I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand, the US Civil War is different enough that it would warrant it’s own “Secession : Total War”. On the other hand, there were only 2 to 5 “factions” in that conflict : North, South, Mexico, and maybe France & Canada. So it’s better expansion fodder than a complete game.
Then again, Napoleon : Total War wouldn’t be that different from Empire - the tech’s roughly the same, the map’s the same (sans New World and India), even the factions and alliance networks are the same.
However, redoing Shogun could be very interesting, esp. if they get the game to span from the Sengoku period all the way into the Bakumatsu - you’d get to play vastly different tech levels, from purely medieval tech all the way to “modern” rifle platoons, arty, gatling guns etc…
How are you leaving out the colonial theatres? The War of 1812 was inextricably linked to the Napoleonic Wars in both causes and resolution. I do agree that there’s not a whole lot of new ground to break, though.
Unless you do ignore the colonial theatres and redo a finer scale map of Europe with many more cities. Hard to fight the Peninsular War with only Lisbon and Madrid as capturable entities.
You had the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Crimean, the various European revolutions and wars of independence, the Franco-Prussian War, the Spanish-American War and the Russo-Japanese war, not to mention countless colonial conflicts (think India, Zulu, Sudan, Boers and Plain Indians). New theaters open up in Africa, South America and possibly China-Japan. You had the industrial revolution, trains, telegraphs and steamships.
Soldiers started the period with muzzle-loading muskets and ended with bolt-action rifles and Maxim guns. And ships! Think of the progression from Ships of the Line to Dreadnoughts! Naval technology made more advances in the latter half of the 19th century than it did in the preceding 500 years.
The 19th Century - Civil War included - isn’t an expansion, it’s a whole game.
I agree with Alessan. From Civil War until a few years after WW1 could be a separate game. Rifles were absolutely game-changing occurences, and you could have a fine progression from just introducing rifles to just introducing tanks. Except for the fact that there was an increase in the tactical scale between the Civil War and WW1 that was only hinted at in the Civil War, it could make a decent game. A much better game than trying to shoehorn in the Civil War, where long-range cannon and riflery was common and deadly, along with a game where gunpowder is barely coming into the fore, and that at short ranges.
I downloaded the DLC’s for it, but mostly I just use the units. I think I tried to play through Warpath once, lost interest and just started a new game. I generally just play the Napoleon expansion these days, since I like the tactical battles better.
I saw someone was working on a Civil War mod that looked pretty cool, but haven’t given it a shot yet. I’m down to very little gaming time these days unfortunately, and WoW takes up the lions share of that right now.
Wait to see if steam puts the Total War/Napoleon combo pack that has all the DLC. I got it for $16 last week from another site and Steam may do something similar. Crazy value there.