STW vs MTW

[caravel]

I also found the STW campaign suffered from more obvious gameplay flaws - the suicidal leaders and the Hojo horde made several of my campaigns dull after a point.

Suicide generals was still a problem in MTW IMHO - much less so but still there. It reappeared again in force in RTW. The "Hojo Horde" was more an STW v1.x problem, not in MI.

The MTW campaign had its own problems - early AI armies of peasants/ballistas and the "I win" strategy of a global trade network - but these loomed less large for me.

Strangely I see these as larger issues as they affect the challenge aspect of the game. I am one of those people that exits in disgust if the challenge disappears from the game, mid campaign. This was the biggest flaw of MTW campaigns; i.e. that once your faction was established, victory was a forgone conclusion and all that was left to do, was spam units and micromanage them to victory. The vast selection of 'junk units' further worsens this as the AI trains them in abundance. Once I had fought several battles against a rag tag of peasants etc, it was my own morale that was suffering. This is probably what inspired me to mod the game.