Just a note about a problem I was having. I have a decent rig, played through the Peninsular Campaign with no issues. Started a European Coalition Campaign and in the middle of a land or sea battle, the whole PC would shut down. I deleted all saves, deleted the preferences script, and loaded from a save game (not continue campaign). I also noticed Steam was in offline mode, so changed that too... Not sure which of these solved the problem, but I am back to fighting the French with no crashes.