This is basicaly a huge love letter to advance wars. The gameplay of capturing income producing buildings, then making unit types, and the units themselves all map directly to advance wars units.
There are a few key innovations (COs as units on the map, archers can fire and move in the same turn (which are more like rangers from Warbits than artillery because they are infantry), some units have abilities that cost money, units have crit conditions, and the building capture mechanic). But the basic loop is there:
Swordsman are infantry, pikemen are heavy infantry/mech, dogs are recons, knights are tanks, mages are anti air guns, trebuchets are rockets and ballista are missles, etc etc. Terrain bonuses are similar, costs are tweaked, but it plays exactly like advance wars.
And that is a really good thing. Can’t recomend the game enough.
Eh--I tried a little Wargroove but I thought its maps were pretty unbalanced. It became really easy to end up in a meat-grinder fight where in Advance Wars you had to mess up to find yourself in that state.
The art style (particularly the human portraits) also did not work for me.
I love the art style quite a lot.