NTW's main competitor: Histwar Les Grognards! CA, pay attention!

Hey all and especially CA,

Given that ETW is still under heavy fire by this community I propose the following regarding cross comparison of games in the same genre (Disclaimer: This is not a push for one game over another):

I recently found out that Histwar: Les Grognards (a Napoleonic era 3d RTS covering the same areas as NTW) was cancelled for production by battlefront and then I found out today that it's being published, I believe under its' own company (I don't have the name though!)

The only thing I don't see is naval battles.

Histwar IS very tactical and will use MUCH skill against you!

Here is the competitions link: www.histwar.com

CA, watch and look into that production and learn please
hellas1

Yes, I am from the LG community, I know many others here are to like Gunner24 and Marshal Darsh. Their is no campaign in LG or naval battles. But the AI and in-game depth is huge, more then what any TW could be, anyway, I for one will be buying both NTW and LG. TW's give us the campaigns and amazing graphics while LG gives us depth and history. SO they don't really compete from my point of view, they don't play the same, but if I had only the choice of one, it would be Histwar LG.

I believe the games are in different genres. HW is wargamer,or iven simulation, while Napoleon is a strategy. I'm 100% buying HistWar, and I believe I will be buying Napoleon as well, for theese are two completely different games built upon different principles.

Personally, I'm being a bit cautious about both Histwar and NTW. NTW is the most suspect simply because of the hash CA made of ETW, but at the same time HistWar is still an undelivered product.

Assuming it actually makes it to distribution it could still be a huge dissapointment.

Remember 'Napoleon 1813'?

I still get depressed thinking about how close that game was to making it, but it fell at the last hurdle.

So, I have hopes, and I have all my fingers and toes crossed, but I think its too early to start hailing HistWar as a model of a perfect Napoleonic strategy game. Lets wait till its launched and we've played it.

The only thing I will say is that I'm definitely buying it, whereas I'm keeping my money in my wallet as far as NTW is concerned until I'm sure CA have resolved their problems. Who knows if we are really lucky we might end up with two great Napoleonic games.

Gameplay is obviously king, but I couldn't take any contrast between this and NTW seriously. Furthermore, suggesting it is competition is pretty ludicrous since this game could have come and gone and only those with a pronounced interest in the period or historically precise simulations would've notice. In fact, if it hadn't been nudged into focus on here so many times, most of the ETW/NTW community likely wouldn't have heard about it either. This is not a statement on the quality of either game, by the way, though I will point out that in terms of graphics, Histwar Les Grognards appears to be many years out of date and would have a hard time generating much interest.

Two very different games. Histwar will be more along the lines of the Take Command series: a huge tabletop wargame on your desktop. Which is great for some people, but I can imagine many others will miss the grand campaign and roleplaying aspect of the Total War series.

I am sorry to say that because of my experiences with ETW, NTW is the first Total War title I am not looking forward to with excitement. Whether I buy it will depend on how it is recieved by the community in the weeks or even months following release (though I'll probably get it as a present anyway LOL).

Originally Posted by Johan217

Two very different games. Histwar will be more along the lines of the Take Command series: a huge tabletop wargame on your desktop.

I've deliberately not read too much about Histwar, as I did not want to get my hopes up, but I thought it would at least have a campaign level. It will be dissappointing if its just the battles. I'll still buy it just for that, but I had hoped for more.

Perhaps, NTW should just use Histwar as its battle engine

Personally, I don't see a major distinction between the two games. They are both strategy games, and both set in the Napoleonic era, therefore, it comes down to which design captures the essence of the period more accurately. That for me is the real measure of gameplay, not the graphic's, which could be depicting anything.

Originally Posted by Didz

I've deliberately not read too much about Histwar, as I did not want to get my hopes up, but I thought it would at least have a campaign level. It will be dissappointing if its just the battles. I'll still buy it just for that, but I had hoped for more.

To be honest, I haven't read about it much either, for the same reasons
As far as I know, the campaigns in Histwar will be a series of battles where your results influence the next battle. But there is no strategic grand campaign where you engage in diplomacy or build cities or anything.

Originally Posted by Johan217

But there is no strategic grand campaign where you engage in diplomacy or build cities or anything.

Well I wouldn't expect that as its a bit silly for a game in a historical setting anyway. But I mean Frank Hunters ACW game managed to provide a campaign level that gave the player plenty of options and challenges. I was sort of hoping for something similar, but 'Ho Hum' we have to take what we can get it seems.

Originally Posted by Marshal Beale

So if we mixed LG and NTW together, it would be the ultimate, super Napoleonic Game!

Hmm! if I was going to cherry pick I would combine:

The Campaign System from Frank Hunters ACW game (obviously modified to represent the period)
The Battle System from Histwar
The Diplomacy System probably from Crown of Glory (its seems about the best attempt so far)
and the Graphic Quality from ETW (with accurate skins of course)

Might be worth a seperate thread to discuss perfect game hybrids.

Originally Posted by Didz

The Campaign System from Frank Hunters ACW game (obviously modified to represent the period)
The Battle System from Histwar
The Diplomacy System probably from Crown of Glory (its seems about the best attempt so far)
and the Graphic Quality from ETW (with accurate skins of course)

I don't know Frank Hunter's ACW, but I'm a fan of the Ageod strategy games (including ACW). They use a complex system of commander traits, terrain, public morale, attrition, supplies... but at the same time they are surprisingly intuitive to handle. I'm pretty sure HistWar will feel a lot like playing the Take Command series... which is fine for me

One thing I am a bit worried about is that these kinds of games can be so easily ruined by a poor interface. It's great that you can field huge armies and all that, but if you end up staring at a small 2D map for most of the time, it's rather disappointing.

