Medieval: Total War - Viking Invasion Preview
The Vikings are coming! We take an advance look at the upcoming expansion pack for Medieval: Total War.
Creative Assembly's Total War series has made a name for itself in recent years because of its unusual combination of turn-based strategic planning and real-time warfare, and also because of its impressively huge battles, which consist of literally thousands of individual soldiers marching, charging, and fighting onscreen at once. Last year's Medieval: Total War let players attempt to seize control of all of Europe and Asia Minor by means of brute force, political intrigue, or both. The developer's next project, the Viking Invasion expansion pack, will expand on Medieval's gameplay with a brand-new campaign, new playable factions, new units, and new ways to plan for war.
As the expansion's name suggests, Viking Invasion will let you play as the bloodthirsty Vikings. In fact, the expansion will have a completely new "era" in which you can play the game, in addition to Medieval's original early, high, and late medieval periods. In the Viking era, you'll fight for control of the English landmass and parts of the Norse territories as one of eight all-new factions: the Welsh, the Vikings, the Irish, the Scots, the Picts, the Northumbrians, the Saxons, or the Mercians. The Viking campaign begins in the late eighth century, during the so-called "Dark Ages" of Europe, and to reflect this fact, religion will play a much smaller role in the new campaign than in later years--the Papacy plays no role in the campaign, nor do Catholic inquisitors. In addition, unlike the other eras, the Viking campaign will not let you achieve victory through glorious achievements in commerce, technology, religion, and diplomacy. Instead, you can win only through military domination.
Many of the Viking campaign's new nations existed in the original Medieval: Total War, but only as provinces of England, not as actual playable factions. All the new factions have their own units and their own technology tree to use in building and developing their countries. The Irish, for example, will be able to recruit bonnachts and dartmen in their home areas, while the Welsh will be able to call up reserves of bandits from their countryside. However, since the Viking era takes place in a much smaller landmass, many of these unique units can be produced only within their home countries. For instance, the Vikings' ferocious berserkers may be recruited only from the Vikings' Nordic homeland, and the proud highlanders of Scotland are available only in Scottish territory. In other words, although Viking-era campaigns will take place within a much more intimate area, if you expand aggressively, you won't be able to immediately recruit your nation's special units in the outlying provinces you conquer.
Then again, if you play as the Vikings, you'll have other special abilities to offset these limitations--and the Vikings' own distant starting position across the sea from England. For instance, since the Vikings were experts at pillaging enemy villages in raids, they will receive a destruction bonus that lets them earn bonus funds whenever they destroy an enemy town. Likewise, thanks to their skilled shipwrights, the Vikings' ships are not only the swiftest on the seas, but they also don't need to be launched from a port structure, so Viking players will be able to get an early start on attacking and plundering enemy territories. What's more, since Vikings don't have to launch their ships from a port, they can quickly jump from enemy settlement to settlement on short-term raids, without having to completely conquer each one to build a port.
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- Release: May 7, 2003
- ESRB: Teen
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