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I wouldn't be very happy with any of these approaches. I love the 3D model campaign maps that CA is making, even if the corridors and cities are a distortion of the real geography. But more than that, to me war is also about maneuvering and conquering, and yes, while the battles are the exciting crescendos, the campaign map -- with its valleys and deserts, rivers, roads, and mountains -- provides the whole music score. If you think about the great campaigns of world history, getting there is half the fun -- and in this respect and others the military campaigns of Paradox Land are found to be greatly lacking . Yes I'm the person who raised the problem of the Campaign AI to begin with, but let me try to justify it. I'm fairly confident that Creative Assembly, if it wants and its SEGA lords allow, is capable of better CAI programming and better play testing before release. For now I'm OK with giving the AI cheats or giving it corridors on the map if they're necessary to guide challenging AI behavior. I believe that one of the reasons Shogun 2's campaigns worked better is because the CAI was more defensive, it kept its regions well guarded and it didn't risk everything in one battle or one naval expedition (to nowhere?). I know CA tried to change the formula a bit in Rome 2, to have fewer, more consequential battles. But it didn't work very well because the CAI wandered off to who-knows-where, leaving it's lands vacant for the player to steamroll through. It really comes down to finding a better balance, and to give the CAI a reasonable set of objectives, including not giving up the homeland without a big fight. Yes, we are a long way from being able from being able to simulate in 3D the Grand Armee's maneuvering on the roads of 19th Century Europe or Hannibal Crossing the Alps, or Jackson in the Valley, but we're going to get there in the not to distant future I'm sure of it.

I really appreciate 3MA doing an Attila:Total War podcast. I am heavily invested in this series and find in general that TW offers something unique and thousands of hours of entertainment. That said, I find myself often frustrated by the game design choices and the lack of playtesting or polish evident in many releases such as Rome 2. I've read a lot of positive stuff about Attila, and obviously Rob and Troy were pleased with the game, but I find myself mostly in agreement with the negative discussion I'm reading here. What I haven't seen discussed much though is the campaign AI, which I think is a fatal flaw in the game and something that seems to get a pass from folks. Specifically, I find the campaign AI in Attila is either (i) too passive and running away all the time with armies often taking to the sea to remain offshore for many turns, seemingly adrift, or (ii) overly aggressive, with certain hostile factions stalking the player across continents, seemingly uninterested in anything but annoying the player for no apparent strategic reason. In both Attila and Rome 2 games the AI seems challenged to build empires, and certainly doesn't create the strong ones we've seen in other games, such as Shogun 2. With Attila there is a temptation, becuase of the nice horde mechanic, or the family tree, or the intricate gamey struggle to balance food and squalor, to overlook what is actually going on in the campaign: that is, everything and nothing, all at once. With all the torching of regions and sudden appearance and disappearance of factions, you might not notice that no one is really consolidating or gretting stronger. You might not notice the eternally two-region Ebdanians are sending one stack every four turns in your direction, hoping against hope that you might not notice it and leave one of your cities undefended. How this beneifts the Ebdanians is a mystery of course. Or you might be willing to forgive the CAI suicidially attacking to take one of your cities when three of your stacks that will annihilate it the next turn are just out of it's range. You also might not notice how the Huns will continuously respawn unless you kill the game's protagonist three times in battle. I'm not forgiving Attlia, though, as tempted as I was to do so at twenty five hours, by sixty hours I'd seen through the campaign AI and was annoyed by all its extraneousness and silliness. To its credit I do feel like CA made an attempt here to provide a multidimensional and challenging game. Anyway the CAI is the reason Attila gets my low score; and I am a bit disappointed to say I am currently finding Rome 2 (modded with Divide et Impera) more fun than this game.

Looks like it will have absolutely no problem running on current gen consoles.

I never understood gross for grossness' sake. This reminds me of kids at school who got a kick looking at pictures of mutilated bodies on the internet. Yet in my incomprehension I wish this was censored.

This may indeed be my skewed impression but during the last two episodes as Danielle tries to impart and explain her enthusiasm for the Witcher 3, reaction of the rest of the cast has been to go off riffing on jokes and puns and assorted digressions and somehow never get to talking about Wild Hunt all that much. That may be more common than not on Idle Thumbs but for some reason I felt a particular reluctance or disinterest in discussing.

Why would you add a magic "rope dart" for zipping up buildings, making parkour practically useless in a AC game? I've completely lost the point why this series still exists...

Good work Cat Lord, I've played FC2 too many times to count but never actually watched anyone else rip through it. [OK I watched Nick B. play but that doesn't count because he was goofing off!] Next time I'm in the mood for this, I'm gonna try your looted-weapons-only approach on hardcore and see how long I can survive, but I'm going to use stealth sometimes and not just blow through everything.

It's hard enough sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of game releases on Steam, can you imagine having to decide if some Skyrim mod is worth $5.00 all the time? This isn't an OK idea, not without extensive refinement, to the point where there is a lenghty process gone through before any mod could even begin to be put up for sale. Jake seemed to be the only person getting this on the podcast last week.

