2024 · Sound of Drums GmbH
Battles of Napoleon is an epic game series that simulates the most famous battles of Napoleon on a tactical scale sharing the same basic rules.
The series portrays the most important aspects of battles of the Napoleonic era with easy to learn and remember rules, intuitive mechanics and procedures. Players may focus on taking decisions and playing rather than consulting rules.
The system focusses on the “cat-and-mouse game” of coordination and timing of the various formations of the different arms without too much crunchy chrome.
Infantry was the predominant and most important element in every European army of the period. It usually formed between 60 and 90 per cent of an army in battle, and was both the cheapest and the most versatile type of troops. The foot soldiers had to endure most of the fighting and casualties. Depending on their task, they were either deployed in line (fire power), column (maneuver and assault) or square formation (protection against enemy cavalry).
Cavalry were screening the own army and provided the shock element on a Napoleonic battlefield. Due to their shock power they fixed enemy infantry and forced them to take shelter in square formation. If infantry failed to form square they were overrun. If infantry was fixed in semi-static squares they were very vulnerable to artillery fire.
Artillery, the queen of the battlefield, was on the one hand having devastating effects on square and closely packed formations, on the other hand artillery alone was extremely vulnerable when getting charged by enemy units.
