Assorted Bits On the Barbarian Invasion Which Don’t Fit Anywhere Else.
Night battles
In BI it is possible to fight night battles if your general, or the one leading the army attacking you, has the relevant trait. This trait is quite hard to gain: you need a general with the level 3 general ability (the one which gives 3 command stars), or your general needs to be attacked by someone who does have the trait and then win the battle with a good result. A common mistake is thinking that three command stars total gives the ability; it does not. The three stars must come from the basic general trait, and so it must reach level 3.
All armies not led by someone with the night battle trait (except for the one being attacked) cannot take part in the battle, so it is possible to isolate and destroy one army without needing to fight others at the same time.
Command stars
In BI command stars are far harder to gain, which is a very good thing in my opinion. Now most command increases come from the more specialised traits (such as good attacker, infantry commander of worth, etc), titles (Roman factions only), or retinue members. This is why night battles are so rare – it’s very hard to get someone up to the necessary level for the night battle trait to be awarded. So if your generals are no longer 8 star supermen, don’t worry. But you might want to pay more attention to shuffling battle related retinue members (and titles!) around from very old generals to younger ones.
To stand the most chance of gaining stars in the ‘good commander’ family (the basic, baseline general trait which eventually gives the night battle ability) you should fight a normal field battle (not a night attack, or a siege, or an ambush) with your army’s numbers equal to or smaller than your enemies. No longer will you win points for crushing rebels with a far larger, better equipped force
Hordes
There is quite a bit on hordes in the manual, so I suggest you read it.
Certain barbarian factions can turn into hordes, either automatically when their last settlement is captured, or on the player’s command (when you only have one settlement open up your settlement details screen. There should be a little wagon/hut/thing icon which is not normally there. Click it to go into horde mode.). On entering horde mode all existing units stop charging upkeep, excerpt mercenaries. Extra units are generated, the numbers of which are dependant on the population of that last city; more people in the city means more people for your horde. Generally at least several full stacks will be generated, often more. Factions in horde mode have a little wheel on their faction banner.
Because all the faction victory requirements specify the holding of provinces, factions in horde mode cannot win the game. They must settle down.
Hordes have different options after attacking a city. They are offered a choice between settling or sacking the city. Settling will take the city as yours, putting you back into normal faction mode; sacking is like extermination but with more death and loot, plus the destruction of buildings.
When you choose to settle a city you will begin paying upkeep for all your units as per normal rules! You can bankrupt yourself easily this way if you are not careful. There are several main options.
-You can build up a very large treasury via looting, and hope you gain more income before you run out.
-You can take a very lucrative province and hope that the income will be enough.
-You can use up most of your ‘free’ horde units in battles and city attacks to weaken your enemies while padding your treasury and gaining experience for your generals and core troops. This requires great care, because if your horde gets too weak you will find it very difficult to capture a new home, and may even be destroyed.
-You can arrange matters so you have armies in place to capture several cities in one turn, settling the lot of them. This, combined with a treasury built up from sacking, is probably the best way to go.
When you settle a city you lose 1/3 of your total horde units. This means you lose fewer men for each successive city, but all the combined losses from battle and settling mean you will probably only get about 3 cities before you run out of horde units. There is no way to choose which men you lose; you could end up losing a good unit and keeping peasants, or vice versa.
Horde units are randomly generated. They contain the word ‘horde’ in their name, and tend to be slightly weaker versions of normal units. Most horde units are of the low level variety, or even peasants. Turning into a horde might give you numbers, but it does not give you an invincible army.
Going into horde mode is a viable, even powerful strategy for the factions which start with just one settlement. Image: a huge army, no need to defend or build up a home, no upkeep to pay, and the chance to bust up your neighbours to your vast gain. If you don’t like your starting location, then you can move on to somewhere you do, perhaps to face enemies you find more interesting, to take better lands, or to occupy a more defensible position.
The factions capable of turning into a horde are: Franks, Goths, Huns, Sarmatians, Vandals, Burgundii, Lombardi, Ostrogoths, Roxolani, and Slavs.
The Romano-British.
The Romano-British will emerge when both Eboracum and Londinium are taken from the Western Roman Empire. It does not matter who captures them, even if one province is controlled by one faction and the other by another. I have heard that the faction can also emerge if either of those two provinces rebels from the WRE.
Tech trees and maps
No version of BI came with a printed tech tree or map. I don’t know of any available online either. You can find a faction’s tech tree in-game by opening the city screen, going to the buildings page, and clicking on the little icon with the compass and set square. This was mentioned earlier but it bears repeating given the add-on package’s lacks.
Changing my name
In BI you can change the names of settlements. It’s a rather hidden option, not included in the manual. Open up the city screen, click on the city’s name, hit backspace, type the name you prefer, then exit the screen. The city should now be renamed.
Legendary weapons and religious relics
They appear in a character’s retinue listing. Once lost they cannot be regained, unlike titles. There are not many of them, and they are very rare; relics seem to be easier to find than weapons. If you want to find out what items are available and what triggers them, check your export_descry_ancillaries file in activions/rtw/bi/data. The assorted titles are contained in the same file.
End date
The BI campaign ends in summer 476AD.