should I buy atilla?

[loony]

I have read the bland reviews in the press ("ooo, shiny big game", "everything is burning" bla bla), surfed through the forums but I still feel the need to ask: should I buy this game?
Or should I stick to Rome 2 + DEI mod?
Or keep playing Europa Universalis and forget the TW franchise


I am a TW vet (playing since original Rome), Rome 2 (talkiing EE here not realease version. release version is simply )
disappointed me hugely. My main complaints were:
a) battle speed and unit movement speed way too high. no fatique.
b) battle maps too small (40 unit army can extend all accross the map)
c) braindead battle AI unable to defend from hammer and anvil. Ever. Even if outnumbering you.... nope. cannot.
d) naval battles (almost everything is bad... except the screams...)
e) braindead campaing AI, unable to put proper emphasis on its attacks (half stack against 3? lol)
f) limited diplomatic options (cannot gift regions? ally capital i managed to recapture, really?)

I liked, however:
a) province system
b) campaign choices (grand, hanniba, caesar, imperator... all different periods, all interesting)


I ended up playing DEI most of the time, thus.

[Noif de Bodemloze]

a) Some battles are fast, but my battle average time is 5-15min.
b) I think battle maps aren't small. They are good sized map.
c) but Attila AI is more better than Rome 2
d) don't use navals or autoresolve
e) CAI is the best IMO
f) You can only gift region for horde faction, where it locating. Example: If neutral horde is inside your region area. You can gift it.

[Generaal Van Heutsz]

Maybe it would be better to wait until it goes on sale then. a,b e,f are still there; c I don't know really, there have been very few battles so far (60 turns in..)

[Sheridan]

That you have very specific complaints makes it a lot easier to recommend/not recommend the game. I'm not doing either though, but will instead address your questions and let you make up your mind.

a) Battles are rather different in Attila. The combat speed is quick, you need to be attentive to everything that is going on. Units fatigue very quickly but also move at similar speed to their Rome 2 equivalents.
b) The size of battle maps has remained the same.
c) On this specific tactic little has changed, the AI is not particularly capable of defending itself against getting enveloped. You will notice it being generally smarter however, capable of using loose formation to reduce casualties to projectiles or artillery, flee with skirmishers from cavalry over long distances if necessary and to a certain degree making smarter decisions under most general circumstances. It is not good at keeping a cohesive battle line.
d) Generally speaking, people tend to imply they prefer Attila's naval battles. There is more variety (new ship types like flamethrowing ships) and it's not as focused on ramming. Beware though, the naval combat pace is extremely fast as ships are highly manouverable and move quickly.
e) From my own experience the AI is more than capable of managing this type of situation in Attila. It will relentlessly attack your exposed forces, even in scenarios where several armies are involved and the forces are almost evenly matched. It will siege your settlements also, but generally more reluctantly if they are well-defended. This is on higher difficulty levels and may differ greatly from lower difficulties. If you look around on the forum you'll find threads delving deeper into certain (flawed) aspects of the AI.
f) You cannot gift/demand regions in Attila either, with the exception of doing so with hordes.

Quickly on what you liked,
a) You will probably like it even more in Attila. A lot of province management features have been refined, some new added (renaming of settlements for example). If you like it in Rome 2, you should come to like it very much in Attila.
b) This is unfortunately not something Attila offers at the moment, chances are it never will. The only current campaign is the grand campaign, though there are speculations about potential upcoming campaigns.

Hope that answered your questions. There are upcoming conversion mods for the game as well, by the way. Fall of the Eagles might be an interesting early campaign alternative to the GC. Ancient Empires will offer a 200 BC setting which you might like, and then there is the Rise of Mordor modification that'll also be released sometime in the future.

[Fedual]

should I buy atilla?

Yes, and after you done that you download:

- Radious Total War Mod
- Radious Total Units Mod
- [Official Submod] Additional Units Mod - Attila (AUM-ATT) 1.5 for Radious Total War Mod
- Radious Blood Mod

Now you install those mods & play Attila.

Have fun

[M2TWRocks]

Attila TW is superior to Rome 2 TW in pretty much every category. The combat mechanics are better, the graphics are better, the campaign strategy is better, the politics system is better to control and much more fun (once you figure it out), and you have bizarre options not available in R2TW like hording on turn one and sailing all the way down to Western Africa and creating a Burgundian nation of Africa.

If you have the money and really enjoy TW games, you should buy it. Although the AI is occasionally stagnant, the game is much more interesting than R2TW.

[Humble Warrior]

a) Battles are still pretty fast, especially in early game, but once you get going in Campaign battles do seem to slow down a bit. Most of my battles are from 20 minutes to an hour. Of course I play with No Timer, so every battle goes the whole way.

b) Battle maps look big, but are relatively smaller as you will reach the map end with a full army stretched out.

C)Battle AI is actually very good in my opinion. It will consolidate all its forces togther before attacking in most cases and even keep reserves. It does sometimes leave its General vulnerable, but you can also very easily lose yours if you don`t protect it. It could be better, but it is certainly much better than Rome 2. Also siege battles AI is good for the most part as the AI knows to defend very tenaciously. I still have my issues with sieges though which prevents it from getting full marks from me.

D)I hardly play naval battles because they are so rubbishy. They`re slightly better than Rome 2 (but anything is). Ships can now row backwards (this should never have not been there in the first place), but they turn on a dime. If ships can row backwards now they should not even need to turn so stupidly fast. But you get floaty realistic flags now- whoopee. Oh and you get insta-ship armies on the campaign map which means you never can tell where the enemy army will come from and plan like in reality. One of CA`s worse mistakes in my view.

