Sulrn
Deuces
- 2,159
- 360
Wargaming.net and Creative Assembly have teamed up to make a bastard together.
Instead of piloting WW2 tanks or Warships across the landscapes and oceans of Europe / Africa, you will now find yourself engaged in tactical warfare across some of the more noted landscapes of classical Greece and the Roman Empire as the factions of Greece, Rome, or Barbarians (think Germanic/Gaelic). Game plays pretty similarly to the tactical battles of the Total War franchise (morale and positioning being key), but instead of controlling one massive army you and several other players each control three units to make up a larger army. Units comprise the basic classical armies components (Infantry, Skirmishers, Cavalry, Artillery). There's some variety to them (heavy shields vs phalanx / archers vs pilums/slings / spear vs sword / catapults vs ballistae / etc, but you're not going to see any chariots or massive war beasts (unless you count the current OP factor of war hounds). Each of the factions has 3-4 Commanders with various abilities catered towards one or two specific unit types. Game is currently in closed beta, but it looks like all the major features are in besides the in game shop. You can register here: Total War: ARENA .
For those of you who enjoy the battle system of Total War, but get frustrated with the multiplayer functionality of the actual games this may be up your alley. The only play mode is to queue up solo or with friends. Three victory conditions - total annihilation, base capture, most units alive after time expiration. Typical match lasts 12-20 minutes.
Current thoughts on the game: It's a Total War cash grab on the wargaming.net model. The game is a somewhat polished to the point of mediocrity. Combat lacks the weight of more recent TW games. Cav charges (unless rear flanking towards a lower tier unit are rarely punishing / heavy infantry don't rip through unarmed/armored archers). The Rock, Paper, Scissors formula is in place, but some of the faction flavors definitely make the game unbalanced (I'm not talking Mount and Blade faction specialization) to the point that Greece is currently the strongest faction as its Cav / Infantry are easily superior to both Roman / Barbarian counterparts - they also are the only faction with access to traditional archers (which with a certain tier 5 commander will absolutely wreck anyone who can't close the distance). Obviously this should be expected to be a part of the balancing of the beta, but it's more of the idea that the Units themselves aren't fully fleshed out. Roman infantry game play at Tier 1 is the same as Tier 9 - which is simply positional flanking/harassing.The lack of fleshing out exposes poor game play, balance, and longevity.
Other issues. AI Path finding is pretty horrendous. Units can and will get stuck on flat, open terrain because one soldier / horse spergs out and causes the entire formation to pause and wait for the individual to catch up - this obviously gets worse in the craggy landscapes of Greece or the sharp corners of Rome and the constant elevation changes of both. This also highlights the issue with the inability to control your formation outside of special unit abilities (tetstudo, phalanx, etc). Camera is controllable, but zoom out is restricted and too tight for several spots on the current map rotations. There are going to be times where you can't clearly see what's going on because you can't get the right angle above trees / ledges and you'll be stuck trying to figure it out from the zoomed in perspective instead. Like with the surge of MOBAs / arcade battles, matchmaking is pretty bad - not in the sense that you get mismatched tiers, but in the sense that you have no ability to adjust your load out after hitting queue. So if you queue with an all cav army, and you match with a bunch of people who go all archer - you're pretty much boned as you have no infantry to hold the enemy in place. Certain maps also favor certain types of fighting. Trying to play arty on Capitol Hill for example is pretty dumb - yet you're locked in regardless. So right now the meta is war hounds / phalanx infantry, so you get a lot of matches lacking any archers / cav and then people try to adjust and end up with battles that one team is predominately archers / cav.
Even though it's early access (and obviously unpolished) - I would easily recommend Tiger Knight General over this. Community is smaller and the battles are smaller, but the battles have a lot more weight and the individual units have game play differences. Tier 2 won't play the same as Tier 3 as Tier 4, etc.
Just some thoughts. If anyone else is giving this a try let me know - I usually have discord running in the background while I'm playing.
Instead of piloting WW2 tanks or Warships across the landscapes and oceans of Europe / Africa, you will now find yourself engaged in tactical warfare across some of the more noted landscapes of classical Greece and the Roman Empire as the factions of Greece, Rome, or Barbarians (think Germanic/Gaelic). Game plays pretty similarly to the tactical battles of the Total War franchise (morale and positioning being key), but instead of controlling one massive army you and several other players each control three units to make up a larger army. Units comprise the basic classical armies components (Infantry, Skirmishers, Cavalry, Artillery). There's some variety to them (heavy shields vs phalanx / archers vs pilums/slings / spear vs sword / catapults vs ballistae / etc, but you're not going to see any chariots or massive war beasts (unless you count the current OP factor of war hounds). Each of the factions has 3-4 Commanders with various abilities catered towards one or two specific unit types. Game is currently in closed beta, but it looks like all the major features are in besides the in game shop. You can register here: Total War: ARENA .
For those of you who enjoy the battle system of Total War, but get frustrated with the multiplayer functionality of the actual games this may be up your alley. The only play mode is to queue up solo or with friends. Three victory conditions - total annihilation, base capture, most units alive after time expiration. Typical match lasts 12-20 minutes.
Current thoughts on the game: It's a Total War cash grab on the wargaming.net model. The game is a somewhat polished to the point of mediocrity. Combat lacks the weight of more recent TW games. Cav charges (unless rear flanking towards a lower tier unit are rarely punishing / heavy infantry don't rip through unarmed/armored archers). The Rock, Paper, Scissors formula is in place, but some of the faction flavors definitely make the game unbalanced (I'm not talking Mount and Blade faction specialization) to the point that Greece is currently the strongest faction as its Cav / Infantry are easily superior to both Roman / Barbarian counterparts - they also are the only faction with access to traditional archers (which with a certain tier 5 commander will absolutely wreck anyone who can't close the distance). Obviously this should be expected to be a part of the balancing of the beta, but it's more of the idea that the Units themselves aren't fully fleshed out. Roman infantry game play at Tier 1 is the same as Tier 9 - which is simply positional flanking/harassing.The lack of fleshing out exposes poor game play, balance, and longevity.
Other issues. AI Path finding is pretty horrendous. Units can and will get stuck on flat, open terrain because one soldier / horse spergs out and causes the entire formation to pause and wait for the individual to catch up - this obviously gets worse in the craggy landscapes of Greece or the sharp corners of Rome and the constant elevation changes of both. This also highlights the issue with the inability to control your formation outside of special unit abilities (tetstudo, phalanx, etc). Camera is controllable, but zoom out is restricted and too tight for several spots on the current map rotations. There are going to be times where you can't clearly see what's going on because you can't get the right angle above trees / ledges and you'll be stuck trying to figure it out from the zoomed in perspective instead. Like with the surge of MOBAs / arcade battles, matchmaking is pretty bad - not in the sense that you get mismatched tiers, but in the sense that you have no ability to adjust your load out after hitting queue. So if you queue with an all cav army, and you match with a bunch of people who go all archer - you're pretty much boned as you have no infantry to hold the enemy in place. Certain maps also favor certain types of fighting. Trying to play arty on Capitol Hill for example is pretty dumb - yet you're locked in regardless. So right now the meta is war hounds / phalanx infantry, so you get a lot of matches lacking any archers / cav and then people try to adjust and end up with battles that one team is predominately archers / cav.
Even though it's early access (and obviously unpolished) - I would easily recommend Tiger Knight General over this. Community is smaller and the battles are smaller, but the battles have a lot more weight and the individual units have game play differences. Tier 2 won't play the same as Tier 3 as Tier 4, etc.
Just some thoughts. If anyone else is giving this a try let me know - I usually have discord running in the background while I'm playing.
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