The usurpers of Roman land have become settled kingdoms trying to build new societies, and it's the returning 'Romans' who are the relentless, destructive outsiders.ДЄttila solved problems that have bedeviled Creative Assembly's games for years.ДЄge of Charlemagne ends the saga, and it's not quite as daring as the previous campaigns, but it's not supposed to be.

Now Belisarius and his Eastern legions are the outside invaders, moving like the barbarians of Attila once did, able to conquer but not to settle and build. Once again, each side is playing a game according to different rules, but the situation is reversed. The Last Roman campaign takes place almost seventy years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as the Byzantines hurl their waning strength and their greatest general into a doomed effort to recover the lost empire. It also tells the story of how Rome goes from being a political reality to an increasingly vague notion of power, order, and progress. But the expansions continue to build on that foundation, each one capturing a new moment in the death of the Roman world and the transition into the Middle Ages. If the story of Attila had stopped there, it would have been an impressive reinvention for an old series. Parts of it are ruined beyond repair, swaths of war-torn wasteland that used to be civilization. As the number of settled regions decreases, and the wealth they created bleeds out of the game, the ability to recover and rebuild also starts to vanish.Д«y the time the Attila campaign grinds to a halt, the world has been transformed. Conquering armies have the option of annihilating cities and towns rather than occupying or looting them. Barbarian factions can pack-up their entire nation and take to the road once again, leaving their permanent settlements a ruin behind them. That city you burned to a cinder 5 turns ago? With a few easy investments, it was on the road to being a thriving trade and manufacturing hub!ДЄttila changes the rules. But all the damage was temporary and easily fixed.

Each of those games did a good job of making it look like the world was coming undone as armies fought pitched battles and cities and fortresses changed hands time and again. Nothing this dramatic ever happened before in Total War. Cities burn, and depleted empires grapple with battered tribal armies for control over the ashes. The barbarians are in the early stages of a Civ game, exploring a dangerous new world and dueling for the best places from which to start a new empire. Everyone else is playing something new, and far more volatile, than a traditional Total War game.

There's really only one faction that is still playing traditional Total War: the Sassanids in Persia.

The trick is making sure you don't get knocked off-course by competing powers, but everyone is basically playing the same game.ДЄttila doesn't work like that. Typically, Total War follows a predictable arc: start small, make a few strategic expansions, leverage your newfound power into an empire. It's not that Attila's a throwback to the good old days of Total War, however. When I went to bed at night, I was thinking about the offensive waiting for me the next morning. Early morning gave way to lunchtime in a blur of hand-to-hand combat between thousands of medieval warriors, careful court politics, and the painstaking work of empire-building. When I revisited Attila's add-on campaign The Last Roman and tried out the Age of Charlemagne campaign, it felt like I'd fallen into a time-warp to 2003, when I played Medieval: Total War day and night to the detriment of sleep and school.

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