Waterloo was the culmination of the Hundred Days campaign that Napoleon embarked upon after his return from exile in Elba. It was a last gasp at regaining the glory of the French Empire and, were it not for the timely arrival of the Prussians at the end of a hard days fight, Napoleon would not have likely been swept from the field. Wellington’s army fought a valiant delaying action to hold the field until their arrival, and Wellington is remembered as saying "Either night or the Prussians must come."

As one might expect, over the years there have been many games that sought to capture all of the nuances of Waterloo. However, true Napoleonic gamers have stuck by their sand tables and miniatures throughout all. Half the fun was painting all of the different uniforms, right? Happily, this Waterloo is as visually captivating as La Grande Armee and its opponents rightfully were, resplendent in their various uniforms, the best dressed soldiers of any era before, or since. The designers have gone to extensive lengths to capture the detail of each unit’s colors, weaponry and standards.

OK, so Waterloo is visually breathtaking, but how does it play? Well, we know the underpinnings are solid as the game is based on Sid Meier’s award–winning Gettysburg engine. But one of the most appealing aspects of that engine was the ability to play the Gettysburg campaign sequentially, so that gamers could afford each critical juncture of the battlefield their full attention at the pivotal moment. Definitely an artificiality, but one that came in handy for those who like to play the underdog. Waterloo includes all of the crucial engagements of the larger battle as scenarios, but you cannot link them sequentially as you would a campaign. Instead, there is one scenario that depicts the battle from start to finish, from 11:30 in the morning to just after dark at 8:15 pm. When you consider the state of command, control and communications in that period of time, even with the well trained armies of Napoleon, this approach is probably better at historically replicating the system of runners used to pass orders than the one provided in Gettysburg.

Attempting to coordinate every unit to advantage on such a scale entails frequent and judicious use of the pause key to stop the action, review the troops and update unit movement and formation orders as necessary. Needless to say, this can be quite an undertaking, but it is worthwhile for those players who can endure it, as it is virtually impossible to put up a good showing otherwise. At higher difficulty settings, the computer opponent is quite good, relaying troops to buttress the line when a breach is threatened and counterattacking with skill and aplomb. Unfortunately, your own subordinates are not quite as effective, and must be micro–managed to pursue fleeing enemies, adjust the lines, re–take objectives and so forth.

Success on the battlefield involves the proper use of combined arms. Cannon are best used in counter–battery fire and to soften the ranks of advancing enemy infantry and cavalry. Cavalry are useful to force enemy artillery to displace and move out of danger, and to threaten enemy infantry so that they must form squares. Squares are very effective defensively against cavalry charges, but they also reduce the firepower the infantry can put to the front by seventy–five percent. As such, an optimum tactic is to line up your infantry against the enemy, then threaten his flanks with cavalry so that he must defend against the potential threat. As cavalry are easily fatigued, and this will be a long day, maneuver them to force an enemy reaction more frequently than you would actually commit them in live combat. If you are playing as the French, don’t forget that the Prussians will be arriving at the end of the day with fresh horses! If you have previously committed all of your cavalry in reserve, you will not withstand their assault.

As in all armies, infantry eventually decide the day. They, and they alone, have the staying power to take and hold ground. The infantry of the day was well–trained and disciplined enough to stand and exchange volleys with their opponents at fifty to one–hundred meters (the devastating rifled muskets of the Civil War era where not yet available), but it isn’t always best to simply go toe to toe, slugging it out. Bayonet charges often made the difference in routing an enemy line, and all of the units in Waterloo are affected by cohesiveness and morale rules when moving across broken ground, taking casualties and so forth. As such, leadership plays a pivotal role in exhorting the troops onward and rallying broken units.

Leaders are susceptible to being wounded or killed, but the gaming system does afford them too much freedom of movement otherwise. Very often, one can have leaders standing in close proximity to enemy units, without benefit of their supporting formations, and they are never attacked or even harassed. All of the damage that occurs to them seems only to happen in the midst of an assault, by random factors unknown to the player. Another shortcoming of the system is the tendency for infantry to stop and exchange shots with the enemy at maximum range (which also happens to be their minimum effective range). Often times, the only solution is to manually override the formations and force them to close with the enemy. These factors, however tactically annoying they may be, do not degrade the gaming system as a whole, however.

Waterloo uses a simply point and click interface that provides graphic feedback of the orders you have issued via movement arrows and strategic map symbology that also depicts facing. It really is remarkably easy to manipulate large numbers of troops cohesively, at least until they come into contact with the enemy, which naturally introduces some degree of confusion. Additionally, the game features several brief tutorial scenarios that can get the average player up and fighting competently (though not masterfully, of course) without benefit of the manual in a couple of hours at most.