Hello again and welcome back to the Total War blogs for the next instalment of my Britannia Developer Diary.  In this second part of my diary I’m going to be focusing once again, on the Britannia campaign, one of four new campaigns available in Kingdoms. Specifically, I’m going to be giving you a guide to the factions that are available in the campaign and describing some of the play styles they present.

When the player starts the campaign they can choose to play as one of five factions - England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Norway. Each of these factions has been given their own distinct flavour.

England starts off strong and fields a well-rounded army with heavy infantry and heavy cavalry their key strengths. They begin with the balance of power well in their favour, although their forces are spread thinly across their provinces. This exposes them to attack early on from any rival factions intent on reclaiming territory. There are a good few of those.

Wales starts off comparatively weak to most of the other facitons. However, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, ruler of Wales at the time, has rallied support from almost his entire lands to aid his ambitions to reclaim territory from
the English. The Welsh armies field the best missile troops in the early game; they also field a lot of light infantry and multi-skilled skirmishing units. Wales also has access to a lot of cheap units which will help them in the fight against England. Wales may feel like the “underdog” in their struggle with the English but certainly have the armies to hurt them significantly early on, particularly as the English will be stretched to concentrate their military efforts initially.

Ireland’s mix of units is quite different; they have a fast, lightly armoured army that makes good use of their swift native horses. They also utilise a good mix of missile cavalry units, later being able to build the Mounted Calivermen, a late unit rifleman on horse back. As well as fielding the Deisi Javelinmen who are native tribesmen (who became extinct around the period of our campaign) that wield the traditional shaieelagh. Ireland starts off quite small and must quickly remove England from their  soil if they are to survive and conquer the isles.

Scotland starts off in a decent, consolidated position and expansion, at least at first, will be possible for the Scots and their ferocious Highland warriors, whether they choose to invade England or Ireland. Scotland’s units are more than capable of stopping any force in their track with superior pike technology and vicious Highlanders. However, should Scotland have the unfortunate task or receiving the brunt of the Norwegian invasion force, their expansion efforts will probably need to be withdrawn to concentrate on the defence of their home territory.
 
Norway’s unit make-up focuses on shock tactics and brute force. They should be able to do a lot of damage quickly, however their attack-focused strategy does not favour sustained combat. Norway starts off quite small controlling a number of islands around the mainland. They begin by receiving naval re-enforcements and generally play as a faction that raids and sacks cities as they progress, as funds will be hard to come by.

Norway also has the best fleets on the map at the beginning so they pretty much own the water making them the “Wild Card” in this conflict. They are however, very important to the campaign as a whole, as the timing and location of their invasion troops will have a significant influence on the way the campaign is shaped for all factions involved.

That concludes my diary on the Britannia campaign. I hope this has given you an insight into the factions and units you will get to play and some of the gameplay you’ll get to explore.  Very soon we’ll bring you a detailed look at the 3 remaining campaigns that make up the Kingdoms expansion, so stayed tuned for those diaries.