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Napoleon Total War Hands On
We join the Little Corporal in his push on Vienna.
by Steve Butts 
January 13, 2010 - In just about six weeks the Little Corporal will be invading desktops in Creative Assembly's Napoleon Total War. The follow-up to last year's fantastic Empire: Total War will change things up a bit in presenting a story-based series of campaigns that track Napoleon's career from an ambitious artillery officer to the Emperor of France. We've had the chance to play through a build of the game for the last few weeks to find out just what to expect.
Our build includes two of the campaigns that will ship with the retail version of the game. The tutorial campaign tells the story of Napoleon's rise to power, from unknown Corsican student to the hero of the Revolution. It builds a player's knowledge of the interface and mechanics by following the story of Napoleon's early years. You'll learn about naval transport by moving Napoleon from Corsica to southern France, you'll study the intricacies of diplomacy by negotiating a trade agreement with the Swiss and you'll discover the joys of infrastructure management by building colleges, roads and researching technology near Reims. The real fun begins when Napoleon moves to study at Paris' Ecole Militaire and begins to seek his fortune during the Revolution. While you're busy building cannon foundries and upgrade gun smithies in Paris and Dijon, workers will go on strike to protest high taxes. You'll be encouraged to restore peace by adjusting the tax, building opera houses, or simply increasing dragoon garrisons. Once things have settled down, you can repair the buildings that have been damaged by the strikers.
The new campaigns let you follow in Napoleon's footsteps.
Things really heat up when Sardinia declares war on France. Under the direction of his mentor, Baron du Teil, Napoleon will convert the commercial port of Genoa into a shipyard. With ships under his command, Napoleon can send them out to leech off a nearby Sardinian trade route and blockade the port of Olbia. Soon enough the Sardinians will sue for peace and you will have secured the safety of south France. The last element of the tutorial to tackle is to kick the British out of nearby Toulon. The game teaches you how to raise an army and, more importantly, how to use a spy to investigate the target city, sabotage buildings and assassinate rival generals. Throughout the entire process, the game reveals small details of Napoleon's life story and even introduces new character traits that help track his growing ambition. You can opt to have the game automatically resolve the assault, but there's a separate battlefield tutorial that will let you take charge of Napoleon's modest forces during the Siege of Toulon. Since you're only commanding a single artillery group, two lines of infantry and the General's cavalry bodyguard, you get a chance to see how each unit type works and explore some of the unique tactics required during siege warfare. There's also a sea battle tutorial that recreates the Battle of Algeciras Bay near Gibraltar.
There as much detail and drama in the battles as you could want.
Most veteran players are likely to skip these tutorials however and bite right into the meat of the game. The first proper campaign begins in Italy in 1796. Austria, fearful that the revolutionary spirit in France will spark revolts in Austria, has launched two attacks into France, one through the Rhineland and another through Northern Italy. Napoleon is in charge of the Armee d'Italie and will have to first secure a foothold in Italy before pushing the Austrians all the way back to Vienna. Along the way, the campaign will offer up plenty of individual missions that direct you towards your ultimate goal. The map itself covers the territory from Nice to Klagenfurt. Napoleon's first task is to subjugate his neighbors in Piedmont-Sardinia. While I have the resources to tackle each region individually, if I take them one-by-one I'll waste lots of time and soldiers that could be better spent fighting the Austrians. Fortunately, I can take the nearby capital of Turin and subjugate the entire Piedmont-Sardinia faction. Now that they've become a protectorate of France, it's easy enough to spend a few thousand in cash to get them to declare war on the Austrians as well. The next mission is to liberate the town of Milan, which offers a fair bit of cash and access to the highly motivated but poorly trained Revolutionary Infantry. But the real goal here is to take the town of Mantua. The stronghold at Mantua is really the fulcrum of this entire campaign, as it is situated right in the middle of the entire avenue between Nice and Klagenfurt. Once it's taken, I have the chance to relax a bit, particularly once I get a supply depot built up to diminish the inevitable attrition.
