Empire Total War vs Napoleon Total War

[Incendio]

I'd like to ask you which Total War you prefer: Empire or Napoleon?

Napoleon is better than Empire in graphics, but I would also like to read your opinion in terms of campaign map and campaign gameplay, battles (naval and land), variety of factions and units, and in general your gameplay experience. Do not hesitate to give all explanations needed. You are welcome!

[Daruwind]

Napoleon brings improvement in many areas especially battles but there are a few major downsides for me.

-Campaign (grand) feels always the same. Doesn´t matter which side you pick you are pretty quickly ending in center of map somewhere between Fr-Austria. England is always this island nation sending invasion after invasion, Russia is always the map border faction and there is usually no good reason to expand to Italy and Balkan. You can just there is no holy grail there. And Ottomans are simply sick man of Europe ;-) Always.
-AI is not building forts so I cannot enjoy proper sieges
-Naval while superior is simple not there. All waters feells just like coastal/shallow waters, there is no feel of high sea action like in Empire when your fleets are half world away especially in trading theatres.
-Land battle maps have very very often some middle map hill that´s is very very often limiting proper artillery usage
-Artillery units just feels little off. You cannot as well use terrain for multiple bounces and artillery pieces are not being destroyed by parts. Once in time once model/sub unit gets destroyed.
-There is no sense of new technologies, in Empire I feel it...new formations, new infantry tech especially..

Empire. Major advantage is the much bigger campaign map. Just for example Britain. You can start game by focusing on Naval power/trade or send expedition into India, or capture Gibraltar and fight Spain oooor you can expand North America colonies vs Indian oooooooor fight pirates in Carribean. Or different combination,variation with different focus on land/naval action.

Don´t get me wrong. Empire have some bugs and Napoleon is quite good still the campaign map is probably the biggest pro for me.

EDIT: and yeah for example Empire´s siege bug/slowdown is quite horendous con.

[Leonardo]

I'd like to ask you which Total War you prefer: Empire or Napoleon?

I think such a question is valid for a third "Both games" option, don't you think.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

My simple take,
Empire offers wider scope, more diversity in content, less competent AI (if total war is a game of beating up a toddler's worth of intelligence in its better entries, this game is like beating up a newborn), and a more sandboxy scope.
Napoleon is better polished, smaller scope, shogun level diversity, slightly more competent AI, and a more narrative, local scope.

Battles are comparable, with Napoleon taking the edge in polish and Empire for more things to see and thus less redundant warfare.

If you enjoy wide scopes and sweeping games, Empire is your take. What it lacks can (and, I believe, should) be compensated with mods. Napoleon is, to me, an expansion of Empire, with a much more humble campaign but polish that shows something was learned from a prior campaign. Almost like Attila is to Rome 2, except Attila was bigger and more unique in gameplay (and here, the performance is comparable, as compared to Attila making it many times worse). Napoleon's your choice for a stronger base experience, unless what you want is more world and actual sandbox to work with. Napoleon has a more 'cohesive' campaign... but, to repeat myself, with a cost in variety.

Mods considered I'd personally lean Empire, but I freely admit to being ignorant in that generation and that pretty much everyone with serious gameplay experience in both games or either is more of an authority than anything I'm saying in this thread. Between Medieval 2 and Rome 2 I had very little interest for the entries to come out, thus what I know is largely secondhand.

[Alwyn]

I agree with Daruwind that Napoleon Total War campaigns tend to feel the same. To be fair to the developers, I'm not surprised by that, as of course NTW is meant to simulate a specific historical war, compared to ETW which simulates a century of warfare (or more, if you include part 4 of the tutorial campaign which starts in the 1780s and continues into the 19th century).

As Daruwind said, there's much more of a sense of technology moving on in Empire. This makes sense, as the two games cover very different amount of time. I agree that the AI doesn't build forts in Napoleon. While I know that siege warfare was historically important in this era, I see this as a good thing. As I see it, the siege battles in Empire tend to reward the same set of tactics, so they can get repetitive.

You asked about variety. As I see it, there's more variety in Empire. Fighting Native Americans feels quite different from fighting in Europe, which is different from fighting in India or north Africa. Native American factions tend to rely on melee infantry and stealth. European factions tend to rely on the traditional mix of line infantry, cannon and melee cavalry (some have ranged cavalry too, some have more/earlier access to light infantry, some have better line infantry especially later on). Factions in India tend to use a mix of melee infantry, ranged infantry, cannon and cavalry. Factions in north Africa tend to be easy to defeat (they have poor quality infantry) but their regions tend to have frequent rebellions, so they can be easy to take but hard to hold.

I think CommodusIV summarises the strengths and shortcomings of Napoleon well. I do enjoy the main campaign in Napoleon and I think the battlefields can be more interesting in NTW. Multi-player may be better in Napoleon (I really like the ability to play 'drop-in' battles in Napoleon, where you can play the enemy in someone else's campaign or vice versa, although I've rarely been able to do this.) I enjoy the Napoleon tutorial campaigns too (in Italy and Egypt) and the historical battles, as well.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I'm always leaning towards the more improved tech and performance aspects of a game, so I guess it's Napoleon for me. The performance and ''tweaked'' engine's smoothness gap is like the Grand Canyon tbh.

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

As an ETW modder it's obviously ETW for me

[Nebaki]

Campaign and Overall i prefer ETW and was not NTW just an Standalone Addon to ETW? Still missing Mughal Empire and some Tweaks for Eastern Factions.

[La♔De♔Da♔Brigadier Graham]

I've modded both in the past, and enjoy both equally, as they are my era's, musket and cannon, I became interested because I actually served as a Gunner, in the the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery.
I didnt vote in the Poll because of my fondness for both games, with their faults, warts and all.
And the fact that Washington had wooden teeth, and wasnt at all a very good general and Napoleon was a Redhead!

[Leonardo]

Campaign and Overall i prefer ETW and was not NTW just an Standalone Addon to ETW? Still missing Mughal Empire and some Tweaks for Eastern Factions.

You should really try the ETF mod along with Bran's CAI and BAI (use one of them, but not both) tweaks.

[herne_the _hunter]

Empire was never finished and it's incomplete. Nice ideas and concepts but it's a real shame it's unfinished.
Napoleon is smaller in scope but way more more polished. But I really hate the sound bug that breaks up the audio so I have to restart.

Empire for all it's incompleteness is very enjoyable with mods. Not just total overhauls but with smaller mods. Even just changing the gun sounds has for me given a massive improvement in playability. The best vannila experience is playing the America campaign which is a much more settled experience than an early campaign where you have to fend off the Maharatha horde invading Europe... If you use an overhaul mod that uses a late period start date that's a bonus that I would recomend.

You are better off with getting Fall of the Samurai if you want a good gun based Total War or even better just get Europa Universalis 4 if you want much more polished world conquest game that covers those time period of 1444 - 1821.

So I can't vote for either ETW or NTW. Just put them both back in the bargain bin where they belong and slowly walk away to find something else to play.
Cruel I agree but so true.

[Daruwind]

I can very well agree that I would love to combine elements of ETW,NTW, FotS into single game. Simply Empire 2/Victoria......after 3K and Wh3, I hope CA would as next major game after those visit similar setting.