Total War: Attila

[Lt_Anders]

Any suggestions for playing as Western Roman Empire/Eastern Roman Empire?  I'm consistently getting the shit kicked out of me as either faction, the others I'm not having a problem with.

Caveat: Normal Difficulty.

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ERE player here.
Current Turn: 428+

Starting off: Build up your "insulated provinces." IE Lybia, Aegyptus, Insulae Occidintalis, Asia(these will make you the most money, outside of Macedonia and Thrace later)

Take all Armies and Move them NORTH to the northern Border. Leave 2 as a garrison sheild against Sassinds. Most important: PAY OFF THE SASSINIDS. Waste gold keeping their relations around 0. DIplo check them every turn. If their leader ever gets the "Hates Rival Empires or Hates Eastern Romans" prep for war.

Make your Research equal in the beginning, though hit military before civil. Always have the best units you can. Limitani Suck, Lanciarii Seniores(top tier variant of Limitani) are great. So, remember that.

The most important part of a ERE army: they are Defensive masters. They can take a beating against almost anything in defense. Armor Piercing Melee weapons are the most deadly unit to you. (Germanic Axe war-band pretty much). Abuse Defensive bonus as much as you can(Fort's, water crossings, villages) because you only have infantry. Once you start making money and can afford 8 armies you can stop paying sassinids. Though, if you can pay them enough to get trade or non-aggression pact, then you can completely ignore them until they break it.

Also, NAVIES are great. Get yourself 1 navy and a lot of these barbarians will stick to attacking your choke points over random sea raids.(very annoying, trust me) Don't spend to much on them though, no other faction will ever be a competent sea power so you can use smaller, weaker navies. Oh and using Greek Fire is amazing.

Yes, almost forgot:
GET tier 2 Political Office, that would be (3) 3% Upkeep reduction faction wide. THAT"S Huge.

Oh and:
Attila is DEAD. Kicked his has with a fort and then slaughtered him next turn with 4 armies. LONG LIVE ROM---er CONSTANTINOPLE!

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[Leesin]

About 40 turns in as Langobards and I am finding it a bit too easy already. All the factions around me were pretty friendly and instantly brown nosed me when I attacked WRE, so my homeland is surrounded by really high relation military allies whilst my armies occupy and sack WRE settlements.

What's making it easy is the fact I have seen minimal WRE armies, looks like the Alamans have taken some land south of me and the Geats and Jutes have invaded the lands west of me, I imagine it has been easy for them as the WRE armies seem occupied elsewhere, not sure if it's being smart holding onto it's other territories or it's just down to AI being stupid lol. After all they will send 5+ full stacks to chase a single horde across the entire map. That aside, the overall game is great, I am looking forward to trying out all the other Factions.

[Lt_Anders]

About 40 turns in as Langobards and I am finding it a bit too easy already. All the factions around me were pretty friendly and instantly brown nosed me when I attacked WRE, so my homeland is surrounded by really high relation military allies whilst my armies occupy and sack WRE settlements.

What's making it easy is the fact I have seen minimal WRE armies, looks like the Alamans have taken some land south of me and the Geats and Jutes have invaded the lands west of me, I imagine it has been easy for them as the WRE armies seem occupied elsewhere, not sure if it's being smart holding onto it's other territories or it's just down to AI being stupid lol. After all they will send 5+ full stacks to chase a single horde across the entire map. That aside, the overall game is great, I am looking forward to trying out all the other Factions.

WRE is stupid. Play as ERE for a bit and you'll see...

They can't defend their shit, and waste their armies so recklessly. Plus, roman armies are weighted badly in the Auto resolve that the AI does for it's battles against each other.

Oh I made it to turn 430 A.D.

Ho ho ho. 90% of my provinces are now infertile with this new climate change mechanic!

[Leesin]

I thought as much, they really need to start focusing on Faction specific AI behaviours, WRE seem way too careless and they need to really reduce the horde chasing business, sending 6 stacks halfway across the map chasing a horde is stupid as hell, that's even before you consider how many Barbarian factions are pushing towards them.

Yeah I read some posts with people complaining about the whole map becoming infertile later in the game, it could be a cool mechanic if done properly but it's clearly not been thought out, parts of the map becoming infertile would be good, perhaps randomised, so the Factions that live there may be encouraged to conquer in order to obtain more fertile lands. But the whole map? overkill IMO.

[Lt_Anders]

I thought as much, they really need to start focusing on Faction specific AI behaviours, WRE seem way too careless and they need to really reduce the horde chasing business, sending 6 stacks halfway across the map chasing a horde is stupid as hell, that's even before you consider how many Barbarian factions are pushing towards them.

