CA's Rumor, which would be better - a new game or an awesome (easy to use) mod kit?

[Budwise]

The reason I asked is because on a different thread about the "CA STARTING RUMORS" everyone just assumes that its a new game coming out instead of some other enhancement that we could really really use for this one.

So I made up this poll, which would be better to have. A mod kit like what they gave to the Unreal Tournament people and made a HUGE contest to see who can make the best mods around the engine that UT2004 had or just another good game come out like S2TW or R2TW or even the History Total War that we all joke about.

Before voting, please think about all the potential the mod community could do if almost everything WASN'T hardcoated. Now I am not a modder but I would learn more than just basic programing if this was the case and CA please think about all the free publisity from Game Magazine writers and all the potential life that could be added to one of your games.

But if this were the case on what would come out, please make it easy for beginners to grasp and use but have the options that true pros of programming would love to implement.

[icek]

the best would be a promise that they will fix every single bug in m2tw and we dont have to pay for such patching

[ForgotMyOldNick]

I voted for modability. But with the bugs, maybe both would be better.

[Zenicetus]

I'd rather see a new game. It's easy enough to imagine a "do everything" modder's dream engine, but in practice, the best games are usually designed top-down by developers, and then modders provide at best some finishing touches and enhancements. I don't think FPS games like Unreal Tournament are a good model for what could be done with a strategy game like this. Shooters are fairly simple games by comparison.

The improvements I'd like to see in future TW titles are things like naval tactical combat, better AI on the battlefield, more believable diplomacy, and a smoother integration between the strategic map and the battle screen (ideally, a seamless zoom from one to the other). I'm pretty sure all that stuff would have to be hardcoded.

I'm still in favor of having as much open framework for modding as we can get, and still have a great core game. I just wouldn't want the core game to be compromised too much. We could end up with just a game engine for having cool-looking units running around hacking on each other (or shooting at each other, whatever), without much real depth to the game. The TW series has been deeper than that, as a result of strong top-down design... for better or worse, and most of it is pretty good.

[Budwise]

Wow, somehow I expected more input on this post. Oh well. Every poll can't be a winner I guess.