Total War: Rule Britannia, literally.

[Redemption-America]

I want the sheer hordes of manz that the Chinese factions were able to hurl at each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping

MANZ

[OMGeverynameistaken]

I want the sheer hordes of manz that the Chinese factions were able to hurl at each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping

MANZ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salsu

Doesn't always help though

[Altito Asmoro]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping

MANZ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salsu

Doesn't always help though

Because it's different. This battle involves ambush, destructible dam, and smaller but faster troops, while the Changping involves two armies massing themselves with troops, similar in size.

[Great Houses of Xie]

The point is MANZ. Even 2800 vs MANZ, something I can't accomplish in the current TW titles without borking the games purdy hard.

[IshCong]

Big thing Napoleon has that Empire doesn't is unit balance and diversity. Chiefly, as far as balancing goes, melee cav is far more valuable in NTW (while being nearly worthless in ETW) and rifles are actually balanced against light infantry in a meaningful way. Units are also more diverse in stats, skins, and availability between factions.
Of course, NTW also threw faction balance out the window (part of how factions became more diverse, honestly), along with the rest of your grievances, so.

Perhaps it is also because NTW based its unit balance on historical facts as well. Rifles being more balanced reflects the advancement of rifle technology, but I don't know about melee cav...

I don't think it's a matter of realism, honestly.
Great Britain and France are set up as the two greatest powers by a fair bit in basically every field...which sets up for big GB v France battles. It builds the narrative of the Napoleonic wars more than it reflects actual realism, is my take on it.

Rifles being more balanced is partially realistic, at least. In ETW they fired faster and were more accurate than regular light infantry. In NTW they're more balanced against light infantry because the rate of fire of rifles got nerfed to pieces. They still have longer range, but the light infantry shooting so much faster means they get beat if the lights are within range of them. This makes some historical sense. The rifling of rifles was more prone to build up soot and such and as a result reloading became more troublesome, faster for rifles. Nerfing rifles also allows the French army to forego having them without too great a penalty, which NTW does, and which is historically accurate as Napoleon didn't use them (he disliked their cost and longer reloads). So it's both historically accurate, and helps the French out a bit.

It is not, however, reflecting the advancement of rifle technology. Rifles are better in ETW than NTW, despite NTW taking place after ETW.

Melee cav got two big boons in NTW. Firstly, gun cav is far less common in NTW, and only a few factions have access to it. In ETW, most every faction had access to some sort of gun cav, usually light dragoons. Light dragoons in ETW could fire on enemy melee cav, inflict crippling losses, and almost guarantee victory in the resulting melee because of it. They weren't terribly expensive either. The other big bonus they got was that in ETW units could still form square even after engaged in melee. In NTW, if a unit is in melee, it cannot form square and cannot get the resulting melee bonuses against cav.
There were other buffs besides these, but these are the two biggest.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

ETW was 'balanced' in favor of Britain once they patched in unit variation. British units, in almost every case, were the best 'bang for your buck.' They tended to cost a bit more, but the stat increases were disproportionate to the cost increase. I remember seeing a thread about it ages ago on the .org.

You also get things like Russia not being able to build large naval ships in NTW, which was rather annoying to me. Gimping the third/fourth place naval power by not letting them build ships above 80 guns was unacceptable. Also making Moscow their capital.

It always seemed to me that CA let their British origins get in the way of building a proper historical narrative when it came to European games. See how the Celtic factions in Rome 2 and Attila have unique unit rosters while the entirety of Europe in Attila is thrown under the "GERMANIC TRIBES" label.

[Great Houses of Xie]

That's quite the strawman for attila. There were nordic troops in northern europe. Gallic troops in gallic regions (unsurprisingly). Iberian troops. So on and so forth.

[IshCong]

ETW was 'balanced' in favor of Britain once they patched in unit variation. British units, in almost every case, were the best 'bang for your buck.' They tended to cost a bit more, but the stat increases were disproportionate to the cost increase. I remember seeing a thread about it ages ago on the .org.

You also get things like Russia not being able to build large naval ships in NTW, which was rather annoying to me. Gimping the third/fourth place naval power by not letting them build ships above 80 guns was unacceptable. Also making Moscow their capital.

