Your impressions NOW WITH A SUPER LATE POLL

[Totalheadache]

I agree with most of the comments above so I wont add my own. Redguard's is pretty spot on.

My own real negative so far gameplay wise is after conquering several cities in Britian am now up against Picts and Irish with nordic units....que? It is a bit of a let down. A few more unique celtic units could have spices things up. I'd have also perhaps liked to see another Irish faction and perhaps a few more cities. An extra in Ireland and another in Wales....(no welsh faction?).

I like the fact playing as the Roman Empires you get the "testudo" which seems to work. Managed to hold off two stacks of Visigoths with just a few units and only lost when my general fled due to archers (yes I should have charged but though they were gonna run out of arrows).

[andrew881thebest]

I have a core i5 2300 with 8 Gb ram and r9 270 I put almost all details on quality some on performance and I am getting about 7 fps on average on battles of 10 units vs 20 (defending Rome). How is this possible?

[MKeogh]

My initial impression is very good. As suspected, Attila is Rome2's Napoleon. It's CA's kiss-and-make-up follow-up release for a fan-base still angry about the previous game's horrendous debut.

Pros:

No significant tech issues. (It keeps telling me my drivers are out-of-date (they aren't), but I'm running the game without issue with an I5 4460 with 8GB RAM and a 2GB R9 270x using a mixture of Max Quality and Quality settings.)

The family tree.

The overall presentation: music, graphics, theme, ect. One of CA's most atmospheric releases ranking up alongside the original Shogun and Shogun II.

The campaign: It's tough. Playing as the WRE on Hard and it's been a real struggle. Money is tight. Rebellions. Invasions. Starvation. Pestilence. And the entire world seems to hate me. Granted I could have alleviated a lot of problems by abandoning half of my empire, but I decided that was too gamey and I'd only use the abandon feature when things looked absolutely hopeless. I'm so starved for money that I agreed to join the ERE's wars just because they paid me which unfortunately led to a probably premature struggle with the Huns.

It's also very involved. It has taken me hours just to play 24 turns! Constantly checking the family tree and diplomacy menu and then dealing with 2-4 battles during the AI turn makes the campaign a real time sink. The real time-killer are the constant city attacks because I feel compelled to fight all of them. Even if my garrison loses then it can still damage the AI's armies enough to make them more manageable for my smallish field armies. I don't trust auto-resolve to inflict the sort of damage that I need. In this aspect, Attila is the exact opposite of Rome2 which was the first Total War game where the vast majority of my battles were auto-resolved. So, far I'm having fun. However, it can be a narrow-line between fun and frustration. At times, I feel like the little Dutch boy running back-and-forth sticking my finger in various holes in the dike with the expectation that eventually the dam is going to breach.

Cons:

As many have already mentioned, the Celtic factions are using a "Nordic" unit roster. And other minor factions also feature unit rosters of recycled units from "similar" cultures. I know DLC is likely on the way, but the Celtic factions looking like any other Germanic roster is a BIG disappointment.

The CAI still struggles with large empires. My ERE ally has the vast majority of its army sitting around the Saharan capital of the Garamantians doing NOTHING! Four or five stacks are currently fortified (not besieging but fortified) around that city and have been for turns despite being at war with that faction and numerous others. And those armies not encamped in the Sahara are pointlessly sailing around the eastern Mediterranean. (The AI's love of the Transformer transport feature is still present.)

Odd bug: I married the non-blood widow of one of my deceased family generals to a non-faction general with the hope that he'd join the family. He didn't. Although he remained on the map leading his army and retained his current office, he disappeared from the general's list. And if I removed him from his office then I couldn't promote him to a new one because he wasn't listed as either a family member or a non-faction member. (To get around the issue, I just went back to a saved turn and stopped the marriage.)

[Shigawire]

Odd bug: I married the non-blood widow of one of my deceased family generals to a non-faction general with the hope that he'd join the family. He didn't. Although he remained on the map leading his army and retained his current office, he disappeared from the general's list. And if I removed him from his office then I couldn't promote him to a new one because he wasn't listed as either a family member or a non-faction member. (To get around the issue, I just went back to a saved turn and stopped the marriage.)

Did you report the bug in their tech support forum?

[VandalGamer]

So I really love playing as the hordes so far. I'm playing one save as the Huns and one save as the Visigoths and so far, I've already razed Rome with the Visigoths and now I'm battling in Italia to find fertile ground to settle in. I also think the animations and graphics are a bit of a step up. One time I was attacking a small Roman town and I paused the game and had a look around the battlefield after my archers wrecked their units and it was really good looking. Arrow physics are good too, like soldiers can get knocked off their horses by arrows.

