(Part 2) Best products from r/totalwar

I could play on Medium with a 7 year old PC, with a GeForce GTX 760. So if you can't afford this PC and the SSD, go to your local PC shops/craigslist and see if you can find a 1-3 year old gaming PC, if it has 8 GB of DDR3 or DDR4 RAM, and like a GeForce GTX 960 or something better, you should be fine honestly as long as you can get a good deal on it. Then you would just want to buy a 500GB - 1 TB SSD drive and replace the (C:) drive with the new SSD. Honestly as long as the PC has an i5 or i7 processor from within the last 3-4 years, with just enough RAM, and a halfway decent graphics card along with an SSD, you should probably be able to play on High settings I would bet. Medium easily. Below is a link to an $81 500GB SSD that should be sufficient.

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0A/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537858402&sr=1-5&keywords=500gb+ssd

I would recommend this book by John Keay, an excellent survey of Chinese history. Tons of great podcasts have been mentioned as well, so I'll mention the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms Podcast, which is a reading of the novel by someone who can explain all the very detailed Chinese cultural references to a Western audience.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/China-History-John-Keay/dp/0465025188&ved=2ahUKEwje3fekgsTiAhXIpJ4KHVc5DvcQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw1ambvpkQIWi_Lllth9hcFO

I always find knowing about the period I play in vastly enriches my experiences within the games I play. Take any of the other Total Wars, the history which inspired Assassin's Creed II or knowing the lore to a fantasy game like Dragon Age for example.

So in that vein, either brush up or indulge yourself in Roman history with some historical youtube videos or (fictional) films like Gladiator. Or listen to the History of Rome podcast. Or read some great inspired fiction. Or learn about the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage and the tactics (or lack of) used in it. That last one in particular will make you play better in addition to being a good read, since the game will likely start just before the first Punic War.

Some of the good Rome books I've read over the years:

In the Name of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy

Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Goldsworthy

Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela

Now, as someone lucky enough to have lived 6 weeks in Rome, the best prep is to somehow get yourself to La Città Eterna and visit where it all went down. The Palatine Hill and the Appian Way are places with less tourists and allow you to contemplate the power and splendor of Rome.

The second book of The Iliad mentions allies of Troy coming to swell Priam's ranks, starting on line 816. They list a diverse range of peoples as coming to Troy's aid - mostly other groups from Anatolia, where the Hittites would have ruled at the time, but also people from Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, and from "far away". Historians debate how much of it is based on history or how much is later insertion, but Hittite sources reveal that Hittite forces fought the Greeks over the area around the same time, so the forces from Anatolia were historical. And the allies close to Troy were likely based on friendly Luwian neighbors. The others are more debatable.

A lost sequel to The Iliad, called The Aethiopis, detailed the arrival of large allied contingents led by Memnon and Penthesilea, intent on relieving Troy before they are defeated by Achilles. We mostly know of it from fragments and retellings, the most complete of which is from Quintus of Smyrna and can be read here.

Memnon was considered to be a historical Egyptian or Nubian king by ancient Western historians, but as history and our knowledge of Egyptian chronology advanced, the consensus became that he does not line up with any known kings. The wiki gives a good overview of his portrayal over time.

If we accept the ~1190-1184 BC dating for the Sack of Troy, then Memnon's expedition falls under either the reigns of Setnakhte or Ramesses III, the first two Pharaohs of the 20th Dynasty of New Kingdom Egypt. They were both known for being warrior kings, sending out military expeditions and driving out invasions of the Sea Peoples (which included Mycenaean Greeks). There's no hard evidence of Memnon's expedition, but putting the Greek account together with our records of these Pharaohs, I've talked to plenty of historians who think that the account of Memnon probably originated from an Egyptian relief force that arrived to oppose the "Sea Peoples".

Penthesilea, on the other hand, doesn't have much evidence. There's just the connection that Ancient Greeks are thought to have based their Amazon myths on encounters with Scythians, and Scythians are mentioned in the list of Trojan allies, so some historians think that Penthesilea and her Amazons might be a mythologized memory of the Scythian forces that came to aid Troy.

