Originally posted by Cambyses II
All of these are typically "Total War", whereas the newer stuff added at RTW and later was typically not. Instead of expanding on what was already there, they simply scrapped it and went for a Civ style engine.
No matter how much i find the "new" map system and the Civ micromanagement nightmare that goes with it out of my taste, i must admit that certain mods used it to its maximum and actually turned it into a decent campaign game. EB is one of them.

What nobody managed to fix though and never will IMO, is the battles. The battle engine was degraded, many features were taken out and the controls were simplified (not giving better gameplay necessarily but better accessibility to the game).

Aside the absence of balancing betewen units, types of units, factions and the degradation of key ingredients such as fatigue and morale in their roles and the taking out of tactical options (hold position/hold formation in the new engine are condensed!), the tip of the iceberg was the removing of the squeeze penalty - essentially what gives to tactical deployment and maneuvering a raison d'etre.

In RTW it was completely taken out turning most battles into a bum rush in a massive blob within seconds from skirmishing and i mean in all versions including BI and mods. In M2 there has been a half hearted try to account for it (with secondary means apparently) but i heard that it was nerfed again since it proved... "unpopular" with the RTW fans (now most of the fan base).

The STW/MTW engine remains (and as it looks like will do so for many years to come), the best for allowing tactical battles with "1000's of men" on the field IMO.

I can clearly picture myself playing STW/MTW in emulators from now, like i do with old Nintendo games sometimes - let's just hope Cambyses II that mods will be also playable there - otherwise "woe onto thee"

Many Thanks

Noir