What's new?

[Erik Rutins]

Hi everyone,

I assume many of you have played For Liberty!, Hussar Games' previous game. If not, I highly recommend it. It is a very historical and enjoyable rendition of the American Revolutionary War.

For those that have played For Liberty!, here's what's new in Napoleon in Italy. You won't have to learn a new system, but you should notice some nice improvements. The AI is better, the graphics are a bit spiffier and more...

Cohesion:

Cohesion was introduced to model stragglers and the chaos that results after battles or after pushing
an army too long for too hard. The result is that, armies must rest longer between battles. When
armies move, they will lose cohesion, especially if their readiness is low. Units also lose cohesion
during battles - every morale loss for a unit results in an equal loss of cohesion. Defeated armies
suffer an additional cohesion loss at the end of the battle. Cohesion, along with readiness and
strength determine the firepower and melee strength of a unit. Units with a low cohesion value fight
poorly, high cohesion units fight well.

Initiative:

In battles, at the start of each turn every leader performs an initiative check (based on their initiative
rating). Leaders that fail this check do not give any bonuses in the current turn and they cannot rally
the troops either. On the tactical maps the circle showing their influence range will turn black.
The initiative system is only active when using the Realistic ruleset.

Chain of command

In For Liberty! the player could attach 5 generals to an army and gain a big advantage in tactical
battles by having leaders with a very large influence area. In NII, if the Realistic ruleset is used, the
influence area of leaders is limited. Only one leader can have an influence radius of 3, 2 leaders can
have an influence radius of 2 and 3 leaders can have a radius of 1. In effect this means that it is
more effective to attach leaders of different ranks to an army and use other high ranking leaders
with other armies.

Victory points:

In For Liberty! victory points were gained by winning battles and by holding towns. In NII, the
player does not gain points for battles, but get points for inflicting casualties.

Reinforcement system:

In FL players could recruit new units and fill up new units from a resource pool. In NII, there is no
recruitment, instead there is a force pool with a fixed monthly replacement rate. For each unit type
there is a replacement pool. This pool is increased by the replacement rate at the start of each
month. There are also fixed reinforcements in the game for both sides. The replacement rate, the
fore pool and the reinforcement list can be viewed on the strategic overview screen.

Miscellaneous changes:

- Automatic saves now start with the letter 'z' so they do not get mixed up with regular saves.
- On the options screen, you can now delete old autosaves.
- There is an option to make the message window totally transparent, semi-transparent or nontransparent.
- There is an option to have the messages in a larger font.
- New random events
- New influence events

Napoleon in Italy focuses on Napoleon's Italian Campaign in great detail, with numerous scenarios as well as a Full Campaign. Here's the scenario list:

Piemont Campaign (April - May 1796)
Lodi Campaign (May - June 1796)
Mincio Campaign (May - August 1796)
Castiglione Campaign (July - October 1796)
Wurmser's Ordeal (Sept - Nov 1796)
Arcole Campaign (Nov - Dec 1796)
Rivoli Campaign (Jan - Mar 1797)
Full Campaign (Apr 1796 - Apr 1797)

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

I should add that we're getting pretty darn close to a gold master with this title, so start reading up!

[Erik Rutins]

Here are a few preview screenshots... the main menu.

[Erik Rutins]

The manage army screen for Murat's force during one of the scenarios...

[Erik Rutins]

A shot of a portion of a scenario map, with Bonapart and his artillery selected.

[argaur]

is there an option to play with counters instead of that sprites?

[aitorful]

some tactical battle screens?

thanks

[mmccot]

For Liberty has two seven year campaigns, this game has a one year campaign? No doubt it's going to be pretty good, but if you play most battles, FL is a long game. What gives here, you play one year and your done? 

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Beren
is there an option to play with counters instead of that sprites?

Sorry, no - as in For Liberty the soldier figures are the official ones. I assume this could be modded, but I'm not sure how easy that would be as they are animated.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: pailleterie
some tactical battle screens?

Sure thing, here you go - let me know if you have any questions on these.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: mmccot
For Liberty has two seven year campaigns, this game has a one year campaign? No doubt it's going to be pretty good, but if you play most battles, FL is a long game. What gives here, you play one year and your done? 

It may seem short by comparison, but it's not a short campaign. It still takes quite a while to fight out the full campaign. I'm not sure how we'd make it longer given the historical topic?

