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> Results: Rome: Total War - The Barbarian Invasion
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Rome did it all. The height of ancient civilization, the dominance of an unrivaled Empire, and then it set records in terms of just how decadent a society could become. Creative Assembly's Total War series took on Rome, and like their Shogun and Medieval games, the expansion pack shows what happens after the Empire stagnates. Historically speaking, much like their expansion packs, the oppressed or a rival empire eventually rises up and corruption is eventually repaid with the sword and torch.
Rome: Total War is no exception. The original challenged budding generals to guide a Roman family through the early pre-Empire period. This meant sparring with rival families, plenty of intrigue, a prickly and fickle Senate, challenges from rival empires like Carthage, and conquering mud and war-paint spattered barbarians under the lockstep of our legionary boots. A challenging if slightly flawed game, it still did a great job giving players the flavor of Rome's rise. Now comes the fall. The barbarians are at the gates and players get the job of either saving Rome and altering history ﾖ or leading the tribes in retribution. Sack or save Rome? It's up to you.  The Barbarian Invasions doesn't alter the basic structure of the game. There's still a strategic (board game like) portion where you move armies, diplomats, keep up on current events, and tweak your Empire's building queues and taxes. What's new is Religion. Now your faction leader can be a Pagan, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian. On the surface, religion is challenging because conquered territories don't generally like serving a leader who disagrees with them about the afterlife. This leads to increased corruption and a trickier balancing act where a leader has to garrison territories more heavily, or spend resources on buildings designed to covert the population. On a deeper level choosing one religion over another can lead to new technologies unavailable otherwise, thereby increasing the replay value quite a bit, but this is only true of a few of the factions. Other changes include the ability recruit generals into your army, time-period historical changes in tactics (legions are more mobile, Commanders have better anti-cavalry tactics, and some Commanders can attack at night or send their light infantry to ford rivers). The addition of several barbarian tribes (Samaritans, Saxons, Franks, Goths, and more) and the splintered Eastern Roman Empire is a factor as well. Perhaps the main drawback is that none of the new factions offer anything nearly as compelling and impressive as Hannibal's elephants. Each side has a unique unit or two, but there's nothing quite that spectacular. Except for Hordes. Now certain barbarian tribes can draft their civilians and rise up to terrify (and tire) your armies. These units are weak, but numerous, and often have the desired effect of causing poorly led armies to simply rout. Hordes cost nothing in upkeep, but eventually have to disperse and form a country of their own. It's a fun twist on the game, and makes playing the barbarian tribes a refreshing change from Rome's legionnaires. The Hun campaign is especially cool. They have horse archers (which are terrifyingly efficient killers) and they begin in Horde form. The challenge of this campaign is to sack and pillage and amass as much territory as possible before having to disband the horde and form a nation. Historically this isn't very accurate (Atilla made a lot more loot from extortion than pillaging) but that's forgivable given the nature of the game. The Eastern Roman campaign is a little dull (unless you make uniting Rome your goal) but the Western campaign is a seasoned Rome player's dream. Imagine starting out about to lose half the known world. Most of your cities in disarray, barbarians at the fringes, and every computer controlled enemy out to take you down. Heady stuff!  The artwork looks a bit better here, but aside from the thrill of night fighting (it's all about the flaming arrows baby) - which is rare ﾖ the expansion doesn't do much but add colorful new outfits, standards, and formations. Tactically speaking this is refreshing, but, despite the laundry list of new unit names, the tactical portion is still the same game as before. The map is the same, only expanded to include more of Asia and the Middle-East. There's no doubt that Barbarian Invasions makes the original game a more satisfying experience, but the truth is, it doesn't radically change or expand the game the way the Shogun expansion and Medieval's superlative Viking expansions did. It doesn't expand the gameplay so much as refine it while at the same time making it a more accurate historical experience. Given the lack of games like this, using this scope, that alone should make it a must buy for anyone enamored with the original. Rome wasn't built in a day, and with Rome: The Barbarian Invasions, you can spend as many days as you like trying to save, remake, or destroy it. Vini, vidi, vicci. 
Rome is deep, it won't be won in a day. It's not for the little kids but any patient kid with an abiding interest in strategy, history, and warfare will probably find the game very rewarding. The ESRB claims the game is gory. It isn't. But there is small use of bloodstains. More disturbing for kids is the sheer number of dead soldiers littering the field and how disasterous the consequences of their tactical errors can be. Human life was cheap in Rome, are you not entertained? The important thing to remember is that Rome is a classy and mature game, despite the war and carnage, it's tastefully handled, offers multiple victory conditions and encourages creative thinking and strategy.
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