So you purchased Empire DBond. Good choice as it is one of my favorite periods. I suggest you play vanilla to get the feel of it and then move to Darthmod. You will be glad that you did.

Here is a link:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1126-DarthMod-Empire

Thanks Trooper for the reply. I think Panzer nailed it on the head. That applies to me, certainly. As fondly as I remember the first Rome, it isn't as interesting a time period, to me, as the middle ages or the renaissance are. It's been many years since I played Rome, probably 2005 or so. I do remember how much I liked the music that played on the campaign map though. So soothing.

Thanks Barkhorn. I will do exactly that. Or I will see what I would maybe like to be different and see what mod is best. But I know Darthmods are popular for most TW titles. BTW, are you the Barkhorn that flew with JG3 when Il-2 first came out?

No that was not me w/ JG3. And you can't go wrong w/ DarthMod. Here are some of the changes:
- Better Camp. AI
- 2/3/4 turns per year option
- Diplomacy that actually makes some sense
- Better Camp. atmosphere
- Mo money to start
- More unit variety for each faction - about a dozen new units for Prussia w/ their uniforms modeled in battle
- Better Battle AI
- Weapons effects tweaked
- Awesome smoke effects
- Individual fife music for the major powers - Hohenfriedberg march for Prussia

Cool, thanks for the info. It will take a me a little while to discover what I would like to change. But those changes seem reasonable and useful.

Even playing just a few hours last night I'd say that Empire has taken over the second spot in my list behind only M2 with Stainless Steel, and could easily vault to the top spot as I get deeper into the campaign. But then again I would have said that about Shogun 2 a week or two ago.

As it stands I'd rank my TW experience as

1. Medieval 2
2. Empire
3. Shogun 2
4. Rome

All good games, regardless of their position in the list, and as PM alluded to probably due at least in part to my preference for the time periods.

Shogun II (FotS only)
Napoleon

Short answer, I like the gunpowder era better. I actually played Empire more than the other two combined, but it has a lot of bugs/issues that prevents me from giving it a strong recommendation.

I play cooperative campaigns a lot so that feature is very important to me so one major disappointment for me with TW: Napoleon is that it does not have a coop campaign mode. I've played cooperative campaigns in Shogun 2, Rome 2 and Attila and they are a crapload of fun.

What's co-op mode? Two players playing the same nation?

Still enjoying Empire. Have to say it's very challenging. I don't know how many turn in I am, but probably 30ish. There has been exactly one turn we have not been at war, the first one. The rest of the time we have been at war with multiple nations. Courland, Poland (twice), Westphalia, Bavaria, Austria and freakin' England have all declared on poor old Prussia. We've been at war with England a long time, without having fought at all and they won't make peace.

The net effect is I have a decent professional army and usually prevail on the battlefield, but I spend virtually all of my money refitting regiments and repairing damage from raids and sieges. My economy isn't progressing, I haven't been able to build anything aside from a church or two.

So it's a campaign finely balance on a knife's edge. We have expanded (Prague, Warsaw for example), but if say France attacks, or if England actually gets around to it I don't think we'd survive. It's probably normal for Prussia in Empire, but it's by far the busiest TW game I've had.

No, each player plays a different faction/nation but work together to achieve the campaign mission objectives. The two players are permanent allies.

By the way, what difficulty are you playing your Empire campaign on? I don't play on anything above "normal" because the AI get cheats and bonuses on anything above "normal". I want to play against AI that is truly intelligent and not AI that simply get bonuses and cheats to their economy and unit stats.

OK that makes sense about the co-op and does sound fun.

This campaign is on Hard/Hard. And it's not the battles that are causing me grief, it's the campaign AI. Bunch of backstabbing sneaky warmongers, they are.

Not only do the AI get cheats on "Hard" but they are also overly-aggressive with diplomacy. In other words, even if it makes no sense and it wont further their own interests, the AI will often still declare war on you.

Yep, and it's always been that way with the TW series. H/H is what I've always used to get a decent game. I think this is more a case of Prussia's location, surrounded as they are by scoundrels and miscreants.

I obviously love the TW series but there have always been a few aspects of AI behavior that have annnoyed me like,


1. Even though an AI nation is at war with a ton of other nations, that AI will still send all of its forces against YOU. It's pretty obvious that the AI in Total War know which faction is being played by the human player.


2. At times an AI faction will declare war on you and then on your very next turn they will give you peace if you ask them for it. WTF??


3. And of course the siege AI has always been rather poor. My favorite is in TW: Attila where the enemy AI will charge its cavalry general unit straight into my entrenched and defending pikemen. LOL

Yes, the AI could use some work, but it's always been like that hasn't it? Like in Shogun 2 you could make the enemy AI chase your cavalry all over the map, exhausting them while you attack the rest of their troops piecemeal. Though I will say the siege AI is alot better in Empire than it was in M2.

As for the war then peace I haven't seen that so far in Empire. Having a very difficult time making peace with anyone.

Hate to sound like a broke record here but Darthmod does fix a lot of the silly diplomacy issues.

Thanks Barkhorn, can mods be installed without issues mid-game? Is it done through Steam workshop?

No and no for Darthmod Empire - too many changes. DME has it's own launcher where you can set many variables and manage sub mods should you choose to install them - I didn't. And you can go back to vanilla if you wish as well. Just make sure you launch Steam before DME and you will have no issues.

OK thanks. Don't really want to start over at the mo, I've overcome my initial inertia and expanded quite a bit. But the main reason is I don't want to start over with new generals. I've always enjoyed the traits system in TW games. In Empire it seems to be all positive traits, so no more drunken, incestual, hunchbacks with a lisp and +5 to command, but I enjoy developing them and grow attached to them. And when playing Prussia on H/H believe me there is a lot of fighting! and the generals become amazing. Only negative trait I've seen is Bloody, which is just -1 to morale.

I'm currently playing 3 campaigns right now. One in Napoleon, one in Rome 2 and one in Attila.

I have been playing Empire again, too. I usually play as Britain, so not a terrible challenge, but it really is very fun. I enjoy the period, and the multiple theaters and trade zones are neat. Particularly fun to me are the naval battles and trying to establish dominance of the seas. I think I am on turn 40 or so and basically just trying to conquer enough territory to win. Not much challenge left in this one. I may try DarthMod once I am done. Have actually never played a modded TW title.

My favorite nation to play as in Empire is definitely Prussia. Tons and tons of land combat from pretty much turn 1 and you don't have to worry about building a navy. You can just get Britain as an ally and have them take care of that.