Welcome to our third preview for Napoleonic Total War 2! We have covered Infantry and Cavalry in the two previous preview, so now it is time to discuss the third branch of a Napoleonic-era army: The Artillery. In addition, we’ve included information about our General or “Command” units and a new trailer.
You still can view the older previews here:
Enjoy!
The Lordz
Go here to our fourth NTW2 Preview covering Gameplay & Tacticts:
Enjoy!
The Lordz
This is our last preview for NTW2. But no need to cry, that means the mod will be released in just a few days! If all goes as planned we release NTW2 on Friday the 31th of August CET(Central European Time). Until then, you can find more information here about the single-player part of the mod: the scripted historical battle of Borodino.
At the bottom of the preview we also give some further information about the multiplayer aspect of the mod.
You still can view the older previews here:
SINGLEPLAYER
The Concept
At some point the decision was made not to create a campaign-map for this mod. The reason is that the RTW AI is in no way capable of handling Napoleonic armies, so it simply wouldn’t be challenging or enjoying to play. Instead, we focus on heavily scripted historical battles. These scripts replace most of the AI, and allow us to let the battle evolve the way we want it to.
It would be impossible to script a flexible AI that can control an entire army, and challenge the player’s army. So what we did instead, is give the player a limited amount of units, spread across the battlefield. These units are reinforced by AI controlled allies. As a result, the player cannot concentrate his forces against the AI, and even if he does, he won’t have enough men to defeat the enemy on his own. In order to win the battle, you need to support and cooperate with your allies.
An adviser (with actual speech) will inform you of the current situation, telling you when and were to attack.
Phase I: Taking Borodino
The first task is rather easy: You have to take the village of Borodino. You have 2 units available nearby, and your AI teammate sends nothing more then a 6 pounder cannon to help you. The village is lightly defended and should be captured rather easily. But even if you fail and lose both units, the battle will go on to the next phase. However the consequences will be that the enemy has some additional units available for reinforcements, because they are no longer needed to defend the bridge near Borodino village.
Napoléon guides you through the battle.
Phase II: Taking Bagration’s Fletches
The next step is quite a lot more challenging: The Russians have dug in behind a redoubt, and have a 12 pounder cannon. Your allies will attack this position, and it is your job to assist them. Act too slow and the Russians may rout your allies with canister and musket fire. When that happens you’ll be expected to take the redoubt on your own.
Assault against the fletches involving player and allied units.
Both the Russians and French will send counter-attacks several times, so you’ll have to stay cautious.
Phase III: Assault on Semenovskoi
When the Fletches are finally under French control, the French and Russians will redeploy most of their units, preparing for the next attack. Meanwhile the Russian artillery battery will open fire.
Russian defences at the burned village of Semenovskoi
Depending on losses taken in the previous phases, the assault on the village of Semenovskoi may turn out slightly different.
This is by far the most difficult phase of the battle, with both French and Russians throwing almost everything they got into the fray. You’ll have to keep your head cool during massive cavalry charges, attacks and counter-attacks and the continuous bombardment of cannonballs and canister shot.
Phase IV: Assault on the Great Redoubt
Before the assault on Semenovskoi has properly started, the French will mount on attack on the Great Redoubt. This is a heavily defended Russian entrenchment, loaded with 12 pounder guns. Again, your performance in the previous phases will determine how many units you and your allies can use in this attack, and how many reserves the Russians can spare in defence.
Charging the Great Redoubt
The Outcome
Depending on circumstances, both sides may decide to commit their Guard into the final attack, and if you manage to break the last stand of the Russian Guard, victory is yours. However, if the French Guard takes too much casualties the battle will be considered as a defeat, no matter how much damage you did to the Russian army.
MULTIPLAYER
For those who are interested in playing the mod in Multi-player, here follows some information to get you prepared. We also advice you to read the Gameplay & Tactics review before entering the fields of MP battle, so you have a better idea of what to do and expect. We certainly hope a lot of you will give this a try, if only out of respect for the immense amount of work we put in this mod. And hey, you might even like it 
The NTW community is generally polite and mature, so you don’t have to fear much rude behaviour.
