Wargame review of Napoleon against Europe

 I played a few games of Napoleon vs. Europe (NaE), a strategy wargame spanning the entire period of the Napoleonic Wars. At the heart of it is a card engine; Most of the actions you take are related to cards. Of the wargames dedicated to this period, I had to play The Napoleonic Wars and Wellington (a card engine wargame from GMT Games). They didn't leave a particularly bright impression, because both games adhere to the real story quite strictly and do not generate such a tense atmosphere as other wargames on the card engine such as Hannibal, Paths of Glory and Crusade and Revolution. After looking at the box, the map of Europe, and some of the cards, I decided to buy Napoleon against Europe in the hope that the game would have about the same experience as the old Napoleonic wargames I played a long time ago (Empires in Arms and War and Peace by Avalon Hill) - only without the need to look for a bunch of fanatical players who are ready to play for several months.

 Napoleon against Europe is a purely card-based wargame with somewhat simple but very interesting mechanics of sea battles, diplomacy, economics and logistics, as well as large-scale land campaigns involving army movements, battles, sieges, pursuits... Although I have limited experience playing NaE, I will try to describe the game mechanics, their pros and cons.

 The action begins in 1805, when the French army stands near the English Channel, and French ships are in their ports. They are opposed by the ubiquitous British fleet and England's continental allies: Austria nearby, Russia in the distance.

 Each game move is one year (up to 1815); there are 11 moves in total. Each turn consists of a preparation phase and 6 rounds (however, due to event cards, their number can be reduced to 5 or increased to 7 if there is a winter campaign), in each of which participants take turns playing, as a rule, one or more cards . The French are always the first to go.

 The game has two separate decks for the Allies (called the Coalition) and for the French Empire. Both have 55 cards, which are divided into two stages: the first is Epic, the second is Punishments. There are also two counters in the game that play a very important role, marking the SP - victory points (roughly like in Paths of Glory), and the level of escalation (roughly like the level of mobilization of the country (War Commitment) or the state of war (State of War) in Paths of Glory). When the escalation reaches the 15 mark, both decks are shuffled with Punishments cards.

 The game ends with the French winning if they score 20 or more programs, or the coalition winning if the French have 0 or less programs. If neither side has fulfilled the victory condition by 1815, the winner is whoever controls key areas of France.

 Let's go to the components and gameplay:

 1) Maps (on which the game engine is built) with a cost of 1, 2 or 3. More reminiscent of For the People (GMT's excellent US Civil War strategy wargame) than Paths of Glory. As a rule, the maps of the first stage bring more benefit to the French, and the second stage - to the coalition. Thanks to this, the French can try to drag out the "agony" until the final, if they did not manage to win an automatic victory in the midgame.

 The number of cards received by both sides is not fixed, but depends on the number of controlled key points, the number of states attacked or conquered by France, and events. A total of 6 to 10 cards.

 The cards look great, the text is easy to read, there is even a special yellow star in the title of the cards that are removed from the game after the draw. The only thing is that the numbers in the British flag on the coalition maps are not very visible. Among the effects on the cards there are some very interesting ones that you will have to puzzle over - whether to play them out as a historical event that can greatly alleviate what seems to be an almost hopeless situation (or a situation in which you would have to take rather absurd actions to solve, as in many other Napoleonic ). games), or as glasses. On the other hand, there are also pointless or worse, boring effects. More about them below.

 There are also 4 cards that are constantly in play - one for each of the great powers.

 As in the best card wargames, there are a lot of different event cards: combat, political-diplomatic, economic, response measures, reinforcements, operational... Some cards have a double type - for example, a political event, aka reinforcements. On average, battle cards have less effect on the outcome of battles than in wargames like Crusade and Revolution and Paths of Glory, as they only decrease or increase by 1 the result of rolling two dice, not one.

 Great cards include Bayonne Trap and Madrid Uprising; both perfectly reflect the stupidity of the rulers of Spain and the anger of the people. Another great map is "Tilsit World": thanks to it, you can make peace with Russia without defeating it in battle, and establish a Continental Blockade. On the other hand, there are cards (fortunately not very numerous) with such complex and ambiguous wording that it is difficult to correctly interpret them in the first games. It is preferable that the players agree before the start of the game on a certain interpretation to avoid disputes.

