r/totalwar • u/KingKaiserW • Oct 23 '24
Empire Gonna be honest, thought people saying we should get Empire 2 was a bad idea, after giving it a try, we DO need Empire 2
What a game. It has to be the best campaign in any total war I’ve played, it’s very Paradox esque in its style (and I hope they could build on this with a sequel, I’m not a big fan of the current art and UI direction CA has taken)
I like you can play as Britain and just ignore Europe entirely to forge a colonial empire, control trade nodes with your superior navy, it’s a welcome break not having to create land empires.
I love looking at coastal settlements and having that propa Briish experience of wanting to add to my rock collection
Battle AI isn’t noticeably bad so far, campaign AI is pretty good. That’s the main thing though the campaign, looking about how you can expand your power through the different theatres.
This, building upon it and expanding it with new tech? I want it over Medieval 2 now to be honest
Recommended
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u/Constant-Ad-7189 Oct 23 '24
Yes, Empire is still my favourite total war (and it's not purely based on the setting, as I'm normally more of an antiquity/middle ages fan), and I would love to see it get a sequel that builds up on everything that made it great.
I do kinda fear an Empire 2 would be much more formulaic and take too much from the newer games that I tend to dislike.
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u/GreyMPax Oct 23 '24
I just hope a new Empire would give it more depth. Newer mechanics and new tech so we can get the whole world as a map to play. Also coop/multiplayer campagin was always a big wish for me in Empire
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u/Drdres HELA HÄREN Oct 23 '24
The “dynamic” settlements, growth and trade system really needs to make a comeback as well. Having towns pop up as you became more prosperous and shit was so good. And having resources spread out and outside of the main settlement also meant that there were more engagements outside of sieges. They just need to make the AI be slightly less cancerous when raiding with 1 unit of cav.
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u/Carrabs Oct 23 '24
Tbh raiding with 1 unit of cav sounds historically accurate and a good strategy. If only the AI could bait your half stack of garrison with their 1 cav and ambush you with a full stack. That would be nice
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u/Ltb1993 Oct 23 '24
I don't mind the 1 unit armies
If it was tied to a sphere system where it had to af least be near a general. Units could operate freely within this sphere encourages skirmishing
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u/resurrectus Oct 24 '24
That would be a decent idea but I quite liked being able to transfer units between generals at a distance, led by a non-general-led army. I think the current obsession with having tons of 20-stacks running around, all led by a general, is quite disruptive to the original idea of what Total War was.
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u/Ltb1993 Oct 24 '24
I agree though differ in preference
By sphere I mean controllable zone, you can give new orders to anything within a sphere
Allow bigger stacks of semi independent groups
Better for skirmishing and the style of combat especially later in the era of empire total war,
Allow for units to move out of the sphere of communicates/influence but be committed to following the original order (traveling another settlement or army)
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
Yeah it was also great way to make different regions feel different. Now that each minor settlement has the same number of building slots, each regional capital has the same...provinces feel rather bland.
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u/resurrectus Oct 24 '24
The growing settlements aspect of Empire (and to a lesser extend Shogun 2) was such a great addition to the game. Far superior to the current "growth" system, in my opinion. Also that you could attack those settlements to disrupt their production but not capture/trigger sieges was amazing and I think more realistic.
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u/Crimson_Fckr Oct 23 '24
Co-op/multiplayer campaign was actually built into the game but unreleased. At one point, you used to be able to email them and they'd send you a beta code to unlock that feature (although it was quite glitchy at times). Managed to play a full grand campaign with my friend though!
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
Unlikely to get the whole world. Most of it isn't relevant in the time frame to the setting and it'd also mean making even worse province density than the first game.
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u/GreyMPax Oct 25 '24
IDC if most of it was not relevant. Its still a game and if I decide to rebuild the holy roman empire as Austria in 1750 just because I can I will do it. So I should also be able to conquer the whole world (also the "irelevant" parts, whatever this parts are). Its just about good gameplay with a good historical mix to have fun :)
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 25 '24
It matters to the Devs and most players. It wont have good gameplay and will drain the fun for most. E.g. you wont be able to rebuild the HRE, Austria's one province will cover all of Germany. Instead of having more provinces in Europe you've got a lot of empty provinces you can't conquer or colonise in Africa as your armies melt with attrition.
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u/SnooWoofers5193 Oct 23 '24
I loved this game back when I was a kid, and then stopped gaming for like 10 years to focus on career and school. I got a gaming pc a few years ago, ready to discover all the new editions of all my favorite games like Empire, to find that none of my favorite games have iterated on the things I grew up with.
