Thinking of giving ETW a try

Hello,

I'm a RTW/M2TW veteran. I recently gave Shogun 2 a try, it was nice as far as chanigng the scene goes. I was thinking - I recently played a lot of Imperialism on my old laptop when I was away from my primary PC. I love the industrial revolution period and the years leading up to that. I have a specific fascination with Ships of the Line and the British naval supremacy of the period. That being said:

1. How good is ETW?
2. Does it have Ships of the Line?
3. How different is it from M2TW?
4. Is NTW a standalone game or an expansion like Kingdoms?
5. Is NTW any good?

thanks!

I would get NTW first. I liked it much better but it is a much smaller scale game.

Both games have SOLs. From the 130 gun Spanish ship on down to the old 50 gun varieties. Smaller ships too.

The tactics are different from M2TW as it is ranged combat before melee combat. Guns are deadlier than arrows and no one is in armor.

NTW is stand alone.

The battles in NTW are much better IMO. But both games are good. ETW is just older and not as polished as NTW. Also the amount of the game out to get the player is much more obvious in ETW than in NTW. On top of that in the Peninsular Campaign DLC, NTW is much changed. I loved that one too.

If you just have to have that huge scale of world war you can get ETW. But it is far less polished than NTW.

Government is much different than earlier games. I don’t know about TWS2. I never got it. The scale and setting just didn’t do too much for me. I had more than 1200 hours play on the both of them before I stopped playing. That was mainly due to computer problems, and then lack of time.

Have you ever played the old Imperialism? That's what I want to have - I want to grab a colonial power and make it into a world empire, I want to rule the waves with massive armadas of SOLs etc. etc. ETW + a mod might be better if the vanilla game is not polished enough. Can you recommend a mod?

Is NTW set only in Europe? That would be still be OK with me.

If that is what you are after then ETW would be what you want. It will be better than M2TW but not as polished as S2TW of course.
I never played any of the mods as the descriptions usually put me off. The changes most made to game play was not what I was looking for. There were no map mods of course so east Asia is all that Is missing. NTW’s combat is better but it is strictly Europe and the Med.
The ships run from brigs up to heavy first rates. The minor factions are not playable but there are mods for that. If you want to start as Bavaria you will need that but the major powers will be playable.
Colonies are most often protectorates until you achieve some goal. The Dutch are a good starting faction.

NTW is a don’t miss when you get tired of ETW though. Keep it in mind.

Napoleon is the one TW I haven’t played much. I got into Empire long after it arrived when it had already been patched and found it to be a lot of fun. No glaring problems that I can recall. I enjoy the naval combat and the musketry/artillery action. In fact, I’d be playing Empire more but there is always something new to try and then STW2 came along.

Well to be frank Imperialism is Europe + med + north Africa + Asia Minor so there isn't much of a difference. I think I'll give NTW a try and see if I like it.

Great! Too many people gave it a miss without knowing it was really a very good game.

I think it got a lesser rating because people were sensitive about the release condition of ETW, even though it got fixed.

They are both great games. Have fun!

I like more ETW than napoleons becouse of its scale. If you enjoy conquering the world and a more MTW2 feeling then empire is the right choice. NTW is more focused on europe and the player has less liberty, but the mechanics are better.
Play both :D