Europa Barbarorum
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Europa Barbarorum (or EB) (Latin: "Europe of the Barbarians") is a modification of the computer game Rome: Total War (RTW) based on the desire to provide RTW players with a more historically accurate game experience.^[3][4] Europa Barbarorum is a total conversion replacing all unit and building stats, for instance, and all unit models.^[5] It covers the period from 272 BC to 14 AD, and introduces a four-turn-per-year system on the campaign map (as opposed to the two-turn-per-year system of Rome: Total War) to better represent the flow of history.

History and goal

EB was originally founded in January 2004, eight months before RTW's release, when the Europa Barbarorum development team who were following the game's development became concerned that "barbaric" factions such as the Gauls and Germanic tribes were being portrayed as stereotypical hordes of unwashed savages, in a manner that was not accurate. The EB team felt that such representations conformed more to a sensationalist Hollywood stereotype than to historical fact, maintaining that the ancient "barbarian" cultures are often judged and possibly misunderstood based on an interpretatio romana or interpretatio graeca due to the nature of ancient historiographical conventions.^[3] The true nature of these civilizations, says the EB team, is better revealed through archaeological evidence and what remains of their own ancient texts.

Despite the name, the changes in EB are not limited to "barbarian" factions. The developers of EB tried to convince the Creative Assembly (CA), the developers of Rome: Total War, to alter their depiction of the period to make the whole game more historically accurate.^[3] Whilst some suggestions were taken on board and adopted in the final release of RTW, most were disregarded by CA due to publisher pressures / financial expediency. Some EB members continued to offer their services as historical advisors but due to inherent concerns over intellectual property rights, CA declined the offer.

Having exhausted this avenue for change, the EB members then resolved to modify the game themselves upon its release. To this end they began what ended up being several thousand hours of research and preliminary work.^{citation needed}

Once released, EB immediately began work on the modification, recruiting a large team of volunteer skinners, modellers, coders, and historians to make the game better reflect historical reality. EB's vision of edutainment was endorsed by CA, who offered limited help when able.^{citation needed}

Slightly over a year after its release, the EB team finally made their initial open beta public on December 27, 2005.^[1] Over 135,000 downloads of the 0.80-0.81 versions were tracked, while the 1.0 version was downloaded over 90,000 times in the six months following its release.^[6][7] The mod has also been included with demos and mods in the PC Format and PC Gamer (UK)^[5] computer magazines published in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Even though EB is set in a similar time period and geographical area to the original RTW, this mod is a total conversion, which offers a very different gaming experience to Rome Total War. All units, buildings, map features and other moddable parameters of the game have been reworked from scratch and new features, not present in the original game, have been added.^[8]

Features

Units

One of the areas in which the greatest amount of change can be seen between the original Rome: Total War game and EB is that of the units that are present in the game. So much so, in fact, that third-party reviewers have commented that all the units that were present in RTW have been removed and replaced in EB.^[5] Specific examples include the removal of several units present in the original Rome: Total War that the EB team considered to be historically doubtful or only marginally used in warfare, such as Arcani, incendiary pigs and camels, as well as the "Oliphaunt" Easter egg unit from the original RTW.^[2] As well as this, a new unit recruitment system based on governments and assimilation, and set up by the player on a region-by-region basis, has been introduced.^[8]

Faction changes

Europa Barbarorum includes several playable factions which were not present in the original Rome: Total War game. The original game's Gaul faction has been replaced in EB with two new factions: the Aedui and the Arverni. The original game's Scythia faction has been replaced by the Sauromatae in EB, and RTW's Greek Cities faction has been replaced by the Koinon Hellenon (Ancient Greek: "Common Greeks"), a faction which represents the Chremonidean League of Athens, Sparta and Rhodes. As well as that aforementioned replacing of original game factions with new factions, the factions entirely new to EB are Bactria, a Central Asian Hellenic empire, Epiros, an empire famous for producing Pyrrhos of Epiros, Saka-Rauka, a heavily cavalry-based faction based in Central Asia and Saba, the pre-Islamic kingdom in Arabia. Despite initial speculation that Europa Barbarorum would contain four playable Roman factions like the original Rome: Total War,^[4] the original SPQR, Brutii, Julii and Scipii factions^[9] have all been merged into one faction, the Romani.^[10] Although early releases of EB included the Yuezhi as a playable faction, it was later dropped as the Yuezhi people had not yet migrated to the area of the world depicted on the EB campaign map by 272 BC.^[11] They have since been recreated through scripted events in the mod, but have never re-appeared as a fully playable faction in the mod since their initial removal from it.^[12]

