Empire or Napoleon total war?

Both are great. I'd say pick Empire if you'd like more sea battles, and Napoleon otherwise, but both will be nice to play.

IMO Napoleon is better by far. Empire's strength is naval battles, and the multi-map extensive world can be appealing for some. Napoleon as much more self-contained. It's also far more linear.

Shogun II is praised for being more contained and streamlined compared to the sprawling and gargantuan Rome II. The same comparison can be made between Napoleon and Empire.

Empire has a cool campaign map, while battles are better and more polished with Napoleon. One downside of Empire is because of its scale, some regions are funny. For instance the entirety of France is one province.

empire

Napoleon, empire is just a poor game

Pick empire. Pick Spain. Be in deep trouble. Get into debt trying to pay war expenses. Go bankrupt. Lose Cuba.

To be honest, I barely play them. Both are the same but different. I read that napoleon got naval battles more polished. Creative Assembly uses to make a "general game" and then a "historical character one", and the second one has some gameplay improvements but less freedom due to story (Alexander the great, Napoleon, Attila,...)

Empire is the better idea but the AI doesn't really work. The reduced complexity of napoleon makes the AI much better.
If you want naval battles you really need to play empire, I think i never had a naval battle in napoleon mainly because it is focused on europe so there is little need for a fleet.

Empire. The massive map combined with a few mods is fantastic. Plus I find the slower start (building your way up to better guns and formations) a lot more fun than instantly starting off with pretty much the best tech at the time. The USA grand Campaign is so much fun, playing as a small republic and taking over the whole of the Americas while trying to ally yourself with the different European powers as you need it.

Napoleon is a more focused campaign and the graphics are better, but I find the Grand Campaign itself to be severely lacking in "fun" - as in your options are limited. If you're playing as France, you're playing as the enemy. You will always find yourself at war with the same factions. You will always find yourself taking the same routes to victory. It's a story revolving around Napoleon's conquests, as opposed to simply being a campaign in a certain time period.

Empire is better for mods.

But honestly, anything after Medieval II is simply not to my tastes. The Creative Assembly is not what it once was.

The only thing going for Napoleon is it´s more fleshed out (existant) co-op mode, but other than that,
Empire all the way! Won a chested special edition way back then and conquered the world as marathi india =D

I really enjoyed the Grand Campaign in Empire, I never managed to enjoy Napoleon as much.

Third option: Shogun 2?

medieval 2 or nuttin!

Empire is great game, but you MUST use some mod that fix battle AI at least. Vanilla game is so broken... Go for DarthMod for the begging. There is better mods, but this one is OK, very stable and easy to use.

Vanilla Napoleon is OK, but also becomes better with mods. The game is improved in any way except smaller campaign scale, witch makes Empire better game after all.

So if you wanna play without mods - Napoleon, if you install some mod - Empire.

I have both on my list to play :)

Napoleon for the battles. Empire for the GC.

I chose Napoleon. I enjoy content relating to the Napoleonic era because the game focuses on Europe and I am a U.S. citizen, so I know more American history than European history most of my childhood. Also, the Empire grand campaign is a bit too much for me to handle. I easily forget one part of the world to manage.