Riekopo

I think SEGA hasn't been doing well financially for some time now. They are probably cracking the whip on Creative Assembly and making them rush things and are behind the DLC/pre-order bullshit.

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I still don't unerstand why you guys are so high on Total War Attila. It's really not a very good game. There's still a ton of bugs that haven't been fixed from day one. It's the worst performing game I've ever owned. Their business model sucks. It didn't really add anything new to the series. All they did was add some things back that were lost over the years. The few new things they did add don't work well. The game hasn't been properly supported with patching. The modders haven't been properly supported with fixes for the new modding tools. I was Creative Assembly's biggest fan, but even I can see that this is a series on the decline.

I really liked Wings of Liberty, but I wasn't very happy with the story or gameplay in Heart of the Swarm. I hope the Legacy of the Void campaign is better.

I'm looking forward to Total War: Warhammer, but am very cautious for obvious reasons. There are some things that absolutely must be done in my opinion to get the combat feeling and looking great again. To get back to a golden age of Total War combat I think a few things need to happen. Blobbing moshpits need to be gone. Units needs to be distinguishable from each other when in close combat. Excessive clipping and phasing through needs to be gone. Units pushing each other needs to be brought back. The spaghetti line exploit needs to be fixed. The health model needs to be changed to fix ranged combat and make unit stats and combat easier to understand or dropped entirely for the old health model. Unit spacing needs to be larger and much more varied. The Guard Mode button needs to be brought back especially for ranged units. Generals needs to have much higher survivability. Animations need to be correct for the weapon type and physically connect with the enemy. Some new additions I would like to see are. Elevation should give a range boost not damage boost. There should be a way to make a unit fall back without getting them all killed. A unit should have every formation option that makes sense for that unit and there should be more formation options. There should be more fleshed out and advanced controls. A follow command (tell a unit to follow another unit), guard command (tell a unit to guard another unit), roaming attack command (tell a skirmisher to roam the battlefield attacking targets of opportunity), an attack move command (tell a unit to move to a location and engage enemies along the route), an explore command (tell a scout to search the battlefield for the enemy), etc. Abilities should be centered on the General or on the army overall instead of every unit having abilities which creates too much micro for large scale battles. Friendly fire should be less prevalent and indicated when happening. Unit spacing and numbers should be more varied. AI controlled units should prioritize attacking enemy units still fighting over fleeing units. Ranged units should be able to turn themselves around to fire on enemies behind them. All projectiles should be easily visible. ​

Cool episode theme. The extremely high praise for Attila is rather confusing to me though. The game currently has a 67% score on Steam. I just don't think the hosts have spent enough time with the game to realize all the problems it has. I mean, all it really is, is a semi fixed Rome 2. They took Rome 2 and added back SOME of the countless features that were lost. There's a few new things in there too I'll admit. However, just adding things to a game isn't good enough. They have to be done well and work well together and lot of the mechanics just don't work well together. They added immigration, but does anyone actually know how it works? Disease spread seems to be broken or explained incorrectly. Defensive siege escalation is broken because it literally never happens. The AI simply will not lay siege and assault a well defended city so you literally never get to see siege escalation which was a major selling point of the game. The way Food and Public Order work is illogical and unintuitive. You get food shortages in provinces even though your empire has a food surplus. Razing and Client States are broken mechanics. Half the map or more ends up razed and useless. Diplomacy is as terrible as ever. The Huns cheating is completely over the top and frustrating. Corruption is insane. Character traits are terrible. The massive fertility drop across the entire world makes most of the food buildings pointless and actually hurts the most fertile regions the most including historical bread baskets like Egypt. Character and army customization is completely uninspired and boring. Politics is boring and static. The family tree is poorly implemented. Go back and play Barbarian Invasion. I think you'll like it more than Attila. Empire was the first disaster for the series, but it wasn't a disaster because of bad ideas and design. Empire had great ideas and design, it just wasn't able to get them all to work and it failed on a technical level. Rome 2 on the other hand was a failure at a fundamental design level. It's like it was made by a different team. They threw everything out the window and simplified and minimalized everything. I know CA can make great games (Alien Isolation) and innovate, but with the Total War series they are lost in my opinion. The series should be improving with each successive game, but I don't think it is. For every feature gained one is lost. They're just treading water. They just throw everything out the window every couple games instead of iterating. I'm cautiously optimistic for Warhammer. I don't have much interest in the Warhammer universe and after years of broken releases I can't muster much excitement for new Total War games. I asked CA about doing an alpha and/or beta and they said no so their ethics haven't improved. Also, Ardennes Assault is not really that great. It's not bad, but its nothing special. It's very short, extremely overpriced, linear despite having a strategic map. The Germans literally don't attack on the strategic map. They just sit there and wait for you to destroy them. It's not dynamic at all. And at least half of the battles are basically just skirmish battles. The mission design was much better in the first game. The story and characters are just painful to listen to.

I emailed the show asking them to cover Attila because I thought their coverage of Rome 2 was accurate. I listened to the Attila episode and I have to say that I'm surprised how positive they were about it. Don't get me wrong Attila is better than Rome 2, but Rome 2 was horrific. It took a year of constant patching to get it into a release state. I get the feeling that the show hosts didn't play Attila long enough to realize all the problems it has. It has a lot of serious issues that haven't been addressed. There have only been 3 small patches for the game since release. They were quick to sell DLC, but they haven't properly supported the game with much needed fixes let alone adding any new features or mechanics. The multiplayer is completely dead. The game appears to have been basically abandoned. I could list all of the problems the game has, but you can just go on the official Support subforum and see the thousands of reported bugs that haven't been addressed. I myself have stopped playing because I got tired of running into bugs or things that needed to be adjusted. I honestly don't think CA does any quality control on their Total War games.

Common Sense currently has a Mixed 57% rating on Steam. It has not been well received by a lot of people. It's going to take some patching before I start a game with it.