La Grande Armee at Austerlitz (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.1 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Tom Chick
• Reviewed on: 01/24/2002
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 12/18/2001
• Originally published on GameSpot: La Grande Armee at Austerlitz (PC) Review

La Grande Armee at Austerlitz is one of those wargames trying to break down the barrier between real-time bustle and turn-based sobriety. It's got all the trappings of grognard-oriented, turn-based wargaming, but it puts them in a manageable real-time environment. The result is a sort of you-are-there approach to commanding an army in the 19th century. Call it Sim Field Marshal.

The Battle of Austerlitz was one of Napoleon's most notable victories. After seizing Vienna in the winter of 1805, he was chasing down Austria's Emperor Francis I and the remnants of his army. Francis managed to link up with a force of allied Russians led by their emperor, Alexander I. Napoleon caught up with them near the village of Austerlitz in what is now the Czech Republic. Depending on your source, Napoleon was either evenly matched or outnumbered by about 20,000 troops (the game supposes that he was evenly matched, with just under 70,000 men on either side).

On December 2 what came to be known as the Battle of the Three Emperors took place. It was a textbook action in which Napoleon anticipated attempts to outflank him, held them back, and then struck the enemy's weakened center. The battle ended with a decisive route that crippled the Russo-Austrian coalition, leaving it with no choice but to capitulate to Napoleon.

La Grande Armee is the re-creation of this battle by French developer Jean Michel Mathe. It resembles Sid Meier's Gettysburg, the breakthrough real-time wargame in which you marched miniature armies across a map as though they were formations of painted lead figures across a tabletop. Like Gettysburg, La Grande Armee puts you in the role of field marshal. But unlike in Gettysburg, you have very little control over your units once the firing and cavalry charges start. Regiments respond automatically, halting an advance to return fire or grouping into square formations to hold off cavalry. For the most part this works well, although there are occasions when you'd like to wring some AI lieutenant's neck for doing something questionable, like not pulling artillery back or not wheeling around to protect a flank.

Your input is a matter of linking regiments into corps and then your corps into armies. You set reserve levels and how aggressively a corps should attempt to advance or hold the line. You can detach cavalry scouts to flank the enemy line and arrange your troops into supporting elements on the fly. But La Grande Armee isn't about twiddling with formations and carefully watching casualty reports. The whole thing has a much more natural feel than most wargames. It's about formulating a tactical plan, putting it into effect, and seeing how well it works.

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