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KOEI was extremely diligent in its first year, producing seven games, one of which was L'Empereur. The game places you in the role of Napoleon, from the start of his career to his final glory-days as the undisputed ruler of France.
You will start the game with a very small force, and just like the historical Napoleon, you will need to use your artillery to break through the enemy lines. An all-out assault will meet with certain defeat. The best strategy is to demoralize the enemy troops with cannon blasts, then run them over with your ground forces. Cavalry works best against infantry, and infantry is best against artillery. BUT... even though things look great and the enemy loses one battalion after the other, you can still meet defeat if you run out of food. You must always be prepared for a long battle, and should always take more food with you than you think you'll need.
After playing the game for a little while you will begin, as Napoleon did, to love your artillery. It is the most important tool on the battlefield. A handful of cannons can turn the tide of war, so protect these units with your life. You will have to position your cannons in strategic positions, as the terrain matters; you cannot see beyond the forests, mountains, and other objects, which limits your cannons' range and efficiency. This works for you as well: Use the terrain to your benefit. Set up traps in valleys, where the enemy can only traverse one at a time. Position yourself out of the range of enemy cannons, or hide yourself behind obstacles. And whatever you do, keep demoralizing the enemy with your artillery.
L'Empereur can be controlled with either the mouse or the keyboard, which is great for a game made in 1991. The mouse can be a bit buggy at times, leaving ghost images or disappearing occasionally, but this doesn't hurt the game at all, as it takes only a couple of seconds to either switch screens, to make the ghost images go away, or locate your mouse, which still highlights everything on mouseover. In order to give map commands, you simply hold down the left mouse button and choose a command from the command bar that will appear at the top of the screen.
As for the music in the game, it is actually quite catchy for the time. I can easily recall myself listening to the music over and over as a kid (to the annoyance of my parents). The music and sounds would be killed on sight today, but back then this was played at maximum volume in kids' rooms all over the world.
Unfortunately, this game is one of the few KOEI strategy games that does not have a multiplayer function.
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