08-23-2005, 11:42 PM
The RTW expansion, Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion demo has been released and can be downloaded here.
It has no campaign game and two 'historical' battles. One is the 'Battle of Badon Hill' where Arthur (well, Artorius Castus anyway, who thanks to that appalling King Arthur movie is now supposedly the 'historical Arthur') rides to help his Allemannic (?!) allies who are being attacked by the evil Saxons. This is one of the RTW:BI's night battles, which means each unit's banner has a bloody great torch on top of it.
The other battle is Chalons, which isn't too bad, apart from the fact that the Hunnic army is made up almost entirely of Huns rather than substantial numbers of Germanic allies. You can play as Attila, Aetius or Theodoric. Other silly elements include Vegetius' ballistae mounted on wagons and a unit of 'Catholic priests' who look like something from a D&D game.
The gameplay is more or less the same as RTW, though some units have some new features. Spearmen can form a 'schilltron', where they form a circle with their spears bristling in all directions. Apart from that, it's like RTW with different units types.
The skins vary from not bad to 'WTF??!!' in accuracy. Why the hell do Aetius' Germanic cavalry bodyguard wear segmentata? What's with all the fantasy breastplates?
The good news - the modders are already planning how to turn this into something worth playing with totally accurate units. So it could be worth buying just for the mods.
It has no campaign game and two 'historical' battles. One is the 'Battle of Badon Hill' where Arthur (well, Artorius Castus anyway, who thanks to that appalling King Arthur movie is now supposedly the 'historical Arthur') rides to help his Allemannic (?!) allies who are being attacked by the evil Saxons. This is one of the RTW:BI's night battles, which means each unit's banner has a bloody great torch on top of it.
The other battle is Chalons, which isn't too bad, apart from the fact that the Hunnic army is made up almost entirely of Huns rather than substantial numbers of Germanic allies. You can play as Attila, Aetius or Theodoric. Other silly elements include Vegetius' ballistae mounted on wagons and a unit of 'Catholic priests' who look like something from a D&D game.
The gameplay is more or less the same as RTW, though some units have some new features. Spearmen can form a 'schilltron', where they form a circle with their spears bristling in all directions. Apart from that, it's like RTW with different units types.
The skins vary from not bad to 'WTF??!!' in accuracy. Why the hell do Aetius' Germanic cavalry bodyguard wear segmentata? What's with all the fantasy breastplates?
The good news - the modders are already planning how to turn this into something worth playing with totally accurate units. So it could be worth buying just for the mods.
hock: [/size]
![[Image: rome-total-war-barbarian-invasion-200508..._thumb.jpg]](http://media.ign.com/thumb/119/1190970/rome-total-war-barbarian-invasion-20050802045611334_thumb.jpg)
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