Hi, I bought CG Napoleon as an attempt to get my son into wargaming, and was moderately successful with it. At the time, I had promised to report on it, so... From a gaming perspective, I agree with Mike and Pat, Napoleon is easy to learn, plays quickly, and has a nice historical feeling to it (provided you have read Chandler). Also the game is pretty balanced, and has a lot of replay value: from one sitting to the next, I was amazed at how many different battles could arise from such a relatively simple system and small map... On the other hand, I was disappointed by a number of features. First, there was the battle system. Once enemy units move into adjacent positions, they can fight a battle, on a separate map, which consists in "off-time" battle rounds (as many as it takes), with a possibility to reinforce from neighbouring areas. In practice, the battle system looked to me like an elaborate randomized version of rock-paper-scissors (artillery-cavalry-infantry in this case)... Lots of die rolling, a few tactical options, which soon become very stereotyped, and usually, victory to the largest stack (the fog of war rules, introduced by the block system, never seemed to work satisfactorily in my playings). All the tactical stuff which makes the interest of the period is somehow lost in the process... And the battles, with their endless die rolls, are pretty boring to play. Also, losing the first large engagement usually proves fatal to the player (which is a bit ahistorical in this case), as a lot of units are lost in retreat, and as it is almost impossible to cut one's losses by retreating. After a number of games, I therefore had doubts about the ability of the system to simulate the actual events of the campaign (a victory at ligny, followed by a loss at waterloo). Finally, the game focuses a lot on the importance of movement. The historical setup, with the french massed at the bottom of the map, the brits at the top right and prussians at the left, invites a central position battle. If Napoleon is quick (and lucky) enough to defeat one side before the other arrives, he will win, else he will lose. Although this is historical, I had the feeling that this emphasis on troop movement was a bit exagerated, and that the game led to a very simplistic vision of the campaign (ie a part of Chandler's analysis). This brings my main concern about its historical value : Napoleon seems to fall into that category of games where the designer has a very precise idea of how and why historical event followed their course, and uses the system to demonstrate it... In this case, the Hundred Days campaign is reduced to a movement coordination problem. I do agree that this was an important factor, but the game seems to suggest it was the only one, which is a bit too much in my opinion. Similar situations are not uncommon in wargames. I had the same impression with (most) games about the 1940 campaign of France : through design for effect rules, you get almost invincible panzer units, impregnable Maginot forts, and a system which forces you into a specific vision of "why it happened". Overall, I had some fun playing the game, but had quite a few doubts on the historical value of the system... Did others have the same impression? Regards, Francois --- Francois Charton wrote: > This brings my main concern about its historical value : Napoleon seems > to fall into that category of games where the designer has a very > precise idea of how and why historical event followed their course, and > uses the system to demonstrate it... > > Similar situations are not uncommon in wargames. I believe this to be unavoidable for land combat games above the tactical level: once you get beyond the basics of movement speed, rate of fire, probability of hit, and so on, what basis for game design is there other than some theory of how and why events happened as they did, e.g., the theory that the Waterloo campaign was decided by the sides' respective abilities to manage coordinated movements? For a long time I knew that I didn't like operational-level land-combat games, but I was at a loss as to why. Eventually I decided that it was because their game mechanics were those of the design-for-cause tactical games (e.g., attack strength, defense strength, speed), just as if everything was a tank and these traits had physical meaning, but the values of these numbers were decided by judgement, and the entire construct (e.g., the Europa system) was something imposed by the designer rather than something based on observable physical quantities as in tactical games (especially tactical games about things (ships, tanks, airplanes) rather than people). In CG _Napoleon_, the operational-game syndrome is somewhat relieved by the existence of the tactical subgame. Simplistic and stereotyped as it may be, it provides more "texture" (i.e., variety of inputs, and related variety of outputs) than any simple look-up-the-odds-and roll-on-the-table system would, including that it lets the players take or avoid risks. Brian I've had only limited experience against live opponents and I'm notoriously easy to outsmart when playing against myself (or against live players too come to think of it) but I think there is a bit more to the combat system than rock-paper-scissors... You perhaps exagerate for effect, and I wouldn't argue with you much. Certainly compared to a more typical cardboard combat system of the era this is pretty simple. But each arm does have it's unique qualities, the player is faced with some important tactical decisions (to overweight one flank or another, or none?), can I risk another morale roll?, it is critical to manage the reserve properly, etc. It is true that the stronger side tends to win more often, and casualty differential tends to accelerate in favor of the stronger side as the battle goes on, and the losses from routing can outweigh the losses from fire, all true. But all also historical wouldn't you agree? And there remains enough random chance in the system that while the above trends hold true over time, there is no guarantee in any given battle. I don't know, it is certainly not the be all for a battle level game, but for generic battle resolution within the context of a campaign game I'm not sure how you'd improve it. Any additions seem likey to me to just add complexity without really improving the game. If you get the chance, I'd recommend a game against an experienced player, there may be more subtelty than you realize. Glad your son liked it. Is he still playing wargames? Mike Mike, Thanks for the comments, a few remarks : Ok, the rock-paper-scissors analogy is probably exagerated. What I tried to mean was that the battle system lacked historical feeling : the system coold be applied to almost anything, any period, and lacked (for me) the distinctive impression of the era. > It is true that the stronger side tends to win more often, and casualty > differential tends to accelerate in favor of the stronger side as the > battle > goes on, and the losses from routing can outweigh the losses from fire, > all > true. But all also historical wouldn't you agree? I agree, but I do think the game systems goes a bit too far in this direction. My impression is that most napoleonic campaigns (and this would certainly hold true for other periods, ACW for instance) were about more than just moving one's troops into position for the big encounter : before that, there usually were a number of small battles ou meeting engagement (Auerstaedt, or the small battles in the italian campaigns) which, while not extremely damaging to the losing side, actually decided who was to be able to participate in the "big one", and an important part of Napoleon's talent was his ability to coordinate all these smaller engagements to get an advantage in the end (seen this way, napoleonic campaigns often look like chess games in closed position, where small positional advantages obtained in the beginning translate into big gains when the position opens). Now, CG Napoleon handles everything through routing losses, which makes such "delaying" or "pinning" battles hard to model. Maybe adding a limited system of zones of controls would help. To take the example of this campaign, the big battle at Waterloo, with the french collapse in the end is adequately modelled (which is the least you could ask from a game on the subject), but I don't think the game could correctly model the extricating of the prussian army after ligny. > Glad your son liked it. Is he > still playing wargames? > More or less, we had some success this summer with Wooden ship and Iron men, but learning a new system is pretty difficult as I have to translate the rules from english to french before we can start on a new one... Prospects are good though, as his english level is improving in school and as he has access to my game collection, in a year or two, if I can manage to keep him somehow interested, I think he will be able to get into the hobby. Curiously, I have noticed that youngsters of his generation, through card games like Magic, are more interested in abstract games (like wargames) than we were years ago... Francois On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Francois Charton wrote: > Also, losing the first large engagement usually proves fatal to the > player (which is a bit ahistorical in this case), as a lot of units are > lost in retreat, and as it is almost impossible to cut one's losses by > retreating. After a number of games, I therefore had doubts about the > ability of the system to simulate the actual events of the campaign (a > victory at ligny, followed by a loss at waterloo). This is an interesting point, and ties in with John's comment on the difficulty of recapturing the Prussian disengagement after Ligny (the key, really, to the Allied victory in the campaign). What is interesting is that I found the same flaw in what is otherwise an excellent game: Rommel in the Desert. Despite the abstraction it is a very good rendition of the North African campaign except it is very, very difficult to recover from a defeat in battle. Yet the historical campaign like no other was marked by continuous seesawing to both sides, except that by the 5th turnover, the imbalance was such that recovery was impossible. > Overall, I had some fun playing the game, but had quite a few doubts on > the historical value of the system... Did others have the same > impression? I played 2nd edition a few times, and concur. We also found out that it was essentially not possible to repeat the historical Allied forward concentration. I've been told that 3rd (which has significantly more units and therefore different activation rules) does not suffer from this particular aspect. I liked it enough to buy the 3rd but have not had time to play that yet. Guess I should download the new rules for a start. Markus Last 3 games played: Red Sun/Red Star, October War, Pacific War --------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ --------------- "Bakayaro! Bakayaro!" ("Stupid Bastards! Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942