Darth Napoleon Review (7.5/10)

[JaM]

Damn, i should read this first before ordering... CA CA... its unbelievable you refuse to learn from your mistakes...

[Potato Fritz]

good review mate.

[G Rider]

Thank you for taking the time Darth.

[DARTH VADER]

Good morning and thanks for the first comments. I quote this because already there have started the same questions from Private messaging:

I will buy the game only when there are released mod tools official or unofficial. Else, I am done with it. Please keep that in mind DarthMod fans before you message to me about modding Napoleon again and again. If “The Creative Assembly” wants to get rid of us modders (or me especially)… now it is the right time to strike! Lock them all!

Also I clarify that the Story Screenshots are taken in time sequence so if you have a specific question or objection about them please restate below. As you may have realised I tried to be humorous in many of them, although the facts mentioned are more serious...

[PlacidDragon]

Thanx for a very thorough review Darth

Very unfortunate to hear that you will not be modding NTW (unless CA actually grows a brain.. which i'd say has a rather low probability...).. that really doesnt speak for the longevity of the game :/

[Beggar]

I suppose it was humorous, but rather it felt like a quite bitter review, specially the texts in the pictures... good thing you clarified that. Nonetheless I'm surprised at hearing you experiencing the melee bug when I've seen videos and pictures claiming it's not in. Now I see pictures and a review that proves otherwise.. what to believe? Or rather why it doesn't happen to everyone?
You raised some other points that were important too, that the campaign - even GC - is rather scripted. Reloading speeds and fast moving troops I was already aware of. Thanks for the review.

Regarding the modding tools - you'll begin modding if they allow similar amount of editing as ETW or more?

[Giovanni7]

I read very carefully the Darth review of the game.i agree in most aspects of this but....i think you guys miss something very important.except some very hardcore strategy games (like europa universalis or supreme ruler 2020 or hearts of iron ) which are for people who like to take care of everything even micromanage the smalest aspect of a nation,the rest of the games i thing its for a bigger target group of people.if CA makes a game with such an accuracy in units,such different calibrations in weapons or such a variety in formations and tactics,depending of the nation, the game automatically is for the minority of the 5-10% of people who like the historic accuracy.i think that if any of us had a game company even if he likes battles to be epic with thousands of troops,we would sacrifice the accuracy to make the game simpler in order to make more people buy it.i mean that if i give the vanilla empire to a friend who never play the total war series before and explain him a few things he would be able to play it.if i give him the darth version he will not understand why the units behave so differently or why they walk so slow and he is boring waiting the fight to begin, or why the cavalry cannot win in all situations the infantry and so on.we,the lovers of history like this kind of games because we have read tons of books about wars through the ages and we maybe know differences about units etc.but most people dont and they dont care to learn.they just want to play a couple of hours,have fun and they dont give a about historic accuracy.so as a conclussion i have to say that:games are made with a way to be easy for most people to buy them.its up to some very talented people like Darth and others to make the game different and offer it to this tiny 5-10% who like to play accurate and dont care to loose battles and thousands of soldiers.

[JaM]

cant say for Darth, but if there will be DBeditor compatible with NTW, then this game will be at least as modable as ETW and you will see a lot of ETW mods to be ported to NTW. until then, you can play vanila NTW, but its just slightly better than vanila ETW... agaisnt modded ETW, Napoleon TW doesnt stand a chance...

[deeptrance83]

This is weird, I have played all three campaigns and have not experienced any of these extreme situations. Did you play it once through? What difficulty level was it? This game smacks ETW down with the pimpness in vanillia standards. It's just too bad so many people will read your review and take it for parable. I disagree completely. You are a terrific modder, but as you stated yourself, this is from your 'modded' point of view. Not an actual account of the game and how CA designed it.

[JaM]

Giovanni7: you just want to play Napoleon TW game with no real tactics that was used in that time? most people play TW games because they want to see how war looked like in those times... i'm affraid, ETW and NTW are absolutely wrong in portraying the tactics of 18-19.century... i would like to see what would you say if in M2TW English longbowmen just stood, and only 1/3 of unit would fire the arrows....

