Rafal Dudek
October 2nd, 2005, 11:11 pm
Well this has been a major gaming weekend for me. Friday morning I picked up a copy of Barbarian Invasion expansion for Rome: TW and played most of the day. Then spent some saturday playing and most of sunday playing. pretty much I put more hours into this game this weekend then all the hours combined in last 2 months :lol:
So far the expansion is awesome and creates almost a brand new game. The AI is somewhat improved now. I noticed it tries to flank me more often and they tend to siege my city from different sides now. The AI is also using sappers now as well which can pretty much ruin your day.
Veterans will surely enjoy this. The campaign game is SO MUCH harder now that it requires carefull management. The addition of barbarian Horde is an awesome concept, and it can ruin your entire campaign if you get in their way without being ready for it :lol: I've lost 2 campaigns to Hordes. Basically some barbarian civs have the ability to abandon their cities and form a Horde. This creates several full stack armies (depending on city population) which you can use to march around looking for a new place to conquer and settle. Playing as the Horde is not easy. After settling your first city, you loose half your horde army. After settling in a 3rd city, you loose your entire horde army and will have to start recruiting new ones. Problem is, you will most likely lack the money to pay the support and new recruits and you'll make a nice target.
Playing as the Romans will have you pulling your hair out. Not only you lack funds, your cities are on a verge of rebellion and you'll definitely loose quite a few of them which will form a new nation called Roman Rebels (east or west depending on which rome civ you playing). Generals have loyalty too now, the less loyal the general, the more likely they'll abandon you and even turn against you =S
Night battles are awesome, if you have a general that can do night battles, protect him at all costs! Night battles is a life saver if the enemy cant fight in one. You'll have HUGE upperhand!
Religion plays a big factor now. Almost feels like Medieval: Total War. If you're of a different religion then the city you sacked, it will probably rebel. They dont create those uber armies from Medieval: Total War (Anyone remember those? How annoying :lol:) but it can still be annoying taking the city twice. Best thing to do is to exterminate the population or enslave them. It will take some time to fully convert a city to your religion. Having a leader and buildings help speed things up.
Well, thats about it from me. There is much more to this exp then I listed, like new civs popping up in mid campaign, but I gotta to sleeping hehe :p:
So far the expansion is awesome and creates almost a brand new game. The AI is somewhat improved now. I noticed it tries to flank me more often and they tend to siege my city from different sides now. The AI is also using sappers now as well which can pretty much ruin your day.
Veterans will surely enjoy this. The campaign game is SO MUCH harder now that it requires carefull management. The addition of barbarian Horde is an awesome concept, and it can ruin your entire campaign if you get in their way without being ready for it :lol: I've lost 2 campaigns to Hordes. Basically some barbarian civs have the ability to abandon their cities and form a Horde. This creates several full stack armies (depending on city population) which you can use to march around looking for a new place to conquer and settle. Playing as the Horde is not easy. After settling your first city, you loose half your horde army. After settling in a 3rd city, you loose your entire horde army and will have to start recruiting new ones. Problem is, you will most likely lack the money to pay the support and new recruits and you'll make a nice target.
Playing as the Romans will have you pulling your hair out. Not only you lack funds, your cities are on a verge of rebellion and you'll definitely loose quite a few of them which will form a new nation called Roman Rebels (east or west depending on which rome civ you playing). Generals have loyalty too now, the less loyal the general, the more likely they'll abandon you and even turn against you =S
Night battles are awesome, if you have a general that can do night battles, protect him at all costs! Night battles is a life saver if the enemy cant fight in one. You'll have HUGE upperhand!
Religion plays a big factor now. Almost feels like Medieval: Total War. If you're of a different religion then the city you sacked, it will probably rebel. They dont create those uber armies from Medieval: Total War (Anyone remember those? How annoying :lol:) but it can still be annoying taking the city twice. Best thing to do is to exterminate the population or enslave them. It will take some time to fully convert a city to your religion. Having a leader and buildings help speed things up.
Well, thats about it from me. There is much more to this exp then I listed, like new civs popping up in mid campaign, but I gotta to sleeping hehe :p: