Attila: WRE Campaign

I’ve now completed my first Attila campaign playing as the Western Roman Empire. Even playing on the Normal difficulty setting, the campaign proved to be one of the most tense, challenging and enjoyably gruelling Total War campaigns I’ve ever played.

As I mentioned in my First Impressions post, Attila has a very different feel and focus to previous entries in the series, one which is perfectly exemplified by playing as the WRE. Attila is a game of survival, and surviving as the WRE is a struggle from the very first turn, one which never really gets any easier.

 

Typically with a TW title, you slowly expand until you grow into an unstoppable economic and military power, at which point I usually begin to lose interest in my campaign – particularly in Rome 2, which had rather lengthy/tedious campaign victory conditions. Attempts to address this endgame issue (such as the Realm Divide of Shogun 2) have been met with mixed results. But in Attila, playing as the WRE at least, at no point will you feel like you’re totally in control. Even once I’d hit my victory conditions, I still felt as if I was barely holding my empire together.

Playing as the WRE, you begin with a large empire, but one beset on all sides by hostile factions and migrating barbarian hordes. You don’t have and can’t support enough forces to protect every border or settlement, forcing you to sacrifice regions in order to protect others. Slowly, you’ll find yourself being pushed back, and at one point in my campaign, I’d lost control of nearly everything beyond Italy and Spain.

 

But over the course of the campaign, you will begin to push back, and those moments when you reclaim lost lands and drive out the barbarian hordes are fantastic. But dealing with barbarians isn’t your only concern. You must also manage a rapidly declining public order and put down rebellions before they grow. There’s also the matter of sanitation to prevent outbreaks of disease. Oh, and then you have to keep an eye on the political/family situation to prevent a civil war.

But that’s not all! In addition to this, the climate continues to change over the course of your campaign, region fertility in a slow decline, forcing factions seeking fertile land to migrate into your territory. These factions, even if peaceful, can prove a serious burden on your empire, raiding your farmland and causing famines in key regions. One way or another, you’ll have to deal with them, either by wiping them out or gifting them regions to settle.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the Huns then arrive to raid and raze settlements to the ground. Eventually, Attila himself makes an appearance leading several Hun doomstacks. Like I said, it never gets any easier.

 

This doesn’t sound very fun, does it? And I must admit, it can be frustrating at times, but it’s also the first time in a long time I’ve felt genuinely challenged by a TW campaign, and not just because of silly bonuses granted to the AI on harder difficulties. It’s challenging but fair and incredibly rewarding as a result. You fought for it. It was a struggle, but you prevailed. Victory feels earned.

Part of me now wants to continue this campaign, to see how far I can push back and if I can reclaim all of Britain now I’ve dealt with Attila and the Huns. Another part of me wants to restart to see if I can do better. But for now, I think I’ll look to play another faction, either a ‘Horde’ faction to try the new mechanics or one of the more traditional ‘expand and conquer’ factions.

I should also report that in my 60 or so hours of play, I’ve had no crashes and seen practically zero bugs. I still think some technical improvements are needed, but the game is remarkably stable. The AI also continues to impress in the Campaign, Battle and Siege. It might just be the best yet. I do feel the game needs some balance adjustments and I think some of the barbarian factions need to be fleshed out more, but I’ll talk more about that in my upcoming review.