The only problem is that liberating these two Italian towns (and others nearby) draws me into the fractious world of Italian rivalries, and I'm besieged with requests to hand over these towns to their original owners. I'm able to hold off most of them, but the Papal States get a little too pushy and decide to declare war. Fortunately, you can take a quick trip down to capture Ancona and eliminate their influence in this campaign. By this point, I've been attacked a bit in the field by the invading Austrians, but I can't get the Venetians to give me access to their territories to take the fight right to the Austrian's door. The only other option, short of declaring war on Austria and getting sucked back into Italian conflicts, is to head up north through the Alps. The bad news is that the mountains have two tremendous difficulties. First, the winter months eat away at a large part of my armies every turn. Second, the snowy passes are easily defended by small forces. Once I push past the garrison at Trient, it's merely a matter of keeping the reinforcements coming and waiting until Spring to push on to Klagenfurst. A good general has a sense of what's possible and at the tactical level that means knowing the units under his command. In the case of the Italian campaign, Napoleon will rely on just a few specific troop types. The core of the battle line is made up by the Fusiliers of Line. These line infantry are highly resistant to shock and can form up in squares to fend off cavalry charges. They're supplemented by Chasseurs, light skirmish infantry that have great accuracy and range with their muskets but are poorly equipped for melee combat. Like the other powers, the French are able to put the poorly equipped militia on the battlefield, but can also field National Guard units, which are sort of like elite militia. They're still not very reliable but serve as a cheap police force.
The winter is as deadly as any musket to your troops.
Revolutionary Infantry are a very special unit of ordinary people stirred up by the revolutionary fervor. They're not particularly skilled but they're willing to die for the Republic and are capable of tremendous acts of bravery on the field of battle. They may be weak in technique and training, but they make up for it with numbers and conviction.
Moving past the foot soldiers, are the Chasseurs a Cheval, Napoleon's so-called Invincibles. This light cavalry force won't hold up against powerful infantry or heavy cavalry but are excellent for harassing lightly-armed, highly mobile enemies and artillery. Better still, they're easy to hide on the campaign map, so you can use them for scouting. In Italy Napoleon will be able to use 6lber artillery. It's slow to move but very versatile. When facing enemies at a distance, it can be loaded with round shot. When the enemies begin to close in, the cannon can be switched to fire canister shot to deal damage at close range. The game also includes campaigns for Egypt in 1798 and a Grand Campaign that covers all of Europe from 1805 through 1812. There's also a separate campaign entry for the Coalition campaigns and for Waterloo but they're all locked in our build, so we haven't had a chance to try them out.
Artillery wins battles here, but only if you protect it.
Outside of the main campaigns, the game also includes nine key battles from Napoleon's career, from his outflanking the Austrian march to lift the Siege of Mantua in 1796 all the way to his defeat by Wellington at Waterloo in 1815. In between, players can venture down to Egypt to battle against the Mamelukes in the shadow of the Great Pyramid or try to hold off Nelson's destruction of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile. The next battle has the British smashing the remnants of the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar.
Back on land, Napoleon holds off the Third Coalition at Austerlitz. By far, the biggest battle of the bunch is the massive fight between 250,000 French and Russian soldiers at Borodino in 1812. The following year sees Napoleon repelling the Sixth Coalition's assault on the city of Dresden. Mere days before Waterloo, Napoleon enjoyed his last victory at the town of Ligny, which is included as a playable battle as well where Napoleon and Blucher face off. Trying to negotiate the river crossings and claim the buildings of the town is fairly difficult but Napoleon has a massive cavalry force on his right flank that can be used to smash through the enemy's weak points. Unfortunately, Blucher has substantial cavalry and infantry reserves that can be used to turn the tide if the battle starts to go against the Prussians. Napoleon will be invading stores in late February. Be sure to look for our review then. In the meantime, be sure to check out our latest exclusive campaign video in the media section. |
发表于 2010-1-15 10:43:07
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