Total War: Attila - Tales of the Apocalypse.

[Rhinopotamus]

So having taken a short break from WoW for the newest Total War game, and being totally amazed by the AI, and the differences in gameplay expierence from one faction to the next.

So I want to know if anyone else have played it, and have badass, awesome, enthralling tales from their expierences in game.

For example playing as the Jute after I expanded southward in to Frisia I went on to raid Britannia, and eventually got out numbered and surrounded in Ebecoum, the provincial capital of Britannia Inferior, by the Rebelious Roman Kingdom of Britian and their Pict allies. So I am eventually forced to fight three twenty-stack armies from the broken down walls of this city, and the awesome moment came when my small reinforcing army,five units and a general, with Huscarls caught his general all alone behind his force and killed him. Allowin my men to go fourth and rout, and destroy this utterly larger force. Which led to me conquering all of Britannia with much ease after that.

Or my Franks who totally steam rolled their way across Gaul, and Iberia, making friends out of every non-roman along the way, and now I'm playing "Hunt the Horsemen" as I systematically wipe out Hunnic Hordes as they cross the Alps and the Rhine.

Also what's your favorite factions?! What's something you're slightly disappointed about in the game, what's something that makes you really happy in the game?

For me so far the Jutes are my favorite, I was super excited to play as the Visigoths and Aleric the Great, but they seem lacking of actual Gothic Units, which is what disappoints me I wish there were bigger unit divided between the Goths and some of the other Germans or the Norse from the southern Germans.

As well the fact that the celts of Caledonia et Hibernia use a Germanic Roster also bugs the shit out of me.

[Deleted]

We've been discussing it in here bud.

[Berethos08]

My favorite fight so far that felt pretty epic is actually one that I lost (albeit barely).

I decided to attack the Franks as the Saxons on one of my first turns. It turns out that my reinforcing army was much further away on the map than I thought they would be (behind a rather large hill at that), and while it ultimately came down to their 4 or 5 versus my 4 or 5, and my loss came down to losing my general early due to mistakes I made...

The mix of heavy rain, muddy streets, and viking style ships sailing in to provide them reinforcements made for a really great fight visually. It was a drag down, knock-out style fight that looked and felt like it.

- - - Updated - - -

We've been discussing it in here bud.

Not really.

Even the initial Attila chatter has mostly turned back around to Rome 2 centric stuff (or comparing other games, mostly Shogun 2, to Rome 2). Besides, since this is a new title and the other thread is obviously meant to be specific to the previous title (and isn't a mega thread catch all for Total War games), we probably should have a new thread where we can discuss Attila.

[I Push Buttons]

I am not a big fan of the game so far... Archery is pretty laughably bad now and I think they made the game too artificially hard.

I was able to faceroll Rome 2 on the hardest difficulty, but I started a very hard campaign as the Franks and it is pretty ridiculous. I haven't even gotten to tier 3 units, but tier 2 units are ridiculously expensive to maintain in the early game... They are like 300+ gold per turn to maintain EACH. I can barely maintain a one stack army with 6 towns, while my little tiny neighbor to the north that has one small village has three full stack armies... I mean what?

And units get slaughtered now regardless of what type they are or bonuses they have... I have some tier 2 spearmen with "high health, high armor, good against cavalry" as bonuses, yet some tier 1 shock cavalry charges head first into them and instantly 50 of them die... Sure they kill the cavalry, but by the time they are dead the unit is devastated and only has like 60 guys left... Its pretty silly.

And archery is so inaccurate now, towers too. There will be like giant masses of enemy and I will tell my archers (TIER 3, master archers lol) to shoot dead center and like a third of the arrows will fall short and hit my own guys (in the back no less, devastating them), a third will overshoot and land behind the mass, and then the third that actually hits the enemy doesn't do a lot of damage. And towers just shoot arrows where the fuck ever.

Plus the game looks worse than Rome 2 did... They say its optimized... I don't think they know what optimize means. It means looks the same runs better.. Not looks worse runs the same.

