Total War: General discussion.

Actual footage of Wheels signing off from his last stream.

If anything, actual Total War fans are more upset about CA feeling they had to apologize than Arch getting called a dickhead.

Apropos dickheads, apparently some failed UKIP politician's now trying to stir the pot, so the brigading will probably continue some more time.

Honestly, at this point I kinda hope the community mods just puts the kibosh on any threads regarding the topic.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 28th 2019 at 11:44:22 AM

Anyone got any guesses on what the August FLC is gonna be? I was pretty weirded out when they announced that they'd hop onto a new setting while the main campaign still had so much content to add, but with all the new units and items that are coming out with Eight Princes, I'm quite optimistic that it's gonna be a pretty big update.

Considering it's called "Old Friends", some people are hoping CA's gonna rework Toddy and the Red Duke and make them playable (though prepare for the people whining about yet another VC lord).

I've seen some people claim the name refers to Gotrek and Felix - but there's no feasible way to add those two, as they're not army leaders and not really associated with a specific faction.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 28th 2019 at 2:04:51 PM

Have you ever looked at Total War and thought "This is good, but I'd like to play Dynasty Warriors at the same time"? No? Well you're getting it anyway!

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Well this is the Dynasty Warriors period, it'd be a waste to not include something like this xD

At least it's free, too.

Ah, figured that a culture pack would've been a bit much for a FLC. This looks like Laboratory Mode, MOBA edition.

When I saw the title, I was actually expecting them to finally bring back Avatar Mode.

Kinda disappointed, not gonna lie.

"We Dawn of War 2 nao boiz" -CA

Ok, so I'm about to fire up Attila for the first time. I know the game as a whole is pretty hard, but what 'easy' factions would be recommended for a first timer?

There are easy factions in Attila?

Only relatively speaking, I'd imagine. Hence the air quotes.

One of the Britannian factions would be good. They start somewhere safe-ish, you just have to wait for the WRE to lose control of their territories around you, and you start in an area where food is already scarce, so you can learn quickly how to make buildings that will give you enough food to survive the increasingly cold weather.

I need to retry the Ostrogoths at some point - apparently the best strategy is to skip Rome at first and go for Carthage instead - this way you can avoid being hunted down by the Huns.

Speaking of Attila, I'm in the final phase of my current campaign. Won the cultural victory, I'm one faction destroyed away from the military victory, after which I'll just need to fill most of Europe's destroyed areas, let them revolt to get myself more destroyed factions, and I should be getting a divine victory relatively soon.

If you have the Empires of Sand DLC for Attila, I'd regard those as being a bit easier to play than the others.

The Viking factions also have a generally easy time securing the first province they start in (not to mention odds aren't bad the others may just straight up evacuate it anyway). Just be sure to focus on sanitation and fishing ports for food, and it shouldn't be too bad.

The Celtic factions do have a slight challenge in the late-game in that they are incapable of getting large onagers which are the easiest way to handle the Huns' horse spam.

My other tips for new Attila players that no one asked for:

-All of the "Barbarian" factions are going to want the Sacred King civil technology, their provinces will literally never be orderly without the buildings it provides.

-You probably can defend that desperately outnumbered town. Set up frontline units by the chokepoint the enemy will start near to, have some flanking units (probably your ranged units and whatever cavalry you have. These units can also be placed nearby a town's outskirts and possibly run out of the town to be unseen by the enemy because of a hill/buildings in the way blocking line-of-sight to them) ready to hit the enemy after they've all committed and you've got a victory unless it's something really hopeless like two full armies hitting a town or an army of top-tier units attacking nothing but a garrison.

-I mentioned large onagers right? Get em' before Attila comes to bring ruin upon you. They'll require the lumber resource (here's◊ a map showing all of the resource nodes), a building, and a technology.

-Archers on foot are probably the other ranged units you'll want against the Huns. Other ranged units are a lot more conditional on having parapets (so they are probably fine if you expect them to camp in towns) to stand onto to fight off hordes of horse archers. Archers however can always compete with horse archers even in field battles.

-You're also going to want to fully upgrade your minor towns in your provinces before the Huns arrive. Those getting walls and forcing them to siege those out buys you valuable time.

-I mentioned focusing on sanitation right? Diseases suck.

