Hi Everyone,
The time has come to wrap up the old expansion campagins with Enemies of Rome. A campaign that's rather unique in a sense that it does not focus on one particular nation and tells its history but rather it still focuses on Rome but you play the scenarios from their enemies' perspective.
As always, the review focuses on the changes to the map, objectives and starting positions and historicity rather than actual playthroughs unless these are drastically different too.
Some of the scenarios have been renamed so the original name has been added in brackets where applicable.
Spoilers ahead - you have been warned.
I'll try to keep this one reasonably brief... Let's get to it.
1. Crossing the Alps - Another timeless classic and definitely one of the most unique missions in the game due to the victory conditions - all you have to do is bring Hannibal and both armoured elephants to the flagged area at the other end of the map, but this won't be as easy as it may sound.
The map topography has not been changed as far as I could tell but some of the player positions and some of the finer details have. You still start in the west corner with a sizeable army of elephants and legions and four villagers stuck in a "prison" in the southeastern section of the map. The red player (Tribesmen, formerly Villagers) seems to be unchanged - still in starting in tool age with one base to southeast of your starting position and one to just the east from there but it's quite the trek due to the mountains in the way.
The path that was blocked with stone in the original (near the centre of the map) is now passable but is being guarded by the newly added orange player (Tribesmen) who has a bunch of towers, short swordsmen, improved bowmen and catapults looking over the pass. This makes it the shortest but also most dangerous way to complete this mission.
Yellow player (Romans, formerly Townsmen) has two bases, one in the north corner and one near to where your villagers are imprisoned. The northern base has been changed slightly - the walled area has been reduced in size so that there is now a gap between the forest to the south of it and the walls, should you wish to pass that way. The passage just to the south of that base, between the forest with the Ruins and the cliffs which in the original was the best and safest route as it let you avoid yellow's base, is now much narrower due to the extra trees that were added. It is also within firing range of orange's catapults so taking this route will cost you dearly if you can't take out the catapults first.
As before you then have the choice to go south into yellow's second base or east through the long winded but safe path which now actually gives you a reason to take it as you will run into some gaia broad swordsmen, other than that both paths take you into yellow's southern base with no real way around it. The southern base was completely redone and your prison was relocated somewhat. It is no longer a walled area with a bunch of units and towers but a "proper town" if you like. The town walls still block the way out for your villagers and towers will kill them if you try it, but they can break out from the initial prison. The new town is much smaller and the areas no longer used were replaced with a forest it seems. If you take heavy losses you can replenish your troops at this point as you have access to most building options and there is gold on the map (but you will have to go back a fair bit).
Finally the last section of the map, controlled by the brown player (Roman Army, formerly 1st Legion) seems to not have undergone any changes. THey still have guard towers overlooking the way into the camp and the flagged area as well as a group of phalanxes.
Overall I would say that all these rather subtle changes are on the positive side as you now have more than one way to complete this scenario and the map has received some extra detail. Obviously it is very difficult to imitate mountains in AoE1 so you may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like. Also I think that the Crossing the Pyrenees mission in the Tariq ibn Ziyad AoE2 HD campaign is likely an homage to this scenario.
2. Third Macedonian War (Third Greek War) - This scenario has been completely redone including the back story but it still follows the same concept as the original mission with one powerful enemy and two weaker enemies on the flanks. The objective is still to destroy red player's government centre.
You start in the southwestern section of the map in bronze age with a small town, some hoplites and cavalry and a scout (as opposed to a tool age start with no buildings, 3 villagers, 2 slingers and a scout). Red player (Larissa, formerly Pergamum) starts opposite to you, in the northeastern section with a large, walled iron age town, but this time they are not fully walled in so expect raids coming at you from quite early on.
