Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion

Rome: Total Empire gave us the rise of Rome, and now the Barbarian Invasion expansion fast-forwards to 363 AD and beyond to give us its fall. Historically this was a period of terrific upheaval, with the Roman Empire being split in two, factions like the Goths and Vandals carving up Europe and the Mediterranean for themselves, and the Huns out earning their fearsome reputation.

While the core gameplay remains much the same as it was the changes in this expansion are so numerous that it feels more like an entirely new game than a simple add-on. All of the factions are either new or completely different, as are most of their units. Barbarian factions introduce a completely new way to play the game, and there is much more emergent gameplay in terms of factions that can arise become nomadic during the campaign. Overall historical accuracy is improved, and at the same time gameplay is spiced up through the introduction of a large number of new retainers and leader traits, some of which have implications that go far beyond mere stat-boosting. This is Rome: Total War, only better.

If you loved the battles in the original game but didn’t care much for micromanaging the strategic layer, this expansion is a must-buy thanks to the inclusion of playable barbarian hordes like the Huns, Vandals, Goths, Sarmatians, and Franks. These factions, along with several others like the Ostrogoths and Slavs (which only arise when the right circumstances surround a rebellion, and are only controlled by the computer), do not get eliminated when their last settlement is destroyed. Instead their entire population is converted into a vast horde army that lives off of the spoils of sacked settlements, requiring no upkeep and conquering through brute force instead of by empire-building.

Playing as a horde faction seems incredibly easy at first but quickly becomes a race against time. While the initial size of a horde army is truly frightening that’s all you get beside the occasionally mercenary until you decide the party is over and establish a new home for your people. There is also no way to recruit diplomats, spies, or assassins besides the ones you begin with. The only way to generate steady income is to constantly attack settlements, squeezing them dry via sacking, but doing so whittles away at your fixed-size army. Worse still, the horde troops that comprise most of that army are converted into civilians when you finally decide to settle down. This poses a serious problem in that troops that are best used as cannon fodder can’t be sacrificed casually or you won’t have enough people left to create viable settlements.

Even if you liked managing an empire in the original game Barbarian Invasion has a lot to offer. The Western Roman Empire’s position in particular is diametrically opposed to that of the barbarians – you start with lots of land, but with very few units to defend an entire empire on the brink of collapse. It’s a tremendous challenge that is reminiscent of the way gameplay was turned on its head in the Viking Invasion expansion for Medieval: Total War. Want godlike power up front that’s fraught with major challenges down the road? Go barbarian. Want something that tests your skill right away but eventually rewards your efforts? Go with an established empire.

In many ways battles are dramatically different than those in the original because of the multitude of new units and the starker differences between the strengths and weaknesses of each faction. Ridiculously overpowered units like headhurlers and wardogs have been either eliminated or dramatically toned down. Mounted ranged units are still too effective, giving factions like the Huns with their hordes of horse archers an edge, but overall the game remains fairly balanced because of qualitative or quantitative advantages within each faction. This is quite an achievement because most of the factions differ dramatically in the makeup of their armies. For example, you’ll never mistake the Sassanids with their heavily-armored cataphracts, war elephants, and camels for the axe-loving, infantry-heavy Alemanni. Both factions require completely different tactics to use effectively, but despite all of their differences they’re still fairly evenly-matched in a fight.

Although the developers tout the expansion’s more advanced handling of religion it doesn’t have a tremendous impact on the gameplay. You now have to convert settlements to your religion of choice (Christianity, Zoroastrianism, or Paganism) to mitigate unrest, but this just requires some busywork and the religious layer is still very abstract.

Maintaining a family to keep your faction going is just as important as before, but now it’s thankfully possible to recruit non-family generals into your faction. These generals can gain experience and traits just like any other leader, but they won’t lead your faction should your family members perish. One of the new traits – Night Fighter – is particularly handy because only generals with that trait can start fights in the dark, giving them an overwhelming advantage when fighting generals who lack the trait.

Another important new trait is Loyalty, which indicates how likely it is for your various generals to rebel. Fail to keep them happy and they may turn on you, although in practice this trait, much like religion, is just another minor detail to keep an eye on.

Despite all the new additions and the better attention to historical accuracy several holdover problems from the original game remain and a few extras unfortunately slipped in. Leaders are extremely powerful, and while historically great leaders had the ability to swing a battle in their favor this expansion often takes it to a ridiculous extreme. In one battle our force of just over 1000 Sarmatians was walled up in a settlement and attacked by a force of nearly 5000 Vandals. The defending force was whittled down to 23 men, but they managed to slaughter 3359 enemy troops in the process. Amazingly, 1227 of those kills were racked up by one 48-man warlord unit. It was an amazing battle to watch but proved that some of the more serious flaws in the AI and in leader effectiveness have yet to be addressed.

Pathfinding for units during city battles is still atrocious, which is sad considering how many city battles horde armies must fight. The ability to completely sack cities is nice, but immediately afterwards large rebel armies occupy the charred remains. This makes it possible to attack the same city repeatedly in the same turn, racking up valuable experience for multiple horde armies.

Overall the graphics in Barbarian Invasion are of the same quality of those in the original game, although nearly every unit is either new or completely revamped. It still takes a hell of a system to run this game at high resolution with full antialiasing and all the other bells and whistles turned on, but the game looks stunning on high-end rigs. Cavalry formations flow around the field like deadly rogue waves, legions of horse archers swirl in large circles raining death down on enemies, and it’s almost palpable when two units crash together for a vicious close-in fight. The terrain graphics are fairly bland, trees still lack detail compared to the units, and units still seem to move a tad too fast, but overall this is still a beautiful game.

The audio is similarly good, as it was in the original game. Generals still deliver fairly pathetic speeches before deployment, but the stirring soundtrack, bloodthirsty battle cries, and the clashing of arms really helps suck you into the battles.

If you’ve played Rome: Total War, you’ll have no trouble jumping into the expansion since the strategic layer and tactical battle module work just like they used to. This unfortunately means that armies are still capped at 20 units, maximum, but that’s still plenty enough to create a decent force mix and simulate battles involving thousands of troops.

The new religion elements are easy to track thanks to additional elements in the Settlement Details page, and tooltips make it easy to learn all of the new traits. The printed manual only covers the basics and unfortunately doesn’t include any information about the new units, so plan on spending a lot of time learning about your new capabilities as well as what you’re up against.