Playing it, it’s striking how often cities get razed, and the way the map changes from stability and richness to poverty and desolation.
Thematically, the game reflects the era well. And that’s it-a small number of factions for a Total War game, despite the number in-game, which makes me suspect they’ll all unlock as DLC as time goes by. And the Sassanids are strong and really only under threat from the Huns and the Eastern Romans. The Eastern is rich and aggressive, but surrounded on all sides by enemies. The Western Roman Empire is massively wealthy at the game’s start, but with few armies or military buildings, which makes it impossible to defend. Of course, there are the three remaining ‘civilised’ Empires. The more stable Franks and Saxons, by contrast, get bonuses to converting other people’s buildings, meaning they’re excellent conquerors of collapsing Rome. These four nomadic tribes get huge growth bonuses from settling and uprooting - which would be a fine tactic, if you didn’t lose all your building and camp improvements every time. Four of them start that way, including the comically named Alans.
Spread over a slightly extended map, most of these barbarian factions can also form hordes in times of need. Siege combat has become more reliable since Rome II.
Much like the English will all move to Scotland when the ice caps melt and London drowns. Driven by climate change (which gradually reduces fertility in the Northern provinces as they freeze), the huge hunter-gatherer populations of the nomadic tribes can’t live off their traditional lands any more and forced to move south, displacing those before them. The majority of the other barbarous factions are similarly brutal. Playing as them, their inability to fortify or settle or ambush, and their bonuses from razing and being at war, mean constant battle is pretty much their experience. For Attila, the wealth of a city, the lives of its people, even the fertile land they rode through, were all tools for the huns to accrue more riches. Factions in the previous game had different units, buildings and appearances, but they all followed the basic civilized elements-they used their provinces for farming, their cities for manufacture, and they didn't attack each other on sight.īy contrast, Attila and his Huns do really embody Total War, in the original meaning from Clausewitz-to mean nothing was civilian, everything was a military target. Total War’s latest garb is Attila, the height of fash-hun.Īttila might not appear to be that different to Rome II, but it’s a somewhat structurally different game, most noticeably in the asymmetry of the factions. Despite looking a bit more fancy as time’s gone by and always turning up in fresh duds, it’s the same old complex, plodding game really, banging on about history whilst trying to hide its disturbing interest in the bloody bits. We don’t hang out that much-maybe a fortnight every year-but it’s always quality time. It’s seen me through my entire adult life and has outlasted most of my significant relationships. I'm a bit Rome'd out, but this might drag me back in, as it gets closer to a new Medieval game and give us a preview of what features to expect in that. Like the new "power of fire" feature, looking forward to burning some cities down! With breath-taking scale, atmosphere and improved graphical performance, witness the end of days and the rise of a legend.
Improvements and optimisations to both campaign and battle visuals create a chilling vision of a looming apocalypse and the ruin of the civilized world. With new period-specific technologies, arms and armaments, religion, cultures and social upheaval, Total War: ATTILA delivers an authentic experience of this ominous chapter of our history. Improved core gameplay and UI through the latest optimised and modified Total War game mechanics, including politics, family tree, civic management and technological progression. Playing as the Western Roman Empire you will begin with vast territories under your control, but weakened by political in-fighting and threatened on all sides by enemies, your dominance will quickly become a struggle to survive. Wield the ferocious power of fire in battle to set buildings ablaze and terrify defenders, or wipe entire cities and regions from the face of the campaign map with the new raze mechanic.
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