It's a sandbox but there are strict rules to the game you play within that sandbox.
Sure, there are still battles involving thousands upon thousands of men (and they're little changed from Attila - solid, eventually repetitive and occasionally spectacular), and a large chunk of history is covered, but the campaign takes place within a controlled arena. This may be an expansion but it certainly isn't expansive. Where the game excels, it's largely thanks to the clever balance of the starting positions for each side and the existence of several short-term targets at almost every point in a campaign. How you approach that objective is partly determined by the faction you choose and partly by your own actions, failures and successes. In Charlemagne's world, everyone has the same long-term goal – to ensure the survival and eventual dominance of their own culture. Total War has always been at its best when there are clear and controlled objectives within its strategic sandbox, which is one of the reasons Shogun 2 worked so well, and why the sprawling expanse of Rome II was so vague and untidy. The most important change of all, however, is the setting itself and the starting points for each of the factions.
It's a great chunk of DLC, in the form of a full-fat expansion that adds new rules, new tech, new factions and new units. I've always loved the flavour of the Total War games and even though their battlecries become repetitive, I'm already very fond of my fyrd. And this is The Age of Charlemagne, in which armies clash as their rulers struggle for control in the power vacuum left by the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. For a while, I pretend I've fallen forward through the months and that I'm leading a vampire count and his army of the undead in Total Warhammer.īut, no, those are the fields of England and Wales, running red with blood. None of my brave warriors seem to be able to do so much as take a stroll across a field without bellowing about their love of blood. Every time my men rode into battle against the armies of Powys and Gywnedd, they'd rattle their spears and respond to every instruction to adjust their formation slightly with a cry of “WE WILL HAVE THEIR BLOOD!” For five years, I waged war on the Welsh and when the last of their kind who dared to rule fell, I celebrated even as their settlements burned. Caught mid-stride between the remnants of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the medieval period, Charlemagne provides a concise campaign that gains a great deal from its concentrated focus. I'd go so far as to say that the entire package, Charlemagne and Attila, has been my favourite Total War experience since Shogun 2, but that's partly due to my love of this period. The Age of Charlemagne is the latest expansion for Attila: Total War and I've had a splendid time with it over the last few days.
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