Total War: Attila is a great grand strategy rts game, as most total war games are, at least those that came out before CA's quality went down the drain. So, do I recommend Attila? Yes. Do I recommend Attila over nearly more than half of the other historical titles in the series? No.
If you are someone familiar with total war, this game, with how unique it is is definetly worth a try especially on sale, however, for just starting out, pretty much any other historical title would be better. Here are the ups and downs of Attila in my opinion, in comparison to the other titles I've played (Shogun 2, Medieval 2, Rome, Rome 2, Three Kingdoms):
Ups:
- Easily the best battles in the series. This is Attilas biggest upside, as Total War's signature feature are the field battles. In Attila, each unit feels unique, they have tons of different abilities that really impact the battle. Not only does each unit feel so good to command, but, because of how impactful morale, positioning etc. are in this game, you never feel like you lost a battle because the AI had its usual harder-mode related bonuses. Each battle you win and lose feels fully in your control, and each action you do is reflected on the overall state of the battle. Some of the older titles have the fundamentals and the impact of command, but lack the variety in abilities, uniquness or overall quality Attila provides. Also, the UI and controls are as good as they get, maybe just a bit behind Shogun 2, in terms of simplicity at least. There are also navy battles, which is always a plus, but as usual with most of the series, they are not particulary amazing, and are always worse than the land battles. That said, Attila still has one of the best naval battles as well, even though the bar is not too high to cross. Ships and the units in them can also land to join a land battle, which makes for some of the most cinematic and grand battles that are possible in the series.
- Attila has one of the most unique gameplay/campaign playstyle of any grand strategy game. This will be discussed further down in the downs section, as I think the style is not good from a game design perspective. But, it is really unique. I have not played another grand strategy campaign like this, not in Total War or any other serie.
- Nomadic/Horde gameplay is the best it is in the series, its fun and engaging, and definetly feels a bit more catered towards. Because nomads are more mobile, and they interact with the stationary settlement system less, they do not suffer from some aspects that the purely stationary states will face. You can always get up and leave somewhere, and many victory conditions are tied to immigrating, getting different land, razing far lands etc. It feels fun and unique.
- You can build generals and armies using their skill tree, which is a great aspect that the later games in the series messed up a bit. I love the skill tree system in Shogun 2 and Attila specifically. Even though I do not like the army raising system, there is some depth to it, and reviving armies is nice.
Downs:
- Attila is a survival game. Unless you play as the huns, your entire campaign revolves around preparing for their arrival and/or trying to control the insane chaos around you. The huns come eventually, and they come really strongly, their arrival is the main plot of the game and because of this, they are much more overbearing and strong compared to the other late-game challenges present in the other games in the series. However, before and even after the huns arrival, the entire map is filled with nomadic tribes, rebel settlements, and a ♥♥♥♥ ton of negative public order generating events/mechanics. Every other total war is based around expansion and fueling your economy to fuel your troops and military, however, in Attila, expansion is not the goal, survival is.
This basically throws off the entire settlement mechanics that were in shape since rome. You simply can not keep many settlements, and even if you somehow can, you lose money or troops. The game even baits you with tech, campaign goals and victory conditions to make you think that this is a way to play, it just is not optimal, and heavily punished. There is more depth to a game about building a massive empire, with a massive army to get an even bigger empire, compared to a game thats about keeping your color on the map defending hordes and hordes of enemies that threaten your existance.
So much of the tech, settlement system and overall base total war mechanics are completely wasted because of Attilas pure focus on survival, and it takes away from the second best aspect of total war, which is expansion and city building. Even though this might be a point of personal opinion, as some players might like this approach to a strategy game more, there is no arguing that many systems that are at the core of total war is wasted, or irrelevant because of Attilas campaign structure, stripping replayability, depth, feeling of accomplishment and causing frustration throughout the campaign.
- The AI is crazy. In most other Total War games, diplomacy is either barely functional, completely irrelevant or just okay. However, Attilas AI feels incredibly biased against the player, and because of the survival focus mentioned before, this can feel immersion breaking.
Sometimes it feels like there is no end to the bs that the AI pulls just to damage the player. At least in the other games, you could tell the AI wanted your land, or were simply gigabuffed to have doomstacks on higher difficulties to keep their settlements well defended. Attilas AI is unrelenting, baseless and simply frustrating. There are some interesting diplomacy options, you can target wars, ask for land and some other agreements that werent present in the previous games, however, because nothing is stable, there is no gurantee the AI will comply. Sure, this is the case in pretty much every other historical game unless there is something really set in stone, like the roman states in rome, or the imperial/shogunate alligences in shogun: fots. In Attila, the world is burning, even if the AI keeps its word, which it sometimes does, it might just get wiped out next turn. The AI makes this game simply frustrating.
- I do not like the family tree/political actions system. This is mostly personal, but it feels like unnecessary fluff, especially considering how unstable everything is, it just causes a headache. I did not like this system in Rome 2 either, and even though it feels a bit more improved in isolation, with how fragile everything is in the game this improvements do not matter.
Conclusion:
Attila is unique and has the best battles in the series, and it has some nice improvements to some systems and a few new ones that feel nice to play around with. It is just sad that the grand campaign is so bad and riddled with conflicting decision that the game is brought down heavily, and makes players point to Attila as one of the worst historical games. Unfortunately, no matter how great the battles are, when what they are connected to is so frustrating and shallow, the game is just not worth replaying, which is usually the strongest aspect of these games.
This is why I think if you like Total War, you should try the game out, for the amazing battles, the unique campaign structure and the theme of the game. As a new player to similar games or to total war, Attila is a bad start point. You will conquer a settlement just to lose it in the next 10 turns, grow your empire just to watch it die slowly, win a great victory through tactics and genius, just to see it was meaningless in the end. The game makes you feel the dread of the era, but with no truimph in the horizon, it can feel frustrating to play more than a few campaigns.
Overall game rating: 6/10
