Europa Barbarorum
Encyclopedia
Europa Barbarorum or EB, is a modification
of the PC game Rome: Total War
(RTW) based on the desire to provide Rome: Total War players with a more historically accurate game experience.
The basic gameplay mechanics of the original game remain the same. The player controls an empire with the goal of conquering as much territory as possible and eliminating rival factions, which are controlled by the computer, or AI. The main campaign is split between two gameplay modes: a turn-based
strategy map for moving whole armies and managing the empire, and a real-time
battle map for fighting battles on the ground between two or more armies. The two game modes are linked, with success or failure in one game mode influencing the chances of success or failure in the other.
Although set in a similar historical period and geographical area to the unmodified game (covering a timespan of 272 BC to 14 AD, compared to the original game's 273 BC to 14 AD), Europa Barbarorum is a total conversion modification as it replaces all the aspects of the original Rome: Total War game that can be replaced, such as unit models, statistics and the musical score. The modification has received favourable reviews in a number of computer gaming magazines. PC Gamer
magazine ranks Europa Barbarorum as the best mod for any of the seven Total War games currently released for the PC.
Europe
, North Africa
or the Middle East
, with the aim of expanding their faction's territory and eliminating rival empires through military conquest
and city-building
. Europa Barbarorum retains this basic gameplay mechanic and sets itself in a similar time period and geographical area to the original game. However, as a total conversion the mod replaces the particular factions, military units, buildings, and other elements present in the original game, and adds a new soundtrack and several brand-new gameplay mechanics not present in the original, such as the installation of puppet ruler
s. The modification's development team's stated aim in making the changes that they have to Rome: Total War is to make the player's experience of the ancient world more historically accurate. For this reason, numerous parameters of the game at the start of the campaign in 272 BC, such as generals' names, the diplomatic relations between factions, and the particular understanding of the outside world
that each faction has, have been set to correspond to the actual political situation in that year.
Also for reasons of historical verisimilitude
, factions, provinces on the campaign map and factions' family members have been given vernacular names in Europa Barbarorum, rather than having Latinised or Anglicised ones, as in Rome: Total War. So, for instance, the original game's Armenia
faction is known as Hayasdan
in Europa Barbarorum, and Germania
as the Sweboz
. Instead of having to play one's first campaign as a Roman faction and only subsequently unlock playable campaigns as non-Romans by defeating them in the Roman campaign, all twenty of Europa Barbarorums playable factions can be accessed by the player from the start. Furthermore, the one unplayable and three playable Roman factions of the original have been combined into a single playable faction in Europa Barbarorum, the Romani
. Dissatisfied with the homogeneity of the factions of the original Rome: Total War, the Europa Barbarorum development team have sought to differentiate the playing experiences of the game's different factions. So, for example, Rome: Total Wars trait-acquisition system, where the player's faction's family members acquire certain characteristics and talents which make them more or less adept at certain tasks such as city management or military leadership, has been made more faction-specific in Europa Barbarorum, with Hellenic characters' traits, for instance, being based on Theophrastos'
Characters and Aristotle's
teachings on the Golden Mean, and Romans' traits being partially based on the moral tales of Valerius Maximus
. There are sometimes additional requirements for a family member to be able to gain a new trait: in order for them to compete in one of the Panhellenic Games
, for instance, the player must ensure that they are stationed in the appropriate city on the campaign map in the year that the competition is scheduled to take place. One reviewer has commented that Europa Barbarorums expansions upon the original Rome: Total Wars trait system have served to add a role-playing
element to the game.
As in the original Rome: Total War, Europa Barbarorums strategic campaign sees the player take control of a particular faction and then compete for territory and resources against all the other factions, which are controlled by the game's artificial intelligence. The player is presented with a map of Europe, North Africa and the Near East in which territory is divided into 200 provinces, each of which contains a province capital
, which will at any given point be controlled either by the player's faction, a rival playable faction, or the non-playable Eleutheroi faction, which represents the world's minor kingdoms, regional powers and rebel states. If a faction should at any point find itself not in control of any provinces, it is eliminated from the game. The factions take turn
s to move (where the end of a turn represented the passage of six months on the campaign map in Rome: Total War, but only represents three months in Europa Barbarorum), with the player managing their faction during their turn, before ending the turn and allowing the artificial intelligence to make all the other factions' moves. A key game mechanic of the campaign map is the annexation of territory, which is done province-by-province, either by successfully besieging the province capital, or by acquiring it from another faction through diplomacy
. Once a faction has acquired a province, they may construct buildings in the province capital which either enable the recruitment of certain military units or grant various bonuses to the city such as greater resilience during a siege or a decreased likelihood of the province rebelling. Provided the city contains the appropriate buildings, the player may recruit military units in the city at the same time as undertaking construction projects. The aim of the game is to acquire a specified number of provinces and/or eliminate specified rival factions (in Europa Barbarorum particular victory conditions differ for each faction), whilst avoiding being eliminated by the other factions.