Napoleon battles were not just a bar fight in the middle of field CA wants us to believe... there was a lot of field tactics in. and if you dont want to portray it at least semicorrectly, then dont do it at all....

[Blofeld2k]

I almost missed this, so creating this post for you others who might have missed it.

Darth's review:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=337315

[Chyeaaaa111]

Thanks, its good to see what the Savior of ETW thinks about the newest installment

[Mr. Sorrow]

Giovanni7: i would like to see what would you say if in N2TW English longbowmen just stood, and only 1/3 of unit would fire the arrows....

I did not know that Napoleon 2 was CAs next title, this time new longbowmen units for Wellington Good review BTW. I played for couple of hours but no meele bug so far...

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Haha... It was really good review by you, Dark Vader. I loved your nice comments and pictures during your playing. It is still sad see headless chicken-action in the battlefield. Like I see it many times. I think, it is better take those "lasers" off on mob. :p I wont see even my guys if they using 3000-century's weapons

[DARTH VADER]

Something else I would like to mention, maybe I put that later as a central info, is that I tested in Normal/Normal difficulty settings. The fact that there is still melee bug is something undeniable for me due to my tests. It is not as often as ETW due to indirect methods implement by CA to hide it as mentioned. I know though that it cannot be easily traced when the human players play too aggressively, rushing forward and using simple RTS tactics, maybe this is the way is meant to be played or beta tested, but those tactics are not clever or historic. Against an (able) human opponent these tactics would find a brickwall. If you just stay in a position and try to bombard the AI while it struggles to find a position to counter... it becomes boring.

And enough with that logic that most players want the arcade style to enjoy... look so many mods for the Total War series: RTR, Europa Barbarorum, Third: Age Total War, Stainless Steel... my DarthMod, and so many others which use clarity and preciseness to straighfrorward logics and try to offer so much better visuals and mechanics... why? Why none of the mods try to be even more arcade so to appeal to even more users? Do you know any arcade mod in twcenter? Maybe there is but its purpose is always the opposite from the start. To offer more historical accuracy.

And yes the review sounded bitter but it is sincere... I cannot stand this inner fall of The Creative Assembly all these years (my personal opinion as always). It seems to me that it runs in 2 speeds. One developer group works for the best and a mysterious group destroys the rest.

[GTFO. Jamie]

review seems a bit harsh, but im unsure as to whether hes comparing it to Vanilla ETW, or to what he has made of ETW with DarthMod. Still hope he takes a look at getting it and looking into making his mod for it.

Either way, all reviews are interesting to read.

edit: It was a comparison between NTW and Darthmod, in which case the AI is alot more effective in Darthmod due to his changes.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Great review. It says all.

The guilty is not to focus on the casual gamer who doesn't care a bit about realism, the guilty is forgetting the many serious one (and believe me there are lots of them) without putting any options to enhace the tactical experience.

[Chyeaaaa111]

Great review! But like others in this thread, I do disagree with you on one point. I've logged over 30 hours in NTW, and have yet to see the melee bug. And in those 30 hours, I've fought at least 25+ battles. Anyway, thanks for your review!

[DARTH VADER]

Then excuse me, the NTW dev edition had only the melee bug... the release/retail has it not (which came after 15-20 days)? Anyways, as I said, it is improved, and that is a good thing. I say above that I am harsh because I confess above I compare it with DarthMod but also I use my plain logic for history implementation to a game. The arcade style of battles is for me unacceptable. So I do not play it at all right now. If the unofficial mod tools come later (like the DBEditor), I will buy to create the DarthMod for it.


---edit
And sorry I thought that the screenshots I gave are quite a proof of the written things. Did I direct all this maybe? I wish I had time to make more screenshots of this usual battle AI.

[aus-rotten]

If the unofficial mod tools come later (like the DBEditor), I will buy to create the DarthMod for it.

[/B]

so there is hope.