Lots of little things changed, and it just 'hits different'. Probably the biggest difference is just that every single fight after the first 20 turns will be a 20 stack vs a 20 stack, and every single battle is life or death for that army. It makes the campaign much faster paced - declare war, wipe stack, capture cities for 3 turns until the AI magics up another 20 stack.

In the original Med2, since there wasn't automatic replenishment, there were often battles between smaller stacks, even in late game, as they were sent from the backline to reinforce the large armies on the front. Led to some of my greatest memories trying to keep some random crossbowmen and cavalry alive against some ambushing enemy infantry they wandered into. The need for manual reinforcement led to natural pauses in wars and gave the losing side a chance to regroup without relying on the insane AI bonuses of the modern TW games - and I do mean insane; they'll have multiple full stacks supplied from a single settlement.

[–] Archelon@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

The change that I always notice whenever I jump between earlier and later TW is the addition of hit points and how it really feels line it blunts a lot of impacts.

I mean, compare a heavy cavalry charge in Medieval 2 to one in Total Warhammer. A properly formed unit of Teutonic Knights is a devastating hammer blow that can shatter an enemy army since the charge bonus massively increases the chance to kill. Meanwhile, Empire Knights can get a proper rear charge against basic infantry and despite how far those rats get flung, they’ll all get back up because all the charge does is make the line go down faster.

The other big impact I find with this change is it makes the rout really annoying to deal with. In early total war, you always want some cavalry to pursue fleeing enemies since once they’re broken it won’t take much to capture or kill them and preventing those armies from regrouping really matters. Meanwhile, in modern total war, pursuing fleeing enemies never seems to result in significant damage because instead of capturing fleeing enemies you’re just making the line go down again.

I dunno, it just feels weird.