Rome: Total War: Alexander
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Contents
Overview
Rome Total War - Alexander is the second official expansion for the award winning game Rome Total War. There are six very good, and very new, historical battles, that will be sure to challenge you. It features a new campaign map stretching as far as Africa, and further into Persia. The only faction the player is able to control during the campaign is Macedon taking control of Alexander the Great in an attempt to sweep eastwards and capture almost every settlement on the map in 100 turns or less. However, in the 'Custom Battles' the player can, along with Macedon, take control of Dahae, India and Persia. It should not actually be considered a 'full game', but rather a minor addition for the Rome Total War fan.
Features
Rome Total War - Alexander has seen quite a few changes to the engine, as well as new in game features.
New factions
Rome Total War - Alexander brings four new playable, and some unplayable races into the mix. The first of these which the player controls during the campaign is Macedon: a phalanx-happy faction with missile troops and cavalry for support, reminiscent of the Greeks from the original game. They are based control all of Greece and Macedon at the start of the game and boarder Thrace to the west and Illyria to the North, their goal is the conquest of the Persian Empire.
Next, only playable in Custom Battles are the Dahae: This represents 4 diffrent factions in the main campaign which all have the same units and skins etc - the factions are Dahae which is located in the north east of the map, Scythia which is located in the center north of the map and finally Illyria and Thrace which are located in the west of the map.
Third are the Indians: Fairly similar to the Sassanids and Carthaginians from the previous games, these are desert warriors packing a punch with their elephants. This faction however does not exist in the main campaign and is only playable through custom battles.
Lastly come the Persians: Similar to the Indians in a few respects, except for the fact they rely on cavalry more than infantry. Of course, they come with elephant-mounted troops, altogether they have and flexible selection of troops. This faction controls most of the map and controls Egypt, Arabia, Babylon, Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia and India.
New Units
There are a number of new units for each faction. The Persians- They have a flexible selection of troop types, including light Hyrcanian cavalry, horse archers, missile and heavy chariots, mercenary Greek bodyguards, and heavy Bactrian cavalry. Their infantry is mostly light, and with a wealth of missile troops like Median Archers and Persian Peltasts. Their specialty troops are mercenary Greek hoplites and the Immortals, which fire a bow and carry a spear for self-defense.
The Kingdom of Macedon- Also a flexible faction, but built around a core of heavy troops. They lack missile troops besides javelinmen, and must rely on mercenary archers and slingers. They have hoplites and phalangites, along with hypaspists for infantry. Hypaspists act as a "protoype legionary", with a swath of javelins and a shorter spear for close combat. Macedon also has a wide range of cavalry, including Prodromoi, Thessalians, and famous Companions. Macedon can also recruit horse archers and median archers when they capture specific provinces.
The Dahae- Armies made up of mostly infantry. They are much like Gaul and Dacia in vanilla Rome, with spear warbands and swordsmen. They have good archers, but lack in heavy cavalry. They have barbarian cavalry (essentially the same as in Rome) and horse archers.
India- In single player campaign they do not appear as a faction but as a rebel stack near Taxila. They have many good archers, such as the Indian Longbowmen and Female Archers. They do not have much melee infantry, having just one unit in the form of Indian Spearmen. They are so-so troops, and can not hold against the heavier phalanxes or sustained missile fire for long. India has a variety of fear units, including scythed chariots and elephants.
Engine Changes
The Alexander engine is different from the RTW engine. It has all the features of RTW, but also some new ones.
- The DMB limit has increased. In vanilla RTW, it was 255, but not anymore. Wlesmana from LOTR - TW is said to have put over 330 different entries in without a problem.
- New campaign changes as well. Now you can have faction specific mercenaries, unlike in RTW where mercenaries were available to any faction. Also, you can choose a faction to never attack another faction. While I am a little blind as to the extent of this, it may turn out to be a useful feature.
- For a list of changes and how they affect modding, see here.
Also, it removes a lot of features from Barbarian Invasion, such as hording and shieldwall.
Technical
System Requirements
Official Minimum P3 1.0GHZ 256MB RAM Graphics card with 64mb Video RAM 3400mb hard drive space.
Official Recommended P4 1.5GHZ 512mb RAM Graphics card with 128mb Video RAM 3400mb hard drive space
MY Recommended p4 2ghz 1gb RAM (Much faster loading times 2gb is even better) GeForce 7600gt 256mb VRAM for decent performance. It will work on a 6600 decently RTW is unoptimized so a 8 series would be even better. 3400mb hard drive space.
RTW:A also requires a DVD drive.
Install Issues
Some problems may be experienced with the installation of the Alexander expansion if your original RTW installation is not patched to the right version, or if you have insufficient space on your C: drive (regardless of where game is installed) see this thread on the official forums for details and patch download links.
