Its awesome - it runs poorly compared to Rome, and the turn times in the Grand Campaign are horrible after a while, but its way better in gameplay than Rome 2, which was also awesome.
Its pretty hard to go back to Rome 2 now, but its pretty annoying to wait so long for turn times. So, eh…well, I have over 100 hours in Attila, and I recommend it, despite the misgivings.
I have it installed , hope to get some time in with it this week. I am sure I’ll give up on a grand campaign after 25 hours, similar to my ROME 2 play through.
Side question, do people enjoy the culture packs? I picked up a few for Rome 2 and after trying them out, I found myself going back and just playing as the Romans.
They also seem really expensive at $8 a pop.
The culture packs add a ton of gameplay in Attila. It has storylines, new items, quests and so on, which are pretty damn awesome.
edit; I will say, though - if you have no interest in the historical aspect of the culture packs, they are probably of less worth.
Coming from Rome 2 I just can’t ignore how rough around the edges this game is. It seems a lot less polished than Rome 2. And then there’s the Huns. I mean I understand the game is about the Huns but getting constantly zerged by horse archers seriously… it feels like I’m playing zombie survival mode in Total War. I’m starting to like the game as a whole though.
I can’t bring myself to play with barbarian nations. It’s either Rome, Persia or another great power for me. Is it a different experience or the same in a different skin?
Agreed! But that’s why I like it.
The newest culture packs brings whole new gameplay to the table. You can win cultural victories as well, by doing certain actions, and building certain buildings. That, combined with the storylines that potentially gives you the best generals, i.e., heroes, are pretty damn awesome. Again, it DOES help if you are interested in the historical background. For instance, the Burgundians are really descendants of Danes, living on the small island of Bornholm, which makes it pretty damn awesome to be included in the game, and also seeing the massive accomplishements they did.
Age of Charlemagne though, is a whole different ballgame, and actually my favorite campaign. Its sorta like the Grand Campaign, just set forward some 400 years, and I really enjoy it.
The AI and position system is this game is horrible. I can no longer ignore it. I’m losing more battles as I face stronger opponents where this is important.
Archers and siege weapons seem hell bent om focusing their fire on one outlier instead of the big mob next to it. Their positioning is fucked, even when skirmish mode is off they constantly reposition to take shots. The formation system is different but I can’t figure out how it works. In Rome 2 when you grouped a unit it behaved the same way as when you’d select them. But now I can’t position a group in a single line. They go back to the position they were in when I grouped them together. Naval battles are still a cluster fuck with ships blocking and crashing into each other. No choice but to auto resolve. I’ll probably go for a minor victory and then try Charlemagne.
Note to self: Spearmen suck at killing infantry. Invest in melee units.
Cobra, I don’t recall having the issues you mention with formations. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but have you read the documentation or played the tutorials? The Creative Assembly games have a very specific vocabulary for how to control units, and if you don’t know that vocabulary, you’re just going to get frustrated.
And put me down as someone who hated Rom 2, but really liked Attila. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that the DLC is very good. It would be much easier on the wallet if the DLC sucked and you could safely ignore it. But like Razgon said, they have a lot of flavor and gameplay. They’re not just cheap reskinnings.
-Tom
Great looking forward to it.
I’ve figured out the formation problem. Apparently if you group units in a battlegroup using <CTRL + Number> their formation gets locked (indicated by a lock icon next to the battlegroup number). This disables the ability to right-click and drag to put them in a line formation. So if you group them while they were facing each other they’ll continue facing each other until you unlock their formation with <CTRL + G>. I can’t imagine anyone keeping their units in the same formation for an entire battle but at least that’s solved.
So this is on sale for $11.24 on Steam this weekend. I am currently playing the hell out of Total War : Warhammer but otherwise haven’t really played a TW game since the first Rome. I have heard that Attila may be the best of the series. Should I hop on this, even though I don’t think I will play it right away?
yes. yes you should. its great. trust me. its yuuuuuge. its really great. dont listen to the fake reviews. its really great.
I have been attempting the “This is Total War” achievement in Attila as ERE. Not easy. That chievo means I have to declare war on anyone all the time at first contact, which effectively nullifies my factions main attribute (50 % more income from trade). No peace with anyone. Ever.
You really get to know the beauty of the balance in THIS particular Total War when you try this achievement at Very hard. I have failed spectacularly 4 times now. Well, ok, 4 times as ERE, lately.
Without any giveaways, if anyone has a small bit of advice it would be appreciated. I have tried going north (bad idea North is horde central), south (New Egypt? No too many factions) and now am considering pushing due east to build up a sort of New Bactrian Kingdom (taking advantage of the eastern border). West seems like a terrible idea as Rome is the first that really gets clobbered. ERE starts with a good amount of unis plus a ton of money (when you dissolve your cities buildings).