Yeah I read some posts with people complaining about the whole map becoming infertile later in the game, it could be a cool mechanic if done properly but it's clearly not been thought out, parts of the map becoming infertile would be good, perhaps randomised, so the Factions that live there may be encouraged to conquer in order to obtain more fertile lands. But the whole map? overkill IMO.

Yea, like AFRICA being the RICH province it is, turns into a barely fertile wasteland?...wut? (btw each climate change it's a -1 to province fertility, and the Average of most provinces is a 3-4)

SO by this stage, the only way to make food, is from cattle farms(they make best food, since they don't get hurt, really, from the changes.)

[Angantyr]

How does Attila compare to Rome 2 with all DLCs in your opinion? I own Rome 2 and some DLCs, but been thinking about pirating it with all of them. The time period seems more interesting to play as Rome or Greece, while Attila is more interesting when playing as barbarians or Huns, IMO.

If Attila is a direct upgrade over almost everything instead of a sidegrade/different style of play, I'll probably find it pretty hard to go back to Rome 2.

Emperor Edition holds up very well. I still have an ongoing Roman campaign there. It's not like ETW compared to NTW.

[Banok]

My experiences in attila seem vastly different to what I see other people posting, is anyone else playing on legendary? because I am (not that successfully!), but my point is that the AI bonuses mean that instead of crumbling the WRE tends to stay super strong. which breaks the usual gameplay dynamic, so that you don't want to pick on rome, since they will bring 3 or 4 stacks of superior infantry to your small town.

Also they actually added a human player only diplomacy penalty via cultural differences for legendary difficulty. THIS IS EXACTLY the mod I made for rome 2. I mean they could have come up with the idea without me but still... I made that mod as a difficulty crutch for poor AI, you'd think the official developers would have a better solution.

[Lt_Anders]

My experiences in attila seem vastly different to what I see other people posting, is anyone else playing on legendary? because I am (not that successfully!), but my point is that the AI bonuses mean that instead of crumbling the WRE tends to stay super strong. which breaks the usual gameplay dynamic, so that you don't want to pick on rome, since they will bring 3 or 4 stacks of superior infantry to your small town.

Also they actually added a human player only diplomacy penalty via cultural differences for legendary difficulty. THIS IS EXACTLY the mod I made for rome 2. I mean they could have come up with the idea without me but still... I made that mod as a difficulty crutch for poor AI, you'd think the official developers would have a better solution.

No. Normal here.

But, once you kill off the Huns you are only fighting the weather. Right now, as the ERE, I can bring down practically any faction, by myself and sustain 1 other war. Yea, once Attila is dead, Huns stop spawing and you can wipe them out. Once they are gone, the single, biggest threat to the ERE is gone(beyond Sassasinds).

Should post a picture of my ERE now. Pushing Into North Africa(after they DoW'd me) and am beginning a push into germany(and to probably RAZE it, rather than cap it). Waiting for the Vassal of Sassanids(Atropatenae) to Break and DoW them so I can curb stomp the Sassanids.

Oh and Europe is pretty much desolate. Only ERE Territory, Italy(half mine anyway) and Iran aren't razed. France, Spain, Germany, and some of Britain are burnt(Germany has 5 territories in it not raised out of 15 or so). Sad really. Not even fair, half those factions have shit for land and they want mine. The other half are my allies and they are invading NA wit me.

[Banok]

my thoughts on legendary

http://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/2ymiat/ill_just_go_crush_geats_they_only_have_1_region/

also looks like this guy solved WRE start:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/151696-Western-Roman-Empire-Turn-1-Offensive

[lombardsoup]

The money bonuses the AI gets on anything higher than normal are ridiculous.  Can be doing great against another faction and then suddenly next turn their regions poop out 2-3 magical full stacks.

[Molly]

Some glorious forum snippets...

LOL CA are dumb kids, this game sucks hard !!
OKOK first we start good, we start constructing bulding and staff am talking about the purple romans, i am playing as them ok we start turn 0 with like 3 full stacks of enemys OKOKOK i manage to kill them very hardly, then i rebuild all and start making my economy, BUM !!!!! all persia hates me and wants to kill me OKOKOKOK i have to burn some cities and make army barricades so they cant pass eny further without fighting me, OKOKOKOOK it works they stop now i manage to sneak a full army stack and start doing to them what they were doing to me destory and loot all my little towns without armys -.- ok i great i destroyed a full region of those persians #)$Y(Y$#, now i manage to make so damage to all the ASIAN puppy states from that ((%/%// persians, i feel safe now i have good control of my empire and many are happy, =) WHAT ???? from now some pirates have raded my trading sjips, i now have -4000 lolol ok its ok enemys are rekt so they needs time to recover, i can disband some unites ok no problem o wait a second ? is that an ARMY OF AGENTS COMMING ? Yes Sir they are, jesus chryst we are lost, they start FFFFUUUUCCCC))( all with out sending a single real army plus the all mighty purple rebel romans start comming from no were taking half of my troops in each city ? WFT???, i manage to recover now i got enofe food and enofe money and all is clean and staff, STILL MY SOLDIERS ARE DIEING ???? WTF, i losse all the WAR AND MY EMPIRE, AND EMPIRE !!!!! TO AN ARMY OF AGENTS.