And I am also pretty pissed that, once again, they don't include blood and gore to keep the teen rating and are going to release it as $5 DLC... Which makes me really upset.

[Deleted]

So I haven't been paying attention to the whole Total War thing since Rome 2.

If I'm of the opinion that a modded Rome 1 (Europa Barbarorum comes to mind - incidentally, is EB2 out for Medieval 2 ? Ouh, maybe I should try that) is just flat out better when it comes to most things (combat especially so) except all the visual tat, does Attila change much ? Are battles still arcadey ? Do units engage in melee for any significant amounts of time now or break right away ? Do they still spread all over the place or form any sort of battle lines that make sense ?

When I was dissapointed with Rome 2's launch I went back to Rome 1 with EB and I have to say I was astounded by how much better the battles felt, maybe I was just biased/bitter, but eh, any opinions are welcome.

[SirRobin]

Meh... They are charging $45 for Barbarian Invasion II? No thanks. Now if it had been something like Fall of the Samurai was to Shogun II? Maybe. But after the humiliatingly bad shape Rome II was in at launch? CA will have to do a lot better than this to get any money from me again. Hopefully they'll impress with Warhammer and avoid devoting parts of Rally Point to hyping the AI next time.

[Rhinopotamus]

I really don't like the people not playing it, comparing it Rome II. I played Rome II at launch and yeah it was bad, so far thought Ive had so many different outcomes, playing as the Franks twice as in my first game I had Huns chase the Vandals across the Rhine into my lands by about turn thirty.

I let them raid for a while but after two rebellions caused by there presence I decided to attack them, big mistake, they keep coming. While on my Ostrogoths they se to have travelled south into the Sassanid Lands. On top A.I. Is much smarter then before, on hard difficulty a force that out numbers you, but knows you have reinforcements on the way will try to knock you off early in a battle.

Although if you deploy far back by where your allies arrive the enemy will instead play a defensive strategy. Playing as the Jutes I had the Danes basically let their archers pick me off and move then finally retreated to the top of their keep, forcing me to attack up a massive hill.

- - - Updated - - -

I am not a big fan of the game so far... Archery is pretty laughably bad now and I think they made the game too artificially hard.

I was able to faceroll Rome 2 on the hardest difficulty, but I started a very hard campaign as the Franks and it is pretty ridiculous. I haven't even gotten to tier 3 units, but tier 2 units are ridiculously expensive to maintain in the early game... They are like 300+ gold per turn to maintain EACH. I can barely maintain a one stack army with 6 towns, while my little tiny neighbor to the north that has one small village has three full stack armies... I mean what?

And units get slaughtered now regardless of what type they are or bonuses they have... I have some tier 2 spearmen with "high health, high armor, good against cavalry" as bonuses, yet some tier 1 shock cavalry charges head first into them and instantly 50 of them die... Sure they kill the cavalry, but by the time they are dead the unit is devastated and only has like 60 guys left... Its pretty silly.

And archery is so inaccurate now, towers too. There will be like giant masses of enemy and I will tell my archers (TIER 3, master archers lol) to shoot dead center and like a third of the arrows will fall short and hit my own guys (in the back no less, devastating them), a third will overshoot and land behind the mass, and then the third that actually hits the enemy doesn't do a lot of damage. And towers just shoot arrows where the fuck ever.

Plus the game looks worse than Rome 2 did... They say its optimized... I don't think they know what optimize means. It means looks the same runs better.. Not looks worse runs the same.

And I am also pretty pissed that, once again, they don't include blood and gore to keep the teen rating and are going to release it as $5 DLC... Which makes me really upset.

First off the Archery is quiet more realistic, Archers v.s. exposed units (slingers, archers, 2-handed axemen, horses) are quiet effective where v.s. Shields they are quiet ineffective which is where Skirmishers come in. Also towers seem way more effective then in Rome II.

You have to understand that a lot of people play TW games that couldn't if it was M for Blood & Gore, while I agree it needs to be cheaper, I totally understand why they hold it back.

Finally the only thing that looks worse are the missile trails for non-flaming ammunition. Units over all look much more detailed for example go look at the Huscarls of the Jutes or Nordic Axe Warband.

