Rome Versus Barbarian Invasion Redux

[PanzerJaeger]

Upon the announcement of R2, I decided to buy the Gold Pack on steam. I gave up on Rome early, but I have heard that later patches improved on it significantly. I also read years ago that BI was much better than the original.

So which one is the better game?

[Monk]

RTW patched up to 1.5 was quite playable. The versions before that were fine in the early days but once we figured out all the flaws of the game, quickly became completely unplayable. I mean honestly, an AI who forgets its orders after loading a save and marches away from easy pickings? Come on.

BI wasn't bad but required the player to do some pretty gamey stuff to survive. The Western Empire starts the game like -20,000 in the red in income per turn. Yeah the West should be hard, i get it, but impossible isn't fun.

Lots of people swear up and down when it comes to Europa Barbarorum as well, but it's not for everyone. The mod has a very specific way of doing things and if that's not you for, you won't like it. But hey it's a free mod for a game you own and has significantly improved the game for a lot of people. Worth a look imo. :yes:

As for which is the better game: BI is probably the most polished experience by far. Vanilla RTW is unplayable unless you get it patched, and even then, it's got some dumb stuff. Egypt. Enough said.

[The Stranger]

RTW:EB best TW game EVER! then comes MTW :D

i played a bit of BI, I remember that those generals of the sassanids were crazy OP. you could conquer the world with you king, heir and another FM. they would get up to like 250 bodyguards when you got some stripes on them and they could simply annihilate 3000 men.

[Zim]

I spent a lot more time on BI once I'd managed to beat the RTW long campaign.

I thought the BI campaign was more interesting (with varying victory goals for each faction) and a more polished AI. That said, the AI is still pretty bad, both compared to older and newer games in the series.

There are some great mods for both the main game and expansion, like the aforementioned EB and IBFD.

[Chaotix]

I remember having a lot more fun with the original RTW than with Barbarian Invasion, but both were pretty fun.

Rome is a much more traditional TW experience where all the factions start off on roughly equal footing and you compete to survive. The only quirk is the way the Romans themselves work, with the whole take-over-and-become-emperor mechanic. But I played 5 or 6 full campaigns of RTW (i.e., conquer 50 whole provinces) - each of the Roman factions, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, and maybe someone else - before I got bored with it.

Barbarian Invasion has a lot of new strategy mechanics added to it. The big one is hordes. Frankly there are tons of them, and playing one of the settled factions is difficult if you can't handle about six invading fullstacks at a time. There's also the rebellion mechanic for the Roman factions, too. Compared to Rome, I played 2 full campaigns, and for these ones the victory conditions were not 50 provinces but something much smaller.

But I do highly recommend Europa Barbarorum. It's much more difficult (and like Monk said not for everyone) but I found that once I had played it, I couldn't go back to vanilla. So do give it a try if you get the chance.

[The Stranger]

i am looking forward to rtw2 tho. i hope it will be the first TW i will enjoy again since mtw2.

well actually, mtw2 was nice but also quite dissapointing. i never bought empire untill last month. i did buy napoleon but it such little variation. i like to play the campaign but it wasnt fun to replay it. because of that dissappointment i never bought shogun2 (and i never like shogun anyway, not my era) but RTW2 im going to try!

but christmass 2013... cmon -_-

[rickinator9]

I found RTW much more interesting than BI. In BI every faction but 3 is barbarian. I aren't interested in those smelly guys. As said earlier, EB tops them both.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Both are quite fun games.

BI was a mixed bag though - the Roman Factions were exceedingly awesome, for totally different reasons. The Eastern Empire had some form of EVERYTHING, but the Western Empire had Sarmationawsome, fast heavy cavalry, totally overpowered and totally ridiculous.

The west also had a great starting positions, you need to look at your economy before the first end turn, then breakdown all your non-economic buildings outside Rome and send all your units (you get quite a large stating army) to the German frontier and build some farms with the cash from breaking everything down. then it's a tense 10 or twenty turns while the barbarians whittle down your few heavy infantry as you try to preserve your cavalry and stop them from slaughtering your few archer units.

Then it's the hard slog back up to Imperial might, taking vengeance on the Barbarians and subjugating the Eastern Empire. There are also great touches, like being able to hire mercenary legionaries and other unique units. Graal Knights, too!

[Sarmatian]

BI wasn't bad but required the player to do some pretty gamey stuff to survive. The Western Empire starts the game like -20,000 in the red in income per turn. Yeah the West should be hard, i get it, but impossible isn't fun.


Hmm, I remember having to sell all buildings in far away (outside Italy) regions and disband all troops there. Joined few Italian units and conquered a few cities, which gave me positive income. Gamey or not? I don't know, One might say cutting your losses and starting anew is what many leaders in history did or tried to do.


Sarmationawsome,

Thanks, I knew you'd understand one day. :beam:



I personally liked BI more, it was tougher and you actually had to plan carefully your actions. Winning with Sarmatians for me was truly an epic game, one that didn't get boring even in the end.

RTW had more diversity on the other hand.

My advice is get both, there are great mods for both of them.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Also, they are rather cheap these days. It's a good idea to buy the Gold version of the game.