That's what the vast majority of playerbase wanted, it was what was being said in total war forums, discord and reddit. They said they want it exactly like Vortex, where you can always prevent AI from winning when they try to get the objective. So the devs gave it to them, listen to "players" and get the result.
Unfortunately total war playerbase just want to sandbox map paint. Nothing more. They especially hate playing with time/turn constraints.
I can't blame CA here, when this is what their playerbase demands vocally and constantly.
A story as old as time.
Prestigious dev moves away from the excellent, niche games that made them famous to cater to a larger audience -> larger audience filled with mouth breathers -> mouth breathers demand a casual experience -> prestigious dev starts shoveling shit.
I guess I can't blame them. Dolla dolla bills y'all.
Except the thing they removed/tuned down was never great to begin with.
It was complete crap even on a purely conceptual base and should never have been implemented.
So at the very least tuning it down to lessen the negative impact on the proper gameplay is a huge improvement.
The problem is not that they listened to the players.
The problem is that they completely ignored why people play these games to begin with and are only now, maybe, hopefully, getting the idea.
You know what was conceptually good, though?
The tutorial campaign! Yes, really. A small, self-contained campaign with a clear start, clear goal and some freedom in-between.
Limited enough to allow some decent storytelling.
Pretty much a scenario-campaign like you'd find in ye olde HoMM.
That's what CA should have focused on as an alternative to the sandbox campaign (which has long been the core of the Total War experience).
A campaign like that (of course more challenging and longer as not all should be basic tutorials) for each faction would've been amazing.
Instead they went for a Vortex-style pseudo-sandbox, but even worse than Vortex itself was.
