I loved the article Tom. This was the one Attlia DLC that I skipped, but I may buy it on sale in the future.
There were some comments here about the history of the Attlia and Shogun games and I wanted to address it.
The Shogun games are pretty historically representative of the time period they are taking place during. This history in that game (including the DLC’s) have a strong correlation to actual history. The Sengoku period was an age where all of Japan warred to see who would unify Japan. The game rarely ENDs in a historical way but that is the way of a Total War game.
The Last Roman period is also generally similar to real life, with the one difference that the Emperor did not manage to support his expedition enough and it eventually faded out. Again, Total war to me always seemed to be a chance to “fix” the mistakes of history and do the “what if’s” and not be 1:1 representations.
I am with Tom in the way that the history games resonate with me more because I do understand the historical periods. The Japanese, the Romans, or the Imperial Europeans are all historical periods I have studied a lot so having the background information actually grounds the story. If you feel that they are fantastical, study some history. Truth is stranger than fiction.