The campaign map itself of Europa Barbarorum covers a wider geographical area than that of Rome: Total War, expanding into areas such as the Arabian Peninsula
, India
, Central Asia
, and Scandinavia
. Relief, province boundaries, snow boundaries, vegetation types, coastlines and areas prone to natural disaster in 272 BC have all been researched and implemented into the campaign map. The Nile-Red Sea canal linking the Indian Ocean
and Mediterranean Sea
has been added to the map, as have the great trade routes of the ancient world, such as the Amber
and Silk Road
s, which can be captured and exploited by the player and the artificial intelligence.
The selection of factions present in the original Rome: Total War has been overhauled in Europa Barbarorum. The original game's Gaul
faction has been replaced with two new factions, the Aedui
and the Arverni
. The Scythia
faction has been replaced by the Sauromatae
, and the Greek Cities
faction (which included various city-states) has been replaced by the Koinon Hellenon , a faction which represents the Chremonidean League
of Athens
, Sparta
and Rhodes
. Entirely new factions include Baktria
, a Central Asia
n Hellenic
empire, and Epeiros
, a western Greek faction famous for producing Pyrrhos of Epiros
. On the other hand, the Numidia
faction of Rome: Total War was removed entirely.
The way in which factions enhance the provinces they own through the construction of new buildings in their province capitals has changed in Europa Barbarorum. The process of assimilating a newly conquered province into one's empire has become more differentiated in the modification than it was in the original game through the introduction of so-called "government buildings" and military–industrial complexes. Government buildings represent different degrees of central State intervention in a province, and range from a homeland government, which can only be built in a faction's traditional ethnic homeland and represents the highest possible degree of central State control, to an allied state government, which makes the province in question semi-autonomous and installs a puppet ruler to govern it on the controlling faction's behalf. The choice of government building in a province affects what other buildings can be constructed there: the greater the degree of autonomy granted to a province, the greater the shift in the make-up of the pool of buildings available for construction from the controlling faction's own buildings to native buildings; that is, buildings which are more closely associated with the faction that would make its traditional home in the province in question, rather than the one currently occupying it. Nomad
ic, desert
- and steppe
-dwelling factions have their own government buildings, which some say has helped differentiate between Europa Barbarorums factions and make the differences between Europa Barbarorum and the original Rome: Total War more than just cosmetic. These government buildings also affect unit recruitment options in a province, through the mod's introduction of military–industrial complex ("MIC") buildings. The original Rome: Total Wars system of constructing and subsequently upgrading different types of building in order to recruit different types of soldier (stables for horses, ranges for archers, and so on) has been replaced in Europa Barbarorum by the "factional MIC", which enables the recruitment of all the province-controlling faction's units, and the "regional MIC", which enables the recruitment of native types of soldier. How far the two types of complexes can be upgraded depends on the government of the province: the greater the autonomy of the province, the more the native MIC may be upgraded, and the less the factional MIC may be upgraded; and vice versa. In addition to buildings which can be constructed by the player, Europa Barbarorum also introduces a number of unique buildings or "wonders" which can either be man-made structures or features of the landscape and which provide unique bonuses to the province.
battle
or siege
. In this gameplay mode, the player directs the troops they had brought with them on the campaign map to the engagement, ordering them to manoeuvre and attack the enemy's troops on a three-dimensional battlefield. Troops can either be killed outright on the battlefield or made to rout and flee the field if their morale falls below a certain threshold. Reviewers have noted of Rome: Total War that during a battle troop numbers do not outweigh all other considerations; other factors such as individual unit types' strengths and soldiers' morale and fatigue at the point of fighting are also taken into account. A battle is won when one side kills or routs the entire enemy army; a siege may be won by the attacking side through either dispatching the opposing forces or gaining control of the besieged city's central plaza for a certain number of minutes, and by the defending side either by killing the attackers or by destroying their siege equipment before they have managed to breach the city's defences.
