So why is this 20 bucks less than a usual release?
Technically it is a “saga” which means is more focused on an area and era. I’ll play it this weekend and report back. I think the lower price is CA’s way of saying “yeah yeah, we know Warhammer is freakin’ great – but damn it all we won’t forget our attempts at historical roots.”
I have actually had a good campaign in Rome 2 with one of the desert kingdoms. Nabatea I think, they start in Petra. Interesting campaign. I wish they continued what they started in some of the sub campaigns in giving some history of the regions when clicking on a city (Wrath of Sparta comes to mind. I didn’t like this sub campaign at first then had a great time playing it later).
Final thought: I don’t think its one step forward two steps back. I think its CA’s dogged resistance to being swamped with the Warhammer success. China next year will see if we get a true dichotomy outa the Total War series. Either way I applaud both their fantasy and historical attempts every year at trying to make a better game. (Even if Britannia
turns out to be sorta boring-ish)
It’s supposed to be a knock-off of an existing game.
In this game it’s built on the Attila engine, so in most ways it’s going to play a lot like a giant, elaborate mod for Attila, rather than contain new systems like Warhammer. At least that what was stated publicly way back when they announced the “Saga” brand.
Exactly. But I think they are experimenting with some new systems esp in the strategic area. Plus I do wanna see the siege elements.
First impressions: Cautiously optimistic. Nice shine of the Attila engine. Few good battles. We’ll see. It’s no Warhammer 2.
There are 2 main criticisms I have seen in several reviews:
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It’s easy to accidentally trigger a victory without planning or playing towards it.
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The battle AI is disorganised and skittish, and presents less challenge than normal. Related to that, battles are over in 5 minutes or less.
How does this match up with your experience?
Ok yes battles have been easy (ish) on hard/hard. Campaign though: CA has put a lotta new systems in place including food for armies and supply. Plus they went back to a shogun style farm/ outpost stuff I provinces. My Take (if I am being completely honest) is that its a LOT like Attila, but … interesting. Good art style (whatever some of the steam reviewers say) and a HUGE map. More this weekend.
One good tip: Food food food. Be careful.
BTw for you total war: Warhammer people? This probably isn’t for you. Its dirty, and very grimy. There are no elves. And the gameplay is very dark. But… this is total war at its roots. Your mileage might vary.
(Warhammer 2 spoiled me as well but I still think I like Britainia because its – different)
I recently received this email from Creative Assembly. They are giving away a free ebook copy of an Osprey book that relates to the Thrones of Britannia saga game: Viking Warrior vs Anglo-Saxon Warrior.
Pretty cool.
Who’s playing this here?
I get the impression it’s been a bit of a damp squib.
I didn’t jump in on this one, and that’s unusual for me, I go all the way back to the beginning w/ TW games. And I believe that might explain it, I think I’ve got a bit of TW fatigue going on, and frankly I think CA does too.
I’ve seen this same basic game play design for thousands of hours at this point, change the setting, re-skin some stuff, mess with a few game mechanics (that unfortunately these days mostly amounts to simplifying rather than adding depth) and you end up with games that look much the same to me and feel like they’ve been designed by a committee.
For me, the last game CA made where every single little bit of it had inspiration and attention to detail and most of all passion was Shogun 2.
Could just be me, I may of just played this one to death perhaps…
I’m rather fond of it. @easytarget could feel it does too little to advance the series, but I like the experiments they are testing in this one. I could also see how you might call this a simpler game, but good design is also deciding what else can be removed from a game.
The aspect I like most about this game was that I was able to achieve victory in a short amount of time. This is not one of the sprawling TWs, but is instead a tight compact game. I like that I didn’t need to autoresolve a bunch of meaningless battles to conquer the minor settlements. I liked that I was able to simply inherit Mierce without having to go to war with them. I liked that Viking Kingdoms could get along with me, provided I attacked their enemies and their leaders respected my imperial might. I liked all the different buildings, and differentiating between Capital buildings and minor settlement buildings. I liked that you didn’t face horrible penalties for sharing a province with a neighbor. I liked the limited troop pool and that newly hired troops took time to reach full strength. I liked that Research had a meaningful impact (50% or more increase in strength) on troops and with research the cheap levy troops could be stronger than primitive professional soldiers. I liked the lack of non-general characters, so I could finish a turn without fiddling around with a score of characters.
You just sold me on the game!!!
Damn you. Everything you quote sounds just perfect.
I’m looking forward to diving back into Mortal Empires with the new release coming out at the end of this month, but I know I won’t finish that game. Like Space Tyrant, I feel Britannia is a more “refined” strategy game.
yeah that sounds good.
i’ll try it.
i have a friend, ex work colleague, who described it as "boring.2
This is he really liked Warhammer, so perhaps this is too refined and requires too much thinking (for him)?
I get the sense you like it, which is cool for you. I’m just not convinced I’ll find this varies much from AOC, or if it does in ways I agree with or like (i.e. agent removal). I’ll pick it up at 50% off and see for myself.
As I said, this is probably mostly me, I’ve seen 15 years of TW and pretty much everything you liked I’ve seen before.
I suffer from TW fatigue, it’ll pass. ;)
I didn’t mean refined as high class, but more like distilled. Warhammer is this huge bombastic game that I really like. While Britannia is honed in on providing you a much smaller simulation about Britain 1100 years ago.
Replayability is more subtle differences between human factions and their geopolitical nuances rather than choosing between giant lumbering lizardmen or nimble elves. I like both games a lot, and think most people who haven’t gotten burned out on TW might be interested in Britannia.
I was burned out on TW for quite some time, and skipped a number of their games until Warhammer came out. So, I can see where easytarget is coming from. I wouldn’t try to convince him that this is a game for him, because it isn’t a revolutionary development. I do like the evolution it brings however. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some of these new things in the Chinese-setting. Has TW had flaming arrows, and combustible setpieces before?
Since at least the days of Medieval 2.
Destructible scenery and fortifications are an old feature, but vary greatly from game to game. But broadly speaking, not really. Fire arrows were mostly about reducing morale in older games (a bonus to fear at the expense of accuracy was the usual thing)
CA is taking notice of the feedback from TW community and making adjustments:
Those adjustments sound great, so now I just hope they can pull it off. I’m a little confused by the easiness complaint. While my campaign was pretty easy, I figured that was in part due to choosing Aelfred, and because I was playing on Normal. I figured my next playthrough would be with a weaker faction and I was considering bumping up the difficulty.
Otherwise, they are right that some of the mechanics do need balancing, because I did quickly achieve a surfeit of food. Again, I was thinking that was in part due to my faction choice, but it sounds like a larger issue. That article is a good reason for some of you on the fence to wait for these tweaks to be released.