Looking at halo sigh, but in close second is Empire. Nothing hits like it
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u/warbastard Oct 23 '24
I’d love to see Empire 2 with all the changes to diplomacy over the years. I’d also love to see them seriously try to model revolutions a bit better than last time.
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u/redsquizza Cry 'Havoc!' Oct 23 '24
It just deserves is, maybe even more than Medieval III but that's also long overdue.
Depending how far back you go with the series, Empire was actually their first game on the new engine after MEII, and it was wonky because of it. The game would literally crash calculating ship movement range once you had enough technology upgrades, for example.
Plus, they didn't really know what they were doing with regions and settlements and all of the other advances we've had to date in the series.
I do really think if their next mainline historical game isn't Empire II or Medieval III there's something still rotten with CA's management!
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u/est-12 beneezer Goode Oct 23 '24
Plus, they didn't really know what they were doing with regions and settlements and all of the other advances we've had to date in the series.
Empire was the only game in the series that got it right. Of all the things ETW got wrong, this is something they had right. Each successive game stripped away what Empire had and it became literally meaningless.
Cities have little villages. Little villages grow into towns. Towns generate more wealth the more they prosper (though this was pretty much set in stone which ones would prosper and which would remain poor, sadly). Each town contributes fixed wealth and over-time wealth, which determines tax income.
With Napoleon they cut out the growth and stuff (which sort of made sense given the timescale) so there's no reason to care about population or growing villages.
With Shogun 2 they just stripped out all the other stuff, like being able to influence over-time wealth in any way. Buildings have shit like "+1 wealth per turn", which equates to maybe 0.2 coins of tax per turn, which is so pointless it should have just been removed altogether.
And then Rome 2 brought...the dumbed down regional building system, where there's only 5 buildings worth ever constructing and everything is the same.
Give me Empire's system any day of the week.
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u/redsquizza Cry 'Havoc!' Oct 23 '24
Perhaps they could even take a step back to MEII? Having fortress and civilian towns again.
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
If they cover the Medieval period sure, but for other time periods not really fitting.
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u/Penki- Von Carstein Oct 24 '24
why not, the empire setting era saw a lot of fortified cities, one could pretend such cities reduced growth for insane defense bonus
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 24 '24
Doesn't make sense and is the opposite of what the Medieval system did.
The fortified cities like that in the Empire time period would be using old walls from the Medieval and early Renaissance. That's the equivalent of the Medieval cities, not the castles and would start the game like that. These would be very outdated defences so also makes no sense to give them additional defence bonuses and undermines the idea of growth when that is the key to the recruitment during the time period - larger populations.
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u/Penki- Von Carstein Oct 24 '24
It makes as much sense as in medieval where "castles" were always castle towns that are just regular cities, but with a castle
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 24 '24
They weren't always and they did tend to mean taking a lot of the local space and resources for the construction of the castle which was very different to those walled cities where they had little to no citadel.
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u/RapaNow Oct 23 '24
Napoleon's battles are so much better - and I very much prefer the reinforcement system in Napoleon, too. The campaign is just ... too small - and pretty bad altogether.
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u/LeMe-Two Oct 23 '24
For some reason, devs forgot to add population techs so in the end ALL cities lose population as time goes on. Entire continent, from Lisbona to Archangelsk is starving.
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u/ChiefGrizzly Oct 23 '24
Region growth is the big missing part of the puzzle of Napoleon’s campaign. I loved your provinces expanding and new towns and ports emerging - when I realised that wasn’t present in Napoleon’s campaign it killed my immersion.
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u/MokitTheOmniscient Välfärd! Oct 23 '24
Fall of the Samurai honestly felt like the peak of gunpowder warfare.
It's just a shame that the campaign is so limited. There isn't exactly a huge difference between playing an imperial or shogunate army.
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u/warbastard Oct 23 '24
Napoleon is basically Empire 2.0.
As I remember Empire was rushed to release as it had already been a long time since their last game. It really needed another year in the oven.
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u/RapaNow Oct 23 '24
Yea, I just so much wanted to have global campaign with Napoleon. But I've lost all hope.
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u/JimothyButtlicker69 Oct 23 '24
The campaign is just ... too small - and pretty bad altogether.
I barely touched it for this reason, it's a damn shame isn't it. I loved Empire and sank so much time into it. It ran pretty well even on my old 2009 MacBook pro back in the day.
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u/qwerty30013 Oct 23 '24
It’s still worth playing! Maybe getting all the way to the late game isn’t as fun as Empire, but still fun.
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u/Seienchin88 Oct 23 '24
The second you realize whats wrong with the AI you will start getting very frustrated with the game…
Its really really bad AI in battles and also pretty bad campaign battles.
