5 4
Napoleon
Napoleon takes everything Empire did well and refines it,
streamlining and improving the best bits of its sprawling, often
flabby predecessor. But it’s more than just a mere improvement:
Napoleon represents Creative Assembly learning how to properly
apply a story to an emergent game. The game is a testament to
Bonaparte’s brilliance, and the conquests are essential because
they’re conducted with humanity and impartiality. As well as being
a superb Total War game, it’s a fascinating way of delving into a
turning point in Europe. You get to experience the triumphs and
failures of an incredible military mind, and it’s an unusual, often
moving way of seeing something that still echoes through history.
Experiencing huge conflict through the eyes of a few people makes
this a humbling, brilliant, utterly essential experience.Attila
The most characterful moments from classic Total War games usually
happen organically – the brave mercenary army on the edge of your
empire, the feckless offspring of crusading generals. Attila is the first
successful attempt to weave these stories into the game itself. It almost
makes Total War a misnomer. It’s not just about fighting: Attila is game
of politics, feasting, famine, desolation, and migration, set during one
of the most fragile and fascinating periods of history – Europe still feels
like a unformed concept, ready to be shaped or smashed as you see fit.
It also does a great job of folding in more complicated elements, such
as weather and guerilla warfare – perfect for anyone more used to the
simple clarity of earlier Total Wars. And like Warhammer, everything you
do is under the shadow of a gathering storm: it’s not if Attila and his
Hunnic army will arrive, but when. A brutal, unforgiving and wonderfully
complex strategy Total War game.
Rome
Rome was the first game where the scale of the conflict completely
overwhelmed me. I’d pause every elephant charge to enjoy the
impact; chase down every last fleeing slinger just to see them
stampeded. It was also the first taste of what remains my favourite
element of the series: the specific conflicts that appear in every
game, when you and a rival faction push at each other’s borders
until the dam breaks and you flood into their land. It helps that
the setting is familiar to anyone who’s studied history (or read
Asterix). It’s immediately and deeply satisfying, and the only thing
better than driving the Roman war machine across the Europe and
beyond is defying history and withstanding it. Chuck in the savagely
unforgiving Barbarian Invasion – the only Total War game that forced
me to become a Roman vassal – and you have the best example of
this time period in the series.THE GAME IS A
TESTAMENT TO
BONAPARTE’S
BRILLIANCEBEST WAR