Napoleon: Total War

Napoleon: Total War is a strategy game from Creative Assembly that follows on from Empire: Total War and brings the series into the period of the Napoleonic Wars. The player alternates between two layers of gameplay: on the map of Europe, they plan moves, diplomacy, trade, and territorial development, while individual clashes are then resolved as grand real-time battles with thousands of soldiers on screen at once. It's the series' typical formula, this time set in the era of rifles, cannons, and rigid Napoleonic infantry formations, where the outcome of a battle is decided as much by unit positioning as by overall troop numbers.

Compared to the sprawling Empire: Total War, Napoleon is more intimate and much more sharply focused on the person of Napoleon Bonaparte and his life story. The game offers three interconnected campaigns that progressively follow his rise from the Italian campaign through the Egyptian expedition to the European wars that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo, letting the player experience his career as a cohesive story rather than a free-form sandbox history without fixed direction. Alongside them, a larger free campaign covering the whole of Europe is also available for players who want to write their own alternative history independent of the actual course of the wars. Battles benefit from detailed units of the period – line infantry, cuirassiers, hussars, artillery, and naval battles between sailing ships – and the game places emphasis on formations, morale, weather, and terrain, which decide the outcome of a clash just as much as the raw numerical strength of the armies on the field.

Why play: Napoleon: Total War suits players who love the history of the Napoleonic era and want the Total War experience in a more compact, thematically tighter form than the sprawling Empire: Total War offers. You'll appreciate it especially if you enjoy planning campaigns on the map of Europe and then savoring them in clear yet spectacular battles full of line infantry, cavalry charges, and artillery barrages.