Napoleon: Total War Wargame Project Discussion

[JaM]

for music, it was kinda bummer they didnt use a single part of Eroica symphony, which was originally indented to be a tribute to Napoleon..

[Sirlion]

Next follow-up question: What constitutes as realism for the player? What parts or elements of NTW elicit the feeling of realism? Does music aid the feeling of realism?

Personally I think the game is much better without music. Military marches coming from the drummers \ musicians themselves is more than enough, I vastly prefer ambient noise, wind, sound of battle in the distance, cannons and men screaming from far away. Thankfully mods aid that purpose. I've never put music on in NTW and ETW and I think it's a waste of auditory sense. I need to concentrate on the battle and what's going on in each sector, not be relaxed or excited by music. If there's anything I need to hear, is the sound of the guns.

There are also mods that give screams and \ or better sounds of battle and amplify the effects of smoke screens and dust. That can be immersive. CA's original smoke effect is pretty nice, much better than ETW's.

As for visual cues, well of course uniforms are a top priority. Vanilla NTW is decent, again, miles better than ETW which was mostly based only on british troops for everybody with different colour schemes. Now here they actually did their research, although still a bit superficial, it made the overall appeal of the game pretty good. Mods help immensely in this regard.

Another aspect which has been touched upon by Steph is officers and flags, both very important. Both were kind of shallow in vanilla but at the very least they tried to give them a semblance of plausibility.

[MasterOfArnor]

Next follow-up question: Throughout your responses you have mentioned immersion or historical immersion. How do you define immersion in terms of a wargame? Is immersion and realism the same? Aside from the visuals are there any elements in NTW that constitute as immersive?

[Prince of Essling]

Next follow-up question: Throughout your responses you have mentioned immersion or historical immersion. How do you define immersion in terms of a wargame? Is immersion and realism the same? Aside from the visuals are there any elements in NTW that constitute as immersive?

Immersion and realism to me are linked. Unfortunately NTW fails to give a good impression/feel of what Napoleonic era warfare was probably like. It does not encourage (nay preferably force) players to adopt correct tactics.

[Steph]

Immersion and realism are linked, but not exactly the same. Realism cannot be fully achieve. For one thing, the scale of the battle is too small. And you could have a very good battle engine, with good tactics; but ugly graphics or sound.

Immersion includes all the graphics, effects (smoke), but also the sounds (people screaming, explosion), the language, the name of the units and generals...

[Daniel_Mueller]

Everyone's own determination they make for what qualifies as immersive or realistic is entirely unique, however compartmentalized. You perhaps could have one crowd that has their base knowledge limited entirely to Hollywood, film, and documentary settings.
The core gaming crowd that looks at everything through the lens of being competitive in the traditional sense of what makes a compelling 'wargame', which the markets are noticeably more attuned to. They will certainly find that winning a victory against a well matched computer or most preferably a human opponent to be more then enough.
Another crowd, more likely the type you will find here; that have spent long intimate time and research into various niche categories in the history, cultures & sub-cultures that is suited to their unique tastes -- this particular age (Napoleonic/Post French Revolution-Monarchical Europe) as an obvious example.

In my own opinion. I believe NTW to be about as Immersive and realistic as a.. lets say a USA/CSA civil war reenactment. I say that being a resident of Virginia, which the history of my state is near almost entirely beholden to. I know other countries do reenactments, but not quite to the scale we do ours.

You have hundreds sometimes thousands of actors in the contemporary appearances & equipment. They move, act, and react in a way that is perhaps believable. Still obviously following rehearsed cues. It feels immersive to hear the sounds, see the uniforms or lack thereof. Witness the 'critical flash-points' that determined the fates of all to some degree or another.
By the time its over said and done with: one can agree it was a pretty cool and immersive experience and makes you feel a bit more introspective about yourself and the world preceding you, so much so that you might be motivated to invest more time to learn about it. Or per se try and understand it better. But to say it is and or was realistic is completely far-fetched, and most people would likely agree to that.

Thus my overall point constitutes to exactly that. One comes into a preconceived notion of period military action to one degree or another.
Plays a wargame; whether it is a table-top, computer-simulation , or role-playing game. That is either historical and or fantasy based, it is up to the brain or imagination to fill in the gaps.
That to me is how I personally adapt NTW when it comes to immersion.

As previously mentioned by other posters. The unmodified versions of the game only display battalion/regiment level engagements, that most people know do not fit the standard multiple corps comprising hundreds and sometimes thousands of battalions and regiments fighting each-other at different phases of the battles. Which could last days and weeks, versus an hour or less. Which is what CA usually confines its' battle simulations to.

In a few words. For whatever reason you may like or dislike how NTW is immersive/realistic vs. being unrealistic/non-immersive. Undoubtedly the more time spent limited to these settings compels some to want to take a deeper more refined look at the history surrounding it. Which in itself, is something I feel is an immersive quality NTW and similar titles have.

I am also okay to the fact many will disagree with me as to how warped or deranged a perspective on history CA takes to comprise a balanced an appealing wargame to the categories possible buyers listed above.



As a side note. One among us I know to combat a lot of these challenges has worked on a similar game to NTW -- Ultimate General: Gettysburg. Might be worth your interest, I'm sure you could have some questions for that player base.

[MasterOfArnor]

Hello everyone.

Yesterday I completed my Senior Thesis for Bard College and handed it in.

I want to thank all of you for participating in this discussion and providing insightful answers and claims.
Could not have done this without you.

Thank you all!