Napoleon: Total War is a standalone title, but essentially plays like an add-on to 2009's much-celebrated Empire: Total War.
Set during the French general's continent-spanning rampages between 1796 and his ultimate defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the title follows on nicely from its predecessor's romp through 1700 and the early 1800's.
The chief difference is the addition of a much stronger, pre-determined narrative. While Empire was pretty open in letting you do what you wanted, Napoleon follows the historical events pretty stringently throughout.
You can play Napoleon's campaigns as he marches across Italy, Egypt and Europe, all the way to Waterloo to change the course of history - or alternatively as the coalition of nations striving to put a stop to his ruthless advances.
This is a more focused style of play to the open sandbox of Empire, but - shock, horror - that's no bad thing: Empire could have done with is a more succinct, story-led set of missions running alongside the Grand Campaign (the Road to Independence played out as a tutorial in the most part).
The game mechanics in Napoleon are essentially the same as in Empire, and indeed share many facets with preceding titles in the series such as Rome and Medieval II. There are three game areas - the campaign map, the tactical land battles, and sea warfare.
CITY LIMITS The campaign map, almost a game in itself, keeps track of your armies and territories as a whole, whether you're playing as France - or one of the many enemies she made after systematically kicking-off around the world for 20 years.
The setup is familiar to those that have played the Civilisation franchise - you manage your cities, infrastructure, trade and diplomacy, and make large-scale troop movements across the map.
Cities represent your main tool for recruiting military units, and are where you create specialist buildings which aid population growth, research and more advanced weaponry.
You can send gentlemen out on diplomatic or espionage missions and trade with allies - but mostly you'll be manoeuvring your armies around ready for the next scrap.
Thanks to the 19th century setting, the campaign map almost feels like a much more complex version of Risk. (Though here there's less chance of ruining Christmas by screaming "HAVE THAT!" in your nan's face after wiping her out of Scandinavia).
While managing your empire and upgrading your city's infrastructure are a key aspect of the game, there's a reason Sega didn't name it Napoleon: Total Civic Management.
The main event in Total War games has always been the combat, and Creative Assembly has done well to emphasise this to a greater degree this time round. As before, the land and sea battles are played out in real time, and we're pleased to report that there have been improvements in both visuals and gameplay.
The first thing that hits when you enter the tactical battles is the sheer graphical elegance. It's stunning. Napoleon is based on the same engine as its forerunner, but there have been some graphical tweaks that add finesse to what was already a beautiful game.
Near photo-realistic water effects and vast, rolling rural landscapes create an unparalleled sense of scale on the battlefield. Fields of grass blowing in the wind; smoke clouds from a volley of rifle fire wafting across your front line; sunlight dappling across the ocean. It all adds up to a quite amazing level of realism.
Zoom right into the battle at ground/sea level and you're treated to some more incredibly detailed visuals. Units are all individually rendered, providing different faces, heights and builds.
Watching a melee battle is a sight to behold - it really is worth zooming in and just observing the ruckus. Infantry thrust and block their bayonets with amazing individuality of movement. Dust kicked up by charging cavalry drifts through the battlefield. Generals roar to gee up the men. At one point, we're pretty sure we saw one grenadier scratch his arse during a lull in the gunfire.
In terms of gameplay, the land battles in particular work a treat. Having placed various divisions of line infantry, cavalry and artillery on the field, the two (and sometimes more) armies go about manoeuvring themselves into optimum positions before the fighting starts. Once it does, the combination of infantry lines, cavalry charges and artillery bombardments come together to create some of the best moments in real-time strategy we've ever played.
The sea conflicts are equally stunning to look at - though it has to be said a little harder to get to grips with, and ultimately not quite as fun. But they definitely add an element of realism to the period, where naval battles were every bit as important as ground warfare.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN AI wise, apart from the occasional questionable decisions made on the campaign map (every now and again a rival nation will send a lightly-armed squadron of militia on a suicide mission to attack a city defended by dozens of your most advanced units) there have been some noticeable improvements.
This varies depending on how hard a setting you play on, of course. Set 'normal' to get the grips with the play - but do yourself a favour and whack it up to the highest difficulty once you have. The engine will genuinely surprise you at its best, and it's a shame to waste it.
