Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
It's all just so much lipstick on a pig of a battle engine. Insta-routing, poor pacing, super speeds, and unit reaction issues are all back with a vengeance and they've added some new head scratchers as well. (Why are my non-routing cavalry all running in opposite directions?) And as usual in the newer titles, don't bother zooming in to watch the cool animations they worked so hard on, as the battle will be decided before you have a chance to zoom back out. Arcade-ish would be a compliment.

What is really frustrating is that you can tell how much work they put into the details. The armor, animations, landscapes, and a hundred other aspects of the game are brilliant, but they fail to all come together to create an overall enjoyable experience. What is the point of all the special abilities and formations if the battle progresses so fast that you cannot make use of them? Why even bother to incorporate an exhaustion system, when it is practically meaningless to the game? (Changing the default from walk to run is indicative of the role exhaustion now plays in the engine.)
After playing the demo this pretty much nails it for me.