I really want to like this game...

[Evander Law]

...but my biggest complaint about AGEOD's historical games is there is no tactical/operational play in battles. It's unfulfilling to build up your army and march it off only to have the battle fought by the computer using a non-historical "combat power" rating. I wish I could prove my battlefield tactical skills in the game ....as well as my strategic skills. Again, I really hope to like this game (and will buy it since I love this period) so I'm hoping the rest of the game will give me enough enjoyment that it outweighs the lack of fighting battles myself.

[Philippeatbay]

The likely outcome of battles in a game like this should reflect the skills of the historical commanders engaged and the strength of the forces engaged. If you introduce a tactical layer you'll introduce the problem that the Total War series has, where a player's forces (no matter how ineptly led) are supremely comptetant against the AI. It would also mean that all of your forces are equally skilled because you're ordering them around. This completely masks that fact that not all of your subordinate commanders are of equal skill. This would have made Napoleon very happy during the 1813 campaign in Germany where his subordinates kept losing important battles, but makes nonsense out of any attempt at historicity.

Overall strength assessments are not ahistorical per se, very much the opposite. One of the strong points of the Ageod system is that a force's strength fluctuates over time depending on a lot of intangibles, and isn't the result of mindless hardware counting. Tactical and Strategic games don't mix. There are plenty of tactical systems out there if you want to shuffle counters around on the battlefield.