The make-up of the game's units is of the areas in which the greatest amount of change can be seen going from the original game to the mod. Reviewers have commented that the differences between Europa Barbarorum and its parent game are "immediate" and "striking" and that the modification is different to its parent game "in look and in play". Another reviewer described the mod as having a more "gritty, realistic look" than the original Rome: Total War. All the units that were present in the original game have been removed and replaced in Europa Barbarorum. Specific examples include the removal of several units that the Europa Barbarorum team considered to be historically doubtful or only marginally used in warfare, such as Arcani
, incendiary pigs
and Celtic head-hurlers from the original Rome: Total War. Yet nor was the modding team happy with the way more conventional forces were portrayed in the original game, for instance calling Rome: Total Wars Egyptian soldiers "Mummy Returns
Egyptians" and hence creating a new unit roster for the Egyptian faction in the game (named Egypt
in the original Rome: Total War and the Ptolemaioi in Europa Barbarorum), in order to better correspond with the Ptolemaic period of history. The mod also features new custom battle formation
s in order to encourage more realistic behaviour from the AI.
d by sound editor
s Morgan Casey and Nick Wylie. More recently, authentic music
for the Celtic factions and reconstructed and recreated Roman music, created by early music ensemble Prehistoric Music Ireland and the German group Musica Romana have been added. Europa Barbarorum also includes its own "voicemod", an attempt by the developers to replace the English cries of Rome: Total Wars soldiers with ones in their native languages. To date, voice recordings in classical Latin
, Celtic
, ancient Greek
, Pahlavi
, and Punic
have been added.
" factions such as the Gaul
s were being portrayed inaccurately. The Europa Barbarorum team felt that such factions' representations in Rome: Total War conformed more to a Hollywood
stereotype than to historical fact, and wished to see a more realistic portrayal of such factions in the game. The modding team tried to convince the Creative Assembly (CA), the developers
of Rome: Total War, to alter their depiction of the period in line with the team's research, but the developers failed to take them up on their offer. Having exhausted this avenue for change, the Europa Barbarorum members then resolved to modify the game themselves upon its release.
s and made small adjustments to the modification, the next major release of Europa Barbarorum was version 0.80 in . This was the first Europa Barbarorum release for patch 1.5 of Rome: Total War and its changes included the addition of the Sabaean
faction, new music, and the inclusion of a new military–industrial complex system. There subsequently followed three more 0.8-series releases during the first half of 2007 which primarily made minor adjustments to the modification and fixed bugs. In total, over 135,000 downloads of the 0.80–0.81 versions were tracked.
The next major release was version 1.0, which was released in and included new units, new government options for the Pahlava
and Hayasdan
factions, the addition of a new type of wall to the battle map and new music from prehistoric music
group Prehistoric Music Ireland. The 1.0 version was downloaded over 90,000 times in the six months following its release. This was followed by version 1.1, which was released in and included new battle map landscapes, new units, the addition of the Pahlavi
voicemod and the inclusion of an introduction video for the Saka Rauka
faction. The current release is version 1.2, which contains the addition of the Punic
voicemod and bug fixes; the development team had previously stated that future releases of Europa Barbarorum for the Rome: Total War engine will not include any major gameplay changes.
Europa Barbarorum has seen some significant changes to its campaign over the course of its development. Although early releases of the modification 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 Europa Barbarorum campaign map by 272 BC. They have since been recreated through scripted events in the modification, but have never re-appeared as a fully playable faction. Earlier releases of Europa Barbarorum featured player alerts representing the major stages of the breakup of the Seleukid
faction, if that collapse occurred in the game, but such features became impossible to implement after the removal of the SPQR
faction of the original game, which had been used in Europa Barbarorum for scripting
purposes, but was then replaced by the Saba
faction.
Following the main modification's release, Europa Barbarorum fans made a number of sub-modifications for the mod, porting
it to run using the Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion
executable
, for example. Playing the modification on the new platform has been reported to have made the campaign AI utilise more complex strategies. There had been plans to release a version of the mod for the PC game Europa Universalis: Rome
, but no Europa Barbarorum mod has yet been released for the strategy title.
engine which will be named Europa Barbarorum II. The modification is being designed to take advantage of the improved graphics of Medieval II: Total War and of the additional features present in the Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms engine which were not present in the Rome: Total War engine. These include the possibility for different soldiers within the same unit to have different appearances (as opposed to the "clones" criticised by some reviewers of Rome: Total War) and an increased upper limit on the number of factions that can be present in a campaign. Europa Barbarorum II is also scheduled to include such new features as new government, unit recruitment and trait systems, a limit on the number of élite units that can be recruited, new playable factions including the kingdom of Pergamon
, and The Gaza Campaign, a tutorial campaign for Europa Barbarorum II starting in 313 BC which will introduce the player to some of the new game mechanics of the modification.
