Fog of War - Napoleonic War

[Ghambit]

http://www.napwar.com/

In a nutshell, it's been said that napwar is pretty much evony/civony without the suck.
Basically, you're a napoleonic era strategist running cities and armies, along with officers, alliances, etc.  Officers get levels and itemization (which is nice), to go along with a pretty robust item buff system.  The battle system is tactical by nature, similar to something like Khan Wars where you get to position your troops and micromanage the tactics they use in battle (it's pretty extreme in depth for a browser game).  There's a nice alliance/guild system with forums, chat etc.  Entire game has chat, but you're restricted depening on how much microtrans you're willing to spend...  game is "free" with MT of course, but it's not bad and generally you're given everything you need for quite some time (gift sets, quest rewards, etc.) w/o paying for anything.  

The tut./newb system is the most robust I've seen in a game of this type.  You're carrotsticked along rather nicely through tutorial questing, which last quite a damned long time.  I've been playing the game a week and I have yet to even scratch the surface of the questlines.  The rewards for these are pretty substantial so as I said, no need for MT until you're sure you like the game and you need it.

And before you ask, yah... you get raped as soon as you leave newb. prot., BUT you're also pretty much required to join an alliance and by the time you leave newb. prot. you can easily relocate your city for free (due to a quest reward).  Needless to say, I've been pillaged already when I was afk (yah, this game requires a few hours/day to play effectively) and now must move to a safer area.  

Anyways, yet another pbbg to play with but given the ones I've tried lately this one shows the most promise of them all.  And I like the fact it's based on the napoleonic era instead of some cheesy medievel fantasy crap.

note:  I'm on Brienne (server 003) in the Alliance "Fallen."

p.s.
yes, there are politics and the typical forum warz you see in these games - only things happen more "real time" since building, combat, and movement dont take as long as usual.

[Ghambit]

Um yah, I promise this one doesnt suck guys.   
Er rather, not as much as some of my other pbbg posts.   (and btw, I'm in laptop-land these days, which is why I keep tabs on pbbg development)

[Ghambit]

so yah.  I'm like, still playing this.  How odd.

[JoeTF]

So, question - are fights real time (can be attacked at any time of day and night, especially when I'm not at PC), or precalculated at given time, like in more sane browser based games?

[Ghambit]

So, question - are fights real time (can be attacked at any time of day and night, especially when I'm not at PC), or precalculated at given time, like in more sane browser based games?

You can be attacked at any time, but those attacks take time in themselves to occur.  Your level of Intelligence-gathering and distance helps give more advanced notice though and typically a player has to declare on you before he can do-so (which usually takes about 8 hrs. to happen), unless he's hostile.

Also, since there are pre-defined defensive strats, you can setup your city to react a certain way when you're attacked.  You can tell your troops to stay inside and can pick and choose which troops you want to go out and who they're to target (the same with city defenses like wall towers and burning oil).  They can defend the pillage or defend the occupation, all to varying degrees.  Smart attackers will send the cannon-fodder before commiting expensive units though, so therein lies another choice you have to deal with.

There are items you either buy, win, or find that can also swing things in your favor if you're not ready to defend your city.  For instance you can apply an "armistice agreement" to par the attacker off for 12 hrs.  Or, perhaps you have an item that'll slow the attacker down and/or apply instantaneous reinf.  Then there's always the relocation scheme, which force-moves your entire city to an area of your choosing.

Anyways, game's not the "bees knees" but I found it compelling in many ways and an adequate stopgap while I wait for games like Stronghold: Kingdoms or HoMM: Kingdoms to come out.  A new server just opened up if anyone wants a fresher start.