Well, just like everyone else I’d like to voice the same general opinion and then give my own unique twist on what I think you should do, if not just agree with a few of the hundred other people that have commented.

Yes, Empire was buggy. Yes, Napoleon was incredibly specific and confining after playing Empire. Yes, believe it or not, they did a good job going into such specific detail regarding the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, to all the things that are still wrong with the games they’ve released. Yes, they should do an American Civil War/Pax Britannica. Yes, corporate America is going to break up pieces of just about any game and sell them seperately to make more money. Life isn’t fair in some regards, and unless you’re the CEO of SEGA, you probably aren’t going to get what you want.

What I’d like to submit as a suggestion however, is that maybe you should branch off with the two different ideas, create an extremely specific storyline in relation to whatever conflicts you want to with the Total War logo, like you are doing with Shogun 2 and did with Napoleon. But, you should create a seperate game that combines all the general information behind the specifics and slap it all together into a massively global Total War.

Empire introduced the idea of being able to wage war on factions completely on the other side of the world even though your enemies were right next door. If there were an American Civil War TW, I would find it immensely satisfying and have a bonus hilarity to invade Canada if I so desired, or China, or South Africa, or colonize Greenland and Antarctica if my economy permitted me to.

Like someone else was saying, if you make victory conditions based on a positive diplomatic setting, it doesn’t make sense in a Total War game where everyone wants to put your balls in a sling on the hardest difficulty. If you want to be diplomatic you have to refine your economic settings to not be something like 80% dependent on conquering other factions and waging war on your supposed allies for more territorial income.

I do love the specific historical Total War however, I like learning about things like that, as long as I can assure myself later by doing my own research and finding out that all the general’s names were historical fact and the general idea behind the storylines, with the irony of being able to win the battle of Waterloo with Napoleon given the same circumstances that he was given.

I don’t know what to say other than whats probably already been said, Coporate is going to hold an axe over the head of a game’s release date, and testers are going to make mistakes, even though they might be technically testing for free, and different fans are going to want different things, and enjoy different aspects.

The ironic thing is that no one ever likes to read this much…

Just like Austria’s idiotic Victory Conditions, the whole idea is to form a Coalition against France, not work against your Allies. To suggest Austria taking a Territory from the Ottoman Empire and Russia borders on sheer Lunacy. Your game needs some major fixes, especially where the Mamelukes have massed artillery (French.

As a Historian, I deal in facts and not Fantasy

First of all i would like to say that the TW games has been a pleasure to play. I had alittle trouble with ETW, but not nearly as much as all of my friends that played this game also, but i think enough have been said on that subject already.
NTW is a great game in my opinion. And the modding community is all over it making great mods already. There is one thing though which i’m really disapointed about.. WHY add swedish voices to Denmark?! All research and history books shows that the command language was evenly german and danish, and it can’t be that hard to find a voice actor that knows the danish language?
If your team knew just alittle about scandinavian history you would know that it’s almost a mortal sin to add swedish voices to the danes, thinking on the two countries war history. I mean when you talk about making a game with focus on details something like this just saddens me. At least change it for the next TW game, or make a patch and add either german or even add new danish voices to Denmark in NTW. Not doing this the first time in ETW is just so slobbish and out of charactor thinking on the games you guys have released so far. Please correct it!!!
It can’t be that hard, damn even i would do it in my vacation just for a free plane tickit and a room on a hotel, no salary. It can’t be that hard when i think on all the other details you guys have remembered!

Concerning the next TW game i’m thinking maybe the civil war, either as a expansion DLC or a stand alone game like NTW. Robert. E. Lee Total War/Civil War Total War or something like that. Maybe even World at War Total War, thinking on the first world war here, though i think you’re going to satisfy the americans and make at least an expansion on the civil war.
Personally i’m hopeing on a new Rome Total War game. The graphics in NTW in the Roman age would be simply amazing! And navel warfare with wave of galleys with archers and mounted catapults firing hot shots and the enemy ships burning while the crew jumps in the water is enough for me to buy it. I would even accept swedish or norwegian as the language for the vikings/northren tribes.

Thanks for some nice games, but please fix the language, it’s an embarrassment for your history team that made all the research to NTW.

Best regards.