"Dying Races" Should be better represented mechanically (and vice versa)

Races like the elves and dwarves are notoriously in a palpable sense of decline. Not just in terms of military setbacks, but a demographic decline where their extremely low growth and populations are basically sending their civilizations into a death spiral. It makes every loss all the more dear. It makes holding back their exact opposites - seemingly endless and multiplying hordes of enemies - all the more daunting, and the act of riding out to meet it all the more heroic.

But in game you definitely couldn't tell this was the case. These factions can pump out hordes upon hordes of chaff if they want, only limited by money, which is easy enough to come by. The endgames were particularly egregious, where dwarves would suddenly swarm the map with skaven numbers.

Its a perennial problem in total war titles, and its gotten increasingly bad - in so many ways the game lowers the stakes. The early game is so much more compelling because the stakes are actually high - your armies are few and weak, your infrastructure is poor, you can't recover nearly as quickly. But WH3 more than any other title rockets you up the development curve faster and easier, and also provides you with a wide and powerful range of cushions. Extremely high replenishment, recruitment, powerful mechanics, wound recovery times, etc.

How about retooling races to better align with their lore dynamics?

* Lower unit counts, but stronger units (conversely, higher counts for the chaffiest of units for the chaffiest of factions like skavenslaves). The heightened discrepancy gives a more stark feeling of being the thin line holding back the tide, and makes individual losses more painful. * Low replenishment, and even lower for higher tier units. Losing units should be painful. * Higher wound recovery times. Losing LLs should be a crisis moment, unless your name rhymes with Con Varstein * Slow growth rates, especially beyond core racial territory, reduced means of increasing growth rates. You should see your enemies progressing quicker than you making you feel like you're always falling behind, always losing a literal rat race. Assimilating territory outside your core should be a difficult process with severe limitations on how useful it is to you. Playing tall is the order of they day. Alliances with the monkeys may actually be useful, because they provide a better meat-shield than you would be able to colonize with your own people. * Expensive units relative to economic potential * Slow and limited universal recruitment

For example, SFO changes the unit count for Swordmasters of Hoeth to 60 down from 100 but significantly increases their stats and cost.

Its not enough just to win. A pyrrhic victory should be a setback for more than a couple turns of recovery time, it should stop a campaign dead in its tracks and threaten to undo it if the enemy has reserves/follow up close at hand. A catastrophic loss, even in the mid-late game, should be direly consequential and difficult to recover from. You need to think carefully and strategically, you cant just auto-resolve your way through every battle. At the same time though, you cant be too defensive or complacent, or your enemies will growth so powerful they will easily overwhelm you.