[Erik Rutins]

Here's another shot from the same battle...
the AI has been improved for both the strategic map and tactical battles, FYI.

[Erik Rutins]

Just in case you were wondering if the French could handle that situation, yes, yes they can. [;)]

[Erik Rutins]

Here's the final results screen. I had some very good quality French Grenadiers and a good leader. Once the main Austrian leader was wounded, their force's morale couldn't hold. It got a bit hairy from time to time for the French though.

[Clipper1968]

It seems that there is a problem with the French flag. The colors have been reversed!!! [:D]
Will this issue be fixed for the release version?
 
Thanks.

[Erik Rutins]

Pumba,

I just spoke with the developer and here is the reply on the flag colors:

"The colors were this way at the time of the Revolution, it changed only later to the current order. I will ask Peter (our military historian) to provide reference in the readme."

Regards,

- Erik

[hunyadi2]

hi,

The French flag:

The blue-white-red were combined for the first time when the king visited Paris on July 17, 1789, a few days after the taking of the Bastille. The colors symbolized the reconciliation (white – the royal color, red and blue – the colors of Paris).
The three colors in vertical stripes were first used in 1790 (as a canton on navy flags), but with the reverse of what they are today. The French National Convention adopted the present day form of the flag on February 4, 1794, as a naval flag. Meanwhile in the army various arrangements of the tricolor came into use. Napoleon standardized it first in 1804 (white diamond with alternate corner triangles of red and blue), and introduced the modern French flag only in 1812.
Since we plan to make a series of games on the Napoleonic wars, our concept was to indicate the various periods with the diverse look of the flag, too.
1. Revolutionary period – first official form of the tricolor (red-white-blue) 2. Napoleonic period (1804-1811) – the 1804 pattern (white diamond, red and blue corner triangles) 3. Late Napoleonic period – the 1812 pattern, the “modern French” flag (blue-white-red)
Regards,
Peter
Hussar Games

[Adraeth]

ORIGINAL: hunyadi

hi,

The French flag:

The blue-white-red were combined for the first time when the king visited Paris on July 17, 1789, a few days after the taking of the Bastille. The colors symbolized the reconciliation (white – the royal color, red and blue – the colors of Paris).
The three colors in vertical stripes were first used in 1790 (as a canton on navy flags), but with the reverse of what they are today. The French National Convention adopted the present day form of the flag on February 4, 1794, as a naval flag. Meanwhile in the army various arrangements of the tricolor came into use. Napoleon standardized it first in 1804 (white diamond with alternate corner triangles of red and blue), and introduced the modern French flag only in 1812.
Since we plan to make a series of games on the Napoleonic wars, our concept was to indicate the various periods with the diverse look of the flag, too.
1. Revolutionary period – first official form of the tricolor (red-white-blue) 2. Napoleonic period (1804-1811) – the 1804 pattern (white diamond, red and blue corner triangles) 3. Late Napoleonic period – the 1812 pattern, the “modern French” flag (blue-white-red)
Regards,
Peter
Hussar Games

Happy to see that Hussars game has the intention to make new games of the Napoleonic era!!!

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: hunyadi

hi,

The French flag:

The blue-white-red were combined for the first time when the king visited Paris on July 17, 1789, a few days after the taking of the Bastille. The colors symbolized the reconciliation (white – the royal color, red and blue – the colors of Paris).
The three colors in vertical stripes were first used in 1790 (as a canton on navy flags), but with the reverse of what they are today. The French National Convention adopted the present day form of the flag on February 4, 1794, as a naval flag. Meanwhile in the army various arrangements of the tricolor came into use. Napoleon standardized it first in 1804 (white diamond with alternate corner triangles of red and blue), and introduced the modern French flag only in 1812.
Since we plan to make a series of games on the Napoleonic wars, our concept was to indicate the various periods with the diverse look of the flag, too.
1. Revolutionary period – first official form of the tricolor (red-white-blue) 2. Napoleonic period (1804-1811) – the 1804 pattern (white diamond, red and blue corner triangles) 3. Late Napoleonic period – the 1812 pattern, the “modern French” flag (blue-white-red)
Regards,
Peter
Hussar Games

Well explained!

[Erik Rutins]

FYI, we just updated the NII Games page with some new text and screenshots. You can have a look here:

http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=348