Mount & Blade Napoleonic Wars is one of those games I keep coming back to month after month. It is a game that has mastered the balance between predictability and skill in a way I've never seen before. It leaves you with a sense of purpose as every shot, stab and choice of direction could be crucial to how the game plays out.
During weekends the Minisiege server is full of 100-200 players going head to head with the opposing team in an epic siege battle. Personally, this takes me back to the good old Alterac Valley games in WoW that during Vanilla could last for entire weeks. Although the battles are timed, the same sense of chaos and purpose fills the rounds with tons of fun.
Since your musket takes 10-15 seconds to reload every shot counts, and if you miss it could mean the end to your character as any loaded enemy now has the advantage. The scarcity created by the reload time forces players to strategize and time their actions to a greater extent.
As your life is so fragile in this game (1-2 shots or stabs and you're dead) it really gets your adrenaline up when engaging in close combat, and leaves you with a great sense of victory if you manage to survive an encounter.
One of my favorite things to do is to attempt to get around the enemy defenses and go crazy stabby-stabby behind the enemy lines. This is really difficult to do on some maps, but when you finally manage to do it we have a "fox in the hen house" situation as the defending team is not expecting you to be that far into their base.
Although some maps are a bit unbalanced I choose to look at the positives, and the fact that some maps are more fun to defend while others are better for attackers. For example a map that creates several bottle necks for the attackers may be easier to play as a defender, while large open maps with several possibilities of breach (with or without canons) may be easier for attackers.
After playing for several hundred hours I still find this game fun as every game is truly unique, but it could also be said that after 4-6+ hours in one sitting it might be good to take a break as things are starting to feel repetitive.
Have you tried this game yet? What are your thoughts on the Minisiege maps? Looking forward to discuss below :)
-LochFlush