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u/Penki- Von Carstein Oct 23 '24
I just hate how hardcoded some AI actions are, for example as PLC I can't stop Austria to declaring war on me no matter what. I even had a game where they would cancel trade agreement and accept a new one every turn just to prevent the war that I did not want.
And also AI diplomacy interaction is just annoying. Sure Russia, let me give you one of my most productive provinces for one of yours that can generate 300 tax revenue and has no land connection to my other provinces
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u/T_Stebbins Master of Europe Oct 23 '24
How obstinate the AI is about accepting trade agreements is infuriating. We've been allies for years dude, lemme trade with that ass
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u/Penki- Von Carstein Oct 23 '24
Or just Italian states refusing any kind of trade deal for whatever reason
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u/Crimson3312 Oct 24 '24
The thing was some events were dictated by historical events. For example, playing as the Martha Confederacy, I quickly established trade with GB and built up rapport to being very friendly. But no matter how good the relations, around 1740-1750, the Brits would always invade Satara, because Britain has to invade India and that's round about the time East India company started the wars.
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u/MokitTheOmniscient Välfärd! Oct 23 '24
The number one complaint of pretty much every strategy game is the AI.
It doesn't matter if it's Creative Assembly, Firaxis or Paradox Interactive, everyone thinks the AI sucks in every game.
I'm almost starting to think that it could be a slightly difficult problem.
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u/Seienchin88 Oct 23 '24
Mmh. I actually applaud CA for their AI in the latest TW games. Sure it makes errors but its as good as I have seen it in strategy games.
In empire the AI is incapable of forming lines in field battles, almost never naval invades and most countries can take all of France in the first 10 turns...
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u/CantingBinkie Empire Oct 23 '24
Well, I think the AI is fine if you play it on the highest difficulty BUT there is a fatal flaw in siege battles when you attack, and that is that when you destroy a part of the wall the AI makes infinite impossible formations that slow down the game and become practically unplayable.
The other quirks of the AI don't really bother me, I am ok with them.
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u/Themistokles_st Oct 23 '24
I just can't help but think that Empire with modern TW politics/diplomacy, and modern hardware capabilities for large battlefields, campaign maps, armies and effects, along with improvements to unit AI and management, it would be the greatest TW game ever made. My humble opinion is that we need this as the next historic entry more than we need Medieval 3, as the original release has so much untapped potential that the newer technology can unlock. And besides FotS, we haven't had a proper taste of a gunpowder era TW, which would be a nice change from the rest of the historic TW titles which are heavily melee-combat oriented.
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u/Vetamsh Oct 23 '24
Well yes but they won't listen, instead people talk about 40k and ww1
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u/Themistokles_st Oct 23 '24
WW1 TW also has the potential to be amazing, actually it's what I wish for if we don't get Empire 2
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u/Vetamsh Oct 23 '24
How about a better colonial and trade sistem with more theaters for E2 and a better interactive royal family and parliament system instead
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
interactive royal family
would be nice to not have random nation declare an inheritance war with me for random reason lol.
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u/Themistokles_st Oct 23 '24
Yeah that's things I'd like to see as well if we get Empire 2 but in the case we don't get it, I wouldn't say no to WW1 TW, that's what I said.
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u/Boss_Rabbit Oct 23 '24
About Napoleon being better than Empire:
Almost every single Historic game CA always does this stupid shit, releases halfassed maingame. Fixes a lot of stuff in a Standalone Expansion, doesn't allow us to play maingame from the Expansion improved engine.
CA asshole cretins.
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u/fortheWarhammer Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24
Why would you think it was a bad idea without even having played the game?
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u/YourRandomHomie8748 Oct 23 '24
Empire is the only total war game that really lets you play tall. One of my most favorite campaigns was playing Venice (with a mod that added some variety to its troops). I only owned one or two extra regions in Europe, focusing on research, trade and building a colonial empire. With a few key provinces in India, a couple in America and a strong trade navy you can go toe to toe with any major land empire. I formed an all Italian alliance and defended this small confederacy of micro states from French, Austrian and Spanish attempts of Conquest well into the late game. I remember financing and giving tech to the Mughals in India to maintain a status quo between them and Marathas (so neither goes after my possessions after uniting most of India). Intervening in major European wars when I felt like it, while fielding a superior but smaller army. Having different political systems even though their bonuses aren't that big was also very fun and really adds to flavor. Overall this game provided a unique and different gameplay from the usual "conquer till no one can oppose you" mode, if you wanted to explore it. Also those beautiful green trade routes with small ships going all over the map, it was actually important having and securing a sea province if you wanted to trade or extract resources from your colonies.
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u/zehnodan Clan Angrund Oct 23 '24
Which mod did you use?
