Thrones of Britannia: First Impressions

I’ve completed one campaign in Thrones of Britannia and I’m working my way through my second, so I feel like I’m in a good place to give my initial thoughts on the title. Thrones is the first in a new spin-off Total War series called ‘Sagas’. The intention is to create games with a smaller focus, rather than scale. They’ve already released titles like this in the past such as Napoleon or – a more apt comparison – Fall of the Samurai.

Built upon an existing engine (Attila) Thrones is focused entirely on the British Isles following the Viking invasions. In that sense – and others – it’s more similar to Shogun 2 & FOTS than Attila. The smaller focus lends itself to building a more immersive campaign through it’s art and audio, but it also results in a game with little variety on the battlefield. If you disliked Shogun 2 because every faction felt ‘the same’ to play, then you probably won’t like Thrones either. And although they’ve tried to give each ‘culture’ some unique campaign mechanics, these do feel a little tacked on and don’t really change how you play.

Visually, Thrones looks great, even though it’s built upon an older engine. The Attila engine always looked very nice, but it also had poor performance. Thrones is running on a modified version of the engine and I’m happy to report the performance is smoother than Attila – but it’s not a significant improvement, so be warned.

The battles in Thrones are more like those in Shogun 2 – the smaller, less diverse roster playing heavily into a rock/paper/scissors system. But as far as the battle engine and AI goes, it’s basically just Attila, perhaps a little more refined. Collisions, impacts, animations and AI behaviour are pretty much identical.

It’s the campaign of Thrones that’s seen the biggest overhaul. If there’s one thing I like about Total War it’s that every title feels different to play. They’re not afraid to chop and change features, to experiment with new systems – for good and for worse. The campaign of Thrones has a very different dynamic to Attila and previous Total Wars.

The family and political system is a far more integrated and important piece of the puzzle. The way unit recruitment, region management, technology and public order work have all been changed. They may not seem like significant alterations, but the campaign of Thrones is very much about how all of these smaller changes combine to create a unique dynamic.

I don’t think it will be to everyone’s taste – I can already see people being very frustrated by the new ‘minor’ settlement system. In Thrones, they are only villages with no garrisons or walls. But they’re vital to your campaign – they’re the regions which generate your wealth and most importantly your food – so protecting them is key.

I’ve seen people unhappy that agents and army stances like forced march or ambush are gone, but these features have somewhat been rolled into others in Thrones – agent boosts are integrated into the General follower system (which also serves as a skill tree) and increased movement range is tied to followers and technology upgrades.

The removal of ambush doesn’t really bother me, but I don’t see why it needed to be cut. I also don’t know why they removed the General equipment feature from Attila – it would have been a nice way to further customise your characters. I’m also not entirely convinced by the follower system, as you’re always going to pick the same things – command & movement range for your generals, and financial / public order boosts for your governors.

Unit recruitment now works on a ‘mustering’ system, so units replenish to full strength over time. Once again, it makes sense for the period, and it’s another small change which creates a new dynamic – you can’t suddenly raise a full stack at full strength in a single turn or two. This makes battles, particularly in the early stages of the campaign much more important – if you lose a fight, you’re pretty much f**ked because you won’t be able to raise a new army fast enough to stop the AI from gobbling up all your undefended villages.

And this, of course, applies to the AI too, which can make defeating factions feel a little too easy, as a single victory against them will pretty much destroy their forces and cripple their economy. But the Thrones campaign tends to play across two quite distinct phases – Phase 1 is where the ‘big boys’ expand and the major players emerge. By the time you’ve completed your ‘Short’ Victory, there will probably only be 5-6 major factions on the map, some of whom will be as big if not bigger than you.

Which is Phase 2 – the clash of the major factions. Phase 1 was all about smaller battles, with singular armies, but Phase 2 is when it really kicks off with these larger factions now capable of supporting multiple stacks. Diplomacy also becomes more important during this phase, as you have to pick and choose your wars very carefully.

As I said, it’s a new campaign dynamic, but it’s not without its issues. For one, it’s a little too easy to exploit the AI. They don’t always understand the importance of the smaller villages, and as a result, it’s pretty easy to cripple them by sending single unit armies to rampage through their territory.

Overall, I’m enjoying Thrones, but I do have my reservations about exactly what it is. Can it really be considered a new title rather than a big Attila expansion? I guess that’s the real question here. Because if it was just marketed and sold as an Attila expansion, I’d say it’s a very good one – although due to the campaign changes and smaller focus, perhaps not to everyone’s taste.

But judged as a ‘Saga’ title? As the first in a new spin-off series? I think it’s a little lacking. It needed to do more to separate itself from Attila and from other titles in the series. Why not release Saga games as ‘feature complete’ with no DLC? Why not release with blood by default? Thrones, I think, needed to do more to stand apart and provide a unique experience.

So do we judge it for what it is, or for what it’s not? All I can say now is that I’m enjoying playing Thrones and to stay tuned for my final review.