If you are interested, there are a couple books by Dexter Hoyos that REALLY dig into the political/social aspect of Carthage as well!

Hannibal's Dynasty

The Carthaginians (Peoples of the Ancient World)

Both amazing works on an relatively unknown topic! Definitely worth your time!

>I never could comprehend how you people who actually play tabletop pull this shit off.

I play tabletop games and I will now reveal the great and terrible eight-fold secrets of good miniatures painting:

1. https://www.amazon.com/SE-MH1047L-Illuminated-Multi-Power-Magnifier/dp/B003UCODIA
   
2. Figure out your shading and highlighting BEFORE you start painting a model.
   
3. PRACTICE.
   
4. PATIENCE.
   
5. PRACTICE.
   
6. PATIENCE.
   
7. MORE PATIENCE.
   
8. EVEN MORE PATIENCE.
   
   Serious Version: Be confident, take your time, don't rush, don't stress, and don't worry. Channel your inner Bob Ross, and know that even a brushstroke made in grievous error is a step towards ultimate perfection. Miniature painting requires far less natural talent than other kinds of painting, but far more practice and patience.

I'm playing in 21:9 on this monitor:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016GNX4SE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

To me it is very worth it. Totalwar works great with ultra wide and more and more games are getting better support

Dwarves:

Grudge Bearer by Gav Thorpe is my favorite book about the Dwarves, it follows the story of the dwarves of Zhufbar over a long period of time, and it gives a great sense of how a long-lived race might experience time and what their perspective would be like.

Also, the entire thing is about grudges, who doesn't love that?

The Empire:

Matthias Thulman: Witch Hunter is, in my opinion, one of the best books centered on the Empire. C. L Werner (the author) is excellent at depicting the grim reality of living in the Empire, and the grey area the Witch Hunters live in. The book also has some great interactions with the Skaven, the undead, and the nasty creations of Grandfather Nurgle...

I am currently reading the End times books and am on the third one out of five I believe, here is the first one:
https://www.amazon.com/Return-Nagash-End-Times/dp/1849709432
I do recommend you know some lore on the races and some of their characters as it will better help you under stand the plot. Like many others have said they are all written by different people, this means they all have different styles in their books. Some you'll like some you wont.

Unfortunately, a lot of the readings on the topic are not widely available to the public, since they are in Archaeology and History journal articles. I read a lot of this stuff in university.

However, if you want to get into the Late Bronze Age in general, there are a few really good resources available to the general public.

1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed is a great survey of the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations in the Near East. It's great for understanding just how complex and interconnected the world of the 12th century B.C. and earlier was.

A History of the Ancient Near East by van de Mieroop, and

The Ancient Near East by James Pritcherd both present an overview of the Ancient Near East, though both go into what is considered 'Classical' Near East as well.

Also, anything by Trevor Bryce, is worth a read, especially his work on the Hittites.

So I scanned through "The Gods of Battle", by Chris Webber (https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Battle-Thracians-War-1500/dp/1844158357) - two brief references to the Agathyrsi, as they lived quite close to the Thracians. The references are to similarities with the Thracians, and physical appearance/tattoos.

He sources a brief mention by Herodotus, IV.110 (although here it is more likely IV.104: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/4E*.html)

​

Other than that, Otto Maenchen has a fascinating book on the Huns, "The World of the Huns" (https://www.amazon.com/World-Huns-Studies-History-Culture/dp/0520015967/), there are references on pp 450 and 451, see if this link works:

https://books.google.com/books?id=CrUdgzSICxcC&lpg=PA451&ots=KJWWHWt4LW&dq=agathyrsi%20alans&pg=PA450#v=onepage&q=agathyrsi%20alans&f=false

​

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful at the moment, I'll see what else I can locate.

​

​

https://smile.amazon.de/Blue-interne-Festplatte-Lese-Schreibgeschwindigkeit/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=sr_1_5?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3RAYJBX3XR6XJ&keywords=500gb+ssd&qid=1562963585&s=gateway&sprefix=500+gb+%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-5