Yeah, not only is it annoying, but it just completely breaks the immersion. Why would a faction from the other side of the world, which is already losing a war of it´s own, suddenly declare war on me and send all of it´s armies my way? It also completely breaks diplomacy. It is bordeline impossible to do any diplomacy at all when you KNOW that the other factions are instructed by the algorithm to make as many problems for you as possible.
Yeah I stopped playing ATTILA because of it as well, I hate it with passion, WARHAMMER 3 has kind of reduced it it's not as bad, but still exists to certain level. Especially if you play Order faction like Kislev when you're surrounded.
They have trouble designing a good AI, which to be fair I bet it’s really complicated, they say in AI it’s more of a challenge to make it so the AI can be beaten but with Total War it seems they have the opposite problem, they can’t even make a early, medium and hard AI like other strategy games it just gives them cheats…
Anti player bias is not only ridiculous at times, but often breaks immersion. I don't remember the exact scenario, but in Warhammer 3 some dwarves marched across a good amount of greenskin territory to attack me. I even fought a battle where the dwarves were reinforcing the greenskins, I felt like I was going insane
The worst part is that the AI does not achieve any goals besides fucking over the player. So if you push through the painfull earlygame then there is no challange because the AI does not have an empire.
@@hugo3627 funnily enough Medieval 2 AI feels like it has goals. It’s not exactly very good at achieving those goals, but they have some. This is shown by the AI reacting negatively if you take a settlement their faction prioritizes
Mediaeval 2. I'm friends with the Pope. Playing Spain. Minding my own business. Pope lands two armies on my coast to invade Valencia. So? I peace treaty them. Pope lives at Valencia the rest of the game. Or another game, minding my own business. Milan shows up next door to my latest acquisition. Doesn't declare war. Just besieges my settlement. So I kick their ass. Instantly pope demands no combat when they started the war by invading my lands. Like. What. Really? Sure fine whatever. Go fight the French while Milan wanders their army around my borders locking down one of my infantry invasion armies beside that city. Clearly waiting for a chance to attack. I would attack them off my land but no. They refuse They also refuse to peace out. Although I think the AI in Medieval 2 has a 'target' system. So allied to Portugal. Fighting in france. Capture a french settlement next to the Scottish. Next turn Scotland is besieging that settlement. My ally Portugal is at war with Scotland for ages at this point, but I capture the nearby settlement. Then Portugal breaks 100 years of alliance despite military access and perfect relations. And attacks that previously Scottish settlement 5 turns later? Reallllly? Well I wipe out the Portuguese pretty quickly, but still. Really?
Honestly the thing is,Dwarves marching half way across the map to 'punish' you isnt whats immersion breaking about your story, its the fact they were able to march through greenskin territory unimpeded I feel like certain factions should get even angrier with a SPECIFIC race tresspassing through their territory, Like Nurgle marching through tzeentch
Random tribes halfway across the world will send full armies of thousands of men to attack the player while leaving themselves completely undefended. At least they would be undefended if the AI didn't give them cheats so that a one-province tribe can field 3-4 armies. The anti-player bias is so bad it's immersion-breaking. You shouldn't be dealing with naval invasions from landlocked one-province factions.
Indeed, in most total wars. It feels like the AI is not reaching its goal. They are obsessed of eliminating the player. You could have a mod that you play Iceland and still see far away factions coming to attack you. Sometimes I play a faction, my enemies are fighting each other, then 2 turns after they make peace, then the next turn they are allied!
this game is designed around WRE and ERE, so in order for this to feel 'catastrophic' for the Romans, these 5,000 dinky factions need to be able to actually go and invade. This is CA's way of allowing all these dinky factions to actually have a presence and impact on the map. So like it or not, if they made it your way you would never actually see any celtic or nordic factions (unless they razed their settlement to migrate). I'm not saying one way is better, but I personally prefer having these guys cross the map to fight me when playing as Rome because it makes it more fun. Just realize that Attila is usually played at a difficulty level lower than most other TW titles for the same challenge.
@@samwisegamgee8318 Still lazy game design for difficulty, makes sense for the Romans but having it the same for every playable faction sucks. Can't wait til we start getting good AI in games so they don't have to compensate with blatant cheats or games designed around anti player bias.
@@VynalDerp it's only a short while since AI has started to make huge improvements. once costs come down n there are more people who are skilled in coding good AI it could completely change gaming. It will happen eventually unless we ban complex AI out of fear.
There is another reason the anti-player bias is bad design. If you are aware it exists, and can formulate strategy to make use of it, it can severely weaken AI factions. I recall a Ethiopian campaign I played where the Sassanids, despite being at war with Huns, White Huns, and the ERE, were trying to send armies all the way through the Arabian Peninsula to attack me in Yemen. I just put an army in ambush and waited for their armies to get through the attrition, then yo ambush them. They were so dedicated to fighting me that they were getting dismantled by the Huns. In reality, you can even make a decoy settlement and leave it apparently undefended, the AI will kill itself in desperation to get to it. It breaks the immersion, and if you’re new to the game, it is crushingly unfair.
Its really not that hard. Just have to understand the climate change mechanics. I wish more TW titles were like Atilla. After you master Atilla everything else feels easy to the point its boring. Aggressions also a big thing in Atilla. When attacked finish your attacker. Leaving them alive will just lead to endless back and forth disputes. Atillas the only realistic TW title when it comes to how other nations behave. Atillas like a true strategy game wheras other titles are mostly power fantasies with strategy mixed in.
@@TinylittledansonmanI wouldn’t say realistic at all. There are so many nuances and most wars aren’t a fight to the death especially back then. Also many of romes enemies became friends and enemies again so in that sense I guess the game is realistic
Hey Legend! This was my campaign, I went on small panic here since I didn't know how to deal with so many armies coming at me at once from different directions. The small army was just for clearing up rebel armies, since the public order was not great in that province, so that's why I just spammed archers (those were cheap units) in that army. The first fleet you disbanded was used to take out those settlements in the north, left it there just to keep public order in check. There are lot of things that I've forgotten about this game, example how effective those missile ships are against transports. Thanks again for clearing this up, after this I was able to push to Britain, took some time but I was able to take out Picts and Caledonians , Brits are still at large but much less of a threat now. Keep these great videos coming!
My favorite way of dealing with transport fleets in Attila are the ram ships when you unlock them. It's just a ship with a big ram on the bow that one-shots any transport ship's hull with the ramming attack and sends it straight to the bottom 😂
here some tipps, dont read, if not interested in a bit attila-cheese: hide your horse in a settlement battle, lt the enemy attack your choke point with melee troops, hunt down their range units with your cav and put it directly behind their choke point troops, dont engage, cav melts to fast in retreats from blob of enemys the actual game is about rebuilding a big empire with decreasing fertility, so use these different food-chains effective and dont fear in big invasions of fertile areas to generate food there for your core region, i invade in every germanic tribe faction france for this reason. I tend to use UK and irland as a low fertility, but stable area to generate taxes. You have to kill off these germanic tribes around you. Kill many, dont have hords later to run them down inside your empire. because the huns are archery horseriders, it is near impossible to beat them with an infantry-based unit. BUT your pikes are easy targets for archery, so use your spearmen as a buffer, position your pikes INSIDE the spear-front, so that the pikes hang out and the people remain inside the formation. The spearmen will take the hits and the pikes will survive longer and kill any cav-unit from the front. The enemy is always going for the sides of the pike and spear units in defence position or even circle 180° around you to get your archers, so have your cav and sword-inf. ready to block these bastards and position your archers in expectation, that they will go to the side and regroup them to remain them in your archery range. Others use the box and onager-method in camp-stance. Great method to some extend. But not my game. But Legend is a better battle-fighter than me anyway. Better learn from him :D
I love Attila, but the anti-player bias is ridiculous. I remember playing as Slavs and sailing to Britain to settle down. Some Germanic tribe declared war on me on the way, all the way in Prussia. I ignored it and settled down, and about 6 or 7 turns later, that same Germanic tribe sailed all the way to Britain across enemy territory to try and attack my settlements lol.
its hillarious because anti-player bias has only gotten worse after attila. Altough it started in rome 2, does anyone remember early days when agents were op as fuck, and every opm would declare war and sent 3 full stacks and 6 agents and just make your life a living hell? (good luck dealing with 10-15 agents constantly sabotaging your army). In troy for example its insane, AI will randomly declare war, despite good relations, despite non aggression pacts, despite being *under siege on their last settlement*, despite sharing a culture, and then send their last army across the agean to take attrition to attack your settlements.
