Quote Originally Posted by Intrepid Sidekick
Playing the Western Empire will be rather tricky as you will have to deal with barbarian hordes, a lot of disloyalty and corruption, as well as an empty coffer and some Christian unrest.
This is the most interesting thing I've heard about the expansion. I wonder if it will be viable to play the Empire defensively? Almost Total War games so far have been about expansion - to win, you have to occupy more provinces [1]. But I like the idea of just trying to hold on to your lands against the odds. Oda in STW and HRE in MTW were fun examples of large factions struggling to hold their frontiers; I am looking forward to the Western Empire being similar.

[1] The only real exception was the Japanese in MI