If having to encamp every army at turn’s end over and over is an oversight, in Warhammer in the campaign Chaos has to actually watch that little movement bar and only move 3/4 or less a turn, because they can only move and encamp if they have more than 1/4 of their movement points left.
Warning wall of TL:DR below
What strategy games do in general is create drama through geography and economy. In that sense Warhammer may well be just as effective a set piece as something historic. But history describes not only what was but what could have been; the Empire fanfiction where they beat the Dwarves is great and all, but even Games Workshop actually blew up the Warhammer world and then just remade it all over again, because fantasy. The sweep and drama of history appeals to the imagination because we could have been there ourselves if but for a roll of the die and a couple thousand years too late.
But what Attila does, uniquely i think in the Total War genre, is actually add its own two bits, its own take, to a period of history that is growing dark in every sense and whose activities and consequences are in no ways set and decided by historians in the way we know about the Julius Caesar or the Sengoku Jidai. It’s piecing together the greatest historic whodunnit of all; who or what killed the Roman Empire?
The game is chocked full of nerd detail. Did you know there is a short wall extending from the Capsian Sea to the east on the northern Persian border on the Grand Campaign? A Great Wall of Persia, you say? Why, indeed, yes it is (sort of). What about the Marib Dam? in northern Yemen. Yes, you get to play with the Marib Dam if you play as Himyar. You can play as Axum - freaking Axum! Are you joking? Who but the most nerd of nerds would find playing as the Hephthalite Huns interesting?
In Attila we get something like the best shot at having a cinematic narrative yet. Clearly Attila looms large in the lists of causes of Rome’s collapse. But as is clear, add to that corruption, climate change, migrating German tribes, a resurgent Sassanian Persia that will dominate the Middle East for the next four centuries militarily and culturally, religious turmoil and unrest, and the growing parasitic expensive of maintaining religious institutions just at the time the money is most needed manning the walls. There is a phrase often used about ‘environmental’ storytelling in games, and this is full on display here. While the towns are made of brick the marble monuments of their predecessors, with shattered visage lie half buried. The lighting is low and gloomy and red. Weeds are growing between the cobbles of the famous Roman roads. Rome is a civilization on the decline, it’s raining, and the barbarians are on the horizon. Rome’s neighbors are growing in strength and importance and even as a culture and language Rome is fading. And there in the deserts of Arabia glowering calmly like a prophecy is the only city on the map to start pre-destroyed; Yathrib. Poised between a Jewish Arabian kingdom to the south, a Christian empire to the north and meddlesome Persians on the other side of the world. Is this storytelling or explanation? Rome 2 asks “quo usque pro roma ibis?” Attila asks whether Rome is worth saving or is it the story of those who took its place?
And the legions? The legions look nothing like the Legions of old. They look drab and businesslike and serious and outgunned. They also look much less familiar. Fur hat wearing cavalry? Monocolor tunics? We’re in a strange and uncomfortable time that haven’t been popularized - Late Antiquity. A time that took, depending on where you stood, four hundred years, as long as Rome had an empire to begin with.
That’s what makes the Last Roman so special. What now does it mean to be Rome or Roman? Greek Romans, invading Italy, after Rome fell? Who are these guys? The troops are new in the Last Roman and they look even more medieval than ever, but still not quite. Foederati infantry? Steppe Horse Archer auxiliaries? Barbarian infantry and barbarian cavalry? Is this some army of Condottiere or a Roman legion? As history turn out, it’s more the former than the latter. There are no legions anymore (and i have real, significant doubts about the so called Limes troop numbers). Belisarius is reconquering Rome in the name of Rome with a gaggle of Gothic, Thracian or Armenian infantry, some 600 Hunnic bow cavalry, and some mediocre “Roman” troops. This general no one remembers (aside from the nerds) took this menagerie of troops all the way to the Alps and nearly restored the Empire. As history goes (or history as according to Procopius, the guy in the opening cut scene whispering in Belisarius’ ear) he would have succeeded, if not for the meddling interference of Justinian. At one point Belisarius was offered the crown of the Ostrogothic Kingdom and an offer to become Western Roman Emperor. He accepted - only to be able to duplicitously arrest the Gothic leaders and ship them back to Constantinople. We’re entering a strange time where a Roman Empire recaptures the Imperial Capital since of the 400s of Ravenna and maintains a garrison there yet has no actual power or authority. It would be like America falling apart and then a hundred years later New England recaptures Washington DC, declares themselves to the “The United States” and have little to no authority past the Appalachians for two hundred years. The Last Roman does a decent enough job modeling this confusing time with the tools it has. Making Belisarius a pawn of the court, of being asked to do the impossible, of having the rug pulled out from under him. Practically speaking once you get to a certain size for some reason the Ostrogoths kind of collapse and Italy falls surprisingly (and maybe disappointingly) easily ; it seems the best part of the campaign is the first half. But bless CA for actually going all in on the nerdiness and just making even more nerd history.
So that’s the power of historical narrative and the ability of a game to bring a long lost period of history to life, edifying, fun and even educational.