I'm playing through Total War Attila right now, and although it's OK, many of the same issues that have plagued Total War games over the years are still there (AI, hint, hint) although the problems are more subtle than, say, Rome 2's at release. I agree the main thing holding Total War back are the rushed annual releases, which means essentially the same basic game play title to title, with a different time period and some slightly updated graphics -- and it's all being done on he same engine since 2008 or so. As a result, the games seem to iterate various work arounds, rather than fundamental fixes for numerous problems that arise from complex, hardware demanding games. So we're having small battles on small battlefields and putting up with siege combat that doesn't really work. Now CA is taking on Warhammer (while maintaining publicly that the historical games will still be released on a regular schedule) and they've put an impossible work load on themselves to deliver quality in my opinion. You could try Napoleon or Shogun 2 using the excellent Darth Mods -- you can have larger armies and overall a more satisfying historical game experience. I can recommend Fall of the Samurai -- it's got great ambience and may be the best TW title built on the current engine overall. Napoleon modded is fun, make sure you have 40 unit stacks enabled for a more realistic battle experience, but overall the battle AI is kind of predictable. p.s. We should keep an eye on Oriental Empires as another kind of TW like game. The two main developers have had stints working for Creative Assembly, the developers of TW (100% owned by SEGA).

But it's not unreasonable for games journalists to try to hold kickstarted game developers to a higher transparency standard than THQ owned developers, for example.

I think this is it. I I'm not super familiar with Molyneux, but he comes across in the RPS interview as someone who will avoid at all costs a candid conversation that is grounded in facts. Has he been more honest ever in the past when handled less confrontationally? I seriously doubt it. And I feel like I learned that from the interview something I didn't know before-- that this is someone disconnected from the consequencies of repeatedly exaggerating and lying about his work. Possibly even sociopathic? Secondly, I also see a huge amount of difference between game development financed through Kickstarter versus a traditional publisher from the point of view of games journalism reporting. Publishers are assumed to be risk-saavy investors. Kickstarter funders are fans. Kickstarted developers have a fundamental obligation to deal with the public in a straightforward manner during game development and reporters should recognize this obligation and difference in their reporting. Thus his calling-out appears to have been long overdue.

It is a tough read but I see it as Walker's attempt to establish facts for the interview and hold Molyneux to those facts. In other words, necessary.

Regarding malaria, I've taken the prophylactic on several trips overseas. The first pill, taken in Africa, made me hallucinate one night that there was a local dude in full ethnic regalia hanging out in my closet. I had to run my hand through him a few times to assure myself he wasn't real. The second pill, taken in S.E. Asia, made my skin turn lobster red after a couple hours in the sunlight. Was totally worth it though.

Sean, thanks for having Far Cry 2's back during the episode. I was cheering you on behind my headphones!

Thoroughly enjoyed this - cheers! I do believe Paradox should experiment with its system of warfare for future games, specificially the ways armies camapign and the battle tactics available to the player. Soren (or was it Jon?)had some good suggestions on this.

Great topic! From what I hear about working conditions in the video game industry, some sort of union seems to make a ton of sense. Something like the Screenwriters Guild? www.wga.org

I finished Tomb Raider not to long ago and there were enough moments when I absolutely hated the game. Why? 1. QTEs (aka being punked by a game developer) 2. Numerous levels where appearances and mechanics appear to support different approaches to a problem but there is only one solution and the penalty for not reading the game designers mind is being impaled on a spike over and over and over and over and over....

Wow. What a load of self-congratulatory rubbish. Look out below.

The love comes from the fact that Creative Assembly makes a unique kind of game: war and empire building on big campaign maps with cities and armies and navies but then cinematic real time battles with thousands of men when forces collide. As bad as some of the Total War titles are, no one else has come close to doing what they do. Not to promote their current work because Rome 2 is a disgrace in my opinion, but there were two fairly decent Total War games released in the five years between 2009's Empire and Rome 2: Napoleon (2010) and Shogun 2 (2011). Both were smaller scale than Empire or Rome II which may have helped them realize a higher level of polish and game balance. Regarding Alien, it's my sense that the Total War group (PC) and the Alien group (console) are entirely separate operations. They occupy separate floors at the company's Horsham UK offices and have different teams.

I haven't played any Dark Souls but as long as there are multiple routes to success, precision can be fine, desireable even. Can we all agree that what is good in FC2 and FC3 is the emergent gameplay? What I would hope for with FC4 (if I didn't feel a crushing sense of Ubi-doom) would be a return to extreme focus on open world emergent gameplay, not on QTE's, tagging, poker games, mission areas or a deeply dumass story line. I just want Ubi to meet me halfway back to FC2. Because FC3 was an overreaction to some people's complaints about FC2. That's all I'm asking for, really. Throw me a bone.

The reception to FC2 wasn't universally so-so. Nor was the reception to FC3 universally positive. However, it is quite true that FC3 succeeded with sales and that many fans (a majority?) were well pleased. Thus is born the Ubi-FC formula from which there can be no escape now.

The problem though is the implied conceit that Far Cry 3 was universally beloved by fans compared to Far Cry 2. I'm skipping 4, due to disappointment with cartoonish, QTE-ridden, parody-infected, MTV-influenced FC3. So take that, Ubi!

Ah yes...the Tropico series. Such fabulous potential wasted or left brutally unrealized anyway. My ten year old and her friends love playing 4 so I'm cool with it. Maybe that's where the dumb jokes and easy game play comes together. Anyway, I'm going to wait for this one to get patched up, and probably a steam sale w/dlc before I go for this. It sounds too exasperating to pay full price.

Thanks for all the tips! Going to give this another go soon.

Just completed my first play though and wow, I got my butt kicked. I realized too late the crucial importance of getting satellites up...but beyond that, anyone know of a good strategy guide or strategy focused play though?