 There are also cards that have little to do with history: for example, "Guerrillas" and "Cossacks", which in the game have almost no effect on French morale and the depletion of French strength. Another problematic card is the ever-present French card, Napoleon's Genius, which allows you to move a French army from Poland to Moscow or from Bayonne to Cadiz in one action, almost guaranteed to wipe out any opposing army. In reality, nothing like that happened. In general, the idea is interesting, but the implementation was disappointing. Many of the cards in Napoleon against Europe have questionable effects and are almost always played on points.

 Notably, French generals have a very low activation cost; You can move several for almost any card. Moving coalition armies because of the higher price of activation is a pain. There are very few campaign cards in the deck that allow you to move several generals at a time - like in Hannibal or For the People, which makes playing for a coalition quite difficult.

 Simple hand management is a bit frustrating. You just see what was drawn and act on the situation (a similar feeling was in The Napoleonic Wars and Wellington). It is necessary to think for a long time about what and when to act, I did not have it. Reserve some card for the upcoming turn (like Kemal in Paths of Glory, or in Crusade and Revolution, when you don't get a reinforcement card and you have to think hard). Figuratively speaking, many cards have no "soul", they are primitive. There are, of course, well-thought-out maps, but in general the game is not polished enough, unfortunately.

 2) The map is elegantly designed, the regions resemble the monstrous map from Empires in Arms. The cardboard is thick and looks great. In the corner are the software, escalation, move and round counters. There are also boxes for each army, which contain corps, generals, depots and special units. All great powers except Spain have one army, France has two. One of them is called the Great Army.

 Regions on the map are of different colors; they reflect the presence of mountains, swamps, slums, forts, rivers, key points... There are also sea regions, ports and naval blockade boxes - one for each port. All names are in French. The map is arranged in such a way that the main campaigns will be played out quite historically. From the minuses, the coloring does not look too attractive. Some regions and army boxes are small and do not always contain all tokens. Poor regions (which have a higher attrition rate) are distributed somewhat oddly; yes, all of Spain and Russia are poor regions, although Russia and Ukraine seem to have very fertile soil. And Perpignan in France is a blooming garden, while nearby Girona is an Egyptian desert.

 3) The rulebook seems to be perfectly structured: numbered paragraphs, large font, color illustrations, exceptions highlighted in red. But as you delve deeper into the book, so many flaws surface that many give up at this point. Also, the English translation from the original French version is poorly done (though the Spanish translation turned out excellent). In my opinion, most of the game's flaws are the result of a lack of proper testing and proofreading by players (not developers). Among the main shortcomings are the randomly scattered rules, which is worsened by the absence of an alphabetical indication, as well as errors in some explanatory examples.

 The main thing in the game are land campaigns (England quickly establishes complete control over the seas). The rules for army and corps movements are quite complicated, but when you get the hang of it, you will understand that some of these rules are just "water", and some rules are practically never applied. I should also note that the rules allow you to capture besieged cities - for example, Cadiz, Königsberg or Lisbon - in a round or at most two, although in real life sieges would last several turns and would not always end in success.

 The game focuses on battles, as befits a good Napoleonic wargame. The outcome of battles depends on many modifiers (including cavalry advantage, soldier quality, terrain, demoralization, lack of supplies, general talent (here the French player has a big advantage)). True, numerical superiority does not play any role, even if 95,000 French are fighting 180,000 Coalition - which is obviously completely unrealistic. Trenches and redoubts dug/built before the battle (like the Russians at Borodino and the British at Torris Vedras) are also not taken into account. There is no place for tactics either, although it could be done roughly like in Empires in Arms or War and Peace, where tactical solutions are perfectly implemented.

 6 rounds are preceded by a preparation phase, in which wars are declared and cards are drawn in a certain number (a rather confusing rule, in contrast to the clear and simple mechanics of the economy). Diplomacy also takes place in this phase: also with overly complicated rules scattered throughout the rule book (some even in scenarios), and with a bunch of exceptions. After playing a few games, you will understand how cumbersome these formulations are. As I said, the game could really benefit from proofreading and simplifying the rules. In their current form, they are very unfriendly. And it's a pity, because Napoleon against Europe has many successful mechanics: basic movements, the corps system, combat operations at sea, supplies, the entry and exit of major powers from the coalition.