A number of non-English language magazines have also reviewed Europa Barbarorum. The Italian PC Gaming magazine Giochi per il mio computer
reviewed the modification in April 2005 and March 2008. The 2005 review reported that the modification, whose development team included two historian
s, was to replace the "economic system, [soldiers'] equipment and the provinces" of Rome: Total War; the latter review praised the mod for having "altered and deepened" the gameplay of the original title, and wrote that Europa Barbarorum was the best substitute for a Rome 2: Total War game prior to the actual release of such a title. Dutch magazine PC Gameplay, reviewing the mod in March 2008, also wrote that the mod was "perhaps the best candidate for the title Rome: Total War II" "until the official announcement" and went on to note that the list of changes that the modification had made to the original game almost constituted "a history book of its own". The German magazine GameStar
wrote in April 2007 that the Europa Barbarorum team had "banned all historical mistakes from the game"; in January 2011, another German publication, PC Games, also noted the mod's historical accuracy, singling out its "more realistic, more [challenging]" battles for praise, although it did note that the mod was squarely aimed at experienced Rome: Total War players. Reviewing version 0.74 of the mod in November 2006, Romanian publication LeveL
concurred that the mod was aimed at experienced players, adding that the modified version of the game put greater demands on the player's computer than the original Rome: Total War, requiring 512 MB
of RAM
, up from the original's 256. Despite this, the reviewer praised the mod's complexity, the "painstaking detail" that went into making the units and the mod's soundtrack.
Europa Barbarorum has also received several online reviews. The modification received a review early into its development process on gaming website HeavenGames, which said that it was an "ambitious" project and praised its commitment to historical accuracy, even stating that the Europa Barbarorum development team was going to use satellite imagery and climate change statistics to accurately portray the world as it was in 272 BC. Later, in 2008, the modification has been reviewed on Boomtown
, which praised the modification's "incredibly well-researched and -devised" unit stats system, as well as its "legion of historians". The modification has sometimes been mentioned as a recommended complement to Rome: Total War in reviews of the original title – for instance, by Norwegian gaming website Gamereactor
in 2007.
In addition, Europa Barbarorum was singled out for praise by the Creative Assembly themselves in 2011, when they called the mod "breathtaking" in an official statement.
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
of the PC game Rome: Total War
Rome: Total War
Rome: Total War is a PC strategy game developed by The Creative Assembly and released on by Activision...
(RTW) based on the desire to provide Rome: Total War players with a more historically accurate game experience.
The basic gameplay mechanics of the original game remain the same. The player controls an empire with the goal of conquering as much territory as possible and eliminating rival factions, which are controlled by the computer, or AI. The main campaign is split between two gameplay modes: a turn-based
Time-keeping systems in games
In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of two ways:-Real-time:...
strategy map for moving whole armies and managing the empire, and a real-time
Real-time tactics
Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
battle map for fighting battles on the ground between two or more armies. The two game modes are linked, with success or failure in one game mode influencing the chances of success or failure in the other.
Although set in a similar historical period and geographical area to the unmodified game (covering a timespan of 272 BC to 14 AD, compared to the original game's 273 BC to 14 AD), Europa Barbarorum is a total conversion modification as it replaces all the aspects of the original Rome: Total War game that can be replaced, such as unit models, statistics and the musical score. The modification has received favourable reviews in a number of computer gaming magazines. PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
magazine ranks Europa Barbarorum as the best mod for any of the seven Total War games currently released for the PC.
Gameplay
In the original Rome: Total War the player took control of an empire, or "faction", of classicalClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
or the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, with the aim of expanding their faction's territory and eliminating rival empires through military conquest
Strategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
and city-building
Construction and management simulation
Construction and management simulation is a type of simulation game in which players build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources. Strategy video games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their game economy, as players must manage resources while expanding...
. Europa Barbarorum retains this basic gameplay mechanic and sets itself in a similar time period and geographical area to the original game. However, as a total conversion the mod replaces the particular factions, military units, buildings, and other elements present in the original game, and adds a new soundtrack and several brand-new gameplay mechanics not present in the original, such as the installation of puppet ruler
Puppet ruler
A puppet ruler is a person who has a title indicating possession of political power, but who, in reality, is controlled by outside individuals or forces. Such outside power can be exercised by a foreign government, in which case the puppet ruler's domain is called a puppet state...
s. The modification's development team's stated aim in making the changes that they have to Rome: Total War is to make the player's experience of the ancient world more historically accurate. For this reason, numerous parameters of the game at the start of the campaign in 272 BC, such as generals' names, the diplomatic relations between factions, and the particular understanding of the outside world
Fog of war
The fog of war is a term used to describe the uncertainty in situation awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign...
that each faction has, have been set to correspond to the actual political situation in that year.
Also for reasons of historical verisimilitude
Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude is the quality of realism in something .-Competing ideas:The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory...
