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Game heaven, for me.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I started playing this series with Shogun and it has been my favorite ever since. The only disappointment was Medieval, with its endless whack-a-mole rebellions in the end phases.

In terms of mechanics, Barbarian Invasions isn't that different from Rome, except for the need to manage religious affiliations and the difficulty of increasing leaders' Command ability through battle successes. It is different in the historical context as we move from an up-and-coming Rome to a dying empire. I think that neither period are what we best "know" Rome for, which would probably be early Empire, circa Caesar or Augustus (50 BC - 100 AD).

The Total War series is almost unique in combining deep turn based strategic and economic management with real time tactical battles. Each aspect complements the other quite well, though the battle engine is the true jewel. The tactics, terrain, units and the rendering are just amazing. I generally find the strategic level more challenging throughout, because tactical battles become easier and easier as you upgrade your troops and they gain experience. Once you know your way around the solo campaign game, you can stretch out your investment by switching factions, playing historical battles (warning: only 2 of those in BI!) or play online.

My only criticism, at the strategic level, is Rome's unrest bias against large urban populations (inherited from Civ?), combined with the attractiveness of systematically exterminating cities to fill your coffers. My favorite strategy in Rome involves pulling troops out of a rioting city, making it easier for the city to revolt, then besiege and exterminate it. Which results in me collecting lots and lots of gold during the sack. Afterwards, depopulated cities are very loyal and have huge cashflows. That's an odd way to manage economies and feels morally repugnant as well. But it works :-)

Rome: BI is quite stable on my recent system which is a mid-power laptop, despite (because?) it not having been patched. Could other reviewers be experiencing instability due to older Windows installs?

More than an expansion, its a whole new game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: November 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

While i waited a year for this game to come out, I was exptecting something similiar to VI, where it gives you a small, quick game but vastly improves the original. I couldn't have been more wrong. BI is, as the title states, pretty much a whole new game. The original dosen't change to much. All there is a patch. But BI itself is alsmost as in depth as RTW. There is only one major annoyance I have with both games. That is the lack of playable factions. It seems you can only play half the factions in RTW and only a third in BI. Fix this, and they have almost no flaws.

A solid follow-up to the finest game of 2005

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: October 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In the newest addition to the total war series (Rome total war: barbarian invasions), the game undergoes several changes from the original. Now instead of building up the Roman empire, you must recapture its glory or crush the already divided super power into peices. Instead of the old feeble senate, you have the Eastern and Western Roman empires. Both who maintain large territorys with thinly spread defenses. Other playable factions include the saxons, goths, franks, vandals, and the ever terrifying Huns. There are several pros and cons to these new additions in different aspects.

graphics: arrows and seige fire made more realistic, a moderate upgrade from the already outstanding graphics engine 5/5
quick battles: No more monotonous battles where yo No duplicates through 50 battles so far.ur always egypt at the start. Quick battles are completely random now. Also a lot more bridge fights. 5/5
Custom battles: Lack of new maps and maps period is a dissapointment. Bugs in the seige mode have been fixed, Although battering rams are still not armoured enough. Good selection of factions. Could use more unit diversity. 4/5
campaign: No more havening to beat the Roman campaign first. Generals dont gain command traits at all, bug or not a bug, I dont know, I just hate it. Campaign map is more spread out with fewer settlements. More open fighting. Hordes are too large and send you on wild goose chases. Nice idea that was way overdone. New factions that emerge. Better and more mercenaries for hire. Greater selection of retenue. 4.5/5

Conclusion: RTW:BI is a solid but not perfect addition to the total war franchise. A good buy for all RTS and total war fans.

Not much has changed... not worth too much money, but definitely worth it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: October 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This expansion pack is much more historically accurate than the original game, but really, not much has changed since then.

The original game covers the Roman Republic, from 270 BC (when Rome totally dominated the Italian peninsula) to 14 AD (when Augustus dies, Rome's empire greatly expanded)

In this expansion pack, it takes you WAY ahead in the future, to the waning years of the Empire, where Rome is split in two, the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire, with Christianity the moving force in the east, and barbarian invasion in the north a constant threat to all factions

New features in the game include totally new factions, with the only remaining factions from the original being the Romans (with their army looking and playing completely differently). Totally new army and fighting styles, whether it be with the primarily horse-faring Huns, the mixed-bag of legionaries and mercenaries of the Western Roman Empire, or the vast variety of the Sassanid Empire with their cataphracts, camels, archers, and spearmen.

