Waterloo

DEVELOPER : Breakaway Games 
PUBLISHER : StrategyFirst

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System Requirements Pentium II 266MHz, 64MB RAM, 4 MB Video Card

Recommended Pentium III 450MHz, 128 MB RAM

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 9.0 - beautiful from the furthest perspective to the closest zoom; even the corpses are wearing the proper uniforms! Audio: 8.0 - good, sound effects help you keep situational awareness. Interface: 9.0 - everything has hotkeys, control was very easy, very functional data displays with a minimum of fluff.	Play Issues Solo Play: 9.0 - an AI that understands Napoleonic tactics, and uses them aggressively. Be prepared to use the pause key constantly. Replayability: 8.0 - a ton of sub-scenarios of the battle, plus a random battle generator means it'll never really get stale. A real editor would have made this a 10, no question Multi Play: 8.0 - great multiplay functions, comes with Gamespy Arcade. Learning Curve: 8.0 - Very simple to pick up, even if you can't tell your sabretache from your shako.
Other/Notes Documentation: 9.0 - excellent in game briefings, maps, and detailed discussions of what happened and why. Other: extremely good variety of scenarios mitigates the fact that this is, after all, only one giant battle. Pros: The best Napoleonic battle game I've seen to date. Cons: Extremely narrow focus. Overall: 8.9  For anyone even vaguely interested in the period, it's a must-buy. A good learning tool for those unfamiliar with the Battle of Waterloo.

When I first saw Antietam, I was impressed. But my secret thought was "Oh why can't they ever make a Napoleonic battle game this good?" Breakaway Games heard my prayers and took their licensed version of the Sid Meier Gettysburg engine and applied it to one of the greatest battles of all time: Waterloo.

The culmination of Napoleon's comeback from exile, Waterloo marked the final end of the threat of the "Corsican Ogre." In a hundred days, Napoleon had brought together a formidable force of his favored veterans, and had struck terror into the diplomats assembled in Vienna. Bonaparte well knew that with this army, he could win again. One more stunning victory would make Europe tremble again. He could barter that victory (as well as his potential legitimacy with his Habsburg father-in-law) for a respectable peace from the Allies.

Lord Arthur Wellesley the Duke of Wellington and the Army of the Low Countries (an assembly of British Regulars and collected minor allies) stood in his way. Famed for his defensive skills and on ground of his choosing, the Duke had to hold alone before a tough, skilled, and determined French army. Wellesley had to last long enough to see the arrival of the venerable Blucher and his Prussians rushing to his aid. It was the Iron Duke, who had defeated Napoleon's marshals in the Peninsula but never faced Napoleon himself, against possibly the greatest general of all time armed with his best soldiers. Into this great contest you are cast as the commander. Can you hold the French at bay? Alternately, can you crush the British Army and defeat the allies in detail, securing France's future under Napoleon?

It's really up to you, because Breakaway games has given you an outstanding tool with which to test your mettle as a commander. The Gettysburg engine was a great one for the Civil War, but no doubt took major modification to simulate the Napoleonic era.

As an aside, to non-wargamers the two periods may seem superficially similar; they each have infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Both use largely linear tactics, with rows of men blazing away at each other. But that's about where the similarity ends. The Napoleonic era was one of a much closer balance between the branches - none of the three could possibly win a battle alone. While Civil War battles were largely matters of fire combat and attrition until one side or the other broke, Napoleonic battles had much more maneuver and shock, and were a complicated dance of rock/paper/scissors between the forces. The Civil War was "get there fustest with the mostest", the slogan of Europe at the turn of the 19th Century might better be characterized as "get there at the right moment with the right kind of troops to win".

The upshot of this is that Waterloo should not be looked on as some sequel to Antietam, with the Zouaves dressed up as Young Guard, and the Iron Brigade clad as Landwehr. Waterloo is at best a distant cousin. It has much the same implementation and interface mechanics, but the battles really feel right: like Napoleonic battles. You still click & drag to move forces that self-align and will engage logical targets (rather than you having to micromanage). Forces can move in a number of formations, and unit strength and morale are tracked, as regiments driven from the field by a ferocious combat will very likely be seen again in the battle post-rally. Control is intuitive (although the rallying can be a little baffling if you don't read the manual). Even a novice can be quickly managing troops smoothly, thanks in large part to a multi-part 'programmed instruction' tutorial series that introduces you to successively more complicated tasks. Fortunately, you will soon find that commands can be issued while paused - a lifesaver in the larger battles (and indispensable in the largest). Helpfully, the scenario distribution also lets players learn in pieces, with scenarios ranging from the small actions (La Haye Saint or Hougemont) to the massive (the whole battle). That's not to imply esthetics have been given short shrift at all. On the contrary, Breakthrough has clearly done their research, giving the troops an amazing level of accurate detail for such small figures and terrain, as even the 300% zoomed screenshots will show you. Napoleonic troops were generally more colorful than those at Antietam or Gettysburg, and this is immediately obvious. Gamers of this era are commonly known to be among the most involved detail freaks - and I think they will find little to complain about here. Facing colors, belt/button colors, even tack seem to match my (admittedly quick) comparison against references I had lying within reach. The flags in particular are quite nice.

