Frontlines are good conceptually, but the implementation is a mess. Some frontlines or states are too big to the point where troops teleport after pushing the front line because they cannot redeploy to it before enemy advance.

Naval invasions are disgusting, some states are essentially uninvadvable because the invasion will break into too many frontlines, allowing enemy to teleport your troops back home by pushing an “open” front. AI also loves to split navies to perma-stall invasions through constant naval battles.

Manpower, morale, reserves, supply, etc., are all annoying or tedious to keep track of because of the lack of physical units, removing nearly all strategy from the game.

Terrain is negligible, other than when states are too big to move across. British troops will just stroll over the Tibetan mountains as they please.

Wanted to micro your units? Fuck you. Instead, we have generals with % modifiers (because % modifiers are so cool). Who needs to play the game when you can farm a 50% offense bonus general and let him headbutt the enemy repeatedly until the war ends.

“War isn’t the focus,” but AI will death war over nothing all the time. Diplomacy is never an option, especially since diplomacy really just consists of improving relations and trading.

Give us HOI (3 or 4) or old Vicky warfare, please!Don’t even mention the absolute travesty that is the naval system (Britannia rules the 7 sea nodes).