NTW: What would you have done differently?

I’ve been trying to stay interested in NTW long enough at least to complete my current Russian campaign, but its led to me pondering why NTW is so boring compared to ETW and what I would have done to try and provide a bit more interest and playability, whilst at the same time trying to reflect the actual issues that caused and influenced the Napoleonic wars.

So this is more or less what I came up with after a few hours thought. And I wondered what other ideas you would have had if you had been on the CA design team.

The fight for liberty
It seems to me that regardless of the fact that Napoleon was a tyrant, the primary issue behind the Napoleonic wars was the fight for liberty, and what exactly that meant.

The seeds were really sown by the American Rebellion about a decade earlier and took root in the French Revolution that provided Napoleon with the opportunity to rise to power.

However, despite the fact that rise of Napoleon effectively put an end to the republican dream in France. The fear of a similar upheaval and chaos occurring in their own countries was enough to unite the crown heads of Europe against Napoleon and to persuade them to work together to restore the old regime.

So, from a game design point of view what we really need is some system to reflect the threat of republicanism across Europe, and the desire to retain and restore the ‘old regimes’ that existed prior to the French revolt.

The main threat came from pro-republican individuals who used the French revolution as an inspiration to further their own vision of liberty amongst the populations of Europe, and from specific ethnic groups (e.g. The Irish and Poles etc.) who saw the French revolution as a model of what they might achieve for themselves if they rose against their imperial masters of whatever nationality.

In game terms the French player should be able to promote and support these individuals and factions to directly influence the level of unrest within the populations of other provinces and states. Even if Napoleon himself was no great supporter of democracy, he was enough of a statesman to offer liberty and freedom to others if it furthered his own ends.

This in turn would require the ‘Old Regimes’ to either conform to Napoleon’s schemes and thus preserve themselves under his protection (I’m thinking particularly of Spain here), or to invest in the necessary counter-revolutionary activities to protect their societies and destroy the revolutionary movements within their own countries.

So, given that the inspiration and motivation behind most of these movements is Napoleon and post-revolutionary France the sooner Napoleon is removed and France returned to the house of Bourbon the sooner things will settle down.

This then becomes the primary motivation behind the formation of the Coalition, and likewise the primary threat and gambit available to Napoleon in destroying that coalition and undermining its unity.

Promises of French support would influence the growth in independence movements and reform parties within those states that Napoleon viewed as a threat, whilst those that conformed to French demands and accepted French protection would be allowed to remain in power.

Death to the Tyrant

The coalition thus formed between the ‘Old Regime’ rulers of Europe would then be face with two conflicting goals. The first being to protect their own rule from the threat within, and the second being to remove Napoleon and restore order in France and the rest of Europe.

The annexation of land should only be a secondary issue and should be based upon negotiation amongst the coalition members. The basis of that negotiation being something akin to ‘prestige’. In effect, the greater prestige a coalition member accumulates within the coalition the more bargaining power that member should have in demanding money, land, technology and co-operation from other coalition members. Thus (for example) it becomes crucial to British interests that the Prussian’s are not acknowledged as the true victors at Waterloo.

Prestige, and support within the coalition would also be heavily influenced by the gratitude of those rulers whose power has been restored by your nations support. Thus it becomes important not only to offer exiled ruling families your protection and support even though it is expensive, but it also becomes important that you are seen to be the nation that eventually delivers on the promise to restore them to power.

The constant drain on your resources in keeping such dignitaries in the manner to which they are accustomed can only be justified if you eventually restore them to power and can cash in on their gratitude.

Likewise, having control and access to such dignitaries is a major bargaining chip in any negotiations you may be planning with Napoleon, if you are that way inclined.

Of course Napoleon has his own problems, in that his mother is demanding crowns for all his brothers and sisters who also need to be kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed and until he can find them a suitable throne he has to bear the both expense and the nagging.

He also has to monitor the loyalty and expectations of his own Marshals, who also expect the ultimate reward for their service and are prone to counter-offers if not satisfied.

Napoleon also has to consider the problem of ‘prestige’, as the French people are only kept compliant by the glory being heaped upon them under his rule. If French prestige begins to drop then the risk of a second revolution grows and the bonds of loyalty between Napoleon, his Marshals and his allies will begin to weaken.

Prestige is also the main currency in the influence of the revolutionary movements of other countries. If France is seen to falter then so do those movements using it for inspiration.

The Trade War

A substantial aspect of the Napoleonic Wars involved the battle for trade. As such the Napoleonic war was little more than an extension of the colonial conflicts which had been fought over the previous century between the main trading rivals that remained in the game.

