To bring on market in 2010 a game dedicat exclusively to PCs and which has as a main character a personality dead for almost 200 years and the game has no zombies in it, no Jedi, the character has no idea what handrail is and also does not have a laser gun attached to his belt. And if you look at what games occupy the first nine places on the list of the 10 best selling PC games in October last year, you can make an idea of what gamers want.
There are four Sims variants, three iterations of World of Warcraft, a shooter (Modern Warfare 2) and an RPG drowned in blood (Dragon Age: Origins), so the presence of a family member: Empire, even on the last place, is unexpected. And this is more difficult to explain to a person for which a game strategy begins and ends with Starcraft. Empire came with a list of annoying bugs related to AI, pathfinding, crashes and a slow gameplay even on the performant systems. With all its shortcomings, the game received enthusiastic reviews and sold well enough that motivate the emergence of a continuation of the series.
And if you like to lose your nights moving pawns on the map of Japan, sending Shinobi clans to slip into enemy palaces and managing the relationship with the Portuguese who took your parents for some poor harquebus, I have to remember that first game (Shogun: Total War) appeared in 1999, which is 11 years ago.
In a sad environment with rifles and wide belts, we jump in time, at the end of February, when Creative Assembly released on the old continent Napoleon: Total War.
Napoleone di Buonaparte is the name of the great emperor of the world or at least this was his name when he was called to eat by his grandmothers in Corsica, his native island. This is a character larger than life. At 16 years was lieutenant of artillery captain at 23, brigadier at 24, First Consul at 30. At 35 years, Napoleon became emperor. Until 18 June 1815, when he was defeated by a million of soldiers gathered under the banners of the Seventh Coalition, Napoleon faught with all the powers of that time and ruled an empire surpassed in size only by that of the Caesars.
The approach of Napoleon made by the game producers, as a subject for a Total War game series therefore comes naturally. The extent of his campaigns found an equal only in his pride and ambition. However, the appearance of a stand-alone game took the fans community by surprise. Empire: Total War already includes great empires of this time: the United Kingdom, Spain, Prussia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and, of course, France. Initially, Creative Assembly decided to treat Napoleon: TW as a simple addon for Empire, and to be honest, this is seen.
For a stand alone, the game has many similarities with the second expansion pack for Rome: TW Alexander. Most striking is the length of shifts. As Alexander, a tour in the game equals half a month. The detail may seem unimportant at first glance, but once you get the first mission, is crucial: each of the current campaign in the game (Italy and Austria, Egypt, European hegemony and the Battle of Waterloo) takes exactly the time took by its historical counterpart. In Egypt you have no more, nor less than 60 shifts to conquer Cairo and Damascus, that is exactly two and a half years, which were spent in Napoleon’s campaign. And if, lost among exotic places and started with creative pedantry, you start also city building, you’ll find that Mission Failed does not believe in tears. But let’s get back to our game.
With the same precision are treated all the campaigns of the game, starting with the tutorial and ending up to the Battle of Waterloo, which for a fan of TW can be mother and plague at the same time, like an saying expresses. Because a game that has the Napoleon structure must be well studied, and a limited number of shifts push you to tactical mistakes, forcing you to burn to the ground cities that you wanted to keep intact, the game does not allow you to develop technologies and to advance socially and culturally. Only in the massive campaign where you have to neutralize the enemies and to conquer Europe and Moscow you have enough time to cut and hang, reshaping the continent after your own desires.
The new factor appeared that must be taken care of is when you send troops in the desert or in winter campaigns. Physically and morally, your people will be affected by extreme heat and cold and will get sick or when they will desert the shelter. The weather plays an important role in the battle: the rain increases the risk of failures in the case of artillery personnel. All the news section is highlighted, through their absence, the diplomats.
The decision was heavily criticized by the community, but the damage has occurred. The chapter Political Relations is now managed solely by the game menu, which also got a few options in addition. Now you can ask the envoy of a foreign country to apply an economic embargo against the enemy, to break the alliance or you can give gifts to attract them on your side.
There can be felt the sensation of triumph which can be compared to that from the Empire, when you were extremely happy after a region had been offered to you on a platter after a relentless campaign of religious conversion and diplomatic lobbying. They just kept the spies and the gentlemen, who do now what they did in the previous game: assassinated, used sabotages or increased the speed of research in the intellectual centers. And they duel with enemy gentlemen.
Also at the chapter novelties enters the emergence of the supply stations, specialized cities in reunification of the forces after a lost battle. The area where the new forces are built will receive a bonus in the recovery of the units, and after successive upgrades, the bonus will apply to the whole empire.