[Deleted]

Not really.

Even the initial Attila chatter has mostly turned back around to Rome 2 centric stuff (or comparing other games, mostly Shogun 2, to Rome 2). Besides, since this is a new title and the other thread is obviously meant to be specific to the previous title (and isn't a mega thread catch all for Total War games), we probably should have a new thread where we can discuss Attila.

Yeah I suppose, I only necroed the old thread because I wasn't sure how many would be buying it due to the poor Rome 2 reception.

- - - Updated - - -

I am not a big fan of the game so far... Archery is pretty laughably bad now and I think they made the game too artificially hard.

I was able to faceroll Rome 2 on the hardest difficulty, but I started a very hard campaign as the Franks and it is pretty ridiculous. I haven't even gotten to tier 3 units, but tier 2 units are ridiculously expensive to maintain in the early game... They are like 300+ gold per turn to maintain EACH. I can barely maintain a one stack army with 6 towns, while my little tiny neighbor to the north that has one small village has three full stack armies... I mean what?

First point, being able to "Faceroll" in Rome 2 is not a good thing, that's a bad thing, its supposed to be a strategy that rewards good playstyles, if you want to Faceroll Atilla, go play on Normal or Beginner, elsewise get learning.
Second point, you can't compare the Very Hard in Atilla to the Very Hard in Rome 2, there nowhere near, I completed numerous Legendary campaigns in Rome 2, both before and after the Emperor Edition, and I struggled on Hard during my first game, so drop the difficulty down a notch, and start learning again, because this is less of an expansion for Rome 2, and more of an entirely new game.
Third point, if you can't muster a one stack army with 6 towns, your playing wrong, simple as. I've been playing as the Vandals recently, after I settled after my migration, I had 3 villages and 2 full 20 stacks armies and I was able to support them quite easily (raiding helps a lot).

As for the AI having an advantage, it's always gonna get that, the AI cheats in pretty much every strategy game, so that's really not even a point worth bringing up.

And units get slaughtered now regardless of what type they are or bonuses they have... I have some tier 2 spearmen with "high health, high armor, good against cavalry" as bonuses, yet some tier 1 shock cavalry charges head first into them and instantly 50 of them die... Sure they kill the cavalry, but by the time they are dead the unit is devastated and only has like 60 guys left... Its pretty silly.

You should notice a brace button on your spears, use that when the cavalry are charging in, shouldn't take anywhere near as much damage. That said, shock cav has got a huge buff, and it probably does need a nerf, whenever I see the enemy fielding it my ranged units always try to focus it down.

And archery is so inaccurate now, towers too. There will be like giant masses of enemy and I will tell my archers (TIER 3, master archers lol) to shoot dead center and like a third of the arrows will fall short and hit my own guys (in the back no less, devastating them), a third will overshoot and land behind the mass, and then the third that actually hits the enemy doesn't do a lot of damage. And towers just shoot arrows where the fuck ever.

Archery has never been pinpoint accurate, nor should it be, there's a reason you have a mass of archers instead of a single legolas slotting troops with pinpoint accuracy.

Plus the game looks worse than Rome 2 did... They say its optimized... I don't think they know what optimize means. It means looks the same runs better.. Not looks worse runs the same.

If your trying to run it with the same settings as your ran Rome 2, your in for a bad time. New engine, needs higher specs to run the higher shit, try dropping some settings (I ran Rome 2 on Ultra, have to run Atilla on Performance) and you'll be fine. That said, not sure why your saying it looks worse, the campaign map has an incredible amount of detail compared to the one in Rome 2, and when all's said and done, that's what you spend most of your time looking at.

And I am also pretty pissed that, once again, they don't include blood and gore to keep the teen rating and are going to release it as $5 DLC... Which makes me really upset.

This is a legitimate point, but then again, it's nothing to get upset over, that's a complete over reaction.

