Atilla is complete garbage

[Default Derek]

I've really, really tried hard with this game. I've restarted a single game at least 10 times before I even started to feel like I got the hang of it. Basically started steam rolling everything on easy and now on normal, the AI is ultra aggressive, totally broken in battles in terms of morale.. like.. seriously. I had scout equites, surrounding a general with even less units, we'd charge into him and repeat, and then finally, while the horsemen are 100 feet away from any enemy units as I was reforming for another attack but noticed they were wavering, they just decided to randomly flee the field of battle. Nothing attacked them. They were far away from the other units. They just ran.

I run into stupid garbage like this all the time. I've been a huge fan of total war since Medieval 2 when it was NEW, in 2007. Hot damn that was a long time ago now..

I've permanently rage quit this stupid broken game. I gave it an honest chance. I really did. 50 hours. I've put over 1000 on Medieval 2, and always played on Very Hard. This isn't difficulty. It's cheap. It's illogical. I have men running from dramatically inferior numbers, units don't respond to commands in a reasonable fashion, I'm basically the victim in a campaign where literally the entire world has attacked me, except for ERE. As far as Morale goes, it's equivalent to heavily armored professional soldiers running away from angry peasants with pitch forks.

I even played with the strategy of abandoning most of my territory.

This normal playthrough where I had to abandon the game out of rage, I had already abandoned on my first turn, Britain, Western Spain, all of Africa except "Africa", and Pannonia. I figured, how could any respecting Roman abandon illyricum altogether, so I kept dalmatia. I finally got done putting Rebels down, after 2-3 turns and 4 stacks of full barbarian hordes roll up into dalmatia.

I love Rome. I love total war. But man.. what did they do to this series.

And it's not just too hard. It's CHEAP difficulty. There's been cheap difficulty in every total war game, but this one ups to absurd cheesing levels.

And while I'm whining, let's talk about how STUPID it is, I can't increase the basic garrison in these towns. And how EVERY SINGLE TOWN IN 400 AD IS A VILLAGE. What, did a nuclear bomb go off 20 years before the game started? I'm a Roman history buff and despite the crisis, that happened during this time, it wasn't THAT bad. Where every city is reduced to the population of Frogs Balls, Louisana.

No wonder the empire collapses, most of the "legions" are just full of a few hundred men, and are scattered all over creation.

Rome had about 1 million people in 0 AD. By 300 AD it was closer to 2 million. You want me to believe that the population of the entire roman army is under 2,000 soldiers? So if people are going to appeal to realism, then take that into account.

It's BS. It's poorly made. It's a failure of a total war game. And when you do start winning it's SO boring.

I liked Medieval 2 because city building was rewarding, beyond just taking new cities. The buildings had little historical tool tips, humor and commentary. The game had personality. Now I somehow am told I can only build 4 buildings in a city of tens of thousands of people. Or 7 in a city of a million or even 500,000.

What?

[Default Derek]

"Demographically, the Roman Empire was an ordinary premodern state. It had high infant mortality, a low marriage age, and high fertility within marriage. Perhaps half of Roman subjects died by the age of 5. Of those still alive at age 10, half would die by the age of 50. At its peak, after the Antonine Plague of the 160s CE, it had a population of about 60–70 million and a population density of about 16 people per square kilometer. In contrast to the European societies of the classical and medieval periods, Rome had unusually high urbanization rates. During the 2nd century CE, the city of Rome had more than one million inhabitants. No Western city would have as many again until the 19th century."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire

[Ado2000]

Have you tried getting some mod/mods that fixes these issues. For me this is a great game. Sure I struggled aswell but I think if you take the position that as Rome you need to mainly just survive it will give you a different outlook. Hence for the 50-60 turns I played as the Romans I pulled back all my legions to Italy and was able to hold of the barbarian hordes.

Hopefully you give this game another chance

[THEDOSSBOSS]

So let me get this straight

You rage-quitted

Because your scout equites

Which if I remember, are light cav

Couldn't route a heavy, elite (thus disciplined) general unit.


