Introduction
With the release of the original Rome Total War, many fans of the series started to clamor for more historical accuracy from the game. With its Bronze Age Egyptians, flaming pigs, bright pink Parthians in pajamas, and “Spain” being the name of a faction in a game that starts in 270 BC, many history buffs went into a frenzy, demanding a greater adherence to historical truths in order to increase the immersion of the game. After all, how can you feel like a real king of Armenia, if your capital in 270 BC is Artaxata, which was not constructed until approximately one hundred years later? Well, along came Europa Barbarorum 1 to save the day and push the boundaries of how devoted to history a Total War game could be.
Europa Barbarorum 2 is the successor to Europa Barbarorum 1, and it shows in almost every way. The soundtrack is essentially the same, many of the graphics are the same, many of the loading screens are the same, and the overall atmosphere is very similar, despite the base game being Medieval 2, a game that is not at all based in the Roman period. Let’s go over all the aspects of Europa Barbarorum 2 one by one and outline why I think it’s the best mod for Medieval 2, and perhaps of all time.
Unparalleled Dedication to Historicity
The aesthetic of Europa Barbarorum is very unique. There really isn’t another mod quite like it. You can see this immediately from the faction selection screen – what are these factions? Most of them are in fact factions everyone is aware of – the Kingdom of Macedon is Makedonia, the Romani are the Romans… but those are the easy ones? Who are the Sweboz? Well of course they are the Suebi, one of the German tribes that caused Rome lots of trouble over the course of their history. What is Hayastan? Hayastan is the Armenian word for Armenia (though technically in this time period they probably would have said Hayk instead, but that’s fine). What is the Koinon Hellenon? Well those are the Greek Cities of course. The localized faction names are just the start of the player’s journey into Europa Barbarorum, as those are the only translated terms… once you get into the game and have a look around the campaign map, you will find that pretty much everything is translated into the native language of that faction. Everything down to the agents is translated – so, for example, for Hayastan/Armenia, instead of having a diplomat, you’ll have a Divanaget. All of your units are also translated, and these can be a real doozy, since if your faction (like Hayastan/Armenia in this example) is located in a very multiethnic area, you’ll have units in your army with names that are from Classical Georgian, Classical Armenian, Parthian, Greek, Greek normalizations of foreign words in languages that have been lost… You can get lost in this stuff. And when I was a kid, I did get lost in EB 1, and it was great. It’s great here in EB 2 as well.
The soundtrack is also excellent in general. The campaign map tracks in particular are quite iconic and some of them have even been done by musicians who specialize in ancient music, the Celtic tracks in particular I believe. It’s really a memorable soundtrack for all cultures. There is one track I don’t like in particular – the eastern battle track. It sounds like a vuvuzela festival along with burly men yelling and is just quite jarring… I understand that lovely music didn’t play during battles historically (until the period of Empire and Napoleon Total War and their hilarious drummers and flute players), but something a little more… listenable would have been preferred here. But in general, excellent soundtrack, very iconic – especially the campaign map tracks. For a mod, the work that has been done in this department is phenomenal.
Another extremely nice touch is the language mod that they have put in – that is the units don’t speak in stereotypical accented English, but rather in their native language, or at least something close to it. There are language packs for Latin, Greek, Celtic, Parthian, and a few others. Of course, this means that some factions unfortunately use a language pack that isn’t one hundred percent appropriate, such as the Saka Rauka, or Hayastan that uses the Parthian language pack, but such things are unavoidable in a mod of this magnitude.
The part of the game that has no doubt received the largest facelift is the campaign map. I’m not only referring to the map itself here, which has indeed been changed significantly, but I’m also talking about the mechanics. The map feels very alive in Europa Barbarorum 2. There are many small towns and other new pieces on the campaign map that flesh it out quite a bit. Both the campaign map cities and the battle map cities have been completely redone and they truly look unique. Every culture has very appropriate battle map models for their towns and they make you feel like you’re fighting against (or for) that culture, rather than a more generic settlement.
