By Adam Smith on June 14th, 2012 at 11:30 pm.
Napoleon: Total War, which was sort of Empire: Total War Strikes Back, is free to download and play on Steam this weekend. If you enjoy yourself you’ll be able to buy it with a 50% discount off the normal pice as well, which is jolly good. The offer lasts until Sunday 17th June 5PM GMT and has started right now, even though it’s not the weekend yet and you most likely still have to go to work tomorrow. You can read what Quinns had to say about the campaign-focused sort-of-sequel over yonder and it’s worth remembering that some modding support was finally added last year. The timing coincides with the anniversary of Waterloo in case you were curious.
14/06/2012 at 23:34 Fumarole says:
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes Total War but has yet to take the plunge. It’s how campaigns should be done in a Total War game.
15/06/2012 at 02:30 Vinraith says:
How’s that? That is to say, how does Nappy:TW handle its campaign?
It’s not (ick) linear, is it?
15/06/2012 at 13:28 Unaco says:
No Total War campaigns are linear. Never have been.
15/06/2012 at 18:30 Fumarole says:
There’s the standard Grand Campaign from all TW games, as well as campaigns of the Coalition members. What makes the game stand out are Napoleon’s campaigns in Italy and Egypt. These act as mini-campaigns based around what he accomplished. They have localized maps, and certain events can be triggered if you closely follow Nappy’s footsteps (factions surrendering, etc.). There’s also a mini-mini campaign in France that’s basically just a tutorial, but it tells the story of Nappy’s rise quite eloquently I think and is worth playing for the flavor it offers.
The War in the Peninsula DLC is great and adds much nuance, introducing guerrilla units in an interesting way.
Since it’s free for the weekend, I’d say try it out if you have even the smallest interest.
14/06/2012 at 23:38 Alexander Norris says:
This is one hell of an odd game to have a free weekend for.
That said, it’s very much excellent and great fun, so try it if you a) don’t already own it and b) have the bandwidth to download 20GB or so.
14/06/2012 at 23:55 Ringwraith says:
I unfortunately don’t have the latter. :(
15/06/2012 at 00:13 Connor Magee says:
20GB?
Surely thou doth jest.
15/06/2012 at 08:54 SanguineAngel says:
I’m still bitter that I paid full whack for Empire Total war which is broken every which way whilst napoleon seems to be the actual working version. I’ve not bought it on principal. And because I am a poor man now.
15/06/2012 at 09:56 PedroBraz says:
That is pretty much how its been since Medieval 1. I only learned it with Rome myself. Others first learned it with Medieval 2 and you have the honor of learning it with Empire.
15/06/2012 at 16:49 Meusli says:
You need to install the Darth Mod, it will improve Empire Total War enormously.
15/06/2012 at 09:22 ChainsawCharlie says:
20GB?! That’s half of Talk Talks bs quota
15/06/2012 at 00:10 westyfield says:
Empire: Total War: Apology Edition.
15/06/2012 at 00:49 Casimir Effect says:
I’m actually having a great time with Empire right now and, beyond the usual Total War problems (AI) and how bad the tutorials/manual are, can’t see what all the hate was about. 25 hours in and the end is no where in sight, can’t wait to start Boney Total War afterwards.
15/06/2012 at 01:01 westyfield says:
It’s a lot better now than it was at release; the AI was horribly borked back then.
15/06/2012 at 01:06 Casimir Effect says:
I can believe that – always heard that the AI would never invade Britain. If that’s still true then great, as France just declared war and I’m massively overextended in every theatre.
15/06/2012 at 08:55 SanguineAngel says:
That and napoleon got a fair chunk of the features that were touted for empire but not delivered
15/06/2012 at 00:43 Delusibeta says:
The GotY edition (which includes Empire and all of the DLC for both games) isn’t included in the sale, so I’m probably going to be passing on this.
15/06/2012 at 06:58 frightlever says:
The Total War complete bundle usually ends up in the Steam Summer sale, so possibly, probably worth hanging on until then for most people anyway.
15/06/2012 at 02:01 Real Horrorshow says:
Napoleon: Total War is like Empire: Total War except with 100x more detail and atmosphere. It’s great, highly recommended.
15/06/2012 at 02:27 Haplo says:
The timing coincides with the anniversary of Waterloo in case you were curious.
Wellington 1-0 Napoleon : Total War
15/06/2012 at 02:34 Zenicetus says:
If anyone is attracted to this by the idea of having grand Age of Sail battles, be aware that CA thought players were too dumb to handle actual sail mechanics. So you can drive your square-rigger straight upwind in Empire (and Napoleon, I believe), like a slow motorboat. It sorta puts the kibosh on actual sail tactics, when there’s no weather gauge advantage for either side.
