Total War: Arena

Total War: Arena is a free to play, team-based, multiplayer real time strategy (RTS) game by Creative Assembly. It is currently in Closed Beta phase since 24th of September, 2015.

For now it only runs on Windows.

General Information

Engine

The game engine is based on Rome II's, however it's heavily modified. Means they can't copy-paste stuff.

Gameplay

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

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

Fog of War and Visibility

There is a 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 bonus. Therefore more units will provide a better visibility.

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

Watch Towers

In 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. 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.

Currently there are 3 different weight types; light, medium and heavy.

Unit Size

Each unit has up to 100 men and the number varies from unit to unit. For example while melee infantries consist of 100 men, missile infantries consist of 80 men. On the other hand Roman and Greek cavalries consist of 40 men but Barbarian cavalries only have 32 men.

Unit weight has no effect on unit size.

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 commander experience. Maximum unit tier is 10.

Apart from progression system, there are few units that can be bought with gold (the in-game currency) which are called "Premium units". They have some advantages as getting %50 more resources from battles, but they are well balanced with other units, if not weaker. And as they aren't tied to unit tree, they can't unlock any new units.

Unit Orders and Consumables

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

Apart from Unit orders all units can get 2 different types of consumables per battle. 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 any unit pretty much.

Commander Abilities

Each commander has 4 unique abilities, which also have their own progression system. So just like units; commanders, therefore their abilities gain experience and get better in time. Abilities capped with 10 level.

Battle Rewards

There are 3 things that players can get from battles: Unit experience, Commander experience and Silver.

Players can also get 100 gold (in-game currency) from the first daily victory of each commander as well as %100 bonus to other rewards.

Furthermore, if players have at least one different type of unit than other two, 'diversity' bonus will be activated, which will give %30 more unit xp to each unit after the battle.

Battle rewards depend on many things; although player can get most of the rewards from damaging the other team's units, spotting, helping to team, capturing/decapturing, damaging the morale, blocking the missiles doesn't go unrewarded.

Meanwhile "Friendly fire" costs some silver to the player that causes to it. Currently only missile & artillery units and pikes can cause to friendly fire.

Premium

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

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

Events

Time to time Arena devs decide to make an event, it's sometimes in memory of an historical event or some gaming conference/event. Which mostly lasts 3 to 5 days.

Event type differs, but mostly they are in-game bonuses like %200 rewards and 100 more gold for the first victory of each commander. Considering that they last at least 3 days, they are very profitable for the players.

Also during events, on social media pages of Arena there are Closed Beta key give aways as well as an in-game key for some big amount of gold and a premium unit.

Factions

Currently there are 3 playable factions in the game.

• Roman Republic/Empire
• Greece (Hellenic)
• Barbarians

Commanders

Currently there are 7 playable commanders is in the game, while there are four that is Work in Progress (WIP).

TW: Arena Devs said that there will be more, they also said that there will be female commanders too.

Roman

Julius Caesar

His abilities are designed to make him a supporter and engineer General.

Germanicus

His abilities are designed to make him a heavy assault General.

Scipio Africanus

His abilities are designed to make him a cavalry assault General.

Sulla (WIP)

To be decided.

Greek

Alexander the Great

His abilities are designed to make him a cavalry assault General.

Leonidas

His abilities are designed to make him a heavy defensive General.

Miltiades

His abilities are designed to make him a disrupter assault General.

Cynane (WIP)

To be decided.

Barbarian

Arminius

His abilities are designed to make him a scouter assault General.

Vercingetorix (WIP)

To be decided.

Spartacus (WIP)

To be decided.

Maps

Currently there are 6 maps in the game. And there will be more in future.

Battle map is chosen randomly by the game.

• Thermopylae
• Marathon
• Salernum
• Germania
• Rubicon
• Alpis Graia

Downloadable Content

There isn't any DLC confirmed yet.

System Requirements

To be decided.