Nearly completed my first campaign

as the Saxons on VH. Overall I have found it to be interesting and enjoyable, none of the issues everyone was worried about. Mucho better than R2

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My original plan was to move south into Spain and pick up Britain along the way, but the Scandinavians wanted to fight so I had to make mice with the Alamans. As I moved into Britain I thought it better to stay friendly with Gaul

By the time I was ready to cross the Pyrennes Gaul and the Alamans had already cleared Espana and some rabble out and claimed it for themselves, so I went across the north and dropped down the east side into Yugoslavia.

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The Fertility mechanism allowed me to get a good start but as it spiralled down it just became a drag on my economy, forced me to devote precious building space to food production which in turn really hurt my economy. Not my favorite new feature, it seemed especially harsh on the northern provinces.

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I played the entire game on the north half of the map, everyone in the north who loves me is still alive. Only recently has Gaul started to turn red, mostly since I won't help them fight everyone else on the map. Man they start a lot of fights.

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One of my personal goals was to have Kingy lead the charge into Rome, and now he rules from there. Had a big fight in Ravenna with the Romans;
I ran into the Hun in Yugoslavia, he was quite OP with full stacks of 20. His cav archers melted many of my stacks since I did not have any good horse archer options except the occasional merc. Finally killed Attila and ended the Hun scourge, but it took quite a long time and I could feel the AI giving me a break on everty other front while I was engaged. More than once the Romans should have popped out to take advantage of my thin line.

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Constantinople was much easier, mostly desolation down in that part of the world due to the Huns.

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I didn't try too hard to clear the tech board, got most of it but didn't really feel it was as important as previous games.

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food and happiness was a PITA. I do not care for the design concept where I have to choose between a well and a chieftains house. I get what they're trying to do, make us make choices, but I like to build and solve problems, not be so constrained in my options as I felt I was here.

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The politics and family tree was much more interesting than previous games. I liked the influence mechanic, even tho I still don't understand Dominion. The cost of installing some governors and generals is outrageous, it made it impossible for me to get the guy I wanted and had to settle for a cheap guy that had issues.

Same for agent actions. So few agents and governors, I felt unable at times to solve the problems the game presented me. You mean to tell me that I control all of Europe and can only have 3 spies? I can't point to guy and say "go manage Provincia"? Sorry, you only get 5 guvs. Silly. Priests were more than plentiful at the time, I only have 3? And then they cost so much to use. Way too much. When I got agent spammed I had to stop my campaign to clear it out.

The growth trees for most characters were interesting and provided useful benefits, needs some work on Admirals and Priests.

I enjoyed the battles, combat seemed to be the right speed and morale was working as I anticipated, some missile types seemed very strong while all of my hurler/jav types seemed pretty weak.

Just curious, have you taken a look at the new feature that allows you to post up your campaign? Wondering it turned out to be as cool as it sounded on paper.

My problem with the Chronicles feature is that the map is too cluttered with non interesting information like buildings and recruitment. Plus the dots are just so dull, I wish they had added in crossed swords or something for battles at the very least, something to set them apart from the other things.

Yes, even when one filters to show military events only, still a lot of chaff. Separate entry for the recruitment of each individual unit is a bit of overkill. Here's a link to part of my first campaign. Nothing spectacular here, but gives a flavor of how the Chronicles presents things. I don't think you have to be logged in to view others' posted campaigns (although I could be wrong about that).

https://chronicles.totalwar.com/Bram...h/chapter/7245

Quote:

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Originally Posted by easytarget

Just curious, have you taken a look at the new feature that allows you to post up your campaign? Wondering it turned out to be as cool as it sounded on paper.

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Yes, and as the others have said, its too much info. It's a first build for this feature so hopefully they'll improve it in the future.

There is too much clutter in the chronicles and even at 3x speed the progress is too slow.

They could have added an optional regime with just the map painting (could be both, real and planned) and major battles + a narrative.

The last five years have been very anti-climactic, knowing that the conditions for victory are tallied at a specific point in time.

