I wasn't sure exactly what to title this thread, as it I decided to make it more of a multifaceted thread that cover the ideas of multiple possible TW games.

Now, don't worry too much guys, I'm not going to try to go into crazy deep detail about each game's idea but I will just try to give a basic idea of what could be done with each idea.

I will say that I think the ideas for TW games I'm going to talk about are not simply just ideas for good TW games, but rather settings and time periods that work most effectively for the formula of the TW games.

Now, I'm just going to break the thread's OP into three main sections, which are, Historical, Non Historical, and Dream TW Games, with maybe a couple sub sections for each game's ideas.

But I'll just get straight into it.

Historical

Honestly, I think that I can think of only two possible historical TW games that I want CA to make is an Empire 2 and what I like to call a TW: Antiquity, as those time periods that could work incredibly well for a TW game, even if we're seen them before.

Now, I won't get into all the semantics, as we can discuss such details in the comments, but I will say that an Empire 2 that starts about 1684 or so and goes to 1820 and a TW game set in the ancient world could not only be a fairly safe bet for CA to take on, but be able to do a lot of things better this time around.

I will say that the only TW games I really don't see is time periods Victorian Era and WW1, really anything after Napoleon's wars. I don't hate those periods, but I know that not all time periods will work as well for a TW game, and I think that the level of technology in those time periods absolutely would cause problems for just what sorts of tactics can be effectively used in the battles, especially in the multiplayer. So I would just rather CA stay away from these sorts of more "modern" time periods.

 ​​Empire 2​​

I really do think that CA could do quite a lot with another attempt at the "linier warfare" and such of the 1700s, without trying to reinvent the wheel of the TW games.

I would like to see an Empire 2 be more focused on mainly having a single large grand campaign that gets expanded over time to encompass most of the world of that time, which could open up the door to a lot of possible playable factions as well.

And I will just say that I would like to see CA take some lessons from and improve upon things from old Empire 1, Napoleon, and Shogun 2, and Shogun 2 FotS, but in more modern and updated ways. But we can get into all the deeper details in the comments.

TW: Antiquity​

I think while CA has set a number of TW games in various sub periods of ancient times, I don't think it would hurt if they gave it another shot and worked to improve many aspects from those past games, and even refine and improve upon some of the newer things, such as the unit weight classes from Troy and Pharaoh. And I even think they could manage to do some simple but effective things with the game's MP battles.

I will say that I think it'd be a good idea for CA to somewhat repeat what they did with Rome 2, that is, to focus giving us a nice enough basic "grand" campaign at first and then making a bunch of campaign DLCs, but not solely have them all be related this time around. 

I will say that they could make the base game's starting "grand" campaign start a bit earlier than Rome 2, I'm thinking about when Rome was becoming a regional power in Italy but hadn't yet conquered all of it. But the other campaigns should range from things like the rise of Cyrus the Great's Persian Empire to the late Roman Empire period and almost anything in between.

Non Historical 

I know that a lot of people would like to see a TW: Warhammer 40,000 or even TW: Star Wars, and I think that would be plenty cool as well, I'll just stick with fantasy settings to keep this section fairly simple.

But I think that there really only 2 fantasy settings (technically 3) I  can think of that could make for great TW games, but there's some issues with them. They are

TW: Middle Earth and TW: Hyboria. 

That is of course a TW game set in Tolkien's Middle Earth (duh) and one set in the world of Conan the Barbarian's Hyborian Age.

​TW: Middle Earth 

This one's pretty self explanatory. They could make a TW  game set in the Third Age of Middle Earth, mainly around the period before the War of the Ring fully started, and it could have a good number of the different races of Middle Earth be playable factions and all. It could be like a bigger better version of the older Third Age mod.

I will say that one of the possible issues with this setting would be that they might need to make two separate game, the first one being in the Third Age and the other in the First Age.

I suggest this only really because of the great difference in scale between the wars that were fought in the First Age and the Third Age. I mean, there's all manner of crazy creatures that Morgoth was able to call upon in the First Age are far more powerful than most of the stuff Sauron was able to call upon in the Third Age. 

