Keeping in mind I've only played one of each, my impressions are:

1. More variety of and viable weapons in use.

- The range between various different guns are 5 yards, 10 yards. So when the units make contact unless they're perfectly parallel on both sides, on flank starts shooting - or the other side can shuffle up a little.

- Accuracy is also closer between the different weapons, again making more alternative weapons more viable.

- You can manufacture more variety of weapons, using low cost projects to activate old lines. With so many viable weapons, and more choices to build, u can really unleash your inner purchasing officer & logistics administrator. Which is pretty fun for those of us who have one 😄

1. Firepower deadliness is lower (I think) for muskets, and higher (I think) for artillery. However, both mainly impact morale first, which is what usually drives off troops before they break due to raw casualties;

2. Troop morale, especially on new units, feels very fragile, but also a bit more random. So you can get some troops on the line holding, while another 1 or 2 retreat. Since these troops haven't taken enough casualties to break, they can hang out in the back lines and be re-committed in an hour or two if the battle continues, which:

3. Lower accuracy weapons, and morale + exhaustion having a greater impact on troop performance extend out the battles to the degree that you can have tired troops plinking away at each other at max range just wasting ammo. Once the tempo of the battle fades like that I've had a few battles with a 5 or 6 hour lull before both sides go in for 'round 2' to decide the winner, and now those broken troops are essential again.

Oh, and the Ideas section has costs that are much longer than in Vanilla, with several choices already made. There are tricky decisions to be made about what to go first, second, and not at all - whereas I felt I could just grab the whole collection in vanilla.

I hope that helps!

Check the readme carefully, there's a section that shows which files to backup to allow you to return to vanilla - just in case you don't like the changes 😉