Well first state unit sizes and difficulty settings
Heres the ones I've played and all on huge settings.
A bit of the rules I play by. No bribing except rare cases such as a nice big fat rebel mercanary army. No mass cavalry except if I ever play an eastern faction.
Roman Brutii
Gauls .... And I thought they'd be hard on huge settings.
Roman scipii
Greek cities
Roman Julii
Selucids .... annoying surroundings, not many big towns/cities for your choosing but considering a 95 percent chance you'll get to the mercanaries first allows you to get the upper edge on your enemies. After the patch hopefully the A.I. will take a look at mercanaries before making it's move.
Carthage ..... Let me just say I went King Phyrics academy for warfare
Complete the prologue. In Attilaprologue serves as a tutorial, which consists of information about game basics, controls, managing the country or fighting. There are many valuable information in it, completing it will be good even for veteran players of Total War series. While playing the prologue keep attention to hints that show under your advisor image. There you will find many advices and explanations about each aspect of the game.
Use the encyclopedia. In-game encyclopedia requires internet connection to work, but consists of many useful information, such as buildings available for each culture, abilities of commanders and units statistics. There you will find instruction with explanation of game mechanics and control description as well.
Utilize hints. After moving your cursor on a name, icon or number wait a moment for a window with hint to appear. If you see a plus next to the text, wait another while and further information will show. Not always are they comprehensive, but in most cases they're enough to understand what specific name or icon means.
Plan carefully. Attila is a complex game, full of nuances and random situations. Sometimes a campaign planned for next ten turns can end after two of them because of lost battle, disease or political crisis. For that reason, avoid playing hastily and try to always have a backup plan in case of trouble.
Plan only slightly ahead. There are dozens of factions fighting each other in the game. New can be born during the game, as conquered provinces free themselves, rebellions outbreak or civil wars. Your influence on their decisions and actions is limited. Because of that, it might happen that a province that you wanted to conquer after the end of current war will be destroyed in the meantime by barbarians traveling through Europe. It is another reason not to plan too much ahead. It might happen that your plans become out of date one turn after you created them. It is better to give yourself one major objective - like conquest of whole Gaul - and then realize it with small steps, while always being prepared for change of situation. Be ready both for conquest and colonization of a province and you will be able to get control of it no matter of situation.
Don't search for a winning strategy. There is no strategy in Attila that works in every situation. Sometimes it is better to conquer your neighbor, other time you should trade with him or harass him with agents. It is different to play with stationary barbarian kingdoms, and different with Huns Horde that is always on move. In general, if what you do gives positive effects, then it is a good strategy and in most cases you shouldn't change it. Only modify and improve it, if in some cases it doesn't work. When playing, look for solutions to specific problem, not method for easy victory. With the level of complication found in the game, such strategy doesn't exist.
Slowly learn the game.Attila consist of many complex mechanics. Just households and bonuses they offer are few dozens, and it is only a small fragment of characters mechanic, that has impact on battles, province management and political situation. Because of that, don't try to learn whole game at once, instead do it gradually. It is best to sacrifice one or two whole games for calm learning and experimenting. Otherwise, you will easily get lost in the amount of options, dependences, complex menus and modifiers. Even after many hours of playing you might learn something new, so really, there is no reason to rush.
Listen to your advisor. How often he appears can be changed in the options, but the presence of advisor can be very helpful. He will be the first to inform you about possible bankruptcy, show you a possibility to use a terrain in battle or suggest you to lower the taxes to fix public order. His advices can be hard to utilize and not always correspond to your plans, but it is always a good idea to keep attention to them.
Keep attention to the color of icons. Green usually means positive stuff, red negative and yellow both positive and negative. It works similar with green arrows faced up and red arrows down near armies, division icons or public order. It is not always clear what they show, but the color is an obvious signal that something good or bad is happening. No matter of color, skull means bad news.
To get more comprehensive information read description of attributes or bonuses represented by icons. Especially since developers have made mistake in some cases of colors, as with the 'A Byword of Cruelty' attribute. Its icon is yellow, but all three modifiers offered by it are negative.
