Holding Back the Hordes in Total War: Attila - Part 2

Welcome to Holding Back the Hordes, a series of articles following my journey through a new Total War: Attila campaign. At the head of the Eastern Roman Empire, I’ve made it my task to hold back the ‘barbarian’ hordes; defending my capital of Constantinople while keeping invaders out of my lands for good - all while pushing my Empire to new found glory.

In the first part of this series, I put in place the building blocks of my new empire with a focus on farming and increased income - although that focus meant I wasn’t prepared when disease struck my lands and spread like wildfire. On the bright side, I managed to kick the Visigoths out of Greece and kill off their infamous leader Alaric, reversing the path of history. This part begins with my empire still suffering from disease, but developing slowly and surely. Plus, with a new enemy attacking from the West, I turn my Third Legion towards Northern Africa to put down the invading Garamantians.

396AD Winter - Turn 8

My project for faction-wide sanitation continues. I’m building a large number of cleansing constructions that should help thwart the disease, although given how well it has now penetrated my lands, I might just have to wait it out. At least my armies have still avoided it. The last couple of turns have been punctuated by me declaring war on a rather silly number of tribes. Of course, I’m not actually attacking them, rather I’m joining a war that the Western Roman Empire have been forced in to. So I’m at war with the Visigoths once again, only around a year after topping off their leader and making peace. I’m also at war with a bunch of Britannic and Frankish tribes like the Picts and Suebians - so that may well come back to bite me.

The Third Legion is crushed by the Garamantians.

This turn also saw my biggest problem to date - the destruction of the Third Legion. As it marched into North Africa the Garamantian army it sought turned and struck back. The battle slider was set at about 40:60 to me losing, so I took the reigns thinking I could handle these desert nomads - turns out their cavalry can be rather devastating. It didn’t help that my Third Legion was horribly overpopulated with ranged units. Considering the mobility of these Garamantians, I don’t think I’ll be needing any more archers against them in the future - just more spearmen! In short, I lost my whole army, only costing them 600 casualties (in a cruel parallel to my victory against Alaric’s army). Whelp.

397AD Autumn - Turn 11

It’s all kicking off now. I’ve started to build a new legion in North Africa, this time better equipped to fight the Garamantians’ cavalry-focused army. I’m also making a lot more money now that the old legion is dead (every cloud...), so I’ve invested that into some useful buildings. Unfortunately, the last few turns have pretty much made me enemy number one. As well as joining the Western Empire against a few more tribes, the Sassanid Empire has gone and declared war on me, bringing with them a whole bunch of smaller Middle Eastern states that will no doubt descend upon me like madmen. My Second Legion, which has been camped out in Turkey for a while, now has something to do - although I’d much rather they stay out of any fighting, not that I can avoid it now.

The Sassanids, along with all their clients, declare war.

398AD Winter - Turn 16

With the Empire now engulfed in true total war, I spend the last few turns shoring up defences and making sure my eastern towns are prepared for the Sassanids and their allies. Of course, there’s only so much preparation I can do. Their armies attack me in a few different places, with mixed successes. I manage to hold them off in a couple of battles, but they also raid a couple of towns - surprisingly not taking the settlements, but rather destroying buildings and taking my money. That is, at least, until I bring my Second Legion into the fight. After a couple of successful smaller battles against various Sassanid client states, I take the fight to the empire itself - and instantly regret it.

The Legion is pursued through the Sassanids’ lands by no less than four armies! Eventually they trap me and assault my army with three whole forces. I put up a decent fight, and inflicted almost 2000 casualties on their 4000 strong army, but I lose my entire Second Legion in the process. Not good. This destruction of armies isn’t something I’m entirely used to, thankfully I’ve got the economy to quickly rebuild new forces, but taking big casualties so often is going to have a bad effect in the long run. I need to be smarter about where I place my Legions - because at the moment I’m being overrun.

A huge Sassanid army takes down more of my Legions.

399AD Summer - Turn 18

My Fourth Legion, under Emperor Flavius, has pushed back against the Garamantians. I’ve retaken Augila, and now made a peace agreement. I had to pay a little gold, but considering the wave of forces coming from the East, I need as many men in that part of the world as I can get. I’ve started to build two new Legions, one in Turkey and one near Jerusalem, so hopefully they can turn the tide against the Sassanids and their allies who have really started to raid my lands now. For the first time in the game I’ve got a food shortage (admittedly, it’s only a small one), so my troops are suffering a small amount of attrition. Plus, the Sassanids are besieging my key town of Edessa, which should prove problematic if they take it - a highly likely event at this point.

400AD Autumn - Turn 21

Atilla is born in some far reach of the world. Which means it won’t be long until the Huns begin their assault on my lands. My First Legion is still going strong up in the Balkans, so they should be able to resist any probing threats for now. While that’s going on, I’m finally making my move against the Eastern factions. The Parthians, including their faction leader, fall at the gates of Aelia Capitolina (which will become Jerusalem), and my new Sixth Legion from that region is starting to make its way into enemy territory with several enemy cities on the horizon. Plus, with my Emperor Flavius and the Fourth Legion making a beeline for the same regions, I should have plenty of strength pushing into the East soon. Edessa and the surrounding cities are still under constant attack, but so far the factions have held back from actually taking the cities - seemingly happy to just let them slowly burn.

Edessa burns.

400AD Winter - Turn 24

The tide of the war is turning, but not without some hiccups along the way. Food shortages are continuing to affect my troops, preventing them from replenishing and causing a little attrition. It’s difficult to predict whether I will have enough food for each turn, but at the moment I’m balancing on a fine line. More agricultural buildings are on the way though!

Sad to say, that’s not my only issue. Slowly degrading public order in a couple of key provinces is finally causing me troubles. Rebellions in both northern Turkey and North Africa have forced me to divert troops to the problem spots, which means my Fourth and First Legions are no longer located where I’d like them to be. Thankfully though, the actual war in the East is going well. Despite finally losing the town of Amida, I’ve secured two important open-battle victories against the Sassanids, one against the faction leader’s army. With those two armies out of commission for a while, I’ve got a much better chance of holding the forces to the north while pushing into their lands in the south. This is the tipping point now - things could go either way.

Check back in a week for the next part of Holding Back the Hordes when I’ll be entering the next phase of my war against the Sassanid Empire.