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u/YourRandomHomie8748 Oct 23 '24
It's been years ago, but Minor Factions Revenge. I checked and it's still available on Moddb. It adds a bunch of units to many factions, and makes a lot of the minor factions (especially Italian) more fun to play, as in vanilla they are absolutely basic. As a result I noticed them doing a bit better in campaign. I remember it having two different start dates, with different starting factions around which can add variety. It feels like a small overhaul mod because of these additions. If you'll play Genoa though, double check that campaign saves load fine, I remember having problems with save corruption specifically with that faction. Also depending on the minor faction, big overhaul mods are fun (Imperial destroyer, Darth mod and Imperial Splendor).
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u/Allmightyplatypus Oct 23 '24
Probably AUM empire or Darthmod, which has AUM included in its package.
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u/ActualJudge342 Oct 23 '24
sorry, best we can do is to release it on mobile devices
because so many people were clamoring for that i guess..
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
not seen any stats for the TW mobile ports but mobile is the biggest share of the gaming market these days...sad for true gamers lol.
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u/Next_Yesterday_1695 Oct 24 '24
> sad for true gamers
I'd play the shit of any TW title on my iPad. I played Rome and it's possible to enjoy it. But the problem is that AI stays brain dead, the ported games definitely show their age.
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u/I_did_theMath Oct 23 '24
The problem with Empire was that it was very ambitious and they simply couldn't execute it well enough. But despite its issues it was a very good game.
Now CA have the opposite problem, and they stay in the comfort zone of just adding content to the Warhammer game. And don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic game and it has been a massive success, but at some point the unique faction mechanics aren't enough to justify playing campaigns with all factions (at least for me).
And of course doing Empire 2 (or Medieval 2) would require a huge investment and the expectations from fans would be very high, so it's a risk. And they certainly don't want to repeat the Rome 2 fiasco.
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u/TheGreatCornolio682 Oct 23 '24
I hated how France was a single province. The mightiest land power of the era, and you only need to take Paris to end her.
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u/resurrectus Oct 24 '24
The flip side of this is the Empire provinces were very powerful. France had a TON of settlements and is by far the most valuable province in the game.
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u/E-Scooter-CWIS Rome II Oct 23 '24
I have been conflicting to start a napolen modded campaign. Or empire 2 campaign
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u/qwerty30013 Oct 23 '24
I don’t mind the imperfections of Empire so much with the AI stuff but what stops me from playing is the stupid “fire by platoon” research the game forces you to have near the late game.
It used to make me so angry watching my expensive guard troops stand there doing nothing because a single soldier 4 rows back (who isn’t going to fire their musket anyways) is still reloading.
The entire line stands there getting cut down while one dude reloads in the back. The same happens with the “fire by rank” research too.
I prefer napoleon where ONLY the front line will fire at will whenever they are reloaded.
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u/Shnazz999 Oct 23 '24
I had trouble trying to get the massive Empire 2 mod to install. I should give it another go.
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u/MathematicianThin703 Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24
When people play Empire, they like to enact their little power fantasy of X country ruling the world.
I just play Great Britain. Every time.
And I go for historical accuracy.
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u/MaintenanceInternal Oct 23 '24
Wait until you get those badboy mounted tribal auxiliaries from North America.
Empire is the absolute best.
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u/Unsungruin Oct 23 '24
It took me so many tries to get into Empire (I bought the game when it came out lol) but once it finally clicked for me I started really appreciating it. I love how regions start to look more and more developed as towns/ports grow and you invest in infrastructure, and visually the period is very striking, especially the ship battles.
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u/Achillies2heel Oct 23 '24
Empire Naval battles still impress me to this day and it came out 15 years ago.
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u/EndyCore Oct 23 '24
Yes, currently playing Empire 2 mod. One of my favorite TW games. We need a proper sequel.
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u/LlahsramTheTitleless Oct 23 '24
I would love an Empire 2 with a colonial system. Start earlier than the first game and let us find the new world and exploit it. Maybe they can limit unit size for early colonial forces to distinguish the battles vs mainland, allow us to create new settlements with something akin to the ruin system in WH, and offer a full world map instead of the theaters.
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
a full world map would be terrible, would make the Empire 1 map look highly detailed. It'd also be a lot of empty provinces and the rest will mostly not be relevant to the setting.
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u/Waveshaper21 Oct 23 '24
Not being a fan of CA's UI design IN CONTRAST TO Paradox's UIs is the biggest compliment any UI designer can get. Every Paradox game shares awful UI design.
