Movement - Tiles or Fluid?

[Togakure]

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.

[Xantan]

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.