It doesn't appear that the non-Greek factions will be playable in the single-player campaign, especially since that could introduce balance issues with the Persians starting out with such a large force. You'll need to rely heavily on mercenaries, since you don't have much time to develop cities and churn out armies, not to mention march them to where Alexander is. If you manage to bust out of the Aegean (which doesn't look to be easy, considering the presence of the Persian navy), you're in a race to conquer cities eastward. But from what we saw, this will be difficult, since you have to deal with a huge Persian army on your front door right off the bat, as well as some annoying enemies north of Macedon. Your goal is to basically crush the Persians and make your way eastward to India in less than 100 turns, which means that you'll have to keep moving to maintain momentum. The single-player campaign looks to be exceptionally tough and a fitting test for Rome fans.

In all, there are more than 60 units that are representative of the era, from hoplites to the Persian immortals. Alexander adds four new factions, from the Greeks to the mighty Persians (the superpower of their day), as well as India and the barbarian tribes. As such, this expansion takes place a couple of centuries before the campaign game found in Rome: Total War. Get ready to conquer the ancient world, which in this case is Persia and India.Īs you can probably guess from the name, Alexander covers the exploits of legendary historical figure Alexander the Great, conqueror of the ancient world. Instead, it'll be a downloadable add-on available only through the Internet. Alexander won't be a traditional expansion pack that's sold at retail. Needless to say, Alexander's announcement was an unexpected surprise for fans of the series.

This bucks the tradition of having only one expansion pack for each Total War game. Creative Assembly is also putting the finishing touches on Rome: Total War Alexander, the second expansion to 2004's hit strategy game. Though Creative Assembly is currently working on Medieval 2: Total War, the next chapter in its acclaimed strategy series, it apparently doesn't mean the end of Rome: Total War.

Rome total war alexander units