Simply put.

Do not buy this game if:

You're looking for high dollar visuals.

A Total-War like expierence.

Quick entertainment. Like something you can beat on your lunch break.

You're wanting a game that's very forgiving in mistakes. If one of your units gets wiped out. They're good as done. What you see is what you get. Mastery of skill and making use of what you have is key.

You hate realism.

You're very picky with the occasional wonky A.I.

An obessive frame rate freak.

Do buy this game if:

You want a wargame that tries to bring another level of realism to the table. Such realism like giving orders to units via a courier. Proper troop deployment, ammo supply, fatigue, morale, and how to manage the characteristics of different units. Not one is ever truly the same as the other. Some units will fight to the death, some will scatter after a few casualities.

You want massively scaled battles with literally thousands of soldiers on the field.

Love historical based games.

Love the ability to command an entire army or just simply a brigade.

So let me first say that even with the negativity in this review, it's still easly recomended, it's a must have game for anybody wanting a REAL wargame, this is what a wargame should be.
I've played this for sevral dozen hours before it was out on steam.

Now lets get the negative part of the review out of the way.

I have only one major complaint but I feel this is part of a symptom with the developers.

My complaint is the horrible FPS, we are talking max 25 fps on small is battlers. and if you like me want a huge battle, expect 5-12 fps. Now this is a problem, it's party becasue the engine is old and glued, taped and rubberbanded togeater from older incarnations, The game only uses 1.5 cores yet the game is 90%! based on CPU power, with RAM far behind and GPU almost playing no effect.

Aperantly the reason for 1.5 core use is with more cores the multiplayer becomes unstable... So it was dield back 1.5,
So if you got a 3.5 x 8 CPU you will get worse FPS then a 3.8 x4 CPU.

Now this is bad, but worse is the devlopers complantancy with it, When this topic is brought up, you will be swarmed with "this isn't a first person shooter, you don't need 60 fps, or 30 fps" or similar excuses. They honestly think 12 fps is good enough. Now the same thing is happening on the steam forum, any complaint that 12fps isn't good enough and you'll be swarmed by people attacking you for pointing out this very obvious fact.

I personaly get slighly nauseous and can get bad headaches if playing on 7-12 fps, yet this complaint is ignored, like my experiences with the game isn't valid. I think all this stems from some of the developers and alot of the fanboys(I count my self as a fanboy of this game and all the games made by Norbsoft, also before it was nordsoft) Are totaly separate from the rest of the gaming comunity. I honestly think they think 12 fps is fine. And do not realise that about 99% of the rest of the gaming world do not agree.


Ok Now to the good stuff, and there is alot of good stuff.

As mentioned I have played the pevious Scourge of war games, and the Two "Take command" games. Take command first bull run when it first came out was AMAZING!

The game from the name obvously deals with Waterloo, You get 20 "campaign missions" 10 for each side. With each battle getting bigger. The first battles are brigade sized game, where you control a few thousand soldiers. The last two battles are The full waterloo battle, one as Napoleon one as the Anglo-Allies/Prussians. This is an epic game, At 1:4 scale you will controll some 18 000 sprites representing about 70 000 men, And the enemy got about the same sized army.
As the battle goes on, another 5000-10000 sprites will enter the battle.

I personaly feel the game looks great, sure it's not a total war looking game, but seeing tens of thousands of troops marcning is a beautifull sight.

As an Army general you will give orders to your corps and divisions, or even brigades,

But as a brigade general you are just a small clog in the big ben, You will have to do your best with your 1500-3000 men while the battle rages around you.

The ai while not perfect, is better then almost all other strategy games. each commander is based on the real one.
So Ai Picton will generaly perfrom better then AI Prince of orange. ect.

I do have one other complaint, the arty, and this has been a thing since first bull run. Arty is useless with anything less then canister. You can have 80 cannon fireing at 30 000 enemies and after an hour they will have killed 10 guys. It does remove the fact that arty did in general much more damage then muskets and sabers.(with some exceptions)

I can not comment on MP as I do not play it online, but aperantly it's fantastic.


