In all fairness tater, People over at the other total war forums seem to be at the same conclusion that the naval aspect of empire has had a lot more time and effort spent on it then the land battles. This has come about due to the quality of some of the land screenshots which i think look fine apart from the poor quality in the town shot which looks worse then M2TW.
That WW1 mod sounds fantastic. Trench warfare and dreadnoughts sounds good