- - - Updated - - -

Meh... They are charging $45 for Barbarian Invasion II? No thanks. Now if it had been something like Fall of the Samurai was to Shogun II? Maybe. But after the humiliatingly bad shape Rome II was in at launch? CA will have to do a lot better than this to get any money from me again. Hopefully they'll impress with Warhammer and avoid devoting parts of Rally Point to hyping the AI next time.

All i'm gonna say is, this is better than Fall of the Samurai was for Shogun 2. Fall of the Samurai is my favourite game in the series so far, it was a solid improvement on Shogun 2. Atilla completely blows Rome 2 out of the water with how much better and indepth it is.

EDIT: The only criticism i've got so far, and I said it in the other thread, is that I would love to be able to play Rome 2's Grand Campaign on this map with this engine, I love the Romans, but much prefer building my own Empire to trying to salvage one thats falling apart (though that does sound fun).

[Berethos08]

If I'm of the opinion that a modded Rome 1 (Europa Barbarorum comes to mind - incidentally, is EB2 out for Medieval 2 ? Ouh, maybe I should try that) is just flat out better when it comes to most things (combat especially so) except all the visual tat, does Attila change much ? Are battles still arcadey ? Do units engage in melee for any significant amounts of time now or break right away ? Do they still spread all over the place or form any sort of battle lines that make sense ?

My personal experience so far is that units engage in combat for longer than they would in Rome 2, unless they get swarmed and/or their general has fallen, in which case they can end up routing quicker (the only times I've seen nearly full units flee/break right away are when the rest of their units - usually depleted to 50% or less - are also broken and/or the general is dead). I've also found that it's not uncommon for units to rejoin the battle so long as they aren't completely shattered, even at a fraction of their total number, so long as the battle hasn't been entirely lost.

Also, again from personal experience, I have noticed battle lines - most common (when not against cavalry heaving stacks) is them trying to soften my units up with archers/slingers/skirmishers before sending their line of melee against me, with any cavalry they do have often trying to flank (or forcing me to pull my ranged back behind the melee line, as the case may be).

It's not perfect, of course, and I don't have a frame of reference to compare it to Rome 1 in any capacity, but it does feel like there is a difference compared to Rome 2. For example, attacking the Franks at their city early on as the Saxons with a reinforcing army coming in from one side for me and them having some marines/mauraders coming in from the sea (and learning from mistakes made in a similar situation, as it was very similar to the battle I mentioned above where I just barely lost and both sides lost their generals). In Rome 2, the most common thing I'd see in such city attacks is them staying on the defensive in the settlement, waiting for me to attack while filling the streets/center plaza type area as best as they could (even if they outnumbered me).

This time around, with me keeping my initial army in its own battle line waiting for the reinforcing army to finish its march (the spawn point was clear across the map) and out of range of the towers...as soon as their reinforcing units landed they formed their own battle line and came after my at that point outnumbered army and didn't start breaking until my other army came through and caught them from behind and took out their general.

[I Push Buttons]

Yeah I suppose, I only necroed the old thread because I wasn't sure how many would be buying it due to the poor Rome 2 reception.

- - - Updated - - -



First point, being able to "Faceroll" in Rome 2 is not a good thing, that's a bad thing, its supposed to be a strategy that rewards good playstyles, if you want to Faceroll Atilla, go play on Normal or Beginner, elsewise get learning.
Second point, you can't compare the Very Hard in Atilla to the Very Hard in Rome 2, there nowhere near, I completed numerous Legendary campaigns in Rome 2, both before and after the Emperor Edition, and I struggled on Hard during my first game, so drop the difficulty down a notch, and start learning again, because this is less of an expansion for Rome 2, and more of an entirely new game.
Third point, if you can't muster a one stack army with 6 towns, your playing wrong, simple as. I've been playing as the Vandals recently, after I settled after my migration, I had 3 villages and 2 full 20 stacks armies and I was able to support them quite easily (raiding helps a lot).

As for the AI having an advantage, it's always gonna get that, the AI cheats in pretty much every strategy game, so that's really not even a point worth bringing up.



You should notice a brace button on your spears, use that when the cavalry are charging in, shouldn't take anywhere near as much damage. That said, shock cav has got a huge buff, and it probably does need a nerf, whenever I see the enemy fielding it my ranged units always try to focus it down.



