Darth Napoleon Review (7.5/10)

[GasMask]

Beautiful.

[Lothar135]

I have just finished reading his review...Humpf! He was quite disappointed, dont you think? And because I know (and honour) his work, I also believe his words about Napoleon are true...and those words are not really positive in their meaning, not at all. Such a pitty. I actually hoped NTW WILL be a lot better then ETW. It seems CA (and that Kieran fellow) persuaded me again to buy a product, which is not really so great they promised....what the hell is wrong with me?

[Graphic]

So his main criticism is that the combat isn't slow and boring like the major ETW mods? I consider that a plus!

[shock33]

Darth was spot on in his review I just wish it came before I bought the game. I remember him saying he was buying NTW regardless and that why I bought it hoping for he would be modding.

I just don't understand how people don't see the melee bug or bad AI. When playing defensively you get the melee bug when playing offensively the AI will get confused and line up facing the east when my units are coming from the south. AI enemy reinforcements will march in front of my lines ignoring my linemen that are picking them off while they walk to the middle of the map the only way to get there attention is to charge them and engage in melee.

Artillery units should pack up and escape when all the infantry are dead I have no clue why the mount up and try to run my linemen over. On top of that whats funny is most of the time they are invulnerable until they deploy. Which means you can fire 8000 shots at them and not kill them even sending cavalry won't fix it. I just chased one with a group of lancers for 5 minutes until it set up on the otherside of the map and became vulnerable.

Stakes- Just like in darth pictures I see that every few battles for some reason they decide to plant stakes while being picked off by linemen.

Square formation- Just place one on each end of your lines and all the cavalry that isn't on guard duty protecting the Artillery will charge to it. Its like fishing in a barrel. You can send Napolean over and they will Ignore him and go after the square.

Honestly, I think people are mistaking the fast speed which can make you pay harshly if you make a mistake as some kind of advanced AI. However, because I nation build with the new liberating feature I'm still having tons of fun.

I can't talk for others, but I'm certainly not saying I don't see it, however it does now give me a reasonable battle (with recognisable issues as you've pointed out) which vanilla Empire struggled to do.

[Slaists]

Great review, Darth! I agree with most points you are making. As to the value of the official CA "NTW mod", for me, the greatest value is the drop-in battle feature and the MP campaign. The drop-in allows me to 'complicate' my own SP campaign by inviting friends to take over for the BAI in battles considered 'fair' by the auto-calc. This changes the dynamics of the battles (and the overall SP campaign) dramatically. After drop-ins by good players, battling the BAI in a "fair chance" battle feels like cheating... The MPC does not need explanation.

[Belegurt]

So his main criticism is that the combat isn't slow and boring like the major ETW mods? I consider that a plus!

well, that depends on point of views i suppose... there are those who find funny a fast paced combact and there are those who prefer a more realistic approach, it look like we just have different tastes

actually i'm a bit disapointed by napoleon but i must admit that is a HUGE improvement since ETW... NTW still is a great game, not buggy and with a better ai (well, not a good one, just a better one )

now i'm sad since the darth mod will be missed

i even think that CA should really go back to medieval/shogunate (yea pls, give us a damn shogun 2... PLS) so that the melee bug won't be a problem anymore

[TheOmegaGreen17]

Thanks for the read Darth, its good to have a respectable member of the TW community put his oar into the reviewer pool.

Sure you said bitter things, but you said good things also about the game, its done something at least, but I agree with 90% of the board that there should be mod support, proper mod support, and if CA ignore this, who knows what will happen to the modding community in future CA releases?

I love the Napoleonic era of warfare, work needs to be done, alot of work, they just need to give us a break with mod tools (yeah, I cant mod to save my life, I talk for all your modders here haha)

[Lionel-Richie]

I kinda find this review insulting. It's pretty much, "If you like this game you are a dumb child." And the complaints about the high lethality are only an OPINION. I tend to enjoy the relatively high lethality. I tried doing a MPC with DM with my friend but the battles took a relative eternity, causing us to lose interest in the campaign (especially, god forbid, if there was a crash and we needed to play a larger battle). So what if it's not perfectly accurate? I'm not here to play Europa Universalis. I'm here to play an entertaining game.

I mean take this quote:

Also the cannon shots are sharphooting turbo laser cannons, so again, tactical timing and strategic thought is limited to a quick pass of cannonry where the biggest ship eats the small. Simple it is. I can imagine a “casual player” dialogue during a sea fight:
-Now go to bed child… it is late and you have school tomorrow.
-Yes mother, let me crash them all with my mothership first! Kaboom! Yeahh. Napoleon rocks! Yeahhh.