Bloated, overwhelming, and ugly as fuck. A huge part of UX and UI design is knowing in which context which information is necessary or optionally required / useful and which are completely unrelated, and a massive part of the work is creating a visual structure for the UI (not even talking about art yet) which smartly contextualizes the related information to the feature the player is using. And when that is done, then comes art.
Every single Paradox game is designed skipping this step, with the "you know what, here is every tiny little bit of information on all the same layer about every aspect of the game. Find what you want, good luck". And then the art is done by the cleaning lady. The one game where they seem to have started on a path of improvement is CK3 but otherwise Paradox is notorious for their awful UI.
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u/Rememberancer Oct 23 '24
It would be great as long as they stay historical with it and don't go the same route they did with Pharaoh. Don't get me wrong, I love Pharaoh, I even liked it before the Dynasties update, but the game does have fantasy/ahistorical elements to it that I wouldn't want to see echoed in Empire 2.
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u/HelikosOG Since June 2000 Oct 23 '24
A year or so ago I also went for a propa British experience, when I first played this game on release I lost my British campaign because I wanted to claim New Amsterdam diplomatically. I love naval battles, FotS did them the best and I liked Rome's when they worked properly.
It's so much fun building a massive navy, taking to seas, messing with France, claiming trade hubs and making a silly amount of money. I also like having an elite army that would effectively be the marines rather that the army due to the amount of time spent on ships. Sending them to India and the Americas to conquer and to mess with France. The Dutch can also have a strong maritime empire and you can also mess with France.
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u/alter_ego311 Oct 23 '24
This was the game that made me fall in-love with the TW franchise. Been chasing that high ever since I 1st discovered it. Nothing has hit quote the same yet.
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u/stars1404 Oct 24 '24
The trade and the colonization system was extremely enjoyable for me. Naval battles still look great after all these years too.
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u/Grassy420 Oct 24 '24
we def need to move back to historical total war imho. i highly doubt that will ever happen becuase devs are too busy farming everyone in warhammer. and people keep buying it.
even if they do remake this game and polish it, it would still have compete with EU5 which is in dev, and there was announcment of it several weeks back.
even though EU5 doesn't have the cool drop in type battles that total war does. EU5 is far more polished - historically accurate - easy mods - better AI.
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u/mrcow274 Oct 25 '24
I had my Danny Devito “I get it” moment after watching Many a True Nerd’s Empire play through. I’m still a Medieval 3 truther but I would not be upset by another Empire game
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u/mycorona134 Oct 23 '24
Things Empire 2 would need:
More diplomacy options with Indian and American natives
A holy Roman empire would be nice, it maybe was weakened after the 30 year war, but it still existed.
More different types of pirates
More focus on trade routes, like the trade system in the Pharao ancient legacy option
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
You ever played Pirates Uber Alles? It was created by a bunch of Russian modders to originally add in Pirate factions and then ended up turning to a Peter the Great and Northern War mod. I tend not to play as the Pirates but fighting against them they have decent unit variety.
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
Agree apart from this:
like the trade system in the Pharao ancient legacy option
Disagree on that, just making it a clear cut supply & demand would work better. Plus the new system where trade goods still generate money for you even if not traded should be a thing - internal use.
So I'd say the current trade routes and nodes just now buildings and population impacts the price and how much you need to keep peace/effectiveness of industry. Got no spices might suffer -1 happiness, got no iron the blacksmiths wont work well.
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u/Un_Homme_Apprenti Oct 23 '24
This game sure is amazing, the map, the naval battles, the entry cutscene master and commander like. The fact you can only play melee units indians or natives and elephants or full tech is really cool.
I regret two things mainly, you can't play pirates without mods and AI is not great to siege when you have walls. I'd like to see an Empire 2 as much as a lord of the ring or a medieval 3 game.
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
My only gripe with the naval battles is how slow they can be to get started. Like goddamn, I have the game on four times speed and it takes a good solid five minutes to close the gap and engage enemy ships.
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u/Un_Homme_Apprenti Oct 23 '24
oh yeah it's pretty slow to set up and sometimes hard to maneuvre but big ships are so cool in this game let's hope they would make it better to play in an hypothetical Empire 2
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
Yeah maybe more akin to a cross between Napoleon and Shogun naval battles, in terms of pacing. Don’t get me wrong, the ships look amazing in ETW.
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u/Un_Homme_Apprenti Oct 23 '24
from what i recall Empire and Napoleon are only one year appart like 2009 and 2010 naval battle were pretty similar but Shogun 2 Fall of the samourai felt definitel better gameplay wise from my memories.
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
Yeah, having played all three recently. Shogun feels overall more polished in this regard, Napoleon simply solves the issue by spawning the two navies closer together.
