Attila - pulled the trigger at 50% and I'm glad I did...

[easytarget]

Well, finally picked it up at 50% off sale they just had on steam. Played prologue, bit glitchy but then that's the nature of CA prologues, so it felt right at home.

Then turned to GC and started as the ERE. No particular reason. Under attack from the first turn, barbarian hordes everywhere, and dear god who pissed in the Sassanids cheerios, I've got full stacks, multiple full stacks, coming at me from the desert that are slaughtering me, not to mention they had half the freaking map as puppet states who are all now coming into the picture for a bit of fun as well. I don't honestly know if I can turn all of this back, I'm losing territory pretty much everywhere.

And wtf is going on with sanitation, disease keeps popping up, and to build almost anything of use contributes to this problem, to say nothing of the cost of being Christian (why would you make it more expensive to be Christian? Is this CA just insisting that you go ahistorical and turn the ERE to Roman Paganism? Hardly seems like the way I'd design them, you'd think some level of encouragement would be designed in to play a faction as they actually existed in history).

I like the battles better than Rome 2, the pace and the interface just feel better to me, and the performance at least for me in tactical and strategic is better, I've got the whole thing maxed and it works fine. Love having politics back, although I've absolutely no idea what I'm doing with it yet. And even though I complained about religion above, I do like having it back in, just griping about why it would be Christianity is set up to be so expensive for the one empire you'd obviously expect to be played that way.

The activity of the map is fantastic, there's so much shit going on everywhere every turn, this is what I wanted Rome 2 to be, active, engaged, instead R2 just sat there like a dead fish head staring at me like I was supposed to supply all the entertainment.

Ok, to net it out, I've only played 15 hours, I'm going to lose this campaign I'm pretty sure, and I think Attila is just fantastic.

[Myth]

I think I'll get it off the Halloween or winter sales since I'm getting a new viedo card anyway...

FYI I started a new campaign in Rome II and it's defintiely not a dead fish any more. One wrong move can mean restarting early on.

[easytarget]

Yep, I'd say pick up Attila when it comes along on sale again. On the vid card front, I found Attila ran better than R2, your experiences may vary, I was surprised as I've seen a fair amount of complaints stating just the opposite.

As for R2, meh, perhaps I'll take another look. Trouble is for me, the very core of the game design is rotten, one year per turn kills everything it touches, combine that with no turn limit for victory and I will always likely consider R2 flawed at best, at least for the GC. I will qualify my disappointment by saying all the companion campaigns are great!

[Myth]

Hmm, which one should I try first? I have them all, didn't get around to them yet.

[Hooahguy]

Hmm, which one should I try first? I have them all, didn't get around to them yet.

For R2? I loved the Imperator Augustus campaign, still gotta get around to finish my AAR. If I had the time. Which I dont.

[Cazbol]

I've played them all and enjoyed them all. Somewhat to my surprise, I got the most kick out of Caesar in Gaul, where I played as the Arverni. Being this much weaker than Rome and having so many factions around that I needed to have on my side in the rebellion against the empire, was a source of some very interesting strategy making. I started out by largely avoiding Rome, except where I found them weak. Instead, I focused on diplomacy with the other Gallic factions. I always came to their aid in their wars with non-Gauls and thus became a champion among them. This led them to join my faction, one by one. I balanced this with some careful maneouvering of armies and agents in and around the alpine passes to try to keep the Romans south of the Alps. Once I felt I was strong enough I started moving against the Romans. Little did I know that.... well, that would be a spoiler... you'll find out.

I'd rank the Imperator Agustus campaign second, where I played Egypt, which has the interesting position of starting out as a vassal state.

I really recommend not missing out on any of these, if you're into Total War at all.