1. Good graphics, ran well for me
2. Politics/Family Tree added some complexity
3. Fertility just serves as an economic dampener
4. Limited building slots is artificial, original games were that brilliant combo of builder and fighter, this mechanic is more about choices but in the end feels much more limiting. The solution is a hybrid system: make some construction mandatory and unlimited - food, sanitation, happiness, and some buildings optional. For example, every town has a sanitation building slot, and as it grows we have to keep upgrading that slot. But force choice with limited building slots for economic/troop/special - make a choice to focus a town on troop production or economics or special buildings.
5. Limited agents, especially governors, is artificial and limits the ability to respond to problems. There's no good reason to restrict the number of governors. Could make the same case for Priests. I can see a valid reason to limit the number of spies/scout/heroes.
6. Agent cost is way high, need to disconnect currency for troop and building production from the currency for things like selecting generals and governors, initiating agent actions. These actions should be limited somehow, but not compete with troops and building costs.
7. Time limits are artificial, let us play at our own pace. There are a number of mechanics that have to be juggled as time goes on, so a slower expansion would still have issues. No need for set dates.
8. Siege weapons in every battle - random horde types always have siege, not realistic and sometimes OP. I don't have a solution but its seemed odd to me that these roving bands have big siege equipment they're hauling around.
9. Barricades - very hit or miss, arty seemed to target them relentlessly, attackers sometimes went around them so the barricade was useless. Interesting mechanic with some potential but needs work.
10. Naval battles - still not compelling, it may just be me but no, I wound up auto-resolving more often than not at the end
11. Sliders. Rather than have Easy/Medium/Hard/VeryHard settings why not use sliders so we could set difficulty to match playstyle (think Tropico 4). A slider for morale, a slider for campaign AI ability/aggression, a slider to economics, diplomacy, disasters/events, etc. So if I slide the economics to hard then buildings and troops cost more and trade makes less.
12. DLC. I'm not going to buy any, but there's no point in beating that poor dead horse since they seem hooked on it.
13. Agent cutscenes - am I the only one who loves to watch a ninja slip in to camp (at least once or twice, then turn them off). I bet they're expensive and add bulk to the download but . . . ninjas! (or scouts or w/e)
14. Synergy between limited armies/generals, public order, and raiders. For a long time I've disliked the mechanic where a rebel army or some nearby neighbor jerk has a small force raiding. If I take my full stack out of town to go chase them my PO drops, even tho my guys are within sight of town. We should be able to send a patrol out for example "Grego, take five guys and go kill those fools" and Captain Gregoshi heads out and engages them. This would also make for more interesting battles, sending a full 20 out to crush a rebel army of 5 or 6 isn't compelling, especially when they run and hide and it takes a turn or two to catch them.
15. The Org still rocks, save my seat I'll be back

Got about 160 hours for the purchase price. I'd rank Attila behind S2 as my second favorite of the second gen TW games. Uninstalling for now I'll likely be back for another campaign this summer.

Im so jealous.... 34 days ive been locked out of my steam acct..... I don't even know why I preordered Attila =(

Still nothing from Steam support?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kamakazi

Im so jealous.... 34 days ive been locked out of my steam acct..... I don't even know why I preordered Attila =(

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That is not good man, I feel for you

It eventually took 41 days for Steam to get back to me.... I just started my first and im 8 hrs in.

41 days....now THAT's some superior customer support!

Tell me about it...... and they had the audacity to tell me my account MAY have been compromised when I proved to them it had.... idiots..... however My Sassanid campaign on hard is going very well. I just finished wrecking eastern rome and control half of Africa and All of the land up to Constantinople. Weird thing to me though is that even with my land ownership I can still only have 10 generals and I have yet to see a single hun..... even though the northern part of my empire almost extends to Scythia

Well, this 2nd patch seems to have toned the Huns down a bit in the early game. In my first couple of campaigns, Huns were ever-present from almost the beginning, certainly beginning in Chapter 2 (400AD, coinciding with Attila's birth). In current ERE game, however, I'm almost 80 turns in, have only seen a couple of Hun stacks roaming around to the north. They haven't bothered me...nor do I see them doing much to anyone else. I do expect this to change, however, during Chapters 3-4 (420AD-445AD) as Attila reaches adulthood, FH, and then FL.

So yeah, since you're only now able to play first campaign, what you're seeing is a bit different from what we saw during the first month.

I think it's a good change. A full half-century of relentless Hun attacks was a bit dreary, and IMO threatened the replayability of a game which in most other respects is a huge improvement over R2.

Attila has already reached adulthood in my play through and I still don't see him anywhere.... I moved half my armies north thinking I would get some kind of push but nothing yet

Is he FL yet? I'm in my first post-patch campaign myself, so I don't know what happens. While I was tired of the "50-year Hun invasion", I hope they didn't dial them back too far...that would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The FL?

Faction Leader.

Indeed he is..... still no attacks or huns... lol