Archery has never been pinpoint accurate, nor should it be, there's a reason you have a mass of archers instead of a single legolas slotting troops with pinpoint accuracy.



If your trying to run it with the same settings as your ran Rome 2, your in for a bad time. New engine, needs higher specs to run the higher shit, try dropping some settings (I ran Rome 2 on Ultra, have to run Atilla on Performance) and you'll be fine. That said, not sure why your saying it looks worse, the campaign map has an incredible amount of detail compared to the one in Rome 2, and when all's said and done, that's what you spend most of your time looking at.



This is a legitimate point, but then again, it's nothing to get upset over, that's a complete over reaction.

- - - Updated - - -



All i'm gonna say is, this is better than Fall of the Samurai was for Shogun 2. Fall of the Samurai is my favourite game in the series so far, it was a solid improvement on Shogun 2. Atilla completely blows Rome 2 out of the water with how much better and indepth it is.

EDIT: The only criticism i've got so far, and I said it in the other thread, is that I would love to be able to play Rome 2's Grand Campaign on this map with this engine, I love the Romans, but much prefer building my own Empire to trying to salvage one thats falling apart (though that does sound fun).

Ok so faceroll was a bad term to use... By faceroll I mean, with how I was playing, I was able to contend with most challenges... And the way I commanded my armies, I could win most battles, even if outnumbered.

I do use the brace feature... I am not ignorant of abilities... The example I am referring to happened during a siege battle... I had two units of spears side by side inside my wall which was breached by artillery. They were both braced and blocking the hole in the wall 100%... Two units of tier one shock cavalry charged UPHILL through the breach, head on, straight into the spearmen... The first two lines of the blocks were pretty much wiped out and the formation itself was shattered and spread... After a tad bit of fighting most of the cavalry was dead, but of those 320 men only about 140 of them were left. That is ridiculous...

I am not asking for pinpoint accuracy... During another siege battle where I was on the offensive, I attacked a small town... I don't know if you have seen the Germanic small town, at least this variant of one, but it is like a fort on top of a hill surrounded by the town lower down the hill... The whole thing is downhill basically, with attackers fighting uphill. I focused my attack on one side... I sent a lot of spearmen in first in hopes they would last while my archers peppered the enemy... So I have like 4 spear units sitting in the opening on the side of the village, fighting about 15 enemy units (which are all basic tier one units and not doing much to the spearment)... It is uphill so if you can image it, there are 15 units (160 x 15... 2400 enemy) in just a big ass pile pushing into my spearmen at the entrance... I take five tier three archer units and position them behind and to the right of my spearmen (the ground was slightly higher to the right and had a better view of the mass)... I order them to fire into a unit way in the back... They are like 40 yards away, if even that, like half their range or less... Like half the arrows just completely overshoot this giant blob of enemy... And somehow, many arrows fly way over the the left and hit my own guys in the back... Anyways they sat there firing at point blank range until they ran out of ammo (19 arrows per unit)... 5 units... We are talking like 15000 arrows... They killed like 500 people... And like 200 of my own spearmen in the back...

In fact I just noticed you can do custom battles in places you recently fought on the campaign map so here are images of the town in question:

http://i.imgur.com/2zdVNM8.png

The light blue are where my spearmen held the enemy up, the black lines were impassable land, though somehow during my battle the walls there were knocked down, still couldn't be passed. Dark blue were my archers. Big red circle was just a mass of 2000+ enemy going up and down the hill to my spearmen at the entrance... Red X is where the unit I ordered my archers to fire at was located.

http://i.imgur.com/zynA0pS.png

View from where the archers were, like I said before, the wall was knocked down in my battle. Clear view of the whole enemy army/hillside... A turkey shoot... Did almost nothing to them.

Most of their arrows overshot the army and hit the wall of that fort at the top, even though nothing was up there and there was a giant mass of enemy below it... And many went way over to the left there and hit my own spearmen in the back at the base of that tower...