Don't focus on bonuses. At the beginning of the game check general details, best on the ruler or other member of ruling house. You will see, that he have lots of bonuses coming from his basic statistics, traits, skills, household, wife or province in which he currently resides. The amount of bonuses will increase with your progress in the game and will be influencing even those aspects of gameplay that you never know of. For that reason, it is futile to search for optimal skills and items set. All bonuses will be useful at some point and the number of sources where you can gain them is to wide to control them. It is wise to change the companion of the general to one that instead of more trading profits or ship speed bonus gives boost to stats of cavalry that he commands. But you shouldn't think too long whether a bonus for defense, attack or speed will be better - they will all come in handy.
Situation when you create character for specific task is exception, like a general to lead army of horse archers. In such case you should pick special bonuses so that your units will be more effective in combat. But in large, diversified armies it won't matter. If you lead all sort of units, there won't be many bonuses useless for you.
Play in window If there are 40 or more factions in the game, calculating turns can take very long. It especially affects large nations, worse computers and situations in which you see enemy armies on campaign map. Army hidden under fog of war is still being moved, but it happens far faster that in case of revealed army which every move you can see. When playing in window, you can use ALT+TAB shortcut and for a while do something else instead of watching for few minutes as faction icons change. However, you will need to check from time to time if you received diplomatic massage or have been attacked, it is the only serious inconvenience. Anyway, in both those cases the game will patiently wait for your reaction so you don't need to rush yourself.
Explore differences in controls on various maps. Moving the diplomatic map can be done with the left mouse button. Meanwhile, moving the campaign map is done with the middle button. It's a small, but troublesome difference. At first it might give you trouble, but you will quickly get used to it.
Check which game elements open the encyclopedia. You can get to game encyclopedia in two ways - by the icon on upper left corner of the screen, or with the right mouse button. The button will work if after moving cursor to a question mark will show next to him, but not always. For example, you can press the right mouse button after moving your cursor on the public order and nothing will happen. Do the same with the formation and you will immediately see its section in the encyclopedia. Because of that, experiment a lot, check earlier which categories can be found in encyclopedia. They should be a suggestion for you which icons and names will open it, and which won't.
Increase units movement speed on campaign screen. Press space during your turn. Thanks to that, all armies on Europe map will move faster. This option works during enemy turn as well, but sometimes need a few presses before it recognize the instruction.
Hold space during battle. It will show next to unit icons information about their state, such as morale level and tiredness. However, in case of large amounts of units it can be hard to read and force you to zoom o rotate the camera.
Ebdanians Attila Total War Faction Guide
Posted byXwedodah Lover3 years ago
Archived
I'm a long time TW veteran - although I couldn't really get into Rome II, I figured I'd give Attila a shot especially with the steam sale.
Anyways, my question is what factions would you recommend for me to learn the features in Attila? Or, perhaps, which factions are relatively easy so I can ease my way into the game? As said I'm a veteran but I want to get a hang of the new stuff in Attila. I've heard that the Sassanids are extremely easy, but as much as I love my Xwedodah which is surely the greatest thing ever, I'm considering starting with someone smaller. I generally don't like factions that require a fast paced campaign, and you can suggest DLC factions too (atm the Celts and Empires of sand interest me) but I'd prefer mainly the base vanilla and free-lc factions first.
Thanks advance for your input!
36 comments
Learn how to choose the 10 factions at the beginning of the Total War: Attila game
Total War: Attila - Factions Guide - In Total War: Attila we will face for the first time a choice: to become the great Roman Empire, or try to destroy it? After many releases in which we tried to get the better of the 'barbarians'. In Total War: Attila there is indeed a chance to play with as many as 10 different factions, each with its own characteristics and, above all, with its objectives. Imagine that, in the face of such great abundance, a new player, but why not, an expert used to playing with the other chapters of Total War, you can find crowded out and do not know which side to start with. Our guide will help you to understand the uniqueness of each faction and to choose the one that best suits your style of play.
The Franks: Far from the dangers of invasions, the main objective of the Franks is detached from the Roman Empire. We must take advantage of the difficult time of the Romans and choose from the invasion to the south or the north towards the Britannia. Manage the Franks will not be easy, for this faction is recommended for those who already have a lot of experience of war and has already played other chapters of the franchise because the game mechanics are very similar.
The Saxons: The Saxons living at a safe distance from the two empires and have the freedom to move around as they wish. Their greatest enemy is the cold that threatens to decimate the troops and the population, but in terms of diplomatic there will be few problems: everyone will be at war with you but no one will be a real danger. This faction is ideal for those who enjoy freedom of movement and to have a more traditional style of the game. Perfect for those who come from Total War: Rome II and gradually want to test the innovations of this output.
