Armchair-general's world conquest

As Napoleon's victorious forces turn their tired horses away from the battlefield of

Waterloo

and eagerly seek to return to the comfort of their campfires, the fate of the world hangs in balance. All this happens in the alance. All this happens in the video game Napoleon: Total War, of course, and another difficult battle is won against the game's AI and an achievement unlocked in the armchair-general's Steam account.

Although quite hoary in video game circles by now, Total War games are un doubtedly among the finest real-time strategy games to date. The appeal of engaging in historical battles and governing empires from centuries ago or even millennia as well as exploring the answers to counterfactual history's question of `what if ' are all captured beautifully in the Total War franchise. Starting in 2004 with Rome: Total War, the decade-old series has covered other historical periods such as the 18th and 19th century European empire-building, the Napoleonic wars and the Japanese Shogunate through its rise and fall. For those who like historical RTS (or real-time strategy games, such as Age of Empires or Rise of Nations), playing the Total War series is a must.

Real-time strategy games rarely get featured in review columns but their appeal is just as global and their fan-base solid, judging from the numerous specialist message boards and fo rums where the intricacies of strategy are discussed and new modifications of period weapons designed. Napoleon: Total War is a particularly popular title for RTS lovers because it allows players to command Napoleon's Grand Armeé in historical battle settings at Borodino, Waterloo and Austerlitz. One can also engage in the campaign mode that takes the French army to

Egypt

and then later on, to Europe.

An add-on campaign is available for the Spanish theatre. It is also possible to play as England, Prussia, Austria, Russia and

Spain

. Together with set-piece battle scenarios involving the management of hundreds of units, the game also requires players to build cities, research technology and invest in public welfare.Although history can, as it were, be altered in the multiplicity of outcomes that the game provides, Napoleon makes an attempt at historical accuracy -just as the rest of the games in the series do. There are certain obvious mistakes and omissions but the game's engine is able to create realistic simulations of historical battlefields.

The title of the series quite unabashedly proclaims the rationale of the franchise: total war. The overarching theme of the game is imperial domination and conquest although the more unsavoury exploitative mechanisms of imperial domination are not evident or are perceptible only at a very subtle level. Besides the drawing up of successful battle strategies and the gaining of martial victories, the game also poses a different kind of challenge.

Diplomacy, negotiation and tax-management are crucial to the survival of the player's chosen nation-state. A badly managed state will see certain ruin despite the best generals and largest territory. If you are prepared to take on the empires of the world and to engage in some complicated strategy-planning, you can't go wrong with Napoleon: Total War.

(The minimum requirements include 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB RAM (VistaWindows 7), 21GB free space on hard drive, DirectX 9 and 2.3 GHz CPU with SSE2 processor)