E)Campaign AI is a bit touch and go. It`s a bit better with the patch since it won`t raze everything, but not amazing. It`s moderate. It is very cautious in attacking and won`t attack unless it has something like 3-1 odds, which can make battles hard and tough, but also means you waiting a while since it won`t attack cities it can`t win.

F)You can only gift regions to hordes standing in your lands, that`s it. However, other diplomatic options are quite varied and you can type exactly how much cash you want to give or demand and give gifts too.

[xjlxking]

I recommend you don't. Personally, I got my as a gift from my gf otherwise I would not get it. It's a polished game but I fee like the price tag is absurd for a game that is very much still Rome 2

-campaign AI is still bad, in fact, in some ways it's worse than Rome 2
-they can't optimize their game so they claim its build for future and no GPU can play it now, so in that regard, buy the game in the future when you can play it
-it still has so much DLC to be released and that cost bread too


as far as battle ai it's laughable once you realize they gave it a scripted tactic
- it does not disengage when in combat so even if it has 6 unit not one unit will turn around to stop a flank
-cavalry always hits last infantry on your line,everytime, so all you have to do it line the spear to face the cavalry as they just run into it lol

[Ataegina]

you should buy, its miles ahead of rome 2. less buggy, more feautures and way more stable.

few points:

CAI is smarter and more agressive, on rome 2 was brain dead...........
BAI isn't perfect but is back to shogun 2 level, by wich is acceptable.......
Battles are bit longer than rome 2, on rome 2 my average would be 5-7min , on attila my average is 7-12 min (some cases more)
has more depth, more politics, more family management, more rpg-ish elements
Music is miles better than Rome 2


if you think attila is a No-buy than you should quit TW games alltogether......

[Bramborough]

Somewhat amused by the marked contrast in the last 3 responses.

My thoughts happen to be much more in line with Humble Warrior and Ataegina. Attila certainly not perfect...but it's a significant improvement.

[OldStyle]

Thanks for asking this, I had the same question and I'l add a couple more if you don't mind

1)I used to use those graphs in Rome which showed the strength of kingdoms in various fields. During Rome 2 you only get a small bar with 2 colors that compares your kingdom with another, and their economic strength can be seen only when you pay/demand a tribute.. Is it still the same or have do they give more info-graphics ?

2)Also can anyone point me to the thread where i can see details about the map and all the factions, including the minor ones(I love playing with underdogs)

3) In Rome 2 I played 6 long campaigns and never did I see Rome or any other country expand into an empire, Sometimes I would stop fighting and just spam turns and pay loads of money to some kingdoms in hopes that one of them(I gave up on Rome) would start kicking ass but it never really happened.. in the late campaign everyone is a pushover no matter the difficulty. Has anything improved in that regard or are those adversaries still weak sauce ? (something like that Julii/Brutii/scipii expansion in the original) those were really hard to beat and you actually felt good when defeating them.

[xjlxking]

Thanks for asking this, I had the same question and I'l add a couple more if you don't mind

1)I used to use those graphs in Rome which showed the strength of kingdoms in various fields. During Rome 2 you only get a small bar with 2 colors that compares your kingdom with another, and their economic strength can be seen only when you pay/demand a tribute.. Is it still the same or have do they give more info-graphics ?

2)Also can anyone point me to the thread where i can see details about the map and all the factions, including the minor ones(I love playing with underdogs)

3) In Rome 2 I played 6 long campaigns and never did I see Rome or any other country expand into an empire, Sometimes I would stop fighting and just spam turns and pay loads of money to some kingdoms in hopes that one of them(I gave up on Rome) would start kicking ass but it never really happened.. in the late campaign everyone is a pushover no matter the difficulty. Has anything improved in that regard or are those adversaries still weak sauce ? (something like that Julii/Brutii/scipii expansion in the original) those were really hard to beat and you actually felt good when defeating them.

1) Thee is no option to see economic or military (and various other) power like in Rome 1. There is only one bar now, it's the balance of power. But the idea is, all those different categories are connected. The one with most regions will likely have the biggest army and economic power.
2) ill get to this eventually lol
3)There are 3 empire in this game, Sassanid, Western Roman Empire, and Eastern Roman Empire. The WRE in all my campaign eventually losses all it's regions, unless i save it. The Huns do a great job of making sure they raze everything to the group unless again, you stop them. ERE tends to stay alive unless they get that glitch bug where they send their armies to the sea on a one way trip. Sassanid again never get beaten unless they make enemies of the Huns or the player defeats them. The eastern border of the Sassanid is secured so they tend to expand (if they can) to Asia minor and stop.

I have yet to see another faction actually become an empire. There are on some rare occasion faction that get to ~10 region size but they tend to break down because the Huns normally start a war with everyone. Only the Huns are the big problem in this game late game with their free spam/spawn stacks

[gyabo]

Agreed w/ any1 battle gameplay is really fast. The morale system is little bit wonky like my Huns cavalry could attack some light skirmisher units but could still hold compared to cheap infantry who cannot hold but runaway. Calvary maneuver is quite slow and the path finding w/ siege battle is atrocious.

Personally i recommend 40 min timer due Ai are capable enough to send some 2-3 stacks at you.

Most of my battles are quite awesome harassing some bunch armies until the timer runs out. My missile cavalry harassing there army while my main force are in the forest.

[Generaal Van Heutsz]

Agreed w/ any1 battle gameplay is really fast. The morale system is little bit wonky like my Huns cavalry could attack some light skirmisher units but could still hold compared to cheap infantry who cannot hold but runaway.

that could be expected, morale represents professionalism

[Huberto]

I have personally enjoyed playing DeI more than Attila. If you were disappointed with EE, Attila will enrage you after you play it for a while The CAI is pretty much focused on giving you grief or reacting to what you do, not on existing in the setting as another faction with its own goals. It's also putting its armies back in the water for years on end.