Would love a review of Imperial Splendour for Empire!

6:58, no battles in the 18th century DID NOT feature fierce melee combat outside of ambushes and storming forts. It just rarely happened in that century

Wow, the fact that they managed to put in the Khanate of Khiva is quite an amazing feat

Interesting mod, seeing the graphics of the campaign be so heavily updated is definitely a first for me from the total war series. Never knew this upgrade would be feasible.

I wish Empire wasn't fundamentally broken :( I remember getting the demo as a wee lad in 2009, and being hyped for the final game to high heaven... just to be disappointed. Happened in 4 years again with Rome 2 :)

Great video! Helped me find a good mod! This deserves much more attention!

Great video. Interesting, useful and entertaining. Thank you

Great review, awesome to see all these mods finally get some notice

Thanks man. Great review! It's nice to see that other people care about TWE In these times!

6:57 There was almost no prolonged melee combat in this period and through the Napoleonic wars. Charges yes, many charges. But the charge was either broken up by fire to the point where it was easily rejected, or it wasn't broken up by fire and succeeded. Very rarely would anyone choose to stand and actually take a charge, since it was wiser to break just before it hit, reform, reinforce and charge them back. Hence positions changing hands over and over again in so many of the battles. There was plenty melee engagements, but they were individually over very quickly, since somebody has necessarily been caught on the hop, and will be looking to run away and reform. Even on the rare occasions infantry melee was earnestly contested, these are unarmored guys with lethal but unwieldy weapons, very little skill and almost no defensive tools; there will be colossal losses instantly and one side will break. Even cavalry, who of course mostly fought melee, would be physically engaged for very short blips of time, when wheeling about against other cavalry, or before the infantry formed defensively and became near invulnerable. Cavalry chasing down the rout would be the big exception. Seems awfully hard to simulate all this in a video game though......

What do you think of Imperial Destroyer? What is your favorite Empire Total War overhaul mod?

Ah yes, Empire Realism... my first major mod.. i might return to it and update it eventually, once i'm done with R2TR4... and yes, you are right, i mostly focused on battle mechanics, while keeping other aspects vanilla.. Empire was never easy to mod, lots of things are locked out, so fixing certain things is practically impossible (despite what many other modders claim, most of the time its a placebo effect)

What I would love to see, is somebody making Faction Guides for some of these mods, like Lugotorix did for Rome: Total War. I'd love to be able to see the available unit rosters before I downloaded a mod.

if you try this mod + VDM mod you will have the best ETW experience, the game feels way different but the issue with the VDM mod it makes the camping land battle crash the game mid camping for some reason, I'm waiting for the update to fix this issue cause honestly, the two mods together are a masterpiece in my opinion. also, you can play VDM with vanilla ETW it won't make camping battles crash the game but yet it's not the same without imperial destroyer.

I'm getting back to this game!!!

Your channel is a godsend. I'm playing a Med2 HRE campaign rn and Rome TWR is coming up, so I thought...what about Empire? Darthmod was good, but as you said, damn slow. This sounds great. I'll give it a try when I have time. With Prussia of course. As every other ETW I played before, lol.

Hello Gudea! I played several months Imperial Destroyer to the point of knowing some of the changes made to the game an the reasons behind the choices and I must say that this mod it's one the best but needs still some polishing. From the graphics point of view I guess it's the best, the map, the effects and a mid century flavor that feels right across the campaign. You can argue the "reforms" of Imperial Splendour are better, but for the simplicity of the game I think is the right choice. The most general complaint is the lack of ammo. If you think about it is basically Gå På tactics generalized for all factions, while was not the case and mostly a situational choice that the AI seems not to be capable of. It's not until Napoleon that a single shot and charge in "colonne" was introduced and copied by European armies. Austria, as example, tended to be defensive and that needed more than a few shots, or the battles in North America which where much more related with position and firepower. I know last version of the mod tried to overcome this by increasing the lethality of firepower, but not solves the core problem. This lack of ammo oblige the player to be always offensive which is basically wrong in my point of view. The wars in XVIII century where a trade of blood x lands, and the diplomacy tended to be this trade at it's core. Feels a bit strange to trade regions, but that's the fault of clunky peace negotiations where the AI don't seems to react rationally. Getting rid of this diplomatic option oblige the player to get all territories by pure force, no diplomacy at all. The simplification of the armies. All powers have the same numbers and the differences come with their stats. Here is another point of disagreement, because are some bizarre choices. The american Indians for example, are too way overpowered in melée, which is not realistic, specially knowing that by mid century they fought basically with firearms, not bows and lances. Or the problem with Sweden. Sweden is perhaps the most overpowered nation in the vanilla game, mainly because their income allows the player to build big armies from start, while their demographics never allowed this. The mod makers decided to place Sweden armies to be average, while increasing the Russian above the rest except Prussian/British. Sorry, it feels Russian bias to me. The choice of reducing British and Swedish battalion size is the correct answer to this problem. And that brings here Darth Mod, because despite being old and dysfunctional addressed these problems with the right choices, and now i'm appreciating more than ever their work. I repeat, Darth Mod is clearly inferior in most aspects than Imperial Destroyer, but battle and army choices are far better. Despite all this criticism, I like much Imperial Destroyer and actually I'm trying to change myself the mod to address all the problems mentioned here. And some others, like the unrealistic incomes for each region. As an example, the Caribbean Islands produced roughly the same amount of money of all North America that time because the sugar and tobacco plantations. That's why France traded Canadá for these tiny islands in 1763. I hope that CA some day will bring us Empire II, with better mechanics and bigger battles. Meanwhile we have these wonderful mods. Best Regards.