, factions, provinces on the campaign map and factions' family members have been given vernacular names in Europa Barbarorum, rather than having Latinised or Anglicised ones, as in Rome: Total War. So, for instance, the original game's Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
faction is known as Hayasdan
Orontid Dynasty
The Orontid Dynasty The Orontid Dynasty The Orontid Dynasty (also known by their native name, Yervanduni was a hereditary Armenian dynasty and the rulers of the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Ararat...
in Europa Barbarorum, and Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
as the Sweboz
Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
. Instead of having to play one's first campaign as a Roman faction and only subsequently unlock playable campaigns as non-Romans by defeating them in the Roman campaign, all twenty of Europa Barbarorums playable factions can be accessed by the player from the start. Furthermore, the one unplayable and three playable Roman factions of the original have been combined into a single playable faction in Europa Barbarorum, the Romani
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
. Dissatisfied with the homogeneity of the factions of the original Rome: Total War, the Europa Barbarorum development team have sought to differentiate the playing experiences of the game's different factions. So, for example, Rome: Total Wars trait-acquisition system, where the player's faction's family members acquire certain characteristics and talents which make them more or less adept at certain tasks such as city management or military leadership, has been made more faction-specific in Europa Barbarorum, with Hellenic characters' traits, for instance, being based on Theophrastos'
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
Characters and Aristotle's
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
teachings on the Golden Mean, and Romans' traits being partially based on the moral tales of Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He worked during the reign of Tiberius .-Biography:...
. There are sometimes additional requirements for a family member to be able to gain a new trait: in order for them to compete in one of the Panhellenic Games
Panhellenic Games
Panhellenic Games is the collective term for four separate sports festivals held in ancient Greece. The four Games were:-Description:The Games took place in a four-year cycle known as the Olympiad, which was one of the ways the Greeks measured time...
, for instance, the player must ensure that they are stationed in the appropriate city on the campaign map in the year that the competition is scheduled to take place. One reviewer has commented that Europa Barbarorums expansions upon the original Rome: Total Wars trait system have served to add a role-playing
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
element to the game.
Campaign
Capital City
Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....
, which will at any given point be controlled either by the player's faction, a rival playable faction, or the non-playable Eleutheroi faction, which represents the world's minor kingdoms, regional powers and rebel states. If a faction should at any point find itself not in control of any provinces, it is eliminated from the game. The factions take turn
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...
s to move (where the end of a turn represented the passage of six months on the campaign map in Rome: Total War, but only represents three months in Europa Barbarorum), with the player managing their faction during their turn, before ending the turn and allowing the artificial intelligence to make all the other factions' moves. A key game mechanic of the campaign map is the annexation of territory, which is done province-by-province, either by successfully besieging the province capital, or by acquiring it from another faction through diplomacy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
. Once a faction has acquired a province, they may construct buildings in the province capital which either enable the recruitment of certain military units or grant various bonuses to the city such as greater resilience during a siege or a decreased likelihood of the province rebelling. Provided the city contains the appropriate buildings, the player may recruit military units in the city at the same time as undertaking construction projects. The aim of the game is to acquire a specified number of provinces and/or eliminate specified rival factions (in Europa Barbarorum particular victory conditions differ for each faction), whilst avoiding being eliminated by the other factions.
The campaign map itself of Europa Barbarorum covers a wider geographical area than that of Rome: Total War, expanding into areas such as the Arabian Peninsula
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
. Relief, province boundaries, snow boundaries, vegetation types, coastlines and areas prone to natural disaster in 272 BC have all been researched and implemented into the campaign map. The Nile-Red Sea canal linking the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
has been added to the map, as have the great trade routes of the ancient world, such as the Amber
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber. As one of the waterways and ancient highways, for centuries the road led from Europe to Asia and back, and from northern Africa to the Baltic Sea....
and Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
s, which can be captured and exploited by the player and the artificial intelligence.
The selection of factions present in the original Rome: Total War has been overhauled in Europa Barbarorum. The original game's Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
faction has been replaced with two new factions, the Aedui
Aedui
Aedui, Haedui or Hedui , were a Gallic people of Gallia Lugdunensis, who inhabited the country between the Arar and Liger , in today's France. Their territory thus included the greater part of the modern departments of Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d'Or and Nièvre.-Geography:The country of the Aedui is...
and the Arverni
Arverni
The Arverni were a Gallic tribe living in what is now the Auvergne region of France during the last centuries BC. One of the most powerful tribes in ancient Gaul, they opposed the Romans on several occasions...
. The Scythia
Scythia
In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
faction has been replaced by the Sauromatae
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
, and the Greek Cities
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
faction (which included various city-states) has been replaced by the Koinon Hellenon , a faction which represents the Chremonidean League
Chremonidean War
The Chremonidean War was fought by a coalition of Greek city-states against Macedonian domination.The origins of the war lie in the continuing desire of many Greek states, most notably Athens and Sparta, for a restoration of their former independence along with the Ptolemaic desire to stir up...
of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
and Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
. Entirely new factions include Baktria
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC...
