Quote Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato View Post
Vartan, I don't think even a dominant barbarian empire controlling a significant portion of Europe would build a Huge City as large as Rome.

Because barbarians generally preferred to do their own farming, rather than using slaves to do it for them like Rome - which in the process pauperised their own peasant farmers into becoming a vast, unruly and unproductive city mob. (Actually, by modern standards, the 'barbarian' method of agriculture is actually more 'civilised' and fair to its own people, so I make no moral judgements here.)

A barbarian empire might have a large population, but it would be more spread out over the countryside and into many smaller towns, instead of concentrated in a few huge cities. Rome had a population of half a million by 272 BC. It took the largest barbarian cities of London and Paris another 1,750 years to reach anywhere near that level, that's 1,000 years after the fall of Rome!

The only way I could see a barbarian city growing to one the size of Rome would be the capital of a single empire covering the entire Celtic world - Gaul, Iberia, Germany, Northern Italy, Pannonia, and Getia. But in the Medieval era, no single king ever controlled anywhere near that much territory, not even Charlemagne and his Carolingian Empire.
Actually, that is precisely what the Carolingians controlled at the height of their power, at least the northern part of the Iberian peninsula anyway. Back to the point, I know how the Celtic population were not concentrated. But even this isn't represented in the campaign engine because the only way you can build and recruit is from towns, and that's an unfortunate truth. You don't really see towns until after the end of the 10th century, when settlements expand in western Evropa. But anyway, it's a game. My point was that you could get a kick out of screwing with history, playing God, if you will. Heck, that's the whole idea behind the game, innit? ;-) By the way, is Titus Marcellus Scato a famous Roman? I don't feel like looking him up. I don't want an encyclopedic entry on him!