Exploring The GOOD & BAD of A Total War Saga: Troy - Retrospective 2023 Review

hey guys so since the announcement of pharaoh and all the gameplay we've seen so far a sizable chunk of the fan base including myself has been picking out and complaining about all the similarities Pharaoh shares with Total War Saga Troy there's the less than realistic and slightly cartoony visual style the same Bland battle UI which actually somehow looks worse here battle animations and more that all bear a very close resemblance to ca Sophia's previous game so in the last few days I decided to go back to Troy to play a historical mode campaign again specifically with Achilles to refresh myself and what the game did well and what it didn't and what I want to do today in this video is to share my experiences with you summarize the positives and negatives and clearly Define exactly why Troy falls short and how for a lot of people including myself this sets the tone for Pharaoh's release there's a lot to dig into here so let's dive straight right in we all know that total war games are about two genre defining gameplay experiences a dynamic campaign that captures the essence of the time period and through the variety of mechanics and choices that the player has access to free agency to shape the world plus the grand scale battle spectacular realistic engagements that have both tactical depth and that come with a variety of functional unit rosters my gameplay in the last few days shows however that wild Troy does get some of that right it's not enough to be a good fun Total War and here's why starting with the good stuff on the campaign side of things it has to be said that Troy is definitely one of the most immersive games that's ever come out of the series visually the campaign map is stunning with a day and night cycle that together with the Ambient sound effects and the music is just so brilliantly done like whoever did the art Direction on Troy hopefully got a massive well-deserved raised because it is just incredible The Iliad is an epic story set in an epic time and everything here is so well represented in that regard then there's the building and resource system which at least at the start of your campaign was a massive step in the right direction simple but functional building trees meant that though I don't like the province system particularly myself the system is being used at its best forcing me to specialize certain provinces for military recruitment While others for economic production Divine favor and others and there's the added strategic layer of expanding your territory in a way that prioritizes what resources you need and with higher tier units requiring a lot of scarce bronze and gold it does get quite engaging there's also the AI which for a total war game is good at territory expansion at recruiting decent armies that pose a challenge especially your rivals in the Trojan War so often as Achilles I would suddenly be invaded it by a full stack High tier Army from Troy pillaging and looting and the AI also seems to develop their cities pretty well so at some point you do begin expanding into territory that has a hefty Garrison for example or some decent resource development that poses a notable challenge even at normal difficulty when compared to previous games all of this good though that CA Sophia has done with Troy while quite nice it has to be said is eclipsed by the bad I've experienced in the last few days and it all comes down to a simple I'm just bored after 30 turns with Achilles I found that while the resource system is interesting to start with through looting and sacking you pretty much don't need to worry about producing resources at all in fact if you get a few Buffs to post battle loot you can go buy in campaign not producing any resources at all which is just baffling it feels like the mechanic is well thought out but the design implementation is just not not balanced enough especially when working in tandem with other mechanics in the game and that leads me to the other problem with resources which is that the AI cheats and has no idea how to prioritize expanding territory to gain new and more resources so throughout your campaign you'll see the AI always has loads of access to two or three resources mandalayas always has wood Agamemnon always has food but it never has a monopoly on everything or it never has a shortage on everything and that tells me the system is not something the AI ever knows how to manage or work the problem has a very specific effect on a major mechanic in the game which is diplomacy where the AI will spam you at least a couple of times for every end turn for a resource trade which always just makes no sense whatsoever for me this is the worst part about the Troy campaign through all of this the only reason the diplomacy is really there is so that the main conflict of the setting the Trojan War can be forced on the player willy-nilly it baffles me that ca's answer to how do we start the Trojan War was just to have all the enemy Trojan factions declare war on you all at once there's no immersion there there's no preparation for the player one minute the entire Greek world is in a civil war the next it's still in a civil war with like six factions sending their top tier armies across the Aegean Sea to destroy you there is no narrative lead up to it or anything it just suddenly happens which is a massive buzz kill to the campaign and to be honest all the other minor issues I can just kind of ignore like the UI in the campaign isn't that terrible the Divine will stuff while kind of Fantastical is is okay I mean it doesn't really take a lot of effort to build the buildings and get the kind of favor that you need from the god that you like and accessing higher tier units is just pretty easy early game but being forced into