I'm sorry mate. The AI gets no bonuses over you in anything if you play on normal. Anything you are unable to beat is purely because you lack the knowledge of how to beat them. Why the hell would you think light cav would insta-route an enemy general unit.

As for your routing light-cav, there was most certainly other factors involved. For example, fatigue has an affect on morale. If your cav was low on morale, (and I mean above zero by a few digits), then the fatigue could have caused it. Fire arrows are also a major threat to calvary's morale. If one stray arrow hits, then the morale debuff is applied. There was also the case of you reforming your lines. Although the majority of your cav was probably out of the fight, they do indeed receive a severe morale debuff by retreating if heavily engaged. If models are caught in combat and cannot retreat with the rest of the unit, then the "attacked from behind" rebuff is applied. Top that off with those models then dying, and you get the "casualties sustained" debuff as well. Units do not just randomly route for no reason, and there are no bugs that I am aware of that causes it.

I mean, I have literally no idea what you are talking about. On normal difficulty, the game is a walk in the park. It was my second TW game ever and I was still a noob at the series (though Attila forced me to vet up in a real hurry). If I find the battles easy (and they are hilariously easy. It is managing your empire that is the real difficulty), then you have absolutely no excuse. With your specific argument, the instant you have a vet on here who claims the game is easy on normal, then your complaint is quite invalid. It just becomes another case of the common illness "getus goodicus"

I mean, in every case that you are in a defensive siege, your garrison alone should be able to handle an entire full stack or two quite handily. Add an army into the mix and that city is literally unconquerable. The Roman campaigns are about survival. You may lose a province or two here and there, but once you get your bearings and understand what you need to do, and how to play defensive battles, it is extremely easy to push back the hordes and re-establish your empire

As for garrisons, you can increase their size. Through buildings and upgrading the main settlement you can build up quite a formidable defense to the point where it can take on more than 2 full stacks on its own.

I don't know what series you have been playing, but the garrison has never been a slider/portion of a city that you can just increase. You have always either had to gain garrisons through buildings or recruit them yourself (which is realistically what happens. You don't just step back and assume that the city defenses can be built up with passive sliders, you have to actively build it up yourself, just like you have to actively recruit armies, assign family members to governor/military positions, build and grow your settlements, and basically everything else).

To re-iterate, what the hell have you been playing to think that settlements and cities will display a population of hundreds of thousands? It wasn't a thing in Rome 1, I am pretty sure it wasn't a thing in your precious Medieval 2, it most certainly wasn't a thing in Empire, Napoleon, or Shogun 2, and it hasn't been a thing in the last TW generation. As far as I am aware, only their most recent game, three kingdoms, actually present the population in hundreds of thousands (just like the rest of their stats).

To re-emphasise, what the hell have you been playing? Did your precious Medieval 2 allow you to field tens of thousands of men on the battlefield? And if your full-stacks literally only have a full hundred men in them, are you aware that there is such a thing as a unit size option in settings to allow you to have over a hundred men in a unit, giving you over 2000 in a full-stack?

To re-state, what the hell have you been playing? Was your medieval 2 historically accurate with the accurate representation of units, population, armies, sigils, and unit capabilities? Or did you only look as far into it as the copy-paste hammer-and-anvil tactics that you use every battle against the AI. Why the hell would you complain about this game's historical accuracy of all games. From Shogun 1 all the way to Three Kingdoms, you'll never find a game that is nowhere near historically accurate or accurately represented, because it is a game and balancing has to exist to create a fun experience for everyone. If you are sad that a bunch of axemen can chop their way through your disorganised, poorly micro'd lines (the roman army was only as disciplined as its strategists enabled. Poor management led to poor discipline which led to the Romans being defeated many times throughout history. Not to mention, "Roman history buff", the Roman empire was in severe decline by this time period, so you best believe that those burly barbarians with giant battleaxes are perhaps a bit stronger than your lower-tier line troops. The rest of the world was catching up to the romans in terms of technology, tactics, and societal policies. They were still nowhere close, but enough so that their fighters were properly trained to deal with a freaking 500+-year-old formation).