, a Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n Hellenic
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
empire, and Epeiros
Epirus (ancient state)
Epirus was an ancient Greek state, located in the geographical region of Epirus, in the western Balkans. The homeland of the ancient Epirotes was bordered by the Aetolian League to the south, Thessalia and Macedonia to the east and Illyrian tribes to the north...
, a western Greek faction famous for producing Pyrrhos of Epiros
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...
. On the other hand, the Numidia
Numidia
Numidia was an ancient Berber kingdom in part of present-day Eastern Algeria and Western Tunisia in North Africa. It is known today as the Chawi-land, the land of the Chawi people , the direct descendants of the historical Numidians or the Massyles The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later...
faction of Rome: Total War was removed entirely.
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic, desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
- and steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
-dwelling factions have their own government buildings, which some say has helped differentiate between Europa Barbarorums factions and make the differences between Europa Barbarorum and the original Rome: Total War more than just cosmetic. These government buildings also affect unit recruitment options in a province, through the mod's introduction of military–industrial complex ("MIC") buildings. The original Rome: Total Wars system of constructing and subsequently upgrading different types of building in order to recruit different types of soldier (stables for horses, ranges for archers, and so on) has been replaced in Europa Barbarorum by the "factional MIC", which enables the recruitment of all the province-controlling faction's units, and the "regional MIC", which enables the recruitment of native types of soldier. How far the two types of complexes can be upgraded depends on the government of the province: the greater the autonomy of the province, the more the native MIC may be upgraded, and the less the factional MIC may be upgraded; and vice versa. In addition to buildings which can be constructed by the player, Europa Barbarorum also introduces a number of unique buildings or "wonders" which can either be man-made structures or features of the landscape and which provide unique bonuses to the province.
Warfare
If, during their turn on the campaign map, the player should engage one of their armies in combat with another faction's army, or if their troops should be engaged by another faction during the AI's turn, the player then has the option of fighting a real-timeReal-time tactics
Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
battle
Battle
Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...
or siege
Siege
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...
. In this gameplay mode, the player directs the troops they had brought with them on the campaign map to the engagement, ordering them to manoeuvre and attack the enemy's troops on a three-dimensional battlefield. Troops can either be killed outright on the battlefield or made to rout and flee the field if their morale falls below a certain threshold. Reviewers have noted of Rome: Total War that during a battle troop numbers do not outweigh all other considerations; other factors such as individual unit types' strengths and soldiers' morale and fatigue at the point of fighting are also taken into account. A battle is won when one side kills or routs the entire enemy army; a siege may be won by the attacking side through either dispatching the opposing forces or gaining control of the besieged city's central plaza for a certain number of minutes, and by the defending side either by killing the attackers or by destroying their siege equipment before they have managed to breach the city's defences.
Areani
The areani were agents for the Roman Empire, based in Roman Britain during the later part of the Roman occupation of the island. They helped to instigate the Great Conspiracy...
, incendiary pigs
War pig
In the first century BC, Lucretius mused that early humans may have attempted to launch wild beasts, such as lions or "savage boars," against the enemy, but with catastrophic results. War pigs are pigs reported to have been used in ancient warfare as a countermeasure against war elephants...
and Celtic head-hurlers from the original Rome: Total War. Yet nor was the modding team happy with the way more conventional forces were portrayed in the original game, for instance calling Rome: Total Wars Egyptian soldiers "Mummy Returns
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy Returns is a 2001 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez and Freddie Boath. The film is a sequel to the 1999 film The Mummy...
Egyptians" and hence creating a new unit roster for the Egyptian faction in the game (named Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
in the original Rome: Total War and the Ptolemaioi in Europa Barbarorum), in order to better correspond with the Ptolemaic period of history. The mod also features new custom battle formation
Tactical formation
A tactical formation is the arrangement or deployment of moving military forces such as infantry, cavalry, AFVs, military aircraft, or naval vessels...
s in order to encourage more realistic behaviour from the AI.
Audio
Europa Barbarorum features its own soundtrack, distinct from that of Rome: Total War. Europa Barbarorums music comes from a number of sources. Some of the tracks were composeMusical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
d by sound editor
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
s Morgan Casey and Nick Wylie. More recently, authentic music
Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...
for the Celtic factions and reconstructed and recreated Roman music, created by early music ensemble Prehistoric Music Ireland and the German group Musica Romana have been added. Europa Barbarorum also includes its own "voicemod", an attempt by the developers to replace the English cries of Rome: Total Wars soldiers with ones in their native languages. To date, voice recordings in classical Latin
Classical Latin
Classical Latin in simplest terms is the socio-linguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it...
, Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
, ancient Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
, Pahlavi
Parthian language
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....
, and Punic
Punic language
The Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
have been added.