If I had a better sound system set up I could probably hear the bitter teeth gnashing in dolby surround sound here. Goodness gracious. I dunno, after Yahtzee started "reviewing" games (read: creating a game journalism-related form of entertainment), it seems like I've seen a LARGE upsurge of people who are comically malicious in their reviews for the sake of sounding edgy like Yahtzee. I'm even seeing it on places like gamespy and whatnot. The hyperbole, the bad similes and metaphor...

After all, who is going to pay attention to a good review? Few. Now who is going to remember a vicious review? Most who read it.

It's sensational journalism. I'm not saying Napoleon is perfect, but the tone of the review and the methods used in it are in line with a new phenomenon that just reminds me how gaming journalism still lacks credibility.

[MarkP]

Comparing ETW and NTW is like comparing Kia and Mercedes. One is decent but has serious flaws, the other one is premium but still needs working.

Comparing ETW to NTW is like comparing an apple.. to an apple, from the same tree. The first wasn't really ripe when harvested, but a great chef could just about make something tasty out of it. The second is riper with a wax coating to make it look shiny.

[Bernhardt]

Great review. It isn´t harsh. It is made by someone who obviously likes the TW and didn´t like what they did to it (much like me). But really it has more chance to become great than ETW. The multiplayer option to play battles in the campaign mode in particular looks very nice. Hope CA fixes the AI, it´s the only thing that really makes the game not great. BTW, about the troops quick moves - is that really silly? Does it look too fantastic?

And above all is it worth buying, or should I wait some patches? I quitted ETW loooooong ago.

[JackDionne]

Thanks for going through all the trouble of creating a review for us.

As far as I am concerned how good or bad the AI is doesn’t concern me because I always prefer to play custom online battles against humans. My philosophy is: better to lose to a human than win against the AI.

As far as the highlighted color of units being bleu is immaterial as well, if they where another color then somebody else would complain, it’s such a minute issue it’s not even worth mentioning.

I do appreciate your concerned about the modding issue, however have seen and used your excellent work with Rome.

Personally it does everything I want it to do and a little more.

[johnpaul25]

Darth was spot on in his review I just wish it came before I bought the game. I remember him saying he was buying NTW regardless and that why I bought it hoping for he would be modding.

I just don't understand how people don't see the melee bug or bad AI. When playing defensively you get the melee bug when playing offensively the AI will get confused and line up facing the east when my units are coming from the south. AI enemy reinforcements will march in front of my lines ignoring my linemen that are picking them off while they walk to the middle of the map the only way to get there attention is to charge them and engage in melee.

Artillery units should pack up and escape when all the infantry are dead I have no clue why the mount up and try to run my linemen over. On top of that whats funny is most of the time they are invulnerable until they deploy. Which means you can fire 8000 shots at them and not kill them even sending cavalry won't fix it. I just chased one with a group of lancers for 5 minutes until it set up on the otherside of the map and became vulnerable.

Stakes- Just like in darth pictures I see that every few battles for some reason they decide to plant stakes while being picked off by linemen.

Square formation- Just place one on each end of your lines and all the cavalry that isn't on guard duty protecting the Artillery will charge to it. Its like fishing in a barrel. You can send Napolean over and they will Ignore him and go after the square.

Honestly, I think people are mistaking the fast speed which can make you pay harshly if you make a mistake as some kind of advanced AI. However, because I nation build with the new liberating feature I'm still having tons of fun.

NTW- You either hate it or love it.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

Good review Darth, although there are some points that you think are negative that I think are positive (UI & 'laser' projectiles etc...)
And I've got to say that from having clocked in 30 hours playing Napoléon, I haven't seen any meleé bug at all (Which is when the AI carelessly lets it units walk into your own units without charging (Charging into meleé is NOT the meleé bug) )

It's very common to see the AI form up a line of infantry to perfectly match my line and put one or two cavalry units to protect its artillery from any cavalry charge,
and I almost always see skirimishers breaking off to flank my line and AI cavalry going for my artillery and general.
I would have (based on my experience with the game) given it a 9/10, I think it's one of the best in the total war series.

-Greve Af Göteborg

[InferiorBeing]

As to the value of the official CA "NTW mod", for me, the greatest value is the drop-in battle feature and the MP campaign. The drop-in allows me to 'complicate' my own SP campaign by inviting friends to take over for the BAI in battles considered 'fair' by the auto-calc. This changes the dynamics of the battles (and the overall SP campaign) dramatically. After drop-ins by good players, battling the BAI in a "fair chance" battle feels like cheating...

Ah. So you're using the drop-in function not because you want to be more challenged, but because the AI is so you have no other option? And you just roll flat on your back and accept this, Slaists? That's great. You could just as well have walked up to CA's office, waving a white flag.

[PlacidDragon]

Indeed. I guess they want a histwar like game.

