Total War: Attila's Main Factions

Sega’s new strategy game “Total War: Attila” has recently shown off the seven available factions in the game. Most of these factions are concentrated on Germanic barbarians or nomads. In history, they were forced to move westward into the borders of the Roman Empire under the pressure of the Huns' western invasion. This was the famous Great Migration of the Germanic people that changed world history. Let’s get to know the seven major factions in the game.

Vandals

The Vandals first lived in Silesia and later moved to Pannoria until they were forced to move westward like other barbarians when the Huns invaded. The Vandals and their allies the Alans crossed the Rhine River to invade Gaul, plundered and crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula and occupied most of Spain. However, soon after the more powerful Visigoths invaded Spain, the Vandal leaders had to lead their people to abandon Spain and enter North Africa. In 439 AD, they captured Carthage, the capital of Africa, and established the Vandal Kingdom, which ruled North Africa until 534 AD. It was destroyed after Justinian sent troops to North Africa.

Sassanid Empire

The Sassanid Dynasty overthrew the original Parthian Dynasty and replaced it as the leader of the Near East. This dynasty had been the Roman Empire's enemy for hundreds of years. The Sassanids went to war with Rome for the first time, and the Sassanid Dynasty even captured the Roman emperor who went on a personal expedition. This dynasty had a vast territory, stretching from Egypt and the Anatolian Plateau of Asia Minor in the west to the Xinjiang border and Pakistan in the east; from the Caucasus Mountains and the Central Asian Basin in the north to the Arabian Peninsula in the south. The Sasanian dynasty lasted for more than 400 years until it was destroyed by the Arab Empire after the rise of Islam in the 7th century.

Alans

The Alans are a nomadic people on the grasslands, and the Chinese call them Amcai. The places where they lived were roughly distributed in today's Don River Basin and the area north of the Caucasus Mountains. The Alans were once a unified country in the north of the Black Sea. However, in 350 AD, the Huns' cavalry pressed heavily on the border and destroyed the Alan Kingdom a few years later. Most of the Alans had to join the Huns' alliance, and some of them fled into the mountains to hide. Soon after, the Alans broke away from the Huns and moved westward in large quantities. They allied with the Vandals and other Germanic tribes to invade Gaul, the Iberian Peninsula and finally North Africa. After the demise of the Vandal Kingdom, the Alans were slowly integrated into the local ethnic groups, and some in Spain became today's Catalans, while the Alans who still settled in the Caucasus were the ancestors of the current Ossetians.

Saxons

The Saxons were one of the Germanic barbarians who conquered the western region of present-day Germany. Later, some Saxons, together with the Angles and Jutes, conquered Low Germania (today's Netherlands), and even entered the United Kingdom and merged with the Angles to become the Anglo-Saxons, the main ethnic group in Britain and America today. However, most of the Saxons still settled in the original areas. place. It was not until later that Charlemagne invaded Saxony and established the Principality of Saxony, and in order to make the Saxons believe in Christianity, he killed a quarter of the Saxons in the war.

Ostrogoths

The Ostrogoths are a branch of the Goths. They established a powerful kingdom in the northern part of the Black Sea. However, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths was in the Huns. After the invasion, they were conquered in more than 300 AD. Like other Germanic peoples, the Ostrogoths began to move into the territory of the Roman Empire. The Ostrogoths, under the leadership of their leader Theodoric, captured Ravenna, the capital of Western Rome, in 493 AD and became the ruler of the Italian peninsula. Italy under the rule of the Ostrogoths was not backward. Diodoric instead vigorously revived the classical civilization of Rome and continued the culture of Rome. This is the reason for Gothic architecture, and it is generally believed that Italy under the rule of the Ostrogoths was actually more Other emperors at the end of the Western Roman Empire still wanted to be stable and prosperous. The Ostrogothic Kingdom ruled Italy for more than 60 years until Justinian destroyed it in 553. However, the Byzantine Empire that conquered Italy was unable to defend Italy. After 568, another group of more barbaric Germanic barbarians, the Lombards, invaded the Italian Peninsula. Chaos again.

Franks

The Franks are divided into three tribes, namely Salian, Ripulian, and Cady (Hesse). The Salian Franks moved south to occupy Roja Most of the area north of the Er River, while the other two tribes still inhabited the Germanic areas and northern Gaul. The Merovingian dynasty was established after the Salian Franks, led by their chief Clovis, occupied the north of the Loire River. Clovis was originally not interested in Catholicism, but converted to it after a miraculous victory in a war with the Alemanni. The Franks continued to expand after that, and after occupying the entire France, they became the most powerful barbarian kingdom in Western Europe.

Western Roman Empire

After the death of Theodosius, the Roman Empire was divided into two sons. One was Arcadiostin, the elder brother of Eastern Rome. The capital was in Constantinople; the younger brother of Western Rome, Honorius, had his capital in Milan. As the emerging imperial center, Eastern Rome continued to grow and prosper, but Western Rome in the west had long been weak. After the establishment of Western Rome, it was continuously invaded by barbarians. In 408 AD, the city of Rome was captured by the Goth Alaric.

At the end of the Western Roman Empire, many of the armies were German garrisons, and even many of the generals were Germans. Under this situation of internal and external troubles, the Western Romans could only continue to retreat to many territories, including Britain and other places. Attila the Hun once invaded the Italian peninsula, but later withdrew from Italy due to the counterattack of the Eastern Rome; and the Western Roman Empire remained precarious for more than 30 years after Attila's retreat, and was finally destroyed by the Ostrogoth Theodoric.