One of the best strategy games I've ever played. Now, after looking back I can even say that this game was ahead of its time. Very similar to the total war games ("Empire" or "Napoleon" to be more specific). This game provides astonishing and realistic real time land and naval battles (at least it wast astonishing when I was a child), technology tree, a few historically battles besides main company, good turn-based management model with provinces that you can develop by using resources (gold, wood, food, people), smart diplomatic system (trades, trade routes, military help, alliances, royal marriages, etc) with system that approves/disapproves your actions (country not only can start a war, because they don't like what you do, but also they can join your empire if they like you).
Although this game is old, but believe me, you should definitely give it a try.
P.S.: As this game is very old, you should know that if you want to play this game without crashes, you should change its optimization to Windows XP. It's not hard to do, just check video on youtube how to do that.