TOTAL WAR ATTILA GEATS SERIES

The unknown world beyond the Alps awaited my tribe and all I knew was Rome had long since fallen and the titular Attila was dead in a distant land. This is understandable despite my personal disappointment, an open-ended strategy game like Total War needs end goals to keep players interested in extended play.ДЄfter 75 years of political paranoia and violent nationalism I was egged by boredom to change my strategy.

TOTAL WAR ATTILA GEATS SERIES

The only objective Total War: Attila actually places before its players is вЂsurviveвЂ™, the real win-conditions are hidden in a separate panel and include traditional series requirements like size of territory and armed forces.

Up until I posed on Reddit I hadnвЂ™t considered winning overall. The вЂBurn BorderвЂ™ (desolateВ territories are the off-white colour). I was вЂplaying it wrongвЂ™ and it was noted that my odds of winning the game were poor. I shared this border of desolation on Reddit and was surprised with the number of comments that were critical of my method because it went against вЂmin-maxingвЂ™ вЂ“ playing with the intent of minimizing undesired traits and maximizing desired ones to create the вЂњbestвЂќ faction. I created a massive border of scorched earth from FranceВ to the Baltics to protect my lands. My own play in particular riffed off the actual actions of ancient Germanic tribes who burned areasВ as a statement of their power and for defence. The end result of a century of turmoil is vast swathes of abandoned land. These desolate regions belong to no one unless they invest large sums in settling there. Unlike previous Total War games and other grand strategy titles it is possible to have spaces that donвЂ™t belong to any faction. My growing fear of internal declineВ and other nations led me to abandon standard forms of play entirely. Having no legitimate male heirs is a common occurrence in Attila. Unfortunately a representation ofВ the gender inequality of the time results in them having limited uses compared to male royalty. This left me with mainly female characters to conduct my political wrangling with. Disease, assassination and battle cut my family tree up in so many ways that having viable successors was a war in itself and made harder when most of the male aristocracy either held no political influence or had been castrated to preserve their loyalty. The future wasnвЂ™t looking bright.Дecades passed as I clawed out a small territoryВ and made enemies both beyond my borders and inside. My own people hated me and the rest of the world did too. This ledВ to disaster for all the reasons listed above. I started as the Geats, a Scandinavian tribe, and my first moves wereВ the same they have been for years, build, recruit and expand to get an early lead on neighbouring states. Attila doesnвЂ™t force the player down any particular avenue of play but attempts to make traditional strategy gaming tougher. Extermination is expensive and results in blackened infertile landscapes and displaced populations. Exploitation makes your peoples more likely to rebel or catch the plague. Expansion comes with severe diplomatic penalties. Exploring brings political contact with other nations who, more often than not, will have nothing nice to say or do to you. With Attila the 4 ExвЂ™s of strategy games (Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate) are torn down and relaid as four courses of action that each have benefits and costs rather than being a certain path to success. Throughout the Total War series in particular my approach was to rarely declare war and to avoid committing atrocities like mass execution and pillaging. Whilst social and political constructs donвЂ™t have moral alignments and itвЂ™s tough to really role-play a nation, when presented with opportunities to avoid war and prevent suffering I wouldВ take them. and this applies not only when IвЂ™m playing as an individual protagonist but also to nations or factions in strategy games. IвЂ™ll usually default to the вЂgoodвЂ™ side when presented with any sort of moral choice in a game. IвЂ™m not complaining, this new experience is ridiculously engaging despite all the expletives it generates. This was something I actuallyВ growled at my screen one evening whilst playing Total War: Attila.В The game had shaken-up the formula IвЂ™d spent the last decade enjoying to such a huge extent that a fewВ outbursts were inevitable.

Total war attila geats