Total War: Napoleon

[masteen]

Comes out in Feb. 2010. I wasn't that into Empires, but I am definitely looking forward to this one.

[Bubba Grizz]

Excellent! This should be a good one. I'm still playing Medieval 2.

[Xouqoa]

Empire just didn't have the same feel as Medieval 2... I have it, but I just couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why.

[Kaldaur]

Empire was a little too...grand. There was SO much to do, I felt overwhelmed most of the game. Also, think of how many games we play involve standing neatly in a row and shooting at each other. Empire required us to play a different kind of combat than we were used to, and I for one wasn't as big a fan as I am of the other Total War games.

[masteen]

Empire was a little too...grand. There was SO much to do, I felt overwhelmed most of the game. Also, think of how many games we play involve standing neatly in a row and shooting at each other. Empire required us to play a different kind of combat than we were used to, and I for one wasn't as big a fan as I am of the other Total War games.

I don't know about you, but I hardly ever even used archers in my armies. Perhaps it comes from playing Greeks so much in Rome, but I still use the Macedonian army comp that Phillip developed up until the Turk invasions in Medieval 2. Nothing like pinning your opponent down with a long string of pikes screened by mounted skirmishers, and then crashing heavy horse into his flanks just before my lines break.

[Ashur]

Ahh the phalanx was the king of battle for a long time... long spears and many ranks to lend them weight. I was reading a book about ancient methods of war recently and some of the examples they quoted were crazy on how many ranks of spear/pikemen were in particular battles. Ofttimes soldiers would just get very slowly pushed into the enemy weapons and there was nothing to do about it because you were being crushed forward by your own army.

On topic I have nothing to add, I wanted to enjoy Rome: Total War, but found the units not as responsive to controls as I would like and gave up on the series. I did like Cossacks though!

Edit: $10 on Steam for Rome: TW Gold. I may have to try it again on the big monitor....

[Kaldaur]

Empire was a little too...grand. There was SO much to do, I felt overwhelmed most of the game. Also, think of how many games we play involve standing neatly in a row and shooting at each other. Empire required us to play a different kind of combat than we were used to, and I for one wasn't as big a fan as I am of the other Total War games.

I don't know about you, but I hardly ever even used archers in my armies. Perhaps it comes from playing Greeks so much in Rome, but I still use the Macedonian army comp that Phillip developed up until the Turk invasions in Medieval 2. Nothing like pinning your opponent down with a long string of pikes screened by mounted skirmishers, and then crashing heavy horse into his flanks just before my lines break.

The only archers I used were the middle eastern horse archers. I had entire armies of these forces that would attack countries first, to weaken them up. As long as you didn't allow the archers to get pincered, these guys could move faster than ground archers and provide enough attack to obliterate enemy cavalry. Send about ten units of horse archers into a territory, retreat after the battle, and then move in with your infantry. My ground forces would routinely go up against half of the enemy's original numbers because of my ranged horses.