You also have the ny Mini Campaign, map of belgium where you move, detach retach units, with sevral options for victory, from taking spesific town, to hunting down and destroying most of the enemy forces. Quite fun, and can lead to enormous battles. I personaly had one battle that totaled over 300 000 troops(so over 70 000 sprites)

There are other minor compaint that some people feel are more imporant then I do. like unrealistic movement of units, or "spagetification" as it's called, It might be I'm simply used it that rather odd sight based on it's been in the engine since First bull run some 10 years ago.

The game is far above any other Napoleonic game.

I also recomend the Scourge of war gettysburg if you are more a ACW gamer, Not sure if it will come on Steam, but matrix games have it in it's store.

This game is excellent. In a way you probably wouldn't expect.

I am taking command of General Girards 7th Infantry Division, under Marshal Reille's II Corps, with two infantry brigades and Capitan Barbeux's artillery battalion. A Courier from Reille arrives and tells me to mobilize to a small town on the far western end of the map, far away from the rest of the army.

We arrive at the objective ahead of the Prussians, and I organize General Piats brigade in the treeline, whilst Brigadier General Villier stays on the hill to act as a reserve. We await the enemy from the south but they unexpectedly approach from the west. Without cavalry to scout the area, I did not know where the enemy would come from. Luckily, the AI is fairly capable on its own and general Piat mobilizes his brigade to turn and face the enemy. My artillery begins to fire and a brigade of Prussian Landwhere approach me. In the distance, I can see a large force of cavalry and infantry with artillery support mobilizing. I estimate that the enemy is in Corps strength, so I dispatch a courier to the Marshal, requesting support and prepare to hold my defensive position. If I can delay the enemy here, a full Corps of enemy troops will be away from the main battlefield. I do not know where the rest of my Corps is, or how far away the rest of the army is but they are out of my sight so this is a dangerous situation for me. However the terrain gives me an advantage, and if the rest of my Corps arrives in time, the tide could turn easily enough. The enemy advance slowly, and we manage to maintain the upper hand for the first part of the battle, we both send out skirmishers splitting them from our regiments and a slow grueling infantry duel begins. After about 30 minutes of fighting though, my men are exhausted. General Piats brigade has barely held, and then General Villiers begins an ill fated attack against the Prussian right flank. His men are mowed down and massacred, until only a single regiment remains. His troops pull back to Piats position and my artillery also repositions itself. Finally, a messenger from Marshal Reille arrives, I am to hold my position at all costs, support is on its way. Angry at General Villiers for beginning his attack without me telling him too (The AI officers under you will do things like this, my favourite part of the game actually), I take direct command of his few remaining troops and continue to skirmish with the enemy, buying time as their cavalry closes in, routing half of Piats remaining men and I am now utterly screwed.

Then most of the Prussian force breaks away, turning to face a new threat in the distance. The rest of the II Corps is marching towards me, from the rear of the enemy force. I withdraw my men back to the crest of the hill, using the distraction to rally them and rest. As the battle begins in earnest again I march my troops into the now rear of the enemy, wiping out the small landwhere brigade under general Von Frunk (Maybe wrong name, I don't remember) and eventually breaking into the enemies center. Another long battle ensues, and one hour later it is over.

My men had held our position, and reinforcements had arrived. We had beaten back the enemy in the west, and I recieved new orders from the Marshal. We would march south and hit the allied Army in the east. Despite the poor condition of my men, barely a thousand left out of four thousand strong, I followed the rest of the Kollum acting as a rear guard. We arrived at the central battlefield, a river standing between us and the flank of the enemy, Then I saved my game and took a break. This game is amazing, but ♥♥♥♥ is it exhausting. This was not a proper campaign mission either, simply a "Sandbox" battle.

Hopefully this small thing will give you guys an idea on the scale of the game, the ingenuity of its AI, and sheer grand tactical options (I say grand because most of the time you are operating at the grand tactics level). (Will finish this part in a min, gotta go)

***NOTE: If you are interested in trying this game out, go to the developer's website and check out their demo for Scourge of War Gettysburg since they are similar enough.***

This is the game for the person that loves this particular period in warfare and is looking for the most authentic experience simulating those battles as possible. Sure, the game is not as pretty as Napoleon: Total War and is even mildly less appealing graphically than Histwar, but it makes up for this in spades by presenting as accurate a combat simulation that can be made of the Napoleonic Wars given today's technological constraints.

