Since this review popped up I’ve been visiting the Epic site off and wondering wtf, when is this going to unlock, but…it’s only the 12th.
I believe around 9 ET, if that helps
Installing now. Shocked that I didn’t have any trouble getting it.
The front page of the store loaded briefly but then gave me The Web Developer’s Crutch (Something Went Wrong), but I found if I clicked the image fast enough I got to the store page and was able to grab it no problem.
Couldn’t see it on the Discover page, but going to Browse made it appear, so I just clicked the image there and then “Get”. Installing now.
EGS desktop app is struggling to load the page, but the web version worked!
Claimed with the mobile site and went through with no issues.
Linking to Total War Access (for free DLC) does not seem to be working right now, however:
I’m getting an issue where if I click out of the game (alt-tab, or clicking on the secondary monitor) and go back into it the mouse won’t work but keyboard commands still will. Anyone find a way around this?
EGS is out a sizable quantity of cash it seems. CA probably made out like bandits on this deal.
Would be interesting to see out of that number how many fire it up and then how many complete a campaign.
Yeah. I grabbed it because free game, why not? But it’s really not something I was likely to spend any money on unless it was significantly better than their previous saga game.
I’m gonna fire it up, I swear to god! They just caught me at a very bad time right now, but I am very interested and definitely plan on playing it soon(ish).
So…Uh, anybody play Troy yet? Any thoughts?
What, play? Am I supposed to play the free games I obtain??
I still have pending to play a pair of base factions from Warhammer I and TW: Attila game.
I played a couple hours(not enough to form an opinion, it felt like TW), but I’m more invested in Horizon’s Gate, Battle Brothers, and Snowrunner right now so I haven’t been back.
No time yet, between Death Stranding, Nioh 2, Remnant, MHW, Ghost.of Tsushima…let me finish one or two of those and I’ll be on this.
I still have a copy of Total War: Rome in a box (!!!) that my sister bought me that I seriously do want to play at some point.
I’ve been playing it regularly since Thursday and I like it. So far, I think it’s better than the other Saga game, Britannia, but not as good as Three Kingdoms.
I really like the unique play style of each faction. For example, as Sarpedon I gain access to three unique resources: white granite, which reduces building construction time; celestial iron, which increases the attack and defense of melee troops; and Minoan relics, which gives more favor with gods for using rituals and also increases my influence. Sarpedon gains these resources by gaining influence with other factions and buying them. He can also gain them by controlling certain provinces. When activated, the special effects gained by these unique resources lasts for four turns. Influence is a system that encourages you to spread your culture and discourage other cultures. High influence in a region gives you bonuses to building production, but you have to boost influence each turn with an envoy agent.
I also dig the religion mechanic. There are several gods that your faction can worship. As the so-called son of Zeus, I went ahead and constructed a temple to Zeus, which increased my favor with that god. There are three tiers of favor for each god, and as you perform rituals you elevate your favored status into the different tiers. At tier one my club and javelin units get a boost to their attack rating… at tier 3 I gain really cool effects like +1 happiness and +1 influence for each alliance I have. This is especially neat because it encourages me to seek out defensive pacts and military alliances with my like-cultured neighbors. I also built a temple to Poseidon, and now I can use another feature called prayers to prevent attrition at sea. Oh, the highest favor tier also lets me recruit cool unique troops… favor with Zeus gets access to minotaur units, and favor with Poseidon allows me to recruit cyclopes. You can get a significant favor boost from performing a Hecatomb ritual, or you can get smaller boosts from using your priestess agents.
These features have encouraged me to use the diplomacy features a lot more than previous TW games, but it does add to the amount of stuff to do during a turn, as does the re-introduction to the use of agents. In fact, I find myself going through a pretty lengthy checklist each turn of things I have to do… “Ok, I moved my armies, now I have to preform rituals to Zeus and Poseidon with my priestesses, then I have to increase my influence with my envoy, and poison the water well with my spy…”
There are lots of other cool features, like the storyline the game follows as you play and the fact that the AI can focus on you when you get too big. For example, Menelaus of Sparta warned me he was coming for me after I laid waste to his ally Knossos, and now my cities are prone to Spartan troop incursions.
Combat is similar to what we have with other TW games, but the lack of cavalry and bows takes some getting used to. I’m still sussing out which units are the “fast strike” units as opposed to the “stay put and guard” units, but unit icons help with this (circles are light infantry, hexes are heavy infantry, etc.). For example, I thought my Giant units would be heavy guys who could go in and stay locked in a pitched battle for a long time. In fact, they are like the “shock cavalry” of TW, where you want to charge them, get them out, and charge in again… sustained combat will get them killed quickly. The unit description does state this clearly, so take the time to read up on your units.
All in all, Troy is a treasure at the price I paid for it (free) and would have gladly paid $40 for it. I’m not sure if I’d call it a must buy for most people at $50 or $60, but I’ve loved Total War games and Creative Assembly since Shogun back in 2000, so I would have bought this even for $60.