Napolean: Total War

[Steven W]

Launched today (Feb 26th).
I'll have my review up as soon as I can.

Please refer to the sticky thread before you post in this thread.

This is your chance to tell us your opinion on Napolean: Total War

Reviews will be published on the main gaming channel. We'll let you know in this thread when they go live.

Thanks!

[Domestic_Ginger]

<Ignore>

[snootyjim]

It was inevitable that Napoleon would one day become the focus of the Total War series with his military prowess and political domination. Starting off in command of small groups fighting in localised battles, you’ll soon graduate to heading up the Italian Campaign, then the conquest of Egypt, before achieving absolute rule over all France. At this point the biggest challenge of the game begins, as you’re tasked with wresting Europe from the combined forces of Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia.

Napoleon marks a bit of a change from the normal release cycle for The Creative Assembly; they typically take 2 years to develop each game, but only 11 months passed between the release dates of Empire and Napoleon. Unsurprisingly then, Napoleon has been labelled by many as an expansion pack – and they aren’t far wrong. I could explain everything in great detail, but I’ll save myself the bother and direct you to a review of Empire. The burning question then: what’s actually different?

It’s set a few years later, but you could be forgiven for not noticing. A few new units appear, like some early steam-powered vessels, including the infamous ironclads, and there are some newer technologies to research, but that’s more or less it. And they take such an inordinate length of time to research and build that unless you’re grinding for the sake of it, or cheating, you’ll probably never see their benefits.

More interestingly, a couple of new features have been introduced, largely to fit Napoleon’s story. His advances into Egypt and towards Moscow were famously inhibited by their respective climates, so “areas of attrition” have been added into the game. In the arid deserts, standard troops will be killed off by the heat until their unit is destroyed, and eastern Europe in Winter is similarly debilitating. It’s a worthwhile addition, but hardly ground-breaking.

Then somebody realised that if Napoleon took a shell to the head, it would wreck the story a tad – so somewhat clumsily, they made important generals invincible. Whether drowned in the middle of the Atlantic, shot between the eyes from point-blank range, or decapitated with a swift slice of a sword, they’ll catch a bus home and pop back in a fortnight when they feel better. Probably clutching an explanatory letter from their mum. As a concept, it’s just a bit daft. As a game feature though, it’s infuriating.

Picture the scene. Midway through your campaign, you face off against the Duke of Wellington – but with your inspired field tactics, you trap and decimate his army, before massacring him and his elite bodyguard with a deadly cavalry charge. Two turns later, he reappears with a brand new army and annihilates your depleted forces. Trust me: you’ll be delighted. Or perhaps a particular nation will be completely out-manoeuvred – usually France– and their generals will suffer endless defeats. Since Napoleon is invincible though, he can’t die. Instead, each defeat adds to his endless array of negative traits, until he’s the military equivalent of a cardboard fire-blanket. Not quite the image they were trying to portray, I fear.

And finally, whislt I can’t bring myself to call it a feature, Napoleon’s lack of involvement with the USA and India means that vast swathes of the map from Empire are cut, and replaced with a couple of enthralling trading posts.

In my book, this game got two things right. Firstly, the campaign is varied and enjoyable. It’s not just a tutorial, the missions are genuinely challenging when you raise the difficulty, in interesting locations with well-scripted events and a range of tasks to complete.

Secondly, the diplomacy and campaign map AI is vastly improved. Protectorates were traditionally little more than buffer zones, so declaring war on the Papal States should have elicited no response. To my surprise though, the Kingdom of Italy sent two armies southwards, Naples sent one northwards, and Denmark had a vessel in the area, so landed her army on the coast, and together they captured Rome. Countries are much more proactive in diplomacy as well – smaller nations would routinely offer increasingly huge sums of money for peace as their armies were destroyed and their territory captured.

Whilst I appreciate those improvements, particularly the AI changes, it feels a bit empty. However much the Creative Assembly tries to tell us it’s a new game, it just isn’t. It’s a mod of Empire: Total War – a mod that misses out half of the map. Best of all, by making it standalone, they don’t need to patch Empire to the same calibre, and they can charge £30.

So then, we’re stuck in a nasty position. You can play the full map of Empire, but put up with the comparatively dissatisfying AI, or enjoy the gameplay of Napoleon, and put up with the hugely inferior map. Consequently, neither feels quite right, and I’ve completely lost my enthusiasm for both of them.

It’s a solid game, and it deserves its plaudits, but ultimately I found it a disappointment. Considering how perfectly Napoleon fits the Total War ethos, I can’t help but feel that his game should have warranted a bit more effort and ingenuity.

8.2/10

[danroyle]

got this cheap the other week from game £8 but not had a chance to try it yet i think i will now.

[Sem]

i got this the other week its an "ok" better than Empire but not as good as Rome

i dont really like TW games with too much gunpowder

the series is better when its set further back in history

[snootyjim]

Next one's Shogun

[Alex C]

i got this the other week its an "ok" better than Empire but not as good as Rome

i dont really like TW games with too much gunpowder

the series is better when its set further back in history

I found it to be too similar to Empire, for the price I paid. It should have just been a piece of DLC on steam for £10ish, perhaps. It's not exactly ground breaking, and after playing 40+hours of Empire, I just got bored of Napoleon too easily.

[HelghanEmperor1]

I found it a very good game to play for a short while, but it lacked content in the form of the grand campaign. I also found Napoleons campaign full of history and quite entertaining to begin with, but then this began to also decline as it became too repetitive and then found myself not playing it, as it was too similar too Empire Total War, which I disliked as the use of guns made the game far less engaging than it's predecessors.

[Andy3536]

I've been playing this for the last few days after picking it up cheap. Most of what's written here seems to cover the game.

There's just one real annoyance for me, in Empire, you could research the tech for your infantry to allow them to fire in lines or in Platoon fire. This feature should really be given to infantry as standard in Napoleon, but infact your infantry are as they are at the beginning of Empire. Front rank only can fire from line infantry. And there's no way of training your infantry either.

This for me is a big loss over total war, infantry battles just don't look or feel right like a late war battle in Empire would.

A real oversight in my eyes.

[esde56]

Most things with 'Napoleon' in their title sell reasonably well but in many respects, perchance this title was just too close to their 'Empire' game? Perhaps the TW modding community will improve matters.

I would hope that the next TW release would be 'Rome 2' rather than moving further into the gundpowder era. That said, 'Rome Total Realism' is an excellent mod for the original title.

Time will reveal all.

[Anfield]

I really enjoyed Empire Total War apart from the multiplayer which seemed to lag constantly. I am planning on buying Napoleon once my new PC is finished. I, like others though would love to see the next TW set further back in history.

[snootyjim]

It was.

[Anfield]

What I mean is back to Rome TW era, I loved that game but I'd like to see a new release set around that time.

[snootyjim]

Ah right. I agree, would love to see Rome 2. Considering they've done so many remakes, it seems fairly likely.

[SpitsA]

Average

[=assassin=]

I still haven't finished Napoleon - I got bored with it, and didn't like all the changes to basic things from Medieval 2 and Rome, both of which I still play alot. The gameplay seems very limited as it is a set goal, and thus there doesn't seem the same freedom to do your own thing as it's basically following a pretty much linear path, which is not what makes a total war game enjoyable.