Total War Games: Empire and Napoleon

[Martok]

Forgot that Empire TW was the first in the series to offer naval combat...for.that it should get some credit.

It was the biggest reason I was looking forward to it. 

I still would like to see Empire 2, if it can be done right.  Fix the AI (especially regarding diplomacy), fix the land battles, and bring back either Jeff van Dyck or Ian Livingstone & Simon Ravn to do the music (no offense to anyone who liked it, but Empire's soundtrack sucked big time). 

[Nefaro]

What is the story on these two? I recall reading that one was the best Total war game and the other was the worst. Help?

Like the Empire TW time frame & scale more.  But the vanilla version had some terrible battle behaviors, unfitting for the period, and stupid AI diplo and army management on the campaign layer.   Napoleon TW fixed some of those issues, but not all. 

The leap in quality from Napoleon to Shogun 2 was huge.

[Gusington]

^I have to agree.

If I had to choose, I would take Napoleon over Empire.

Also, I have been hoping for a Victoria: TW forever. Done by CA, never mind the mods.

[SirAndrewD]

Bizarrely enough, even though I found Empire to be disappointing, it's the Total War game I put the most time into.  It had limitless potential, and even though Napoleon is the better game, objectively, Empire is always the one I go back to when I'm visiting an older Total War.

I actually reloaded it this week to finally give the Imperial Splendor mod a try.  So far, it's very interesting as it features early period units and a lot more variety in nation rosters.  The lack of early, middle and late units really got to me in the vanilla game, and IS fixes that. 

The new tactical realism submod for IS also changes things up, but it seems to be in early stages.  Musketry in the submod has been made essentially useless, which is a bit of an overreaction.  Fatigue has also been turned into a cohesion mechanic, which forces the commander to very sparingly use units lest they break from lack of organization.  Even though it needs tweaking it leads to some more realistic opening era battles, where the issue is decided more by a carefully timed charge than it is by plugging away with musket fire and never closing.  It has a lot of potential.  I'm not sure it's better than Darthmod, but it's absolutely worth a look.

[jomni]

^I have to agree.

If I had to choose, I would take Napoleon over Empire.

Also, I have been hoping for a Victoria: TW forever. Done by CA, never mind the mods.

Yes Shogun  2 Fall oF the Samurai already has some Victorian elements.

[DennisS]

I have to say...Medieval War II, with the Viking expansion is still my favorite. Nothing like the raiding parties from the north..and the very cool game mechanic of allowing them to retreat back out into the ocean when threatened.

[Sir Slash]

I wanted an ACW version for Empire or Fall of the Samurai. There's a mod in the works for FOTS but I'll probably never live long enough to see it. And a mod for Empire that's never been finished I think. FOTS Would be perfect with the Ironclad warships.

[Cyrano]

Hey, I can say something positive...cool...

+1 to Dennis.  M:TW (II, particularly) got its hooks very deeply into me and has never let go.  I still have two GCs floating around in my hard drive that I poke at from time to time.  Like most 4Xs, though, you get to that tipping point where you're certain to win but you start to debate if the flame of victory is worth the candle of finishing.  As I suggested earlier, this system is better built for this era and ancients and trying to smuggle it into black powder was smacking a square peg really, really hard into a round hole.

[Gusington]

It was the original Medieval: TW that had the Viking expansion, fyi.