Napoleon Total War Review

The Total War series has had some rough times recently. Their last game(before Napoleon) was plagued by technical issues and people found it hard to find a game they could fall in love with. Much of the touted revolutionary new features ended up being a thin veneer that falls apart with a longer playthrough as the game has difficulties adapting to the changes introduced. Roughly a year after Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly has now released their new baby, Napoleon Total War.

Napoleon Total War finds itself in an odd position. Not quite a completely new game but not really an expansion. I’d call it a standalone expansion sort of like what Relic does(without the shared multiplayer module). Unlike Relic’s expansions, Napoleon Total War’s multiplayer doesn’t share the same code base as Empire: Total War. That means you won’t be able to play multiplayer against those that only have Empire. For whatever technical reason this is so, I think this is a big loss of opportunity on Creative Assembly’s part.

Napoleon Total War comes with three different single player modes(Story mode, campaign of the coalition, and Napoleon’s historical battles). One is the story mode in which you play through Napoleon’s campaign. The story mode is broken into 3 different campaigns that mirror Napoleons real life campaign, the Italian campaign, the Egyptian campaign, and European campaign in that order.

If you’ve been used to the Total War grand campaign games, you’d find the first two story mode campaigns(the Italian and Egyptian campaign), to be a bit too restrictive and short. The campaigns have clear objectives with parts of the game(like diplomacy in the Egypt campaign or research in the Italian campaign) locked out. I found that that Italian campaign to be extremely boring as there was hardly any challenge(the AI seemed extremely passive on the campaign map).

The AI could be intentionally designed this way in this campaign because you only have 24 turns. If it was anymore challenging, it could be impossible to complete the campaign successfully. The Italian campaign leads to a bad first impression for most Total War vets. I have to add that making a turn to be equivalent to two weeks is a very good thing. All four seasons now come into play and you need to plan your attacks to not coincide with winter.

The Egypt campaign fares a lot better as you are now given an optional objective of taming the Bedouins and dealing with Nelson’s fleet on top of occupying Istanbul and pushing back the Ottomans. Initially the Mameluks were a pain as they constantly raided the few early provinces I held. But their armies were weak and with better maneuvers on the battlefield, any human general can claim victory as you get used to battles with their armies.

The Egypt campaign was also pretty short, spanning 2 years(that's 48 turns). It leaves some room for you to go after the optional objectives but if you take your time, you could find yourself in a rush for a photo finish. Only in the European campaign does the game open up. The European campaign spans some 168 turns which is equivalent to the traditional Total War grand campaign. There are still objectives that follow the historical trends(your first objectives will be to silence the Austrians and Prussians before eventually attempting to take Moscow) which makes it different from previous more ‘open’ Total War grand campaigns.

There is another single player mode called Campaigns of the Coalition which allows you to play as another faction(since the story mode focuses on the French). You can play as Great Britain, Prussia, Russia or Austria. I haven’t played much of this mode so I can’t really comment much about it. Obviously Napoleon is the focus of this game and a lot more personality is put into Napoleon’s campaign.

How's the AI you ask? Well, it’s been improved compared to Empire: Total War, but not quite the sharpest in its class yet. Much of the problems with multiple theatre AI reinforcements (or lack of it) are removed since you only get a single theatre to play with in any one campaign. The campaign AI will never seriously challenge you(if you are a Total War vet) while sending regular forces that raid your territory.

There are definitely certain moments that will challenge you, like rebels appearing in regions with large dissent. At the moment rebels generate a full stack of high quality troops that might catch you off guard. This is a tad bit imbalanced in my humble opinion(and not really realistic).

The battle AI at last, is able to form a line properly. It however has massive issues with placement of artillery units. Sometimes it stupidly places them behind hills(to only have shots ricochet of the ground) or worse behind infantry. For the vets, only in battles in which you are overwhelmingly outnumbered will you ever face a serious challenge and a potential loss to your campaign.

There’s been plenty of small improvements included in this game which makes this better than Empire in everyway. Artillery is more effective now that battles have a real Napoleonic dynamic to them. Lots of battery counter battery moments. Shifting lines to counter enemy movement. Using cavalry for flanking and distracting the enemy. Placement of artillery is key to battles and you need to make sure the land is flat and you have line of sight. Tell tale signs like marks of cannon balls on the ground give away clues of a badly placed artillery unit.

Units are now more responsive and start firing much quicker. They don’t wait around to reform properly first. Creative Assembly dropped rank fire, which while powerful in Empire, caused a lot of problems to managing your line infantry as they reform too slowly. The battles are what it should have been in Empire. I’ve had more fun playing a single battle here than all the battles in Empire put together. I feel they have got the perfect feel of Napoleonic warfare in Napoleon Total War.

Supply and attrition makes a first appearance in Napoleon Total War. This is of course mainly to simulate Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign. Attrition takes place in winter(and in the desert in the Egyptian campaign), and your armies trekking in the snow will experience a small loss of numbers. Attrition alone isn’t going to tear your army apart, but added to the losses in battles, attrition can be a small factor that slowly eat away at your army.

Supply is implemented a little differently from the typical wargame notion of supply. Supply basically automatically replenishes your armies. As you fight battles and take losses, you can’t retrain units now and must depend on supply to replenish your depleted army. Your armies can only replenish in its own territories and you can improve the replenishment rates by building supply centers. It does take a while to replenish your troops this time making your expansion slower.

Napoleon Total War is, in my mind, the best Total War multiplayer experience available. The drop in battles are a brilliant addition. You can invite anyone in your Steam friends lists(or open it to the public) to drop in any battle you play in your campaigns. It’s a neat feature but the interface for it in the multiplayer menu is weak(it just tries to match you to someone automatically) and could do with some improvements(like a browser of available battles to join).

Multiplayer battles are very good as the battles now fits the feel of Napoleonic period better. Which may or may not be your thing as it isn’t the ancient Rome or Medieval type battles where you have two huge armies clashing. It’s about methodical tactical movements on the field. Paced a lot slower than the old Total War games(I’m repeating this point because I really like the battles). You still get the problem of players camping on hills(or in their deployment zones) with artillery but its not something that cannot be overcome. The best multiplayer battles are those that use a good balance of units.

Naval battles are still clunky and using more than 3 ships makes the battles chaotic and difficult to manage. It’s still something that some people will love but most people will stick to land battles. They’ve added the new ability to repair your ships in battles now which can lengthen naval battles a bit but it still doesn’t quite give it the je ne sais qoi that naval battles need.

The campaign multiplayer is the same as in Empire and you are restricted to only a 1v1 campaign. A game the size of Total War games need a bigger player count. At the moment, campaign multiplayer is only a try it and forget feature. Increase the player count CA!

Napoleon Total War is a better effort than Empire Total War and perhaps many would agree, it’s what Empire Total War should have been. Plenty of small new changes that refine the Total War experience for the better. They still need to work on AI a lot more. You can try out the demo here.

Pros:

- Minor improvements and tweaks in UI, unit balance, and unit ability that makes the game play a lot more strategic.

- Graphics have been brushed up making the game a lot better looking than Empire.

-Major performance improvements to the game. Loads faster and the campaign maps are much more smoother.

-Multiplayer is the best in the series.

-Very stable compared to Empire.

-Historical battles are back! If you want to just jump into a battle, this is a great single player mode.

Cons:

-Single player campaign is decent but replayability is lower than previous titles.

-You’d still outwit the AI once you understand how it reacts to your forces.

-Naval battles still a little chaotic and unmanageable.

-Siege battles improved but still not compelling.

Verdict: Multiplayer is the bomb!