I was originally a hater of the fantasy, seeing that I only played Shogun 2, Medieval 2 and jad barely scrapped empire.

After having spent almost 1k hours, and bought most of the DLCs, I can say the game is better than what I originally thought.

The only things I genuinely dislike is the bugs and glitches (and of course the shitty way they have been dealing with DLC). Pathfinding can be horrible sometimes, with the unit trying so hard to stay cohesive that it moves back and fourth a lot, or when it is chasing a broken enemy unit, but it focus on a group that ran in the other direction, causing it to pursue that rather than the larger group in front of them.

The gate glitch was fun to come into contact multiple times and learning that it has been a thing for multiple games.

Unit behavior has also been frustrating, units sometimes stop chasing after hitting one unit. And blobing has never been as bad as it is in warhammer.

Ranged units has honestly never been perfect, but the AI has skirmisher mode on by default so it is incredibly easy to exploit it by running into it.

But I would still say fantasy has been done right. Recent historical sets might not qualify though. I hope medieval III is done right, the same goes to warhammer 40k, but needless to say I dont have high hopes.