There is a lot more going on under the hood than what you can gather from the screenshots - you have the opportunity to play the full battle of Waterloo in real time, simulating the nearly 200,000 soldiers that participated, generally in 1:4 scale. The Sandbox Campaign also lets you simulate the campaign in Belgium during the Hundred Days, so you might be able to radically change history that way as well.

I am a huge fan of the era and so this game was a must have. Even though I am not as partial to Waterloo as other battles of the period (I would prefer Austerlitz, Wagram, Leipzig, or Jena-Auerstedt) the modding community has already provided a substantial amount of content and has created some of the OOBs for those battles already.

If you think this game would be a good match for you, go to the developer's website and check out their demo for Scourge of War Gettysburg since they are similar enough. Overall, I would say the game is worth it for any fan of the Napoleonic Wars.

Original Review---- Edits below----

Don't let the hours fool you. I've already logged a bunch of hours while my internet was down...

Regardless this game is a great strategy game. But be warned watch a video, this isnt a visually advanced game, its all sprites and what not. It is also not fast paced. But it is in-depth and in my opinion exciting, and despite the slower pace, the... intense moments of watching your line trying to hold, or ordering a division commander to fulfill orders or being that division commanding officer. You can chose from a variety of command levels on the Order of Battle. You can play the battle of waterloo or make your own. The sandbox campaign is fun but I feel like it is just lacking a in few places, but only in the sense that it leaves me wanting MORE. Over all though I totally would recommend the game to someone who enjoys thoughtful gaming.

It's too bad though the game doesn't have some sort of grand campaign. That would be pretty awesome. Thats about my only negative I got.

EDIT---

As I now play larger and larger battles I have found more... frustrating things. Such as a simple notice like... when a major player is killed on the battle. Playing a massive battle on the campaign (my much smaller dutch army w/ fewer infantry, fewer cannons and no calvary trying to hold off a larger french army that including cavalry) where a win was critial as if the french were to break through the town, that army could have caused havoc until I could have mustered a large enough army in the area to counter them (if that was even going to be possible). The pressure was intense, the battle a fantastic reperesentation of what this game has to offer and a billion things going on. Trying to hold a thin line, meanwhile the cavalry rushing in scaring my men into squares where they became easy pickings for my infantry, on the flanks a back and forth of me trying to flank the french and ease pressure on my center before not once but TWICE did the french counter attack with near fresh divisions. The battle itself was absolutely enjoyable. Would I love for some portions of the battle to not become so... laggy. Of course who doesn't want a fluid game? Why when there are i7s and i5s out is the engine rocking some 1.5 crap? Is it too much to ask that the same awesome smooth marching and fighting in smaller battles be capable on the larger scale? Regardless thats absolutely minor and doesn't take away from the fun what so ever, just being picky.

Back to my original point in all this mayham, the bloody Prince of Orange, the commander of the entire dutch army died. No courier to my next in command saying your in charge now. On top of that I find the end stats loaded with info that I dont get a chance to look over cause the game keeps promting end of battle but while your trying to read the stats and find out just who is left in command of your regiments, divisions and corps, the battle is raging on for some reason behind the screen... And maybe I havent found it yet on that screen cause it keeps bumping me out when the end battle newpaper pops up, but the stats you can find midbattle of wounded, missing, and killed for each battalion is great, but why isn't on the end stats. Finding out which of your commanders was killed can be tedious. Or before that just having a courier saying that this commander is dead and so-and-so is taking over. I'd like to look over his stats and see what kind of person he is, seeing as it could someone important or crutial. I think finding out a reliable or favorite division commander was killed would help immersion of being connected or invested in your forces. Finding out after words is like... Oh well that blows. And keeping in touch with historical aspects... I think the chain of command would notice that the PRINCE OF ORANGE was killed and orders were coming from someone else... Haha it's really too bad, now I've got to fight the rest of the campaign without such a leader (who was replaced by a MAJOR/sure hope that was just heat of the moment in battle and someone else is appointed commander, have yet to see).

