At first blush, Attila was a little disappointing because its superficially so similar to Rome 2, same army animations etc. However, once you play more than a few turns, this disappears and it is truly a totally different and much, much better game.

There are some questionable design decisions, for example virtually every faction gets similar units (but there is still a wide diversity) eg saxons get pikemen, lancers, and cavalry that are good at attacking other cavalry despite having none of these historically. However there's so much unit choice and such a wide diversity of units (especially when you start recruiting client state/horde units) that they're all fun to play as + I find the combat far more complex. Different factions have different stats, for example Barbarians have high attack but generally lower defence and armour, while with Roman units its the other way around. Roman units get chewed up by barbarians, so you need to play quite tactically with them now and make full use of terrain and your Levis Armaturae and cavalry. Especially appreciated is the (finally!) addition of a 'missile block chance' for all units. This is so good it would be impossible to go back to a time without it, and I have NO idea why it wasn't in Rome 2 (what were they thinking???).

But now to the gameplay. People have complained that all the factions are 'the same' but in truth I really don't see this. Excluding DLC, there are four main playstyles, 'Roman', 'Germanic Barbarian' (eg Suebi, Visigoths), 'Eastern' (Sassanid, Garamantians), and 'Nomadic' (Huns, white huns) etc but each plays very differently, and further playstyle differences are added even between factions depending on their religion (which actually makes a real difference in terms of buildings and effects now), whether they're a horde or not, and differing units. I've completed games on hard as ERE, WRE, Saxons, Sassanids, Garamantians, and White Huns. Horde tribes are a real challenge, since your city travels with you, and I haven't mastered this yet. I found legendary difficulty too awkward because of the pause-delay that gets added to all of your actions from the auto-save, so I play only on hard or very hard.

I'm currently playing the absolute best campaign of my 10 years playing total war (i've played all TWs except the first shogun) as Western Roman Empire on Very Hard. An early decision to hold one province too many (Belgica) rather than falling back to Narbonensis as I usually do, as well as a subsequent (still early) decision to switch to Graeco Roman paganism stretched my empire to the absolute breaking point. I spent until 417AD 'treading water' fighting battle after battle, marching my legions all over hells half acre to put down rebellions, fight off rampaging hordes, et cetera. Along the way I lost my alliance with the ERE and had no other trade allies or client states, so it was tough. It also played out very diffierently to an identical campaign on hard. I didn't get my usual economic buildings built early because I had to spend on troops, so I was behind from the get-go.

After I wearied my foes enough I was able to sign a stack of peace agreements but I was busy for many more years putting down rebellions and spending spare cash (that now wasn't being spent on soldiers) building buildings. Now in 422 AD, I've stabilised my religion, have taxes stably on high (its a net benefit to public order once all the immigrants are gone) and I control all of italia, north africa, hispania, most of france and most of britain with the Varinians as my client state in Scotland. The thing is, even with 12 legions my empire is still stretched to the max as I have hordes through the interior, the franks have 4 provinces and a few stacks near colonia agrippina, i have five or six hun hordes, rugians and another horde faction hanging all around illyria and in my interior, and I have the garamantians (who have 8 regions) on my border in Africa. I have two legions in Britain keeping that pacified, two in gaul, one in hispania, two in Africa, three in north italy/illyria, and my expeditionary legion is sailing towards Aksum under Flavius Stilicho (he just died, now its his son) to keep the ERE happy.

I can't move any of those legions for fear of attack, and now the Gaetulians in Cydamus have launched an attack with three full stacks on my two under-manned (saving $$ on garrison expenses) African legions - there's some tough fights coming up. I'm surprised the garamantians haven't pitched in yet, since they're at war with ERE but mercifully neutral (yellow face) happiness with me. On the same turn, my former clients, the Saxons, seceded and declared war. Unfortunately they helped me wipe the Visigoths out of Greece and Constantinople, and they captured much of the ERE's former territories, so they're quite a threat. Ordinarily I'd get Macedonia (Roman, graeco-roman pagan, religiously tolerant, admires empires, reliable, defensive) to help me sort them out since they're pliable and also control four regions in illyria, but since they're at war with the ERE (which holds virtually all of the middle east except Egypt, having for once wiped out the Sassanids) I can't do that either and I'm likely to be at war with macedon soon also.

Words don't do it justice but its an incredibly engaging campaign. One word of advice if its achievable on harder difficulties (for all campaigns really, not just WRE) is to crank your taxes up to high. Initially it will hurt public order so you should try not to be at war, but you can save yourself up to -18 (or is it 20?) (-9 as WRE) in immigration penalties. Normal taxes give -4 to public order, high taxes give -10. So you spend 6 public order to gain 9 public order as well as a huge increase in income. It's a great idea but I think its a bit too beneficial to the player once you can pull it off.