[Man o' War]

I ain't played it, ain't bought it.

Out of interest, is it the real McCoy?

You remember those real McCoy TW games with cutscenes and character progression, historical tidbits and beautiful music.

I'm not talking about the TW comic that was R2.

After many years waffling about things and selling a subpar product with a 40% bigger budget has anything been learned.

Is it the real McCoy?

[Ataegina]

Its is solid game as Shogun 2 was, perhaps a bit better (depth and features). I think that CA learned that they don't need extra 40% budget but yes listen to their fans (at least those who really care, not the whinning non sense that flood the forums) and you pull out a good game also the music is neat when compared to rome 2 is another dimension <_____<

[RexJayden]

The game is really good and as a consumer, I am quite happy with it.

[Evan]

After seeing some unit/unit roster preview videos on YouTube and seeing the larger number of units/diversity per faction, its been quite a disappointment to see just how many units are cloned in between the "culturally similar" factions. A faction might have 30-odd units but <5 to differentiate it from its cultural brothers.

[Osbot]

I have a core i5 2300 with 8 Gb ram and r9 270 I put almost all details on quality some on performance and I am getting about 7 fps on average on battles of 10 units vs 20 (defending Rome). How is this possible?

i5 2500k@4.8 16gb ram gtx 680. Everything on the second highest setting, game only has minor frame dips in massive 40 unit vs 40 unit battles with units on ultra. Haven't done any major sieges of cities yet. However, there has always been an issue with the current engine with pathing in sieges. Using Rome2 as an example. If I order 8 units to climb 4 ladders into a city, I will get massive freeze frame style stuttering. The instant they are all inside the city the hitching stops. It will go from like 100 FPS to 0 FPS up and down like that every second. Annoying!

After seeing some unit/unit roster preview videos on YouTube and seeing the larger number of units/diversity per faction, its been quite a disappointment to see just how many units are cloned in between the "culturally similar" factions. A faction might have 30-odd units but <5 to differentiate it from its cultural brothers.

Yet, Rome 2 often had ZERO unique units for factions. Germans all used the same units. Celts used all the same units. Really only Rome had a purely unique roster. Carthage was relatively unique. The successor kingdoms were all clones of each other for the most part. Pikes all the same. Hoplites all the same. Egypt had some Gallic swords. Steppe Hordes used a cloned roster with 2 or 3 units tops to differentiate them. Parthia used the same cloned units all the Eastern factions used.

It's all the same.

[booker]

disappointing. the game is not optimize and with my current rig i should be able to play the game on quality and get decent fps. barley go over 30fps on the benchmark.

[Evan]

Yet, Rome 2 often had ZERO unique units for factions. Germans all used the same units. Celts used all the same units. Really only Rome had a purely unique roster. Carthage was relatively unique. The successor kingdoms were all clones of each other for the most part. Pikes all the same. Hoplites all the same. Egypt had some Gallic swords. Steppe Hordes used a cloned roster with 2 or 3 units tops to differentiate them. Parthia used the same cloned units all the Eastern factions used.

It's all the same.

Don't get me wrong, it annoys me in the previous games to no end as well, but I had hoped with a focus on a smaller, more compact group of playable factions that this sort of thing would have at least been reduced somewhat.

[Påsan]

Well its defiantly the hardest TW yet.

[Barbarian Nobility]

Its really good, better then S2 imo, perhaps the best tw title since M2

[lilalex20]

Its my favorite warscape TW if my opinion matters at all. The campaign is awesome in my opinion. Just needs some mods to balance and rework a few things and I will personally be in frankish kingdom heaven.

[Suebi]

I still did not play. I want to ask you: Do you see Example the trailer fire ? as There were people in the city?

[Skowdey]

I still did not play. I want to ask you: Do you see Example the trailer fire ? as There were people in the city?

do cities burn up during a battle, yes
are there civilians, yes.

[g0ra]

Don't get me wrong, it annoys me in the previous games to no end as well, but I had hoped with a focus on a smaller, more compact group of playable factions that this sort of thing would have at least been reduced somewhat.

This was my main gripe with R2TW and one of the (admittedly few) reasons why I won't be purchasing Attila for the time being.

[T-Duke]

Amd Fx 6300/ 8 gb ram/ Ati 7850 so a decent configuration but definitely not the state of the art, I can play at 1680*1050 with MLAA , SSO, DoF on and all other settings on high except for shadows, building details and p. effect set on medium quality and all runs quite smoothly

[koovie]

Except of some performance issues and unit balancing for my ERE "heavy" infantry units (Yes I am a Rome fanboy) the game is awesome!

Certainly the most enjoyable TW sine M2