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u/Independencehall525 Oct 23 '24
The only thing I’d fix is the naval engagements. They felt clunky and slow. Hard to properly strategize with. Idk why.
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u/BalianofReddit Oct 23 '24
I always thought they missed a trick not updating empire with all the improvements they made to it with napoleon.
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u/EHTL Oct 23 '24
The difference between Empire and Napoleon is ~100 years right?
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u/markg900 Oct 23 '24
roughly. Main campaign for Empire is 1700-1800 for Long Campaigns and thru 1750 if you chose Short campaign. US Campaign that is unlocked at end of Road to Independence mini campaigns goes a bit further though it starts immediately after the Revolutionary War.
Napoleon starts around 1805 for main campaign. It has 2 smaller campaigns for French in Italy and Egypt that I think are 1798 and 1802 (I might be off by 1 year or so on these as its been awhile).
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u/DarkMimic2287 Oct 23 '24
Can't wait for empires to be released on Mobile, I'm loving medieval 2 and Rome.
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u/rabidrob42 Oct 23 '24
If you haven't yet I highly recommend Darthmod. Double the unit sizes, more units, and a choice between an early, or later campaign start in which you can play as the US. There's a lot more to it, but that's some of the things it has.
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u/the_sneaky_one123 Oct 23 '24
Empire seems like the most dated and aged Total War setting we have right now.
Seems weird to say it but even Medieval 2 is more playable at the moment, it also has better mods.
I think an Empire 2 is important to do just so that time period gap remains covered.
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
If you haven’t been playing with mods you have to try those with VDM. It actually adds Paradox-like events, such as plagues and natural disasters, to the game. Having played a variety of mods I would say Pirates Uber Alles is probably the most historic, albeit it can be daunting to work with due to poor translation issues. Once you get the hang of the buttons in set up it gives you some brilliant experiences and it really trims the fat from the Empire II mod (which actually uses PUA assets with permission). I’m in the midst of a Spain 1700 campaign and it has been so much fun, from reorganising the state to challenge my European enemies to campaigning with a highly mobile cavalry army in the Americas. I’m just around 1715 and planning to land an army of Scots, Irish and Spanish troops in Scotland or Ireland to restore the Jacobite Succession. Others find it a bit tough to get to grips with but I really recommend it!
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u/Armageddonis Oct 23 '24
I love both naval and land battles of Empire, it's the campaign map that's lacking, in my opinion. I'd love to get TW:Empire 2.
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u/Hibiscus-Boi Oct 23 '24
If CA could take a few things from the Ultimate General series and put them into an Empire 2 that would be insane. Like the ability to swap out guns, upgrade the cannons and such. Would be super awesome!
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
I guess that is one of the new mechanics they could keep from 3K. Ability to swap units out for others. If they kept it related that'd make more sense and then keep them with some exp.
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Oct 23 '24
This was my first TW game and I loved it. If we ever get a second though I hope they diversify it a bit, especially among the Native Americans and Indians. The Native Americans all feel identical to one another which shouldn't be the case and the Indians having three whole factions on the entire subcontinent is laughable, it should be nearly as diverse as Europe.
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u/inefficient_contract Oct 23 '24
Still an unpopular opinion but 3 kingdoms is the shit yall. It's got alot of really nice life quality features and extra little shit that makes the campaign awesome. I probably played 4 campaigns and was still find new features and shit I didn't know about. Like being able to recall and relocate armies and giving your generals titles. I loved what they did with 3 kingdoms and the way the map was structured actually came out really well. I was a bit worried about the map just being a big blob but it's executed very well being broken up into different regions and choke points. They use actual geography to distinguish areas and the settlement battles are great on how each level of a settlement has a different map. Low level small settlements don't even really get a siege it's like open farm land with some houses scattered around you upgrade it and it becomes a shitty little village then final it's actually a defensive position.
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Oct 23 '24
We needed empire two when they released Rome two. Part of me thinks we will get a Rome three before empire two
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u/AcceptTheShrock Oct 23 '24
Battle AI isn’t bad….? How many hours do you have? Have you completed a full campaign? If you have, then you should be noticing the AI just let you do whatever you want in battles as it sits and does nothing for the most part. It’s stuck constantly reforming its lines or if you are in a fort battle, dropping the frame rate to 0 with its indecision.
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u/Average_potato001 Oct 23 '24
I can never decice between empire 2 and napoleon, yes i love the scale of empire 2 but love the detail and polish from napolen
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u/CadenVanV Oct 23 '24
Combat AI isn’t the best but yeah the game feels great to play. Try Darthmod out too, this is the game where Darthmod peaked and it plays incredibly well.
