Attila: Total War

Nefaro · February 17, 2015, 08:12:32 PM

Initial impressions:

The UI is much improved. Especially regarding the art. I was disappointed with Rome 2's dead plastic looking UI so this is a great improvement.

The campaign map is running smoothly. Maybe less frame freezing and such when moving the camera than before, so Vsync may actually be working properly here without the fps bottoming out.

I don't expect the battles to be much different, other than some UI changes that seem to be prevalent throughout. Haven't done one yet.

The in-game Encyclopedia is even slower than Rome 2's. Even having it installed on my SSD, the damn thing takes a long time to load each page since the devs had the poor idea to place thumbnail pics in place of the traditional UI art. So the pics must have a notably larger file size and, combined with the already slow loading Encyclopedia pages, makes the thing even slower. Checking out unit and building info is too much needless waiting.

Speaking of thumbnail pics, some of the unit card art doesn't look that great. But I'll take it because they're in color, which I missed more than expected.

Gusington · February 17, 2015, 08:44:03 PM

...and more waiting. "Performing first time set up" etc.

:/

mikeck · February 17, 2015, 09:38:54 PM

I fired it up in a custom battle. Graphics set to "quality" which is the second best. Ran smooth as butter with large units. I don't have a great rig but it's decent. I live the new UI. I started a campaign to see the map and it's gorgeous. uI is more colorful than before. Map moved smooth as well...although I never had any graphical problems with Rome2. So far so good

Gusington · February 17, 2015, 10:20:28 PM

Played about 3/4 of the Prologue and I really like what I see so far. I agree with the guys above, the UI is very good. My settings were set to Medium for the most part and I kept getting that annoying 'graphics memory running low' warning, but everything looked lush and colorful to me...you can judge for yourself below. Unit cards are fantastic...I liked Rome 2's but I love these.

Music is also a throwback to the expansion for the original Shogun - Mongol Invasion...very Asiatic. I dig it.

The battles ran smooth and the campaign map ran smooth, moreso than Rome II. So while I have read some players saying that optimization is garbage here, I have to disagree. It ran like butter on my creaking rig.

It almost feels like they took the guts of Rome 2 and poured them through a Shogun 2 filter. My initial sense is that I am really going to enjoy this one...probably get 100s of hours from it. Some screenies:

:D :D :D

Nefaro · February 18, 2015, 04:10:55 AM

I started a Saxon campaign on Hard.

Money seems more tight than Rome 2, but I only started with one city with three build slots so that's probably part of the slow start.

Took a lot more losses than I should have in one manually led attack on a Roman garrison. Granted, the starting Saxon troops are some of the worst rated ones I've seen in a TW game so even the roman garrison troops were vastly superior.

My only real complaint thus far is the Encyclopedia not listing which techs or buildings unlock which military units and characters. I have to check the tooltips in the new building browser one by one. So they removed at least one thing that was in previous versions. Hopefully that's enough for their quota on this one. ;) However, I do like the extra specs and more detailed tooltip info on the units themselves.

Gusington · February 18, 2015, 08:30:42 AM

The family dynamics feel more robust and meaningful here than they did in Rome 2. The artwork for everything from building slots to special events has been overhauled too. A few special events cards that I saw had some limited animation too. So from the start I am definitely more impressed with Attila than I was with Rome 2.

Nefaro · February 18, 2015, 11:26:42 AM

Yeah, the family tree is back and a lot of people are ecstatic. I didn't miss it as much as others but it is definitely better than what we had before.

As with Rome 2, they're obviously attempting to put more of a CK2 dynamic into the internal faction politics. It felt tacked-on and unfinished with Rome 2 and it is still lacking in Attila but at least it has improved. I don't expect it to have massive amounts of characters as in CK2, and all the webs that produces, but I would like to see the mechanics refined to something more than just hording or spending Influence points. Not a big deal though because the rest of the game has been solid for me thus far.

Boggit · February 18, 2015, 11:39:14 AM

It looks really good. :) Will my Win 7 8Gb RAM cope with it?