@@DarkAnd1000 Anti-player bias didn't start in Rome 2, it was there since Medieval 2 at least. Portugal naval invading player led England or Sicily attacking player led Egypt are good examples, it never happens where these factions are led by AI.
@@DarkAnd1000 Seconding the other guy, this has been a thing since at least medieval 2 but I do agree it gets worse after rome 2 (although shogun 2 is a close second on that with ridiculous shit like vassals constantly breaking their allegiances and people going under the hood and seeing that alliances give a ticking negative score to relations after being signed), I know AI is hard but holy damn dude, paradox has managed to do it, so have other strategy games like civ and age of wonders but somehow total war keeps getting a pass.
Yep it goes back to early days of Total War. Also In Shogun 2 the misgivings and negatives of the other daimyo somehow reduce your own diplomatic status with them. Good CPU players and actual diplomacy and good not sucidial general behavior have never been fixed and they just made the Generals super Tanky in Total Warhammer series.
Hi Legend, I know this sounds super cliche but I'm going through a stressfull time right now and your videos help me switch off and think of something else. Just wanted to give some appreciation. Time to watch !
The worst thing about this bias is that it ends up making the AI playing worse overall and making the experience worse. If the AI focused on making the best decision for it's own succes it would have a better chance to keep up with the player. Then maybe campaigns wouldn't be pretty much over by turn 40.
Yes! This is what I've been saying for years. The AI tends to make the early game a lot harder than it might otherwise be but by the time you're sorted you will be far outstripping what the AI has achieved. There's a reason I love starting campaigns but finishing them is a pain.
@@righteousham I don't know if you played Rome Total War, but in that game if you played as a Roman faction there would be at least two factions that would leave you alone and focus on their own best interest until late game. That's why that game had a good late game. By the time you went to war with them, the other two Roman factions were powerful enough to be an actual challenge.
@@JakeBaldwin1 Yea... It really feels like Total war has been going backwards for a while now. I really can't think of any particular aspect of the game that the latest editions do better that Rome or Medieval 2.
So glad to see you take on some Attila. Cheers, LOTW. Just love hearing your description and style. Best content maker around, IMO. Big thanks and hope to see more
My favourite TW Attila AI moment is when it’s the mid game and I’m at war with a big faction and then the neighbouring big faction declares war on me and sends 6 full stacks to shred my empire’s internal organs
In my recent campaign I had Chaos dwarves declare war on me. I thought it was okay since my ally Karak Kadrin who is also at war with them was between me and chaos dwarves. Turns out the chaos dwarves completely ignored the Karak Kadrin's settlements and just force marched right through their territory to sack my undefended settlements.
I was hoping years ago when they announced "Saga" that they would have make a new DLC for all the old titles, like Attila, and in that way they would have fixed old abandoned games. Attila has bugs, one of them even stop a faction to recruit the only heavy assault cavalry they have.
A few things the total war AI needs generally ( for modders to figure out I guess since CA can't seem to): 1) A Diplomacy tracker bonus of player reputation for victory/crushing enemies utterly over the course of a campaign. It gets nuts later in a campaign when you've smashed a few rival factions to pieces and you're a mid-sized to large empire and some rinky dink, one or two settlement faction decides to declare war on you like they've got a chance. They shouldn't fight you unless they have to, or at least need to form coalitions against you (once again, Realm Divide, though too blunt, was a fundamentally good idea for this reason). 2) A basic concept of distance on the campaign map. The AI does not seem to take distance into account when it comes to wars and choosing them. You constantly end up with wars coming at you from factions absurdly far away on the campaign map in later games because of political treaties or some vague "power" comparison, but especially if a faction is really far away and they give you a DOW due to some political treaty or something, they need to effectively just treat it like the political maneuver it is, and never actually send an army your way. This is the stuff that really shows the anti-player bias the most, and it usually makes no real sense. 3) A middle ground political option, like a "Cold War" option or "Denouncement" option seen in some 4X games for AI factions to show their disapproval of your faction without being stupid or suicidal enough to go to direct war with you in certain circumstances where it gives them little to no advantage to commit to war fully. More generally, the ability to understand if and when a war with the player (or any faction) will give them advantage.
One of the things that annoys me is how random factions will declare war on me when I’m playing as a horde and I’m nowhere close to their territory. The thing is, the AI should try to seek war when it’s favourable for them. In this case, I’m a horde, so I have no settlements for them to take or sack and no way of vassalising me. This means declaring war on a neutral horde makes no sense, as it doesn’t offer any reward, but the AI does it just to screw you over.
I really enjoy the challenge of Atilla. Usually in total war after about turn 10 there is zero chance of you losing any land, but Atilla stays challenging well into the mid game. Still it has the problem of endgame being an easy roll over the remaining factions.
Shogun 2 is pretty hard too imo. My latest campaign I gave up at turn 120 as it was a war I couldn’t win. I owned half the map yet victory wasn’t guaranteed
Nah for me my current endgame is still hard. I'm in the yeaaar 436 as wre, and I'm currently in a death war with the jutes whom have north Germany, Scandinavia and all of Britain. They attacked me when I was focusing on conquering the ERE. It would be easier but I'm experiencing famine and rebellion problems. I currently don't know if I'll be in a state to invade the sassanids and take asoristan for the domination victory before the finale.i am fairly confident I can burn down the north and retake brittania though.
its nuts to me to see that the battle maps in the older, historic titles are so much larger than in wh3. recently had the itch for the tactical rt battles again and played bit, but flanking or cav maneuvers are borderline impossible on many of the small maps, specially in contrast to shogun2 and the likes from some of the recent vids :(
When playing the barbarian factions, getting that frost resistant perk from army level ups is a must. Gives you some crucial mobility instead of wasting turns, as the climate will worsen, winter will last through the spring as well in some places. Slavic factions get it for free as faction trait + they have poisoned arrows to make everyone exhausted. As a downside, you can't use them when your units will enter the melee, as you will poison them too. Excellent to soften up the enemy and during siege defences. I never had so many armies bolt straight for me like that, though to be fair, when I played Saxons or Franks I just turned horde and noped out of there. Early Saxon roster is crap compared to Franks, but they get rolling with development. Politics are easy, just adopt guys who get high influence. I also threw in a few mods, for example unlimited governors, as it makes sense that every province should have our representative. Does it make game slightly easier? I guess it does, but I don't care. At least I have people to fill the office tree now.
