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

[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.

[Phil of Loreauville]

I have thoroughly enjoyed Attila and the improved Rome II. I just wish I had more time to play!
One quick comment though, Humble Bundle has some awesome offers and from time to time, the Total War games come up for sale at ridiculously low prices (I think there is one going on right now as a matter of fact).
I picked up basically every Total War Title plus a few Rome II DLCs for a $15 donation. I had most of the games, but this completely finished it off for me. They didn't offer Attila, but there was 66% off coupon for it.
Definitely worth a look if you've been waiting for THAT sale you can't pass up.

[easytarget]

So, following back up on this thread at about 25 hours in and still loving everything about Attila.

I completely got wrecked as the ERE, I was getting invaded by so many different barbarians I can't even name them all, didn't get to year 400 before I threw in the towel and decided I need to learn the game better before taking on the wrecked remnants of the once great Roman Empire, this place I inherited was a mess, no order, no sanitation, no money, wrong religion and barbarians everywhere - realize that's the whole idea, but thing is, you need to of mastered the mechanics of how to address the infrastructure or you don't get enough time to survive to counter punch the hordes back out. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll return to pick up the mantle of ERE in the future once I've gotten a grip on things.

So, turned to Sassanids, figured if they were one of my biggest problems they'd likely make a good beginner campaign that would allow me the ability to learn what the military units strengths and weaknesses are and what buildings I need to build to balance things properly. So far so good, certainly nice to start w/o a horde inside your border, also nice to have income coming in from all those puppets. Just about to crest year 400 in this campaign and I've commenced hostilities with ERE, it struck me as inevitable because where I'm sitting in the desert all that green fertile property ERE is sitting on strikes me as just too enticing a target to ignore, besides, if I headed west I'd mostly just run into my own puppets.

I like the menus, the UI is a bit clicky but for some reason I like it anyway, can't really say what I think of the unit mix as it's too early to tell, I do however like the battle speed (not slow and not fast I guess is how I'd describe it), the research and unit development options feel better fleshed out, love the governors assignments and the fact you can't assign an edict w/o one, and of course it's nice to have a family tree back and the time to groom them w/o that idiotic R2 one year per turn BS.

Big thumbs up on this one. Revising my jump the shark estimation for CA, I'd say at this point they ran straight into the shark and got bit with Rome 2 and Attila was a stitch job holding the patient together. Hope they don't tear the stitches out w/ Warhammer.

[easytarget]

Ok, so at the 400 mark, got the cool little movie announcing Attila's born. Naturally my next question since I'm busy taking over the ERE is this: how long do I have before the endless parade of hordes led by the imperishable Attila show up? And is it possible to buy this guy off or do I have to commit stacks to the never ending waves?

[Cazbol]

I don't remember when he becomes king but once his hordes get going there's nothing to say he'll be going for you. He may focus on a completely different area of the map.

I've only played one campaign, but it seems to me that he isn't made to target the player specifically. He seemed more interested in the Romans. Still, he showed up at my heavily defended eastern border (roughly where Poland is today). With, much effort, an agent that wounded Attila, more agent use and a scary, shocking battle that I just barely managed to win with just a few surviving men, I was able to turn them away from my borders. They then headed south towards the Balkans and from there to the Po Valley. My continued war with them was mostly fought on the soil of other empires.

As the Sassanids, I suspect you won't see the Huns heading your way but if you take over the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire, I predict you'll see a lot more of them. They seem reluctant to attack well defended and fortified cities, so it's not your only option to throw armies at them in some mindless open-field bloodbaths.

[Visor]

So, following back up on this thread at about 25 hours in and still loving everything about Attila.

I completely got wrecked as the ERE, I was getting invaded by so many different barbarians I can't even name them all, didn't get to year 400 before I threw in the towel and decided I need to learn the game better before taking on the wrecked remnants of the once great Roman Empire, this place I inherited was a mess, no order, no sanitation, no money, wrong religion and barbarians everywhere - realize that's the whole idea, but thing is, you need to of mastered the mechanics of how to address the infrastructure or you don't get enough time to survive to counter punch the hordes back out. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll return to pick up the mantle of ERE in the future once I've gotten a grip on things.

So, turned to Sassanids, figured if they were one of my biggest problems they'd likely make a good beginner campaign that would allow me the ability to learn what the military units strengths and weaknesses are and what buildings I need to build to balance things properly. So far so good, certainly nice to start w/o a horde inside your border, also nice to have income coming in from all those puppets. Just about to crest year 400 in this campaign and I've commenced hostilities with ERE, it struck me as inevitable because where I'm sitting in the desert all that green fertile property ERE is sitting on strikes me as just too enticing a target to ignore, besides, if I headed west I'd mostly just run into my own puppets.

I like the menus, the UI is a bit clicky but for some reason I like it anyway, can't really say what I think of the unit mix as it's too early to tell, I do however like the battle speed (not slow and not fast I guess is how I'd describe it), the research and unit development options feel better fleshed out, love the governors assignments and the fact you can't assign an edict w/o one, and of course it's nice to have a family tree back and the time to groom them w/o that idiotic R2 one year per turn BS.

Big thumbs up on this one. Revising my jump the shark estimation for CA, I'd say at this point they ran straight into the shark and got bit with Rome 2 and Attila was a stitch job holding the patient together. Hope they don't tear the stitches out w/ Warhammer.

Thanks for buying it ET :p. I was wondering your opinion on Attila given your stance on R2 - this pushes me over the edge to pick it up.

[Veho Nex]

Thanks for buying it ET :p. I was wondering your opinion on Attila given your stance on R2 - this pushes me over the edge to pick it up.

If you want to pick it up Ive got a 66% off coupon you can use.

[easytarget]

Thanks for buying it ET :p. I was wondering your opinion on Attila given your stance on R2 - this pushes me over the edge to pick it up.

No problem, sounds like Veho Nex can hook you up with a deal too! And you're right, I went in expecting not to like this one since I loathe R2 GC (I like the DLC campaigns quite a bit though), and so far I'm having a great time with this one. Quite pleasantly surprised, usual disclaimer that you're mileage may very of course.

[easytarget]

Ok, I've come across a "ruined city" that is part of Arabia Magna, I or a puppet control the other two, so naturally I assumed this province capital that just says desolate in the province screen was one of those places razed or it started that way when the campaign started. I sent a 20 stack over there through the desert suffering sever attrition for the express purpose of rebuilding the place, as I understood this was one of the new mechanics of the game, sure it costs a lot (I don't care I have 200k and 20k coming in a turn) and yes you lose some of the army to populate the place, but whatever. Here's the problem, when I move to "attack" the place I just get a red X where the province capital should be and no option in the menu comes up to allow me to rebuild it.

Little help here on what I'm doing wrong?

Oh, and wtf is w/ the deal with negative traits, I've no idea where they come from and some of them are really rather annoying, my King started with harsh (-1 public order all provinces) and just picked up another trait called justice for none that just added -2 more public order loss for the entire empire. I assume this last one triggered from an event where someone was drunk on watch, I had the guy flogged, since that kind of shit can't be tolerated in an army. So how am I supposed to know where these come from and what if anything can be done about them? Don't tell me let me guess, it never occurred to CA this was a tad OP and should wear off or something at some point, right? Lovely