As well as replacing existing and adding new factions to the game, Europa Barbarorum has also changed the factions that it has kept from the original Rome: Total War. These changes include creating a new unit roster for the Egyptian faction in the game (named Egypt in the original Rome: Total War^[9] and the Ptolemaioi in EB^[12]), a faction which the EB team felt was previously ahistorical, calling RTW's Egyptian soldiers "Mummy Returns Egyptians",^[8][5] to correspond to the Ptolemaic period of history. The EB team has also given Nomadic, desert, and steppe cultures their own government buildings,^[11][13] which some say has helped differentiate between EB's factions and make the differences between Europa Barbarorum and the original Rome: Total War more than just cosmetic.^[5] Earlier releases of EB featured player alerts representing the major stages of the breakup of the Seleukid faction, if that collapse occurred in the game,^[8] but such features became impossible to implement after the removal of the SPQR faction of the original Rome: Total War, which had been used in EB for scripting purposes, but was then replaced by the Saba faction.^[14]

Other faction-related changes in EB have concerned not just one, but many in-game factions. Such changes include the addition of new, historically accurate family trees for all factions, as well as the inclusion of historically accurate diplomatic relationships between the game's factions at the start of the main campaign in 272 BC, including representing existing treaties between different states through scripting,^[8] and a revised "Fog-of-war" to show more realistically each faction's understanding of the world in 272 BC.^[8][5][15] In addition, rebel forces have been given ethnic names and strengths, more than 4,900 new names for generals and family members of Hellenic factions, transliterated from Ancient Greek, have been added to the game, and new victory conditions have been implemented for every faction. As well as this, the EB team has introduced faction-specific player alerts for when the player captures a building important to their faction.^[8]

Faction List

Below is a table containing the list of factions that appear in Europa Barbarorum, and their equivalents in Rome: Total War, if any. It also includes Rome: Total War factions that do not have equivalents in Europa Barbarorum.

Cartography

The Europa Barbarorum modification features a campaign map which has been altered from that of Rome: Total War in several ways. Its eastern and southern regions have been expanded, with Arabia, India, Central Asia, and the Upper Nile region receiving new territories, and provinces have been given accurate names in the language of their controlling peoples at the game's start.^[8] Relief, province boundraries, snow boundaries, vegetation types, coastlines and areas prone to natural disaster^[15] in 272 BC have all been researched and implemented into the campaign map.^[16] The Nile-Red Sea canal linking the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea has been added to the campaign map, as have the great trade routes of the ancient world, such as the Amber and Silk Roads, which can be captured and used by the player and by AI-controlled factions.^[8] Europa Barbarorum also includes new campaign map^[15] and battle map^[2] tree models, resulting in denser forests in both of Europa Barbarorum's broad gameplay modes. Special buildings in provinces at the edges of the campaign map representing trade routes with provinces outside the campaign map have also been added.^[15]

Traits

The original trait system present in Rome: Total War has been expanded upon by Europa Barbarorum. The trait system in EB is based on a combination of upbringing, ageing, relatives' traits, and health, factors which affect trait acquisition and development over a character's life. EB contains both more traits overall, and more faction-specific traits, than Rome: Total War.^[8] Each adult male character in Europa Barbarorum receives, upon "coming of age" at sixteen, six primary traits: Intelligence, Charisma, Vitality, Selflessness, Temperament and Loyalty: the levels of which determine the personality of a character and also influence which traits they will acquire in future and what they will perform well and poorly at.^[17] In addition to the six primary traits that all adult male characters in EB receive, there are also traits which can only be acquired by characters from a certain faction or of a certain ethinicity. The trait system for Hellenic characters, for instance, is based on Theophrastos' Characters and Aristotle's teachings on the Golden Mean. In a similar fashion, the Roman trait system in EB is partially based on the moral tales of Valerius Maximus.^[8] Traits related to special events, such as the Olympics which a Hellenic character can compete in and possibly even win an event in - something which would lead to the acquisition of more positive traits - or a Triumph held in Rome to celebrate a Roman General's victory against a specific faction which can gain them a significant influence boost.^[8] Hellenic characters can also complete training in the Spartan Agoge, which can earn them traits of various levels of utility, depending on their performance during their training.^[18] In addition, all starting generals' personalities and traits have been made to mirror their historical personalities.^[8]

Buildings

Europa Barbarorum adds a number of new building types to the turn- and campaign map-based part of the game. The game's core buildings, which are usually referred to as "government buildings",^[19] are ones which represent different ways of ruling a newly-conquered province. In decreasing order of cost required to install them in the game, the four government types available in EB, which can also be referred to as Type I through to Type IV governments respectively,^[20] are a homeland government, a government of a colonised province, a subject state government, and an allied state government.^[19] The four different government types carry with them different bonuses and penalties, and the greater the government type number, the greater the shift in focus for the ruling faction from their own factional buildings and units to the construction of native buildings and recruitment of native units.^[21] In a later release of EB, Type IV governments were further differentiated from other government types through the introduction of the "Client ruler script", which automatically installs a puppet ruler in any province in which a Type IV government has been constructed and, in the case of a player-controlled province, decreases the amount of direct control the player can have over the province. The other large difference between the buildings available in the original Rome: Total War campaign and those available in a Europa Barbarorum campaign are the military buildings. EB has abandoned the separate facilities for training different troop types of RTW and has instead chosen to replace them with an all-encompassing line of military-industrial complex buildings, or MICs, which are responsible for the recruitment of virtually all troop types in the game.^[20][19] Furthermore, there are, in fact, two different, independent MIC systems in EB: one, known as a "factional MIC", for recruiting a faction's native troops, and another, known as a "local MIC", for recruiting troops native to the province in which the MIC has been built. The government type which has been installed in a province has an effect on how far the province's two different types of MIC can be upgraded: the greater the government type number, the greater the shift towards using local units in a province, and hence the further a local MIC in the province can be upgraded, the the less a factional MIC can be upgraded; and vice versa.^[22][21]