It always seemed to me that CA let their British origins get in the way of building a proper historical narrative when it came to European games. See how the Celtic factions in Rome 2 and Attila have unique unit rosters while the entirety of Europe in Attila is thrown under the "GERMANIC TRIBES" label.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'patched in unit variation', but British units aren't necessarily the best in the game.
Their line get like, 5 reload for 70 cash (and 1 morale that doesn't really matter), which is nice, but not a big deal either way. I wouldn't call nearly a 10% markup for 5 reload a disproportionate increase though. In any case, Prussian line costs the same, but they get another 5 reload, so they're objectively better.
They get regular Guards, but also Coldstreams, which get +10 reload for 30 more than the standard. A good deal, to be sure. I'd say Holland Guard (+5 Acc/+5 Rel, +20 cost) are competitive though.
Their Green Jackets are functionally the same as the standard rifle unit. I'd actually call them worse. Oh, sure, you get a boatload of melee stats for a whopping 10, but melee stats on rifles are as useful as the TSA. The extra 10 just sets them as more expensive for the same shooting stats. Not actually a good thing.
Their light infantry is the same as the rest.
Their light 'goons are the same as the rest.
Artillery is the same as the rest.
Nothing else matters.

There are some British DLC units, but I'm not going to go into those. DLC units are almost universally garbage, and British DLCs are no exception.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

ETW was 'balanced' in favor of Britain once they patched in unit variation. British units, in almost every case, were the best 'bang for your buck.' They tended to cost a bit more, but the stat increases were disproportionate to the cost increase. I remember seeing a thread about it ages ago on the .org.

You also get things like Russia not being able to build large naval ships in NTW, which was rather annoying to me. Gimping the third/fourth place naval power by not letting them build ships above 80 guns was unacceptable. Also making Moscow their capital.

It always seemed to me that CA let their British origins get in the way of building a proper historical narrative when it came to European games. See how the Celtic factions in Rome 2 and Attila have unique unit rosters while the entirety of Europe in Attila is thrown under the "GERMANIC TRIBES" label.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'patched in unit variation', but British units aren't necessarily the best in the game.
Their line get like, 5 reload for 70 cash (and 1 morale that doesn't really matter), which is nice, but not a big deal either way. I wouldn't call nearly a 10% markup for 5 reload a disproportionate increase though. In any case, Prussian line costs the same, but they get another 5 reload, so they're objectively better.
They get regular Guards, but also Coldstreams, which get +10 reload for 30 more than the standard. A good deal, to be sure. I'd say Holland Guard (+5 Acc/+5 Rel, +20 cost) are competitive though.
Their Green Jackets are functionally the same as the standard rifle unit. I'd actually call them worse. Oh, sure, you get a boatload of melee stats for a whopping 10, but melee stats on rifles are as useful as the TSA. The extra 10 just sets them as more expensive for the same shooting stats. Not actually a good thing.
Their light infantry is the same as the rest.
Their light 'goons are the same as the rest.
Artillery is the same as the rest.
Nothing else matters.

There is some British DLC units, but I'm not going to go into those. DLC units are almost universally garbage, and British DLCs are no exception.

Originally, non-unique units in ETW had the same stats across all factions. They changed this with a patch shortly after release, though. It sounds like vanilla stats may have changed at some point, though. It has been forever since I played vanilla ETW. I'm gonna do some searching to see if I can find that old thread.

[Great Houses of Xie]

According to patchnotes http://www.steampowered.com/platform/update_history/index.php?skin=0&id=10500, it seems the unit stats were diversified at the time of the first DLC, after release by a little more than 3 months.

[Segmentia]

Recently started playing my DarthMod Empire campaign again and just noticed that Russian line infantry units seem to have a decent few more soldiers per unit then mine. Odd I didn't notice that before since I've been at war with Russia at least a dozen times or more. I suppose that's why the casualties for every battle are so high.

[NeuPolska]

You guys keep talking about Empire and I keep seeing pictures of it popping up on the internet...I think I'm going to ask for it this Christmas. How is it compared to M2TW? Are the units better, more responsive? And battle maps? Sieges? General gameplay?

