Napoleon: Total War

**Prince Toad** · 02-28-2010, 05:23 PM

So, the new Total War game is out and I've started to play through it.

They claim it's a stand-alone, but it's so similar to Empire that they might as well have called it an expansion. Right away I noticed that the battle engine has been hugely optimized-- I can play on the highest unit size (ultra) and it runs great, whereas before I struggled to run it on the medium unit size (lowest graphics on both). So that alone makes it a great deal more enjoyable.

As for the actual content, there are three campaigns under Napoleon (Italy, Egypt, Europe), several of Napoleon's historical battles, and then the "campaigns of the Coalition" where you play as Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, or Russia and try to fight off Napoleon. So far I've done about half the historical battles and the Italian campaign.

The historical battles are fine, though I'm furious at the Battle of Trafalgar. You're given five decent-sized ships and two tiny ones, plus seven big allied Spanish ships, to go against eleven British ships. For some reason the British fight pretty well, but the Spanish are totally retarded and they go get themselves killed as soon as they can. They usually lose their whole fleet without routing a single British ship, leaving you with basically five ships vs. eleven (since the little ones are all but useless). Since force multipliers are so difficult to come by at sea, it makes the battle nearly impossible-- I have yet to figure out how to beat it.

The Italian campaign was okay I guess. The thing is you only get about 25-30 turns, so you pretty much have to drive through it as fast as possible. On the one hand, this makes it more about fighting and conserving your forces, and less about empire-building and management. Depending on your preference this might be good or bad. It's worth keeping in mind battles are more fun now than they ever were in Empire, since the engine is optimized, and they also clearly made an effort to introduce more distinctions into the armies than there were before. Even if it's just France fielding "Fusiliers of the Line" against Austria's "German Fusiliers" it still adds at least a feeling of variety, and I'm guessing their stats are a bit different as well.

The other main difference is that it's a lot more linear and objective-based than Empire, even Empire's short campaigns or the Road to Independence. This is kind of necessary given the scope, but it does make the game feel like it's on rails, which is obviously limiting. I'm hoping that either the Europe campaign or the Campaigns of the Coalition will be more open-ended and longer.

On to Egypt now...

02-28-2010, 05:23 PM	#1
Prince Toad PC Games and Tech Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,720 Thanks: 50 Thanked 65 Times in 56 Posts	Napoleon: Total War So, the new Total War game is out and I've started to play through it. They claim it's a stand-alone, but it's so similar to Empire that they might as well have called it an expansion. Right away I noticed that the battle engine has been hugely optimized-- I can play on the highest unit size (ultra) and it runs great, whereas before I struggled to run it on the medium unit size (lowest graphics on both). So that alone makes it a great deal more enjoyable. As for the actual content, there are three campaigns under Napoleon (Italy, Egypt, Europe), several of Napoleon's historical battles, and then the "campaigns of the Coalition" where you play as Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, or Russia and try to fight off Napoleon. So far I've done about half the historical battles and the Italian campaign. The historical battles are fine, though I'm furious at the Battle of Trafalgar. You're given five decent-sized ships and two tiny ones, plus seven big allied Spanish ships, to go against eleven British ships. For some reason the British fight pretty well, but the Spanish are totally retarded and they go get themselves killed as soon as they can. They usually lose their whole fleet without routing a single British ship, leaving you with basically five ships vs. eleven (since the little ones are all but useless). Since force multipliers are so difficult to come by at sea, it makes the battle nearly impossible-- I have yet to figure out how to beat it. The Italian campaign was okay I guess. The thing is you only get about 25-30 turns, so you pretty much have to drive through it as fast as possible. On the one hand, this makes it more about fighting and conserving your forces, and less about empire-building and management. Depending on your preference this might be good or bad. It's worth keeping in mind battles are more fun now than they ever were in Empire, since the engine is optimized, and they also clearly made an effort to introduce more distinctions into the armies than there were before. Even if it's just France fielding "Fusiliers of the Line" against Austria's "German Fusiliers" it still adds at least a feeling of variety, and I'm guessing their stats are a bit different as well. The other main difference is that it's a lot more linear and objective-based than Empire, even Empire's short campaigns or the Road to Independence. This is kind of necessary given the scope, but it does make the game feel like it's on rails, which is obviously limiting. I'm hoping that either the Europe campaign or the Campaigns of the Coalition will be more open-ended and longer. On to Egypt now...