Does anyone have any links to a good start guide (that isn’t a video…)? I’d be very grateful. I don’t have the patience to play these games for 60 hours before I finally stop getting my teeth kicked in anymore.
For reference, this was f*ing fantastic for Shogun II - http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?137395-Frogbeastegg-s-Guide-to-Total-War-Shogun-II
Thanks!
Yep, Frostbeastegg’s S2 guide is the standard, far as I know she’s stopped making them, and I don’t know off hand anyone who has taken up the slack for TW games since.
Guess these fell out of favor w/ the rise of Let’s Play and streaming. I still like manuals and guides.
I know. I hate having to watch an hour long video for what would amount to 3 minutes of info when reading.
So at some point I noticed that not only was I at peace with the Huns but they had completely cleared out everything to my north. So at this point my armies are spending their time recolonizing most of Eastern Europe. Not where I was expecting to go with this game. At this point I think I’ll at least play long enough to capture Italy and see how tough the Western Romans are. They are still doing a decent job of holding on to most of Italy, Southern France, Spain, and a good chunk of North Africa.
I pulled the trigger on this one while it was 50%. Having a great time in my first campaign as the ERE and I’m getting wrecked. I love all the activity on the map in this one. I’ve got an early impression I’m going to really like this and get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
I do wish as mentioned previously mentioned there as a nice detailed guide like the one Frostbeastegg made for Shogun 2, I could certainly use it as I’ve no real idea what I’m doing with the family tree, how to get the ole economy chugging along nor what to do about sanitation/disease. Guess it’ll have to be the really old fashion solution of trial and error.
I assume you mean Frogbeastegg.
If you’re familiar to Rome it’s about the same. The big differences are
Trade is nil for everyone but the Sassanids because everyone hates you, no matter who you are. Still, trading ports with trading bonuses bring in the cash.
In the long run its all about goats, not farms. OTOH you don’t have to play perfectly, and the reason why it’s all about goats is something you need to discover on your own.
Sanitation is a pain.
Don’t be too proud to not cheese arrow towers on defense. Abuse the AI to survive.
The key point is that if your generals have more influence than your ruler, they become disloyal. Re way around that is to constantly promote them into positions of power, burning up their influence. You should also almost never use influence on your actual ruler and use instead his wife and siblings to burn influence. Wives are basically influence batteries since they have nothing else to use influence on.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll see about putting them to use, I fear it may be too late for this campaign, the Sassanids are wrecking me with an endless wave of full stacks coming out of nowhere, not to mention all their puppets too along with all the other barbarians coming at me, this is a very hostile world we live in I got to say.
Yep, typo of course, her name always cracked me up.
I still maintain this is the best Total War game, if for nothing else its feeling of impending doom, and increasing hostility on all sides. The Romans are fun, but ultimately doomed in most cases, as in real-life history. I recommend the campaign about Bellisarius once you’ve grown tired of the Grand Campaign.
Well, it went as I feared, soon after posting above my ERE campaign came to a crashing halt, attacked from all sides I succumbed to the hordes. Impending doom on all sides really is the state you find yourself in right from the get go as either WRE or ERE.
I decided I needed to learn the game mechanics better and figure out a way to deal w/ the huns crazy amount of cavalarly use in their armies, so I started a new one as the Sassanids (if you can’t beat’em join’em) and of course the experience was night and day. I started with a functional empire that wasn’t set from turn one to implode and I have a veritable army of puppet states helping my economy. This gave me the breathing room to learn province development and to test out different army configurations to deal with the huns.
About 35 hours later I’ve got myself a minor victory (bit disappointed CA cheaped out on me and didn’t provide me with a victory video), I may push on and continue for a cultural or military victory as I suspect that’s where I’ll net myself a victory video, yes, I’m easily amused by minor attention to detail, and properly concluding a campaign in a TW game with a victory video I count among the things I expect to see for a lengthy campaign well executed.
Anyway, just thought I’d circle back and say I enjoyed this one immensely, much better than Rome 2 Grand Campaign which I considered a bit of a disaster (the DLC campaigns were all however rather good I thought).
Once I’ve wrapped this one, I’ll muster up the courage to take up the mantle of defending civilization against the barbarians and play as ERE or WRE.
The latest news, DLC incoming for Attila. We’re creeping chronologically into the Middle Ages:
http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/TWA_Age_Of_Charlemagne
For those pining for MTW3, this might just be a bit of a fix.
This sounds great!
I REALLY wish they would do something about turn times instead - the game is nearly unplayable as it is.
What I really want is a game based on Pippin the Short, not because of anything concrete, just because I always found the name hilarious.
The turn times are too long, I agree. Fewer factions might actually help the turn times.
I never found the turn times to be that bad in Attila, particularly in the Rome campaigns, because so much is going on.
I have a semi-decent I5 with a blessed SSD of 256gb, latter however has made loading times a thing of a past I may say, I had up to 200 seconds loading on maps before.
The turn times are so far 3 times what they are in Rome II - That game had the same issues, but it was worked upon until it released. Its also STILL a lot more played on Steam than Attila, which I assume is one of the reasons. Its a shame, because gameplay wise Attila is way above Rome 2.
I assume Rome II is played more than Attila because it’s been on sale a few times including the DLC, also the spinoff TW games always have less market penetration.
It’s ALWAYS been played more than Attila as far I can remember - I do think Rome 2 was an immensely successful game, since it built upon the expectations of Rome: Total war, but its still interesting, and the lack of optimization is one of the frequent topics in the steam forums, which of course, one can take from what one will.