Whew, that degenerated mostly into my WRE experience but honestly, I don't know if this is the 'best' total war ever as I've had a lot of fun with all of them, but it is really a phenomenal game, is much better than Rome 2, and i feel sets a new high water mark for the series. I downloaded the last roman campaign but only played 3 hours so far (seems fun, loving the later time period and new units) and i have the empires of sand DLC but i haven't finished a campaign with it yet. I tried a couple of starts and the new units definitely make Himyar and Aksum more threatening and the Tanukhids seem like a lot of fun, but I always got stomped early as the Tanukhs. (instead play as ERE and recruit their awesome cavalryt!) . Do recommend.

**EDIT** I have subsequently edited this review after discovering some problems. There are several bugs in the game that are unresolved and are unlikely to be resolved by CA. They're a little devious but can have a very profound effect on gameplay. The first is that a number of traits and retinues appear to have no effect - especially those that give +exp to units. Pankration gloves etc are entirely useless. Also there is an easily reproducible bug where faction members that remarry the wife of another dead faction member will disappear, yet still be available for employment as a general. you can never give them offices etc so eventually they accumulate a huge amount of influence and revolt leading to a separatist conflict. There are other problems in charlemagne such as not being able to recruit archers after researching a certain cavalry tech....these bugs have been around for a long time and aren't going to be fixed. This knocks a lot of the gloss off my review - but I tried going back to Rome 2 today and Attila still beats it by an order of magnitude. Also, the encyclopeia isa piece of ♥♥♥♥ that doesn't load half the time and takes an age to navigate when it does. Its obscure, difficult to use and doesnt make life easier. Some stats like rate of fire should be on the main unit card not encyclopedia.

Very simple, no tutorial required, campaign nice, quick, easy. No strategic\political\economic challenges, easily won battles, extremely casual. Now take everything I wrote and replace it with the contrary. There´s your damn review.

A better version of Rome 2. A bit harder to play, even on normal difficulty. A lot of available factions through normal game + DLC and pretty decent overall quality for such a small price.

There are horde factions and nomad factions. You can pick up your people and migrate to other places with some factions. Really interesting and new type of gameplay.

The real issue with Attila is the poor optimization, the engine is crap. With a 980Ti G1 Gaming and a 4770k i7, I can barely run this at maximum 1080p 45+ fps. I play it at 4K with less options, lowest AA at around 30 fps.

I recommend getting a sale or humble bundle offer, they have a lot of them for Total War series, so you can get a lot of DLC and the main game at really just no cost at all, for the tons of content it provides. But if you are looking for a good strategy game, just buy this and wait for sales to get the DLC.

This game is one for the Hall of Fame. got it launch day, and it has made its way to the top of my most played.
I have played every nation, except the newest DLC - And I have loved every moment of it.
It even beats Shogun 2 (which was my prior personal fave)

From the climate change, fire spread & destruction, to the politics and story events.
The units play exactly how they should, and tactics are more important than army size in most cases. (which leads to very long and unique battles). You always have to be on your toes and ready to drop your current battle plan and ready for a secondary one.

After playing every single total war, including Warhammer, I have to say this by far takes the cake....
I cannot stop coming back to it, and I recommend it to anyone

Though I must add, the AoC DLC it what really makes it for me. It may be even better than the base game.

Thought this was way better then rome total war. I loved the government system in this and the whole "dark" vibe the game gives you the whole time while playing. The fall of rome is one of my favorite times in history so playing this was really cool to me.

Much Better Than Rome

Probably up in the top 2 of my all time favorite total war games.

The DLCs are nice, and I was extremely happy I got to play the celts.

The Age of Charlemagne DLC is sweet as well.

While I liked this game, a thumb down is necessary. Not for the overpriced DLC... It's ok, nobody force you to buy them (and I think that they are worth it during discount, especially Empire of Sand). But for day-one bug still not solved. I mean, seriously, CA had the time to pump out countless DLC and it is not able to solve a known, stupid bug (some things that should give bonus EXP to trained troops are not working, items like Pankration Gloves, ecc)?

Yes they are, but they don't care about their product, they dont care about their customers.

Such a shame, because overall Attila is full of good ideas and deliver an interesting experience. But I have to thumb down until CA demonstrate that it still support its game after their release.

Better than Rome 2

All of the Barbarian chieftain's heirs were easily distracted homosexuals.

The Romans were starting to become flaccid from their constant "social" orgies.

Meanwhile, Attila was done with his tribe's sh!t, due to it being a huge cuck-fest on horses; so he decided to invade Rome to let go off some seriously serious steam. Fact.

Also, the Viking (Forefathers) felt like not getting noticed for some time now and went on a bloody tsundere campaign.

The Great Migrators were getting the business and did the same thing you did with the Timurids back in Medieval 2.

In addition, the Celts couldn't launch any form of assault, because they were too busy laughing their butts off at what was happening to the rest of the world.

Unlike the Slavs however, those were served as the Huns' first tasty European sandwich; so they dedicated themselves to "mass production".

And finally, the middle East was on a multinational mission to bed as many female servants as possible, with each disregarding their marital someone.

I like this game. Oh and uhh... negative traits.