Napoleon Total War

[Plazus]

Just bought the game at the store today. Paid $30 for it. Will be installing it later tonight. I played Medievil II Total War last year and enjoyed it. Is this one any better?

[redman555]

Mean Empire Total War? Eh its ok, I think the sea battles are fun.


-BigBOBCH

[Gixer]

It's far better than any previous Total War series with the Naploen Empire Realism Mod.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=dfec1b3a19e5621394f60e39ff476839&f=1508


<S>...-Gixer

[Tac]

I have Empire Total War. Napoleon is just a ripoff the company did to make more money for selling the same game with the fixes Empire should've had to begin with.

That being said, both being the same game, I do like it but it still suffers from poor overall AI.

-AI just gets unlimited money. You can blast all their armies off, sink all their ships, raze all their buildings, conquer all their regions except the home region (and you control/burn all assets in that region too) and the AI still, somehow, can afford to build and sustain armies larger than what you can build and sustain even when you own half the planet.

-Quadruple-morale armies that can rush one unit into the face of grapshot, go from 500 men to 20 men in a few seconds and they do not rout but rather keep rushing your guns and manage to kill a few. Your armies oth, with the best generals, highest experience rating... rout when their gunners sneeze. Same goes for ships.. you know something's wrong when a 2nd rate ship of the line routs just because 5 sloops are near it shooting... and their sloops dont rout when you have several 1st rate ships of the line shooting at them.

-AI gunners have insane accuracy when they have 0 experience. OTH you tell your gunners with max experience to shoot at something and they miss by a wide margin. Same goes for ships.

-Strategic AI is broken.

I use Darthmod's Ultimate Commander mod for the improved ground and naval battles but I don't bother playing past 2 notch difficulty.. past that, the AI just builds massive armies with huge morale bonuses that you cant defeat simply because you dont have the money to counter that.

[Plawranc]

I love Napoleon more than Empire.

But with the mod I agree its the best by far. Napoleon I am better at because of the cavalry, in Empire cavalry were useless in Napoleon they are an effective striking force.

[Gixer]

Tac,

Try out the NER mod, it addresses AI etc and other points you raised quite well. Plus a lot of other improvements. I think they used some of Darth work and tweaked it more with his approval.

Must admit I haven't played much to NER lately ever since CIV 5 was released and still suffering from the "one last turn" till 1am some nights.


<S>...-Gixer

[Motherland]

Paradox über alles
I thought Napoleon (Empire as well) was very fun, though. I still miss the real time battles (even though the AI is completely incompetent), but the campaign is trash.

[Treize69]

I never play Empire or Napoleon with the difficulty above 'Normal', for the reasons stated- 5 full armies can't defeat one understrength one anything above that. Even on the lower settings you can get your butt handed to you by a smaller army if you autoresolve, but I usually fight out my battles and can manage pretty well, especially when I have a technological or discipline advantage- I've defeated a full Polish army in Empire (20 units, all at full strength) with 8 Prussian Infantry battalions (understrength) and one generals bodyguard unit. Took serious casualties doing it (I had to disband one of the battalions afterwards and lost most of the bodyguard unit), but I drove off the poles and held my position after almost an hour.

My main complaint in both games is that the Cavalry is totally fubared in both- nearly all units by this time carried carbines (including rifled carbines) and were trained to use them from the saddle, but for the most part only Dragoons and Light Dragoons have them, and Dragoons have to dismount. TOTALLY wrong. Curassiers, Lancers, Uhlans, Hussars et al were almost fully equipped with carbines from about the time of the Seven Years War onward, and were fully trained to use them- even Lancers and Uhlans were set up so that only the first rank or two were actually equipped with lances, the rest had carbines. Most units even had their own 'sharpshooters' equipped with rifled carbines from about 1750 onwards! But you'd never know it from the TW setup.

[Tac]

Tac,

Try out the NER mod, it addresses AI etc and other points you raised quite well. Plus a lot of other improvements. I think they used some of Darth work and tweaked it more with his approval.

Must admit I haven't played much to NER lately ever since CIV 5 was released and still suffering from the "one last turn" till 1am some nights.


<S>...-Gixer

I dont own Napoleon.. only Empire Total War.


.... just for kicks... 

