Fog Of War (Napoleonic Wars) Browser Game Review - Warfare in The Napoleonic Era

Game Basics

Fog of War follows the formula of other popular browser based strategy games such as Evony. On the game map you have three areas of play: your city, rural area, and game map. Construction of your buildings takes place in your city while your resources are collected in the rural area. The game map features all the other cities in the game as well as areas that your armies can capture for bonuses, or you can build a new city if your strong enough. Another section of the game called battlefields allows the player to complete special quests. Your armies can be controlled by special hero units so they perform better in battles.

Fog of War Resources (4 out of 5)

One of your fist goals in the game is to build up your economy so your resources will play a vital role. Outside your city in the rural area you will find empty resource plots. In these areas you can build food, wood, stone, and iron plots. At the beginning of the game food and wood will be the two most important resources you will need the most of. Eventually as you progress, each resource will become equally important. You will also need population to run your plots so cottages in your city need to be built to house your population. Another resource you have to work with is gold which is used to research technologies but this is collected through taxes at your city center, there is no mining involved.

Your Armies (5 out of 5)

You have several different troops that you can build in the game but first you will need a barracks and a rally point. Your armies will consist of basic infantry, grenadiers, musketeers, billmen, scouts, hussars, dragoons, howitzers, canons, siege engines and convoy buggies. Armies will consume plenty of food so be sure to increase your food production as you build troops. You can also build multiple barracks to speed up the training of your troops. Once you engage in battle and take casualties you can find wounded troops at the hospital located in your rally point. At this location you can spend gold to heal them and bring the units back into your army. At your rally point you can also perform maneuvers and see how your troops will stack up against other troop combinations.

Technology (5 out of 5)

Another large part of Fog of War is your technology which is built in the university building. At the university you can improve your resource production, troops, and other areas of your city. You may need to build other buildings or upgrade your existing buildings to unlock new technologies. Clicking on the upgrade button will tell you what is required for that technology. You will need large volumes of gold which you can acquire at the town center through taxes for technology upgrades as well as resources.

Heroes (5 out of 5)

The hero unit plays a large role in Fog of War and you can’t conduct combat missions without one. Once you build a public house and a pleasure palace you can recruit heroes for your armies. Your heroes can also be assigned duties such as mayor, commander and strategist. The mayor will help to govern your city better and provide you will increased resource production. The commander will help to defend the city while it is under attack and the strategist will speed up the development time of technologies. You will also need a spare hero without any assigned duties to carry out attacks on other cities. Each hero can also be outfitted with armor and weapons that will make them more powerful. Each hero has attributes that can be enhanced with game items you acquire or buy in the game store.

Managing Your Empire (5 out of 5)

At the city hall you can govern over your city and work to make it better. At the hall you can assign taxes to increase your gold production which is required for your technologies. You can also see your resource production levels and conduct levies on your resources if you are short. Be careful not to conduct too may levies because you will decease the happiness of your population. At your city hall you can also view the locations of your cites as well as any wilderness areas your troops occupy. If your city is attacked there is a good chance your citizens will become unhappy so at the city hall you can pacify them with different strategies to bring up their happiness levels again.

Combat (5 out of 5)

Combat in Fog of War takes on two roles both defensive and offensive. When your troops are on the defensive they are trying to repel an attack on your city. You can fortify your city wit walls and defensive structures such as towers and burning oil to protect your city from attack. On the offensive your troops can both capture resource areas on the map for bonuses to production levels or attack player or NPC controlled cities. When your troops attack wilderness areas they can also occupy them and pillage the area for resources or game items. During combat operations you can also take control of your troops and move them. You can’t actually control individual soldiers but you can move and position your troops they way you want. The combat is still carried out in a text based format.

Game Map (1 out of 5)

My only complaint with the game is a poor strategy map. While the map is colorful and it looks quite nice, the cities are too close together. I also don’t like the fact that each cities level is shown on the map. Showing the city level just gives a player an open invitation to attack you if your at a lower level than they are. For me the map is a huge minus to this game because there are too many cities all stuffed together which makes the map hard to read and to plan strategies with. On the plus side you can easily find your home city by clicking on the home button on the map wheel.

Stratagems (5 out of 5)

In the game you can also use different strategies in your city. If you click on your city you can access the stratagems section. These allow you to do such things as hide the number of resources you have, troop levels, decrease your enemies loyalty, conduct a surprise attack and more. You will need to use an armaments manual to accomplish this which can be acquired in the game. Each time you use a stratagem your heroes energy levels will be drained.

Quests (3 out of 5)

Fog of War features many quests you can complete as you progress through the game. These usually require you to gather resources, build a certain building or troop type. The quests aren’t that exciting but they do award you with gold, resources and game items. Sometimes you will get a game item that will start a quest. Each day you can also do a routine quest which will grant you a token you can use to spin on the game wheel for item rewards.

Game Shop

In the game store you can purchase many different game items that will enhance your basic game. This include such things as resource bonuses, new armor for heroes, combat bonuses and more. As you complete quests you will receive some of these game items as well. There are also special packages that you can buy which can be found by viewingte “Package” item at the top of the page with each package granting you various game items.

Conclusion

Fog of War (Napoleonic Wars) is a very fun web based strategy game. This game is a step above games such as Evony and add more content such as hero armor, strategies, and controlable combat. The game does suffer from a very poor game map but hopefully this will improve over time. I can recommened Fog of War to all strategy gamers and to those who like war games in general.