Zeriel
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2012
- Messages
- 13,993
Early Total War had *vastly* more simplistic strategic layer. In no way comparable to the current games.Mixing the strategic and the tactical combat layer is what makes Total War so unique and good in the first place.
The problem with its modern iterations isn't the formula but the execution.
Eh, I don't know about that. You'd have to specify exactly what you mean. Because in my opinion, the settlement development side for example has gotten drastically more simplified and less fun than it was in earlier days. Spies were also extremely dumbed down. If anything I always thought the opposite was true: they seemed to focus on tactical combat with MP becoming a tactical combat only mode, but the issue was that trading off strategy side for tactical combat didn't improve (in fact it seemed to get dumber and dumber too) battles enough for them to stand on their own, leading to the games simply becoming more rudimentary overall.
All of the production value seems to go into unit textures & animations, with the substance behind it left to rot.