And on the topic of graphics, sure the units look slightly better (if even) when you zoom all the way in on them... When you zoom out though, they look terrible compared to the past, as do shadows, distant textures (with 8x AF for fudge sake) and distant models... 99% of the game is spent looking at things from a distance and it looks bad at a distance. Your example of the campaign map lol... How does THIS look better than THIS? Both of those are on the highest settings with 8x AF 4x AA.

EDIT: And you keep saying new engine, old engine, etc... This is the exact same engine Rome 2 was on... Only "optimized," as they put it...

[Deleted]

I'm mostly waiting for Radious overhaul so the factions get some depth. Also ridiculous levels of squalor and sanitation, I mean this might be just bad luck and disease outbreak chance for me was only like 4-5% but I spent 30 turns before my main territory finally got rid of plagues, where one of them killed my 1 year old baby. It's hard being a viking :P
But I really enjoy battles too, like catching half of enemy army in a bottleneck and cruising around with heavy shock cavalry I decimated them from behind. There's also some weird bugs where I couldn't cross some broken palisade and had to actually fight close battle with a weak garrison force. Or how enemy spear unit that was stationary killed my skirmish cavalry in like 3 seconds without me engaging in melee.

[lakisa]

my first battle game froze had to alt+f4, second battle i went to constantinople with Hun horde started siege, they engaged battle and got map with river in mid no constantinople in sight no bridge on river AI army went to middle of river walking on water hit invisible wall while cavalry was riding in the skies.

just ridiculous already deleted this garbage will wait atleast 6 months for them to fix it.

[SirRobin]

All i'm gonna say is, this is better than Fall of the Samurai was for Shogun 2. Fall of the Samurai is my favourite game in the series so far, it was a solid improvement on Shogun 2. Atilla completely blows Rome 2 out of the water with how much better and indepth it is.

EDIT: The only criticism i've got so far, and I said it in the other thread, is that I would love to be able to play Rome 2's Grand Campaign on this map with this engine, I love the Romans, but much prefer building my own Empire to trying to salvage one thats falling apart (though that does sound fun).

As soon as I read better than FotS I had a "well we'll see about that" reaction and bought it. Thank heavens the 20% off was still good so I got it for $36 instead of $45. My first reaction was thank god its not as bad as Rome 2. Second was has Radious modded it yet? Fortunately he already has one out which fixes some of CA's silly decisions. His mods were one of the few good things to come out of Rome 2.

So far I would have to agree that Attila is better compared to Rome 2 than Fall was to Shogun 2. However I would have to say that's mostly because of how bad Rome 2 was. They really didn't have anywhere to go but up.

[Deleted]

Yeah I can't wait for Radious to get some mods out, they should be good. Finally lost with my Vandals on VHard. Original plan was to raid through Gaul then settle in Belgium and expand south, subjugating or allying with all the other tribes around to build my own mini Empire to hopefully fight off the Huns when they showed up. That plan went down the pan when I actually reached Belgium and the Franks had razed it. So I figured i'd head for Spain, grabbed a province there, start grabbing the odd town in other provinces. Now what I didn't realise was that the only territory Rome had left was in Spain, having lost everything else, so I went in there with 2 20 stack armies to finish them off, thinking they'd have nothing left, and unite Iberia under my rule, they stomped me hard with 3 20 stacks, then started taking everything back. Conceded with one province left with a 10 stack in it against 2 full 20 stack WRE armies.

Don't poke the wounded bear in his cave I suppose.

Visigoths next I think, though i'm gonna take them either into Gaul or over the seas into Africa, not decided yet.

Loving the family tree being back, the fact that Governers can be retainers as well is really useful for grabbing early skills (+ Auth on governers = + public order). Anyone had any success in converting to a different religion yet? I wanted to go to Celtic Paganism, but couldn't figure out how to get more Celtic Pagans in my provinces. I really hope they slightly nerf the Immigration minus to Public Order, it can get a bit stupid when you have a constant -17 to public order and there's nothing you can do about it.

EDIT: I also love the fact that you can lose again.