the Trojan War through what feels like a diplomatic script just seems like incredible cop-out to what is supposed to be the focused conflict of the game the strangest part actually for the last couple days with Achilles was that the first Army to land on my Shores was Paris and when I kicked him out of Greece the rest of the Trojan factions easily accepted Peace So the Trojan War lasted like five turns for me which is just ridiculous where Troy truly fails though and everybody agrees everybody talks about Troy in this way is the battles and it's very very clear as to why the average battle didn't last more than five minutes which when you think about the time it takes for the armies to actually clash in the field means that the fighting really only lasts for two to three minutes the roster design is actually something I like as far as infantry goes but the lack of Cavalry in a total war game is very hard felt here with chariots just a boring alternative as they hack and slash through everything in their way what I found specifically glaring about Troy though is the UI it's just incredibly Bland it's the blandest probably UI in all of Total War and I genuinely feel like I'm playing a mobile game every time I see it I mean there is a huge missed opportunity here with green versus red these Bland unit cards when the Bronze Age is full of incredible artistic style if they just use some of that as inspiration for this UI things could be even better in the battles much better for a very simple change but that's not the case here and judging by the number of buttons and Status markers in the Pharaoh gameplay we've seen so far things are even worse unless they change by release from the lackluster Siege gameplay in Troy which has the siege of Troy's the focal point of the game seems ironic to the cartoony and unrealistic battle animations and visuals of the units themselves the battles in Troy are essentially fast crap and wherever I possibly could even if it meant taking some Hefty casualties I basically Auto resolved in this Achilles Campaign which is not a positive experience in Total War especially as battles are what sets these games apart from others in the strategy genre now there's a real possibility that CA Sophia might be improving on a lot of these issues that Troy had in their next title in pharaoh and in fact in some ways we know they already are battles are apparently slower and more tactical the primary conflict of the game to see people's Invasion appears to have its own distinct mechanics to bring it to life which is in stark contrast to the willy-nilly at the ai's whim Trojan War but it's important to understand that a lot of players concerns about Pharaoh do come from the obvious overlaps we can see in the gameplay reveal so far the same UI the same fast-paced battles the same less than realistic artistic style for yet another Bronze Age game are all perfectly sound reasons for concern people who say that Pharaoh is looking like a Troy reskin or that oh it's another Bronze Age game aren't reasons for complaining about the game are totally right right they aren't but what people have every right to complain about is Pharaoh through everything we've seen so far looking very similar to a previous game this studio produced that was a hot mess of subpar Total War if Sophia are reusing assets UI designs animations mechanics they may very well be reusing gameplay features and mechanics that made Troy a badly received game which is exactly where the real concerns are coming from all of that being said there is an argument for looking at how historically if we compare games that are similar to the Pharaoh and Troy relationship we see a lot of Success Napoleon was a vast Improvement in many ways to Empire improving AI graphics and battle gameplay Attila was a massive upgrade to Rome 2 despite the obvious optimization issues it had a great political system new fleshed out mechanics and a very deep meaningful campaign we might very well see the same effect play out here with pharaoh improving on a lot that Troy got wrong I genuinely hope it does because overall through my gameplay in the last few days Troy was mostly crap and that's it for today guys I wanted to explore my thoughts and impressions of the Troy historical mode campaign I've been playing with Achilles in this video to capture all the main points about why it's just not a very good Total War Game and how that kind of explains why I'm so cautious about the upcoming release of total warfaro and generally there are lots of people who are worried about the the various elements that look very similar between pharaoh and Troy hopefully if history does repeat itself Pharaoh won't disappoint and will actually be a success story but well time will only tell as always I'll be following any new updates to pharaoh and making videos as and when I get Early Access especially so if that sounds good to you subscribe to the channel for more I hope you enjoyed this video and found it informative if you did do give it a like and try drop any thoughts or questions in the comment section below and let me know what you think about Troy and how you feel about Pharaoh so far thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time

Channel: TheTerminator

Views: 37,999

Keywords: total war, total war pharaoh, pharaoh total war, total war: Pharaoh impressions, bronze age total war, troy total war, total war saga troy, troy 2023 review, total war troy, total war saga troy review, historical total war, new total war, next total war, total war news, pharaoh total war impressions, pharaoh total war gameplay, pharaoh and troy total war, total war rome 2, total war warhammer 3, trojan war, total war troy review, total war troy 2023 review, troy 2023

Id: Ow0wPOn5xds

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023