[Great Houses of Xie]

Oh, gawd yes, the units move more responsively. However, it is not a game meant for melee combat and unit ai, when involved in melee, can act real wonky (the most egregious example is my unit of infantry charging away from their target; fortunately, this is not an issue with cavalry, only infantry). The battle maps better reflect where on the campaign map you fight. The changes in elevation arent as absurdly steep, either.

Sieges, due to widespread gunpowder, are different. This is a case where it's hard to compare apples to oranges. I liked empire sieges, though.

The scale of the campaign map leads to greater replayability. America, europe, the middle east, and india are all available for conquest. You dont have to wait for an area to be unlocked, like america for m2.

More mechanically, the empire camera is not tied to the ground, so you never have to worry about terrible camera angles and not being able to see what you want to see. Range indicators are obvious, so you can tell when youre in range or not, something that is really important in a game that stresses gunfire.

NAVAL COMBAT. You never have to worry about the auto calc and losing fat fleets to puny enemy fleets, since now you can lead your fleets in battle.

[IshCong]

You guys keep talking about Empire and I keep seeing pictures of it popping up on the internet...I think I'm going to ask for it this Christmas. How is it compared to M2TW? Are the units better, more responsive? And battle maps? Sieges? General gameplay?

The units are more responsive, yes. M2 had that obnoxious command lag, ETW doesn't.

Battle maps are less varied, for good reason. M2 could have some really wonky/diverse maps, but Empire's tend to be more similar to each other. Specifically, M2 could have giant hills and valleys, ETW generally does not, because Line needs flat terrain to work properly. There's still hills, valleys, buildings (that you can garrison and destroy with cannon as desired), ledges, forests, and all sorts of stuff, the maps just tend to be a bit flatter over all, with more gradual slopes. Generally speaking that is.

Sieges are probably less in depth than M2's. Most every fort and "town wall" is pretty much the same, at least within a tier. There's slight differences between cultures, but they're not too significant. The terrain around the forts are usually pretty similar as well. You never defend a city, like with buildings and streets (though you can defend towns and villages, but those aren't sieges), but the forts do generally have some buildings in them you can garrison, as well as a center that grants unlimited morale and, if taken, starts a clock towards attacker victory.
Notably, the AI isn't particularly great with sieges, and is highly prone to manipulation by someone who knows how to do it.

General gameplay is varied.
ETW has a better UI, more in-depth and responsive diplomacy, and a more interesting (imo) trade system (at least insofar as trade goods are concerned). There's no Papacy, or anything like it. Naval combat is a thing, which is pretty cool. Makes playing the colonial/trade games pretty interesting. I liked the addition of more towns within a province that contributed economically and that could be upgraded and raided.
ETW has range indicators. That's a pretty massive plus as far as gameplay is concerned, imo.
You also don't have the "heavy cav run over everything forever" issue.

[NeuPolska]

So less absurd battle maps (hate fighting near mountains in M2TW), more responsive units, gunpowder units are commonly used, naval combat, better diplomacy (M2TW diplomacy was worse and made less sense than American politics), and more stuff in general. Sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. I've been in the mood for that sort of fighting, I recently set up a custom match where it was me (Poland) and France against the HRE and Spain and the armies were mostly arquebusiers, late game cavalry, cannons, and some late game melee infantry. 4,000 men on the battlefield and it was the most fun I've had in M2TW lately, but the AI sucked with using the arquebusiers.

I also noticed Empire has better skins and a cooler looking map (IMO). I watched a gameplay video of a guy playing as Russia, there's definitely a lot more to Empire on even the basic stuff. And it seems like I won't be able to garrison every city with good troops and also expect to consistently win defensive siege battles (M2TW I could easily afford to keep a fairly good garrison in every settlement and it was even easier to hold off enemy invasions). So this sounds exciting.

[Impaled Nazarene]

So less absurd battle maps (hate fighting near mountains in M2TW), more responsive units, gunpowder units are commonly used, naval combat, better diplomacy (M2TW diplomacy was worse and made less sense than American politics), and more stuff in general. Sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. I've been in the mood for that sort of fighting, I recently set up a custom match where it was me (Poland) and France against the HRE and Spain and the armies were mostly arquebusiers, late game cavalry, cannons, and some late game melee infantry. 4,000 men on the battlefield and it was the most fun I've had in M2TW lately, but the AI sucked with using the arquebusiers.

