Total War: Arena (Alpha)

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.

       – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The insights of this ancient Chinese general still stand true today; case in point, we recently fought fearlessly in over 80 battles in Total War: Arena, the upcoming free-to-play MMO real-time strategy title being developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. We got the chance to try our hand at the closed Alpha, so keep reading to find out our impressions of this latest incarnation in one of the most popular strategy series out there.

Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, to Arms!

Your choice of character has no direct effect on the composition of armies in the game. In 10-vs.-10 battles, each of the two opposing sides will be made up of allies from various factions. Your choice does matter, however, when it comes to the kinds of special abilities and unit types that will be available, and here each character serves a distinct tactical role. In addition to the three basic type – support, defense, and assault – there are further specializations such as heavy, cavalry, and disruptor.

Once you’ve decided on a general, you can select which units you would like to lead into battle. You can choose three different combat units from among the ones you’ve unlocked up to that point. You also have the option of using certain consumable items that provide a bonus effect, though they sometimes have a downside as well. For example, you might be able to increase your archers’ range, but only at the price of a reduction in damage. You can also upgrade your units by purchasing better weapons and armor for them.

Pretty much all the upgrades, bonus effects, and special abilities in the game, as well as any troops past Tier 1, are unlocked by earning experience points and spending Silver, which you get from winning battles. Each Tier from 2 to 10 unlocks additional troop types, including spear and sword infantry, ranged units, mounted units, and even artillery. So there are lots of options for building your own unique army.

Field of Honor

There’s a good mix of maps to choose from, from the wild forests of Germania, to a Roman town, to the craggy Spartan hinterland. Players from each side take up their positions by choosing from a total of twelve different starting locations near each army’s base. But each position is only open to a single player, so you’d better pick one fast. Once you’ve selected a starting position, you can work out your strategy with your teammates using a paintbrush tool and a position marker to plan out your troop movements and point out strategically important positions, all while discussing it over voice chat. Good team coordination before the actual battle can easily mean the difference between a victory and a defeat, and these tools are available during the battle as well, making them a useful visual aid for working out tactical decisions with your teammates.

Each map offers a variety of different terrain types with their own unique characteristics, which you can use to your advantage, but you’ll have to be careful, as they can also work very much against you. High grass, for example, is able to hide units, who can then ambush an unsuspecting enemy. Buildings and forests obstruct units’ line of sight, which severely limits the advantage enjoyed by archers and other ranged units. Your troops will move faster on roads, but they’re slowed down by riverbeds. The use of advance outposts can represent another strategically decisive factor, as they offer an increased visibility range. Of course, you’ll have to capture one first, and then one of your units will have to hold it. If you leave the outpost, your team loses the extra sight radius.

The Art of War

Like other games in the series, Total War: Arena uses mouse-and-keyboard controls. The mouse is mostly used to command your units in the field, and you control the camera using the keyboard, though this takes some getting used to. There are also hotkeys for selecting units, carrying out certain attacks, and similar actions, which of course makes it easier to control things. There doesn’t seem to be any problems with unit pathfinding, which is great. The overall pace of the game is relatively brisk, but reasonable enough.

There are three ways to win a battle in Total War: Arena. The first way is to eliminate all enemy units, and the second way is to capture the enemy’s base. The third victory condition is triggered if a battle lasts more than 15 minutes, in which case the team with the most points wins. You gain points by killing enemy troops, but since the latest update you can also get them by performing certain actions that benefit your whole team. In any event, eliminating every enemy unit is nigh on impossible, which means that most battles will be decided by the second and third victory conditions.

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered

With the increased line of sight, another effective maneuver is to go around the enemy in order to attack them from their flank, or even from behind. The various terrain types can also be really useful here – on the “Salernum” map, for instance, there’s a long strip of grass between the two bases, which means that with a little luck, you can get your units halfway across the map without being seen.

Another extremely important factor is your units’ morale, which can be influenced by a variety of factors. If the enemy has superior numbers, or if it’s clear that they’re about to flank your units, this will cause morale to plunge. Once it hits bottom, the unit will start to flee, and you won’t be able to control them for some time.The same thing happens when the commander assigned to one of the three units is killed – the morale of the remaining troops will take a massive hit.

It’s almost impossible to predict how a battle is actually going to play out, as the course of the battle will be determined by all of the decisions, both major and minor, made by each player on both sides. Even when one side manages to severely weaken the other and they’re able to gain a significant numerical advantage, this doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to win. If the team has the upper hand, but they have all their units too far afield, leaving their own base undefended, it can easily be taken by a single enemy unit. The clever use of tactics on the battlefield can often lead to surprising turns of events. Since you’re constantly going to have to rethink your approach and adapt our strategy to changing battlefield conditions, it’s a really bad idea to have an army composed of a single unit type. By using a mix of melee and ranged units, not only will you be better able to react to changes in the field, but you’ll also receive an experience bonus.

Banner and Fanfare

Free2Play = Pay2Win?

Players can use real money to get Gold coins (you can also earn a small amount of them by winning battles). Gold coins can be used to purchase a sort of temporary premium membership that gives you a bonus on Silver and experience points, which means you can level up a lot faster than you could otherwise. This doesn’t really offer that much of an advantage over other players, since you can rise through the ranks even without paying any money. However, those willing to pay for it can also get in-game combat bonuses – some units can only be purchased using Gold, which is hard to come by unless you buy it. For example, certain mounted units can only be unlocked using Gold, and you can get them a lot sooner than the ones that don’t cost any Gold. This gives you much greater mobility early on, which is a tremendous strategic advantage on the battlefield. But then again, it’s not like the units you can purchase this way have much better stats than similar units, so it remains to be seen just how much of an impact they’re going to have on the game after the full version launches. So it’s not entirely clear yet whether we can speak of “play2win” in this case. You can’t actually purchase Gold coins yet, so we don’t know anything about how much real money Gold coins are going to cost, or how much Gold the units are going to cost, for that matter.