Pretty much everything in the game comes with a historical explanation and description. Almost every single province has a quote unquote building that is just there to provide the historical background of that province to the player. Almost every faction character at the start of the game begins with a “biography” trait that gives the player all he needs to know about that person. Every year you get a scroll entitled “This Year in History” that gives you the rundown of most of the major historical events that took place in that year. It’s just great.
All of these elements combined really make Europa Barbarorum 2 stand out aesthetically. Now, let’s get into the gameplay mechanics of the mod.
The Campaign
The area where Europa Barbarorum 2 truly shines from a gameplay perspective is in its campaign. In terms of the campaign gameplay, you have to know your history in order to succeed, or else you have to learn quickly. This is especially true if you’re playing a more difficult faction, like a small tribe or kingdom. One of the major improvements to the campaign map here is to the minor factions, which in colloquial terminology are called slaves or generic rebels in Rome 1 and Medieval 2, since every province couldn’t have a specific faction in that game engine. This, in my opinion, was one of the biggest limitations of the games based on this engine and was a real immersion killer, since it removes a lot of possibilities and factors in the campaign, since huge swaths of the map are just generic rebels that everyone is at war with and can never do diplomacy with. These generic rebels also tend to be real pushovers that don’t build up or go on the offensive. This is not so in Europa Barbarorum 2. While you can’t have diplomacy with the “rebel” provinces and they aren’t exactly as active as major factions, they can wield significant power in EB 2 and even go on the offensive at times. Of course, all of this is dependent on the historical situation in that area. For a faction like the Aedui, a Gaulish tribe, you have a small settlement, Bibracte, where you start from, and the other settlements near you represent other tribes. These rebels are not as strong as some others on the map, since they weren’t exactly kingdoms in their structure, but rather just tribes like your own Aedui.
Using Hayastan again as an example, the situation is very different from a faction like the Aedui. Historically, in this time period, 272 BC, Armenia was ruled by the Yervanduni Dynasty (the Orontid Dynasty in Greek) and was a sort of Achaemenid successor state, similar to the situation in Pontus. The Yervanduni dynasts were kings, minted coins, and used writing (in a somewhat limited way, perhaps mostly Aramaic and Greek on perishable materials). Utilizing data about the ethnic and tribal makeup of the landscape of the region from sources such as Xenophon and Strabo, we know that the area was very diverse, with many different tribes and groups. We also know that the following dynasty, the Artaxiads, faced several internal issues based on internal divisions and spent a lot of time trying to reform and centralize the kingdom to a greater degree. Thus, in Europa Barbarorum 2, you have the Yervanduni dynasty ruling a sort of tribal kingdom, which is reflected in game as a building that represents the structure of your government. Hayastan had a rocky relationship with their southern neighbor, the Seleucid Empire aka the Grey Death, in that time period, and was often forced to pay tribute if wars didn’t go their way. Thus, at the start of the game, similar to the starting situation with Bactria, you have to pay a tribute of 3000 gold every turn in order to maintain good relations with the Seleucids. Once you’re prepared and ready to fight them, you can stop the payments and the Seleucids will respond with violence. This is a Total War game after all. However, this is not the only issue facing your burgeoning kingdom in Europa Barbarorum 2. There were several other kingdoms in a similar situation in 272 BC. To the southeast, you have the kingdom of Media Atropatene, which was another pretty powerful Achaemenid successor state type kingdom. While they are not a major faction in the game, they are represented by a rich province and around 3 powerful armies that will defend their city and attack when they deem it necessary. To the west, you have the kingdom of Armenia Minor, with its capital at Ani-Kamakh, which is still strong, but not as strong as Media Atropatene. To the north, you have the Caucasian kingdoms of Colchis and Caucasian Iberia, or Egrisi and Kartli in the game. To the northeast, you have the smaller, less developed land of Caucasian Albania, or Aghvank in the game. You yourself are pretty comparable in power to Media Atropatene, but since you are surrounded by a group of fairly developed kingdoms at the start, your best bet for quick expansion is Aghvank, since they have the least developed kingdom of the bunch. Also, since the kingdom of Kartli also had an agreement with the Seleucids historically, an attack on them will not be viewed very kindly by your southern Seleucid neighbors. Basically, if you know your history, you can make more logically sound decisions on the campaign map. This increases the campaign immersion quite a bit, in my opinion.