Setting up Firewall/Router
If you have never played RTW on-line before, and you have a router or firewall, you must make sure it is properly set up. It is very annoying when a game goes out of sync because of someone’s router or firewall. If this does occur and/or you need some technical assistance feel free to make a post on the Lordz forum.
You can find information about what ports to open/forward in this topic.
CD key
You can find your CD key on the back of your RTW manual. If you haven’t played MP before, go to the Multiplayer menu, then click “Change
CD key” and enter your key. This is case sensitive and you must press enter after inserting your key.
Hosting MP Games
The game is designed to be played on Large unit size, 10k florins, and no additional rules. Of course you do not HAVE to stick to this, but we strongly advice it. If you want to play 3v3 or 4v4 you should limit the amount of florins to 5k or 3k to prevent lag, rather then decrease the unit size. The latter will cause units like artillery to become imbalanced.
Some maps can not be played with more then 4 or 6 players. In the map selection screen there is a small information box that mentions the maximum amount of players for the selected map. Even though these maps are exceptions, you should pay attention to it.
Team I is replaced by “Attacker”, team II is “Defender”. If you are attacker, you do not have the right to camp (sit still) on the map, while the defender does. However, if the defender has chosen a bad position, and the attacker can deal serious damage with long range artillery fire, it is his right to do so, and he does not have to send additional units to attack until his artillery has ran out of ammo.
You can still play with more then 2 teams, but this may cause weird deployment zones on the maps (or even crash the game) and will certainly lead to imbalanced gameplay.
The new game setup menu, showing a map preview and splitting attacker and defender.
Command Games
In NTW1, “Command Games” have become quite popular. It means each player of a team takes control of one part of the army (cavalry, infantry, guard & artillery) and elects a general. This general decides about the overall strategy and plan, the rest is supposed to listen to him. A bit like the Time Commanders series, but with actual control over the units. Even if your general or allies are useless, this generally leads to epic battles 
Notes
When the battle starts you must disable all infantry units’ skirmish mode manually. If you don’t do this you will certainly get in trouble when you try to charge or fire a close range volley, or when an enemy unit gets close to your units.
If you let the NTW2 installer enable Quick Chat, you can use Y to chat to all players and T to talk to your teammates. These hot-keys can be changed in the hot-keys menu. If you did not enable Quickchat you must use Y to open the chat menu, and then use the numeric keys to define who you want to talk to.
You cannot chat while others are still loading the game, or when there are connection problems. This is annoying and confusing, but we’ll have to live with that. Pop ups or hitting the windows key can throw you back to windows and this will cause a “connection problem” for the other players. When you re-enter the game the map will be reloaded and this can take a while. So when facing a connection problem players should wait at least 1 or 2 minutes before kicking the player or terminating the game.
You cannot change your video setting when in a MP game, so we suggest using very low setting during your first games. If you still get a good frame rate in 3v3 games you can increase the detail. Or just test out what your PC can handle by running a 3v3 custom battle (against AI).
THE FUTURE
We were planning to make a Waterloo pack next, similar to the current Borodino pack. But considering there are only 2 or 3 months left before the MTW2 release that might not be worth it. We still have to make a final decision, but one option is to finish the British, Dutch and maybe Prussian factions one by one, and release these as multiplayer add-ons in the coming weeks/months.
At the same time great progress is being made in designing a MP campaign around the French 1812 invasion of Russia. We hope to show you the first results soon.
Enjoy!
The Lordz
The Lordz are very proud and pleased to announce the first release of NTW2: The 1812 Borodino Scenario. As an extra we have added the last trailer, so you can come into the right mood.
Infantry Trailer
All movies require Quicktime to watch:
(right click > save target as…)
Before downloading, installing and playing NTW2, we strongly advise you to carefully read our previous previews as they hold some vital usefull tips and information.
You still can view the older previews here:
Install Instructions
Make sure you have a clean copy of Rome Total War patched to version 1.5 or Rome Total War + Barbarian Invasion with the 1.6 patch installed, ready on your computer, download the installer and follow the instructions.