They did what 10 full stacks of armys could not, great CA another agent war game.

How does sanitation work?
I have a total sanitation of 11 my region yet diseases keep appearing there. How are you meant to stop a disease in a province which already has positive sanitation?

the way sanitation works is like when you poop, you flush the toilet, and your poop is carried away via poop tubes..... = sanitation....

[Xant]

I can't stand to play the game anymore because of the fucking fog in battles. Makes it pointless when you can't even see your own units, zero fun. And it seems like it gives me foggy weather about 80% of the time.

[Leesin]

I can't stand to play the game anymore because of the fucking fog in battles. Makes it pointless when you can't even see your own units, zero fun. And it seems like it gives me foggy weather about 80% of the time.

Lol yeah fog pisses me off, it shouldn't be as harsh on screen, because the mechanics/downside of fog is what matters and doesn't rely on the actual graphic. TBH I also can't really stand battles where a large part of the map is forest too, I like forest in map but not when the entire battle is being fought in it.

Anyway I started a new Danes campaign to play properly with Radious mod ( but used a submod to double Radious unit upkeep costs ) I had a really tough beginning, attacked by the two starting enemies who sent stacks over waters to attack and harass me, I think they are called Varinians and Rugians. But I was then also declared war on by Angles who I managed to hold off until I caught one of their armies distant enough from it's twin stack to wipe it and the Angles gave up and wanted peace, I took that as I was still stuck on my fucking 1 beginning region. Then Burgundians declared war on me and again they sent two bloody stacks, which I managed to harass and finally split apart so that I could destroy the armies. After pushing all of my enemies out of my region I went across the sea and attacked a Burgundian region, I then push east and took their next region, again without much difficult.

Oh look now I am bordering my old enemy Rugians, who suddenly send two full stacks half filled with Noble Germanic Swordsman and Germanic Crossbows to attack my slightly battered army inside the settlement. I had some decent Tier 2 units and even some upgraded and fairly experienced Tier 1 units, the defense to me was going to be fairly easy. That is until I realised how powerful the Crossbow units are, even after I managed to kill some off with my cavalry flank they had a few left, they were fucking decimating my guys, they were firing up a hill, over all of their own men and into a small combat zone where I lured them in and bottle necked them to get my superior soldier advantage over their numbers, but the Crossbows were absolutely wiping out all of my guys in the end, it was mostly annoying because even after they tore the shit out of my army with the Crossbows, the Crossbow units still had a ton of ammo.

Fuckin xbow camping my old friend noobs.

[Angantyr]

In my Danes campaign I mainly focused on taking the British Isles.
I started by quickly taking Jutland with King Danr's hirdmen 'The Blood Swans', then Sweden, all the while my fleet under Prince Humbli stopped all Varinian trade until they were suspectible to a peace offer.
Then I secured my southern border by marrying off a daughter to the Angles, keeping my relationship with the Anglo-Saxon alliance one of mutual respect, and king Danr on Sealand to fend off a Rugian invasion while Humbli raided Rugian waters.
I then married Humbli to a Frankish princess and started an invasion of England with 10 hirdmen units and 4 nordic spearmen, 2 mounted raiders and 2 archers, supported by Humbli's fleet 'The Black Sails'. My fleet took Ireland while my invasion force landed and took Londinium from the WRE in a gloriously bloody battle.
We've worked our way north from there, though the fighting's been fierce against the Caledonians and Picts around Hadrian's Wall, but a recently arrived second stack from the homeland have pushed the last remaining Scottish tribes to the utmost north where they turtle up with a few stacks, licking their wounds as we both build up our forces for the reckoning.
Next, now laid open for my fleets, is the whole western European coastline.

edit: and as I write this a Germanic horde has just landed and started besieging Londinium in the south, meaning I'll have to split up my forces in the north, hope the Picts don't attack me and hope half my army is enough to fend off the horde that for now seems content just raiding and pillaging.

Btw. real disappointing that Celtic peoples use Nordic units. But that's for yet another DLC, I guess..

[SayAttack]

I can't stand to play the game anymore because of the fucking fog in battles. Makes it pointless when you can't even see your own units, zero fun. And it seems like it gives me foggy weather about 80% of the time.

I do not want to be trite but...u should try to attack more by yourself, this will allow you to choose weather i guess) read my nick dude)


i want to start barbar. campaign but i cant coz  playing huns is rly something intresting and new in total war and i cant quit it).