I still find Empire total war the best of them all. I was also reading over the rather old announcement of poor communication from the developers to players. I doubt it will do any good but here it goes any way.

I lost interest in total war games when they went fantasy, and to a obvious choice no less, even worse was the lack of repairing pre released games. To compound that error there is not even a mod section for Empire total war on steam. Example for star wars empire at war I simply go to that section on steam download the mod, activate the mod via settings, and game is ready to play. I can uninstall and reinstall at will. You would think that such a stunning total war as Empire total war would have that or at least  a patch from the developers fixing various issues.

This issues include pirate galleons registering way too much firepower in auto battles, for that matter all galleons in the game do this. Other issues include the India nations moving out of India and easily overpowering European nations to take over Europe and America. This same game flaw can be found in the ottoman empire. If I didn't know any better I would say a developer of this game was racist when it came to White European History.  Just for once I would like Russia, Prussia, or France to forge a world Empire to make things interesting. With India its Elephants the end, quite boring. The pathing for forts is still incorrect. Another problem is the AI or computer player is able to cheat and move through a armies area without the player being given the option to engage. If it was the player trying the same thing believe me it would not work. This last bug is why forts don't really work. Forts strategically speaking are good for forcing a battle or at the least buying time. If they enemy can movie right past a garrison fort without the player having the option to stop them, it makes forts useless. Further details on this last bug it happens some times not all the time. Another bug is if you play as Spain and get the Spanish colonies back the game has a hobbit of crashing.

Those are the bugs that stand out the most to me in Empire total war. If your serious about getting players back I suggest you start looking at this mod tool I was talking about on steam or start fixing these bugs in older total war titles.