There was a good chunk of time there when the Total War series was one of the best things on the PC. Its combination of real-time battles and turn-based planning made it a lot of peopleāsāmine includedāperfect strategy game. Then along came Total War: Rome II
https://kotaku.com/total-war-rome-ii-the-kotaku-review-1248518849
It wasnāt a bad game by any means. But it had problems, enough to tarnish the seriesā reputation and knock it down a few pegs. Its launch was a mess, its AI stunk, its campaign map was an aimless sprawl and it was entirely lacking in the charm found in its predecessors Shogun 2 or Empire.
Rome IIās first big expansion, Attila, had some neat ideasālike a barbarian faction that didnāt need citiesābut it still had too many of the core gameās problems to make it worth investing dozens/hundreds of hours into.
Those missteps werenāt enough to destroy the brand, but they did enough to dent my enthusiasm for the direction the series was taking, to the point where Iāve barely raised an eyebrow over the upcoming Total War: Warhammer
Imagine my surprise, then, when on a whim I gave Rome IIās final expansion a try and…quite liked it.
Set during the Dark Ages, and focusing on Charlemagneās expansion across France and Western Europe, Total War: ATTILA – Age of Charlemagne is as close to Total War: Medieval 3 as youāre going to get for a while.
While itās unable to address some of the core problems with Rome II, like a messy (and pointless) political system and an overwhelming sense of drabness, it does manage to get one thing right: the gameās focus.
One of Rome IIās biggest problems was its size. While on paper a sprawling campaign map sounds great, in practice it made managing a large empire difficult, and the design of the Mediterranean map made traversing it a slog. The number of factions involved in the game also caused headaches, making load times between turns a massive pain.
Age of Charlemagne has a smaller map and less factions. While some will see this as a loss of value (counter-point: itās only $15), I see it as a way to regain something the Total War games have been missing since Shogun II: focus. A clearer set of objectives, a better idea of who youāre up against and a more intimate map.
Iām also feeling the new factions. There are eight to choose from, and (understandably, given the time period) theyāre far closer to Medievalās roster than Romeās. Theyāve even got new era-appropriate unit card designs that are just wonderful.
The last thing thatās won me overāperhaps taking a cue from Crusader Kings II, another game which begins in the same eraāis that youāre now no longer bound to represent the faction you start with. Example: I started a game as the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, but after a few conquests was able to create the Kingdom of England and play as that instead. Total War games have long featured the ability to change a factionās name/flag (rebellions in Empire, for example, could lead to the creation of an 18th-century German state or an independent Scotland), but being able to build a new one from the bones of your enemies is cool.
Before I get too carried away with everything that I loved about Age of Charlemagne, itās worth pointing out that…this is about it. The map is still the same drab map, the family and political stuff is still garbage and the regional city management system implemented in Rome II still sucks. The fact this is only a $15 expansion can also be seen in the corners cut: despite the massive advance in time, factions and units still have their ancient accents, and despite new icons for Dark Ages buildings, theyāre not new models on the actual game map.
But hey, nobody ever asked this expansion to be perfect. I donāt think many expected it to even be OK. But by scaling back Rome IIās over-ambitious gaze and throwing in a few interesting features, Creative Assembly have made sure that Rome IIās disappointing chapter of the Total War saga ends on a much brighter note than it began.
