Questions On the New Review

First of all, i liked the information received but i acknowledge CA still have work to do.

Your armies will have an even tougher time marching through enemy territory because the game will now model attrition--marching for long distances in enemy territory with no friendly rest stops in sight will decimate both their morale and their ranks. This is why it will be crucial to familiarize yourself with Napoleon's new supply line system, which will let you develop your larger towns and holdings into supply depots by researching larger granaries, as well as other food reserves. It's been said that an army marches on its stomach; thus, if you can keep your soldiers moving through friendly territory that will feed and supply them well, you'll have a much greater chance of success when you do reach your enemy's stronghold.

This seems fine but i have a few questions. I imagine that movement points will also decrease the more supplies are exhausted? but i also would like to know if the bigger the army the smaller the movement points considering that a large army is much harder to control and when marching it tends to form a very long column extending for miles. And the better the roads the better the movement, right?
If supplies are put in place then a new type of warfare should be available to exploit; out maneuvering your opponent. Therefore movement reduction should be implemented. Another thing i would like is for rivers to freeze during winter and armies have the ability to cross them in some areas if they invade during this season. But that said, most armies would find it very difficult to invade during winter yet it should be possible if its planned correctly. I hope your not making invading during winter impossible, just harder.
Also, will armies be able to forage in enemy territory? There are plenty of cases of armies foraging, from ancient to modern. And i imagine there will be ways to stop them foraging if your defending?
And finally, concerning this supply line, will there be a way to destroying it? Such as outmaneuvering the invaders and instead of attacking them in battle head for their supply line. I am hopeful this above is placed into Napoleon Total War.



To be honest, apart from the multiplayer battles during the campaign and an increase to graphics i found not much more interesting and too many obvious add ons which some have been in place since RTW or minor improvements.

What i want answers for are these:
- Sieges: Will they be improved in any way? There needs to be placed a much more important WOW factor in sieges because currently everyone autoresolves. Placing things like moats, trenches, cannons placed on the forts and taking forts should be costly in men.

- Pretenders: Napoleon had to deal with pretenders and it should be of inciting rebellions in the enemy territories. I am not talking about the already existing revolutions where the form of government can change, rather a general with the reasources available to rebel and fight for the crown.

- Having your allies be useful in military not only financial ways. In Empire Total War your allies never came to your help so what was the point. Fix this or at least give the ability to recruit volunteers from allied nations into our armies. Or maybe even both.

- Another big dilemma is guerrila warfare. Nations should be capable of recruiting men which have advantages on harsh terrain over other units. These should be able to hide in dense forests, mountains and deserts where they know the terrain and can never be brought to battle by normal warfare. Even modern armies like in the US in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan couldn't overcome them. They could really drive the enemy invaders out by showing them its not worth the struggle.

- Multiplayer Campaign? i remember this was promised before Empire Total War was released. Any news on it?

- Modding tools. For me, TWC Forums is dying down a bit and the reason is Empire isn't moddable to the extent medieval 2 or rome was. Please consider giving something more to the fans than just unit editors.



Overall a good review but i am not considering buying the game though if some of the above are improved then i might change my mind.

I'd envisage a fairly simple supply chain logistics system in the game..players plonking down and linking up forts/watchtowers 'disguised' as supply depots which have an 'efffective radius' which must all be linked up to make the chain, and and an advancing army at the frontline can only fight within the effective radius of the last depot.

Having seen that cartoonland campaign screenie of toy doll Napoleon stood in Fairyland Valley though, it seems that supplying porridge to the three bears is more appropriate.

Originally Posted by Fireright

Having seen that cartoonland campaign screenie of toy doll Napoleon stood in Fairyland Valley though, it seems that supplying porridge to the three bears is more appropriate.

Intelligent, polite views like this must be a delight for CA whenever they view this site, must make them very keen for more regular visits.
Personally I don't think there was anything wrong with the new campaign screenshot, and if I thought there was I'd hope I could perphaps manage to express myself without sarcastic terms like: "cartoonland, toydoll, Fairyland valley" and the goldylocks analogy bol....s!

Those three bears, buddy,will win this war !

I pretty much agree with the OP, in addition i want to hear something about battle AI actually. As present it is the only thing keeping me from playing empire total war, and i guess my decision to pre order napoleon is governed by the way empire plays.

I recall the logistics and micromanagement headache of Sudden Strike Resource War. RTS game involving fighting for military supplies, vehicle spawning factories, oil depots, hospitals to spawn new troops etc.

It sounded an interesting and 'realistic' addition to wargaming, ensuring tanks and fighting vehicles had sufficient fuel and ammo etc for map movement and combat.

Had initial novelty value for a while, but swiftly became an annoyance.

Plonking about with oil tankers and refuelling stuff every 5 minutes...chorefest.

Binned.