Movement - Tiles or Fluid?

Been watching a lot of let's plays of the old Medieval 1. There's a lot of mechanics from Medieval 1 I like that are no longer in the future games - the title system for creating governors, for example. I've been thinking, what kind of movement style to people prefer - the title chessboard mechanics of Medieval 1, or the fluid movement introduced in Rome where armies would actually march?

The good thing about Medieval 1's system and creating chains of ships in the various seas means you can move troops around the empire very quickly, which encourages naval combat to a degree. This can be useful for reinforcements, particularly those areas which give bonuses to troops recruited there.

Rome's system is more realistic, and allows for better manoeuvring of troops, meaning you can still fight without being forced to fight by simply being dropped into the province.

What movement style do people prefer? And would it be possible to blend the two?

Hello, CoerdeLion. Been playing MTW, earlier today, in fact. Finished a Byz Early Era campaign with a complete victory before the High ERA began today, then started a Spanish Early campaign. Within the first twenty turns, I have Italians surprise-attacking Aragon and Valencia by ship chain, and I suspect they're gonna keep doing it for a while as they have in past games. These days I just play the strat map and auto-calc battles unless I really feel like a 3D battle.

Your question is relating to movement on the "strategy" map, yes? I've played tons of STW and MTW, but none of the later titles. I have S2TW but haven't played it yet. I've seen a lot of the newer games' "strategy" maps on Youtube playthroughs, but haven't personally played them yet. They seem a bit cluttered and garish to me, but that's just me.

I prefer strat maps to be less animated. Artistically beautiful, functionally efficient given we're playing a game--balanced. Succint information at a glance or presented by appropriate hover-over or pop-up, font size variety and smart use of color. Ideally there's a "shibui" state that can be achieved by an acute balance. Going into 3D battles is where I want to see the intense visuals. When assessing the strat map, for me it's all about observing, calculating, considering how-to's and what-if's .... I love an interface/strategy map that enhances these activities and makes them fun and lacking tedium.

I've gotta say: once I can "see" more of the map in MTW (having produced agents and ships), I'm often very entertained by the "AI" behaviors of Italy and Sicily in particular, jump-raiding all over the place. Keeps you on your toes. And woe to the world should AI France expand significantly and get ships going ....

Not in a position to say one is better over the other, but I will say I've thoroughly enjoyed the oldest titles. The way I play nowadays (without a lot of 3D battles), the turn-based architecture suits me fine. But I have yet to experience the real-time maps.

I only have one disappointment with regards to the fluid way of RTW and later - it's way too easy to outflank armies.

This is also a downside of tiles - way too hard to outflank armies.