Histwar or NTW?

[nix]

Well the hype for NTW is cranking up with over 20 new videos per day appearing on you tube and the game is not even released yet! I just watched a multiplayer 2v2 battle from the developers narrated by the production team. The battle purports to be on the field of waterloo (one of the preset historical battles): see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP1kxfNcT3w

It is all eye candy (very nice too but at the price of 18Gb hard disk space!) but very little resemblance to the historical field or its iconic buildings or the combat it is supposed to be modeling. Grenadiers hurling grenades? that stopped in the 1740s didnt it? Infantry deploying stakes to repell cavalry - good at Agincourt but not in mobile infantry attacks! Hougoumont looks less like the original than Imperial Glory's attempt at the buildings.

Having spent some time with HWLG I now think that for the historical enthusiast interested in the nature of Napoleonic battles there is no difficulty of choice. HWLG is far better.

[Petrus58]

Nix,

You're right - good eye candy. True, modders will get rid of grenades, stakes, etc, but it will be like all previous TW games: a bit of light-hearted fun. What does surprise me is that people continue to be surprised by this. TW games are not aimed at wargamers, they are aimed at a much bigger target audience who have a general interest in whatever period the game is covering. You either accept them for what they are or leave them!

I have played - and enjoyed - all previous TW games, but not for the battles but for the campaigns. In that sense, NTW might be a good game as it does offer something LG doesn't (yet?).

[AJ]

Did you catch the English square instantly collapsing under a cavalry charge, maybe they forgot their sharpened stakes, or the Allied CinC, Henry V had an off day.  Don't you just admire the speed march capabilities of the Spanish under their CinC Christopher Columbus, getting a whole army to Waterloo, fighting the Prussians, then getting back to Spain again before anyone noticed.

Sarcasm aside, I fear it will sell well. The graphics are good and it will appeal to the average PC combat gamer who isn't interested in historical reality. As for the graphics, I fight mostly in F2, I switch to F3 when things are going well and I want to watch, so I don't really care, although the time lag between 2D and 3D needs to be improved.

[Count von Csollich]

Not only the square being cracked instantly...but have you seen 3 lines of infantry firing at once?...over each others heads??? (meaning that the battle shows three entire units standing in a row and firing in the same directtions without the last ones being positioned above the front ones)...hopefully at least the Naval battles will be fun...

CvC

[nix]

Fair comment Petrus58, but it does surprise me when stuff that could be right without sacrificing 'game fun' and doesnt require much additional work is not attended to. The game is clearly aimed at the Napoleonic fan base many of whom will be anticipating some sort of 'historical sensitivity' (i'm not arguing for every detail correct or expecting anything like it). The game seems to claim some sort of historical motivation (being as it is story led campaign: a reworking of  Napoleons rise and  fall) and  the preset battles are supposedly depictions of historical encounters, so that simple stuff like the battlefield terrain and the sort of combat weapons and tactics of the time should be recognisably close to the historical cases. After all it would then please both the folk who dont know the history as well as those who do. ( Take the battle of waterloo, probably the most well known battlefield of the wars, with more books devoted to it than any other single battle. If your going to include it  one might as well do a good job of modelling the buildings of Hougumont and la haye saint since many enthusiasts will know them and be pleased to see how they are handled in a progeram that boasts such good graphics...Even 'Imperial Glory' back in 2005 attempted this.

[Petrus58]

Fair comment Petrus58, but it does surprise me when stuff that could be right without sacrificing 'game fun' and doesnt require much additional work is not attended to. The game is clearly aimed at the Napoleonic fan base many of whom will be anticipating some sort of 'historical sensitivity' (i'm not arguing for every detail correct or expecting anything like it). The game seems to claim some sort of historical motivation (being as it is story led campaign: a reworking of  Napoleons rise and  fall) and  the preset battles are supposedly depictions of historical encounters, so that simple stuff like the battlefield terrain and the sort of combat weapons and tactics of the time should be recognisably close to the historical cases. After all it would then please both the folk who dont know the history as well as those who do. ( Take the battle of waterloo, probably the most well known battlefield of the wars, with more books devoted to it than any other single battle. If your going to include it  one might as well do a good job of modelling the buildings of Hougumont and la haye saint since many enthusiasts will know them and be pleased to see how they are handled in a progeram that boasts such good graphics...Even 'Imperial Glory' back in 2005 attempted this.

If only!!!

[Markwooda]

I think NTWwill not be a patch on Histwar, especially if it is anything like Empire. The battles are ridiculously small and very two dimensional - get in a really big line and fire at the enemy, without even thinking seriously about reserves. Oh and don't bother trying to assault a position, because you'll be bogged down in some ridiculous hand to hand animation for about twenty minutes even on open ground. It's a fantasy game and like most people here I like the campaign aspect of the TW series.

I think Histwar after playing it over the last few weeks is something really special with massive potential, it plays and feels like a napoleonic battle. I don't know of any other game where you can  actually recreate battles so easily and to scale. The more I play the more intuitive it becomes and the more I like it. I would like to see a solo campaign aspect to it though.

The game is very young and as it evolves it will get better and better - the best thirty odd quid I've spent in a long time, thanks JMM.

[meissonier]

Both...

NTW for fun.

HTW for serious napoleonic wargame.

[Gunner24]

NTW with a decent class "mod" ( perhaps thgis one : http://naptacwar.freeforums.org/ ) will be a good game for what's it's meant to be, quick action and fast keyboard skills, it will be good for MP gaming.

If there's no mod then there's no reason to buy it judging from the daft videos with thiose stupid stakes that appear out of thin air....you would have thought the people at CA would have learnt something this past year.


 

[Petrus58]

If there's no mod then there's no reason to buy it judging from the daft videos with thiose stupid stakes that appear out of thin air....you would have thought the people at CA would have learnt something this past year.


 

I agree that things like stakes and grenades are ahistorical, but then haven't all TW games been similar in this respect (remember the fantasy units from RTW and Med2) ? Plus of course there is the campaign, which from the player reviews I've read sounds encouraging.

[Hook]

Everything I've read so far about the campaign sounds good.  Now all we need to do is encourage the TW modders to make a module to call HWLG to fight the battles on the field

Hook

[Petrus58]

Everything I've read so far about the campaign sounds good.  Now all we need to do is encourage the TW modders to make a module to call HWLG to fight the battles on the field

Hook

Now that would be something, especially with the drop-in battles in the campaign.

[Gunner24]

Plus of course there is the campaign, which from the player reviews I've read sounds encouraging.

A lot of people do spend a lot of time on these Campaigns, I've tinkered around a tiny amount with them and can see some attraction, but for me the time is better spent on MP.  Without the campaigns I'm sure TW sales would be no where near what they are.

[rbbane]

I've already bought HWLG, but, being a long time, (and long suffering) TW fan, will probably eventually buy Napoleon-TW, if only for the campaign, excitement, and eye candy.  
But I'm very cautious after the debacle of Empire, which is still barely playable, especially in SP, even after one year and several "dubiously" useful patches.

As Gunner24 has said, the modders will undoubtly help  Napoleon, (hopefully), as they have greatly helped Empire.
Where as we know that JMM will continue to improve an already good HWLG, definitely!

[dOrleans]

Both!

Ntw and LG are very different from one another although they are in the same time period. For a lot of years I was hoping for a good Napoleonic computer game...finally after Age of Sail, Imperial Glory, etc... there are two.

Napoleon:Total War and Les Grognards fill that wish for me. The two game cover the entire ball field. Both are very good in what they do. Also I'm very into the naval aspect of warfare.

IMHO you can't go wrong with either one, and if you have both then you're in for a lot of fun