 The game has two full scenarios and one sub-scenario limited to the Waterloo campaign. The first is the Great Campaign that began in 1805 (Trafalgar, Ulm, Austerlitz). The second begins in 1809 with Asperne-Essling and Wagram. There are no optional rules, no historical references, no overview of the Napoleonic Wars, not even a short bibliography. Compared to other wargames already mentioned Crusade and Revolution, Virgin Queen and Here I Stand looks pale. Unfortunately, there is no way to specifically play the Iberian Wars, the campaign of 1812 or the liberation of Germany in 1813. Complete scenarios starting from 1812 and 1813 would not hurt.

 4) There are two types of tokens in the game: those that are smaller - special units (Guard Cavalry, Royal German Legion), as well as tokens of siege, demoralization, political control, movement, PO... The larger ones - units of army corps, warehouses supplies, generals and fleets. Small gripe: army tokens are the same size as them, so they can get lost on the map among similar tokens. On the other hand, the information on the tokens is very clear and detailed, considering their small size: strength in battle, morale, range of movement, name, cavalry bonus, possibility of replenishment, elitism, limited movement... In total, there are seven great powers in the game - France , England, Russia, Prussia, Spain and Turkey - and a few small ones.

 5) The sights are made perfectly (although too detailed for my taste). Key points are terrain effects, combat modifiers, attrition and card allocation). At first glance, they look quite confusing, and the table of distribution of cards is sometimes controversial, and sometimes someone forgets to take one card.

 6) The first walking French Empire has more tokens than any other nation, higher (generally) combat stats, longer movement range, and much higher morale. Also, she has many fleets with good performance - even Villeneuve's, which did not show well at Trafalgar. Also, the French have a lot of generals, which are much easier to activate (even with cards with a small price), and which have higher characteristics. And personally, Napoleon is a real monster. In my opinion, activation of generals is too easy in France; she almost has to think about moving. It's tolerable at first - it helps to reconstruct such big campaigns as Austerlitz and Jena - but the further you go, the stronger the feeling that the game is too simple. Because of this factor, the French can easily win in Spain. Also, combat modifiers will appeal to the French; the coalition player has to rely on the mercy of fate, otherwise his armies die one by one.

 7) On the side of the relatively inflexible Coalition - a gigantic British fleet (and with the highest characteristics), a tiny British army and several allied states: Austria and Prussia (which sometimes join the coalition, then leave it in proportion to the defeats; after a period of forced peace, they again join the coalition), Russia (which is stronger and more difficult to conquer) and Spain, which joins the coalition after the "Madrid Uprising" card. As I have said more than once, Coalition armies suffer from a catastrophic lack of mobility due to the high cost of activating generals. Only after the entry of Blucher and Wellington into the game, the situation improves somewhat. The strongest and most numerous army of the Coalition is Russian, but it starts and is replenished far away in Russia. The smallest is Prussian (Spain has not yet joined the Coalition, the weakest of the great powers both in terms of the number and quality of soldiers).

 The Austrian army is mediocre, but it has few more or less decent commanders. However, Austria is surprisingly resilient, especially with British financial support.

 I will sum up. Napoleon against Europe is a rather difficult game to master with a lot of extra rules. But in general, it is quite realistic (apart from some mentioned points) and you have a lot of options; significantly more than in Paths of Glory or Crusade and Revolution. It's far from a fast game, with each turn taking 45-60 minutes (partly due to the ambiguous rules, partly due to having to dig through the rulebook to find the right paragraph), but the gameplay is very addictive. It's a shame that the game has serious flaws. Would love to see a fan rework of the rules or a remastered edition.

 I will give Napoleon against Europe 6.5 points out of 10: because of the era that is interesting to me personally, numerous successful finds and a beautiful appearance. However, it unfortunately falls short of the best strategy for the Napoleonic Wars; not enough polishing.