Landscape advantages
Some infantry units with heavy armor are slower, while others are faster. These speed differences will be particularly notable when a unit enters the new terrain types such as mud. Lighter infantry will be able to traverse the terrain with ease, whereas heavy units will struggle to maneuver and be more vulnerable to flanking.
Long grass enables units with the “hide in long grass trait” to disappear from enemy view and snipe with their weapons from a distance; it’s ideal for archer units. Sand can also slow down soldiers, making them vulnerable to archers.
And, of course, it’s best to avoid the high walls of Troy, and Paris’s bow, until you’re ready to assault the city.
Regional war
The strategic map of the game includes much of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Dardanelles Strait on the west, as well as the islands of the Aegean Sea on the east. As the Greeks (Achaeans), you can maneuver your armies before the city of Troy, or fight against Troy’s allies in Asia Minor using strategic movement. But the real fighting will take place before Troy, which has a variety of sandy, hilly, or grassy terrain.
Battlefield commander
To crush your enemies, you must learn the art of commanding your armies in real time. You can dispatch companies of soldiers to take and hold specific pieces of the map as the enemies try to do the same in simultaneous movement. And when your soldiers clash with the enemy, you want to make sure you can give your units the advantage by bringing about more units to outflank the enemy, rain arrows on them from behind your line, or crush their morale with a hero.
In Total War games, you can zoom in to see the faces of individual soldiers. The details can be amazing, as long as you don’t look too closely. I saw the same faces on a number of soldiers in each company in the game video.
In these games, your spearmen do well against swordsmen or archers, but they aren’t as mobile. Horse soldiers or chariots can wreak havoc among the archers, but the archers can whittle away a force of swordsmen from a distance. It’s like rock-paper-scissors, with ax soldiers also thrown in the mix.
But some units have advantages. Achilles’ Myrmidons are elite soldiers who show little fear and have great endurance. They can crack the Trojan lines at critical places.
System requirements
The game requires Windows 7 64-bit at a minimum, and Sega recommends Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10 64-bit. You need a minimum Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz processor, or recommended Intel Core i5-4570 3.20GHz, or better. You need 5 GB RAM main memory minimum, or recommended 8GB RAM.
For graphics, you need a minimum of Nvidia GTX 460 1GB or AMD Radeon Graphics HD 5770 1GB or Intel HD4000 @720p; or recommended Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 290x 4GB @1080p. You also need DirectX 11 and 10GB of storage space.
Conclusion
The Total War game engine keeps producing better and better military simulations and battlefield art. The human faces need a little more work and graphics processing power to bring the realism home. But it’s so cool to see something that played out in my imagination decades ago on a computer screen.
I like the balance the game strikes between historical military simulation and epic tales of heroes and gods fighting on the windy plains of Troy and the wine-dark sea of the Aegean. I can’t wait to see what some of the campaign looks like, as the developers will need to be very creative to make sure that the fighting isn’t all just about the siege of Troy. I like what I see so far.