Review: Napoleon: Total War

Your French soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder in a frosty paddock, muskets raised and ready to exchange fire with the enemy. Napoleon gallops reassuringly down the battle line behind them steadying their nerves. The little corporal, as his men affectionately know him, has successfully marched them across Europe and is now within striking distance of Moscow. If he can once again inspire them to hold fast and risk their lives for the glory of France, victory over the Russians will surely be within his grasp.

This focus on Napoleon and the elevated importance of generals are what make the latest game in the Total War franchise different from its predecessors. As with previous games in the series, players will still need to master battlefield tactics as well as their nation’s economic and diplomatic relationships to be successful. But the game’s focus on the life and career of a single character and its setting in the age of the musket make achieving that trifecta a completely different proposition.



When playing as France, Napoleon: Total War closely follows the historic conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte through one tutorial and three single player campaigns set in Italy, Egypt and wider Europe. Throughout these campaigns players are given regular missions, directing them to capture various towns or blockade various ports in exchange for monetary, diplomatic or military rewards. There is nothing forcing a player to complete the missions, but the lack of rewards for ignoring them and taking a non-historically accurate course of action make success in a campaign difficult. It makes the game feel slightly less open than previous Total War games, which gave players more of a free reign when it came to decision making.

On the plus side, the graphics on the campaign map have been improved and now show seasonal changes (turns now last two weeks instead of six months) and different terrain types more clearly. That’s important because armies suffer attrition in the snow, so planning your offensives around the seasons sometimes makes sense. Players are able to build a wide selection of buildings in their cities, ranging from civic buildings designed to increase tax to barracks and ordinance factories to produce soldiers and Napoleonic-era artillery.

The inclusion of research, added to the series in Empire: Total War, allows nations to develop new technologies and gain an advantage over others. There are a wide array of technologies for your scholars to discover, such as division of labour, which improves wealth generated by civic buildings, and fire and advance, which improves the effectiveness of your line infantry.

When it comes to battlefield dynamics, Napoleon provides an experience similar to Empire: Total War. The battlefield effects have been improved significantly, assuming you have the hardware to take advantage of them, and developers Creative Assembly have even gone to the effort of incorporating up to 64 facial variations for troops in each of the game’s more than 320 national unit types. While it all looks pretty enough, perhaps that effort might have been better spent on incorporating a little more cover onto battlefields. All too often battles consist of lining up your men face-to-face with the enemy and then sitting back to see who flinches first. As always morale is important. If one of your units routes, it may well weaken the resolve of others nearby. Again, this is probably quite historically accurate for the Napoleonic-period but it does limit your tactical options somewhat.

Overall, Napoleon is a worthy addition to the franchise and will satiate those fans that are hungry for more of the same. It doesn’t pioneer new ground but provides for dozens more hours of gameplay on the Total War engine. We wouldn’t name it as the best Total War game but one thing is for sure – this isn’t the franchises’ Waterloo. Developers have promised to add to the franchise in coming years.


Napoleon: Total War
PC
Developer: Creative Assembly; Publisher: Sega.
BETTER THAN: Shogun: Total War
WORSE THAN: Medieval II: Total War

Addictive but not quite as brilliant as its predecessors.

8/10