I remember when I decided to do a legendary no autoresolves no defeats challenge Two full stacks of neighboring germans in raid stance outside my capital for 12 turns, waiting for when I walk out to declare war on me (yes we were at peace) and attack me. They ended up getting declared war on, having their lands conquered and 3 armies of their enemy coming in to take them out. DIDN'T BUGDE AN INCH
This just happened to me in my campaign. A Horde faction was parked inside one of my provinces, raiding. It wasn't a net negative on my public order so I ignored it. The moment I marched the local army off to deal with a rebellion, they declared war and sacked the settlement we were in. Two turns later I cornered them, destroyed their army + faction (I want to say it was the Suebians?)
Watching this while fighting though a massive amount of bs in Napoleon. Nothing like grinding the French down to only having one combat effective army at a time,then taking Paris (Defeating their last major army) Only for a rebelion to spawn three full stacks of the best units in the french roster with max experience while the Spanish take advantage of my armies being tied down fighting that to sack some of the regions I conquered. (This is a Prussia campaign by the way.)
@@lionguardant5468 Yes, this dude pretty much did a Peninsular War where it seems like they are the Napoleon stand in, France takes the place of Spain and Spain is Britain and Portugal.
Rebellions in Napoleon Total War are definitely the most frustrating, like sure I understand in particular regions, like Spain where there is a historical justification, but you have one stack too few in any city in the world and an army more sophisticated than the largest empire of the game will appear, fully trained and stocked with cannons and cavalry, you know not militia, but fucking line infantry elites. I mean seriously wtf is the point of that, they spawn instantly, the same way that random one-city provinces can spew out a dozen units at once. It's the same sort of anti-player rebellion bullshit from EU4, if ur gonna add rebellions why not let it affect other empires.
this, this situation right here is why I stopped playing Attila after the 5th or 6th try, no matter how many times I tried the situation would become unmanageable to me real quick. Which frustrated me to no end since I've been playing since Rome Total War.
@@zcoosa1648 That moment when you play as the Huns and you are being hunted through the entire map by Alemani who somehow forget they are at wars with other factions and solely focus on you. The AI stinks in this game.
Hey Legend! It's great to see you back playing historical TW titles! I really feel your sentiment toward Attila. Most factions are incredibly cowardly. In fact, in my campaign, one of my long-time opponents has been hoarding their armies and are now sending them all at me at once. I may need your assistance to stave them off - appx 20,000 men over eight stacks!
I didn't really notice the anti-player bias until I played as any horde faction in Attila, played as the Tanukhids, I'd completed the missions and was on the settle stage but I couldn't because no matter where I was the Eastern Romans would hunt me across asia, Africa and Europe but totally ignore their own wars.
I recently started a Mercia playthrough on the Charlemagne DLC, and within 5 turns, every known faction, including my vassal state Canterbury, had declared war on me. To make things worse, all my cities were hit by the plague and had fires. Honestly, it made me want to stop playing immediately. It completely kills immersion when Charlemagne is at war with 10 different factions, and he decides to kill you randomly. Luckily for me, Charlemagnes' doom stacks were glitched and wouldn't land on my shores, Brittany on the other hand...
Hurlers vs archers. Hurlers start off amazing but as time passes by and units obtain higher armor values they fall off dramatically. Crossbows then become cost efficiency monsters, archers in general remain cost efficient/cheap throughout the game. Dont forget whistle x fire
Ive had minor nations ask for an insane amount of money to make peace with me and then send an army halfway across the world to backstab me as they are besieged on all sides by other ai factions
I love Attila, one of my fav TW. The only thing I would have changed is the use of your pikemen. I see that you sent them running and click on them to attack the enemy. The best use for them is to have them on pike formation and have them advance walking forwards, that way they don’t break formation and face the enemy forwards instead of sideways. Overall great work.
One of the biggest gripes in most of the latest historical TW. Is CAs idea that difficulty should be padded by the idea of random countries with 0 geopolitical relations or borders declaring war on you. No only that but they'll drop everything they are doing just to fck with you. A stupid game design that should only should be used when your seen as a great power and a geopolitical threat (Shogun style).
I'm fine with bias from factions literally next to me but if they march across each individual chaos realm just to raid a single region, there's an issue.
One of the best games they made and then completely ruined with the anti player bias, it's just ridiculous and sucks the fun out of the game. I also feel like they added the missions before adding the bias because a lot of the missions regarding alliances etc are completely unachievable due to the AI wanting absolutely nothing to do with the player. Diplomacy is basically impossible but it should be part of what makes the game fun.
Legend, as a Attila-maniac myself, i’d recommend you using normal arrows they are %100 percent more effective against anything other than at the near end of the battle using whistle or fire shots to reduce morale and shattering enemy.
Man I just got flashbacks to rome 2 and putting every single army on ambush stance because AI wouldnt attack places or move against your armies if it could avoid them. Its smart design not to rush to their death, but less fun when you have to chase AI armies down and they have the advantage of being able to attack you after you force march behind them.
Attila pro-tip: Sack a roman settlement til every everyone has like +10000 relation and the huns are throwing thier daughters at you instead of doomstacks. No movement cost for sacking, so you can do this in a single turn.
I am glad to see others have trouble with Anti-player bias, because every time it starts to ramp up for me, I keep worrying I am making things up and it drives me insane.
Anti player bias exists even from the early days of RTW. I vividly remember playing as the Greek Cities and having every single one of the roman factions landing troops all along Greece. Then when I was conquering Italy, both Carthage and Spain landed armies in central/northern Italy just to attack me even though we weren't at war at the time It's like the AI of every faction constantly rushes armies to wherever the player cities are
You can see it in the code. Around turn 60, the personalities reshuffle and more will end up with anti-player bias. This can be modded away as with major medieval overhaul. The smart player will exterminate the factions who ended up with anti-player bias. notice that if you capture an AI's last settlement, you can vassalize them. The vassal can end up without the anti-player bias depending on the random roll. If so, keep the vassal. If not exterminate them a second time for good. You then accumulate a collection of solidly allied vassals that will help with trade/war. Don't wait too long as around turn 180 they will all roll another personality and many will turn against you. This is why I object to the mods that drag out the game too long. Attila is not meant for camping and empire building like Rome 2. It is more like Shogun in terms of scripting but you don't get an easy start.
I have been playing it way more often recently and sadly I have to agree. Been having fun going back and playing the old historical titles like medival 2 and even og rome
@@manrajsahi2678 fots just gets everything right. yeah there are the classic total war ai bugs, but really they never surpassed it. they`ll never make another game like it.
I still find myself, out of all the historical total wars, play Attila the most nowadays. The Campaign Map is absolutely amazingly beautiful, i love the narrative, i only wish it would gotten some more ironing out of certain things (Like the Suebi Spear Situation of their high tier spears, what even is their purpose)
I really miss how fast routers were killed in Atilla and Shogun. Units in Warhammer, even the best ones for killing routers like warhounds, are nowhere near as good. In those previous games you could have your unit simply contact enemy entities and they would die. In Warhammer, they don't die unless you give an attack order.
You ever tried any of the Darthmod slow mode mods within Total War? They give you the ability to put men into formations that will actually hold for extended periods of time, opening the game up to proper tactical maneuvering. Can actually pin a whole enemy army with a small formation to free up other units to do the actual damage; with the majority of kills being during routes.
Across all the games: This is the campaign killer. I don’t know how many times I ended all Chaos factions in TWWH just for all the Order factions to repay me with surprise attacks on my glorious empire.
