Why is Rome 2 more popular than Attila?

[Killersnipe]

I own both games but think Attila is the far better game. Visually units and map look better, it's on a more updated engine so there are new campaign features like being able to raze/abandon settlements, regions have fertility, added family tree, true horde factions and many other things. So why does Rome 2 then have a consistently higher player count?

Now some people will attribute this to Sofia coming in with new dlc's and hot fixes for Rome 2 but this doesn't answer the question. They only chose to support that title over Attila because it had the larger player base in the first place. If Attila had been the more popular I have no doubt they would have focused on support for that game instead. And others will point to mods for Rome 2 but both games have really good mods; Rome 2 has Divide et Impera, Medieval 1100, Age of Bronze, New World etc. but Attila has Ancient Empires, Medieval 1212 AD, Rise of Mordor, Terminus Imperium etc. and I would surmise that had so many people not stayed with Rome 2, all these mods would have likely coalesced in Attila, being the newer engine with additional campaign features.

So what is the real reason then, at least the original reason for why Rome 2 maintained a larger player base? Before all the conversion mods were finished or Sofia came in with extra support?

Is it that many people didn't bother buying Attila because they felt the map covered a similar area? - but then you can get it for so cheap now... Is it that people just like the factions and era of Rome 2 period more and are willing to play an older game on inferior version of the engine because of this? - I guess this implies that people are still primarily playing vanilla Rome 2 as Attila has a mod that brings the era back to Rome 2 period but with Attila's added features. I also have heard a main complaint against Attila and in favor of Rome 2 being that Attila has optimization issues. However, I have never had any issues running the game in my entire time playing it since launch and now they are both so old that I can run it fine these days on my 5 yr old laptop, so optimization issues don't seem like they should be relevant for an 8 year old game on any modern hardware (maybe someone can explain to me more about the specifics of this common optimization complaint and what impact, if any, it has on the game in 2023?)

Anyways, I'm not trying to discredit anyone's preference for Rome 2 over Attila. I don't really care which came you personally decide to spend more time playing. I just don't understand the popularity of Rome 2, since I don't personally enjoy playing it (mainly due to the graphics and the feel of battles)

I'm curious to hear more detailed explanation of people's reasons here for preferring Rome 2 or at least theories on why it still maintains a larger player base than Attila a decade after both these games came out

[Alwyn]

Yes, Attila has great features, like the ability to properly raze settlements, and both have great mods, as you said. I like the apocalyptic atmosphere of Attila, too.

You mentioned that Attila added a family tree. I wonder if you're comparing Attila to Rome 2 from a few years ago, before the final updates. Rome 2 has had a family tree since the Ancestral Update in 2018: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-rome-ii-ancestral-update/).

You may well be right that some people tended to play Rome II simply because it had a large base of players (particularly for those who prefer multiplayer). Of course, for players who mainly do singleplayer campaigns, the size of the player base is less of an issue.

You asked "what is the real reason" - I wonder if there is only one? I imagine different players may have different reasons - some prefer the earlier settings of Rome 2 campaigns, for others it's the opportunity to build an empire (rather than to destroy one, or to defend one that's falling apart), and some players found that Attila didn't run so well (I don't know if that has been fixed).

[Killersnipe]

Originally posted by Alwyn:

You mentioned that Attila added a family tree. I wonder if you're comparing Attila to Rome 2 from a few years ago, before the final updates. Rome 2 has had a family tree since the Ancestral Update in 2018: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-rome-ii-ancestral-update/).

Yes, sorry I have not played Rome 2 in a while and just picked some of these differences up from internet lists of changes. It may well be that some of the recent updates to Rome 2 have brought some features more in line with Attila. The main thing is that these updates only occurred due to the already larger player base on that game. I appreciate your comment

[DeepXen]

Three words. Divide et Impera. Playing with this overhaul mod is the best TW experience i've ever had.

[AccelExhilar]

Its a more popular and recognizable time period.

[Killersnipe]

Originally posted by DeepXen:

Three words. Divide et Impera. Playing with this overhaul mod is the best TW experience i've ever had.

I've heard a lot of people mention this mod. I will look into it since I tend to play full conversion mods rather than overhaul mods and Attila has a lot of good conversion mods as well. Medieval Kingdoms 1212 AD is probably one of the most popular ones on Attila coming up almost as much as Divide et Impera but as far as overhaul mods go I'l have to check it out and see if it changes enough to allow me to enjoy Rome 2 game play more

[Jambie Lionheart]

A lot of people hesitated to buy Attila because Rome II was so incredibly bad on release. It was bland and monotonous on its very best days with little character to show from the previous games in the Total War Series (Medieval and Rome 1 ect). Attila by itself isn't even that good, I think. It's just markedly better in comparison to Rome II, (which honestly wasn't that hard to do, judging by when I last played it nearly two years ago). A lot of the interest for Rome II were nostalgia buys by Rome 1 fans. We saw the opening product and a lot of us just didn't wanna bother with the next instalment. In the end, Attila was just a REALLY expensive expansion pack for Rome II (it was $80 when I saw it come out). There's just no way I'm paying that when Rome II was such a disaster out of the starting gate.

