The game starts just as Napoleon has retreated from Russia. You can choose the French or the allies. There are three levels of increasing difficulty which do not affect the ability or the intelligence of the AI but which factor in other elements like weather, fatigue, morale, leader initiative and re-enforcements. The whole battlefield has been re-created so the campaign map is quite large and you have a lot of room to manoeuvre. The interface looks very simple and user friendly - generally requiring little more than select, drag and release.
Empire says it has been designed to cater for the hardened gamer plus the novice as well.
Among the options available is the ability to tell the troops to rest or rally - if your units have been badly mauled in a fight they can retreat or you can tell them to hold their position the best they can. You can also change their aggressiveness and tendency to attack or alter their stance from offensive to defensive. Each of the battles has ten AI scripts so the computer will do something different the next time you play it. In the expert levels the leaders have a major role to play. Orders might take time arrive which has consequences.