Why is this NOT an expansion pack to Empires?
What is the point of abandoning a game with great potential but damaged by bugs, and starting developement of yet another new game in such a short period? Aren't you really just risking to repeat the same mistake??
Also the mod community has yet to have any real support in offerings of tools. Empires would probably have been A LOT more popular now if CA would have given proper support for the modders.
I'm not blaming the DEVs, but there is definitely something very wrong with the management they have over at CA. This isn't the natural structure of TW series. Usually a TW has atleast one expansion before they release another title. Which is a very good thing, because this gives them a lot of time to fix errors and add in more interesting features.
I'm a bit shocked to see myself complaining here, because I was very confident that they would fix this in the same manner they have with previous games plagued with much bugs (notably Rome: Total War and esspecially Medieval: Total War 2) by giving atleast 1 or 2 years of real support with patches and tools for the modders.