I noticed when moding unit stats in medieval2 id get swamped by the AI, multiple factions would literally send ships with full stacks and besiege cities
Med 2's diplomacy is broken and the diplomacy code makes them hate you for anything you do taking cities wise. IF you exterminate for example the whole world begins to really hate you despite most of them not even being near you. To Nerd is to Human had a vid fixing the diplomacy bug in the files.
During my Uesugi campaign, Satake clan declared war on me out of nowhere. Although they also waging war with Takeda which became buffer zone they somehow bypass them without conquering their settlements and already nearing my capital with 3 full armies. I was too focused sending my armies to the north, I lost sight of my capital region.
This is so true. They hate you even though they never even interacted with you. xD Btw, I had a very annoying experience with Medieval 2. Every time I left a city undefended, there was suddenly an enemy army out of nowhere attacking it. I don't know how they knew I left the city, because they didn't have line of sight, or even have spies there. The AI is sometimes so weird in that game. And every time I played, a faction's armies come to my city and wait for reinforcements, then attack, and no matter how many army stacks I have around, only a few can join the battle, because only they can get close enough. It kinda frustrated me back then and that's why I didn't play Medieval 2 as much as I'd like. I reinstalled it recently and it happened again.
Attila is a ton of fun. There is alot of anti player bias true but it is a challenge. Diplomacy is actually pretty useful in this game and allies are really useful for chasing down enemy stacks in your territory. You can also cheese good relations by literally asking for money for nothing as a gift and some factions will give you free money. You can even get the most bs faction in the game the huns on your side through diplomacy.
The worst was once when playing as the huns, while raiding north western france, the sasanide empire that declared war some dozens of turns ago started reaching me, from the other side of the map. I thought they had conquered the map or something, but after destroying army after army while moving towards them mid way in greece, I noticed they had no presence, yet they sent all of their armies toward mines with pinpoint accuracy......... they come out of the fog of war like an arrow loose upon a target.... I left the game soon after after reaching them and noticed that whatever they recruit they send to me. Fucking bullshit.
Just use Crusader Wars, a mod for Crusader Kings III that only uses Attila Total War to fight the tactical battles. The strategic part is done in CK III.
I had a less frustrating time playing WH2 on VH with the "no Great Power penalty" mod. Such a breath of fresh air! I can handle 1 or 2 factions that are heavily cheating with their recruitment (20 unit stacks when they only have one settlement lol), but not if everyone's frickin declaring war on me. Constantly being on pressure like that stops being fun real quick.
jozai in fall of the samurai sailed across the entire map with 2 proviences to attack me playing saga. they sailed acoss the entire map to take the goto islands.
It almost makes you wonder why any faction except the Romans were even playable. The experience makes sense for Rome but even the namesake faction of the game doesn't actually fit with how it plays.
43:41 You could have dealt with that army with both of yours, since he cant retreat anymore and he will bring in the neighbouring army to reinforce the fight.
We're being ambushed, your advisor yells He's not quite right. It's legend about to ambush enemy units on an individual basis. The Brits in Gaul that nobody bats an eye at, and they're allied tot the Picts and Caledonains . All thre hate each other, but apparently their hatred for the franks, who have taken no action against their homes knows no bounds. The faction that has a beef against the Franks, the Angles whom the Franks made a horde, just accept peace. Along with the clear anti-player bias, Attila boasts a diplomacy system that makes no sense whatsoever. I'm betting there is a Western Roman disaster campaign in legend's inbox. Somebody followed Elven Plot Armour's suggestions and now wish they had not.
Medieval 2 feels the least like there’s bias. I just feel like I’m in a sandbox where everyone’s eyeing each other. Every other title has felt otherwise
I feel like CA should've uploaded hundreds, if not thousands, of playthroughs with each playable faction on each difficulty to enhance their AI's performance. I say this with confidence as advertising companies already do this with our "playthroughs" on YT. For example, start speaking in another language around your phone or computer while on YT. You'll get an ad or two in that language. I had my phone with me around some Guatemalans at work while I was listening to music. I speak a little Spanish but, not enough to be getting Spanish ads on YT. Spying on us all!
Hey Legend just want to ask if you're interested in doing or already did a Last Roman campaign guide. I have tried three campaigns three times and all of them I remained broke and everything I built collapses with the Moors. Thanks for the amazing content as always!!!
Just completed a Franks campaign. Getting non aggression or even defensive alliance with the scandinavian factions was feasible, so I skipped going for them and went in Britain to take care of the celts. Otherwise they will forget about the romans and keep attacking you, like here!
The Huns AI does have goals. Its actually very predictable. Attila always try to raze Mediolanum, or northern Italy first. However, if an Huns allied faction holds Mediolanum, I found that the Huns AI then just camp near Northern Italy, as if having no idea where to go.
This game is still the toughest campaign to beat in the franchise to me. I'd love to see you dive into some modded totalwar games and get your opinions on how well they are done
![An Actual Guide to the Alans [Total War: Attila]](/img/1.gif)
Anti-player bias is my biggest gripe with all the TW games. It gets ridiculous.
Yeah, not only is it annoying, but it just completely breaks the immersion. Why would a faction from the other side of the world, which is already losing a war of it´s own, suddenly declare war on me and send all of it´s armies my way? It also completely breaks diplomacy. It is bordeline impossible to do any diplomacy at all when you KNOW that the other factions are instructed by the algorithm to make as many problems for you as possible.
It's because they cannot properly program the AI to be smarter, so they just give them cheats to increase the difficulty level.
Yeah I stopped playing ATTILA because of it as well, I hate it with passion, WARHAMMER 3 has kind of reduced it it's not as bad, but still exists to certain level. Especially if you play Order faction like Kislev when you're surrounded.
They have trouble designing a good AI, which to be fair I bet it’s really complicated, they say in AI it’s more of a challenge to make it so the AI can be beaten but with Total War it seems they have the opposite problem, they can’t even make a early, medium and hard AI like other strategy games it just gives them cheats…
On top of the fact I'm just not that good at these games, this is the reason I'm happy to play on normal.
Anti player bias is not only ridiculous at times, but often breaks immersion. I don't remember the exact scenario, but in Warhammer 3 some dwarves marched across a good amount of greenskin territory to attack me. I even fought a battle where the dwarves were reinforcing the greenskins, I felt like I was going insane
The worst part is that the AI does not achieve any goals besides fucking over the player. So if you push through the painfull earlygame then there is no challange because the AI does not have an empire.
@@hugo3627 funnily enough Medieval 2 AI feels like it has goals. It’s not exactly very good at achieving those goals, but they have some. This is shown by the AI reacting negatively if you take a settlement their faction prioritizes
Mediaeval 2.
I'm friends with the Pope. Playing Spain. Minding my own business.
Pope lands two armies on my coast to invade Valencia.
So? I peace treaty them.
Pope lives at Valencia the rest of the game.
Or another game, minding my own business. Milan shows up next door to my latest acquisition.
Doesn't declare war. Just besieges my settlement.
So I kick their ass.
Instantly pope demands no combat when they started the war by invading my lands.
Like. What.
Really?
Sure fine whatever. Go fight the French while Milan wanders their army around my borders locking down one of my infantry invasion armies beside that city. Clearly waiting for a chance to attack.
I would attack them off my land but no. They refuse
They also refuse to peace out.
Although I think the AI in Medieval 2 has a 'target' system.