Originally Posted by Didz

I've deliberately not read too much about Histwar, as I did not want to get my hopes up, but I thought it would at least have a campaign level. It will be dissappointing if its just the battles. I'll still buy it just for that, but I had hoped for more.

Perhaps, NTW should just use Histwar as its battle engine

Personally, I don't see a major distinction between the two games. They are both strategy games, and both set in the Napoleonic era, therefore, it comes down to which design captures the essence of the period more accurately. That for me is the real measure of gameplay, not the graphic's, which could be depicting anything.

You could spend some hours in the smallest maps or 4 days in the mini-campaign mode,
you could play historical battles or your own battles with the map editor, random maps or your personnel creation,
The best things are also the army creation with the OdB or the docterine editor because you could create an fast army with the random options or you could spend many days for only create and optimize your own army like for a football manager game to win agains the vicious AI or in the MP games.
Last but not least all the battles in Histwar are very parametrable, the "beginner" level is more closed more the TW games and the "Maréchal" level, for the purits of simulations, is more closed with the real conditions of the 18th century wars.
The MP battles are also original because you could fight 4 vs 4 players but with 2 armies, each army have 1 general with their 3 chef de corps and the winner will be the better men manager.

Histwar is more about reproduce Napoleonic battles whereas NTW will be more about campaign, the two games could easly be complementary.

For the history, the developement of the first FPC (First Personnal Commander) began in the same time that Shogun and it would acheived before Xmas (and NTW).

So if we mixed LG and NTW together, it would be the ultimate, super Napoleonic Game!

Histwar!!! simply cannot wait to play this game online.

Anyway, I don't think Total War really has any competitor. There's no other game that combines realtime battles with grand strategy (except Imperial Glory, but that was a few years ago and it was a failure). That's sad, because I am sure that if there was some credible competition in the genre, ETW/NTW would be a lot better.

I'm not getting excited about Les Grognards or wishing that CA would be more like it since LG could end up being a train wreck. LG is a very ambitious title that could easily fall flat. I hope both games get it right of course.

Thats why I'm being cautious too. I got really excited about Napoleon 1813 and was bitterly dissappointed when that crashed and burned just due to poor coding.

I can assure you, once you play histwar, NTW will be an afterthought.

does anyone else find the historical battles planned in NTW laughable? i'd bet money histwar will do asuterlitz 1000x better than NTW will, starting with replicating the exact battlefield as it appeared in the early 19th century. a historical battle in NTW is like playing a basketball game on an arcade machine vs NBA live 2010, one is a lot more realistic than the other.

that said, caution is advised with an indie developer making his first game, which happens to be a groundbreaking, original game, not a rehased first person shooter, for instance. lots of potential for failure in truth. at the same time this is an individual, working on his labor of love, who directly communicates with his customers on his forum, and is trying to make a trailblazing game that will advance the gaming industry as a whole... so who would you rather support? the money grubbing congolmerate of CA who lies to customers, ignores/bans customers, and schemes on ways to nickle and dime them out of more money.. or an individual who has worked tirelessly on a game for a decade?

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

I can assure you, once you play histwar, NTW will be an afterthought.

does anyone else find the historical battles planned in NTW laughable? i'd bet money histwar will do asuterlitz 1000x better than NTW will, starting with replicating the exact battlefield as it appeared in the early 19th century. a historical battle in NTW is like playing a basketball game on an arcade machine vs NBA live 2010, one is a lot more realistic than the other.

that said, caution is advised with an indie developer making his first game, which happens to be a groundbreaking, original game, not a rehased first person shooter, for instance. lots of potential for failure in truth. at the same time this is an individual, working on his labor of love, who directly communicates with his customers on his forum, and is trying to make a trailblazing game that will advance the gaming industry as a whole... so who would you rather support? the money grubbing congolmerate of CA who lies to customers, ignores/bans customers, and schemes on ways to nickle and dime them out of more money.. or an individual who has worked tirelessly on a game for a decade?

I would rather support whoever can provide the better product, with better service (especially after sales service). Big, small-I'm not that interested. Gimme the goods, I'll come back again. Sorry, I sold my soul and my Socialist Party membership card once I started earning a decent regular income and minimising my tax. Whats left of my liberal pinko values I leave outside the shop door if it means I get a discount.

One of my favorite PC game companies (Ubisoft) is pretty small but has a really tight community they listen to and support. It's a really refreshing two way street. From what I've seen from the forums for LG, it looks like the same kind of situation. I'm thinking about giving this game a go, mainly because of the wake up call it would give to certain companies (no names mentioned) and I'd like to see a small mom and pop business succeed.

PS I was only joking about leaving my values at the door, comrade.....once a pinko liberal, always a pinko liberal

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

I can assure you, once you play histwar, NTW will be an afterthought.

Thats pretty bold considering HistWar isnt out yet. No one really knows if that games going to be a bust or not. People have been hyping it up a lot on these forums but working 10 years on a game isnt always a good thing.

Besides size of the company means nothing. Big companies and small companies both make good/bad games. I'll wait and see, just because HistWar is going to be more accurate then NTW doesnt mean its going to be more fun.