-Focus on food next. Every province's food is entirely determined only by their own food increases/decreases, so you can frankly just ignore the food count on the top of the screen. You're best sticking with buildings that give more of a flat amount of food - fertility bonuses will decrease as the game goes on and can lower even more if something in the province got razed. Mess around with fertility-based food later after you get more acquainted with the game.

-Growth is the next most important thing for provinces. Building synergies are what's needed to really make money, and you're not going to be able to do those without the growth to build all of provinces' buildings. Once your sanitation and food are sitting pretty in a province, try to do what you can to increase its growth (this includes putting in governors).

-Consider the sacking option. In a lot of the previous Total Wars, people would generally agree occupying might as well have been the only option that existed for dealing with the conquered. In Attila, pacing yourself, not overextending, and ensuring what you have will be both useful and defensible is crucial before the Huns pour out - so the big cash injections you can get from sacking are often the better choice to take after you carved out some provinces. Besides, you can sack a place, let them build it back up, and take it back later anyway!

-Never ever let an enemy cavalry unit charge your infantry units that are not braced/in a special defensive formation, or for that matter, let them charge into infantry's flanks. It's basically a guaranteed loss for those infantry units. Yes, even if they're charged by a lot of the ranged cavalry units.

-Always be flanking with ranged units against shielded units. Shields just stop/reduce the damage of too much of ranged fire to make ranged units worthwhile if you don't. A Javelinmen unit will probably reduce a shielded infantry unit to about half-health if they shoot at their front - shooting into that unit's right or rear will almost certainly rout the unit entirely, possibly even without using all of their ammunition.

-Still be careful of javelins though! As mentioned, you probably still don't want them to smack up your shielded infantry units even if they'll live through it.

-Avoid disengaging cavalry. Even the best cavalry units will probably take at least 25% total losses from disengaging in Attila. Never throw your cavalry into a fight you're not sure they'll win without cause.

-Be careful with your generals. Even getting shot at by archers for a little bit can kill your generals if you're particularly unlucky.

Edited by VutherA on Aug 2nd 2019 at 3:30:07 PM

Just a little addition to those advices there. When it comes to defending against the Huns, you absolutely, positively, completely need heavy onagers. Normal onagers don't cut it, their damage isn't high enough, their range is too short, and they lack the explosive shots that are necessary to really annihilate opposing forces.

Here's an educational video on the necessity of using heavy onagers.

Along with onagers, you want spearmen and archers. The huns have the fastest cavalry in the game, it's almost pointless to even try to chase them. Nonetheless, be careful with your archers, because the Huns also have the best melee cavalry in the game, and they won't hesitate to charge your archers, and that will easily wipe them out. You need to be very quick to take your archers behind your infantry as soon as you see the Hunnic charge preparing.

Honestly, Huns are a bit too annoying to handle for my tastes. They're nearly impossible to catch up to, and they are constantly swarming, sometimes with five armies moving together. They'll be constantly prodding your territories to find out where they can move beyond the range of your units and run rampant into your heartlands with complete impunity. Worse, it's actually a bad idea to wipe them out completely because a new, fully upgraded Hunnic army will spawn somewhere in the wilderness. The only way to stop the Hun spam is to kill Attila in battle (specifically in battle, doing it with an agent doesn't count) three times or wait for him to die of natural causes in 445.

And in battle itself, they are very good at harassing and skirmishing, because they also use heavy onagers and top notch cavalry archers. I find that even when the balance of power favours me, I generally lose battles that I personally fight, while the auto-resolve will usually make me win.

Edited by Resileafs on Aug 2nd 2019 at 4:00:00 AM

The Sassanids have the best balance between a safe starting position (they're in the southeast corner, surrounded by a bunch of vassals) and a large, strong roster. Just make sure to get rid of the White Huns early, and you can expand at your leisure for the rest of the game.

Ok, thanks for all the advice. I've made notes on everything and I'll certainly pay attention. I'm thinking I'll go with the Franks for my first campaign.

What a coincidence, that's the campaign I'm doing right now as well. XD

Oh yeah, this is happening I guess...Total War online card game.

At least you can see Napoleon again if you happen to be one of the few yearning for Empire 2.

So the new genre was indeed a card game. It really is all the rage. Guess they gotta try to get a piece of that pie.

Piece of what pie? There's no pie left. That market's ridiculously oversaturated already.

The crumbs of that pie, then.