Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion Windows game

This is a vanilla style mod I made for BI and my reskin that fixes certain inconsistencies within the expansion. This mod is not some full overhaul. It only addresses oversights by the developers, thing that could have been done to make for a complete campaign but were left out in the end.

General changes:

• Added a Mungus Magnus campaign
• Most unit models received a significant facelift
• All factions are now playable (in the MM campaign)
• All pre-elite cavalries (Noble Cavalry, Steppe Warriors, Gothic Warriors) were moved to tier IV, a lot of them were previously only recruitable at tier V alongside their factions’ best units.
• All tier V elite cavalries like Scholae Palatina or Hunnic Nobles had their armor bumped from 9 to 11 and 12 in a similar fashion to Rome Remastered buff of Shcolae Palatina, except this mod buffs all of them, not just one unit.
• Regular javelins get the same ‘thrown ap’ trait as precursor javelins making them equally useful

Faction changes:

HUNS.

The Huns were given 3 new settlements (Mungus Magnus) to make their AI aggressive. They now attack all factions and snowball like they should instead of beelining straight towards the players’ capital.

CELTIC FACTIONS

‘The Celts’ and ‘Romano-British’ renamed to ‘The Gaels’ and ‘The Britons’ as that is what those factions actually represent in the game based on their location and units.
The Celts (Gaels) receive a unit of Hunter-Warrior Fian (hit and run infantry), Head Hunting Maidens (hit and run cavalry) and Shield Troop (very tough spear wall warriors).

Three new units were added to both factions: Foresters, Celt Skirmish Cavalry and Follower Spearmen - units that represent the non-Romanized Britons from deep countryside.

The Britons can now recruit Auxilia Palatina (from Western Empire) and Celtic Slingers (from the Celts) adding both to the Roman and Celtic aspects of the faction. British Legionaries finally get a First Cohort variant.

Romano-British Sarmatian Auxilia, although authentic, were rather rare so they now take 2 turns to recruit. This serves to counterbalance their infantry buffs.

To conclude, Celtic factions now offer a more diverse gameplay without becoming overpowered.

ROMANS

The Western Empire (and it’s rebels) had a unit of Bucelarii split into two different units. They can train Roman Crossbowmen (vanilla Bucelarii with their range) at their range building and true Bucelarii (hybrid crossbow – axe medium infantry) at their Forum building representing a mercenary aspect of this unit and serving as a little supplementary force for your non-military provinces.

Limitanei wear no armor so their armor value was halved (from 6 to 3) but to make up for that they get a good supply of javelins (6 instead of regular 3). So instead of throwing javelins, charging into melee and immediately dying, like they did in the vanilla, they now serve to soften the enemy up for your legionaries to deal with and use their melee stats for self-defense. This change was meant to turn them from very bad spearmen that you immediately disband after getting better barracks to a proper auxiliary troop that has its own purpose.

Auxilia Palanita infantry got their penalty against infantry removed to represent their elite status.

SAXONS

The Saxons were an overlooked faction, but not a weak one. They get three new units to add a bit of variety to their infantry-focused roster. These are the Spear Masters, Skirmishers (javelinmen) and Hearth Troops (true ones, the vanilla unit got renamed), a unit similar to Rome TW gladiators (low numbers but very tough).

BERBERS

Here comes the big stinker, a faction that everyone hates. I could have just given them generic ‘heavy’ units but that would be boring.
Instead, the elite unit they get is Berber Nobles acting as elite javelin cavalry: they are fast, have a reasonably good javelin attack and can fight in melee as medium cavalry.

In addition the Berbers also get regular Skirmishers and at tier V they can now recruit Chosen Axemen, an infantry axe and shield unit not as heavily armored as other cultures’ ‘chosen’ infantries, but fast moving and sporting precursor javelins.

For minor changes, ‘Hillmen’ were renamed to ‘Desert Spearmen’ and Mountain Men got attack, defense skill and morale buffs to make them a viable early anvil unit. The Berbers can also now recruit Armored Camel Riders (previously exclusive to the Sassanids).

As a result this faction is still about hit and run tactics but is significantly more serviceable and fun to play.

SARMATIAN FACTIONS

‘Sarmatians’ were renamed to ‘Yazyges’ to represent Sarmatians migrating westwards.
They get a handful of new units to diversify them from the Roxolani.

The Sarmatians get a unit of Demi-Cataphracts to represent their focus on cavalry.

The Roxoilani lose their Bosporan spearmen and instead get Town Militia and Tower Sentinels, two defensive hybrid melee-missile units that fight in melee but can also skirmish.

Additionally, Alan Horse Archers and Sarmatian Armored Archers swapped their places. Made no sense for a stronger unit to be trained first and then downgrade to a weaker version.

As the mod uses assets by talented RTW modders all the credits for this reskin goes to:

Lanjane (Barbarian Empires)
Skynet bunker (Scorched Ground)
Solon de Atenas (RTR Anabasis III)
Webbird and the entire RTR team (Rome Total Realism)
Ferres (Rome Total War Skins collection)
RedFox (Diadochi Total War)
paxbarbarika team (Paxbarbarika mod)
Rus II modding team (Rus 2 mod for Medieval 2)
Javik (one great historian)
Joar (RUINA ROMAE)
EzeckLupo (Chivalry Remastered)
GI Sandy (Western Units Overhaul)

If you enjoy the reskin please be thankful to these great people