Field of Glory II: Age of Belisarius

This expansion extends Field of Glory II forward to 1040 AD, exploring the rich military history of the so-called “Dark Ages”, from the whirlwind Arab Conquest to the depredations of the Vikings and Magyars, the birth of England, France, Germany and Spain, and the long struggle of the Byzantine Empire to keep Roman civilisation alive in the east.

From 600 to 628 AD the Byzantines were locked in a titanic struggle for survival against the aggressive Sassanid Persian Empire, from which they eventually emerged victorious. Both empires, however, were severely weakened. Six years later, in 634, the newly Islamized Arabs erupted forth from Arabia, quickly defeating the Byzantines and Persians. By 750, under the Umayyad Caliphate, the Muslim Arab Empire stretched from Spain to the borders of India.

The Byzantine Empire, after losing its Levantine and North African provinces, survived the initial Islamic advance. Constantinople endured a year long siege (717-718), and this proved to be the beginning of the end for the Umayyad Caliphate. Eventually, weakened by defeats on the frontiers of their vast empire and internal unrest, the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid dynasty. The great Islamic Empire was now split into many separate, and often competing states. The Byzantines grew stronger under the Macedonian Dynasty (867-1056), and ended the period more powerful than they had been for many centuries.

In Northern Europe, Viking raids started in the late 8th century. Superb sailors, they used their longboats to strike across the Baltic and North Seas against towns, farms and monasteries, and raid as far as Seville and Constantinople. Eventually they settled down, and created important states in Normandy and the Kievan Rus. Their invasions of the British Isles resulted in centuries of intermittent warfare with the English, Irish and Scottish kingdoms.

Charlemagne ruled as King of the Franks from 768-814 AD. The kingdom he inherited already included most of modern France and parts of Germany. By his death in 814, his empire encompassed modern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, northern Italy and a strip of northern Spain. In 800 he was crowned “Emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III. After his death the Carolingian Empire split into two main states, West Francia (modern France) and East Francia (modern Germany).

In the 9th century the nomadic Magyars erupted into European history. Their western raids reached as far as Spain. Their defeat by the Germans at Lechfeld in 955 ended their threat to Western Europe and in 1000 their High Prince accepted Christianity and was recognised as King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II, ruling under his Christian name of István (Stephen) I.

*Summary of features:*
- 19 new factions
- 55 new units
- 76 new army lists
- 6 new Epic Battles
- 74 new Quick Battles
- Expanded Custom Battles module.
- Expanded Sandbox Campaign module.
- 6 new historically-based campaigns.
- New Allies feature added in accompanying game update.

This expansion extends Field of Glory II back to 681 BC, and allows players to experience the last flowering of chariot warfare in the ancient near-East. It chronicles the decline and fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the rise of the Median and Babylonian Empires, and the conquest of these and the Lydian and Egyptian Kingdoms by the Achaemenid Persians.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire, founded in the late 10th century BC, reached its greatest extent at the end of the reign of Esarhaddon (681-669), stretching from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) in the East to Cilicia (in southern Turkey) in the north-west, and Lower (northern) Egypt in the south-west.

- 12 New Factions
- 32 New Units
- 6 New Epic Battles

Its last strong king was Ashurbanibal (669-627), though Egypt seceded quietly during his reign. Following his death the situation rapidly deteriorated, with a series of civil wars. In 626 Babylonia rose in revolt. Between 616 and 609 the Assyrian Empire was destroyed by an alliance of Medes and Babylonians. The Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II then took over most of the former Assyrian Empire, only Egypt remaining independent. The Medes carved out a large empire in the north and east, halted in the west only by the Lydian Kingdom in western Asia Minor. By the mid 6th century BC, the fertile crescent was divided between four powerful states, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Median Empire and the Kingdoms of Lydia and Egypt.

- Expanded Custom Battles Module
- Expanded Sandbox Campaign Module
- Mixed Units with Front- Rank Spearmen, Back Rank Archers

In 553 Cyrus II the Great, King of the small Persian Kingdom of Anshan in the Persian Gulf, revolted against his overlord and grandfather, the Median King Astyages, and took over the Median Empire, which thus became the Achaemenid Persian Empire. He conquered Lydia in 546 and Babylon in 539. Egypt was conquered by his son Cambyses II in 525. This made the Achaemenid Persian Empire the largest the world had yet known, stretching from the Bosporus to western India.

Legions Triumphant expands Field of Glory II forwards five centuries from the first Emperor, Augustus, until 476 AD when the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by his barbarian troops.

You can be part of the final conquests of the Roman Empire in Britain, Germany and Dacia, and then the Pax Romana when the legions on the frontier mostly kept at bay the barbarians to the north and first the Parthians, then the Sassanid Persians, in the east. You can also witness the final disintegration of Western Roman power under pressure from the Germans and Goths (themselves attempting to outdistance the rising power of the Huns), and the desperate attempts of 5th century leaders to hold at bay the barbarian tide, using armies at least partly consisting of barbarian troops.

Legions Triumphant follows the development of the Roman Imperial Army through its heyday, its late 3rd century AD reorganisation to deal with new threats, and subsequent decline. It also follows the rise of its various enemies, the Germans and Goths, the Sassanid Persians and the dreaded Huns.

Summary of features
- 10 new factions
- 19 new units
- 24 new army lists
- 10 new Epic Battles
- 36 new Quick Battles
- Expanded Custom Battles module.
- Expanded Sandbox Campaign module.
- 4 new historically-based campaigns.
- Main build updated with major improvements to gameplay.

Play your part in the epic events unfolding during this era, including the conquest of the Lydian Empire (in western Asia Minor) by the expanding Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Persian Wars, in which the Greeks of mainland Greece defeated two Persian invasions, the subsequent wars between the victorious Greek city states, the development of a new military system by Philip II of Macedon, his conquest of Greece, the invasion and conquest of the Persian Empire by his son Alexander the Great, and his campaigns beyond Persia into India.

Experience the wars between Alexander’s generals (the Diadochi) after Alexander’s early death, while Rome was expanding from a single city to controlling most of Italy by 280 BC, and in Sicily Carthage fought a series of wars against Syracuse and the other Sicilian Greek cities for control of the island.
Command either side in any of these conflicts, or explore what-if scenarios – such as what Alexander might have done next if he had not died so young – would he have been able to conquer Carthage and Rome?