Marcus the Gambler feels kind of like a serious, old dude in a sea of young dreamers. Spurius is preaching Christianity, the governors do their thing, Zeno forms a rag tag army and Appius goes over Africa, but Marcus is keeping them all alive by continuing Caius’ task of destroying the hordes. He really lives up to his name.

Jons new favourite phrase, “We are still an effective fighting force”

Each battle, I have to resist the urge to shake my monitor and shout: "Put your archers in loose formation! Loose formation! It reduces the effectiveness of incoming arrows!"

And so Zeno Flavius is to be the next great war hero of rome. Rome, who's enemies are literally everyone, Roman or not. So that's where Xenophobia came from!

You can destroy horde factions without them becoming a horde by killing their last family members in a city battle but losing the battle on purpose.

As Appius killed an enemy king in hand to hand combat, he can dedicate the spoils and so receive Rome's highest military honour.

Oh no, not Caius Flavius! Oh, you big damn hero, Julianus Vatinius would have been proud of him!

My God the number of peasant corpses flowing down that river in the first battle. If it was before, that is never going to be safe to drink from again.

build a fort build a fort build a fort build a fort *inhales* BUILDAFORTBUILDAFORTBUILDAFORTBUILDAFORT

Funny that in the timeline of the expansions for Rome Total war and the game itself it’s the tale of the rise and fall of phalanx infantry

Just paused the video to say RIP Caius Flavius

The flame of The Vatinius burns eternal! From Caius the Horde Slayer to Spurius the Most Christian Emperor who ever Christianed to Zeno the Pyrrhic, the light of Crete shall ever shine!

Lol my Marcus the gambler also fought the Huns, though he did that through like 6 bridge battles in northwest Italy at the bridge in the mountain passes.

The cheer from his men was electrifying. It was done. They were done. The Berbers were no more and he had taken the last Berber King’s life, his blood still shining on his sword as he thrusted it into the air. Appius had won a stunning victory for Rome and more importantly had crushed one of her most malignant enemies. He had done what the Scipii couldn’t and finished what the Brutii had started, the complete conquest and subjugation of Northern Africa. Appius rode back to his camp while his men sacked the city, his body tired from the brutal last stand in that city. His left arm was cut with the blade of the King yet soon the bastard had been running through, trying desperately to get back to his palace but he would not get away. Appius, spurred on by some inner force inside of him, chased the coward and lead his guard through the mess of humanity and before the King had known what was happening, Appius’ blade cut him through and the man fell into the sea of men. Appius was undeniably becoming somewhat of a hero in Africa. Known for his ruthless defense of Carthage, he had then left the place with an expedition South towards Dimmidi, there he hunted down most of the Berber Kingdom’s family members before heading on to Tingi where he had humiliated the Moors at a river crossing. And now he had slain the King of the Berbers. Appius was beginning to feel that he deserved a Triumph but wether the Senate would like another conquering hero like Spurius was questionable at best.

First the Vandals, then the Huns and now the Goths, has Jon just prevented the fall of the Western Roman Empire?

39:58 as the flaming arrows hit the targets ... "you guys are not going to do so hot". Au contraire.

Caius flavius:dies Me: im not crying, you are.

Jon would have loved to have been on Time Commanders. I would watch that episode on a loop for at least a month straight.

Unit of Comitatenses sent one man at a time up ladders into a mass of prepared infantry who have already slaughtered more than half of the Comitatenses, leaving the survivors outnumbered more than 4 to 1. Jon: "Yeah these guys should do just fine :)"

Christ on horseback, another BI video from Jon, The most commended commander that ever commentated.

...you topped off the archer... you diluted triple silver archers... Jon, there is no excuse for such heresy.

That moment when jon said the hordes of time and i realized i was dying in really life...............

So Appius the Honest gets the Spolia Opima after all. Nice.

Just wanna say I love your videos, it’s super cozy to watch and you’re a great commentator always keeping it real!

"Yeah these Comititenses will do fine." >The unit he is referring to has already lost 100 hundred men to spearmen I believe you Jon.

"There is one horde he could not defeat... the horde of time."

Apparently the initiation procedure for entering the direct imperial family is taking down a horde. *I APPROVE.*

50:00-56:00 greatest battle commentary in the history of total war.

4:50 Jon I think you’ll find that’s an onager!

"There was one horde he couldn't defeat, and that was the horde of time". Brilliant!

Down with trouser wearers.

(33:00) Nobody:... Jon: No that's actually an excellent point. 😐

Ok so with Zeno having formed and army of rag tag soldiers, wiped out the rebels and bandits of southern France, defeated the goths in a different way than would be expected, him being a minor noble, and the marriage problem there’s no way he didn’t become a Robin Hood style legendary hero.

For the record Jon, fire arrows are amazing for making units break, and flaming artillery kills more units than the normal shots. They’re just less accurate but they’re good to use in bridge battles

I love the understandable sense of urgency in your voice while playing this campaign.

Have you looked at the faces of the units??? It's the Attack of the Clones!

"Fuck it." -Marcus the Gambler

I love how at the beginning hes like it looks like the peasants are gonna try and swim, and throughout the entire battle you just see peasants drowning themselves in the background trying to avoid the bridge

JOHN. USE GUARD MODE.

The lily livered guy was a genius apparently

Should not have spent that long in the hun battle not turning the line

EXCELLENT - You've rekindled the love I had of this game

Had an Egyptian Pharaoh in the main game live til 70, he was so good

Jesssssus.... I’m at 16:45 and literally screaming “TURN YOUR LINE!!! WTH ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?” I’m guessing this end verrrrryyyyyy badly.

