Mabey you could try Star Wars total war where instead of haveing more and more melee units in the game theres people with blasters and flamethrowers. It's a Sci Fi mod for rome total war and even has flamethrowers in it. each faction is unique and it's had it's latest public release yesterday. It has the following factions:
Republic
CIS
Empire
Rebelion
Hutts
It's just a game that totally different from rome total war vanillia, although it dosen't have campaigns yet it dose have star wars units for custom battles and a few 'historical' battles from star wars. try it today:
http://files.filefront.com/SWTW+V005.../fileinfo.html