So, I just won the campaign -
I did the Homeric victory (put a pin in it) first and then decided to go for the Total War victory too because I was only 3 settlements away from it anyway. It was certainly an experience. Not a bad experience mind you, I quite liked it with a few caveats I'll get to. The battle for Troy was suitably epic. I attacked with 4 full armies and lost one and a half because Troy's garrison is full of elite top-tier units with max xp that decimated my weaklings. They were weaklings because it's very hard to actually hire upper tier units when you are deep in enemy territory. Not because the systems prohibit it, but because very few settlements have the buildings for it already built, so by the time you get to them you have already moved on and it's not worth it to go back. There is no global recruitment like in Warhammer (as it should be). The heroes carried the Troy fight hard because they are ridiculously overpowered. I had Agamemnon, Diomedes, and 2 generic generals all at max level. Diomedes is a beast, he could take down entire armies just by himself. Not only that, but heroes can bash down gates, which is very degenerate because I never needed to use siege equipment at all ever. I'm playing Truth behind the Myth btw. Next time, I'll be playing as Sarpedon on Mythos mode.
After taking control of Troy, the Homeric victory was very close. I had to bump up my influence with 4 settlements around Troy in order to win. That, however, is kinda tedious and pointless. All you do is send your diplomats to the regions you want influence with and spam their agent actions on it every round until you get it. It became an end turn simulator for the last stretch, but whatever. Homeric victory is much more satisfying, though, imo because you get to do your Iliad journey with your character and then take down Troy. The Total War victory, on the other hand, is just to possess or plunder/destroy 100 settlements, destroy or vassal/confederate 3 specific factions, get Troy, and defeat your antagonist (a character from the opposing faction you are randomly assigned at one point). For me, this was Sarpedon. He was a crafty one. He managed to confederate ALL other Trojan heroes, kill Hippolyta, and spread like cancer on his half of the map. Luckily for me, Achilles and Maneleus were so powerful by the end, they annihilated him for me. When the other faction confederates one of your Homeric victory targets (Hector and Paris in this case), the game treats them as defeated because their factions no longer exist. When we found Helen, the game gave me no options for her, but I knew this is the case beforehand.
I'd say capturing Troy is the only exciting part of endgame, but endgame is always tedious and/or boring in Total War games, so that's nothing new. Most of the battles are auto resolved because you are a bulldozer going through settlements. Speaking of bulldozers, I see literally 0 reason for you to burn down settlements. Maybe it's worth it if you are playing as Penthesilea, but who knows.
The intricate rock, paper, scissor mechanics that come into play with the light, medium, and heavy infantry don't play much of a role on normal difficulty. I had a 5-6 infantry with shields and everything else was ranged units (different kinds, though! I had harpies, slingers, javelins, Bows of Mycenae). Eh, kinda. I also had some centaurs, the minotaur, chariots (surprisingly useless). I used epic agents extensively, especially the Satyr and Gorgon. The Gorgon decimates garrisons better than any assassin. What is not so good, however, is that the campaign side of things is lacking in mechanics. I like the inclusion of different types of resources and every Total War game should have that from now on, but it still feels kinda barren and bare-bones. The problem with the different kind of resources is that they are all gained in the same way - capture settlements that produce the resource. Even though gold is scarcer, units that require gold are scarcer too, so you are constantly gaining the amount of resources you need. I was never really strapped for gold or bronze. Food and stone were actually more of a problem for the first ~70 turns, but that just meant I needed more food and stone settlements. I could also beg my allies for resources. There could be more to the resource system.
All in all, I'd say it's a good game. One of the better Total Wars. Definitely better than the bloated horror that is Warhammer. It's definitely not as bad as people make it out to be. Perhaps it was very bad when it came out, but it's fine now and I don't see the issues people were telling me about. I like the setting and a lot and that might be influencing my enjoyment, but I don't think only the setting can fool me into thinking it's a good game. Add Thracians and Egyptians for that juicy AoM vibe and it will elevate itself into top three of Total Wars.
