why do I keep coming back to Total War

[Didz]

I find increased unit diversity gives me many more battlefield options, gives me the opportunity to fight fundamentally culture vs culture battles.

I agree it gives you more choices, but those choices are little more that graphic options. They let you decide what your units look like but little else. Once battle is joined the result of these choices is not better gameplay, in fact the consequence is a general reduction in AI quality and challenge, Morale, fatique and the original rock. paper, scissors challenge have all been nerfed or sacrificed in the latter games in order to provide more 'eye candy'.

The original STW campaign provides a RISK style challenge which is, I think, better left to the board game. And I think when you control a mountain pass or a river crossing the last thing I would call it is meaningless,

Well this is obviously a matter of opinion. Personally I preferred having a clear value placed upon the importance of the strategic objectives available on the map. So, for example there was an optimum strategy for working your way across Japan in STW which gave certain provinces a specific strategic value. There were also bonuses related to provinces which gave them a specific value for certain styles of play. I find in RTW and MTW2 there is a 'shrug' factor to every campaign decision. The AI happens to have Antioch heavily guarded, oh well no problem, I'll attack Jerusalem instead. The AI is guarding the ford I want to cross, oh well never mind I'll go the other way instead. Nothing on the new maps really matters, nothing really has to be defended or captured. The new maps DO offer a lot more options, mostly in the form of exploits like parking armies on rivers and letting the dumb AI throw suicidal attacks at you when really all it needed to do was march to the next bridge, but at the end of the day these exploits are no different than the defence of vital provinces on the STW map, except that on the STW map the campaign AI understood the importance of these provinces as much as the player and so offered more of a challenge.

Thats my opinion anyway and it why I still go back and replay the older versions of TW. The sad fact is that in doing so you become even more aware of how the quality of game play has been sacrificed for graphics over the development of the series, The one development which was vital is the only thing which has not progressed, namely the ability to play the campaigns against other human players. We still can't fully realise that dream even though it was the main shortcoming of STW.