So allied to Portugal. Fighting in france. Capture a french settlement next to the Scottish. Next turn Scotland is besieging that settlement.
My ally Portugal is at war with Scotland for ages at this point, but I capture the nearby settlement.
Then Portugal breaks 100 years of alliance despite military access and perfect relations. And attacks that previously Scottish settlement 5 turns later?
Reallllly?
Well I wipe out the Portuguese pretty quickly, but still. Really?
Honestly the thing is,Dwarves marching half way across the map to 'punish' you isnt whats immersion breaking about your story, its the fact they were able to march through greenskin territory unimpeded
I feel like certain factions should get even angrier with a SPECIFIC race tresspassing through their territory, Like Nurgle marching through tzeentch
This is why I had to use Organic AI mod for Warhammer 3. I got tired of the anti-player bias ridiculousness.
Random tribes halfway across the world will send full armies of thousands of men to attack the player while leaving themselves completely undefended. At least they would be undefended if the AI didn't give them cheats so that a one-province tribe can field 3-4 armies. The anti-player bias is so bad it's immersion-breaking. You shouldn't be dealing with naval invasions from landlocked one-province factions.
Indeed, in most total wars.
It feels like the AI is not reaching its goal. They are obsessed of eliminating the player. You could have a mod that you play Iceland and still see far away factions coming to attack you.
Sometimes I play a faction, my enemies are fighting each other, then 2 turns after they make peace, then the next turn they are allied!
this game is designed around WRE and ERE, so in order for this to feel 'catastrophic' for the Romans, these 5,000 dinky factions need to be able to actually go and invade. This is CA's way of allowing all these dinky factions to actually have a presence and impact on the map. So like it or not, if they made it your way you would never actually see any celtic or nordic factions (unless they razed their settlement to migrate). I'm not saying one way is better, but I personally prefer having these guys cross the map to fight me when playing as Rome because it makes it more fun. Just realize that Attila is usually played at a difficulty level lower than most other TW titles for the same challenge.
@@samwisegamgee8318 Still lazy game design for difficulty, makes sense for the Romans but having it the same for every playable faction sucks. Can't wait til we start getting good AI in games so they don't have to compensate with blatant cheats or games designed around anti player bias.
@@xXBisquitsXx It's been how many years and we haven't seen better AI? I don't think it's going to happen.
@@VynalDerp it's only a short while since AI has started to make huge improvements. once costs come down n there are more people who are skilled in coding good AI it could completely change gaming.
It will happen eventually unless we ban complex AI out of fear.
10 years into the game and half the factions are seperatists. Classic Attila-campaign right there^^
one of those are sassanid separatist which appeared after i severaly hurt sassanid empire with my slavic army
It's the end of empires. That will happen.
There is another reason the anti-player bias is bad design. If you are aware it exists, and can formulate strategy to make use of it, it can severely weaken AI factions. I recall a Ethiopian campaign I played where the Sassanids, despite being at war with Huns, White Huns, and the ERE, were trying to send armies all the way through the Arabian Peninsula to attack me in Yemen. I just put an army in ambush and waited for their armies to get through the attrition, then yo ambush them. They were so dedicated to fighting me that they were getting dismantled by the Huns.
In reality, you can even make a decoy settlement and leave it apparently undefended, the AI will kill itself in desperation to get to it. It breaks the immersion, and if you’re new to the game, it is crushingly unfair.
That's one of the reasons I started playing ck2, it has way less bias
Playing attila feels like having your dentist elbow your teeth down your throat and booking you for a checkup in a month for more
"You might experience some mild discomfort" Seconds before the drop
Its really not that hard. Just have to understand the climate change mechanics. I wish more TW titles were like Atilla. After you master Atilla everything else feels easy to the point its boring. Aggressions also a big thing in Atilla. When attacked finish your attacker. Leaving them alive will just lead to endless back and forth disputes. Atillas the only realistic TW title when it comes to how other nations behave. Atillas like a true strategy game wheras other titles are mostly power fantasies with strategy mixed in.
@@TinylittledansonmanI wouldn’t say realistic at all. There are so many nuances and most wars aren’t a fight to the death especially back then. Also many of romes enemies became friends and enemies again so in that sense I guess the game is realistic
I fully agree with you, Attila is still my nowadays most played historical total war@@Tinylittledansonman
@@DontKnow-hr5my Rome 2 is better and has better mods.
Hey Legend!
This was my campaign, I went on small panic here since I didn't know how to deal with so many armies coming at me at once from different directions. The small army was just for clearing up rebel armies, since the public order was not great in that province, so that's why I just spammed archers (those were cheap units) in that army. The first fleet you disbanded was used to take out those settlements in the north, left it there just to keep public order in check. There are lot of things that I've forgotten about this game, example how effective those missile ships are against transports.
Thanks again for clearing this up, after this I was able to push to Britain, took some time but I was able to take out Picts and Caledonians , Brits are still at large but much less of a threat now.
Keep these great videos coming!
My favorite way of dealing with transport fleets in Attila are the ram ships when you unlock them. It's just a ship with a big ram on the bow that one-shots any transport ship's hull with the ramming attack and sends it straight to the bottom 😂
here some tipps, dont read, if not interested in a bit attila-cheese:
hide your horse in a settlement battle, lt the enemy attack your choke point with melee troops, hunt down their range units with your cav and put it directly behind their choke point troops, dont engage, cav melts to fast in retreats from blob of enemys
the actual game is about rebuilding a big empire with decreasing fertility, so use these different food-chains effective and dont fear in big invasions of fertile areas to generate food there for your core region, i invade in every germanic tribe faction france for this reason. I tend to use UK and irland as a low fertility, but stable area to generate taxes. You have to kill off these germanic tribes around you. Kill many, dont have hords later to run them down inside your empire.
because the huns are archery horseriders, it is near impossible to beat them with an infantry-based unit. BUT your pikes are easy targets for archery, so use your spearmen as a buffer, position your pikes INSIDE the spear-front, so that the pikes hang out and the people remain inside the formation. The spearmen will take the hits and the pikes will survive longer and kill any cav-unit from the front.
The enemy is always going for the sides of the pike and spear units in defence position or even circle 180° around you to get your archers, so have your cav and sword-inf. ready to block these bastards and position your archers in expectation, that they will go to the side and regroup them to remain them in your archery range.
Others use the box and onager-method in camp-stance. Great method to some extend. But not my game.
But Legend is a better battle-fighter than me anyway. Better learn from him :D
@@apollomars1678 Thanks for the tips mate!
@@pikkumatse np, there is a guy, who made excelent attila videos about playing the western roman empire, i would give it a look. Great content.
@@apollomars1678who's the guy?
Legend is the GOAT of beating off multiple armies
😂
It is a handy way to deal with them
I love Attila, but the anti-player bias is ridiculous. I remember playing as Slavs and sailing to Britain to settle down.
Some Germanic tribe declared war on me on the way, all the way in Prussia. I ignored it and settled down, and about 6 or 7 turns later, that same Germanic tribe sailed all the way to Britain across enemy territory to try and attack my settlements lol.
Well, as slavs that bias is reduced to nothing. Their poison archers are too powerful.
its hillarious because anti-player bias has only gotten worse after attila. Altough it started in rome 2, does anyone remember early days when agents were op as fuck, and every opm would declare war and sent 3 full stacks and 6 agents and just make your life a living hell? (good luck dealing with 10-15 agents constantly sabotaging your army).
