'History but with mechs' is hardly a new premise (see Iron Harvest, for example), and for upcoming tactics game Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution, it's a pretty functional conceit: It lets the developers use big historical personalities as frontline warriors on a tactical grid without as much concern for their historical job, which was to stay a comfortable distance from flying bullets. The mechs are stand-ins for your hero characters, done and dusted.
Getting that out of the way is great for the overall gameplay because it lets Bonaparte focus on the big interesting personalities at work in the (alternate, yet very familiar) history here—and have their principled high-melodrama conversations about The Nature and Rights of Man or The Future of the French State on the battlefield from giant robots, rather than in dimly-lit conference rooms like in real life. (Presumably this is why Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie didn't do so well.) It also helps that your Bonaparte—Céline or César—is a blank slate you can characterize that only shares the loosest association with their historical counterpart.
