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Explanation: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a famous French-Corsican military leader and head of state who struck fear into the old monarchial regimes of Europe in the early 19th century. He failed to conquer Russia, however, and was subsequently removed from rulership by a coalition of European states, left to rule the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba as an inducement to not return to the continent (after all - the old regimes didn’t want to normalize actually PUNISHING monarchs! What a horrible thought! Nearly FRENCH!).
After a period of exile, he returned to France, with effectively the entire military defecting from the installed monarchy back to Bonaparte without so much as firing a shot. He was popular with the troops, and the installed monarchy had very little legitimacy.
Seeking to prevent Napoleon from reconsolidating power as Emperor of France, even with the empire itself largely dismantled, a coalition of European states once again formed to defeat Napoleon. The decisive battle was fought at Waterloo, where a primarily British-Prussian (German) force narrowly prevailed over the French troops, causing Napoleon to go into a second, more severe exile to the remote island of St. Helena.
In English, saying something is someone’s “Waterloo” is an idiom for a total defeat that ends an entire endeavor.
For a couple years the only game I’d play was Total War: Napoleon. iirc the only way I could win Waterloo on the absolute hardest mode was:
- immediately retreat to the back left corner of the map, and set up a defensive position.
- ofc Wellington wouldn’t attack (cowardly Englishman!)
- wait for Blücher to show up. Blücher would inevitably charge across the battlefield and waste his forces on my defensive position.
- then march forward again and take out Wellington.
Napo, who didn’t you think of that?!?
Those stakes-and-landmines in TW:Napoleon were so immensely overpowered.
Stakes were awesome. There was this one Balkan region that produced a light infantry unit that could deploy stakes, it was one of my fave units.
Another fun thing to do was play Poland with Darthmod. It was very difficult to survive let alone win, because everyone was attacking you within a couple turns. The only way I found was to immediately grab Courland while also developing tech (in the home province) and selling it.
I can’t see the meme without watching Gianni’s rendition
6$ SRIMP SPECIAL
I forget where I read it but it was something like the scouts asked a local farmer about the terrain and the farmer just “forgot” about a big drop at the foot of the hill that Napoleon’s army was planning to muster at which could not be seen from the top.
Maybe I’m misremembering though.