Likewise, the sound is very good - commands issued are acknowledged in French or English (depending on the troops), volleys rattle convincingly, and the clatter of hooves is usually followed by the clank of sabres on armor. Sounds are positional - if you're view is close enough to something, you can hear it even if it's offscreen; this is an invaluable tool to a player-commander focused a little too closely on a small part of the big picture.

Battles in the Waterloo era were matters of combined arms and precise timing more than perhaps any other: form square a moment late and your troops were butchered by Uhlans. Form too early, and the Uhlans peel off unscathed to uncover their supporting infantry that rip you apart with their 4:1 advantage in fire volume before you can return to line. Come out of attack column a moment early and you were stuck in a nearly immobile line under withering musketry from the defenders. Come out a hitch too late, and your force's strength was diluted in depth, rather than applied as frontage.

Changing the AI logic of the engine cannot have been easy, but Breakthrough has managed excellently. Enemy computer-controlled generals advance their infantry under screens of cavalry, peppering your forces with cannon fire. The cavalry frequently attack, drive your forces into square, and then fall back to allow the infantry to blitz you with fire. Cannon are aggressively situated and pulled back as needed. If anything, the AI commanders at even the lowest difficulties are a little too good. It is credible at all levels of the French forces, given their historical performance, but I daresay not all commanders (especially among the Minor Allies, for example) were quite so audacious and aggressive.

But these are forgivable quibbles. Solo play is beatable by middling skill at the lowest levels, and is damn hard at the highest. But for the best challenge, fight a human. Waterloo shipped with very good multiplay functionality, allowing modem, TCP/IP, or IPX play. Even better, cooperative multiplay is also possible, with multiple humans per side taking part - it's almost like the good old days, standing around a sand table. The game is great on every level - the AI, the 'feel', the graphics, the sound, the controls. I do have one small beef, but my only issue with the game is on a strategic/marketing level outside the game itself: why only Waterloo?

To drift off on a little editorial, as a "proof of concept" the game is wonderful and the battle is one of the more important in history. But there are dozens of games that simulate Waterloo, and frankly, I'm tired of it. Wargamers as a breed are probably more accepting of the narrow "single battle" games, since historically boardgames have been based on a single battle (since the rules exceptions and modifications to exactly recreate the conditions of a specific situation usually are enough to fill a sizeable rule book). But I think the computer gaming circuit expects more as a matter of course. $40 might be a little cheaper than the common computer-game pricepoint, but it's still a significant piece of change. Is it worth it? Absolutely, every penny. There is an 'editor' included that's really more a customizer: you can pick troops (from the OOB of either side), map (from the overall map of Waterloo), and situation. But would it have killed them (or Sid Meier, when he released Gettysburg, for that matter - I'm fully aware that this is probably a licensing issue as much as anything, so I address these comments to Sid as much as Breakaway) to have given us a REAL editor?

Is it probably a developer-level tool, and as such a pain to use? Probably. Does it take a lot of work to produce a good representation of a single battle? No doubt Breakaway performed hundreds if not thousands of man-hours in code modifications and research to produce this wonderful game. But the code work is (as far as I can see) done, and done excellently. And there are a lot of people in the world who would spend the time learning the tools, and spend the time making quality scenarios like Corunna, Marengo, or even monster battles like Leipzig or Borodino. I want to charge with the Hesse-Homburg Regiment at Wagram. I want to see if I can win as the Prussians at Jena/Auerstadt. Waterloo is fun, and I hope Breakaway sees that as an outstanding game, it has huge potential to invigorate the wargame market. I just hope that they will (or are allowed to, in the case of contractual limits) give us not only Waterloo but also open up the whole period by giving us an editor. It's like having a magnificent meal but not being allowed to order what you want from the menu your self. Please guys?

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Reviewed by Steve Lieb