[HazardHawk]

Attila is only popular among fans with a fetish for Attila. It is the same as Napoleon and Empire. People tend to play one or the other.

To me, Attila has two primary issues against it. My vision cannot separate building types by thumbnail as they are all just monotonous same shade pictures with nothing to identify other than mouse over and second, you can take a cutout of the map at a 1/20th size, play your faction, and the game will play exactly the same. 9/10th of the game is not affected by player choices like other TW games.

[Chaoslink]

If I were to compare the two right now with no mods, I’d probably lean towards Rome II.

The first problem I have with Attila is well, Attila himself. The infinitely spawning high tier stacks of free armies they get is just annoying. It was probably the biggest turn off for me when I first ran into it as an issue. It was so annoying.

The second problem was a few annoying balance issues. Slavic archers with poison? Tell me how the war dog handlers are dying when the dogs half a map away get hit by a single stray arrow? Explain that. In what universe was that okay? Huge turn off as entire units of heavy infantry in a defensive stance specifically designed for stopping projectiles just drop like flies because reasons. No. That was dumb.

Third, while the idea of having a huge starting empire or two is great to mix things up, it gets messy. You end up with weird diplomacy issues more frequently like two factions loving you for attacking Rome, only to have them declare war on one another two turns after you sign a defensive treaty with both, ruining your trustworthiness and often causing the one you’re choosing to defend to just break the treaty anyway because of low reliability. It happens much too often.

I also wasn’t a fan of civic balance either. Food giving major negative penalties to regions not producing enough, even if your empire had a massive surplus and could ship it in? What’s that about? Makes it harder to make a recruiting or industrial province when you have to mix in both sanitation and food buildings. Religion too on occasion. Meant that their whole limited building setup didn’t really balance too well as specializing provinces was punished in Attila. You have to remember that, to my knowledge, Rome II was the first game that introduced us to the current province/settlement system. I could be wrong as I never played Shogun or Empire, but given Rome II did it first, it was annoying to see their next game go backwards when balancing how provinces worked.

Can’t say I was a huge fan of the fertility loss over time either. Felt too gamey and not immersive. It’s basically like a battle royale style “ring” closing in and forcing factions to uproot and move to the middle and fight or die.

I don’t have much to comment on when it comes to Rome II because they’re inherently similar games and there isn’t much negative I have to say about it. It was exactly what you’d expect it to be.

[[*UNITY*]_ james]

1. Setting in Rome 2 is generally more appealing to most players as well as more recognizable
2. Attila had terrible optimization issues on launch, and still does
3. There was hardly any hype for Attila. People were still mad over Rome 2's launch and some players gave up with TW altogether
4. Closely related to above, many people saw Attila as a mere expansion (which I don't really agree with tbh) rather than a standalone game in its own right. Similar reason to why Empire has more players than Napoleon
5. Difficulty

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by *UNITY*_ james:

1. Setting in Rome 2 is generally more appealing to most players as well as more recognizable
2. Attila had terrible optimization issues on launch, and still does
3. There was hardly any hype for Attila. People were still mad over Rome 2's launch and some players gave up with TW altogether
4. Closely related to above, many people saw Attila as a mere expansion (which I don't really agree with tbh) rather than a standalone game in its own right. Similar reason to why Empire has more players than Napoleon
5. Difficulty

For #4 there, I can see where the argument comes from. While I agree that they did change enough that it was more than just an expansion, it still felt like less than a full new game. Sort of like selling it as a standalone game, but it being $40 instead of $60 because it was more of an in-between game that wasn’t new enough to charge full price for.

[BIGDOJO]

Rome 2 runs much smoother on pretty much every kind of system, and since the emperor edition update a long time ago, incorporates a lot of the family tree system and other stuff of attila that people really liked. Rome 2 is just a really nice looking game, it's a really nice neighborhood that people want to live in. attila is more like a sketchy, dark alley, it's not for everybody. Personally I bought attila for age of charlamagne and its still one of my favorite total war campaign maps ever.

[Emperor Zero]

Because its rome and more iconic with more iconic factions and units and its simpler and it had a bigger hype at release and has a better siege ect. atilla was more like rome 2 dlc to people

[Jean Lannes]

My opinion:
1 -Rome is Rome. everyone (or so) has heard about it.
2- legions.
3 - attila who?

[Hydra]

Rome II has better optimisation; iconic setting; diverse playable factions; truly excellent range of mods.

[Whiteyeti]

Having played both games upon release, left them, and then returned at a later date I feel that, in my opinion, Attila just felt bland and still does. Whilst both are interesting periods of time from a historical context Rome just has so much more general appeal.

Personally I also feel that Attila was something of a nail in the coffin for CW and total war as well, given that Rome 2 was such a poorly received launch and nothing much was different for Attila at the time people simply just lost interest. Granted in my case I've went back and enjoyed both but Attila just doesn't scratch that itch the same way Rome 2 does for me.