Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion Q&A - Rome Didn't Fall in a Day

If Rome: Total War was about the rise of the Roman Empire, then you can consider Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion, the expansion to last year's hit strategy game, to be about the decline and fall of Rome. If you're a fan of Rome, you can expect a number of significant changes. The once mighty Roman empire has been split asunder, and warlike barbarian tribes are moving in for the kill. Your challenge is to rewrite history, as either the Romans or the barbarians. To get an idea of what to expect, we caught up with Creative Assembly's Ian Roxburgh for the details on Barbarian Invasion, which is expected to ship next month.

The epic 3D battles still look amazing.

GameSpot: Barbarian Invasion covers the era around the fall of the Roman Empire, but could you fill us in on the details on the years it covers and the major factions in the expansion?

Ian Roxburgh: The expansion is set more than 300 years after the original game's time frame and spans the years AD 363 to AD 476. Basically, it runs from the death of the last emperor of a unified Roman Empire to the abdication of Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the west.

There are 10 new playable factions: the Eastern Romans, the Western Romans, the Huns, the Saxons, the Franks, the Goths, the Vandals, Allemanni, Sarmatians, and the Sassanid Empire.

We've also added a number of nonplayable factions: the Berbers, Celts, Romano-British, Slavs, Ostrogoths, Western Roman rebels, and Eastern Roman rebels.

GS: In the original Rome, your main goal as a Roman faction was to expand the empire's borders, but hurry back to Rome once civil war erupted. What are going to be the challenges for the various factions in Barbarian Invasion? Will you be limited to just the Roman factions at first, and will you unlock the barbarian factions later on?

IR: All the new factions in Barbarian Invasion are unlocked from the start. The challenges presented to the player by each one are very different.

Players who choose the Roman factions will notice the biggest change and face possibly the biggest challenge. The old Roman factions are gone, replaced by the Western and Eastern Empires. They're both allied at the start of the campaign, but that can all change very quickly. As the Eastern Romans, for example, one of your objectives is to bring Rome under your control; so once you've defended the empire from the relentless attacks of the barbarian hordes, the Western Empire can quickly become a rival.

The nomadic barbarian factions, meanwhile, have to fend off the considerable challenge from the rampaging Huns from the east. They have to decide how to best cope with this, either by settling and defending their territory or uprooting their entire civilization and surging across the map as a horde, sacking all in their wake. As for the Huns, their challenge is pretty straightforward: storm across the map in a wave of destruction.

Night battles are new in the expansion.

GS: Was this era a natural setting for the expansion, or did you consider any other eras? And when did work on Barbarian Invasion begin?

IR: Having given the player the opportunity to build the Roman Empire in the original game, our allowing them to play a part in its downfall seemed to be a natural and logical step for the expansion. Work on Barbarian Invasion began just after the first patch for Rome: Total War came out.