A far west and spain? A province too far I am thinking.
Anyways even though I love those spectacular TW: W battles, Attila is the better game imhop. There is a historically strategic game here with a lot of pressure(s) that keep you engaged throughout even a longer campaign. Plus as discussed in that Last Roman thread above, something about the pseudo-realistic almost historical setting still makes this total war game a winner over TW:W, even with those awesome units and powers etc.
So your post made me look at Attila since your story is very much like mine (finally got into a TW game, Warhammer, and am really into it). Since I feel like I can kind of TW now, maybe I should look into Attila myself!
Turns out I bought it back in March of last year, and never even installed it. Ack! Backlog strikes again!
There is some great detail regarding the strategic game in TW:A that is lacking (purposefully, I am sure) in TW:W. That said there are also some great IMbalances with some of the factions that really makes the game shine. Or Unbalances. A Western Roman Empire Grand Campaign is truly something to behold. You may learn new swear words.
As for the history, Total War is always an inch from being historical (Not counting TW:W which is blatantly fantastical). But when one of the iterations allows you to suspend disbelief, run a good strategic game, and provides great battles: it really works.
Lastly I love that ARMIES (or legions depending on the faction) get level ups too. That was a great addition to the series with Rome II. Rome II is mostly fixed now, BTW – I dunno how cheap it is, and it isn’t as good a game as Attila, but it is a LOT better than those first few months. Lotta good mods as well. I seem to recall the Caesar into Gaul DLC being a tighter more interesting campaign as well (in Rome 2).
There seems to be some issues with the latest generation Nvida cards. I was on the Steam forum and a few folks with 1000-series cards (myself included) are getting fairly poor performance (well, not unplayable poor, just not nearly what you’d expect - I was getting like 34FPS average (with dips into the high teens) on Max settings. Super odd. @easytarget was on the Steam forum posting it ran fine for him with a 970, making me suspect the issue is with those 1070/1080’s.
Yep, I’m in the midst of a Visigoth campaign and checked my graphics settings and saw that I didn’t have AA maxed, since that was the one setting I didn’t have pegged I maxed it as well just to see what would happen, everything is still running fine for me.
So something odd must being going on with the 10 series drivers at a guess.
That’s a crazy achievement for ERE to attempt! Starting in a corner is much easier.
I’d probably focus on saving Egypt and pushing into Arabia. The problem here is that Arabia is big, and it takes a while to actually moves armies in and out of it… time you don’t have.
First thing first (as in every ERE game) sell all your Christian churches to save money and invest in other things, eventually try to convert back to paganism. Although Paganism has some issues in the late game trading food for money, essentially, is a crucial benefit. Fortunately later updates added the Hephthalite Huns which knocks Persia down a peg or two, although you’ll still need to hit them. Playing a standard ERE game I make Persia “a peaceful desert” if you take my meaning. Probably a good idea to do this again as well. I wouldn’t have to do this if I could somehow break the Sassanid hold on all those client kingdoms, but I have to break that alliance and that usually means killing every last Sassanid king.
So I bought it. Curse my weak willpower. I have no idea when I’ll get around to playing it. Must finish Dwarf campaign first.
Are there any must-have DLC? Those, unfortunately, were not for sale. Also, what’s a recommendation for good starting faction?
Oh definitely the East Roman Empire. Absolutely ;)
Best? Depends on what you want, but a faction in a ‘corner’ is going to give you more time to come to grips with things. For that reason something like the Sassanids or Picts gives you a more manageable border. Any of the germanic factions are going to have a rough ride, pincered between the Huns and the Romans.
That said the chaos can be worth surfing, and will give the most opportunity for interesting mechanical narratives. So maybe just jump in as the Vandals, and start picking at the corpse of the West.
What??? OMG no.
Best starting faction to really get into the spirit is one of the migrating German tribes. It’s tough but fun.
For Empire Easy Mode play the Sassanids. (I like to play them as Defendeds of Order and keep thumping my vassals if they become rebellious and put their sons in their place, and tend to be peaceful with the Romans.)
For Thematic Mode play a corner faction - Axum, Ebdanians, Jutes, ect.
The reason swearing off the Roman Empires until you’re more experienced is because they are huge, huge time-sinks that demand a ton of time and understanding of what to do, and they’re odd in that just maintaining the status quo is an accomplishment, pushing out requires a lot of things to go right. They also work best when you sort of know how to game the game and do games things, like sell buildings. Generally it will take 20-50 turns to stabilize the Romans.