In troy for example its insane, AI will randomly declare war, despite good relations, despite non aggression pacts, despite being *under siege on their last settlement*, despite sharing a culture, and then send their last army across the agean to take attrition to attack your settlements.
@@DarkAnd1000 Anti-player bias didn't start in Rome 2, it was there since Medieval 2 at least. Portugal naval invading player led England or Sicily attacking player led Egypt are good examples, it never happens where these factions are led by AI.
@@DarkAnd1000 Seconding the other guy, this has been a thing since at least medieval 2 but I do agree it gets worse after rome 2 (although shogun 2 is a close second on that with ridiculous shit like vassals constantly breaking their allegiances and people going under the hood and seeing that alliances give a ticking negative score to relations after being signed), I know AI is hard but holy damn dude, paradox has managed to do it, so have other strategy games like civ and age of wonders but somehow total war keeps getting a pass.
Yep it goes back to early days of Total War. Also In Shogun 2 the misgivings and negatives of the other daimyo somehow reduce your own diplomatic status with them. Good CPU players and actual diplomacy and good not sucidial general behavior have never been fixed and they just made the Generals super Tanky in Total Warhammer series.
"beat them all off" damn that got a chuckle out of me
For when youd lose autoresolve so you have to fight *manually* in CQC 😂
That's a lot of guys to finish off
One by one as well, some serious time commitment.
Hi Legend,
I know this sounds super cliche but I'm going through a stressfull time right now and your videos help me switch off and think of something else. Just wanted to give some appreciation. Time to watch !
Keep going my friend! Life brings us stressful times but they always end 😊
hey man, been there. I really have. It gets better. Hang in there
Hope things get better, buddy.
stay stronh brother ❤
keep on keeping on!
The worst thing about this bias is that it ends up making the AI playing worse overall and making the experience worse. If the AI focused on making the best decision for it's own succes it would have a better chance to keep up with the player. Then maybe campaigns wouldn't be pretty much over by turn 40.
Yes!
This is what I've been saying for years. The AI tends to make the early game a lot harder than it might otherwise be but by the time you're sorted you will be far outstripping what the AI has achieved. There's a reason I love starting campaigns but finishing them is a pain.
@@righteousham I don't know if you played Rome Total War, but in that game if you played as a Roman faction there would be at least two factions that would leave you alone and focus on their own best interest until late game. That's why that game had a good late game. By the time you went to war with them, the other two Roman factions were powerful enough to be an actual challenge.
@@mekmekoo1269 I still remember the first time I encountered the Egyptians as the Brutii, a legit superpower.
@@JakeBaldwin1 Yea... It really feels like Total war has been going backwards for a while now. I really can't think of any particular aspect of the game that the latest editions do better that Rome or Medieval 2.
@@mekmekoo1269 3 kingdoms diplomacy was infinitely better than the rome/medieval 2 "please do not attack"+"accept or we will attack" diplomat spam
So glad to see you take on some Attila. Cheers, LOTW. Just love hearing your description and style. Best content maker around, IMO. Big thanks and hope to see more
Legend if you JUST put a merchant in Timbuktu all your problems will be solved
I'm still waiting for a merchants only playthrough
My favourite TW Attila AI moment is when it’s the mid game and I’m at war with a big faction and then the neighbouring big faction declares war on me and sends 6 full stacks to shred my empire’s internal organs
In my recent campaign I had Chaos dwarves declare war on me. I thought it was okay since my ally Karak Kadrin who is also at war with them was between me and chaos dwarves. Turns out the chaos dwarves completely ignored the Karak Kadrin's settlements and just force marched right through their territory to sack my undefended settlements.
I was hoping years ago when they announced "Saga" that they would have make a new DLC for all the old titles, like Attila, and in that way they would have fixed old abandoned games.
Attila has bugs, one of them even stop a faction to recruit the only heavy assault cavalry they have.
A few things the total war AI needs generally ( for modders to figure out I guess since CA can't seem to):
1) A Diplomacy tracker bonus of player reputation for victory/crushing enemies utterly over the course of a campaign. It gets nuts later in a campaign when you've smashed a few rival factions to pieces and you're a mid-sized to large empire and some rinky dink, one or two settlement faction decides to declare war on you like they've got a chance. They shouldn't fight you unless they have to, or at least need to form coalitions against you (once again, Realm Divide, though too blunt, was a fundamentally good idea for this reason).
2) A basic concept of distance on the campaign map. The AI does not seem to take distance into account when it comes to wars and choosing them. You constantly end up with wars coming at you from factions absurdly far away on the campaign map in later games because of political treaties or some vague "power" comparison, but especially if a faction is really far away and they give you a DOW due to some political treaty or something, they need to effectively just treat it like the political maneuver it is, and never actually send an army your way. This is the stuff that really shows the anti-player bias the most, and it usually makes no real sense.
3) A middle ground political option, like a "Cold War" option or "Denouncement" option seen in some 4X games for AI factions to show their disapproval of your faction without being stupid or suicidal enough to go to direct war with you in certain circumstances where it gives them little to no advantage to commit to war fully. More generally, the ability to understand if and when a war with the player (or any faction) will give them advantage.
One of the things that annoys me is how random factions will declare war on me when I’m playing as a horde and I’m nowhere close to their territory. The thing is, the AI should try to seek war when it’s favourable for them. In this case, I’m a horde, so I have no settlements for them to take or sack and no way of vassalising me. This means declaring war on a neutral horde makes no sense, as it doesn’t offer any reward, but the AI does it just to screw you over.
I really enjoy the challenge of Atilla. Usually in total war after about turn 10 there is zero chance of you losing any land, but Atilla stays challenging well into the mid game. Still it has the problem of endgame being an easy roll over the remaining factions.
Shogun 2 is pretty hard too imo. My latest campaign I gave up at turn 120 as it was a war I couldn’t win. I owned half the map yet victory wasn’t guaranteed
Nah for me my current endgame is still hard. I'm in the yeaaar 436 as wre, and I'm currently in a death war with the jutes whom have north Germany, Scandinavia and all of Britain. They attacked me when I was focusing on conquering the ERE. It would be easier but I'm experiencing famine and rebellion problems. I currently don't know if I'll be in a state to invade the sassanids and take asoristan for the domination victory before the finale.i am fairly confident I can burn down the north and retake brittania though.
its nuts to me to see that the battle maps in the older, historic titles are so much larger than in wh3. recently had the itch for the tactical rt battles again and played bit, but flanking or cav maneuvers are borderline impossible on many of the small maps, specially in contrast to shogun2 and the likes from some of the recent vids :(
When playing the barbarian factions, getting that frost resistant perk from army level ups is a must. Gives you some crucial mobility instead of wasting turns, as the climate will worsen, winter will last through the spring as well in some places.
Slavic factions get it for free as faction trait + they have poisoned arrows to make everyone exhausted. As a downside, you can't use them when your units will enter the melee, as you will poison them too. Excellent to soften up the enemy and during siege defences.
I never had so many armies bolt straight for me like that, though to be fair, when I played Saxons or Franks I just turned horde and noped out of there. Early Saxon roster is crap compared to Franks, but they get rolling with development.
Politics are easy, just adopt guys who get high influence. I also threw in a few mods, for example unlimited governors, as it makes sense that every province should have our representative. Does it make game slightly easier? I guess it does, but I don't care. At least I have people to fill the office tree now.
Playing as the Geats is basically just you building a Frosty Empire.
I remember when I decided to do a legendary no autoresolves no defeats challenge
Two full stacks of neighboring germans in raid stance outside my capital for 12 turns, waiting for when I walk out to declare war on me (yes we were at peace) and attack me.
