I was looking at some statistics on Steam today and I noticed something very interesting with some of the recent Total War titles.

26 of my Steam friends have played Rome 2

10 of my Steam friends have played TW: Attila

1 of my Steam friends have played TW: Thrones of Brittania


Discuss.

26 of your friends prefer the periods of ancient warfare offered by Rome 2 more than the other titles?

That's one possibility. The other possibility that occurred to me is that the extremely buggy and incomplete Rome 2 on initial release upset a lot of gamers on SimHQ so they decided to pass on subsequent titles.

Not in my case. I skipped Rome 2 but bought Attila. Not sure why I skipped Rome 2, but at the base level I'd say it's just not the most interesting time period for me. Then again, Attila wasn't either and I like that title a lot.

One thing that is not factored in here is Warhammer/2 since you don't have either one. That would be interesting to see how many of those folks play those titles.

I haven't play ToB yet either, but it strikes me as more niche than these other titles, which may skew the numbers a bit. Still, the numbers are striking. Indeed it's an interesting question.

I know Warhammer sold extremely well but my gut tells me that many gamers on SimHQ passed on it for the same reason I did. The fact that it's a fantasy theme and not historical based.


And you are indeed correct in saying that ToB is more niche for the simple fact that the game map is exclusively the British Isles and it takes place during a relatively short time span in history (late 9th century/early 10th century AD). You also have a very limited number of distinct factions (Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic and Viking).

Yeah, you're probably right that many here didn't buy WH, as my thread proved I think. I just didn't realize your friends list was only SimHQers.

I dug up this thread which has sales figures, which sort of correlate to your findings. Of course time on market must be considered, but interesting nonetheless, assuming it's accurate (2 months old evidently)

Edit: Not sure how useful this is, as it's linked to achievements apparently. It's more accurate in assessing how many played the game, not just bought it. But those figures must be more or less in line with sales.

Warhammer... fantasy stuff so I had no interest at all in that title

Not all but about 80% of them are.


Thanks for posting that link. I know it's not 100% accurate but overall it really does show that Attila and especially ToB were commercial disappointments.

Maybe because older RTS games like Supreme Commander Forged Alliance are so good, there's little incentive to play anything else.

Time on market and sales (though I am still only on older generations even than Rome 2). The Britannia one might be interesting, moreso than some of the longer ones because of its relative brevity.

In regards to Attila, I simply think that it was a matter of people just not being as interested in that historical time period when compared to Rome 2 so hence the significantly lower sales.

And besides, I think most players like to play as Rome when it was top dog instead of playing a crumbling and dying Rome that was beset by enemies on all sides.

That may be true, and there's no accounting for taste as they say. For me though, my run as WRE in Attila was one of the best, most challenging campaigns I've had in Total War. Of the TW titles I've played (most of 'em) Attila is my favorite for the way sieges/settlement battles are handled and I'd rank it as number two in my list of favorite Total War titles. The campaign is great, the mechanics solid and the looming threat of Attila himself adds a high degree of foreboding. It also has what I think are the best horde mechanics in the series.

Agreed 100% What difficulty did you play it on? I played it on "normal" and that was tough enough for me. I won it but damn it was a tough road.

It was normal. I don't think I could have done it at a higher difficulty. Here's the thread as you may recall.

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.p...mage-plus-the-last-roman-too#Post4377780

Not that it's any sort of issue, but didn't you tell me in that thread you played it on easy?

Originally yes and then I replayed the campaign on "normal" at a later date. Actually, I've finished the campaign about 3 times now as the WRE.

Normal's tough enough on that one innit?

Yes it is but I came up with some strategies that worked really well:

1. Abandon Northern Britain. You get badly needed money from knocking down the buildings in those settlements and it allows you to consolidate your hold on Southern Britain.

2. Get as much money as you can from ERE by offering him wives for marriage and offering to join his wars against factions that are so far from you that you won’t have to worry about it. I was able to get quite a bit of funds this way.

3. Early in the game invest most of your money in sanitation buildings and food producong buildings. Negative food is a real killer for your public order and wealth production. You also don’t want a disease outbreak anywhere since it tends to spread like wildfire.

4. Recruit lots of the cheap spear mercenary units (like the Germanic pikes) early in the game. They are almost as effective as the Roman comitatensis units but they cost a lot less.

Seems a sound plan.

In my WRE run the ERE were worthless as military allies. Actually, worse than that. But the money was good. I would have liked to have a TA but no alliance.

I held on to the British Isles in my run, mostly to avoid raids in to Gaul and Iberia. Economically it was not worth it, and it tied up a Legion. But strategically I think it was the right move.

So I come home from work, walk the dog and fire up Steam to see there is a publisher's weekend sale on historical titles. Most are in my library, aside from Rome 2 and ToB. Not sure ToB is appealing at the mo, but $20 for the Emperor's edition of Rome 2 is tempting. It's surely too much to ask of anyone here, but I'd love to see a detailed comparison of Rome 2 to other titles, especially in terms of mechanics, factions and the campaign. The good the bad, the ugly. 20 bucks though, even if I hated it, which is unlikely, there isn't much to lose in that. I feel like Rome 2 will be in my library before the weekend's out. Does Rome 2 have Red Shell?

i don't know what Red Shell is but I can tell you that the current version of Rome 2 is incredibly well-polished and it is certainly worth getting for 20 bucks. You won't be disappointed.