Going to the west, let me use the Koinon Hellenon, the Greek Cities, as another example. Of course, like in vanilla Rome Total War, there was no unified state called the Greek Cities – it is a representation of a possible “league” or alliance of the independent Greek Cities, which is basically a good gameplay mechanic that acts as a counterbalance to the more powerful Kingdom of Macedon. However, Europa Barbarorum 2 does far more than vanilla Rome Total War did to make this faction feel like a league of cities. You have several families that represent the various leaders of various city-states, such as Athens, Sparta, etc. You also have access to different units in different cities, adding to the hodge-podge nature of the Koinon Hellenon faction and campaign. It’s quite a fun compromise between the completely ahistorical and immersion-breaking “Greek Cities” of vanilla Rome and the fully separate Greek factions in other mods such as Roma Surrectum 2, which has Sparta as a separate faction, for example. Europa Barbarorum 2 combines them, but does its best to make them feel as diverse as possible, as if the player was really leading a bunch of different factions. But how does this work later on in the campaign? How would a loose confederation of city-states go off and conquer the entire Mediterranean? Well, this leads me to the next major aspect of the campaign map gameplay – the reforms.
Every faction in the game has “reforms” that give it access to new units, buildings, etc. Not every faction gets %100 unique reforms – there are certain groups of factions that receive the same or very similar reforms, such as the Hellenistic factions and the Celtic factions. Of course, there are factions that receive unique reforms that are only for that faction, such as the Lugiones, the Koinon Hellenon, Hayastan, Rome, Pahlava/Parthia, etc. These reforms are the in-game representations of the historical development these factions went through over the period of time that the EB 2 campaign covers.
Taking Hayastan as an example again – you start out with 2 cities that have the Caucasian Tribal Kingdom building constructed. In order to advance to the next tier of the reforms, you have to construct this building in four additional neighboring settlements. This expands the unit roster and allows for the construction of higher-tier native colonies and government buildings. This represents the kingdom’s historical development from a minor Achaemenid successor state kingdom to a regional kingdom in its own right. In conjunction to this, you have to reject the annual tribute to the Seleucids and win several battles against them (in addition to taking several settlements) in order to break away from this diplomatic arrangement. Eventually, after taking several more settlements including some specific ones, you can construct the imperial government building. After this there is a second reform that can trigger based on different events. You need to have the imperial building constructed in the capital and you can either have a faction leader with 8 authority, a faction leader with 6 authority in conjunction with having at least 15 settlements, or have at least 21 settlements to trigger this second reform. In addition to all this, there are even other paths you can take. For example, if you’ve chosen to fight the Seleucids, but you feel as if your kingdom is tired out after you’ve won 6 battles and taken 2 settlements, you can agree to be forgiven, keep the new settlements and renew the old arrangement of paying annual tribute. All of this does an amazing job in terms of immersing the player, since there are so many stories to be written in every single campaign for every single faction
Going back to the Greek Cities, another good example of the reforms are those for the Koinon Hellenon. The reforms emphasize that you are initially leading a loose coalition of various city-states, and are tied to having different state leaders, which are represented by traits in the game. You can have an Archon of Athens who represents the leader of Athens, an Archon of Ambrakia, representing the leader of Ambrakia, etc. I don’t want to go through the Koinon Hellenon reforms in great detail as I did for Hayastan above, but the reforms here represent how the coalition develops throughout the campaign. Eventually, it culminates in the sympoliteia, or a treaty where Greek cities agree to for all intents and purposes merge. This is what you strive for when taking command of the Koinon Hellenon.
