A Total War Saga: TROY - Year In Review

A comprehensive, analytical review of the second SAGA Total War title, based on the Trojan conflict of the late Bronze Age. In this video, we will explore the state of the game a year since its exclusive launch on the EGS, with its recent Steam release and Mythos expansion pack.
Chapters:
0:00 Prologue
0:52 Introduction
3:12 Premise & Setting
12:16 Presentation
19:41 Campaign
52:56 Battles
1:07:23 Post-Release
1:13:42 Ratings, Pricing & Conclusion
Steam store page: store.steampowered.com/app/10...
Epic Games Store page: www.epicgames.com/store/en-US...
Join the discord: / discord
Support on Patreon: / reviewgen
Sources used:
¹ “Naval Warfare and Maritime Conflict in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Mediterranean”
Jeffrey P. Emanuel, Ancient Warfare Series Volume 2, 2020.
brill.com/view/title/54943
² “Chapter One - Introducing Bronze Age Warfare”
Christian Horn and Kristian Kristiansen, Warfare in Bronze Age Society, 2018.
www.cambridge.org/core/books/...
³ “The Hittite Destroyers: Chariot Warfare in the Late Bronze Age”
Gordon Doherty, 2020.
www.gordondoherty.co.uk/write...
Music: Richard Beddow, Timothy Michael Wynn & Jamie Christopherson - A Total War Saga: TROY (Original Soundtrack)

[@richu6048]

Dude im almost gutted for you that you have such a good detailed video and only have just over 2k views. The editing and camera work on the units with detailed commentary was perfect.

[@nunuarthas8680]

Love this review series. Such a unique way to review a game!

[@shimmerback]

An excellent video - Year in Review is by far my favourite series that you do. This is another game I've been interested in, but just like Iron Harvest, you've saved me a lot of time, money, and frustration. Thank you so much for your effort with these

[@Max-zs6ur]

Thank you for the excellent and in-depth review. Very well done.

[@2BachShakur]

Thanks for this thorough and objective review. Very well done.

[@jaidynl4005]

So glad you made another one of these videos after Three Kingdoms. Very well done reviews

[@naturalbornpatriot6369]

If you have watched this in its entirety, and appreciate other opinions, hear me out. I bought this at $60 with all the DLC on Steam Summer sale going on. I am in love with it. Is it because it’s fresh/new to me? Yes. I said aloud “this is so cool” when in campaign and battle. I take forever to end a turn in campaign, everything is just so neat to look at. My first play was Hector, and it was hard even on normal/normal and no mods. Barely able to afford 2 stacks, and having gotten sidetracked with mythos unit recruitment regions, I left my provinces completely reliant on my AI alliance to defend. KZbinr complains the Greeks do not come all at once in full might. Wrong. The Greek invasion for my first game started around turn 65. At least a dozen armies attacked at once. Coastal settlements were taken and my pants were not just down, I was changing my entire outfit when they came. Hector and my veteran army with the griffin were in Phrygia, finally securing the 3 settlement Giant availability province to make an Uber army of giants. This backfired hard. I unfortunately have up. Mods. Ridiculous mods. Radious is gold as always, but it seriously reduces the speed of units, and PFM has not been updated to host Troy saga, so can’t go and tweak stats yourself just yet. 25% production mod and -25% upkeep mod let’s you field more armies and still be able to expand your settlements. I am on my 2nd campaign, and with the hindsight, it isn’t far easier and enjoyable. I will say, I will go back to vanilla at some point, to try it out again. But it is the first time I lost a campaign in Total war since Warhammer Beastmen Immortal Empires. I feel as if they had a mechanic for the Greeks to really push the Trojan war feel, like transferring navies in Empire and have the map split into two separate areas not directly accessible. Select predefined beach locations in Greece, and then a destination of a beach(perhaps having to have LOS on it first) in the Anatolian map. Just like monster expedition, but have an option to just send a specific already fielded army to go. In 5 or so turns after launching the armada, you and the AI that joined it land at a beach and you set up a temporary beach settlement. No buildables except defensive buildings that changes the battle map of the outpost with each tier (3 to reflect minor settlement tier). It could be a special expedition. Earn renown in early game, and be elected to lead the expedition, and the AI supports it with resources or a set number of troops. The expedition could have a cool down of 10 turns, 5 including the time it takes to sail across. So when you land, your expedition is on its own for at least 5 turns. If you’re chose to lead the foray, and already are heading one. Delegate an AI hero like Ajax to bring up the second expedition, giving him your own troops to use from mainland Greece. Something like a set number of “successful expeditions” would open up recruiting Greek forces in the coastal regions of Anatolia. But overall, it is very fun and worth full price with all the DLC, so pretty much if you buy it now you’re buying all of it for game release price. Well worth it. 2nd attempt at Hector, barely scratched by the Greeks. Mytiliene, island south of Hector start, is where a lot of the Greeks have tried to take. A small garrison army of 8, with auto garrison, and the map it gives you, made for many, many easy victories over the Greeks. Borders with the Amazons to the south, and again pushing towards Phrygia for those Giant unit capacity buildings, Troy has no heir as the missions for heir mechanic breaks if you expand too quickly, so that sucks. A faction unlocker would be cool, play a minor faction on an island with a powerful mythical unit available, be interesting play through. Greeks are next though!

[@Fernandoenf2]

Amazing review

[@lokpok4077]

Fantastic video.

