Chris Kowalchuk
Posts: 3
Joined: 12/6/2002 Status: offline
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Getting back to the original question: EiA has a strong historical flavour, and the options available to the player are quite plausible in the historical context, but no, the game is not a(n) historical simulation. One of the aspects I love about his game is that the player is in complete control of his nation, in terms of alliances, wars, how and where to fight, what to fight with (well, you are restricted to your nation's corps structure) etc. Victory, furthermore, is abstracted, so that each nation has a reasonable chance of winning based on its beginning strength. However, good play of the game is by no means historical play. Austria and Prussia, for example, have the opportunity to cooperate far more closely than they did in reality, which can be a real pain for the French, powerful though they be. I have played several games where the Germans demolished France by 1807. The real Napoleon had a tremendous advantage in that his enemies disliked each other almost as much as they disliked him. I consider EiA to be one of the most balanced and interesting grand-level strategic games I have ever played (or heard of). It is not so much a Napoleonic war-game, as a grand strategy game that has the Napoleonic period as its theme. As such, it works beautifully. As a Napoleonic simulation, it has all sorts of faults (but how can you fault something for not being what it never claimed to be?). My advice to those who want more technical and historical accuracy is to play a game such as "Napoleon's Battles", and they can push those little divisional counters around to their heart's content! CLK
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