Some other new features include:

- Night fighting: You can now fight in the night-time (but only if your general has the ability). This is very VERY useful if you are attacking an army that has reinforcements. Attacking them by night cuts off their reinforcements, as they are not expecting it at that time.

- General's loyalty: This is apparently only a Roman feature, in which a new trait is available just beneath Management, and above Influence, in which the number of rings indicate the general's loyalty. Disloyal generals can revolt against you!

- New faction-spawn triggers: When a certain year rolls around, a sect of a faction can break away to form a completely new faction (ie, the Romano-British in Britannia, the Ostrogoths or Visigoths from the Goths, etc) as well as rebellion triggers for the Romans and other factions

- Sacking settlements, becoming nomadic: Many of the barbarian factions start out without any settlements, instead with fully stacked armies (mostly just peasants given weapons) making them essentially nomadic. In this way, as the Huns, for example, you can rage through the lands simply sacking settlements and taking their gold rather than settling down. However, if you lose any of your family members, you're dead

and many other minor changes, including vastly improved AI. Some of these features have been added into original Rome Total War as well (such as night fighting)

All in all, it's an impressive expansion pack, but not quite worth the amount of money it was labeled as. Considering that more than half of the factions are all barbarians (which in my eyes, look pretty much all alike) and the new features aren't as ground-breaking or totally new as say, Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge. Still, it is a worthy addition, and also the target of totally new mods!

A Huge Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: January 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

There are a lot of things wrong with this expansion, only the most annoying of which I'll mention. First of all, I don't think the developers thought the whole horde-thing through. When you defeat a Hun army that you had reduced from God knows how many to only a few hundred, take their only remaining settlement, and then realize, by taking their last settlement (which they had just gained the turn before!), you had just given them a massive army that could wipe out your entire faction, you will be very angry, and understandably so.

And then there are the bugs. There are a lot of bugs. I've had the game for less than a week, and I've had to reboot the game many times because infantry couldn't get inside their own seige towers.

Great game, new features, but more problems with cities

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: September 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Like Rome Totalwar the look and feel of the Barbarian Invasion addition is great. There are a number of nice new features, (Hordes can be fun) but one old problem has been made worse. Any one who has played Rome knows that large cities especially non Roman ones can be very difficult to manage. Now with religion added in it is even harder. The cities are even larger and many of the barbarians still do not get adequate sewage and road options. There are too many things to build, and it takes to long to build them. Building time scale is unrealistic. There is also no map included with the game, and the one from Rome does not work.

It is still a nice addition and I'm glad I bought it. If you liked Rome you will love this on too, even if it is a little frustrating at times.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME - CRASHES CONSTANTLY

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 33
Date: November 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Do not buy this game until they release a patch that solves the constant crashing. They are currently at patch 1.3 (which was designed to bring Rome up to the level of Barbarian Invasion, for multiplayer ... 1.3 is not a patch for BI)

Many, many people who have this game are sufferring from crashing, if you are lucky you will have no problems, but very likely you will have.

Note that I do not have any problems with any other games and also, Rome Total War works perfectly and has never had any problems whatsoever.

Barbarian Invasion expansion however, crashes ALL the time.

Having said all that, it is not a bad expansion (from what little I have played of it). The original Rome: Total War is very worthwhile and you should find it actually works. The other game they made earlier, Medieval:Total War and the Vikings expansion are also very, very good, and should be picked up cheaply, and run perfectly well (and fast) on any machine.

This expansion pack though is terribly buggy.

There is no support from the creators.

Volunteers (other people like you and me) are trying to help people get through the many problems, but are overwhelmed and have no idea how to fix it.

Keep your eyes on it though, the first patch might clear things up.

Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion Expansion Pack

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game primarily for my 16 year old who has played this game nearly non-stop hours on end since it arrived. I can tell you if the game wasn't enjoyable and challenging my son would have become bored with it and wouldn't have played it anymore than the first few hours or so the first day. I have tried the game myself and have found it very challenging. My son and I recommend this game highly.

Kind of a let-down

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The expansion-pack has some interesting features, like night battles and barbarian hordes but, overall, the playability seemed to be lacking. I did notice, however, that the AI was improved after I installed Barbarian Invasion (the computer-controlled armies don't rush up to walled cities and stand there to be killed anymore). You may want it just for the challange of trying to survive as the Western Roman Empire. To me, however, it's too frustrating to be constantly in debt and having all your cities revolting all of the time. Worth looking at but kind of a let-down compaired to the original.

She Hates this one too

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: January 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A great expansion to a great game. I look forward to more from the Total War Series. My girl friend hates this game too.

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