They ended up getting declared war on, having their lands conquered and 3 armies of their enemy coming in to take them out.
DIDN'T BUGDE AN INCH
This just happened to me in my campaign. A Horde faction was parked inside one of my provinces, raiding. It wasn't a net negative on my public order so I ignored it. The moment I marched the local army off to deal with a rebellion, they declared war and sacked the settlement we were in. Two turns later I cornered them, destroyed their army + faction (I want to say it was the Suebians?)
Man beats off groups of buff, angry barbarian men colorized
Watching this while fighting though a massive amount of bs in Napoleon. Nothing like grinding the French down to only having one combat effective army at a time,then taking Paris (Defeating their last major army) Only for a rebelion to spawn three full stacks of the best units in the french roster with max experience while the Spanish take advantage of my armies being tied down fighting that to sack some of the regions I conquered. (This is a Prussia campaign by the way.)
isn’t that basically what happened historically though? :P
@@lionguardant5468 Yes, this dude pretty much did a Peninsular War where it seems like they are the Napoleon stand in, France takes the place of Spain and Spain is Britain and Portugal.
Rebellions in Napoleon Total War are definitely the most frustrating, like sure I understand in particular regions, like Spain where there is a historical justification, but you have one stack too few in any city in the world and an army more sophisticated than the largest empire of the game will appear, fully trained and stocked with cannons and cavalry, you know not militia, but fucking line infantry elites. I mean seriously wtf is the point of that, they spawn instantly, the same way that random one-city provinces can spew out a dozen units at once. It's the same sort of anti-player rebellion bullshit from EU4, if ur gonna add rebellions why not let it affect other empires.
I like battles in Attila. The challenge is there for sure
this, this situation right here is why I stopped playing Attila after the 5th or 6th try, no matter how many times I tried the situation would become unmanageable to me real quick.
Which frustrated me to no end since I've been playing since Rome Total War.
I had the same issue trying to maintain settlements so I tried the horde factions like huns. Just move destroy and encamp.
@@zcoosa1648 That moment when you play as the Huns and you are being hunted through the entire map by Alemani who somehow forget they are at wars with other factions and solely focus on you. The AI stinks in this game.
Hey Legend!
It's great to see you back playing historical TW titles! I really feel your sentiment toward Attila. Most factions are incredibly cowardly. In fact, in my campaign, one of my long-time opponents has been hoarding their armies and are now sending them all at me at once. I may need your assistance to stave them off - appx 20,000 men over eight stacks!
Do you have large onagers?
I didn't really notice the anti-player bias until I played as any horde faction in Attila, played as the Tanukhids, I'd completed the missions and was on the settle stage but I couldn't because no matter where I was the Eastern Romans would hunt me across asia, Africa and Europe but totally ignore their own wars.
I cracked at "Legend is so bad at not playing legendary."
Thank you for the advice legend. I have gotten so good at beating off other faction leaders that they basically give me a free hand on the map now.
I recently started a Mercia playthrough on the Charlemagne DLC, and within 5 turns, every known faction, including my vassal state Canterbury, had declared war on me. To make things worse, all my cities were hit by the plague and had fires. Honestly, it made me want to stop playing immediately. It completely kills immersion when Charlemagne is at war with 10 different factions, and he decides to kill you randomly. Luckily for me, Charlemagnes' doom stacks were glitched and wouldn't land on my shores, Brittany on the other hand...
Hurlers vs archers. Hurlers start off amazing but as time passes by and units obtain higher armor values they fall off dramatically. Crossbows then become cost efficiency monsters, archers in general remain cost efficient/cheap throughout the game. Dont forget whistle x fire
Apart from some campaign balancing and optimization issues, Attila is an excellent game.
Ive had minor nations ask for an insane amount of money to make peace with me and then send an army halfway across the world to backstab me as they are besieged on all sides by other ai factions
I love Attila, one of my fav TW. The only thing I would have changed is the use of your pikemen. I see that you sent them running and click on them to attack the enemy. The best use for them is to have them on pike formation and have them advance walking forwards, that way they don’t break formation and face the enemy forwards instead of sideways.
Overall great work.
One of the biggest gripes in most of the latest historical TW. Is CAs idea that difficulty should be padded by the idea of random countries with 0 geopolitical relations or borders declaring war on you. No only that but they'll drop everything they are doing just to fck with you.
A stupid game design that should only should be used when your seen as a great power and a geopolitical threat (Shogun style).
Attila videos are always welcomed brother! 🔥 🔥 🔥
I'm fine with bias from factions literally next to me but if they march across each individual chaos realm just to raid a single region, there's an issue.
One of the best games they made and then completely ruined with the anti player bias, it's just ridiculous and sucks the fun out of the game.
I also feel like they added the missions before adding the bias because a lot of the missions regarding alliances etc are completely unachievable due to the AI wanting absolutely nothing to do with the player. Diplomacy is basically impossible but it should be part of what makes the game fun.
Attila ❤
WOWO
I wish Attila wasn't so frustrating. You made this look great.
you can beat up or beat off their armies, either way they'll leave you alone once you're finished.
It’s the zero gold upkeep which AI armies have that really grind my gears.
Legend, as a Attila-maniac myself, i’d recommend you using normal arrows they are %100 percent more effective against anything other than at the near end of the battle using whistle or fire shots to reduce morale and shattering enemy.
Man I just got flashbacks to rome 2 and putting every single army on ambush stance because AI wouldnt attack places or move against your armies if it could avoid them. Its smart design not to rush to their death, but less fun when you have to chase AI armies down and they have the advantage of being able to attack you after you force march behind them.
Attila pro-tip: Sack a roman settlement til every everyone has like +10000 relation and the huns are throwing thier daughters at you instead of doomstacks. No movement cost for sacking, so you can do this in a single turn.
"Beat them all off 1 at a time🤨📸" - LegendofTotalWar (100% not out of context)
I am glad to see others have trouble with Anti-player bias, because every time it starts to ramp up for me, I keep worrying I am making things up and it drives me insane.
9:15 Slingers in Attila is dangerous against everything. 🤣
Anti player bias exists even from the early days of RTW. I vividly remember playing as the Greek Cities and having every single one of the roman factions landing troops all along Greece. Then when I was conquering Italy, both Carthage and Spain landed armies in central/northern Italy just to attack me even though we weren't at war at the time
It's like the AI of every faction constantly rushes armies to wherever the player cities are
Ai in Attila know how to cause the most effective type of damage on the player: brain damage
You can see it in the code. Around turn 60, the personalities reshuffle and more will end up with anti-player bias. This can be modded away as with major medieval overhaul. The smart player will exterminate the factions who ended up with anti-player bias. notice that if you capture an AI's last settlement, you can vassalize them. The vassal can end up without the anti-player bias depending on the random roll. If so, keep the vassal. If not exterminate them a second time for good. You then accumulate a collection of solidly allied vassals that will help with trade/war. Don't wait too long as around turn 180 they will all roll another personality and many will turn against you. This is why I object to the mods that drag out the game too long. Attila is not meant for camping and empire building like Rome 2. It is more like Shogun in terms of scripting but you don't get an easy start.
FOTS is, quite seriously, the last, best, total war game. i weep
I have been playing it way more often recently and sadly I have to agree. Been having fun going back and playing the old historical titles like medival 2 and even og rome
@@manrajsahi2678 fots just gets everything right. yeah there are the classic total war ai bugs, but really they never surpassed it. they`ll never make another game like it.