Yellow and brown players (both Roman Army) start near the southern and western corner respectively in bronze age (tool age in the original) with small walled bases and some units. Two new players have also been added - orange (Greeks) is friendly to everyone and seems to only have the walls representing bridges on the river dividing the map in half and a single priest next to a house... not sure what the purpose of this was meant to be. Maybe some triggered event? Green (Larissa Garrison) as you may have guessed acts as the red player's city garrison. His units are spread around the city and will only act if you get within their line of sight.
Despite the fact that your starting position is much stronger than in the original game this mission is actually much more challenging due to the red player attacking you with iron age units while you'll be stuck in the bronze age for quite some time. Yes, you can rush the two Roman armies with your starting hoplites and take them out of the game before they get going but even then you will struggle against red and might still lose. It took me a few restarts before I managed to win this one.
The original map wasn't too bad in terms of detail but this one certainly is far superior. I was unable to find much information on how the ancient Larissa may have looked like so I won't judge on accuracy but the city in general looks far better than Pergamum in the original which was basically a walled area with some randomly placed buildings inside.
Lastly, I always found it quite odd how the original scenario's map showed Roman expansion into Greece and yet the scenario took place in Anatolia, so the change here does make sense.
3. The Revolt of Spartacus (Spartacus) - No changes to the map or objectives here, but quite notably the roles have been flipped so that you are now playing as Spartacus and the red player represents Crassus' army sent to crush the revolt. Yellow player was renamed to Freed Slaves (Italy in the original) and is still your ally who has to survive.
I guess this change makes sense firstly to follow the trend of you actually playing as Rome's enemies and also because of the fact that Crassus was one of the richest Romans of his day so him turning up with a small base rather than a huge army was.. strange. The slaves of course were defeated historically so you are playing on the losing side but hooray for alternative history!
You start with the standard resources, as opposted to 500 of each, other than that your start is exactly the same. The red player's army composition was changed somewhat - the chariots and armoured elephants were replaced with legions which makes sense as the Romans did not use either of these units in warfare (they used elephants in a few battles but that was still an exception, not the rule). They also now have a few unit production buildings and presumably the resources to replenish units but they still have no houses unless they convert them from yellow which doesn't seem to happen...
Now I have to admit this is the only mission I could not complete without cheating back when the AI was extremely aggressive so it must be up there with Raid on Babylon (Reign of the Hittites) and Pyrrhus of Epirus (Rise of Rome) for the most difficult mission award.
4. Odaenathus, Lord of Palmyra (Odenathus vs Persians) - The map was completely redone but interestingly you are effectively still fighting for Rome in this mission. First off you will notice that the map is much more arid rather than the generic grassland, which is far more fitting for Palmyra's environs. You still start in the western corner of the map and the two Persian towns are still in the northern and eastern corners. You also have some outlying resources protected by towers near the centre of the map that will quickly be overrun, like in the original.
You still start in bronze age with a fairly well developed base and more or less the same army that you had in the original, but you now also have two camels for good measure. The most notable difference may be that you no longer start fully walled in but your town is still protected by cliffs and forests from mosts sides which gives it a rather picturesque look. The two persian bases have also been redone with the northern one being protected by cliffs and the eastern being walled and generally giving a better impression of being towns.
Despite the scenario hinting that the resources on the map are very scarce, it's not all that bad. The only thing you are likely to run out of in the late game is wood, which shouldn't be too surprising in a desert climate.
Overall the changes here are mostly cosmetic, the scenario is still quite challenging especially in the early stages as it will be bronze age vs iron age. The map is far more detailed and fitting given the geographic location, so no complaints here really apart from... well, I guess it all feels a bit underwhelming for the last mission of the last expansion campaign.
Conclusion
Quite a short campaign with two missions receiving minor tweaks and two being completely redone. Once again virtually all changes were on the positive side, none of the missions have become significantly easier and the second mission is actually much more difficult now in my opinion.
The only negatives really would be that there are only four missions (which I know was unlikely to change anyway) and the slight underwhelmingness of the last scenario, compared with the previous missions in this campaign.
SCORE: 9/10
As always, I invite you to comment and discuss. Just one more to go now!
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