I want to start off by getting it off my chest that I was originally doubtful of this quickly announced "sequel" to Empire. I didn't expect anything out of Napoleon Total War short of Scripted Campaigns, where tactical decisions were forced upon me by a history book with a whip. I have come to ease my pessimism, and after near two weeks of constant play I think its about time I put my analysis of the game to script.

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Empire had a problem. Empire Total War felt like a child with irreversible Leucemia lying on its hospital bed with a orange juice waiting to die. A formerly strong child who played football at his local school, and now found himself on life support hoping for a miracle. Empire was broken. It crashed, it burned, and not any amount of resuscitation was going to bring Empire fully back from the brink, only keep it alive for a few more months of a miserable existence. Still, I stuck by Empires' side praying that some day it would get better and be able to play with me once again.

Napoleon: Total War, for all extensive purposes is the cancer vaccine the new engine needed. No more CTDs, higher frames per second (at least for me), and the final solution to so many minor bugs that made Empire almost unplayable.

No longer are my cavalry halting their charge due to a rather high number of walls. No longer is my enemy forming a giant asterisk in front of my lines. Hell, the AI can even land troops by ship! This is great!

Napoleon has improved the stability of the game in just about every way shape or form, and despite my computers occasional hiccups; where i go to get a drink as Napoleon takes a break for a minute-and-a-half to catch up with all the chaos going on on-screen, it runs perfectly.

As I've already stated I was very skeptical about the focused campaigns, being afraid of the ball and chain that was to come! Fearing with all my heart that I would have to return to Empire for a life saver before the ship went down! Nevertheless, I was wrong. Despite all my pessimism, I like the focused campaigns.

For some reason the focused Campaigns make the scenarios they are trying to depict more interesting. I can't imagine having to fight against Napoleon whilst simultaneously having to worry about two other theaters where potential enemies could be waiting. I could instead focus on bringing every state in Europe under a single cause and slaughtering thousands of Frenchmen to my hearts delight.

Not only did the focused campaign actually make me giddy, but this time, Diplomacy worked. If I asked a country for trade, I'd get it. If I asked a country to be my ally, I'd receive military aid. If I told a country to break an alliance for peace between us, they would! However I still found myself a bit disappointed when I couldn't simply gift a region to another ally without receiving a " You!" response. Instead the only way for me to "gift" a territory is to attach a little bonus of gold on the end of the deal, as if five-thousand gold is more important than Paris.

However, I can look over this little annoyance and carry on. The next best feature about the focused campaigns is that each has its own feel. While Europe feels like a giant war between super powers, Italy feels like that of a conflict between City States. Then there's Egypt which allows the Muslim factions to shine, and clashes Empires against Empires.

Then theres the new campaign features. Let me just sum this up in a single sentence.

The attrition system is perhaps the BEST new feature to come out of a Total War game ever.

Phew that was a hard one to spit out, a new feature being good, who knew?!?! Yes, the attrition game-play mechanic makes my back tingle and my best friend stand at attention. It says to me

"Archi, you can no longer just parade across Europe with an invincible army! If you lose men, your screwed!"

It makes my usual strategy of Attack, Route, Replenish, Attack again, Route, Replenish, seem more difficult, because instead of pushing an army back on the map, I find myself retreating to friendly territory to regather the five hundred or so men I just lose due to the overpowering artillery.

On that note, yay, artillery is useful!

The next great new feature is the Liberate feature. Yes, that tiny insignificant button that allows you to spawn a new country from your newly conquered territory. I love having so many protectorates and turning Europe into a rainbow!

No the truth of the matter is, I don't like to Empire Build. I like to fight wars for legitimate reasons, and when I capture a territory I do all that I can to rid myself of it before it becomes a burden, like a crippled child piggy backing me because he's too lazy to buy a wheel chair. Constant rebellion, loss of income, territorial expansion subtraction in the diplomacy screen. A newly conquered region is about as useful as this piece of paper here. Sure I can make something out of the piece of paper, but as it stands a piece of paper is useful for one thing: throwing it away. Liberating a territory allows me to rid myself of the useless pile of junk I just spend ten turns destroying, and leave its mess to someone else. If that person sees it fit to hate me, so be it, at least now I don't have to worry about whining populace that send letters of demand every two weeks. I have a huge pile that all say the same god-damn thing! I get it!

A lot of people bash the AI. I will admit, I don't find any real challenge in the AI. However instead of looking on this as a bad thing, I see it in a light of optimism. Because the AI is still not a total challenge, it allows me to manipulate it so that I can play out different scenarios however I see fit. Instead of just bum rushing the AI and slaughtering all of there militia in less than a year, I can toy with France, acting as the big brother constantly holding them back. Almost as if I'm trying to teach an aggressive dog the meaning of "Down Boy, Down!" All in all, it allows me to feel like a super power as year after year I send the divisions forth to put down the latest rebellion somewhere in my diplomatic empire, and send troops off to foreign lands to fight for the glory of the Coalition. Funny, sounds like the government of the country I live in....

I will admit however that the AI has improved drastically since Empire. It makes what to me seem like somewhat cohesive decisions. Bypassing my army if it has the chance, demanding surrender from a weaker force, even withdrawing from combat when it knows its been beat! The AI will actually combine groups of smaller stacks into one larger stack to fight me. It will avoid attacking settlements as much as it can and instead B-line for my weakest army in the territory, or the capital of the region if it has the chance.

The Battle AI however, besides keeping itself more organized still does its signature tactic: Flank. I've become convinced that this is the only strategy CA has programmed into the game. Every battle, regardless of positioning on the map, the AI's cavalry will FLANK. If not flank the AI cavalry will make a suicide charge into a wall of musketry in an attempt to kill my general. If not trying to kill the General the AI will actively seek the Artillery, often running into the hidden light infantry I had placed to defend it. In addition the AI infantry still plays their same old game: Flank. The enemy artillery plays there same old game: Stay put and THEN flank. Its not hard at all to corral an enemy army into a ring of infantry and gun down every last one of them. As soon as the AI sends half the army to Flank me, I crush the center and rout the whole precession. I've lost ONE battle...yes....ONE battle since first playing in late February.

Creative Assembly, I don't hate you guys, and I've been a fan of the Total War series since it first came out. I love your games, but for Christ Sake....fix the battle AI...please...pretty please! for me! *puppy dog eyes*.

To sum up this set of ideas, let me congratulate CA on the uniforms. I was never big on the Uniforms, didn't really care, I just like Total War for its World Campaigns and Massive Battles, and I'm not expert on the colors of a mans shoes two-hundred years ago. However the variety is very nice. The array of Uniforms makes engaging a new country in battle interesting, and somewhat distinguishable as to what units to look out for, and which to ignore.


All in all, better than Empire, still not perfect, but getting there.

6.5/10 - Buy it, its worth $30