Mud, disease, and hordes of hairy barbarians. It's like camping at Glastonbury

Total War: Rome 2 (can we please settle on a format for the title now, Creative Assembly? Because I had to check if I got that one right) has been whittled and honed into a perfectly decent game now, but its awkward, bug-filled launch was all too typical of a series whose grand ambition is repeatedly undermined by technical issues and ill-thought out mechanics.

Preview Video

Total War: Attila

Mud, disease, and hordes of hairy barbarians. It's like camping at Glastonbury.

Built on an improved version of the same engine, and developed with the hindsight earned from patching up Rome 2, Total War: Attila has some work to do to restore fan faith in the franchise. Apprehensive after my own disappointment with Rome 2, yet cautiously optimistic at some of the noises coming from Creative Assembly, I grabbed my battle axe and charged into a full grand campaign.

The Romans might remain, but the world’s a very different place in Attila. The grand, globe-spanning empire of Rome, though still an impressively gargantuan construct, is beginning to crumble under its own weight. It’s split into two factions; the weak and corrupt Western Empire and the slightly more competent (but still precariously balanced) Eastern Empire. Knocking on the doors of civilisation are several thousand hairy tribesmen driven south to warmer climes thanks to a vicious, pitiless change in climate. The grandeur of the classical age is slipping into the vicious barbarism of the Dark Ages. It’s up to you whether you wish to try and prevent that, or embrace your inner barbarian.

Winter, aside from looking rather pretty, forces you to keep a close eye on your supplies and army morale

This change of atmosphere immediately invests Attila with an intriguing sense of foreboding. Rather than a static sandbox, from the off the game’s campaign map feels like it’s already sliding into chaos. Attila is divided into stages representing the Seven Seals, doom-laden imagery compounded by the titular barbarian’s uncanny metaphorical resemblance to the biblical Four Horsemen. This is an age of violence and death, and Attila takes this ominous atmosphere and runs with it in a way previous Total War games haven’t really attempted.

Thematically, it’s the strongest and most cohesive stage that Creative Assembly has ever set in the franchise’s history. In the East and West the Romans begin with sprawling but fragile holdings, while some of the barbarian tribes, the Visigoths for example, start with no structures at all. The Western Roman Empire’s starting position is so fragmented and weak, the developers are calling it the first ‘Legendary’ start they’ve ever done. If building up a colossal empire from an uncluttered single province start was getting a bit easy for you, this will give you a much sterner test. It’s a shake-up that does a fine job of upsetting the familiar status quo, and it invests each faction’s struggles with greater weight.

Those themes of collapsing societies, brutality and entropy are not simply reflected in those starting positions, either. Winters in Attila are deadly affairs, impacting everything from food production to army morale. Lose ground to an advancing army and you can burn your city down and salt the earth, retreating to a safer spot while your opponent’s force dies in droves from starvation and hypothermia. It’s a fittingly grim alternative to meeting your enemy on the open field. Attila’s new disease mechanics didn’t really come into play in the preview build I got my hands on, but even without it the world feels like a big unpleasant ball of mud, blood and grime. It’s a vastly more interesting place to campaign in than the comparatively bland grasslands of Rome 2. Thanks to a new campaign map camera that lets you zoom up far further than you could in previous games, there’s plenty of opportunity to get a better look at your budding empire, and breathe in the plague-ridden air.

This bit, just before everybody dies, is still great

As for the field of battle itself, I wouldn’t go so far as to say the AI is a giant leap forwards from the rather predictable opponents offered up by previous Total War titles, (it still prefers the mass forward rush) but there’s definitely been some improvement. Siege battles in particular work well, with the computer army willing to search out weaknesses and gaps in your defences, and apply the correct units to those situations. The ability to set up barricades to block off vulnerable zones gives a welcome extra level of strategy to city fighting, while added graphical bells and whistles such as dynamic fires caused by errant flame arrows and plumes of smoke and dust from shattered fortifications give the chaos impressive cinematic sheen.

On the campaign map dealings with opposing factions are far less head-bangingly frustrating as they were in Rome 2. Diplomacy is far less arbitrary, and although the vultures are quick to circle as soon as you leave yourself in any way vulnerable, you don’t get the level of constant, enthusiastic yet pointless betrayal that blighted the previous game. Alliances can even stick this time around. As the Saxons, I had a healthy trading partnership and military alliance with the neighbouring Jutes, which persisted nicely through forty turns of gameplay. They even helped me out in a couple of nasty scraps. It would be nice if this continues going forwards; previous Total War games have wasted time developing in-depth diplomacy mechanics only to have every single faction stab you in the back at the earliest opportunity.

The political sub-system is a big vague and confusing

Thanks to the shorter time period, your various generals, spies and statesmen all hang around for a lot longer before popping their clogs. This lessens the time you spend recruiting and developing new agents, but despite a return to Shogun 2-style individual character experience trees there’s still not much sense of personality and individuality from your leaders. They’re incredibly useful assets on the field of battle or the campaign map, but you never feel very invested in their political struggles or their rise through the social ranks, despite the restoration of the family tree that was so popular in Shogun 2. Apparently important political events are cluttered onto the screen alongside straightforward notifications about construction completion and battles fought, and there’s little sense that your actions carry much weight. I can praise a loyal general or attempt to secure loyalty from another, but what exactly do I gain from doing this from a mechanical standpoint? It’s all a little vague and half-hearted at the moment, and it’s the one area of the game I’m a little disappointed by.

Other than that relatively minor issue, the auguries are promising. I went into Attila expecting little more than a kind of Rome 2.5, but after settling in to a full campaign I was pleasantly surprised by how fresh it feels. It’s the end of the world theme and almost apocalyptic setting that steals the show, but there are some smart ideas in here that improve the core gameplay that felt so stagnant in the original release version of Rome 2. It helps that so far, and all my digits are firmly crossed here, I’ve experienced very few bugs in forty or so turns of the campaign. If Creative Assembly can get this one out of the gate without any serious issues, Total War: Attila might just be the return to form that the franchise needs.

Most Anticipated Moment: It will be interesting to see how complex those new and improved siege battles get with late-game advances in technology.