In a time when a mighty empire has been split down the middle by infighting. Can the hordes take up arms once more?
As there realy is no story in a game like this i will cover a little of the backround and the setting and them move onto the gameplay but maybe not in that order (just to keep you lot on your toes). Barbarian Invasion takes place 350 years after the end of the original game. The factions and provinces from the main game are very different. The Roman Senate still exists but it no longer has significant power, thus playing no role in the expansion of the empire. Said empire has been split into two parts the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire at this point in time both where ruled from Rome and Constantinople respectively. Most of the known world is under the domain of the Roman Empire, from Britannia to Egypt. The subject regions of this empire represent the former factions of Rome: Total War who have been absorbed into the Empire.
Not only that but the Seleucid Empire has collapsed and has been absorbed by Rome and former Parthia; the Parthian dynasty itself has been overthrown and replaced with the Sassanid dynasty, which rules the lands beyond the Euphrates. Dacia has been conquered by the Goths, and Numidia has been entirely replaced by Berbers. The Huns have invaded Europe, and several major Germanic tribes have unified and strengthened to the point where they are now capable of invading the Empire itself.
The game itself takes place in the year 363 AD and ends in 476 AD. Which ever faction you pick to play as you have to complete your goals before time runs out or it is a game over for you. Victory conditions vary, depending on which faction is played. Each playable faction has its own territory requirement, including specific named territories-adding a layer of strategic complexity. Each faction is listed with a difficulty level relative to the other factions apart from the game settings difficulty selected by the user. The Western Roman Empire may start the game with a lot of military and economic might-but everybody wants a piece of them, they require the most territories to win, and one of those required territories is the most contested like Northern Italy. The Saxons start small and do not have access to advanced technology, but they have a much smaller territory requirement - though they still have to contend with neighbours to the south who are crowding north to meet territory requirements. So it is upto you to pick the faction you want to go as and which level of chalange you want to face.
Speaking of factions here is a list of the playable and Unplayable factions:
Playable factions:
Western Roman Empire.
Eastern Roman Empire.
Huns.
Goths.
Vandals.
Sarmatians.
Saxons.
Franks.
Alemanni.
Sassanids.
Unplayable factions:
Romano-British.
Eastern Roman rebels.
Western Roman rebels.
Ostrogoths.
Roxolani.
Slavs.
Celts.
Burgundians.
Lombards.
Berbers.
Rebels.
Like with most total war game this game has a few new and differant features to bring to the table. One of these is called the hordes. This feature which is introduced in Barbarian Invasion and is a privilege to some barbarian factions. When such a faction loses its last province some factions, such as the Huns and Vandals, begin with no provinces, rather than being destroyed it becomes a horde and is forced to settle elsewhere. Now you might be thinking well if they have got no regions left or they do not start with a region of there own how strong can they be...Well as the name implies the hordes are very large armies, representing an entire nation; however, they do not require upkeep. When a horde army successfully seizes a city, they are given the option of sacking the city which does massive damage to the population and buildings of a city, giving the horde a large amount of money or of settling in the city - which allows the horde to begin anew, with the new city as its capital; the faction then is able to conquer other provinces normally. When the horde settles, a portion of their horde army is disbanded and the population distributed into the city. So when you first start out as a horde faction you have a few choice to make. Do you split your army up and take a few regions for your own...or do you go on a ramage and get as much gold as you can before you invade a city to build a homebase up?
Horde factions do not die out unless defeated on the battlefield or all family members and generals die when they have finally found a new homeland and it is successfully conquered by an enemy, the whole faction becomes a horde again and flees, in order to seek a new home. With the concept of a horde the developers tried to reflect the migrations of several barbarian peoples of that time - especially Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, Burgundians and Lombards. The only way to completely destroy these factions is by slaying all of their family members of the faction.
Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion first came out for Windows and Mac OS X on 27 September 2005.
The System requirements are:
1.0 GHz Processor, 256MB RAM, GeForce 2/Radeon 7xxx series with 64MB VRAM, 2.4 GB disk space.
So if you have Rome: Total War but have not yet looked into this expansion pack or if your a fan of the total war games but have missed out on this era then now might well be the time to take a look at this game in a differant light.