Feudal Japan, medieval Europe, the Roman republic and 18th century America and the colonies. No band has ever taken in so many countries – or indeed eras – during a world tour, yet these are only a handful of some of the places Creative Assembly has conquered since the Total War series rumbled onto the battlefield almost a decade ago. Now the developer is declaring war once again and this time it's French military leader Napoleon leading the charge. Set in the final years of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, this latest instalment in the critically acclaimed strategy series will explore the events leading to Napoleon's rise to power through - and beyond, if you play it right – to his eventual defeat at the battle of Waterloo.

Napoleon Total War will build on the engine and framework of Empire Total War, but will add a whole host of new features and extra touches that the developers didn't have time to include in the first game. Kieran Brigden, Communications Manager at Creative Assembly , explains: "The way that Total War development works is we do a kind of evolution-revolution cycle. We create revolutionary technology for one title - in this case Empire, which had a brand new engine written from the ground up - and all new AI. Then, for the next game, we take that technology and evolve it - in this case with Napoleon. We've taken everything we've achieved with Empire and Empire's engine and just pushed it to the limit. Napoleon is essentially the culmination of what we wanted to do with Empire, given the time to take it further."The Napoleonic period was picked because it ticked all the right boxes for the Creative Assembly team, who have a checklist of what exactly must be going on in a time period for it to turn up in a Total War game. One such criteria is that there must be a set of warring factions, any of which could have potentially risen to be the dominant power, so that gamers can go ahead and see what happens when they rewrite history. "If you take post-revolutionary France, it was both strong ideologically and incredibly weak," says Brigden. "The revolution had bankrupted the country. There were a lot of other powers in Europe vying for control, there was the old Austrian Empire which was cutting into French territory in the south, obviously the British empire which was incredibly well established, with the British navy ruling the seas. Not to mention the Russians and Prussians and everyone else..."The team also decided that the famous Frenchman deserved to be the focus of a title, for many reasons. "What's really interesting about Napoleon and his story is that he took control of a nation, literally by himself, as one man, and led it to be the greatest and the most powerful nation in Europe," Brigden enthuses. "The thing was that he fought a war that was considered at the time to be not gentlemanly. People were like, 'this isn't how it's done, you go cavalry first, infantry second, then artillery, then a bit more cavalry...', but Napoleon didn't care about any of that, he just fought to win. He didn't fight to play the grand game, so towards the beginning, when he fought the first Dukes of Europe, he came with this really unorthodox mix of tactics and it set him apart from the gentlemen at the table. He was often regarded as a bit of a brigand and a down at heel - the arrogant little Frenchman."Like previous instalments, Napoleon will be a mix of turn-based and real-time strategy, with gamers first of all taking time to plan their strategy down to the tiniest detail before switching to the midst of the battlefield, commanding troops in real-time as they fight on your orders. Infantry, cavalry and ships will all be unique to the instalment and altogether there will be a total of 322 new units to command. On the subject of hard stats, up to a maximum of 10,000 men will appear on screen at one time, depending on the settings and PC specs, although this time round Creative Assembly will be adding more variety in the way the men look, with the aim being to eliminate the 'clone army' problem. Indeed, the game will mix and match different body parts to make soldiers look individual and unique, with 64 different faces on offer even on the very lowest settings.Additionally, artists have been adding extra touches to the light and smoke effects on screen. According to Kieran, "Napoleon looks 50,000 times better than Empire when it comes to the individual units and their animations and the way they act on the battlefield. We're doing a huge amount with all the particle effects, polishing up everything that comes with the smoke and physics systems. All of that stuff sounds cosmetic, but when you put it together, you get a very, very different game experience. For example, we've now got to the point where the smoke from all the rifle muzzle flashes hangs in the air and then drifts across the battlefield. That affects your visibility and your guys' ability to shoot and reload, and it's affecting your view as a commander on the battlefield. The horses will also kick up dust and mud when they charge in, which will also affect visibility."The hugely popular naval battles will return again in Napoleon, although some may question their inclusion. "Although Napoleon is not famous for his naval engagements or his naval superiority, that's not to say that the player cannot reverse that and play it their own way," explains Brigden. It's possible if you are a good tactician to beat the British on the high seas, and Napoleon famously said, 'Give me control of the channel for six hours and I will have Britain in less than a week!', but of course the British Navy never let him do it."The good news is that naval combat system has been refined after criticisms aimed at the mechanics in Empire, and there will be new attributes and abilities. One of these is the ability to repair ships during combat. "What will happen is you will see all the hands leaving their posts at the cannons and the sails and the masts and frantically trying to patch up holes in the hull, and all the while the ship's taking water," explains Brigden. Obviously the ship can't do anything at that point and you're going to have to protect it, but at least it won't sink straight away- you will be able to stay in the fight that little bit longer."The role of Generals on the battlefield will also be different; this time round they'll play a far bigger part tactically in battle. Generals will have an aura effect, which means that simply by sending them into areas where there is low morale, soldiers will perk up and recover the will to fight. "Napoleon naturally plays a huge part in the game and he is a battlefield general -- you will see him and use him on the actual battlefield when playing as France," says Brigden. "Having him on the battlefield is a very important thing because Empire treated generals almost as slightly cowardly aristocrats who would sit at the back of a battle and say 'off you go lads!' and they'd call victory or defeat without ever disturbing their teacups. Napoleon changed that, he went back to the model of a general leading his men from the front. Sure, later on when he got a bit fatter and a bit less involved, he started doing the whole tactician thing and standing at the back, but certainly early on he was literally at the front of the charges. He was a warrior king. As far as the game goes, leading a charge with him is probably still a bad idea because you don't want him exposed to artillery and grape shot and having him massacred, but at the same time he'll have a much greater use on the battlefield as a tactical object." Additionally, you'll now also get to select your Generals from a list and each will have unique attributes - while some will be stalwart defenders, others will be fiercely offensive, and others... Well, just won't be very much good at all.