Quote Originally Posted by Grimmy
I'm betting there'll be an expansion to M2:TW first but I dont count that as "the next" TW, only a finish to this current one.

I have no clue what "the next" will be but I'd like to see something along the lines of "Global: TW". By that, I mean a TW that starts at around the beginning of recorded history and covers the globe as a start. For a unified start, some history would have to be infered or possibily even invented where there's no record available but it could be worked out in a playable game sort of way by guessing backwards from where the record starts.

Then the expansions could come in a series that build upon that base. Each major period of history could be its own expansion, up to and including the Napolionic wars and the USA civil war and expansion to the western coast.

After that, the concept of formation warfare starts to end and the unit organization of the current game engine might not work for the battles.

In a few years, the "baseline" computer system will be capable of handling the processor load necessary to make TW a global geography, rather than location specific. And at each major period of history, there's lots going on in places other than those popular to western culture and history.
the drawback of something like that is that with the benefit of hindsight we know that the europeans are far in advance of places like africa, and you would end up with a serioulsy ahistorical situation where the europeans conquer africa years in advance.