Development
The Europa Barbarorum project began in , eight months before Rome: Total Wars release, when the Europa Barbarorum development team who were following the game's development became concerned that its "barbarianBarbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
" factions such as the Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
s were being portrayed inaccurately. The Europa Barbarorum team felt that such factions' representations in Rome: Total War conformed more to a Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
stereotype than to historical fact, and wished to see a more realistic portrayal of such factions in the game. The modding team tried to convince the Creative Assembly (CA), the developers
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
of Rome: Total War, to alter their depiction of the period in line with the team's research, but the developers failed to take them up on their offer. Having exhausted this avenue for change, the Europa Barbarorum members then resolved to modify the game themselves upon its release.
Release
Europa Barbarorum was first released to the public as an open beta in , for patch 1.2 of Rome: Total War. After several more minor releases in 2006 which mostly fixed bugSoftware bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
s and made small adjustments to the modification, the next major release of Europa Barbarorum was version 0.80 in . This was the first Europa Barbarorum release for patch 1.5 of Rome: Total War and its changes included the addition of the Sabaean
Sheba
Sheba was a kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures and the Qur'an...
faction, new music, and the inclusion of a new military–industrial complex system. There subsequently followed three more 0.8-series releases during the first half of 2007 which primarily made minor adjustments to the modification and fixed bugs. In total, over 135,000 downloads of the 0.80–0.81 versions were tracked.
The next major release was version 1.0, which was released in and included new units, new government options for the Pahlava
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
and Hayasdan
Artaxiad Dynasty
The Artaxiad Dynasty or Ardaxiad Dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until their overthrow by the Romans in AD 12. Their realm included Greater Armenia, Sophene and intermittently Lesser Armenia and parts of Mesopotamia...
factions, the addition of a new type of wall to the battle map and new music from prehistoric music
Prehistoric music
Prehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures , beginning somewhere in very late geological history...
group Prehistoric Music Ireland. The 1.0 version was downloaded over 90,000 times in the six months following its release. This was followed by version 1.1, which was released in and included new battle map landscapes, new units, the addition of the Pahlavi
Parthian language
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....
voicemod and the inclusion of an introduction video for the Saka Rauka
Saka
The Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....
faction. The current release is version 1.2, which contains the addition of the Punic
Punic language
The Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
voicemod and bug fixes; the development team had previously stated that future releases of Europa Barbarorum for the Rome: Total War engine will not include any major gameplay changes.
Europa Barbarorum has seen some significant changes to its campaign over the course of its development. Although early releases of the modification included the Yuezhi
Yuezhi
The Yuezhi, or Rouzhi , also known as the Da Yuezhi or Da Rouzhi , were an ancient Central Asian people....
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 Europa Barbarorum campaign map by 272 BC. They have since been recreated through scripted events in the modification, but have never re-appeared as a fully playable faction. Earlier releases of Europa Barbarorum featured player alerts representing the major stages of the breakup of the Seleukid
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
faction, if that collapse occurred in the game, but such features became impossible to implement after the removal of the SPQR
SPQR
SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus , referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic, and used as an official emblem of the modern day comune of Rome...
faction of the original game, which had been used in Europa Barbarorum for scripting
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
purposes, but was then replaced by the Saba
Sheba
Sheba was a kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures and the Qur'an...
faction.
Following the main modification's release, Europa Barbarorum fans made a number of sub-modifications for the mod, porting
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
it to run using the Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion
Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion
Barbarian Invasion is the first expansion for the personal computer game Rome: Total War which takes the action forward to the period of the decline of the Western Roman Empire. The Rome Total War Gold Edition includes both the original game as well as the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack. The...
executable
Executable
In computing, an executable file causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions," as opposed to a data file that must be parsed by a program to be meaningful. These instructions are traditionally machine code instructions for a physical CPU...
, for example. Playing the modification on the new platform has been reported to have made the campaign AI utilise more complex strategies. There had been plans to release a version of the mod for the PC game Europa Universalis: Rome
Europa Universalis: Rome
Europa Universalis: Rome is a grand strategy game developed by Johan Andersson of Paradox Interactive. The game is set during the time of the Roman Republic, beginning in 280 BC, before the Punic Wars, and ending with the rise of the Roman Empire in 27 BC...
, but no Europa Barbarorum mod has yet been released for the strategy title.
