Total War: Arena

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Total War: Arena was a free-to-play, team-based, multiplayer real time strategy (RTS) and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mix game by Creative Assembly. It was in Open Beta phase since 22nd of February, 2018, until it was closed a year later, on the same day.

It was developed by Creative Assembly, published by Wargaming, and both were in an Alliance called Wargaming Alliance.

General Information

Engine

The game engine is based on Rome II's, however it is heavily modified.

Gameplay

Total War: Arena is a new type of game for Total War, which is set in Antique Age.

It is a team vs team battle game where teams consist up to 10 players while each player has 3 units to control under the command of an iconic, historical commander. Battles are made on custom made, unique battle maps, where team play, strategies, and tactics have a bigger role than classic Total War games.

Game Modes

Random Battles

It is the main game mode of the Arena where both sides consist of 10 players. Players don't get to choose either Team mates or Opponents, though they can Party up to 4 players (4/4) and battle together against their opponents.

On a side note, players fight with an AI team until Tier 3. And, AI doesn't use any abilities/skills.

Custom Battles

Title is self explanatory, but this is a mode where players can see and choose their Team mates and Opponents. For that, it is quite appropriate for Tournaments.

Custom battles allow up to 10 players per team but it doesn't enforce it, unlike the Random mode.

Ranked Battles

This was a WiP game mode which was tested as 5v5, with a limitation of 2 players per party and Tier 7 units.

Players would go up in Rank with a victory, and go down with a defeat, where Ranks were limited to 20 (but not as Players).

According to Devs, it would reward players with "Substantial" gains when released.

Winning a Battle

Winning a battle gives %20 bonus to all rewards and currently there are 3 ways to victory:

• Killing all enemy units (Named as Annihilation)
• Capturing the enemy base
• Having higher Health percentage than the enemy at the end of the battle (which is 15 mins at max).

Fog of War and Visibility

There is a real time FoW system in the game that limits the visibility range of both teams. It can be lowered by taking watch towers or moving units towards the boundaries of visibility range.

Each unit has its own visibility range. Therefore more units will provide a better visibility.

However visibility isn't permanent, so if all units leave an area, that area won't be inside of visibility range anymore.

Watch Towers

In almost every battle map there are few watch towers that players can capture. They extend the visibility range of whole team, which makes them vital.

Terrain

There are many terrain types in Arena, as well as their effects. Also these effects differ from unit to unit. For example forests are friendly to light units, but they aren't friendly to heavy units.

Terrains don't only have effects for unit stats, they have effects for visibility range too. For example a large grass field can lower it by much while an open field doesn't effect it, at all.

Unit Types

Just like in all Total War games; there are melee, missile and artillery units, including ferocious Wardogs and terrifying Elephants. And also every unit has its weight that causes some pros and cons.

For example while light units are the fastest, they won't be good at bracing and defending against higher weighted units. Of course the terrain type also has a say on these.

Unit Size

Each unit has up to 100 soldiers and the number varies from type to type but not limited to that. Meaning, even some same type of units might have different numbers.

Unit Tree and Progression System

There is an extensive unit tree tier progression for each faction, where you can unlock new equipments or new units by either unit or free experience. And the maximum unit tier is 10.

Apart from the progression system, there are a few units that can be bought with gold (the in-game currency) which are called "Premium units". They have some advantages such as getting %50 more resources from battles and not having any replenishment cost (silver), but they aren't stronger than regular units, in fact a bit weaker; though they don't need to unlock and improve equipment/s.

Also as they aren't tied to the unit trees, they can't unlock any new units.

Unit Orders and Consumables

Almost every unit has one or more unit orders that can be used when it's necessary. They are mostly active, but there are also some passive ones.

Apart from Unit orders, (starting from Tier 2) all units can get up to 2 different types of consumables per battle, which are bought via either silver or gold. And just like unit orders, some of them are active and some are passive.

Also they can be deployable things like stakes, caltrops, tar (and barricades) which can hurt and/or slow down any unit passing by.

Commander Levels and Abilities

Each commander has its own level and 3 unique abilities that have their own progression tree. Commanders gain experience just like Units -though the type is different- and use that experience to speed up the levelling process, and upgrade their abilities.

Commander levels are capped with 10 levels while Ability improvements go up to 5 levels.

Battle Rewards

There are 3 things that players can get from battles: Unit experience, Free experience (also known as Commander experience) and Silver.

Battle rewards depend on many things; although the player can get most of it from damaging the opponents; spotting, helping to team (morale boost etc) , capturing/decapturing, damaging the morale, blocking the missiles, spotting etc. don't go unrewarded.

Meanwhile "Friendly fire" costs some good amount of silver to the player who does it.

Bonuses

Every day, there is a %100 bonus to all rewards for the first victory of each commander. Also, any battle battle that was Won gives %20 more.

And, if the players have more than one unit type in their army, the diversity bonus will be activated, which will give %30 more unit xp to each unit, after the battle.

Furthermore, players also get %10 more Unit xp if they are in a party, which consists of 4 players at max.

Premium

Players can choose to purchase one of the temporary Premium packs with gold to get %50 more resources (silver, free xp, unit xp) from battles.

Premium packs don't have anything to do with Premium units.

Events

Every weekend (starting from Friday, and ending at Monday, as GMT) there is a Faction and Unit type specific events, that doubles the Daily Victory rewards. This event type also come with various discounts to; required Xp to unlock the next unit/s, customization items, Commander (gold) costs and a Premium unit.

Events also can be; in memory of an historical event, for some gaming conference/event or a celebration (like Anniversary), and so on. These also lasts 3 to 5 days mostly.

Furthermore, during events (or streams), on social media pages of Arena (Reddit , Twitch , YouTube , Facebook , Twitter) , there might be some key give aways for some gold, premium time and unit/s.

Factions

Currently there are 4 playable factions in the game. Though, more is expected.

• Rome (A mix of Republic and Empire)
• Greece (More like Hellenic)
• Barbarians
• Carthage

Commanders

There are 14 playable commanders in the game.

Roman

• Julius Caesar

• Germanicus

• Scipio Africanus

• Sulla

Greek (Hellenic)

• Alexander the Great

• Leonidas

• Miltiades

• Cynane

Barbarian

• Arminius

• Vercingetorix

• Boudica

• Ambiorix

Carthaginian

• Hannibal

• Hasdrubal

Maps

There are 13 maps in the game.

Battle map is randomly chosen by the game. However, not all of them are available to everyone, as some of them are more complicated and advanced than others; therefore they require player to bring higher Tier units to the Matchmaking queue.

• Thermopylae
• Marathon
• Salernum
• Germania
• Rubicon
• Alpis Graia
• Gergovia
• Hadrian's Wall
• Capitoline Hill
• Passage of Augustus
• Teutoburg Forest
• Oasis
• Capua

System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Core i3-550 or AMD Phenom II x4 945
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5750 or Nvidia GeForce GTS 450
• DirectX®: Version 9.0c
• Hard Drive: About 10 GB HD space
• Internet Connection Speed: 256 Kbps

Recommended:

• OS: Windows 7+ 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i3-2120 @3.30 GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6870 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
• DirectX®: Version 9.0c
• Hard Drive: About 10 GB HD space

External Links

• Discuss Total War: Arena on TWC
• Official Total War: Arena page
• Patch Notes
• Wargaming Official page
• Wargaming Arena Wiki