So this is my list of what i feel are the good and the bad changes in RT 2, compared to Shogun as well as some of the older TW games. I haven't included any bugs, or some of the crazier AI behavior, since i assume those will get fixed, but just those things i assume are meant as they are in the game.
The good
Diplomacy. Better than ever. A great improvement. Except for the fact you cant offer or demand territory.
Wrong. Enemy factions want nothing to do with you unless you give them the majority of your money. This may be due to the bugged power bar or because factions see themselves as stronger than what they are
Graphics. looking great. Better even than shogun 2, and with more cultures you get much more diversity of outfits. The faces look realistic and varied. A huge improvement.
Battle animations. During melee, on arrows, javeling, boulders and slings, just about every part of the fighting between units looks better. arrows get stuck in armor and shields, weapons react to one another, and rocks roll through units. Better in every way than what came before
Naval battles. Quite good. except for the magic rams, an interesting interplay of different types of ships with different mechanics, with the ramming making it that much more interesting than Shogun 2's naval battles.
Also wrong, ramming is not only bugged to shit, but if your ship is even a tiny bit smaller than another ship, getting rammed by the bigger ship is an insta kill. I might be ok with this if a ship had to build up speed, but right now they just love tap their way across the sea
Research system. Lots of interesting context, and a much better system for providing unit advancements than the infuriating population growth system.
Guessing you didn't play shogun 2 where they fixed the growth and actually had a decent tech tree. Now if I want to pick out what's most beneficial to me at the time I have to click the research button and then click through six different tabs. Shogun had one button. Who was the asshole who designed the backwards UI?
Marking targets for your allies. This finally allows you to do some actual coordination with your allies, which was very hard previously
I agree this would be a good idea, except your allies will just blockade port cities and never take them, which means you can't attack the enemy without going through your ally first
Provinces and edicts. an interesting way of making the strategy element more complex, though the borders between what areas are or are not part of a province seem somewhat artificial
Agents are better, much better than ever before. where the agents (especialy the ninja) where perhaps a little too powerful in shogun 2, here they strike a very good balance between too much and too little effect on the campaign.
Champions can give 180xp a turn to armies fairly early in the game. This means full experience armies before you even have two provinces.
Politics. A good addition. I would have liked them to keep the family tree, but this new system gives you much more interesting interplay inside your empire.Certainly a better way to represent roman politics than R1's three families and a one region senate. Nevertheless it might be a bit more prominent in non-republic factions.
Tribal Confederations. A good way to represent a barbarian tribe extending its influence rather than conquering and subjugating other tribes. Apart from nice flavour and a better narrative, it also provides an extra layer of diplomatic complexity for the barbarians.
Both of the above can be safely ignored throughout the game with little negative effect. This is probably a good thing as the game doesn't teach you how to get to these screens, even in the tutorial
The bad
The interface now has many more menus and tabs, making it more difficult to get a full picture of everything affecting a province or settlement.
Armies/fleets Cannot be led by captains, and invidual units cannot move on their own across the campaign map.
I'm conflicted about this. On one hand, it makes you think a bit more. On the other hand, its completely fucking artificial
Two generals can no longer be present in the same army. Only one general unit per army
This is because generals use end tier units and you can pick what unit you want them to be. More than one per army would make you even more overpowered
You cannot give or take territory in negotiations, making it very hard to force an end to a war, especially in a narratively interesting way.
You can no longer switch between loose/tight formations
The game has the very worst kind of objective gameplay during field battles (defend this random, unremarkable piece of grass. why? reasons!)
You can no longer capture and use intact ships after naval combat
You can no longer drag unit cards (alone or in groups)
When an enemy's defense score reaches zero, regardless of situation, every enemy unit shatters (enabling you to kill a massive reinforcing army with a couple of cavalry units and a quick capture)
When an enemy army reinforces from the sea, and defense score reaches zero, their transports will not flee via the sea, but will instead land, leave their ships, and flee on foot, Making them vulnerable to being chased down by your units.
There is a maximun of 4 buildings per normal, and 6 per capital province, forcing you to limit yourself to a very few buildings.
Not that it matters, considering the building upgrades are screwed. A level four farm needs a level four sacred grove to ensure no negative effects. You get a net gain of 0 food and 0 public order from this, etc
Magic freezing rams ( I understand that it would be hard to get a succesful ramming off with everything moving about freely, but this is the worst solution, absurdly freezing your ships in place while an enemy ship slowly comes at them)
Satrapies/vassals. In itself a good and interesting mechanic, but for some factions (Carthage, Egypt) it means that you either have to give up on directly controlling some of your core territory, or accept an enormous diplomatic reputation hit. A mixed bag.
The minor complaints
Singing by sailors is gone
Cutscenes for conquered wonders are gone
Cutscenes for agent actions are gone
Beaches look quite bad. The waves dont roll over as much as slosh along the sand
There are no longer pictures of the buildings or description of every tier of a building chain. A little more context would have been nice
The colors for parthia. Really? Purple, Cyan and yellow? they look a **** clown troupe. Get a color map, CA.