I still find myself, out of all the historical total wars, play Attila the most nowadays. The Campaign Map is absolutely amazingly beautiful, i love the narrative, i only wish it would gotten some more ironing out of certain things (Like the Suebi Spear Situation of their high tier spears, what even is their purpose)
I'm going to have to look for an attila stream. This is the game for Legend!
I really miss how fast routers were killed in Atilla and Shogun. Units in Warhammer, even the best ones for killing routers like warhounds, are nowhere near as good. In those previous games you could have your unit simply contact enemy entities and they would die. In Warhammer, they don't die unless you give an attack order.
You ever tried any of the Darthmod slow mode mods within Total War? They give you the ability to put men into formations that will actually hold for extended periods of time, opening the game up to proper tactical maneuvering. Can actually pin a whole enemy army with a small formation to free up other units to do the actual damage; with the majority of kills being during routes.
The Huns making peace with the WRE while im playing the ERM pretty much sums it up for me 😀.
Across all the games: This is the campaign killer. I don’t know how many times I ended all Chaos factions in TWWH just for all the Order factions to repay me with surprise attacks on my glorious empire.
I noticed when moding unit stats in medieval2 id get swamped by the AI, multiple factions would literally send ships with full stacks and besiege cities
Med 2's diplomacy is broken and the diplomacy code makes them hate you for anything you do taking cities wise. IF you exterminate for example the whole world begins to really hate you despite most of them not even being near you. To Nerd is to Human had a vid fixing the diplomacy bug in the files.
Love watching you play Attila.
I think we need to give Legend the nickname Fondue King. For he sails the cheesy high seas!
During my Uesugi campaign, Satake clan declared war on me out of nowhere. Although they also waging war with Takeda which became buffer zone they somehow bypass them without conquering their settlements and already nearing my capital with 3 full armies. I was too focused sending my armies to the north, I lost sight of my capital region.
This is so true. They hate you even though they never even interacted with you. xD Btw, I had a very annoying experience with Medieval 2. Every time I left a city undefended, there was suddenly an enemy army out of nowhere attacking it. I don't know how they knew I left the city, because they didn't have line of sight, or even have spies there. The AI is sometimes so weird in that game. And every time I played, a faction's armies come to my city and wait for reinforcements, then attack, and no matter how many army stacks I have around, only a few can join the battle, because only they can get close enough. It kinda frustrated me back then and that's why I didn't play Medieval 2 as much as I'd like. I reinstalled it recently and it happened again.
Legend seems more aggressive towards even the older games lately, which fair enough they had a lot of problems.
Attila is a ton of fun. There is alot of anti player bias true but it is a challenge. Diplomacy is actually pretty useful in this game and allies are really useful for chasing down enemy stacks in your territory. You can also cheese good relations by literally asking for money for nothing as a gift and some factions will give you free money. You can even get the most bs faction in the game the huns on your side through diplomacy.
The worst was once when playing as the huns, while raiding north western france, the sasanide empire that declared war some dozens of turns ago started reaching me, from the other side of the map. I thought they had conquered the map or something, but after destroying army after army while moving towards them mid way in greece, I noticed they had no presence, yet they sent all of their armies toward mines with pinpoint accuracy......... they come out of the fog of war like an arrow loose upon a target.... I left the game soon after after reaching them and noticed that whatever they recruit they send to me. Fucking bullshit.
You get it Legend, Beat them all off one at a time my dude
Just use Crusader Wars, a mod for Crusader Kings III that only uses Attila Total War to fight the tactical battles. The strategic part is done in CK III.
I had a less frustrating time playing WH2 on VH with the "no Great Power penalty" mod. Such a breath of fresh air! I can handle 1 or 2 factions that are heavily cheating with their recruitment (20 unit stacks when they only have one settlement lol), but not if everyone's frickin declaring war on me. Constantly being on pressure like that stops being fun real quick.
I have been playing total war forever and I never didn't knew this
jozai in fall of the samurai sailed across the entire map with 2 proviences to attack me playing saga. they sailed acoss the entire map to take the goto islands.
Anti player bias is what i love in Attila when you play roman empire. It is totaly different from all other total war games.
That pause after you said beat them all off😅
It almost makes you wonder why any faction except the Romans were even playable. The experience makes sense for Rome but even the namesake faction of the game doesn't actually fit with how it plays.
Never knew how to cheese naval battles, thank legend
It’s amazing to watch you beat off entire armies, one by one 😂🤣
43:41 You could have dealt with that army with both of yours, since he cant retreat anymore and he will bring in the neighbouring army to reinforce the fight.
The rare time that works in the player's favor!
"leg from Total War here" - RUclips subtitles.
We're being ambushed, your advisor yells He's not quite right. It's legend about to ambush enemy units on an individual basis. The Brits in Gaul that nobody bats an eye at, and they're allied tot the Picts and Caledonains . All thre hate each other, but apparently their hatred for the franks, who have taken no action against their homes knows no bounds. The faction that has a beef against the Franks, the Angles whom the Franks made a horde, just accept peace. Along with the clear anti-player bias, Attila boasts a diplomacy system that makes no sense whatsoever.
I'm betting there is a Western Roman disaster campaign in legend's inbox. Somebody followed Elven Plot Armour's suggestions and now wish they had not.
Medieval 2 feels the least like there’s bias. I just feel like I’m in a sandbox where everyone’s eyeing each other. Every other title has felt otherwise
0:37 good strategic mindset that one! LOL
Beating them all off at once is the wildest strategy ive ever heard 😂
I also have the feeling the AI all cry at the same time "death to humans!!!" 😂😂
4:03 quality content
legend really read hunters and said hurlers it is
I feel like CA should've uploaded hundreds, if not thousands, of playthroughs with each playable faction on each difficulty to enhance their AI's performance. I say this with confidence as advertising companies already do this with our "playthroughs" on YT. For example, start speaking in another language around your phone or computer while on YT. You'll get an ad or two in that language. I had my phone with me around some Guatemalans at work while I was listening to music. I speak a little Spanish but, not enough to be getting Spanish ads on YT. Spying on us all!
I still play Attila from time to time, town defense is so easy, unless you get stuck in the town maps with no town center.
Hey Legend just want to ask if you're interested in doing or already did a Last Roman campaign guide. I have tried three campaigns three times and all of them I remained broke and everything I built collapses with the Moors. Thanks for the amazing content as always!!!
Eyyy some Attila content, nice!
You could sail backwards in previous total wars i think, definitely Rome 2, it is finicky though
aaaahhhh I love the smell of germanic cheese in da morning
Just completed a Franks campaign. Getting non aggression or even defensive alliance with the scandinavian factions was feasible, so I skipped going for them and went in Britain to take care of the celts. Otherwise they will forget about the romans and keep attacking you, like here!
17:30 Attila graphic at its finest.
Gonna take a long time. I mean with 20 units, max unit size. Thats over 3000 men to beat off.🥵
That sound track though, my fav
don’t act like we forgot about 4:02
The Huns AI does have goals. Its actually very predictable. Attila always try to raze Mediolanum, or northern Italy first. However, if an Huns allied faction holds Mediolanum, I found that the Huns AI then just camp near Northern Italy, as if having no idea where to go.
Attila Total War: Great battles, frustrating campaign
This game is still the toughest campaign to beat in the franchise to me. I'd love to see you dive into some modded totalwar games and get your opinions on how well they are done