I really want to like this game, but it not making it easy. I have been a fan of TW since Shogun 1 and play all the TW games. My favorite are Shogun 2, Empire and Medevil 2 in that order.
The successor of Rome 2
Like many other i felt that Rome 2 was a wrong turn in the TW franshise and i had hoped that CA had heard the fans and would try to remedy some of the missteps of Rome 2. Specifically the movement and province management, i felt was a terrible missake of design.
The movement coupled with the AI made the campaign map a strange game of cat and mouse. Making the player spend his time chasing armies around like a headless chicken.
The connected provinces addition, only serves to make the province management irritating and more vulnerable to discontent, and the selections of what provinces are linked seem arbitrary. Since the game is about making your own history, it makes no sense linking areas that are historical linked. Especially as there also is culture in the game, making the culturally linked subject for change.
My last big gripe about Rome 2 is that you can only move troops in raised armies, making it impossible to reinforce armies and town without a general, of which you can only have a specific number. This also means you can just reinforce a garrison when needed. And the way public disorder and rebellion works in Rome 2, this is just a kick in the players crouch.
Warhammer
So to my great disappointment Totalwar Warhammer, has all of the design flaws of Rome 2, but also some new ones.
The movement problems seem to have become worse. The AI especially with the chaos and norse factions seems designed to NOT fight you but just run around the country side, it is super aggravating chasing an army 9 turns. The game is not called total chase. You could argue that they are designed to act as roaming hordes, but the bottom line is that is just not fun chasing army stacks around the map, that it therefor makes the game less enjoyable.
The provinces have the same problem, but now there is no culture or historical background for the groupings, so it makes even less sense to have them. And since an entire grouping is damaged when one is razed, it just serves to fucking annoying. Again you could argue that its "realistic" that people get upset if the neighbor village is burned down. But it only affect the provinces that are grouped, so even if its the neighbor it dossent matter caus its another grouping. In the end its just a thing that is annoying and arbitrary and takes away from the enjoyment of the game instead of adding to it.
There are no seasons or time in the game. That means that nobody ages and its always the same weather and climate. Seems strange to remove something like that, and it takes away form the immersion and the feeling of the experience.
This leads me to my biggest gripe, the removal of ownership.
The game is very heavily scripted, and designed to "go a certain way" from start to finish. So its not really the players decisions that matter, caus its all been preplaned. For example the Empire, you start by trying to reunite the empire under Karl Frans. Then you have to fight the undead, then you fight the chaos, then when you defeat chaos, everyone get mad at you again and then game finish. You cant really do it in different ways. The same events happen, and the diffrent factions are scripted to like or dislike you. You can take over orc and drawf settelments, so your options are very limited to only play each faction, human, drawf ect in a specific way caus you cant really do it in a different way. So you are not really playing your empire your way, you are playing THE empire the way CA has determined that you have to do it.
For mi the TW biggest appeal is that YOU the player takes the role of ruling and managing YOUR kingdom/faction and running it YOUR way. Making deistions, that you want to make. Of course in all TW games the geography of that faction makes some things more likely to happen, like playing England most likely leads to war with France. But you still have a lot of possibilities and choices. But in Warhammer you are just a stodge playing somebody else game. The addition of quests makes it feel even less your own story. A bunch of text telling a not engaging story, not even voiced I cant even be bothered to read it. That's not what TW is to me. Its suppose to by my own unique story, my narrative as ruler and general, and Warhammer is just not that.
This game feels like a hollow shell of what TW i suppose to be, and as a decade old fan this saddens me.