after sinking 100s of hours into paradox games ive come to realise total war has the edge

while paradox games have a depth that no other grand strategy can match, after a slew of bad releases and stagnation i tried my hand again at total war, specifically rome 2, and honestly i’d forgotten just how good this series can be.

the big thing for me is that the campaign map actually feels connected to the battles. armies aren’t just numbers colliding or modifiers being calculated when i make a mistake, get ambushed, lose half a legion or come up against an army composition that completely counters mine, i actually have to deal with the consequences myself.

i’m playing a heavily modded rome 2 campaign at the moment and even while i’m winning overall, i’ve taken some genuinely nasty losses. one enemy started fielding ridiculous numbers of archers against my legions and suddenly the army composition that had been carrying me wasn’t enough anymore. i had to rethink how i was fighting instead of simply building a bigger stack.

that’s probably the thing total war does better than paradox for me: it creates memorable moments at ground level. you remember the legion that barely survived, the cavalry charge that saved a battle, the settlement you defended against impossible odds, or the army you spent 20 turns building only to watch it get mauled.

paradox still absolutely wins when it comes to diplomacy, economics, politics and long-term simulation, and i’ll probably always love those games for that. but lately i’ve realised that all that depth doesn’t mean as much to me if the actual wars start feeling abstract.

total war gives me less simulation depth, but it makes me feel like i’m actually there when the important part happens. after hundreds of hours of paradox, i think that gives it the edge for me