I think there are mods that address this, at least partially.
15/06/2012 at 04:47 Mister_Inveigler says:
Living in New Zealand and therefore from the FUTURE, I’d just like to say that’s almost time to knock off for the day and enjoy a lovely Friday evening before the weekend. So this fits quite nicely. Or at least it would if I didn’t already own it and hadn’t already invested hundreds of hours into it.
So, advice from the future to everyone stuck in the past: Go forth and enjoy Napoleon Total War! Take a walk in Napoleon’s tiny shoes and tiny pants and change history for little people everywhere!
15/06/2012 at 08:22 Haplo says:
He may have tiny shoes and tiny pants but he compensates with an enormous hat.
I have a Napoleon finger puppet that proves it.
15/06/2012 at 06:57 Hunchback says:
Little typo there:
“50% discount off the normal pice as well”
15/06/2012 at 07:58 P7uen says:
He’s from up North, that’s how they spell it there.
15/06/2012 at 08:51 Frosty840 says:
Having previously lived in the dialup ghetto well into the broadband era, my crappy broadband speeds are putting me into another ghetto during Steam’s free weekends.
If I started downloading this now, it probably wouldn’t be finished until well into Saturday.
15/06/2012 at 08:55 Adam Smith says:
I really should have mentioned the size in the article as well. Shall attempt to remember to do so in future for things like this if my addled mind is the equal to my intent.
15/06/2012 at 13:11 Frosty840 says:
No worries. I’m just having a moan about broadband speeds. I started downloading May Payne on day of release but as I’m on plus.net, with their daytime caps, I was limited to downloading at night, at 200KBps.
Took me nine nights.
I’m getting increasingly annoyed at companies which release through Steam, but won’t allow preloading. If I’ve pre-purchased a game, to get access on release day, I’d really like to be able to actually *get access* on release day.
15/06/2012 at 14:56 KDdi@gmail.com says:
Virgin Media is the way to go. Downloaded max payne in 20 minutes.
15/06/2012 at 09:14 Hunchback says:
Speaking of Total War, i am quite disappointed in how CA treated Shogun 2.
I have 162 hours played, 80% of that in multiplayer, i love the game but ever since they launched the Fall of the Samurai DLC the MP battles have turned from melee-heavy and dynamic to static line-infantry bullshit. Mostly everyone’s using the new units ’cause they are of course OP and require considerably less skill to win vs classic samurai units, which is totally alright history-wise, but makes the gameplay quite … unrewarding.
*sigh* DLCs… Who invented that shit?
15/06/2012 at 09:43 ThornEel says:
Fun fact, Napoleon was in fact a video-game character :
He begins with a low rank, but as any good player, he gets promoted up to the maximum rank (here, Emperor, how original).
There is no specific motivation for that, like a cause or an ideology, obviously. It’s just the standard goal people will follow in those sandbox games.
He is a great tactician (using custom tactics he probably found online), great strategist, great administrator; easy when you can read the manual or go online for tips. Contrary to people IRL, video-game players are in charge of many sectors at once, and have to be great at every one.
(But when you let the IA resolve a battle, results are generally horrendous)
On the other hand, he is quite bad at diplomacy. Seriously, whose gamer is good at that? Particularly as often, this aspect is too simplified and not well balanced.
Of course, he is utterly pragmatic and ruthless : developing science, like any good Strategy game player (but not those super-weapons like the submarine, they are always a waste of time). Promoting equality, for example emancipation of Jews. After all, it gives you more ‘Citizen’ resources. Religion? Quite useful (if simplified by the UI) : go for Islam in Egypt, be Christian in France.
Said pragmatism tells that when attacked, first invade the neighbours to prevent battles happening on your territory (armies tend to debuff the local population). Then simply invade the enemies and put someone in the family tree to rule it for you. (Again, the IA can be quite bad there, unfortunately.)
The problem is that the developers wanted the player to simply ask for war tribute, take some territory and let the (weakened) country be. But players never think like that. The result is, of course, the remaining countries are even more determined to stop you, which results in war escalation and endless frustrations at the diplomacy screen.
And of course, like in any game, a few defeats will make you loss the entire campaign despite your dozens of previous victories. Particularly frustrating when said defeats are caused by the bugged AI who doesn’t follow your instructions.
18/06/2012 at 23:30 Sloop says:
NTW is a great game and if you have it and want the ultimate in historical simulation for this era, then try the free NTW3 mod offered by Lordz Modding Collective.