I've been a huge total war fan for most of my life. I've played most of the games except for a few certain ones, this being one of them. For some reason I've been putting off playing this one for years. Probably because I usually play Empire Total War or Fall of the Samurai instead when I feel like playing a gun focused total war game. I feel like these three games complement each others weaknesses really well. But none of them really scratch that specific itch perfectly.

Napoleon Total War is a good game, but it feels a little unfinished. Fort battles are still a buggy mess but at least they made them far and few between. This of course doesn't fix the problem, just merely sweeps it under the rug. It makes the game more enjoyable but I would've appreciated more effort in making fort battles actually work. Beyond that I would say that the AI is a bit more competent here than in Empire Total War, but it's still pretty dumb. You pretty much play every battle exactly the same way, which can become a bit tedious after a while.

Compared to Empire Total War, the battles certainly feels more polished, but I miss the grand-scale and sandboxy campaign of Empire Total War. These narrow focused Saga-esque campaigns feel a bit too restricted, in my opinion.

Lastly, I wanna touch upon the naval part of the game for a bit. I really wish that navies were better implemented into the campaign side of the game. I really like naval battles, but you rarely have the opportunity to play them since there is little reason to invest in a strong navy. Fall of the Samurai got it right with the bombardment mechanic which made a strong navy not only useful, but necessary to defend your settlements. In this game (and Empire) you only use them to transport armies across water, which you almost never have to do.

It's a good game and a somewhat improvement over Empire Total War in some areas. But it still needs a few tweaks here and there and a bit more polish.