Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion

Seeming as I gave a preview for Age of Empires 3 it seems only fair to do one for the expansion pack for the critically acclaimed Rome Total War. I downloaded the demo of it and have played through both of the supplied levels. Both were an enjoyable experience, as to be expected with Rome Total war, they did enlighten me about some of the changes. It showed off some more armies, in fact every army in the two battles was new.
Here is a list of some(or all) of the new armies:

Western Roman Empire
Easteren Roman Empire
Germanic Frankish Tribes
Romano Brittish
Alemanni
Huns
Goths

As the name implies, and these armies reveal, it is based more on the barbarians. An interesting thing to know would be if they are expanding the campaign map to include northern countries such as Scotland. I think it would be very fun to defend Hadrians wall. They might not improve on the campaign though, which would be a great shame. Even if they dont increase the size of the campaign map there will still be new armies to play with.

Another thing that has been changed is, in the original, there was a information box so when you but your mouse over the unit it would tell you the name of that troop, the energy levels, moral and a couple of other things. Now the box is a lot more informative. For instance it used to say: Shaken. Now it says: Shaken- Because they have suffered heavy casualties or something like that. This may not seem like a particularly important change and it isnt but it could well be one of many little changes that come together and make the game a much more enjoyable experience.

A further change is when you fight at night, one man from each squad carries a burning stick to light up the battle field. I am yet to discover if this can be used as a weapon but it makes the battlefield look cool.

Onagers have been changed. They are far more accurate(or at least it appeared that way when they were firing at me) And maybe because it was at night but when they fired with the fire load it looked IMMENSE. There really isnt a better way to describe it. It is a shame there were not flaming pigs in the battle.

Overall I think this will be a worthwhile expansion regardless of whether you have finished the campaign or not. An interesting thing is it is published by Sega, not Activision. I didnt even know Sega did publishing. It is interesting that Activison have dropped out of the boat when there is the expansion pack and Spartan: Total warrior.(Preview coming soon[maybe]) Both of which are bound to make money. Oh well, all fool Activison.

Related Posts by Categories