Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Paradox Development Studio
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Pentium IV 2.4 GHz/AMD 3500+ or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, 512 MB GeForce 8800/Radeon X1900 or better graphics card, Direct X-compatible sound device, DirectX 9, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

It’s been two weeks since March of the Eagles was officially released, and I keep coming back to play despite the deadline for this review. I’ve found myself carving up the Ottoman Empire as Austria, conquering North Africa for Spain, dividing Prussia in half with France as Russia, and even trying (and failing miserably) to return Sweden to greatness. Paradox Interactive labels March of the Eagles as a game that brings the Napoleonic Wars “to life in this war-focused strategy game.” I admit I was skeptical at first that a company known for its epic grand strategy games could create a tightly focused product covering only a small historical period. But after playing the preview and the full version, I can say that Paradox has hit the mark with this strategy game.

While the game has some economics, it’s primarily focused on warfare. It doesn’t utilize a tactical combat form of gameplay such as the Total War series, but instead focuses on assigning leaders, building armies with appropriate troop compositions, selecting appropriate tactics, and watching the Duke of Wellington or Marshal Ney wipe out their enemies. Combat takes place in rounds, with the leaders of an army selecting their actions based on a library of possibilities tied to your choice of tactics. Each major army has three flanks and a reserve, and a leader commanding each one. You might put your best defensive leader in the center with orders to conduct an entrenched defense, while putting your guard brigades and an offensive leader on the flank with orders to up the guard. Understanding how these things all work is crucial to winning wars; even numerically inferior armies can smash significantly larger forces with the right combination of leaders, tactics and terrain.

Supply considerations and manpower are also crucial to success. Even Napoleon can’t win if he has no manpower upon which to draw, and no army can sustain itself in the field indefinitely without some kind of logistics. I was pleased to see that lengthy campaigns in enemy territory require not just taking provinces, but also establishing control over enough of a supply network to support the invasion. In fact, larger armies tend to wither on the vine in the face of smaller enemies that refuse to fight while raiding supply lines. It’s a long way from Paris to Moscow, and whether Napoleon is invading Russia, or Tsar Alexander is invading France, any invasion can be ended through skillful delaying tactics. And since fortresses and cities control adjacent provinces, siege warfare is bound to take place sooner or later. If it’s winter in the marshes or mountains, it’s too bad for you.

While I’m for the most part satisfied with March of the Eagles, there are a few issues that prevent it from achieving perfection. Before going into those, though, I need to stress that there are some things about the game that aren’t real problems, despite claims by others to the contrary. Some players have complained about ping-pong battles. They argue that, as in earlier versions of Europa Universalis III, there are times when armies are defeated in battle and it seems like you have to spend six game months chasing them down to finish them off. I’ve found, though, that ping-pong battles are a symptom of newer players who haven’t found out how to play the game well. I’ve found that with proper army composition, decent leaders, properly selected tactics and the use of correct national ideas, you can decisively crush your opponents or get soundly beaten by your enemies, as in my last game as Prussia (maybe 15,000 men survived from my 75,000-man army when Napoleon decided to show up with a dream-team of his best marshals). Also, since this isn’t a game set up along the lines of Napoleon: Total War, anyone expecting tactical real-time battles is going to be disappointed; this is not meant to be a competitor to that successful franchise. But the real problems in the game lie in the decision to shortchange minor powers out of leaders. For example, if you load up Egypt, you quickly realize that you don’t even have enough leaders to staff one army; you need four, and Egypt only has three. While I can understand the problem of researching historical leaders in a game like this, given the importance of leaders to the way in which battles are resolved (you can’t select a tactic for a flank if it has no leader), I would’ve been satisfied if every country had a set of four leaders, including ones named “GenericFictional_leader01,” just so that the country doesn’t miss out on gameplay. I also disagree with the shortage of naval leaders for two major powers. Again, I know Prussia and Austria weren’t naval powers in the period, but admirals are so important to naval warfare that a generic leader with bad stats would be better than no naval leader at all. These kinds of oversights can feel like arbitrary and pointless nerfs in a game in which minor powers and non-naval Great Powers are already so far behind their neighbors. Also, I found multiplayer to be fun, but I did have some issues with connectivity and out-of-sync problems after an hour of play. There are also some odd balance issues with the economy; since money is no object for most major powers, it’s inclusion in the game is a little mystifying. Hopefully patches will address these issues, but they didn’t substantially hinder my enjoyment of the game.

Unlike some other titles I’ve had the chance to play lately, I was pleasantly surprised by March of the Eagles. I admit, despite my preference for strategy games with an epic scope and multiple centuries to play through, I found this to be fun. Its narrow focus is its strength. Priced at $19.99, it’s almost like an indie game from a major publisher. Playing March of the Eagles is like eating a bag of popcorn; it’s not a four-course meal, but it doesn’t charge you the money for one, either. And like a bag of popcorn, it’s best shared with friends and consumed in one sitting.

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