside the norm. It's the kind of person you find yourself thinking you have romantic chemistry with because their baseline presence is so intense but then looks confused when you clarify that you are in a relationship. Grixis is not hard to spot if you know what you are looking for.

I get that most people just like being stompy in strategy games, just enjoy the dopamine of winning and I got no gripes with that but the game is so far from strategic at this point that it's kind of just disheartening as someone who enjoys grand strategy. Like total war has never really been proper grand strategy but it's drifted exceptionally in Warhammer 3.

Everything has become mega buffs and OTT effects. If you actually want strategy you have to nerf every campaign buff hugely. Giving units XP modifiers, generals big buffs, tech buffs and faction specific win buttons is one of the biggest reasons that the game is solved by turn 10-30. What the hell does the AI do against this? The AI who still often sends their units to you piecemeal. Cheat free stacks is what. Historical titles work reasonably because there is relative parity and then the buffs are minor. The same absolutely could work here despite the range of units. Or at least be made interesting for longer.

Faction balance is... Not optimal. Kislev, the faction that is supposed to be hanging on by a thread has ungodly replenishment and strong units every tier and then win buttons, whilst Dark Elves, supposed to be a snowball faction are stuck with wet noodle infantry that lose to everything till tier 3. I could list for hours insane imbalances but that's not the point I'm making and that is the one thing I fully trust will be ironed out.

If we are real no factions should be getting replenishment buffs but nurgle and nurgle aligned, skaven and undead, yet buffs are just thrown out at complete arbitrary random. Maybe from different design philosophies at different times? Or from a desire to keep factions alive to represent in the game for longer? Dunno, but it's just kind of nonsense, Replenishment is one modifier you should not be messing with substantially because it's literally the difference between a scrabbling campaign and a steamroll effortlessly campaign. It's kind of just blessed and cursed factions with the way it currently works.

The game could become reasonably strategic if you stripped back all replenishment buffs and modifiers to minimal levels, at the moment there is some snowball philosophy seemingly but snowballing is the opposite of strategy, not yucking anyones yum but is it really that fun to have assured victory by turn 10-30? The game is predictable enough that if you beat the first few enemy armies then it's already solved, two provinces and you are golden except...

When you come up against orks or some chaos or factions that have free stacks on free stacks. AI cheats plus waagh armies etc. The AI greenskins are the most insane thing I have ever seen in a total war game, at least the Mongols in MTW2 had to start in a location and spread out. All greenskin factions rn are literally pulling extra stacks out of their butts and seemingly teleporting double your move range, from out of your LOS and attacking you. It's like where is the strategy in this? Just turtle indefinitely? Or use cheese to beat their armies? What fun.

This is not a CA is evil post, like they have to do infinitely more than modders to amend things, there's ripples all the way back, things us non game developers don't begin to understand. They have made a project that is insane in scope and haven't taken the time needed to normalise systems and have instead just kept chucking out new content. That's great. We have an incredible basis for a game atm. We have reams of content, it's incredible, but it's not replayable and there are so many factions that are just, push button, win or don't function at all, well you can make them function but it's not fun.

I think the game design at this point is make everything new broken to sell it and buff the old stuff sequentially but I am of the opinion that if Nagash drops without huge efforts at balancing, fixing the AI and sorting the stupid stuff like attrition in sieges from turn 0, that, it's just a silly business decision. It's the last major opportunity to get back all disenfranchised players. If there aren't major core issues addressed with it then it becomes play a few factions and done with the game, cus rn, it works on a gimmick system, not a strategy system. Faction do shiny thing, I strong, I win, I win more, I win the moreiest. What will happen is the player base will prematurely dwindle and we end up with less content overall because it makes zero sense from a business POV to continue to make content for it. People like their easy dopamine loops but if it's all cheap dopamine then they drift on to other things.

I'll be here regardless till the end waiting for the end of updates so that modders can realistically get to work and make the game strategic again. Can't wait for something like a stainless steel version of this, can you even begin to imagine... Hype as can be, but I'm hoping we don't have to wait that long for strategy to make an appearance in the game. Rn it's a mess of win buttons, buffs that squeeze AI out of the game, imbalance, non-functional AI that has to cheat (an unprecedented amount) or the whole thing crumbles, broken varied attrition and corruption systems, climate systems that the AI can't deal with, nonsensical AI army builds, nonsensical diplomacy, etc. It feels like everything is overcompensation for the lack of balance.

The most I think you can realistically expect is probably WH2 level gameplay from this game, that's it. In reality that is all it needs to be. Like I'd love CK3 style systems with total war battles but in reality I think the most you can expect is as said, WH2 level gameplay. That alone would be great. I just worry they'll keep plastering gimmicks endlessly instead and inflating the issues whilst playing catch up with themselves and it all just burns out.

Total war relies on a certain overlooking of the simplicity of the systems. If you can overlook that then you can enjoy the battles and the meager strategy layer and feel like you are legit building an empire. Rn it feels like battle simulator with a box ticking exercise over the top that occasionally chucks out something so unfair that you can't surmount it without utter cheese.

TLDR: The game is not even close to strategic, is characterised by win buttons, lack of balance, insane AI cheating, stupid glitches that have been around for time immemorial and there should be a concerted effort to address this before or with the Nagash drop for the health of the overall game and longevity.