Alans: The Great Danes are one of the populations most known for their cruelty in battle. Prefer to conquer and destroy rather than build. Alans, however, were forced to succumb to the Huns and were faced with the choice to prostrate in front of the Roman Empire and the Vandals, Huns, or join the hunt for loot. The campaign begins on the Black Sea, in the heart of the horde of Huns: what choice you will take? Alans are recommended to those who want groped mechanics hordes right now, love the fighting (and in this case helps the presence of some of the strongest units in the game), but aware that the challenge will be the most difficult of all.
The Ostrogoths: Located between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, have the misfortune to be right now in front of the Huns and Alans, but must watch their backs also by the Roman Empire of the East. A strong leader, however, allows little corruption and good bonuses military. Playing with the Ostrogoths means having to do with a level of difficulty medium, in which you spend more time fighting than to manage the empire, but in which also weighs a certain component diplomatic relations with the Romans.
The Vandals: Abandoned in times of need from their friends Romans, the Vandals must find happiness by moving to South. Coexist peacefully with the Romans, but must contend with barbarian troops which have torn the earth, first of all the Pannonians. With the arrival of the Huns, the Vandals are among the first people forced to emigrate, and thus also to make his way by force between the lands already occupied. Even this faction is only recommended for users who have some experience of the game and want to test almost immediately the novelty of migration.
The Visigoths: The Visigoths are among the worst enemies of Rome. They have vowed to take revenge against the Empire for the many damages suffered from decades of occupation. Playing with the Visigoths will be difficult because you find yourself between two fires: the Romans in the West and the Huns in the East. The good thing however is that almost all the barbarian factions are friends. The main objective of the Visigoths is to combat the Eastern Roman Empire, but with the advance of the Huns priorities may change. The faction of the Visigoths is recommended for those players who are interested in exploring the new mechanics of the hordes and who are looking for a moderately high level of challenge.
The Huns: The most awaited faction, that of the great Attila. Their arrival is preceded by a great fear on the part of all the factions, well aware of the power of the army Hun. They have the strongest army of the game, but also the handicap of not being able to count on buildings and villages to replenish its finances. The only thing you can do with it .. the Huns attack. The faction of the Huns is therefore recommended to those who want to destroy the world (virtual of course), he wants to fight seamless and wants to be the force that governs the game. Depending on what you decide to do we will develop, or will self-destruct, the largest empires in history.
Western Roman Empire: The Roman Empire is crumbling. It has already been divided between East and West and some factions, as the Vandals and the Franks, seeking independence. The division will not bring war but economic difficulties. Difficulties to be faced with the knowledge that the barbarians can attack at any moment. Also, when the Huns will become powerful enough (very far with the game to be honest) we will face them too. The challenge is very experienced players: you will start it with strong economic problems and have to juggle the lack of gold and the barbarian hordes that push from the North. Those who choose this faction already knows he'll be almost always at war and will have to manage a large empire. This is the most difficult challenge to win, only for those who have already tried 2-3 times minimum the game with other factions.
Eastern Roman Empire: The Eastern Roman Empire was born from the split of the great Roman Empire that no longer recognizes itself in the authority of Rome. While leading to a split, however, the two sides do not make war but agree to cooperate against outside invaders. The new capital was Constantinople, and all taxes and income end up there and no longer in Rome. Our job is primarily to keep the Western Roman Empire safe from migration of Eastern barbarians. We will negotiate with menacing barbarians, but also have to deal with court intrigues and the ever-present threat Sassanid who declared war on Rome. Unlike the 'cousins' of the West, the Eastern Empire is rich and can have important resources, thanks to the commercial benefits with Rome. Benefits paid dearly because hordes worst will come just from the East. With this framework, it becomes clear that the Eastern Roman Empire is more suitable for players who already have some experience with not only the franchise, but they have already played more games in Total War: Attila. The challenge in fact be difficult and must be able to handle large empires.
The Sassanid: The Sasanian empire is one of the last great empires of antiquity. There were many factions that have guided, which meant that the empire was expanding significantly, and that flourish in business. But now comes the threat of the Huns and this peace, bruised by the Empire of the West, is short-lived. The Sassanids are among the troops most recommended for a user to the first test because they are rich and have since the beginning of many troops. The people are educated and therefore we will also have a bonus in research and state of health. The Sassanids are also recommended for those who like to manage large empires and prefers to explore the game without the worry of war and disease.