DISCLAIMER: OK, first, don't crucify me for suggesting change to the TW battle formula. Just because it has remained unchanged since Shogun, doesn't mean it can never change.
Now, As some people may know, I am a great fan of the upcoming game Histwar: Les Grognards. Now BEFORE PEOPLE START TO
, I know that they are different games, and that TW will never be as simmy as HLG, etc. I also know that things like Aides de camp relaying orders, and them then being captured by enemies, is stupid to expect for NTW. I get it.
However, reading the HLG manual really brought something home to me. If NTW is based on the Empire combat model (face it, it will be), it bears no resemblance to the tactics of the day in the slightest. We are not talking "The Dragoon has bronze buttons instead of gold WHAT IS THIS HERESY?!?!?", we are talking Mario Kart Wii by comparison to race car driving. It's that bad.
Now, I was thinking, to borrow the phrase of Top Gear, how hard can it be? If a couple of Frenchmen locked in a barn for a few years can come up with a totally realistic system, how hard can it be for a multi-million pound company to at least come up with a system that occassionally nods to reality? The cornerstone of Napoleonic combat is the system of corps, regiments, battalions and detachments. If this is absent from the game (which it will be)...then...the essence of warfare of the period is lost!
Also, troops are supposed to deploy over a huge area in this time period. That is why real life Napoleonic battles were not two parallel lines of infantry, duking it out tediously. Really, they have utterly butchered the combat of the era. I repeat, this is not "somewhat unrealistic, but good for gameplay", it is like making a game about Rocket Science for Xbox and having the central premise of the game being "tap A to make next discovery". And that is it.
I may sound like an aggrieved history professor. That is because I am an aggrieved history professor, and am therefore not representative. But, while I do not expect a sim or anything like it, how can you have a historical game that has nothing whatsoever to do with the era it is set in?
Thank you.