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TLDR:

Total War Attila is by far the greatest Historical Total War game CA has ever made. It fixes every problem players had with Rome II's multiplayer and campaign battles (Exploits like pushing through, pike stacking and camping interior settlement citadels do not exist.). Attila has amazing DLC campaigns with loads of extra factions to boot, Very diverse and unique base game factions all of which have their own religions, mechanics, faction/culture traits, unit rosters, play styles, early challenges, start positions and mid/late game crises. DO NOT listen to people who say this game runs poorly, Attila is one of the best running and performing Total war titles. If you are having issues with your game I promise you the problem is on your end the game is fine (I explain further in the labeled section). If you are worried about the price; Attila and all the dlc for it go on sale multiple times every year for around $25 USD total if you want everything. I encourage you to give this title another try if you picked it up back in 2015 and got burned by the poor launch, this gem is the Total War title many have been asking for, for many years. Its so bright that you can't see it right in front of you.

My PC Specs as of this Review:

OS: Windows 11
CPU: Intel Core Processor i9-12900K 8P/16 + 8E 3.20GHz 30MB Cache LGA1700
GPU: GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X (Ampere) (Single Card)
MEMORY (RAM): 32GB (16GBx2) DDR4/3200MHz Dual Channel Memory

Grand Campaign:

The Grand Campaign takes place in late antiquity starting in the year 395 AD. The theme of the game is that of this time period in history, shortly after the turn of the century the world became dark and cold forcing steppe and germanic peoples to migrate to warmer and more fertile places in the western and southern parts of Eurasia held by the fractured Western and Eastern Roman empires still recovering from The Crisis of the Third-Century. This Campaign is 4 turns per year and features amazing UI, deep family/political system, regional fertility/horde faction mechanics that act as an army and city combined and 14 playable factions within the base game, with another 14 factions being able to unlock for play in the Grand Campaign with dlc culture packs with another 13 factions included in the Campaign packs. The West and Eastern Roman Empires start with large empires both of which are underdeveloped and facing massive public order problems early on. The Western Roman empire has the feel of a classic roman faction sporting elite heavy legionaries, Calvary and crossbow units while The East has a heavy Greek and Eastern Influence on the classic units making their rosters each feel totally unique. The barbarian, hunnic and eastern factions each have their own flare and game play styles pertaining to their cultures, each toting unique units in their rosters that shape their play-styles.

Mechanics & known misconceptions:

A very common thing I see in reviews of Attila is that combat is very unbalanced and nothing like Rome 2, but it isn't and that's the point. Units all around got far less armor and more health to make battles feel faster and far less like grinding slog fests. For example high armor in Rome 2 was 80+ as where in Attila 55+ is very high armor. This in tune made arrow towers very deadly in sieges making you use your artillery to destroy the settlements fortifications instead of shooting units like a real siege would. There is a clear rock paper scissors counter system with units in this game, spears and swords still perform the same as they did in previous titles. Missile units have massive amounts of utility and counters with different ammo and weapon types ranging from crossbows, short, long and steppe bows, slings, javelins and grenade units. Cavalry feels as cav should, weighty, fast and they have devastating charges, armored melee cav can actually take on non spear melee infantry units and win, shock cav is beyond devastating to unarmored/unbraced infantry however it gets hard countered by melee cavalry. Bow and Skirmisher cav both feel amazing to use in this game and they actually shoot when strafing units with the handy benefit of them being typically faster than other cav units making them perfect for countering cav if you don't like using spears. However all cav will still fall short to armored braced inf, spears and being shot. Axes and shock infantry counter armor and shields but die to missiles and cav, and pike units are almost entirely unarmored and unshielded making them even more vulnerable to missiles than they were in Rome 2. I have heard plenty of people complain that shieldwalls are too strong in this game and this simply isn't true, they are very easily countered. The units in this game that have bonus vs inf are; Two handed shock infantry/pikes have a +10 bonus vs inf alongside langobard clubmen, two handed AXES and langobard scaled clubmen have a +20 bonus vs inf. Axes and two handed weapons already counter armor, therefore if you see a static shield wall? hit it with a shock inf charge, axes, poke with pikes or just shoot them. Missiles are fantastic at getting rid of shieldwalls, even from the front.
Pulling through in Attila results in the pulled through units being slaughtered in seconds, pike stacking isn't effective anymore because if a pike unit is inside another unit it will take +80% of missile casualties fired at the stacked units. Siege battles can no longer be plagued by players camping interiors of settlements with the settlement destruction mechanics and cycling units to farm charge bonus is no longer effective with units now taking massive casualties (engaged men die) if they try to run from a unit that is engaged in melee with them. As it should be, if you turn your back to a enemy soldier you are getting a sword shoved through you, its very simple.

Performance:

I will hit this section with the bat of bluntness. There are 4 reasons your Attila doesn't run well.
1.) Your computer simply isn't strong enough to play Total War games. You might have been able to get away with running Rome 2 on the lowest graphics settings, being that guy to make a 14 minute multiplayer siege last 40 in slow motion. But that won't work here. Attila is a very demanding Total war title I don't deny it, but it runs butter smooth on 6 year old hardware. You can't say the game is the problem when you're playing it on an electric toothbrush. There is no shame in needing to upgrade and not being able to afford it. The economy sucks I know, but my previous point still stands. The game isn't the problem.
2.) Update your graphics card drivers.
3.) Don't use 4k. Attila never got 4k support, so if you use 4k, the game will **** itself. Its not hard to understand. The game looks beautiful without it. You don't need it. Turn it off.
4.) Shadows have a massive impact on performance in Attila, if you are having slight issues, turn your shadows down/off.
If steps 2-4 didn't work and your game still runs horribly, see #1. There is your answer. I have only had Attila crash twice in the combined depressing 1200+ hours i have put into this title on this account and others. The only time I consistently get crashes is when the TW launcher doesn't work (Not Attila's fault) and when I've intentionally broke the game messing with files/mods.

DLC and mods:

I don't have enough room left to talk about the dlc and mods, so i will quickly rate them tier list style.
God tier: 1212 AD Is literally medieval 3 get the base game and download this insane mod, the creators are amazing and still update it regularly, its an entirely new title in itself.
S: Age of Charlemagne, Last Roman, Empires of Sand
A: Celts
B: Longbeards
C:
D: Slavs
F: Viking Forefathers