Needless to say, the reforms mechanic in the campaign is great for immersion and really helps create a narrative storyline that is centered not only around your characters, but also the development of your faction as a whole. Going through the whole reform process for a given faction can be a real achievement and really draws the player in. You can find a link to the guide to the unique reforms for every faction in the description below.
Every single building in Europa Barbarorum 2 has a purpose. I have seen others review the game and some have even complained about buildings doing nothing. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In LegendofTotalWar’s video about EB2, he takes a look at the mines building in Italy and sees that the income he’ll get from those is pitiful, and then concludes that the mines in EB2 are useless. However, this varies drastically from province to province. Using the Armavir province as an example, the capital province of Hayastan, you begin the campaign with a basic mines building already constructed and you get over 1000 or perhaps even about 2000 gold per turn from this building, whereas the one in that Italian province gave a pittance in comparison and wasn’t worth constructing. It just depends of the province, and this also adds to the immersion. You don’t just get a ton of money and build everything like in vanilla Rome Total War or Medieval 2. I find this to be refreshing in a Total War game.
The trait system in EB 2 is also similar to the one in EB 1 and also adds a lot to the campaign and the battles. Every character really gets fleshed out here, since they have traits for being the king, the governor of somewhere, an experienced cavalryman, etc. Everyone also has a few traits they start out with that kind of predetermine what they will be good at. For example, you can have someone who starts out with the Dull trait. You can already tell from this that he won’t be very good at management and he should focus his efforts on his other skills, especially if he has a hardy constitution. Your characters gain traits based on these basic ones, but they also gain traits and ancillaries based on the buildings of the city they are in (for example, they can get some nice traits and ancillaries from educational buildings or temple complexes), or from how they perform in battles. This dynamic traits system, that has been enhanced to a degree not seen in many other mods is another way that EB 2 really stands out.
The Battles
Battles in Europa Barbarorum 2 are fairly good, but I wouldn’t call them outstanding, especially when compared to other mods that have a greater focus on battles. They are good, don’t get me wrong. The units look great and there is a lot of strategy involved. You pretty much have to hold your battle line, skirmish and flank with your cavalry, and pepper the enemy with rocks, arrows and javelins as much as you can. It’s your standard Rome Total War fare. I have actually seen the Battle AI freak out sometimes, especially in field battles, but it really isn’t that surprising for Total War battle AI to freak out at times. I just explain it away by them having a bad chain of command or a poor general or being over-eager soldiers. Every battle also has a greater meaning here, since units are expensive and it isn’t easy to just replenish your troops with a snap of your fingers. You have to choose your fights wisely. I also appreciate the diversity of the units here. Most armies in this period were not uniform, similar looking troops. There were many auxiliary tribesmen from cultures we know little to nothing about, units didn’t all wear the same thing… things were pretty messy. Europa Barbarorum 2 depicts this to a tee, and while it does make managing large battles a bit of a headache at times, depending on the faction of course, it really should be tough to manage them! This also adds to the immersion in game. Again, the battles are good, and there are some amazing units in the mod, it’s just not the best mod for someone who plays Total War primarily for the battles.
Conclusion
I could keep talking about Europa Barbarorum and its impact on me forever, but I think I will try to wrap things up here. In my opinion, Europa Barbarorum 1 and 2 stand above the other mods for Rome and Medieval 2 for me, due to their absolute unwavering devotion to historical accuracy. The way that EB 2 represents so many aspects of the history of every single faction, character, and province in game is simply unmatched by any other mod for any Total War. For all of the reasons outline in this review, I give Europa Barbarorum 2 5 stars out of 5. Some may feel like the campaign is a slog or that the battles are not as clean as those in other mods, but for me, in my humble opinion, Europa Barbarorum 2 is the mod to end all mods and it’s my absolute favorite mod for any Total War game ever made. It’s just too bad the Rome and Medieval 2 engines get older and less compatible with newer systems every year…
A Review of EB 2 from a Long-Time Fan
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Satapatiš
