Army traditions | War Total War: Attila Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

By winning battles armies gain experience. It gives them new ranks, and ranks gives them points that can be invested into useful upgrades. Army traditions are similar to characters skills. The difference is, skills can be used both by governors and generals. Traditions are used only for increasing combat effectiveness of army.

Upgrades available as part of traditions can be divided into three categories. In first you will find all traditions that raise statistics of units serving as part of the army. Those upgrades are the majority of offered by the game and usually offer various bonuses for different types of units, such as more ammunition for shooters or bonus to cavalry charge.

Second category has upgrades working in specific situations, like morale increase when facing nomad tribes or roman legions. Those are useful abilities, but you should buy them only if you wage war against specific enemies.

In third category you will find traditions that have influence on the province in which army currently resides. Those upgrades can improve army integrity while it stays on allied territory or raise growth in currently visited allied province. Those upgrades are useful only in some situations, but you will use them more frequently than those from second category.

When picking traditions you should decide based on objective for which the army have been created in the first place. If it's an horse army fighting Romans, then upgrade that increase ammo supplies of units might prove useless. Similarly, a bonus to raiding won't be good when army is supposed to fight other armies or siege and conquer settlements. For obvious reasons, diversified armies, that have various unit types, will get most profits from traditions. This will give you more freedom when picking up upgrades. But diversity might be a weakness as well, as armies gather new ranks very slowly, slower than their generals. In practice, it might take ages to buy most traditions, so you should pick them wisely. If you won't be able to utilize a tradition, don't buy it. Even for future, as it means you definitely won't use it. In that case, it is better to buy universal traditions, that give bonuses no matter where you are and who you face.

Remember, that when you create an army you can restore tradition of a previously fallen one. It is important, especially if a defeated army had high rank. Resurrecting it will allow you to save time that in other case you would have to invest in creating new tradition from scratches.