![]() Most players seem to have approached it as just another full title, and judged it against Rome 2, Attila, & WH2. CA released some blogs and such attempting to set expectations, saying it would be a standalone spinoff similar in scale to Fall of the Samurai (a large expansion pack), but they also promoted the game as having all the depth expected from a full Total War title, and priced it similarly to Napoleon & Attila. I think its biggest problem was actually perceptual, since it was the first Saga game, and many players had no idea what to expect from this new thing. In a move I find pretty funny, some Troy critics have even been holding ToB up as "the good Saga" in comparison to Troy.Īt launch, ToB had some problems. ![]() ToB's Steam reviews are mostly positive recently, and the overall rating is just held down by reviews that were left from launch. TL DR: Wild expectations, hype, and reactionary opinions combined with some launch issues to create an initial backlash, which turned the game into something the community just liked to meme despite it being a successful title.įirstly, most of the negative opinions on it were at its launch, but it has increasingly come to be recognized as a good game - a similar trajectory to Empire and Rome 2, which were both popular memes and flamebait for a while due to rough launches, but are now considered classics of the series. This is going to be long, but I think there are a few things to consider. the freedom for the Vandals to migrate to Carthage, Spain to fight the Aztecs, England to crusade etc. It's not just lack of unit variety, it's lack of grand strategic options - e.g. I find national games just less replayable. Like the Shoguns, I just find a national focussed game lacks the variety of bigger setting like Europe (Rome, Medieval). At the campaign level, my perspective is distorted as I only played Wessex which is the easy faction, but the endgame challenge - the Norman invasion was so underwhelming compared to say the Mongols or Huns in earlier games. Also, I think Attila cheats much more in allowing the AI to spam stacks. ![]() It's less apparent in say Attila, because the AI has more cavalry and missiles, which were more of an active threat. The battles may be the best modelled of any Total War (I especially liked the modelling of cavalry vs cavalry fights) but the historical reliance on heavy infantry exposed the weakness of the TW battle system where hammer and anvil tactics just destroy the AI (I think Troy faced a similar potential problem but seems to have come up with some solutions). The game would have benefited from a 3K like focus on relations between characters (the fiefdoms thing they added was too mechanical). Big let down compared to Attila (or the Shoguns) which were very immersive and oozed historical character. The legendary historical figure of Alfred had no character - just a faction leader with good stats. That would have been a compelling premise. Starting after the Great Heathen Army was defeated was bizarre. I think ToB suffers from three main issues, fix any one and it could have been good: I came to it from Attila, which is my favorite historical TW. I don't hate ToB by any means - it's a pretty solid title.
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