And the screens for spliting and merging portions of your forces can be a pain, and I dont understand why it isn't possible to merge different units to form difference corps or divisions. I have yet to find a way to use Uxbridge's force effectively as it is very cavalry heavy while other portions of the army are without such a vital tool. Just snagging a division and attaching it elsewhere would be nice or atleast have them travel together...

Anyways at the end of the day I would still recomend it. I also recomend watching youtube videos if your on the fence. Be fair warned, the battles are fun as hell and you'll lose track of time having a blast... Haha

I'm sure we have all played games that were beautiful to look at and easy to learn and that damned near blew warm air up ones bum they were so accomodating and nice.Scourge of War:Waterloo is not one of them.It isn't particularly pretty but more than adequate for seeing what is going on around you and it even looks like Waterloo.Learning how to move your troops around is complex but in the time I've played I have got the hang of it.Would I be up to joining in the final battle?Nope,not yet, its the sort of game you have to learn and that is rather satisfying.There is a very good sandbox for beginers like me and I will bs fossicking round in there for a while yet..The music is fine,love a bit of Ludwick Van,the manual and the tutorial are both helpful and needed'..It is expensive but I think value for money..No bugs ,controls seem fine ,options of what you can actually do with your troops and the game in general is pretty stunning. The uniforms look right and the terrain likewise but this is much more than just a game for Napoleonic fans I think this will be a very,very good wargame.

This game is not like Napoleon Total War especially concerning graphics. But it is a much deeper wargaming experience in its detail, scale and historical simulation. I enliken Scourge of War Waterloo with NTW in the same way I do with IL2 Sturmovik 1942 in regards to War Thunder.

SoWW is deeply satisfying to play if you enjoy the grand scheme of Napoleonic line battles. It can be adapted from casual to hardcore gamestyles -- HITS, Headquarters in the Saddle, being a unique feature. Be prepared to invest time in learning the game controls as this will repay you in greater satisfaction.

Now go and try your hand as Napoleon, Wellington or Blucher (or a score of other historical commanders)!

(I have been playing the game since its release in June, 2015.)

This game is truly an amazing experience. Coming from someone that is the proud owner of over 80 books on 16th – 21st century warfare. I have been looking for a game like this for a very long time. It takes a while to get use to and there are a couple of bugs but overall it’s the experience that I was looking for. I’d recommend this to anyone that likes games along the lines of Hearts of Iron 3 or …. Well there’s not a lot to compare this to.  This isn’t a Total War game. You’ll be disappointed going into it thinking that you’ll get that kind of experience. It a thinking man’s game focused on realism. The graphics are beautiful if you recognize what the game is. In my opinion, this is a simulation. It’s like what x-plane is to war thunder. X-plane take’s hours to learn and is accurate down to the smallest little detail. To make such a game, you cannot have AAA graphics due to the processing power needed to calculate every little detail. Anyways, if you want a historically accurate tactical simulation of Waterloo buy this game.

After 8 hours of gameplay, I'm ready for a review. (sorry but English is not my main langage).
First of all, this game has A VERY steep learning curve. I went through the short tutorial as well as the player manual and still, I had some frustrations on my first battles.
The graphic could be better but are nonetheless accurate.
All the army uniforms, regimental flags and commanders are there and they are very accurate.
I went through a couple of custom games as well as 2 missions from the Waterloo Campaign both at normal mode.
The AI act very strangely sometimes but is very good.
Overall, it is an excellent wargame.
While Napoleon Total war is very good and fun, the battles in Scourge of War: Waterloo are far more realistics. SoW:W is a pure wargame made for pure wargamer.
If you love the era of muskets and blackpowders then this game is for you!
Expansive but worth it.

EPIC Game. Massive interface improvements over Gettysburg, and despite a few minor bugs and a courier system that doesn't really work (unlike Gettysburg... come on Norb), this game passes inspection with flying colours. THE Napoleonic wargame with AI that can trounce even the best Total War player, all played on an epic (even 1:1 if your system can handle it) scale on accurate battlefields.
Oh, and there's a campaign mode.