Nice review! And as a personal opinion, it would have been nice if you included the game audio.

this channel should not have over 900 it should have 100K subs

I've never quite understood why CA never gave an option for a Steam Workshop for Empire. It's far more awkward going to the Moddb website and getting the mods (and their patches) and manually installing them. It's so much less hassle to subscribe to mods on tge Workshop.

Fantastic review.

This legit is my fav mod for empire. Its amazing. I use to prefer darthmod but once I found this I never looked back.

I would love to play the original game And then try out Darth Mod and Imperial Destroyer. As I think both developers we’re on to something with there ideas and improvements. And with Imperial Destroyer if they polish a few of the minor things like the over aggressiveness. low ammo and infantry not being able to retreat in battle and the fact you start with no money in the campaign, it would be a great play for anyone who loves strategy games as I do.

you earned a sub my man

I would have liked to hear more specifics about how buildings/economy and tech trees has been changed. Likewise a few more descriptions of specific factions rosters and how they might change your tactics (what are some differences between playing say Prussia vs Ottomans). I understand not wanting to make video-essays but it could be good to hear a short rundown of how a campaign went, telling us what happened and you did during the first 10-20 turns. It gives us a much better feel and understanding than to just say that the AI is more aggressive. Does the AI send unending waves of armies or declare, and pursue, nonsensical wars from across the planet? Those sorts of questions.

Will give this a bash. It would be an interesting project to port Jam's battle mechanics here. Especially naval battles. Empire and Napoleon Realism naval battles are the best naval battles in any TW game and better than some age of sail games imho.

If the additions that this mod gave (e.g. better AI, new regions) were to be merged with Absolutum Dominium (heavy visual overhaul, in line with the art style of vanilla), that would be the best mod ever.

Thanks for that review. I had dismissed Imperial Destroyer due to the thread that mentioned it removing more than it adds, but it looks much better than I thought!

Having played the mod as the Hetmanate in a campaign, I'm really disappointed with this mod. Pros: - Great battle AI, they actually try to flank you and use their cav well - Graphics look amazing, both on the campaign map and especially during battles: good unit textures, awesome effects and nice colours Cons: - The AI cheats like crazy in this mod. For example, the Crimean Khanate spammed me with Elite Units, while I couldn't even afford a whole army comprised of Milita units - AI behaves weird on the campaign map, too many alliances are made (and broken) and too many nations declare war on the player - Crashes do happen occiasonally - Units have way too few ammo, only like 4 - 5 Bullets - Installing this mod is a nightmare, dev can't even manage to make a proper tutorial It's really sad how the dev made such weird choices with the mod as it has so much potential. Imperial Splendour is a better choice, it's already great but it still needs more time.

Hey Gudea, thank you for your review! There are two vital submods for Imperial Destroyer: - Starting treasury of 10 000 - Increase in ammunition With those, the mod is just awesome!

This coupled with the additional ammo mod is the best one available for ETW. Unfortunately for me, the game crashes mid battle quite frequently, any fixes or similar experiences?

What's the difference between this and imperial splendour? Or to paraphrase, What does this mod add or do differently from Imperial splendour? And is this overall the better mod of the two? or is destroyer a submod? At first glance they look very similar and when trying to browse forums etc it only seems like the major difference is that this mod is more of a hassle to install.

can u explain about the inflation in this mod? i cant really understand how it works

I am playing a lot of this mod for the past few months now , Battle are amazing, top notch (best mod for battle) Campaign still needs work though, AI doesnt really know what to do, really passive for most part, beside me not much changes in Europe over 50 turns. You can add VDM 2.2 mod, but it crashes when you battle after your load your save

That's one thing i didn't like was starting off with no money but if you want like i do,i just use saveparser to change the starting income for the factions and give everyone about 30k.

Does imperial destroyer have the fire by rank ability or does everyone in the unit fire their guns at once?

This is what I was looking for. A mod that doesnt slow this game down to a crawl.

Upto 6.3 version now. And it's good. There's also a submod. VDM2.2 which is very good. Adds really good events and better more indepth management of government.

Hello, I have several problems with the mod, when I am in a battle the textures of the units do not load, the units are completely black or red, I also cannot play with non-European factions in custom battles because otherwise the game crashes, I can also not play with some of the modifications of the mod because otherwise the game does not turn on

Is any submods on this? I would like to change more artyleries in units and others. Someone help?

