Why do you think Napoleon is being made as a full price stand-alone product?

[Patchythepatched]

A new game stand-alone game with a full price yet with a short production cycle of less than a year, one that is announced while its predeccesor is still very much unfinished and in dire need of patches and one that seemingly offers less new content than CA's previous MTW2 Kingdoms expansion which offered 4 totally new campaigns and quite a number of new factions and gameplay elements. To me it sounds like either a cynical attempt to cash in or a desperate action. Stormrise was an utter failure for CA, so I put my money on CA struggling to keep their heads above water and trying to make a quick buck. Am I wrong here?

[Mikelus Trento]

I would argue that the development cycle is much more than a year, and in fact has been indirectly worked on the entire time ETW was being developed.

[Patchythepatched]

Just read an interview in the Dutch PC Gameplay mag where CA mentions that they started working on Napoleon immediately after the release of Empire. The team was quickly expanded untill they now have all 70 employees working full-time on it. They also acknowledged that there were a lot of problems with Empire but blame those on them not being familiar with how Steam works. Yeah...

[KingDave]

I would argue that the development cycle is much more than a year, and in fact has been indirectly worked on the entire time ETW was being developed.

So I was a beta tester? Why have I not received compensation for my hard work then???

[johncage]

this thread was already made and the question was already answered:

[bobbo]

Just read an interview in the Dutch PC Gameplay mag where CA mentions that they started working on Napoleon immediately after the release of Empire. The team was quickly expanded untill they now have all 70 employees working full-time on it. They also acknowledged that there were a lot of problems with Empire but blame those on them not being familiar with how Steam works. Yeah...

WTF, so steam is responsible for broken gameplay, incomplete product and moronic AI? Best excuse ever.

[Freddie]

I think you have mis-read that part about Steam, if not then that's a really bizarre think to say (from CA's POV).

So is this game really a stand alone product? I'd be really impressed with CA if it were.

[Chuffy]

Just read an interview in the Dutch PC Gameplay mag where CA mentions that they started working on Napoleon immediately after the release of Empire. The team was quickly expanded untill they now have all 70 employees working full-time on it. They also acknowledged that there were a lot of problems with Empire but blame those on them not being familiar with how Steam works. Yeah...

Maybe they should have had all 70 of them working on Empire.

The TW series is seen as big budget stuff but CA has never seemed like the kind of company to be able to tackle multiple projects at once. They've grown over the years but they're still too small to work on something as grand and complex as Empire while making like 3 other games.

And the Steam excuse is . Not only do the biggest problems have nothing to do with Steam but plenty of other developers can use it fine.

[Juvenal]

According to PC Gamer (UK), Napoleon will have two mini-campaigns (Italy 1796 and Egypt) in addition to a grand campaign running from 1805 to 1812.

Now here is the real surprise for me, it introduces attrition and supply systems to the campaign game and has two week turns!

There was talk of making the characteristics of commanders have a greater impact on the game, but no firm details were forthcoming.

From the above, I think it is sufficiently large step to be a new game rather than an expansion pack.

Napoleon looks to be an attempt to get closer to proper military campaigns, nearer to what we read in history books than the more generic risk-style encounters of earlier games.

Unfortunately the battle enhancements seemed to be mostly graphical (64 different heads for example), rather than the introduction of more intelligent subordinates to fight your army for you, although you will apparently be able to capture and use enemy guns.

[crazedwombat]

My question is...why would we buy Napoleon when they cant complete a game...honestly, I think they're doing what they always do, put out a half assed game, patch it a couple times and then let the modding community finish it for them since they seem to lack the skill necessary to put out a finished game (based on Rome, MTW2, Empire). I think they're jumping the gun a bit because there arent really any big mods out there that finish the game so why would we pay for an expansion when we've yet to get much of a fulfilled experience with Empire. They need to wait until we care.

On a side note. 70+ employees is a ton of people, but are they counting programmers/graphics or the intern that fetches coffee and the multilayers of management that are redundant? A couple months with 70 people working on empire could finish the game. My guess is that they changed so much from MTW2 to Empire that its a mess of destruction and they cant fix it, only bandaid it. Like the Stronghold series by Firefly, I question the skill and/or leadership of the company.

[KingDave]

So is this game really a stand alone product? I'd be really impressed with CA if it were.

You mean, impressed that they just took Empire: Total War, changed the map and a few skins and told you that you would have to pay the price of a full fledged game to buy this mod?

[Astaroth]

We already have a thread about this here so there's no need for a second one.

Thread closed.