Therefore, some allowance needs to be made to model these trading empires and to represent them if only in an abstract form.

They need to exist at least in enough detail to necessitate the allocation of ships and men to protect them, and to encourage the allocation of ships and men to attack them as this was largely the reason that navies existed at all and without some recognition of their existence the European conflict becomes a two dimensional battle of attrition.

Historically, the eventual dominance of the Royal Navy ensured that the French and Spanish trading empires were pretty much destroyed during the course of the war. But that need not be the case in the game. If Nelson had lost at Trafalgar then the situation might have been reversed, but that very success would have put greater burden on the French Army to provide garrisons for all those remote Imperial outposts.

Then again the extra income provides its own solutions. Historically Britain was able to purchase the troops it needed and had money to spare to finance the coalition. If Napoleon had been able to cripple Britains trading empire, or better still, seize it for himself what would that additional revenue have done to assist his ambitions?

Which brings me on to:

Money Talks

I have already mentioned prestige as a measure of influence which can be used to promote compliance and can be used as propaganda to encourage revolution. But money should have a similar potential within the game mechanic's.

As things stand one can give money away within the diplomatic system of the game, but thats pretty much a mugs game with no guaranteed payback on the investment. What is really needed is a system which enables a faction to negotiate a payment for results arrangement with its allies similar to that employed by Britain during the war. In its simpliest form this should provide a commitment of at a fixed rate for every man trained and put in the field by an ally against your chosen enemy, this payment would act as a subsidy to the training and equipment cost of the receiving nation and an expense to the treasury of the financier.

Payment would be dependant upon compliance to the terms set by the agreement and so would only occur when the troops arrived at the agreed assembly point, ready for active duty.

Manpower and recruitment

A key aspect and differentiator between the nations involved in the Napoleonic Wars was manpower and the mechanisms employed to mobilise it for war. It was also the main difference which set the Napoleonic wars apart from all the wars that had gone before it, even the American War of Independance.

For the first time in history we see the concept of conscription and the idea of a nation being at war, rather than just two rulers having a disagreement and hiring an army to support their cause. Armies up to that point had either been feudal, volunteer or mercenary and so armies had been limited in both size and resilience by the practical considerations of money and obligation.

Therefore, to do the game justice one needs to recognise the practical differences between the factions in terms of manpower and their ability to mobilse it for war. The number of men a nation has available should be determined by its ability to convert its population into recruits and that in turn depends upon the political status of its government and the size of its treasury.

At the start of the war most nations relied upon volunteers to fill the ranks of its armies and so the armies tended to be relatively small and the troops in them hightly trained, professionals who were hard to replace and therefore not to be squandered. The popular revolution in France and the 'levy en masse' ordered by the revolutionary government to defend the sacred soil of France changed all that over night. Suddenly, the French army had more men at its disposal than it could hope to train properly and could afford to squander their lives freely with the sure knowledge that the losses were easily replaced.

These differences need to be built into the game mechanic's with some system that allows a faction to mobilse a varying percentage of its population per turn based upon the political system chosen to be employed.

Conscription or the 'Levee en-masse' would be the cheapest system but would only be available to factions with a very high level of government support amongst its population as it will cause significant unhappiness every time another intake is activated.

The volunteer system would be the least productive although it would improve if the government was popular as was the case in the American War of Independence. However, the resource pool would be limited involving an initial rush of volunteers which would gradually tail off over time.

To maintain a long term volunteer intake the governments would need to offer added inducements in the form of a bounty payable to every volunteer and this would increase the manpower made available but also the cost of putting each man in the field. The positive aspect being that volunteers have only themselves to blame for joining the army and so the political cost to the faction is small compared to conscription and causes minimal unhappiness.

The final option is to hire your troops as complete units either from another country, or by subsidising the recruitment of men in another allied army. This obviously works best if the other party has plenty of spare manpower but is short of money and can either result in the purchased unit becoming part of your own factions army for an agreed period of time or simply made available as part of an allied army prepared to act in your support.

[place holder for Regiments and Uniforms - design your own army]

[place holder for Veterans and Glory - A more accurate experience system.]

Well, for starters, I'd include an actual AI in the game.

Anyway, I agree with your ideas. To add to your trade-wars point, this would necessitate the inclusion of other theaters in the game, even if only in the shape of a marginal representation. We wouldn't need all of the Americas, Africa and Asia ... but certainly some coastlines.