[@f3rnand3r2]

keep it up mate

[@vetabeta9890]

ty, i was deciding between three kigndoms and troy but you really convinced me to try 3K

[@SamBlips]

Loving this in depth review. Also, the footage looks crisp as f. What's your PC setup? ^^;

[@ReviewGen]

Running an overclocked 8700k as CPU and a 1080ti GPU right now, but I'm upgrading end of this year so expect even better footage!

[@SamBlips]

@@ReviewGen What upgrade do you have in mind? I heard the new Intel CPUs (12th Gen) are not only better and cheaper than AMD's equivalents right now, but Intel seems to have better performances with Total War and strategy games (heard it's due to close work with Intel and higher clock speeds over AMD). As for GPU, i'm looking forward to Intel Arc GPUs coming out Q1 or Q2 2022. They might be cheaper (on release) than their overpriced competitors and they seem to have ray tracing and Machine Learning features like Nvidia.

[@ReviewGen]

@@SamBlips I've just secured myself a 12900k, trying to get a mobo and DDR5 RAM for it though. Been seeing benchmarks for it and it seems to beat Ryzen 5950x (my other target) on many of the productivity workloads such as Premiere Pro and After Effects which I use a lot, not to mention it's the best gaming chip right now. For GPU my dream is a 3090 but pricewise it might be too expensive, so a 3080ti is also an option.

[@SamBlips]

@@ReviewGen Yeah. DDR5 seems to be hard to secure. I might get 12400 (still on my 4770 from 2013 D: ). My GPU dream is a 2060 or Intel Arc's equivalent (supposedly their 256 EU variant) but no details on that yet. I just really hope they don't get scalped for mining :D I think the top end Intel Arc GPU is going to compete with a 3070 Ti

[@lateralus6512]

@@ReviewGenI have a 1080Ti and a 7700k and the game runs great at 1440p on high settings. Troy is the best performing Total War game I’ve played. 3K runs well but not as good as this. Maybe it’s better optimised now. Maybe try setting unit size to ‘Large’.

[@SinerAthin]

Probably one of my biggest gripes with the game I had was the AI. There was a nation that had a Pacifist personality trait meaning they should want to avoid war; and I had a positive relationship with me. Yet they would declare war on me out of the blue! And since I was so much stronger than them, they'd then immediately sue for peace. The anti-player bias was so extreme in Troy that it broke all suspense of disbelief. When the AI's bias against the player overrides other mechanics such as relationships, treaties, reliability, traits etc; it just makes the game unfun. Especially in a game that also wants you to work with the AI, ironically.

[@lateralus6512]

Even though I disagree with some of your opinions, I liked your review style. Keep up the good work.

[@paxromana9709]

Great and comprehensive review. Keep up the great work. Finally some criticising the agents mechanics in TW games. The first mod I install in every TW is "no agents" mod. They are more annoying and disruptive then they are tactically useful, and the AI will always have more agents then the player. In my opinion they should be replaced by more abstract mechanics, for example the spy agent replaced by spy/informant network represent by a resource and/or building chain.

[@anselmliow4139]

Love the way you review total war games. Really hope this will get more view, but unfortunately Troy's contents are not popular and drag down the views. May the algorithm bless you mate and wish your channel will continue to grow.

[@ReviewGen]

Hey, I appreciate this comment a lot, thanks!

[@MrLyren]

I love the review and the in depth looks and examples. The only thing I do not agree with is the optimization. For my poor old rig its the fastest loading, most smoothly running game. Also the agents work fine, being restricted to 3 for any factions reducing agent spam. Just my two cents and I really liked the game. Its no medieval 2, but a fine game. Maybe I am just a sucker for the presentation^^

[@lateralus6512]

I’ve found the game performance to be good as well. I didn’t like Troy at launch but I’m enjoying the new historical mode now. It’s a surprisingly underrated game.

[@windblownleaf6450]

Playing with a friend helps a bunch with conquering the map and the logistics of that. You dont have to take and manage such a large amount of land.

[@TheFilipFonky]

Wait, the main criticism of Thrones of Britannia... "its uninteresting premise"? The premise was literally the best part of thr game kek, it's the lack of content that did it in

[@ReviewGen]

I think for some, the premise is interesting. But the game never really took off because there's not enough of an appeal. That's fundamentally on the subject matter to be honest. But I agree on the lack of content as well, which if the game had more appeal, may have been improved.

[@Tavarcio]

I know this is kinda out of left field, but what unit size do you use?

[@ReviewGen]

Ultra, or whatever is the highest.

[@lateralus6512]

@@ReviewGenMost Total War games are balanced around ‘Large’ unit size.

[@joshuawolfert439]

I found Odysseus to the be the easiest start to finish. His army was actually fun, being more on the skirmish side but are super overpowered. You could literally win a battle with their javelins without having to go into melee. Paris was fun too with his archers being the best, however, the troy mechanic is so tedious in the beginning and requires you to either suicide armies into greece or expand quickly

[@krisztm7221]

"no fire arrows" - because fire arrows wasn't in use, it's movie thing.

[@georgimihalkov9678]

I should review Warhammer 3 Total War

[@user-iu5wh2ht7h]

Why hero not be 1?

[@duolingo0552]

Well, it was probably better than thrones of Britannia

[@AlexaRobin21]

One thing that prevents me from buying this game is that all three modes somehow don't accurately represent the Iliad, at least no where as well as how Three Kingdoms represents the Romance.

[@Gilafax]

It was free for me so I can't really complain...

[@lateralus6512]

Yeah same, but it hasn’t influenced me to use Epic Games Store any further. Steam just provides a better service.