[Motherland]

I never play Empire or Napoleon with the difficulty above 'Normal', for the reasons stated- 5 full armies can't defeat one understrength one anything above that. Even on the lower settings you can get your butt handed to you by a smaller army if you autoresolve, but I usually fight out my battles and can manage pretty well, especially when I have a technological or discipline advantage- I've defeated a full Polish army in Empire (20 units, all at full strength) with 8 Prussian Infantry battalions (understrength) and one generals bodyguard unit. Took serious casualties doing it (I had to disband one of the battalions afterwards and lost most of the bodyguard unit), but I drove off the poles and held my position after almost an hour.

Are we talking about vanilla?
The battle AI is ridiculously easy in both Napoleon and Empire, even on 'Very Hard'. Truth be told, I never had too much trouble with the campaign AI even. The campaign AI can get a bit difficult on Very Hard on vanilla since, as stated, it gets seemingly unlimited money, but even then it can't do much as once you get into battle you can massacre armies two times the size of your own pretty easily.

[Treize69]

Are we talking about vanilla?
The battle AI is ridiculously easy in both Napoleon and Empire, even on 'Very Hard'. Truth be told, I never had too much trouble with the campaign AI even. The campaign AI can get a bit difficult on Very Hard on vanilla since, as stated, it gets seemingly unlimited money, but even then it can't do much as once you get into battle you can massacre armies two times the size of your own pretty easily.

I have Darthmod- the enemy AI is pretty damn good, and at any level above 'novice' in the experience category, they can be damn hard to route- I've seen whole Regiments reduced to few dozen before they break.

[mechanic]

Are we talking about vanilla?
The battle AI is ridiculously easy in both Napoleon and Empire, even on 'Very Hard'. Truth be told, I never had too much trouble with the campaign AI even. The campaign AI can get a bit difficult on Very Hard on vanilla since, as stated, it gets seemingly unlimited money, but even then it can't do much as once you get into battle you can massacre armies two times the size of your own pretty easily.

My thoughts exactly. Very hard mode is still too easy. Couple of mortars and some grapeshot supported by line infantry can defeat pretty much 3 times it's own number even on very hard.

[Tac]

I have Darthmod- the enemy AI is pretty damn good, and at any level above 'novice' in the experience category, they can be damn hard to route- I've seen whole Regiments reduced to few dozen before they break.

Exactly. However this is not a darthmod thing only..it happens in vanilla too. AI regiments take insane casualties and do not rout. You can charge a single 100 man unit (not a general's unit) with your entire army of 5000 and they dont rout. Your armies, even if they have the highest experience rank, rout easily in comparison. Same happens in ships.

Also hilarious is that when you do manage to rout one of their armies they will rally back into the fight whereas your armies are impossible to rally, even when you have 3 general units chasing them to stop them from running away.

I wish I knew how to mod the game

[Treize69]

My thoughts exactly. Very hard mode is still too easy. Couple of mortars and some grapeshot supported by line infantry can defeat pretty much 3 times it's own number even on very hard.

I've had a lot of the opposite experience, especially when I use autoresolve to save time- I've had a full army under an experienced general, including many units with four or five chevrons of experience, routed and destroyed by an army less than half its size with almost no experience. I've also watched an enemy cavalry unit charge a position defended by four batteries of twelve-ponders firing canister and detroy them all, despite having only about 10-12 troopers left afterwards. Granted, I've also seen a single infantry battalion hold off two to three times its number of enemy cavalry and infantry, especially if they attack you piecemeal, but the AI seems to love to rush me at a single point- they can take massive casualties, but still break the line or do so much damage to me that I'm wide open to annihilation if I get attacked again in the same turn before I can withdraw and reequip.

[mechanic]

Ah yeah, auto-resolve is hopeless. I see your point there. Often thing like you described would happen to me also. Usualy it means I had made an error in the assesment of forces. If the enemy has strong shock troops, they can charge before you even know what is happening and cause alot of damage to arty units. Recognising the type of army (offense, defence, seige) you are facing is one of the things i try hard to concentrate on during deployment. I understand quite well the mechanics of the TW model, so making units route one by one and forcing the AI to throw away advantages became common. I just wish the AI was more tactical, so that I would be unsure of the result. In Vanilla NTW I felt I could predict the outcome far too easily of most battles.