Hey I remember this guy. A year or so back I asked him what he prefers, older TW games or new ones, he told me that he's not affected by nostalgia and he's not a hipster and that newer ones are obviously superior. There must be something seriously wrong with TW if even this casual guy has started to whine.
He has kinda a point.
While old Rome and Medieval were made with passion, they had flaws. While CA remedied these flaws, they also removed part of what previous games did right.
City building for Rome was limited to Romans, and other factions were hurt by it.
Medieval was hurt by not having proper map, and more details.
M2 by removing some traits from characters and by few other things.
Empire by 2 turns per year instead of 4. Well unlimited ammo could be remedied by 20 minute battles. Problems with trade treaties reduced need for all these trade points and naval battles. 1.5 cracked version was very nice.
Shogun was better game at release, battles were paused by space, and with pausing it felt much more tactical and morale worked.
Rome II was with simplified buildings, unbreakable morale, and multiplayer balanced battles.
WH they basically used old bad building model, and added denuvo. Game is playable year later. And price of DLC is so high they allowed it on humble bundle monthly and assumed they would earn money on DLCs.
Technically newer games are superior aside of these flaws with economy buildings (and major degeneration in some areas). But CA is really acting against players, and earning money at all costs isn't pretty.
I just looked at twitch and number of players who are actually streaming, and watchers is quite bad.
Warhammer 163 on elichtv, but the rest of streamers have 36 together.
Rome II has one streamer with incredible 31 viewers.
And there is one hopeless person who is playing Shogun 2 blind. 2 viewers.
Now lets compare it to DS3. Over 20 streams, and Lobosjr is doing Pyro run.
Compare it to flawed game like Civ VI. I will not count the top stream because it's quill, but the rest of streams have 62 viewers.
Civ V is still running strong.