As there's much more emphasis on conquering vast areas of the campaign maps quickly, the logistics of keeping your battle-weary armies stocked-up becomes more time consuming, compounded with new additions like attrition damage.
To some this may present a somewhat tedious task compared to the rush of the tactical battles - and at times later on in the game it can get a bit wearing. But this is a very minor gripe - and never verges on spoiling the experience.
More important is the subject of performance reliability. Empire famously suffered from bugging issues - it was one of the few solid problems you could throw at it. Experiences in this area varied, but many people complained of regular total system crashes.
Improvement must have been high on Creative Assembly's agenda when planning the next instalment, and we're pleased to see that they have mostly succeeded. The problem has not gone away completely - but is nowhere near as acute as it seemed to be in Empire.
Unless you have access to Skynet, turning the graphics settings down will dramatically smooth things along, and any subsequent patches will hopefully solve what issues remain.
It has to be said that much of what is brilliant about Napoleon is also present in Empire, but there's no reason to see that as a negative.
It is more of a controlled experience than the original - something fans of the open world dynamic may raise an eyebrow at.
But there's still plenty of room for interpreting challenges in your own way, and the campaigns offer a narrative framework which is genuinely compelling. And for history buffs, its sticks largely to the facts.
You'd be hard pressed to find a better thought-out, beautiful and addictive strategy game which to spend your hard-earned on, and the nature of the story based campaigns means there's plenty of new things here to keep current fans of the series interested.
This is a defining example of what great strategy games do best - and if the genre's your bag, it should definitely be added to your collection.
Andrew Wooden
Multiplayer review
The Multiplayer Campaign mode allows players to take each other on across a whole campaign, making turn based moves on the map. You would have to invest a fair bit of time in one block while you're both playing, but the potential is tantalising. The addition of 'drop in battles' is a great twist.
Whilst playing the single player campaign, there is the option to challenge another player online to play the opposing army, which adds a great human element and won't require the same sort of time commitment as an entire multiplayer campaign.
// Overview
Verdict
Visually stunning high-strategy from the masters of the genre
Uppers
Battle scenes that are unrivalled in graphical flair Genuinely engaging campaign narratives Innovative new multiplayer options
Downers
Occasional bugs remain Some rare questionable AI decisions
I might deign to buy this game once it's in the discount bin. Any games that have a mandatory Steamworks online registration are essentially rentals and will be treated as such. Until the price matches that designation it's a no deal.
Games using GFWL, etc. are completely black listed.
your missing out its well fun, CVG i think the multiplayer campain map should have got more of a mention
Possibly. However, the unthinkable happened after "Empire: Total War". I've lost interest in the "TW" franchise after having followed it from its inception back with "Shogun: Total War". I'm content to put my money to use on other things, buying other games. I do hope you enjoy your experience unreservedly though.
Having played Empire thoroughly, I think I'll give Napoleon a miss. Empire just wasn't a patch on Med2 and seemed to insist upon increased complexity for complexities sake on the Empire overview. Add to that an AI that wasn't upto scratch and campaign games quickly became stale and full of micromanagment.
Equally, I only ever needed to use one unit in Empire, Line Infantry in square formation as soon as Cav approached. So battles were actually dumbed down significantly which is the most enjoyable part of the franchise (otherwise I'd just play Civ4).
Med2 had the balance between depth and actual strategy, plus the setting just works 100% better (archers and cav units just are so much more suited to the style of gameplay). The sieges were better, the units were better and the idea was better (ie Crusades etc) and it was 200% less buggy
So yeah, I'll give Napoleon a miss, he's a French nob anyway
I concur, Chimpster. I had high expectations for "Empire" and I expected it to trump "Medieval 2". While I do not think "Empire" is a terrible game, far from it since I think it is a good game and clearly a lot of effort went in to its design, it never grabbed me the way "Medieval 2" did. In terms of game play, tactical finesse and atmospheric depth "Medieval 2" remains CA's opus, IMO.
I enjoyed Empire, but I think the series peaked at Rome. After Med2 (which I still thoroughly enjoyed, ftr), the series has been going downhill. Also, Empire didn't really feel like a Total War game - guns were just too big a change. I preferred the more melee-based warfare in the past games. I don't think I'll get another TW until they return to their sword-based roots, if they ever do so.
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Battle scenes that are unrivalled in graphical flair
