Let’s take a look at some Empire: Total War mods. It’s over ten years old now and Empire was never the most popular Total War game, so the scene is quite mature and in some respects, sparse. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some excellent choices with which to spruce up the vanilla experience, however, some of which are still being maintained today.
Empire: Total War kicked off the modern era for the series with shiny new 3D graphics, a new updated engine, and an advanced time period set during the Age of Colonisation and the truly ‘global’ setting. It’s still fondly remembered by many, even if it was a bit of a technical mess on launch, and is often overlooked for its more targeted cousin in Napoleon: Total War.
Empire: Total War was also the first Total War game to introduce tactical naval combat, something that is considered one of the better aspects of the game. While there’s plenty of mods that tweak this, or fix that, few take a hard look at naval combat, so you’ll be pleased to know there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.
Here are the best mods for Total War: Empire:
There are few house names when it comes to Total War modding, but DarthMod is definitely one of them. This is the team that would eventually move on to form their own studio called Game-labs, but they started making some excellent mods for the historical Total War games such as Empire and Napoleon. It’s no surprise then that their Empire: Total War mod is top of the list of downloads you should check out.
The vanilla Empire: Total War experience focuses more on the American War of Independence rather than the Civil War, although the time-period technically stretches up till the late 18th century. Still, for those wanting a more dedicated ACW experience, this mod offers a complete overhaul that lets you guide either the Union or the Confederacy.
This mod is notable, not only for the extra level of detail it gives to Britain, France, Spain, and other aspects of the game, but also because it’s a mod that’s still being worked on right now.
This mod attempts to give the minor factions of Empire’s setting some love. Total War during this era didn’t pay as much attention to the smaller factions present during a game’s setting, instead focusing time and effort into the obvious and/or popular choices. While this got better over time, older games like Empire can still feel a bit sparse in places.
Sometimes it’s not really about the campaign game – at the time Empire’s graphics were cutting edge for a Total War entry, and doing random skirmish battles (against the AI or online) was just as fun as playing the campaign – you still had all of the pretty units to look at.
