Comments on: The Napoleon Total War Conundrum

By: BubbaNZ

BubbaNZ — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:18:03 +0000

Exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, how I feel about the series, only far better expressed than I could.

The only thing I’d add is I lost inteest in Nappy TW after the 20th battle that unfolded in exactly the same way, complete with idiot arty firing into the hill in front of them; the hugely unbalanced nature of the British faction in the GC, and the pathetic nature of the Napoleon AI, who in real life was apparently no slouch on the battlefield.

What amazes me is that CA has never directly addressed the massive disillusionment its fans clearly feel with even an apology – surely overdue if they want to revitalize their brand.

Keep it coming.

By: frags

frags — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:18:17 +0000

I did enjoy the Kingdoms expansion for Medieval 2 quite a bit. I think Napoleon is better than Empire, but I still need more time to make up my mind on it.

Battles are pretty fun though, the campaign, maybe not so much.

By: Flitcraft

Flitcraft — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:20:56 +0000

Europa Barbarorum is superb, and goes a long way to redeeming Rome. In fact, I would still highly recommend anyone buy Rome just to be able to play that mod. It's lovely, and every faction is just a fascinating experience. It can't do too much with the strategic AI and diplomacy, which is a pity, but the battles and the faction tech trees are really good. And for all my problems with Medieval II, it's still quite a bit of fun in its final form and the AI shows the very occasional burst of cleverness. For instance, as I was closing on on victory as the English, the Pope started to turn on me despite the fact that he was English. He threatened to excommunicate me over two defensive wars that I was finally, after about 50 turns, on the verge of winning. Then he started landing troops in several of my territories because, hey, were allies, right? So when the break finally came, he started with massive stacks outside a couple key cities. It was really pretty impressive. It was also the only impressive moment for the AI in that entire game, but hey, better late than never. I've heard some of the mods for that rock. Empire has a great mod in the DarthMod Ultimate Complete that almost does for it what EB did for Rome. So, yeah, if you track down the good mods for these games, you can totally get your money's worth. But it is frustrating that uncompensated modders are the ones who make these latest Total War games worth playing, while the official product is sub-par. I'm grateful that Creative Assembly create powerful systems and let talented modders play around with them, but the people who have actually made the Total War games I enjoy are not the ones who are getting paid.

By: moromete

moromete — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:53:48 +0000

I still say Rome was a good game as long as you got used to getting the mods that pushed it to the limit. Europa Barbarorum and Rome Total Realism made it excellent in all regards. Medieval II and Empire I only briefly touched and never installed any mods. I will wait a bit until picking up Napoleon…

By: BNRMatt

BNRMatt — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:56:39 +0000

I never played the original two games, but I have extremely fond memories of Rome. Granted, the game didn’t have much replay value after the first couple grand campaigns, but it was a fun experience while it lasted and worth the $50.

Medieval II, however, was nowhere near as fun. I found the combat system to be so awkward that I skipped the battles whenever possible and let the AI duke it out. Unfortunately, that left me with a strategic game that was flawed at best.

I’m curious to see what you’ll say about Nappy in a couple months after the gloss has worn off.