Man so exciting that moment in 55:15 you make it sound like a really intense game! You make it sound like football commentator in the finals! Gratz for the victory! Keep it up!

great vid , please upload more of this (barbarian invasion) more often, looking forward to part 12 ( :

This video made think of a Bay City Rollers classic - "Bye Bye Berbers, Berbers Bye Bye!". I'll get me coat.

What a fantastic set of victorious battles!

Awesome! Thanks!

This was a great episode!

Absolutely brilliant series my g!

Jon, thank you for uploading this. The last 3 or so days have been utter crap and it is nice to have a bright spot. Life always gets better when you make us some Rome Total War. I also wonder if you have given any more thought into a history lecture of some kind?

Finally!!! Been waiting all day

All hail the new Augustus Spurius “The most Christian man to ever Christian” Flavius

YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I'm pumped for this! Thank you Jon!!!!

Finally actually beat the campaign using the secret weapon Sol Invictus... oh and kicking Italy out of the Roman empire for a while. That actually worked out far better than I ever expected it to.

Also, best series on HBO by far

Right, so if the Huns arrive- just call Mulan. She's got plenty of experience in dealing with this kind of thing.

This series is so awesome!

So after 11 hours of gameplay, the Western Roman empire BEGINS to be stable. If this isn't a hard campaign I don't know what is.

I downloaded Darthmod for this recently and it's fantastic. The units look much better.

Older Oppius Flavius looks a bit like Steve Martin.

I see you beating them all.Good job.

Rip caius flavius

as a gamer that put so many hours into this game but never beat it on a modern PC with actual large unit sizes....I am thoroughly enjoying this. I am a little bit OCD with formations in these games. As soon as the Huns started throwing you off balance I felt as if they were attacking my inexperienced Sarmatian heavy cavalry.

To counter culture penalty you could actually tear down the building of a different culture replacing them with the roman counterpart (though starting from the first tier unfortunately), might be worth in difficult to manage places ;)

It’s over Huns I have the high ground *Huns leave the battle*

By Jove, Spurius has to kick Spiff out of Scotland fast!

Appius the honest deserved a triumph after that campaign fr

I kinda teared up when caius flavious the hoard slayer died

I think your narration was awesome. It made me laugh, it was entertaining, and you are so enthusiastic about these videos. I told my girlfriend I understand why people like watching sports after watching this series

Caius the Horde Slayer died out on campaign, putting himself between the horde and his people. It's the death he would have wanted, I'm sure

Zeno Flavious glorious defeat gave me more chills than Game of thrones season 8. Literally.

I would have loved it if in game it gave titles to characters based on the hordes they've slain. For example, Emperor Caius would be Cauis Gothicus, Spurius would be Spurius Quadicus (conquered the rebel settlement at Campus Quadii), and Marcus the Gambler would be Marcus Hunicus

im so happy zeno exists

You know if you switch a couple of words in Zeno's name you get, Zeon. So SIEG ZEON

Anyone notice how at 37:17 it was Oppius Flavius against Captain Flavius? What does this mean?

Okay, so I LOVE your Rome: Total War videos, mainly since it came out for iPads and good iPhones, I think you should try it, there’s a console command called Rome Shell that helps a lot with checking through a lot of what’s in the game and what you can still do even on a phone

Re writing history already eh? The Saxons didnt just throw all the heavy cav. They countered you moving all your cavalry to one flank and hit you from behind whilst you wernt paying attention.

A suipresi to be sure but a welcome one

-They are very, very dependent on peasants, but dont underestimate it... +What, the peasants, come on man it i... -It is heavy cavalry and two general units +Oohh, okey. I'm an impatient idiot.

Modded Rome Total war so I can play as all factions and am playing as Po it’s for the first time, amazing feeling playing something new in a game I played to death so long ago

Huh didnt expect that I'd be so into this series lol

Got it while it was fresh!

36:55 onagers were like "fuck this one dude in particular"

When Roman generals work as models on the side.

Hey, have you heard of Anno 1800? It looks nice. I think its coming out tomorrow

Finally it's Barbarian invasion day again Boii's!

This was an amazing episode!! Well worth the wait, I would maybe advise to first neutralize the sarmatians, before going to war with the eastern roman empire. The sarmatians could very easily create 2+ hordes by attacking the lombardi/burgundi/franks.

Jon used ladders, doesn't he know that you never used ladders? But I'm sure it's fine because as we all know the Comitatenses are invincible ubermensch.

I now that this has nothing to do with this but plz consider playing third age-total war ( a mod for medieval 2 total war)

Please continue to upload Imperator Rome episodes, I always end up missing the live streams

Why not do a night attack vs the Huns

It is very late for this thought at this point but would every horde jon has fought have been any easier dealt with using forts? As I recall the main thing hed said about hordes in medieval 2 was to NOT fight them in the field.

5:49 So basically, we need to get down to business...to defeat...the Huns... (Mulan reference FTW [despite the fact that the Huns didn't even attack China in that year, but that's a different conversation altogether]) Addendum: 12:50 Again not noticing that a night attack is an option or just deciding against it? You decide. Addendum: 23:46 And ignoring or deciding against the night attack again...maybe it's for the best? Addendum: I believe that the whole "fire arrow tanking the FPS" thing was covered during the Brutii campaign but it's hard to remember every bit of commentary ever done.

Keep these long runtime

How to disable the reinforcement limits in Barbarian Invasion? Nice series by the way enjoy every single video.

Imagine being the 1 guy who died in the Burgundi battle 40:57

Berberian invasion.

Berber Desert Archers are not long range unlike Persian Dessrt Archers. Confusing... Basically, developers hate Berbers