Tip: Napoleonic Total war 2 cannot be used with any other modification
Tip: Rome: Total War Gold edition and Total War: Eras already use RTW v1.5 and BI v1.6 so installation using those TW products should give no problems
Download Links
You can find all our products on The Lordz website:
All our products and downloads can be found in the download section on that site:
Support
We provide full support on The Lordz forum, we strongly advise to visit and register here first:
For download, install or gameplay problems please post in here:
For your most immediate and most frequently asked questions about Napoleonic Total War 2, go to the NTW2 FAQ section on The Lordz forum:
Organising Multiplayer Games
For MP games gathering please visit The Lordz Forum, we have a special room for all MP related gameplay:
Enjoy!
The Lordz
British, Western European vegetation, climate and buildings work in progress. Release of this in about a week to ten days, included an update/patch for the 1812 Borodino release and some extra maps.
Bouncing cannonballs
Highlanders in reserve
British 9pounder battery
British Line Infantry
Heavy Dragoons charge
Horse Guard charge
British Line overwhelmed
Footguard repells a russian charge
And to finish: a peacefull chateau
LZoF
What are those collumns in the distance? Is it Grouchy? No, it’s… it’s the Prussians!
Prussian Cuirassiers
Prussian cavalry models in production.
Prussian Landwehr Cavalry:
Prussian Hussars:
Prussian Uhlans:
Prussian Dragoons:
PS: No, they won’t reach the battlefield yet for atleast a couple of months.
The Lordz are very proud and pleased to announce the first part of the second project for NTW2: The 1815 Waterloo Scenario. This release also includes updates and patches for our first release of NTW2: The 1812 Borodino Scenario.
Patch, Updates and New Material
Change log:
NEW FACTION
-Britain: The British faction relies on it’s defensive capabilities. Their infantry is trained to shoot accurately resulting is high musket fire damage for all their standard line infantry. In additional, they have access to units of riflemen, experienced marksmen who can shoot accurately way beyound musket range. These units can force an enemy to come out and attack. Their selection of cavalry and artillery is rather limited, but their 9 pounders have a larger canister range.
NEW UNITS
-French Middle Guard: Almost identical to the former Old Guard unit, the latter now have higher morale and inspire nearby troops but are MUCH more expensive
-French Red Lancers: Simular to the Polish Guard lances, but lightly less attack and slightly better defense
-Russian Unicorn Artillery: Can fire round-shot and howitzer shells - no canister
-20 British units
NEW MAPS
-Flanders Fields: a map set in the new European climate, open fields with lots of villages
-Hilltop Havoc: also set in the new climate, featuring a large hill in the middle of the map with a village on top of it
-6 (unofficial) maps made by community members
MISC
-Additional music pieces
-Kick button is back in MP setup
-Updated animations
FIXES
-Floating buildings fixed
-Some text editing
-Various minor other fixes
BALANCE CHANGES
-Line infantry cheaper, elites and lights more expensive
-Cavalry charge more effective
-Light inf more fragile to cavalry
-Lower cannonball velocity, higher accuracy, range increased
-Pavlov grenadiers now have normal reload speed
-Russian Guard much better in h2h combat, but more expensive
-Grenadiers and other melee oriented infantry much more effective at charging
-Units much more vulnerable to an attack in the back
-Officer units lost the “Eagle” morale bonus, now use their special ability only to improve morale
Install Instructions
You need to have the first release of NTW2: The 1812 Borodino Scenario already installed. Detailed install instructions for that release you can find here: Install process & tips for NTW2
-Download Patch_Waterloo_v0.2.2 for NTW2 from our website.
-To open the downloaded file you need WinRar a compressing program like WinZip to open the download file: WinRar
-After opening you will find the install program inside.
-To start the program, just double click it. The install program will instruct you further and install NTW2 on your computer.
Tip: Make sure that you direct the install program to the right root directory, in other words where you already have installed the first NTW2 release
Download Links
You can find all our products on The Lordz website:
All our products and downloads can be found in the download section on that site:
Support
We provide full support on The Lordz forum, we strongly advise to visit and register here first:
For download, install or gameplay problems please post in here:
For your most immediate and most frequently asked questions about Napoleonic Total War 2, go to the NTW2 FAQ section on The Lordz forum:
Organising Multiplayer Games
For MP games gathering and problems please visit The Lordz Forum, we have a special room for all MP related gameplay & support:
Enjoy!