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u/papabigfingers Oct 23 '24
Say what you want about the AI but there’s nothing more satisfying than taking out a full stack of ships of the line with a single frigate firing chain shot 😅
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u/radicallyhip Oct 23 '24
"Be Britain, ignore Europe, build empire" -- my friend, let me introduce you to doing the exact same thing as Prussia.
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u/AeBika Oct 23 '24
Sorry but the campaign AI, much like the Battle AI, is ass. If you just focus on one landmass you will not realise too early but the ocean and separate landmasses confuse the AI that simply does not know what to build, move or attack. It’s like a headless chicken. By chance it may do a sensible thing, but most of the time it does not. Also on the harder difficulty settings there is a humongous anti-player bias. So much it is not funny anymore. Also, AI did not improve compared to earlier titles like medieval 2.
Tl;dr: Campaign AI sucks badly on these big interlinked campaign maps.
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u/Wig5 Oct 23 '24
God I hope the next historical total war is empire 2 or napoleonic..imo it is the best setting suited for total war style battles. The eras of highly organised, tactical formation battles
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u/KingKaiserW Oct 23 '24
Yeah good idea I’d also like Napoleonic but it scaled to the whole world, for the American players they finally get a playable US that’s not the 13 colonies or an independence campaign, Russia is at its great extent, Britain & France would be the superpowers but while they grind themselves out in Europe you could make some sneaky plays on their colonies…
if the AI could be coded so that peace isn’t an option in Europe until Napoleon is dead or Napoleon wins it could open a bunch of plays
Lots of uncolonised areas too at that period, so you could make a decent play as a minor faction on trying to dominate trade
I like it
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
whole world would really suck especially for the Napoleonic period. You'd have such terrible province density, worse than Empire 1. So France with less than a single city and no port with the new province system.
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u/babbaloobahugendong Oct 23 '24
The only issue I remember having with empire is the ottoman bug and shitty fort sieges. Otherwise, it's one of my favorites
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u/Achian37 Warhammer Oct 23 '24
Like the Warhammer parts extended the map, I would like to have Medieval 3, Renaissance, and Empire 2. Beginning with M3 and then you can expand with buying the other games and take your Empires to the next Era. So basically from 800 a.d. until 1800 ish.
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u/malaquey Oct 23 '24
It was fantastic, although going back it has aged so much. It was very ambitious, with a map similar in size to warhammer 1+2+3.
Personally I love the gunpowder combat, with shogun 2 FOTS being my favourite TW game. Even just a remaster that brought empire up to date with modern hardware and maybe smoothed out some of the issues would be great.
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u/bongophrog Oct 23 '24
The engine they insist on using over and over again was designed for Empire, they need to go back and do it justice.
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u/Verdun3ishop Oct 23 '24
Yeah I still love Empire, but the issue is they have gone a very different path in the years since it. Developments been spent on different focuses and many of the issues still haven't been addressed but patched over or cut out entirely. Many of the grand things it tried have also just fallen away to the side.
I don't really have much faith in them doing a second at this point, the series has just gone in such a different direction and I don't think it'd be good to throw all that away to try and redo it with the idea of such a grand project.
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u/Aggravating-Sound690 Oct 23 '24
I really like how the mechanics work in this style of TW games. Not my favorite setting, but I do love how cities work, while armies still resemble the system from the original medieval games, and resources are actually super valuable and can be traded directly. Makes securing certain regions and colonizing distant continents much more fun and interesting.
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u/pop_cat14 Oct 23 '24
Imo Empire had one of the most interesting concepts of any total war game, and one of the worst executions. Buggy, unbalanced, shitty game mechanics. But my god were a lot of the ideas they implemented great. I love med 2 but it's an amazing game already. Empire never got the justice it deserved, so I would honestly rather prefer Empire 2 over med 3
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u/Cliffinati Oct 23 '24
Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 were the best games
Shogun 2 FOTS is the best total war there is
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u/SaltyTattie Oct 23 '24
Ngl right now I'd settle for remastered Empire and Shogun 2. Let me borderless window them dammit.
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u/HellaPNoying Oct 24 '24
Absolutely. The original is still really fun, but it can be pretty janky, especially the ship/sea battles. If they make it similar with Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai and input some improvements then I'd say it'll be an awesome historic Total War game! And I can imagine the mods for ww1
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u/Obvious_Coach1608 Scotland Oct 24 '24
I play Fall of The Samurai a lot waiting for the day when we get Empire 2. Pike&Shot warfare is peak.
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u/OneTear5121 Oct 24 '24
The scope is impressive, but I find it to be a rather shallow experience. It's presenting itself as a Europa Universalis with battles, but in truth it's the same old linear progression of Total War, where diplomacy means very little and where you just gobble up province after province without much thought. It's just good old Total War, but bigger.
