I didn't think I would like this TW game as much as I did; something about the much smaller scope and the longer times to fill up unit queues really brought the idea and setting of the game home. You'll do way more sacking and havoc causing and it truly makes you feel like you're in the Dark Ages as conquest is cheap and constant. A few crazy white boys on horseback can absolutely wreck a countryside, you can do it and you can have it done to you. When you finally start uniting your countrymen it actually feels like you built something out of pure chaos.
This is a feeling I never got in games like Rome 2 or Medieval; many of the goofy units are gone and replaced by a much simpler variety of units that work better in terms of gameplay. Lords are cheaper, and more fickle, and the simplified general politics of bigger Rome games yields to growing to hate (and need) your little band of turncoats. This game definitely has a unity of purpose other Total War games don't have. I definitely recommend it if you love the more historically grounded Total War games.

This game needs a lot of depth; games can end relatively fast as once you conquer a small section like Wales, Scotland, England or Ireland, you just become a powerhouse and the game becomes more focused on managing that section of land and slowly expanding. As someone who enjoys this era, I am biased but would buy this game just to see some of the characters and designs of the armour from this era. I think the idea of a family tree is fun, but if you make a single mistake, your entire family tree suddenly distrusts you, and it becomes impossible to get them back onto your side. However, with all of that said, this game can be fun with friends in the multiplayer mode and can offer some funny experiences with fathers killing all of their heirs out of fear of being assassinated and from the family tree, you can feel very in control in the path your family takes. In my opinion, the Vikings camping makes for one of the better campaigns, and if you do pick up this game, I suggest you start there.

mid