The preferred design would combine Empire: Total War's tactical battles with a much larger campaign map and political systems resembling Victoria 3 and Crusader Kings III. Later Total War mechanics, such as armies turning directly into navies, are rejected as poor abstractions. Automatic battle resolution is also unsatisfying because it reduces the result to troop counts and a general's abilities. Direct command lets the player exploit the artificial intelligence's behavior and overturn an outcome the algorithm would otherwise assign. This is an argument about historical game design, rather than a claim that any ruleset can reproduce warfare exactly.
Notable Point · 1:14:48-1:15:47
Why tactical control matters in a historical strategy game
A proposed successor to Empire combines a larger grand-strategy map with battles the player can still command directly.