I wish you would stop selling it as a grand strategy game with manual battles included, when you have to have Fields of Glory 2 to use the manual battles. (not to mention loading/saving/running both games in sequence to use of the battles)

How does AGE engine compare to PDS's Clausewitz?Or, to put it differently, which one is "grander"?

You mean this exact quote from the store page is what you wish they said?

"And, if you want even more direct control, Field of Glory: Empires lets you export and load your battles into Field of Glory II and then load the results back into Field of Glory: Empires! "

FoG:Empires is even sold -25% on other platform if you own base FoG2...

The first ss video in the store page is of a battle you can't play without the other game. There are other ss too. That's just a trap. Yes it is mentioned later in the details of the game that you need the other game, that's not good enough. They should at least add text to the screen shots that they are basically from another game.

Having some features locked behind the necessity to buy another product from the same company?
Count me out. Like, forever.

That's not exactly how it works. It's not a locked out feature, it's an added feature to incorporate previously released game. Otherwise the battles are still there, just automated.

I can undestand some frustrations tho.

I wonder why such thing?
At least they could integrate the games to work seamlessly.

Poor marketing (or even deceiving...) and poor engineering.

Shame.

I really don't see it this way. The battles thing was communicated transparently from the moment of the reveal, many times. And integration of the previous game looks like an interesting idea - that game is judged by many as somewhat raw and shallow, integrating it in this next game gives both of them optional complimentary depth and much more replayability.

I, for example, am not really interested in tactical battles, so I'm just fine with automated, but also visualised battles in the games like these. Matter of perspective I would say.

Also, quick 3-minute round of searching revealed that the games are made by completely different studios and the games themselves have drastically different code bases. Battle integration was just a bonus from FoG2 devs, not a flagship feature. Take this as you will.

Problem of personal expectations, got it. Understandable, but I do not agree. Empires is a spin-off, it went in completely different direction - direction of old Slitherine Grand Strategy titles from decades ago: Legion Gold, Chariots of War and Spartan: Gates of Troy (every single one of them had automated visualised battles). And I personally waited for this kind of game from them for ages. Those are my expectations, and FoG2 integration is just a welcome bonus.

Still, I will not argue that just having those battles in the game would be better, that's a given. Nevertheless, they had their limitations during development, studios under Slitherine are not that big. So I don't see anything malicious or negative in all this, maybe a missed opportunity at most.

Wow, this releasing so soon after Imperator almost feels exploitative, like they're saying "hey you know that Iron Age grand strat Pdox just released which sucked, we'll here's ours which doesn't suck!"

It does look like a jab in Paradox direction. I think the game was long in dev and releasing so close to Imperator Rome was a gamble - if it were to be good, they would be overshadowed for sure.

Nonetheless, enjoyed the irony of the situation X)