Europa Barbarorum II
The Europa Barbarorum development team is also developing a new version of the modification for the Medieval II: Total War: KingdomsMedieval II: Total War: Kingdoms
Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms is the expansion to the 2006 PC game Medieval II: Total War. The expansion was released on 28 August 2007 in the United States and has four new campaigns, focusing on the discovery of the Americas, 13th century Britain and Ireland, and Crusader campaigns in both the...
engine which will be named Europa Barbarorum II. The modification is being designed to take advantage of the improved graphics of Medieval II: Total War and of the additional features present in the Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms engine which were not present in the Rome: Total War engine. These include the possibility for different soldiers within the same unit to have different appearances (as opposed to the "clones" criticised by some reviewers of Rome: Total War) and an increased upper limit on the number of factions that can be present in a campaign. Europa Barbarorum II is also scheduled to include such new features as new government, unit recruitment and trait systems, a limit on the number of élite units that can be recruited, new playable factions including the kingdom of Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
, and The Gaza Campaign, a tutorial campaign for Europa Barbarorum II starting in 313 BC which will introduce the player to some of the new game mechanics of the modification.
Reception
Europa Barbarorum was featured and reviewed in a number of video game magazines. It has been reviewed in PC Gamer (UK) twice, in March 2005 and February 2008. The 2008 review was overwhelmingly positive, saying that "EB feels like a whole new Total War game", and going on to praise the modification's "stunning" scope and the "striking" extent of the differences between it and Rome: Total War. The review was somewhat critical of the modification's graphical user interfaces which "[occasionally]" had a "home-made" feel to them, as well as its lack of accessibility and steep learning curve, although it adds that the second point is not a large problem as the modification is largely a "master's challenge for accomplished Rome players". The review finished on a positive note, summing Europa Barbarorum up as a "superior game". In 2010 the same magazine's website named Europa Barbarorum the best mod of any Total War game.A number of non-English language magazines have also reviewed Europa Barbarorum. The Italian PC Gaming magazine Giochi per il mio computer
Giochi per il mio computer
Giochi per il mio computer , also known by the acronym GMC, is an Italian magazine about computer video games and every thing concerns this topic...
reviewed the modification in April 2005 and March 2008. The 2005 review reported that the modification, whose development team included two historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s, was to replace the "economic system, [soldiers'] equipment and the provinces" of Rome: Total War; the latter review praised the mod for having "altered and deepened" the gameplay of the original title, and wrote that Europa Barbarorum was the best substitute for a Rome 2: Total War game prior to the actual release of such a title. Dutch magazine PC Gameplay, reviewing the mod in March 2008, also wrote that the mod was "perhaps the best candidate for the title Rome: Total War II" "until the official announcement" and went on to note that the list of changes that the modification had made to the original game almost constituted "a history book of its own". The German magazine GameStar
GameStar
GameStar is a monthly released PC computer game magazine, published by the IDG Entertainment Media GmbH in Germany. In 2008 it had an average monthly circulation of 250,000 copies and is therefore the best sold PC computer game magazine in Europe. It is also being published in Hungary, the Czech...
wrote in April 2007 that the Europa Barbarorum team had "banned all historical mistakes from the game"; in January 2011, another German publication, PC Games, also noted the mod's historical accuracy, singling out its "more realistic, more [challenging]" battles for praise, although it did note that the mod was squarely aimed at experienced Rome: Total War players. Reviewing version 0.74 of the mod in November 2006, Romanian publication LeveL
LeveL
LEVEL is a computer and video games magazine originating in the Czech Republic with branches in Romania and Turkey. These three brother divisions occasionally exchange content...
concurred that the mod was aimed at experienced players, adding that the modified version of the game put greater demands on the player's computer than the original Rome: Total War, requiring 512 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
of RAM
Random-access memory
Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...
, up from the original's 256. Despite this, the reviewer praised the mod's complexity, the "painstaking detail" that went into making the units and the mod's soundtrack.
Europa Barbarorum has also received several online reviews. The modification received a review early into its development process on gaming website HeavenGames, which said that it was an "ambitious" project and praised its commitment to historical accuracy, even stating that the Europa Barbarorum development team was going to use satellite imagery and climate change statistics to accurately portray the world as it was in 272 BC. Later, in 2008, the modification has been reviewed on Boomtown
Boomtown (community)
Boomtown was a multinational gaming community - as well as Internet cafe - originally started in Denmark. They had since expanded to other countries, including England and Sweden, and had plans for expanding to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates....
, which praised the modification's "incredibly well-researched and -devised" unit stats system, as well as its "legion of historians". The modification has sometimes been mentioned as a recommended complement to Rome: Total War in reviews of the original title – for instance, by Norwegian gaming website Gamereactor
Gamereactor
Gamereactor is one of Northern Europe's biggest game magazine and Gaming sites that covers video- and computer games as well as mobile phone-games and indie-titles. It started in Denmark in 1998 by Morten Reichel and Claus Reichel - first years under the name Gamez.dk. The Magazine and Online...
in 2007.
In addition, Europa Barbarorum was singled out for praise by the Creative Assembly themselves in 2011, when they called the mod "breathtaking" in an official statement.