Ahhh! The wondrous whizzing of cannonballs as they hurtle towards the enemy, leaving a path of death, destruction and disfigurement in their wake. The thunderous approach of a hundred horsemen, each willing and very able to lop the heads off your exposed infantry with just a single swing of their sabres. The wispy white smoke that fills the battlefield from the coordinated firing of an army of muskets while officers struggle to bark their orders above the roar of the ensuing mayhem. This is the incredibly immersive world we have come to know and love from Creative Assembly’s Total War series and Napoleon: Total War definitely delivers on this stellar reputation.

For those of you who were asleep or listening to 2pac on your iPod during high school history lessons, I’ll recap. The game is based on the illustrious career of its namesake, Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest French military minds in history, and follows his impressive list of battlefield accomplishments during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Instead of a single large campaign map, Napoleon: Total War features several smaller maps which represent the theatres of Napoleons major conflicts.

As with previous Total War titles, the campaign game employs turn-based strategy and sees the player producing and moving armies around a map of the current theatre of battle. One is also responsible for developing and maintaining the happiness levels of the populous in all the towns you currently control. Buildings are the key to achieving most of these goals, with a wide range available for construction: from a barracks for producing military units, opera houses for increasing happiness, to universities which open up a wealth of unit and building upgrades to give you an edge against your foes.

All in all the campaign mechanics are very similar to those that we have seen in previous total war titles: Spies, diplomats and special general abilities and character traits all make a welcome return. There are some new additions, however, attrition being most immediately visible of these. If your troops decide to go waltzing through the deserts of North Africa dressed in full army attire or if they go skipping through Russia in the middle of the icy winter then one would not be surprised to learn that they will suffer casualties every turn.

Once two opposing armies come together on the campaign map a battle ensures and the victor must be determined. This can be done either automatically (calculated on the strength of both armies) or the battle can be fought manually. Unless it’s a completely one sided battle, selecting the manual option is recommended. The turn based campaign map is temporary suspended and the game shifts into real time strategy mode as the camera zooms into the action.

In this new zoomed in view all the individual units that make up a general’s army can be seen and controlled as they attempt to route the enemy army. Your forces are made up of three main categories of unit: Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery. As new technologies are researched more powerful units can be unlocked. Employing an effective strategy is key here as well. Selecting all your units and rushing the enemy head on, Rambo guns blazing style, is a recipe for disaster. One should instead opt for the more historically tried and tested tactics such as attacking from the rear, running down unprotected infantry and artillery pieces with your Calvary and outflanking enemy positions.

As with previous Total War titles, units in your army have morale which in Napoleon: Total War is now displayed in a colour bar above each unit for quick reference. Sending them marching into a hail of bullets and mortar fire tends to decrease this morale rather rapidly, causing these units to route and flee the battle in panic.

In addition to ground forces, you are also in control of the Navy. The real-time naval warfare, first introduced in Empire: Total War, makes a welcome return and it has been tweaked to make the battles slightly shorter. Naval battles also allow you to capture enemy ships that have surrendered, thus encouraging you to make use of your ships alternate ammunition types. Load grapeshot into your ship cannons to destroy the enemy ships crew or use the chain-link ammo to immobilise the enemy ships by destroying their sails. Both of these give you a much greater chance of capturing an enemy vessel rather than turning its hull into Swiss cheese by peppering it with standard cannon balls and sending it to an icy grave on the ocean floor.

The computer AI has seen some improvements over Empire: Total War. The computer is downright sneaky on the campaign map and is more than capable of holding its own in the real time battles, especially on the higher difficulty settings. There were, however, a few times where the computer seemed to take complete leave of its senses as it sent a lone cavalry charge head on against my entire army. Um…obviously a reconnaissance mission to check if I wasn’t just kidding about the whole war thing or maybe it was just feeling lucky.

Visually Napoleon: Total War is stunning. The weather effects add huge amounts of realism to the battle and also actually influence its outcome as gunpowder units are more prone to having rifle misfires while it is raining. The landscapes are incredibly detailed, as are the unit models and behaviours. Zooming in and watching a single cannon crew at work is fascinating as they go through all the steps from loading the cannon ball to blocking their ears as it fires. The Naval battles feature ship sails that actually track the wind direction and decks that are alive with constant action: sailors climbing up and down the mast ropes, rival ship crews firing muskets at each other if ships pass close enough and then finally an all-out sword and musket fight as your crew boards an immobilised enemy ship.

In addition to the main campaign game there are also various other modes available. You can play a single battle, either land or sea, against a friend or the AI. You are able to customise your army for these battles by spending a cash allocation, alternately you can relive history by loading up one of the historic scenarios which are actual simulations of some of Napoleon’s more famous encounters.

The game even allows you to play the campaign cooperatively with a friend, if they have enabled the option to “drop into” other people’s single player campaign games and take over the AI role for single battles.
Overall Napoleon: Total War is another quality addition to the Total War series. It is more evolutionary than revolutionary in its changes from Empire: Total War, which in this case is not a bad thing at all. Creative Assembly it seems is a firm believer in the phrase: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

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