The greatest military mind the world had ever seen was the French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. For almost three decades this man lead the armies of France in battle all over Europe in one victorious campaign after another until the fortunes of war finally ended up being against him. His Imperial campaigns have been the stuff of legend and have been studied for almost two centuries now as they are classics of military strategy and maneuver. Now you can re-fight these campaigns with AGEOD’s ‘Napoleon’s Campaigns.’

Napoleon’s Campaigns is a turn based strategy game that simulates the various Imperial campaigns of Napoleon; the Republic campaigns are not included. Players can play head to head or against the AI, and can select either to lead the French or their various European opponents. The game is divided into a series of scenarios that simulate all of the continental campaigns from 1805 until Bonaparte’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. The game is turn based, with each turn representing one week. Players issue movement commands and select postures for their forces, and after all such commands are issued wait to see if the commands are properly carried out by the officers of the game; the AI makes its movement, so even though the game is turn based the real effect is it plays simultaneously.

Each side’s armed forces are represented by regiments and detachments, and these can be placed under leaders to form divisions and Corps. At the start of each campaign most forces are already formed according to their historical deployments, but players can change this if they like. There is a cost to create forces, but this is slight and you normally have little cause to change the historical alignments.

You have a choice of using historical portraits as well as representations of the regiments, or you can use icons to represent the armies in battle. The portraits are quite good, and most officers have unique ones. The regimental portraits show a wide range of uniforms and help add nice historical flavor to the campaigns.

The map area is divided into zones with cities, fortresses and roads as well as other terrain effects. Weather and terrain affect how quickly an army moves, as does leadership and unit sizes. Larger forces cannot move and fight effectively; most units perform best if formed into Corps of three to four divisions each. Each military unit can have an activation stance which effects how it will behave when confronted by military forces. The default setting is neutral defensive, but this is useless for taking enemy cities and makes engaging enemy armies very difficult. You can set it to take any target it its line of march, but this can lead to enormous losses as it’s very reckless. Combat occurs when one side makes contact with another, and a series of modifiers are calculated to determine which side takes losses, but draws often occur. This game has some subtle combat results as numbers often mean nothing if leadership is poor or there are terrain modifiers and other factors favor the smaller side. Supply and replacements are provided for in the game. Forces must control supply depots as well as build new ones while defending their lines of communication. Units that suffer losses from battle and attrition can be brought up to full strength by remaining in a supplied city, and if replacements are available to replace losses. The winner of each campaign is determined by which side controls designated strategic objectives. These are in line with the historical towns that were vital to each side during a given campaign. If neither side can accomplish capturing or defending all of these within the time frame of the game, the number of accumulated victory points determines the winner.

The game interface for this game is quite easy to use once you understand how to do it. There are a series of easy to learn tutorials that will help zip you through this game and lead you on your way to victory for France or her opponents. The music is quite nice and adds to the atmosphere of the game, and there are good sound effects for battle and movement that help give the correct feel for this time period. As this game is an expansion of the proven system used in earlier AGEOD games, the AI works quite well and will put up a fight. This game is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Napoleonics and these fascinating campaigns. Each scenario is different and provides different challenges for the players. In the early campaigns the French have the advantage and this shifts as the wars drag on and things go badly for France.

Overall this is a fine effort from the AGEOD team, and anyone that wants a good war game should not miss this title. Be advised this is not a visual extravaganza, as this is a game that simulates the movements of armies in great campaigns, and it works very well in that environment. In short, if you love war games, don’t miss it.

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