We need an Empire 2

You mentioned empire realism mod, can you use both? How are the naval battles? I'm looking for a mod that plays like NTW3

Any new updates for this mod?

Does anyone know why I don’t have any text when I start up the game Edit: Nvm i fixed it Im not a fan of how you can’t send or recieve payments or technology

Why the cannon in this mod is only 2 per unit? That's the onlt problem that i have with this mod so far

Hello . How can I solve the money problem in this game? The money at the beginning of the game is zero and I want to have more money at the beginning of the game. Do you have a solution?

I got crashed everytime I end my turn in road to independence, I installed the game yesterday (imperial destroyer included). Any advice? Thank you

Where can I even find this mod? Not on moddb or twcenter?

No links to download mod?

I have problem whit the cannon only two cannon i need help when I want to go to a map to be able to trade it is blocked or I cannot extract resources whit ship

Would you mind giving me a download link?

How can I play in the grand campaign as the jacobites?

I love this mod but I can play the grand campaign more than 120 more less because the save corrupts always

is there any recommended difficulty for this mod?

Reflecting on Empire (it was my introduction to Total War at 14) I think its main issue was how..."bland" it was. To me It completely lacked any sort of atmosphere, from the copy-paste rosters to the "pew pew" muskets and the absolutely abhorrent map (that hole in Europe seriously? Why did the Swiss do to deserve this?). It's good to see mods rectifying that. Will you do Imperial Realism? Like you said I think it really has the best battle mechanics out of all mods. And you deserve more subs :)

Imperial Splendour - Rise of the Republic is the ultimate way to play the game. This coming from a longtime fan of the franchise. It is like Stainless Steel for M2 and LME for Napoleon. Darthmod was great during its time, but now the modders have far surpassed it. Imperial Destroyer is good, don't get me wrong, but it has nothing on IS. Trust me and take the plunge lads. Gudea, you should see it for yourself if you think I'm not convincing enough. You have the reach to inform your audience. You owe it to them to give IS a full review.

The download links don't work and one of them comes up with a virus warning not very user friendly...

I have the same problem . At the charge screen it crash with more than 100 turns

its not really a major thing but does this mod also gives generals and the people in your cabinet portraits like darthmod? i kinda dislike looking at the vanilla faces of the generals on etw

Yes. Imperial Splenda 2.2.1b as it compares to the Rights of Man.

I find it interesting that you thought Imperial Destroyer turns the battles into slog-fests; my experience with this mod is that with mass volleys and incredibly low unit morale battles take about five minutes.... I'm using 6.3

I find the AI not enough agressiv in campaign between AI factions, maybe because i enable option like religion that is hard too keep public order

which one is better this one or Imperial splendor?

Does it fix the fort battle extreme lag?

Good game but not players founds in multiplayer :(

Ever played Minor Factions Revenge? I thought that was a great one.

Why we can't change the campaign map still?

I play the 3 (I D, I S, AND D M) mods and i conclude that darthmod is the best, the artillerie dont do a F in the Imperial destroyer (I D) mod. I play the MURICAN CAMPAIGN AND BRITISH UNITS ARE OP AND THE TACTICAL ADVANTAGES DONT WORK. THE ONLY SURVIVORS OF THE ENTIRE BATALLION IN THE FIRST MISSION OF THE CHAPTER 3 WAS 8 MINUTEMEN. ANYWAYS I END WINING THAT BATTLE. WHEN I PLAYED WITH THE DARTH MOD NOTHING OF THIS HAPPENS, SO IF ALL OF YOU CAN MAKE THE MOD TEAM UPDATE THE I D MOD WITH NO UNFAIR DETAILS (THAT KIND OF BUGS). AND ADD THE ALL THE FACTIONS MOD (MEXICO, LOUSIANA, ETC) OF THE DARTH MOD IF WILL BE BETTER THAN DM. AND THE CAVALRY DONT DO A F IN IMPERIAL SPLENDOUR. I CHARGE BEHIND WITH MY CAVALRY OF A REGULAR LINE FRENCH INFANTRY AND THEY TERMINATE MY CAVALRY. I STILL ABLE TO WIN BECAUSE I ENCIRCLE THEM WITH MY INFANTRY AND SHOOT THEM, ALSO BECAUSE I STILL HAVE MY ARTILLERIE AND THE ENEMY AI NO. I HAVE TO RECOGNAISE SOMETHING ABOUT I S AN I D. THE RESHADES ARE BETTER THAN D M.

whats the newest version

plz guys plz send 40 unit in battle mod

this mod has so much bugs plz i wont fix parth

10 prussian naval invasions into Georgia out of 10

I actually disagree with the majority of your opinions about Empire Total War. I think the problem this mod and many other mods have is that it isn't balanced.

The fact that there is ONE single city in the entirety of mainland France speaks volumes about this game.

🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷🇮🇷safavi

Whats the different between imperial splendeur and destroyer?