The Lordz
A Preview on some United Netherlands(Dutch-Belgian-Nassau) units work in progress:
UN Nassau Voltigeurs
UN Nassau Grenadiers
UN Line showing also Officer & Drummer
UN Hussar
UN General & Staff
UN Light Dragoons
UN Grenadiers
UN Carabiniers
Un Jaeger
Just a nice little update, I would like to stress this is still all Work in Progress and are not finished versions.
There has been an internal change of release plans, within two weeks we would like to release a Waterloo 1815 scenario MP package, this will give you all Prussian, United Netherlands(Dutch-Belgian-Nassau) and Brunswick units and a big pool of MP maps to play with. Around the end of November we will release a Waterloo 1815 scenario SP package, that will include the special SP scripted battles like Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Waterloo etc…As a last bonus the Austrians will follow shortly after.
-Here you see a picture of WIP on Ligny, a village center and some Prussian units.
-Work in progress on Waterloo here you see a part of the Mont St. Jean ridge with British square, partially protected by hedges, being attacked by French cuirassiers.
-Here on popular demand the first screens of some Brunswick units
Brunswick Avantgarde Lights
Brunswick Hussars
Brunswick Leib Garde
Brunswick General en Uhlans
Cheers,
LZoF
The Lordz are very proud and pleased to announce the NTW2 Factions Pack. This is a full installation and does not require any older version of NTW2 to be installed first. You need Rome Total War v1.5 to run this mod.
Patch, Updates and New Material
NEW FACTIONS
-United Netherlands: A multinational army composed of Dutchmen, Belgians and regiments from Nassau. They lack Guard units, have limited artillery and cavalry, but a wide variation of infantry regiments, reinforced by capable militia units.
-Prussia: A flexible unit selection including riflemen (Schuetzen, Jaeger) and heavy lancers. The Prussian infantry have good defensive fighting skills but their artillery is badly managed, resulting in a higher cost.
-Brunswick: A minor faction that can only field very small armies. This faction is not meant for competitive play, but to balance easily defendable maps or skill differences between players or teams.
NEW MAPS
-More then 25 new (unofficial) maps made by members from the NTW community, bringing the total to 46 maps
BALANCE CHANGES
-Musket system revised, deep formations are now more vulnerable to musket fire
-All Light infantry -1 morale
-All Light infantry now has normal reload speed
-Artillery range decreased
-6-Pounder now has only 1 gun, cost decreased to 150f
-6-Pounder canister range increased
-6-Pounder reload faster
-French Middle Guard, Old Guard and Grenadiers à Cheval lost their “Frightens enemy infantry” attribute.
-Russian Musketeers and Jaegers +5 Charge
-British Foot Guard more expensive
-Pavlov Grenadiers 800f instead of 850f
Install Instructions
-Make sure you have Rome TW v1.5 installed. Patch 1.5 (or 1.6 for BI) can be found on www.totalwar.com
-Download NTW2-waterloo-0.2.6 for NTW2 from our website.
-Unzip the files to a folder
-After opening you will find the installer inside this folder.
-To start the installation, just double click it. The install program will instruct you further and install NTW2 on your computer.
Tip: Make sure that you direct the install program to the right root directory, in other words where you installed Rome Total War v1.5
Download Links
You can find all our products on The Lordz website:
All our products and downloads can be found in the download section on that site:
Support
We provide full support on The Lordz forum, we strongly advise to visit and register here first:
For download, install or gameplay problems please post in here:
For your most immediate and most frequently asked questions about Napoleonic Total War 2, go to the NTW2 FAQ section on The Lordz forum:
Organising Multiplayer Games
For MP games gathering and problems please visit The Lordz Forum, we have a special room for all MP related gameplay & support:
Enjoy!
The Lordz
The Lordz Games Studio
The Lordz are very proud and pleased to announce their new project: The Lordz Games Studio.
This newly founded game developer company can announce its first commercial project: a new Napoleonic strategy game.
Links
For further info just visit, read and register at the new website and forum:
The Lordz Games Studio website (or www.thelordzgamesstudio.com)
The Lordz Games Studio forum (or www.thelordzgamesstudio.com/forum)
Have a look and enjoy,
Lord Zimoa of Flanders
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