As well as the aforementioned core buildings, EB has also introduced a number of unique buildings representing both man-made objects of wonder, and features of the landscape. The former can be destroyed by the player for what is sometimes a large monetary pay-off, but then cannot be rebuilt and the province in which they stood loses the bonuses they provided;^[23] the latter type of unique building is indestructible.^[8]

EB also introduces new buildings which can be constructed by the player and the AI. These new buildings include shrines, clinics, granaries, theatres and stupas. The mod also features new temple systems which represent the most popular temple types of each of the depicted factions. The temples provide historically accurate bonuses and also come with their own descriptions and images on the campaign map.^[8][21]

Non-Unit Graphics

As well as adding new units to the game, the EB team has also included new non-unit graphics in the mod. Examples of such additions include new faction-specific graphics for the faction selection menu, a new campaign minimap, new faction icons, faction selection buttons, campaign map standards, and battle map banners.^[8] EB also includes new campaign map siege, ship, unit, general, watchtower, and resource graphics^{[24][16][15][8]} in addition to its new battle map graphics.^[25] The mod has also replaced RTW's advisor images and has added new faction-defeated graphics for every faction.^[8]

Game Mechanics

EB's mechanics differ noticeably in several ways from RTW's. One of the most obvious differences between Rome: Total War and Europa Barbarorum is the fact that in the original Rome: Total War campaign, one year passed after every two turns on the campaign map; in EB, one year passes after every four turns, meaning that turns represent seasons in EB - indeed, they have been renamed as such^[2] - with characters facing restrictions on how far they can move during winter.^[8] In addition, the EB team has designed new custom battle formations in order to encourage more realistic behaviour from the AI and has also added new battle map unit animations, such as those of two-handed lancers and horse archers.^[8]

Audio

Europa Barbarorum features its own soundtrack and does not include any songs from the original Rome: Total War soundtrack. EB's music comes from a number of sources. Some of the tracks were composed by Morgan Casey and Nick Wylie.^{[8][26][27][28]} More recently, authentic music for the Celtic factions, created by Prehistoric Music Ireland was added to the mod.^[29][8] As well as those two sources, reconstructed and recreated Roman music, performed by the German group Musica Romana, has also been added.^[30]

As well as including a new soundtrack, EB also includes its own "voicemod", an attempt by the EB team to replace the English soldiers' cries used in Rome: Total War with ones in their native language. To date, EB features voice recordings in classical Latin, Celtic, ancient Greek,^[8][31] and Pahlavi,^[32] and recordings in other ancient languages, such as Punic, are also being worked on.^[32]

Release history

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (March 2008)

Awards and reviews

Europa Barbarorum has won numerous community awards, including TWCenter.net Best RTW Era Mod 2006, Best Modding Team 2006, Best Gameplay and Aesthetics 2006,^[45] Outstanding Achievement Award 2007, Best RTW Strategic Map Experience 2007, Best RTW Unit Art 2007, Best RTW Mod 2007, Best RTW Era Mod 2007, Best Original Audio Award 2007, Best RTW 2D Art Award 2007;^[46] and TotalWar.org Most Promising Mod 2005, Favorite RTW Modification 2006, Most Accomplished RTW Modification 2006, Best RTW Classical Period Mod 2006, and Best Original Audio 2006.^{citation needed}

Europa Barbarorum was featured and reviewed in the April 2005 edition of the Italian PC Gaming magazine Giochi per Il Mio Computer, the French PC Gaming magazine Canard PC in 2005, the Romanian PC Gaming magazine LeveL in 2006, PC Gamer (UK) in March 2005 and February 2008,^[5] German magazine GameStar in April 2007 and the Portuguese magazine BGamer in December 2007.

Europa Barbarorum 'Mini-Mods'

There are a number of fan-made sub-modifications for Europa Barbarorum, of varying scope. Their details can be found at EB's official forums.

References

External links

• Official Rome: Total War Game Website
• Official Europa Barbarorum Website
• TotalWar.org Europa Barbarorum I forum
• TWCenter.net Europa Barbarorum I forum
• TotalWar.org Europa Barbarorum II forum
• TWCenter.net Europa Barbarorum II forum