You'll never find a total war game that allows more than 5000 models to be on the battlefield at one time, and you'll never find a total war game that is historically accurate. It's not "what has this series become", it's "what is this series", because these points haven't changed in almost 2 decades mate.

So learn how to play a game that has a completely different setting, situation, and playstyle from your precious medieval 2, and git gud

[David]

Attila is best TW:
I played as Huns and won the campaign just right now. It was much fun and simple cause i played a horde and went to Persia, Arabia and Africa and Roman Empire is still doing great in 425 while Attila is besieging Garama.
Only 1.2% of Attilas players won this Huns campaign. They can judge better than the rest, because in fact the game is meant to play as Attilas Huns, not Rome. This game is about Huns and Attila, not Roma, not Greece, not Persia.

[THEDOSSBOSS]

Originally posted by David:

Attila is best TW:
I played as Huns and won the campaign just right now. It was much fun and simple cause i played a horde and went to Persia, Arabia and Africa and Roman Empire is still doing great in 425 while Attila is besieging Garama.
Only 1.2% of Attilas players won this Huns campaign. They can judge better than the rest, because in fact the game is meant to play as Attilas Huns, not Rome. This game is about Huns and Attila, not Roma, not Greece, not Persia.

Not necessarily. The achievement stat means nothing. Almost all players get bored and move on after they steamroll. The only game that I won more than 1 campaign in is Shogun 2, and that is only because there is a set time limit so you are pressed from beginning to end. Anything else just gets boring once you know you are going to win

As for what the game is about, Attila is the subject. The game is about whatever campaign you choose. If you play the Romans, it's about the romans. If you play the Sassanids it's about the sassinids, if you play the goths it's about the goths. If you play the Danes then it's about the Danes.

Why bother making other campaigns if they were not intended to be played as if they were a focus faction?

[SHARKE BYTE]

Learn how to change/mod things in the game bro, you can add an extra spear unit or two to your WRE garrisons if you want, personally I'd also change the num man for your WRE units to something like 300 if you want it to be more realistic man power numbers (20x 300 men units in a stack generally equalls 5-6k) just be warned that the ai is a campy mf and has no issues with waiting instead of attacking forts/towns.

Just change things until you enjoy it that's the beauty of total war games

[Haddon]

Yeah, as others have said, use mods. Don't just give up on the game, because it is pretty good, but it absolutely NEEDS mods to be worth playing IMO.

[Alba]

> Charges general's bodyguard heavy cavalry unit with scout equites light cavalry
> Light cavalry gets demolished by heavy cavalry
> Shocked Pikachu face dot jpg

[Big Moustache]

I finished another WRE campaign this week. The game is scripted to pull bs on you. example: vassals attacked by allies when a border is at peace for too long. Huns beeline straight to you always. Peace means 8 Hun stacks raiding your lands. I can go on. The game has definately its flaws. Yet i come back for more.

[IGX]

Go play something else. Don't complain when a game doesn't hand you a win on a plate.

[samael75]

Originally posted by Emperor of America:

I've really, really tried hard with this game. I've restarted a single game at least 10 times before I even started to feel like I got the hang of it. Basically started steam rolling everything on easy and now on normal, the AI is ultra aggressive, totally broken in battles in terms of morale.. like.. seriously. I had scout equites, surrounding a general with even less units, we'd charge into him and repeat, and then finally, while the horsemen are 100 feet away from any enemy units as I was reforming for another attack but noticed they were wavering, they just decided to randomly flee the field of battle. Nothing attacked them. They were far away from the other units. They just ran.

I run into stupid garbage like this all the time. I've been a huge fan of total war since Medieval 2 when it was NEW, in 2007. Hot damn that was a long time ago now..

I've permanently rage quit this stupid broken game. I gave it an honest chance. I really did. 50 hours. I've put over 1000 on Medieval 2, and always played on Very Hard. This isn't difficulty. It's cheap. It's illogical. I have men running from dramatically inferior numbers, units don't respond to commands in a reasonable fashion, I'm basically the victim in a campaign where literally the entire world has attacked me, except for ERE. As far as Morale goes, it's equivalent to heavily armored professional soldiers running away from angry peasants with pitch forks.

