In what is probably the least surprising news of the month, Creative Assembly has announced what I think is an expansion for Empire: Total War, using Napoleon as the theme.
The turn-based campaign is split into three different story-driven campaigns, telling the story of the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte through his most famous battles.
In Napoleon: Total War, aspiring generals have the chance to play as the legendary French general Napoleon Bonaparte or as one of his opposing factions. Battling through his three biggest military campaigns, the game will take you through Italy and Egypt, narrating the early years of the fearsome commander, while the third campaign will tell the story of his fateful drive towards Moscow and, ultimately, his showdown with the Duke of Wellington at one of the most famous battles of all – The Battle of Waterloo.
So this is more Alexander: Total War than anything else, and that was the weakest of all Total War expansions. If this is an expansion, of course. They never really refer to it as such, but I assume it must be.
In the most surprising news of the month, Paradox is doing a Victoria sequel.
From the official forum description:
A sequel to the 2003 cult-hit, with a large devout following around the world. Victoria 2 is a grand strategy game played during the colonial era of the 19th century, where the player takes control over a country, guiding it through industrialisation, political reforms, military conquest and colonisation. Guide the USA to its Manifest Destiny, Make United Kingdom into a world-spanning empire, and make Germany the dominating nation in Europe.
Cult-hit is about right. It’s one of those games with a lot of great ideas but that really never worked as a great strategy game. I do think that Johan Andersson has a good grip on why Victoria didn’t hang together – he told me last year that it was “far too complex. I can’t make the effort or dedicate the time to get into it, and I’m the one who designed it. I programmed it.”
And another expansion for Europa Universalis 3 called Heir to the Throne. The game is already near ideal from where I sit, and some of the additions worry me a little. But I can’t complain too much.
(Paradox also announced a fan made game called For the Glory that seems to be a Magna Mundi type of thing, using the Europa Universalis time line and dozens of events. I can’t say I’m thrilled about the prospect.)
I am hoping for Vain Glory of Nations to be really good, so I will pass on Vic 2
Yes, Vainglory of Nations from AGEod should be interesting.
I’m probably alone in this, but I thought the Revolutions expansion made Victoria a lot more approachable and fun. It’s still an enormously complicated game, of course — probably too complicated for its own good — but Revolutions put enough game in there to make it worth investing the time to learn how to play.
Very excited about the new EU3 expansion. Sounds like they’re going to try to make the states behavior more historically plausible for the era with an improved Casus Belli system, dynasties, ruler legitimacy, and a sphere of influence system. Of course it might not work, but something like this has the potential to really enhance the feeling that you’re leading an Early Modern state rather than a generic one set on an Early Modern map.
From reading up about the For the Glory game, it appears to be a retooling of the EU2 engine by the AGCEEP (http://www.agceep.net/introduction.htm) people. If you think Magna Mundi is bad events wise, you’ll be blown away by these people. Where MM largely goes for creating new game-wide systems that flesh the out the rules and try to lead to more plausible results, AGCEEP follows down the EU2 path with thousands of very specific events.
This new game, from what I can tell, is mainly going to focus on improving moddability and the interface, or in the words of the team, “Our goal was adding what was missing in EU2 while keeping the spirit of the game.”
I don’t understand Vic2, and Vainglory is part of the reason. Do they really think the interest in the period is great enough to support another game? And I don’t think Vic1’s problems were soley related to the design.
And I hope the Napoleon game is an expansion and not something they try and justify at a larger price. Given the still incomplete state of ETW, including the still not delivered multi-player, announcing anything was a bad idea to begin with.
I love the fact that we are getting a Victoria 2 AND Vainglory of Nations! If done right they can be great strategy games. I think the Imperialism series is still fun to play. There’s a game series that needs another entry.
Re: Vic2 vs VGN, I suspect that those who are interested in the period will get both titles anyway. In addition to which, Paradox has its loyal fans who will buy the game regardless, simply because it is the Paradox engine.
Oh, I’ve no doubt that hardcore fans will buy both. But even Paradox historically has seen a vast difference in sales between the EU and HOI games versus everything else. And it seems smarter for them to try a new game rather then go back to an earlier one that is generally considered one of their bigger disappointments (at least until EU Rome came out).
@Sarkus: “I hope the Napoleon game is an expansion and not something they try and justify at a larger price. ”
Unfortunately they’re going the standalone full price route. I have severe doubts as to whether N:TW will work, there are no substantial changes to the engine from Empire so there’s no way it can support the Napoleonic style of grand tactics where corps manoeuvred and fought semi-independent actions miles apart from each other. Looks like it will be the usual 20 units per side lining up to face each other within the confines of some magic red lines they can’t cross.
I wanted to love Vicky. Love the time period, loved EU2 and HOI (1 and 2) at the time, couldn’t wait to try it. . .
After reading through that awful manual, I think I played it all of one hour of Vicky before I shut it off, never to turn it on again.
I hope Vicky 2 is playable.