I find it a bit strange that people immediately rush out and call people "grognards", "old fashioned" and whatnot if one asks if it could even remotely resemble the timeperiod its set in. Line infantry of the day didnt consist of 160x Usain Bolt, a gigantic first rate massing thousands of tons simply couldnt turn on a dime and go 20 knots against the wind, etc etc.

I dont see how its wrong to at least make it semi accurate, line infantry walk, ships take a few seconds to turn, and so on. If people are desperate for speed, there is a speed up button (i dont have NTW, but its been in every other TW game, so i imagine its present here as well).

This is far removed from wanting a Histwar type of game.

[M2TWRocks]

So his main criticism is that the combat isn't slow and boring like the major ETW mods? I consider that a plus!

Hear hear! Amen!

Darth's review seems very, very bitter. And I'm not sure if it stems from the fact that for once, you can play a TW game right out of the box and get an enjoyable experience, thus negating the need for people like Darth, or if he just is cynical and pissed because of the lack of modding tools, so he's not giving the game a fair review.

I haven't seen the melee bug in this game. Matter of fact, he's the only one who has claimed it exists in NTW. I'm not even sure the guy has actually played the game judging from his lambasting, harsh review.

And what is this fascination with expecting the battle portion of the game to be slow as molasses. I've found the mods for most TW games that reduced unit speeds actually made the battle far easier to exploit against the AI. Not to mention the tedium of waiting an hour for the lines of battle to meet.

The game is enjoyable and fun, and is getting great reviews from official reveiwers and from just regular folks.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you armchair Generals aren't going to get what you want from an AI in any game. That's why CA has made the multiplayer campaign.

Good day.

[Redbeard]

I just don't understand how people don't see the melee bug or bad AI. When playing defensively you get the melee bug when playing offensively the AI will get confused and line up facing the east when my units are coming from the south. AI enemy reinforcements will march in front of my lines ignoring my linemen that are picking them off while they walk to the middle of the map the only way to get there attention is to charge them and engage in melee.

Artillery units should pack up and escape when all the infantry are dead I have no clue why the mount up and try to run my linemen over. On top of that whats funny is most of the time they are invulnerable until they deploy.

Well, I've only played it for a couple of hours, but to be honest I don't have such a horrible opinion. The worst things AI did were:
Suicidal cavalry charge at the beginning of the battle = cav unit EVAPORATES before reaching my line
Suicidal general, though this happens relatively rarely
Bizarre use of light infantry
Artillery set up so they couldn't hit anything
AI losing 8 Camel units to two militia units that deployed stakes
Everything about siege battles

The AI forms battle lines facing the correct way, and these lines approach in good order when attacking. It stops at a distance and engages in musketry. I've seen it melee bugging once or twice (rotating to hit sth with gunfire and bumbling into my units), but that was rare. If it was only smart enough to use its cavalry AFTER the line engaged, it would be a big improvement. Also, I feel the artillery department is where the human player gains a huge advantage over the AI - AI is bad at using artillery.

As it is, if the AI has a 2:1 advantage in numbers, the game gets somewhat challenging. With 3:1 its difficult. And honestly, that ratio for me holds true to all modern RTS games I play. I can't expect Creative Assembly to do much better than that...

[M2TWRocks]

I find it a bit strange that people immediately rush out and call people "grognards", "old fashioned" and whatnot if one asks if it could even remotely resemble the timeperiod its set in. Line infantry of the day didnt consist of 160x Usain Bolt, a gigantic first rate massing thousands of tons simply couldnt turn on a dime and go 20 knots against the wind, etc etc.

I dont see how its wrong to at least make it semi accurate, line infantry walk, ships take a few seconds to turn, and so on. If people are desperate for speed, there is a speed up button (i dont have NTW, but its been in every other TW game, so i imagine its present here as well).

This is far removed from wanting a Histwar type of game.

So walking line infantry, and a few more seconds of a ship turning will dramatically change your view of the game? Give me a break. They make it semi-historical, and semi-not to make the game more accessible to a larger market. True war gamers make up a tiny portion of the gaming market. And frankly, a company like CA would not make it marketing games like you describe, exclusively to war gamers.

No offense, but you're never gonna get what you want. You may want to try websites like this one: http://www.battlefront.com/

[Pdguru]

I'm not sure it's fair to ask the person who did so much to fix the weaknesses of NTW to review its replacement... that's a bit like asking Churchill to review the new labour government's policies in 1945. But it's good to get Darth's opinion on NTW (even if the comment about Africa is inappropriate).

My suggestion is that readers should also look at reviews that consider the game for what it is; a product for a market far greater than TWC; from the perspective of a player rather than a champion modder; and without pre-concieved expectations of 'fixes' needed by ETW - many of which are not possible and/or going happen (for whatever reason).

NTW is a fine game in many ways, a treat for lovers of the uniforms and drama of period; I am thoroughly enjoying it for what it is.

PS: A movement speed mod is already available.

[BemusedHorse]