Quote Originally Posted by orangat
Since I haven't tried BI or any mods I'd like to know exactly whether they are worth playing.
I had a hard return to RTR after playing some EB and BI. Early in a Roman campaign, I sent a 3/4 full stack army to siege a half full stack of Gauls. The Gauls then moved a full stack reinforcing army to relieve the town and my Romans were simply over-run. They died almost to a man, like Spartans. In other TW games, a 3/4 full stack of mine would have been safe but with RTR I was taught a lesson. Now I tend to keep my stacks at almost full strength just to avoid another such humiliation.

I almost quit the game in frustration at that point. The "problem" is that RTR puts unit morale to very high levels so units will tend to fight on for a long time[1]. Romans die almost to a man (well mine did). At first, I thought this was over the top - it probably is from a historical point of view - but when you get used to it does improve the challenge and make the battles more fun. The high morale means that quantity has more of a chance to prevail over quality - attrition slowly brings down the smaller, better armies.

To be honest, BI has similar properties - it is possible to be bushwhacked by greatly superior forces. And even the best armies on a bridge will tend to suffer severe attrition after three or so victories, so they will eventually fold if not reinforced.

Both RTR and BI introduce an element of danger for the player that was usually lacking in vanilla RTW.

[1]In addition, cavalry and missiles are considerably weakened so that usually you have to rely on at least some meat grinding from your infantry to win.