I also noticed Empire has better skins and a cooler looking map (IMO). I watched a gameplay video of a guy playing as Russia, there's definitely a lot more to Empire on even the basic stuff. And it seems like I won't be able to garrison every city with good troops and also expect to consistently win defensive siege battles (M2TW I could easily afford to keep a fairly good garrison in every settlement and it was even easier to hold off enemy invasions). So this sounds exciting.

Wait till you play Napoleon. 2 militia and 2-3 gunpowder mobs can defeat the grand army in a defensive battle.

[The Two Jerseys]

So less absurd battle maps (hate fighting near mountains in M2TW), more responsive units, gunpowder units are commonly used, naval combat, better diplomacy (M2TW diplomacy was worse and made less sense than American politics), and more stuff in general. Sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. I've been in the mood for that sort of fighting, I recently set up a custom match where it was me (Poland) and France against the HRE and Spain and the armies were mostly arquebusiers, late game cavalry, cannons, and some late game melee infantry. 4,000 men on the battlefield and it was the most fun I've had in M2TW lately, but the AI sucked with using the arquebusiers.

I also noticed Empire has better skins and a cooler looking map (IMO). I watched a gameplay video of a guy playing as Russia, there's definitely a lot more to Empire on even the basic stuff. And it seems like I won't be able to garrison every city with good troops and also expect to consistently win defensive siege battles (M2TW I could easily afford to keep a fairly good garrison in every settlement and it was even easier to hold off enemy invasions). So this sounds exciting.

Wait till you play Napoleon. 2 militia and 2-3 gunpowder mobs can defeat the grand army in a defensive battle.

The NTW AI is terrible at sieges. What's the point of having artillery if you're just going to try and scale the walls?

[Zanera]

You guys keep talking about Empire and I keep seeing pictures of it popping up on the internet...I think I'm going to ask for it this Christmas. How is it compared to M2TW? Are the units better, more responsive? And battle maps? Sieges? General gameplay?

I have a weird bug or something where if I have a long line of naval ships and I right click to tell them to go somewhere while they are grouped, the lead ship starts to turn in the opposite direction. Extraordinarily annoying, especially when the enemy fleet can move in unison in a long line, and does every time.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Wait till you play Napoleon. 2 militia and 2-3 gunpowder mobs can defeat the grand army in a defensive battle.

The NTW AI is terrible at sieges. What's the point of having artillery if you're just going to try and scale the walls?

Not even sieges. Just defensive battles in a town

[The Two Jerseys]

The NTW AI is terrible at sieges. What's the point of having artillery if you're just going to try and scale the walls?

Not even sieges. Just defensive battles in a town

Let me guess: the AI wants to close and fight hand-to-hand instead of keeping its distance and relying on musketry and artillery fire, am I right?

[Kuruzubek]

Ask for Napoleon: Total War.

Much better gameplay all around.

[NeuPolska]

Ask for Napoleon: Total War.

Much better gameplay all around.

Meh, but I want to play as Poland. Stop the partitions from ever happening I want to partition Prussia or Austria and see how they like it. Plus it seems like a challenging faction to play as, so maybe for the first time ever I'll actually lose a campaign in a Total War game. Seems like there are more factions to play as in Empire anyway. That and everyone but you seems to be against Napoleon so I dunno...

[Great Houses of Xie]

Well, if you want to play as Poland, you won't be able to in Napoleon.

I've listed my gripes of Napoleon, so don't particularly care to re-list them again, at this time, heh. Long story short, I'm convinced Empire is far more entertaining.

[Boetzelaer]

Anyone wish they'd make a game based on China? There's many periods of time when China was divided into numerous factions.

Yeah, just wonder which timeline they would choose to?

personally Mongol conquest would be the best, just like Barbarian Invasion series : I would love to play as Mongol horde raging south crushing Xi Xia, Song and Khara Khitai in juggernaut army of Horsemen

[The Two Jerseys]

Well, if you want to play as Poland, you won't be able to in Napoleon.

I've listed my gripes of Napoleon, so don't particularly care to re-list them again, at this time, heh. Long story short, I'm convinced Empire is far more entertaining.

There are mods to NTW that do let you play as minor factions, Poland included.