Review: Napoleon: Total War explores the complexities of the battlefield

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Napoleon: Total War isn’t radically different from predecessors such as Empire: Total War. But its focus on the empire-building exploits of Napoleon Bonaparte provides a good hook for a strategy game.

The main single-player game focuses on the three great campaigns of Napoleon’s career, spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The action begins with his Italian Campaign, a defensive campaign that was intended to protect France from Austrian forces based in northern Italy. From there his ambitions grow and the game follows up with his campaign to conquer Egypt and then—as the newly crowned Emperor of France—on the Napoleonic Wars that raged across Europe. These battles were taking in Germany, Austria, Russia and, of course, the little town of Waterloo (which turns out to be in Belgium, rather than south London).

As well as playing through these long campaigns, you can also dip straight into a number of individual battle scenarios, including Waterloo, Borodino in Russia, and the Battle of the Nile in Egypt.

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