[Berethos08]

If you're not part of that religious group, I'm actually not sure how feasible it is to easily switch.

I do know that the religious building chain for Celtic religious influence starts with the Cairnstones, the priest type agent is the one that can spread that religion, the Picts and Ebdanians seem to be the ones that are that religious group, and that you need to reach a minimum of 35% of your people following it to be able to convert to it.

You'd basically need to be in a situation where they are the dominant force in the area and you're both relatively new and don't really have holdings in other places that counter the influence of that areas religion. The prologue seems to suggest that it's a mechanic you'll use more often when migrating into a new area as horde (which is probably the easiest way to end up in the situation I just described).

Maybe taking over the Celtic lands while keeping your own religions influencing buildings/agents to the absolute minimum, driving up the total influence of Celtic Paganism, would be enough.

My current Saxon game, which is maybe 25 turns in, has me at around 27% total German Paganism despite having two areas that are 80% and 99% German Paganism, largely from taking two WRE areas that have absolutely 0% in the way of my factions religion. Take over the right places, with the right numbers elsewhere, and it might just be possible to reach that magic 35% to convert over, after which you should be able to start spreading the religion via agents and the Cairnstones (at least I think so with the building option...I know for certain that I can only build the ones that spread German Paganism while that is my factions religion, but I'm assuming the switch to a new religion provides you with different religious shrine/building options).

[Deleted]

From what I was reading, switching to a different religion changes your religious building tree to your new religions, and as all the religions have various bonuses, I figured it'd be a good idea to work out an easy way to do it, though in that Vandals game, it was more me wanting to resurrect a celtic Empire than anything else. I reckon your idea would probably work, the only other idea I had was taking say a Celtic province, and razing everthing around it, so the refugee's and immigrants would come to the only province not on fire.

The getting caught in a cities zone of control is getting annoying, especially since half the factions survive by raiding.

[Deleted]

Could anyone tell me how well units keep their formations in this game? in rome 2 I had to install mods to make the men stop forming mosh pits.

[SirRobin]

Could anyone tell me how well units keep their formations in this game? in rome 2 I had to install mods to make the men stop forming mosh pits.

Its better, still no where close to what it should be but noticeably better for me. The AI is a little better too. Though I've only been playing for two hours and had the AI fail twice and just pile up on the map edge. Only had two sieges but they were so mismatched I'm not sure how well the AI could do. Can't recommend Radious's mod enough though. A lot of vanilla just doesn't feel right. With Radious it feels like the battles last longer.

I've been playing on Hard and the only battles I lose are when they wear me down with multiple assaults in the same turn.

- - - Updated - - -

More hours in and still just those two battles were the AI completely derped out. It was a map with two river crossings so maybe the AI just can't handle those in Attila.

[Berethos08]

Could anyone tell me how well units keep their formations in this game? in rome 2 I had to install mods to make the men stop forming mosh pits.

Here's a shot from one of my recent battles (it's the only one that really has an example of what you're talking about).


What I've noticed is that same side units sometimes do move into the same area but even then they generally stay with their group instead of merging completely together. They won't necessarily hold the nice looking rectangular battle formations they start out in unless in something like a shield wall stance (where I've noticed units using that tend to stay in that formation really well) but they don't become totally merged blobs either. On my side I had intentionally moved up the sword units since they were coming at me with 3 units, so the merging there was intentional.

There is a clear "line" between the two groups of enemies though, so while there is usually some push and give (as one would probably expect in a chaotic melee battle) between units in combat I've not noticed many occurrences of mosh pit fighting. Formations that don't always hold the rectangle shape (excluding the rigid ones like Pike walls or spear walls), but obvious separation between two enemy combatants.

[Rhinopotamus]

Could anyone tell me how well units keep their formations in this game? in rome 2 I had to install mods to make the men stop forming mosh pits.

They hold really well unless your stacking up units on top of each other or they are more barbarian unit like Berserkers or Huscarls. Who really just run in and break up units quick. Watching them break shield walled Germanic Warlords is the best... Or Watching Fermunund himself get cut down by angry Huscarls