LongBlade · February 18, 2015, 11:53:35 AM

Quote from: Boggit on February 18, 2015, 11:39:14 AM
It looks really good. :) Will my Win 7 8Gb RAM cope with it?

Specs from Steam:

QuoteMINIMUM:
OS: Windows Vista*
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 3 GHz
Memory: 3 GB RAM
Graphics: 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT or Intel HD 4000
DirectX: Version 10
Hard Drive: 35 GB available space
Additional Notes: PC integrated graphics chipsets require 64 bit Windows, e.g. Intel HD series.

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 7*
Processor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti or AMD Radeon HD 5870
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 35 GB available space
Additional Notes: PC integrated graphics chipsets require 64 bit Windows, e.g. Intel HD series.

Boggit · February 18, 2015, 11:57:31 AM

^^ It looks like I might be ok after all. Thanks LB. O0

Gusington · February 18, 2015, 02:01:39 PM

My rig is aging and middle of the road at best...I was a little worried. But it has run better than Rome 2 on my machine so far. I am tempted to use the "unlimited video memory" option to get rid of those graphics warnings, though. Anyone use that?

And I definitely agree with Nefaro, the CKII vibe is strong here.

Nefaro · February 18, 2015, 02:08:34 PM

Quote from: Gusington on February 18, 2015, 02:01:39 PM
My rig is aging and middle of the road at best...I was a little worried. But it has run better than Rome 2 on my machine so far. I am tempted to use the "unlimited video memory" option to get rid of those graphics warnings, though. Anyone use that?

And I definitely agree with Nefaro, the CKII vibe is strong here.

I've not had the video memory warnings since they fixed the issues with it in an early Rome 2 patch. That's the one which says something about it lowering your video settings due to memory limitations, right?

I saw those a few times at the beginning of battles back in Rome 2 but I just let it go at the time. I'd rather have smooth framerates than choppy little freezes. But there used to be some issues with it. AFAICT it's working fine in Attila.

You can try the Unlimited option, but if that lowers your performance too much I would recommend going into the Custom graphics settings and lowering a couple options that aren't as important during the battles but which still use up extra memory (grass, trees, etc).

Gusington · February 18, 2015, 02:33:17 PM

Yep it's the warning that your settings are being lowered because of low memory. I'm a little wary of the unlimited video option...don't know how my machine will play with that. Maybe I'll futz with trees and shadows first like you said.

Sir Slash · February 18, 2015, 02:51:37 PM

My big limitation is my single core processor but with the performance cranked-up to full and if I get behind my computer and push, I can play the campaign well enough but the videos just won't run. I haven't tried a battle yet but don't have great hopes for it. There looks to be a lot more things on the campaign map... I see horses and deer and on the battle map, statues and civies running all around. I bet this slows down things a bit. I remember the same thing when Rome 2 came out with the deer running around the battle maps. Seems more eye-candy then actual immersion to me.

Nefaro · February 18, 2015, 04:05:39 PM

Quote from: Gusington on February 18, 2015, 02:33:17 PM
Yep it's the warning that your settings are being lowered because of low memory. I'm a little wary of the unlimited video option...don't know how my machine will play with that. Maybe I'll futz with trees and shadows first like you said.

I would recommend lowering the grass and trees details a notch first, and then maybe the building details or even the shadows later. Just decide which ones don't seem to make much of a difference to you.

I generally lower grass in most games which have a bunch of it waving in the wind. Such things can make a difference but are so mundane that it's not jarring when they're lowered one step. I recall the grass in War Thunder Ground Forces occasionally making my fps drop so sharply that it would stutter, so I turned it off and haven't really missed it since. When it comes to video memory, simply lowering the texture details on the grass and trees a bit can be enough. Fetch me a shrubbery!

There may also be other questionable ones. Rome 2 and Attila both have a dropdown for "Sky" details. I mean.. how often do we stare at the details of the sky and clouds in Total War games? ;D There are textures that can easily be lowered without being very noticeable.