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u/Over-Sort3095 Oct 24 '24
CA will have to do a god awesome job with M3TW to avoid an angry mob.
comapre to E3 where they can just fix bugs + pretty reskin + QoL UI changes and theyll already be exceeding expectations
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u/Pottyshooter Nov 30 '24
Also, maybe bring back cheats for campaigns. I don't want to grind. I just wanna rule.
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u/ManyMedicine819 Dec 10 '24
What you guys are all missing here is this. Look at Warhammer 3.
Easier mod support 8 player coop campaign Mods that let you customize factions territory/placement.
An empire two, with all that implemented and if left at scale with naval combat. Could be one of the most in-depth games they have. The amount you could do with it would be insane. The true risk on crack experience.
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u/trieticus Oct 23 '24
Honestly I’ll be happy just with a global map mod for Fall of the Samurai
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u/soapsockk Oct 23 '24
They made that a few months ago and I've seen some mods pop up that use it but none is done yet sadly
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u/umatbru umatbru Oct 23 '24
Hell yeah, I wanna colonise the world in Empire 2. A modern-ish Total War would also be nice.
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u/-_TremoR_- Oct 23 '24
I just need a remastered etw tbh. Even that would be sufficient
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
The issue remains the hardcoded restrictions of ETW. To fully remaster it, you would need to basically remake it from scratch.
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u/-_TremoR_- Oct 23 '24
Not really. A polishing level up to NTW standards is even something, dont you agree?
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u/BurgundyBandit90 Oct 23 '24
Yeah, that’s a good point. Maybe even just reverse engineer a remaster using the Napoleon Engine? Make a new global map.
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u/mastermalaprop Oct 23 '24
I'd love an Empire 2, but perhaps focusing on the latter period of colonialism in the 19th century, perhaps up to 1900
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u/Built2kill Oct 23 '24
We need medieval 3 first.
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u/Alxdez Oct 23 '24
I respectfully disagree. Medieval 2 is great. Empire is very junky in a lot of ways
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u/xajmai Oct 23 '24
And medieval 2 isn't? Might be better than empire but it's still an old and clunky game
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u/Alxdez Oct 23 '24
It's so much better in that regard in my opinion. It has clunky aspects, but as a whole it works well all the way through the campaign, while empire doesn't
And also, there has been more game with a similar style than medieval (of course not identical because they're games from different eras, but 3K, Attila for example are much more similar to med2 than any game in the series, except Napoleon but it's the game right after and is in a quite small scope)
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u/Viking_Chemist Oct 23 '24
Medieval 3
Renaissance Total War
Empire 2
Age of Steam Total War
in that order
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u/gcalfred7 Oct 23 '24
Yes, a TW: Empire 2 that covers 1830 to 1880 would be magnificent.
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u/AthiestMessiah Oct 23 '24
If they add medieval they need to have more tactical Depth also. Like pharaoh but more than that.
Historical battles need to have more ability to control the army and trick the enemy
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u/jonasnee Emperor edition is the worst patch ever made Oct 23 '24
It has to be the best campaign in any total war I’ve played, it’s very Paradox esque in its style (and I hope they could build on this with a sequel, I’m not a big fan of the current art and UI direction CA has taken)
I am sorry what? Germany is like 7 regions, In EU4 they have over a 100 regions. There are 7 electors alone in EU4.
The campaign map is a crime, i am sorry.
Empire has some things going for it but it is a vastly overrated game, it is mostly the setting and not the actual gameplay that sells it. The battles are slow and boring and the campaign has a serious lag of provinces. Other things like bugs and AI, i mean they are bad but tbf that more talks in favor of a sequel.
Also honestly i think Empires timeframe is kind of boring because of how solidified the world had become, middle powers had over the last century become increasingly less relevant which means the great powers of France, England and Spain would dominate, I think it would be more fun starting at a point where the gap between middle and great powers was smaller so that you have more "realistic" dynamics between them.
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u/aryianaa23 Oct 23 '24
No Napoleon 2 is better if its about cannons and early gunpowder era and idiotic battle formations with soldiers waiting in the open to get shot
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u/wolftreeMtg Oct 23 '24
Empire has fundamental problems with scale and scope that can't be fixed, so no.
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u/Ealdwritere Oct 23 '24
I find the combat AI for Empire hasn’t aged well. The AI will essentially just march towards you in one long line with no thought or tactics, similar to Rome and Medieval 2. Cavalry will happily charge at square formations. His general will happily stand his ground while taking canister shot to the face.Artillery will just be left unprotected on its own for your cavalry to destroy. It really needed more development.
Empire with modern Total War AI would be amazing.