Anti-Player Bias Total War Attila

Anti-player bias is my biggest gripe with all the TW games. It gets ridiculous.

Anti player bias is not only ridiculous at times, but often breaks immersion. I don't remember the exact scenario, but in Warhammer 3 some dwarves marched across a good amount of greenskin territory to attack me. I even fought a battle where the dwarves were reinforcing the greenskins, I felt like I was going insane

Random tribes halfway across the world will send full armies of thousands of men to attack the player while leaving themselves completely undefended. At least they would be undefended if the AI didn't give them cheats so that a one-province tribe can field 3-4 armies. The anti-player bias is so bad it's immersion-breaking. You shouldn't be dealing with naval invasions from landlocked one-province factions.

There is another reason the anti-player bias is bad design. If you are aware it exists, and can formulate strategy to make use of it, it can severely weaken AI factions. I recall a Ethiopian campaign I played where the Sassanids, despite being at war with Huns, White Huns, and the ERE, were trying to send armies all the way through the Arabian Peninsula to attack me in Yemen. I just put an army in ambush and waited for their armies to get through the attrition, then yo ambush them. They were so dedicated to fighting me that they were getting dismantled by the Huns. In reality, you can even make a decoy settlement and leave it apparently undefended, the AI will kill itself in desperation to get to it. It breaks the immersion, and if you’re new to the game, it is crushingly unfair.

10 years into the game and half the factions are seperatists. Classic Attila-campaign right there^^

Playing attila feels like having your dentist elbow your teeth down your throat and booking you for a checkup in a month for more

"beat them all off" damn that got a chuckle out of me

Hey Legend! This was my campaign, I went on small panic here since I didn't know how to deal with so many armies coming at me at once from different directions. The small army was just for clearing up rebel armies, since the public order was not great in that province, so that's why I just spammed archers (those were cheap units) in that army. The first fleet you disbanded was used to take out those settlements in the north, left it there just to keep public order in check. There are lot of things that I've forgotten about this game, example how effective those missile ships are against transports. Thanks again for clearing this up, after this I was able to push to Britain, took some time but I was able to take out Picts and Caledonians , Brits are still at large but much less of a threat now. Keep these great videos coming!

Legend is the GOAT of beating off multiple armies

Hi Legend, I know this sounds super cliche but I'm going through a stressfull time right now and your videos help me switch off and think of something else. Just wanted to give some appreciation. Time to watch !

I love Attila, but the anti-player bias is ridiculous. I remember playing as Slavs and sailing to Britain to settle down. Some Germanic tribe declared war on me on the way, all the way in Prussia. I ignored it and settled down, and about 6 or 7 turns later, that same Germanic tribe sailed all the way to Britain across enemy territory to try and attack my settlements lol.

So glad to see you take on some Attila. Cheers, LOTW. Just love hearing your description and style. Best content maker around, IMO. Big thanks and hope to see more

Legend if you JUST put a merchant in Timbuktu all your problems will be solved

The worst thing about this bias is that it ends up making the AI playing worse overall and making the experience worse. If the AI focused on making the best decision for it's own succes it would have a better chance to keep up with the player. Then maybe campaigns wouldn't be pretty much over by turn 40.

I was hoping years ago when they announced "Saga" that they would have make a new DLC for all the old titles, like Attila, and in that way they would have fixed old abandoned games. Attila has bugs, one of them even stop a faction to recruit the only heavy assault cavalry they have.

In my recent campaign I had Chaos dwarves declare war on me. I thought it was okay since my ally Karak Kadrin who is also at war with them was between me and chaos dwarves. Turns out the chaos dwarves completely ignored the Karak Kadrin's settlements and just force marched right through their territory to sack my undefended settlements.

My favourite TW Attila AI moment is when it’s the mid game and I’m at war with a big faction and then the neighbouring big faction declares war on me and sends 6 full stacks to shred my empire’s internal organs

A few things the total war AI needs generally ( for modders to figure out I guess since CA can't seem to): 1) A Diplomacy tracker bonus of player reputation for victory/crushing enemies utterly over the course of a campaign. It gets nuts later in a campaign when you've smashed a few rival factions to pieces and you're a mid-sized to large empire and some rinky dink, one or two settlement faction decides to declare war on you like they've got a chance. They shouldn't fight you unless they have to, or at least need to form coalitions against you (once again, Realm Divide, though too blunt, was a fundamentally good idea for this reason). 2) A basic concept of distance on the campaign map. The AI does not seem to take distance into account when it comes to wars and choosing them. You constantly end up with wars coming at you from factions absurdly far away on the campaign map in later games because of political treaties or some vague "power" comparison, but especially if a faction is really far away and they give you a DOW due to some political treaty or something, they need to effectively just treat it like the political maneuver it is, and never actually send an army your way. This is the stuff that really shows the anti-player bias the most, and it usually makes no real sense. 3) A middle ground political option, like a "Cold War" option or "Denouncement" option seen in some 4X games for AI factions to show their disapproval of your faction without being stupid or suicidal enough to go to direct war with you in certain circumstances where it gives them little to no advantage to commit to war fully. More generally, the ability to understand if and when a war with the player (or any faction) will give them advantage.

this, this situation right here is why I stopped playing Attila after the 5th or 6th try, no matter how many times I tried the situation would become unmanageable to me real quick. Which frustrated me to no end since I've been playing since Rome Total War.

I really enjoy the challenge of Atilla. Usually in total war after about turn 10 there is zero chance of you losing any land, but Atilla stays challenging well into the mid game. Still it has the problem of endgame being an easy roll over the remaining factions.