The new features
It’s set a few years later, but you could be forgiven for not noticing. A few new units appear, like some early steam-powered vessels, including the infamous ironclads, and there are some newer technologies to research, but that’s more or less it. And they take such an inordinate length of time to research and build that unless you’re grinding for the sake of it, or cheating, you’ll probably never see their benefits.More interestingly, a couple of new features have been introduced, largely to fit Napoleon’s story. His advances into Egypt and towards Moscow were famously inhibited by their respective climates, so “areas of attrition” have been added into the game. In the arid deserts, standard troops will be killed off by the heat until their unit is destroyed, and eastern Europe in Winter is similarly debilitating. It’s a worthwhile addition, but hardly ground-breaking.
Then somebody realised that if Napoleon took a shell to the head, it would wreck the story a tad – so somewhat clumsily, they made important generals invincible. Whether drowned in the middle of the Atlantic, shot between the eyes from point-blank range, or decapitated with a swift slice of a sword, they’ll catch a bus home and pop back in a fortnight when they feel better. Probably clutching an explanatory letter from their mum. As a concept, it’s just a bit daft. As a game feature though, it’s infuriating.
Continued overleaf...
