So as I discussed in an earlier post, Creative Assembly has finally included warrior queens in Total War: Rome 2! Beside the Desert Kingdoms DLC, they released a free LC that added warrior queen characters to a number of existing factions. The cavalrywoman above is a warrior queen from Kush---a Nubian kingdom so fierce they even made the Romans back down. Had a lot of fun exploring the new features last night. Discussion and screencaps to follow.
I was particularly delighted to see that Cleopatra gets her own squad of scythed chariots to cruise around with during battles. I was always vexed at how the Imperator Augustus campaign took one of the most dynamic pharaohs of the Ptolemaic dynasty and reduced her to the ‘wife’ card on Antony’s character sheet. Thus I’m super pleased that she gets an active role in the game play. She’s also the only character in the game specifically designated as ‘pharaoh.’
And it’s not just famous historical queens who get to make an appearance, warrior queens are recuitable by many factions. Playing as the Ardiaei last night, I encountered this fiery Gallic princess with her own squadron of heavy, hairy elite-cavalry bastards. (Jeeze, look at those muscles...) Her raiders even successfully captured one of my settlements and destroyed the fleet that was stationed there. Which was awesome. She died honorably in battle against the army I sent to recapture the settlement.
I’m not a hundred-percent sure which factions get warrior queen characters. The one above is an Illyrian queen I encountered from a rival faction. The factions I know for sure get warrior queens are the Illyrians, Germans, Gauls, Britons, Desert Kingdoms, and Balkan tribes, though I suspect the Scythians and Iberians do as well.
But I was most of all pleased to see that m’girl Queen Teuta is available for the Ardiaei. She even gets her own phalanx of hoplite bruisers to wreck dudes on the battlefield with. And clearly they based her design directly off of Mariusz Kozik’s production art of her. While it was cool to play as her, I’m a little perplexed that CA put her in charge of a land army instead of a fleet, given that she was a pirate queen. But regardless, it was cool to play as her.
In fact, conquered all of Greece with her! I started out with just that tiny, southern-most territory in Illyria, captured the Adriatic coast of Greece, then Athens, then Thracia, followed by taking the rest of Greece from the freaking Spartans. Tons of fun so far. I’ll leave off with this lovely pic of Teuta stabbing a Spartan king in the face as she takes his city from him.