I'm just saying, having the First Age stuff in the same game would absolutely overshadow the Third Age stuff that was in the game before, so it would just be better to make two games.

TW: Hyboria ​

Now I will say that I don't know about all the lore in Conan's world of the Hyborian Age, but I do know that there's a whole lot of different factions and stuff they could play around with, but that also kind of leads into some of the issues that may come with trying to make a TW game set in the Hyborian Age.

1. Most of the stories of Conan and a few other notable characters, mostly have the do with, well, them as the hero of the stories, and they're not exactly military manuals that explain all the armies of every faction/race of the Hyborian Age.

2. Things like magic are fairly rare and not all factions make use of a bunch of monsters and other fantasy creatures they can make use of, as from what I understand, a lot of creatures are literally just that, wild creatures that try to eat or otherwise kill other living things. So it could easily end up with the game mostly being a bunch of human factions and a comparably few non human factions with comparably few options for creatures and magic.

I don't think CA couldn't manage to make a good TW game set in Conan's Hyborian Age, but they'd really have to do a lot of work to help translate the various factions to where they all feel viable and interesting without it feeling it a TW: Warhammer knock off or something.

New "IP"​ 

This kinda gets into the next section, but I think it's still worth mentioning. And this is the technical 3rd option I hinted at before.

I think that one thing that CA could possibly be in a unique positions to actually do would be to just make their fantasy setting specifically for a TW game.

And I it has to do with the big misconception, which is that only established franchises and settings can ever be successful. 

I say that because I do think that why CA could do something like that is simply because they're a game development studio and aren't trying to make some big TV show or series of movies or anything that might require them to take a long time to write up tons of lore for the setting they're wanting to create. 

Because when you stop and think about it, the guys at CA could just make some super basic lore for this fantasy TW game's world and the factions that are in it, as video games don't necessarily need a ton of lore and such to be fun to play and all.

I mean, Helldivers 2 has more than proven that a game doesn't absolutely need to be tied to an long established franchise or setting or have tons of deep lore to be successful.

But the point is that I think that CA could manage to make a fairly basic fantasy setting that they could end up doing almost anything with in terms of variety between factions/races and all that stuff, they could just mostly focus on making a good TW game.

Dream TW Games 

This is where I'm just kind of just what I would love to see in a TW game if I could just give CA a bunch of money and just have them make my dream TW game.

As much as I would love to see CA make any of the TW games I mentioned above and design them well, with the last one actually kind of previously being part of an idea of a dream TW game, my biggest dream TW game is actually fairly simple when all is said and done.

I wish CA would make a TW game that's entirely focused on the multiplayer battles, maybe not even having any campaigns at all.

It could kind of be like TW: Arena, but done a lot better this time around and having a far better gimmick.

What CA could do is to allow players to create their own units pretty much from the ground up and then use them to fight battles against other players. 

Maybe it could simply be called TW: Battles.

And while there should certainly be some parts in the unit creation to help keep things relatively balanced, it would never really devolve into stupid metas being formed all the time, because I do know how annoying it can be to see some sweaty tryhard trying to spamming this or that cheap OP stuff.

But I while I really do appreciate the TW campaigns a lot more than when I was younger, there is just so much the TW MP battles offer that so many people sadly often unjustly look down upon because they don't really understand what it truly has to offer. 

And I will be so bold as to say that if CA gave the TW MP battles even a 5th or even 10th of the attention as the campaigns, the TW MP could easily have surpassed even the likes of Starcraft 2 and AoE4 in terms of popularity for strategy game tournaments, or at least certainly be up there with them.

I will say that the idea of CA making their own setting I mentioned before could be a way for CA to give this sort of a game a campaign if they truly felt like they had to have one, though I think they'd have to do quite a lot of stuff to make that work, which could possibly lead to it almost being more trouble than it's worth.

That's why I would just like to see a TW game that's entirely focused on the MP battles.