I even played with the strategy of abandoning most of my territory.

This normal playthrough where I had to abandon the game out of rage, I had already abandoned on my first turn, Britain, Western Spain, all of Africa except "Africa", and Pannonia. I figured, how could any respecting Roman abandon illyricum altogether, so I kept dalmatia. I finally got done putting Rebels down, after 2-3 turns and 4 stacks of full barbarian hordes roll up into dalmatia.

I love Rome. I love total war. But man.. what did they do to this series.

And it's not just too hard. It's CHEAP difficulty. There's been cheap difficulty in every total war game, but this one ups to absurd cheesing levels.

And while I'm whining, let's talk about how STUPID it is, I can't increase the basic garrison in these towns. And how EVERY SINGLE TOWN IN 400 AD IS A VILLAGE. What, did a nuclear bomb go off 20 years before the game started? I'm a Roman history buff and despite the crisis, that happened during this time, it wasn't THAT bad. Where every city is reduced to the population of Frogs Balls, Louisana.

No wonder the empire collapses, most of the "legions" are just full of a few hundred men, and are scattered all over creation.

Rome had about 1 million people in 0 AD. By 300 AD it was closer to 2 million. You want me to believe that the population of the entire roman army is under 2,000 soldiers? So if people are going to appeal to realism, then take that into account.

It's BS. It's poorly made. It's a failure of a total war game. And when you do start winning it's SO boring.

I liked Medieval 2 because city building was rewarding, beyond just taking new cities. The buildings had little historical tool tips, humor and commentary. The game had personality. Now I somehow am told I can only build 4 buildings in a city of tens of thousands of people. Or 7 in a city of a million or even 500,000.

What?

TLDR version for interested: "mad cos bad"

[Anisvara]

Yes, learn to play with different settings. You can train in custom battles. At difficulty very hard (same in legendary) AI has a strong bonus in distance fights, onagers, hurlers, bowmen etc. There is a video, a guy playing legendary WRE and declares also war to all other factions This is nonsense but it is possible for good fighters. Another guy destroyed on legendary Sassanid´s Empire with the Lakhsmids.

If you do not want to have new challanges, don´t play Attila, the best game of the series!

[Default Derek]

Originally posted by THEDOSSBOSS:

So let me get this straight

You rage-quitted

Because your scout equites

Which if I remember, are light cav

Couldn't route a heavy, elite (thus disciplined) general unit.

No, if you read more carefully, what I rage quit over was the fact they had broken off from the general fully, (I was aware it was a risky strategy and hence wasn't expecting to rout them.) and had reformed quite a ways away and then suddenly just decided to rout anyway, despite no one touching them. Just so you know, because of this nasty opening remark, I didn't read the rest of your long post. Also, the nasty ending bit too when I clipped the quote. Waste of my time.

[Default Derek]

Originally posted by David:

Attila is best TW:
I played as Huns and won the campaign just right now. It was much fun and simple cause i played a horde and went to Persia, Arabia and Africa and Roman Empire is still doing great in 425 while Attila is besieging Garama.
Only 1.2% of Attilas players won this Huns campaign. They can judge better than the rest, because in fact the game is meant to play as Attilas Huns, not Rome. This game is about Huns and Attila, not Roma, not Greece, not Persia.

Well I can't comment on that. You may be right. I'm a rome purist. In fact, I bought the game because it featured crisis era, immediate pre-collapse Rome which I feel is an interesting period that doesn't get discussed much or featured in games.

And congratulations on your skill. I know the game is entirely different as a horde.

[Default Derek]

Originally posted by SHARKE BYTE:

Learn how to change/mod things in the game bro, you can add an extra spear unit or two to your WRE garrisons if you want, personally I'd also change the num man for your WRE units to something like 300 if you want it to be more realistic man power numbers (20x 300 men units in a stack generally equalls 5-6k) just be warned that the ai is a campy mf and has no issues with waiting instead of attacking forts/towns.

Just change things until you enjoy it that's the beauty of total war games

:otttd_shark::byte:

I might try that. Simple as editing the config file?