MoM is one of those games with a cult like following, with the likes of Elite, X-Com, Syndicate and a few other rarefied games.

It's never been a secret that MOM is a major influence on Elemental. But you have mentioned the Total War series several times in relation to tactical combat early in the development. Quoted from a Gamespot interview:

Or from a dev journal on these forums:

Of course this is your game, so you can change whatever you like. I for one was very sad when you changed the combat system to be more like MOM (I guess, never played it) rather than Total War, as it was one of the main reasons I pre-ordered. I know you said you wanted to avoid a 'bait and switch', but that is exactly what it felt like to me. But that is totally your decision, if I want it different I'll have to make my own game. However, I do hope you'll understand when some of us wish for a more 'Total War-like' scale and/or gameplay, because as far as we knew that was what we were going to get until less than a year ago (IIRC).

Relevant part highlighted for your convenience.

Right now it isn't even remotely like Total War.

I too was disappointed when the combat system switched.  Would have been pretty much awesome to have Total Ware style battles in a fantasy setting, with a TBS strategic map.

I never said that. However, Brad and others have said on multiple occasions that that was at least the general direction of what tactical combat would look like. People who have been on these forums longer than two weeks might know that...

People who have been on longer than two weeks?  You mean, like frogboy?

I would argue that total war IS the 'general' direction tactical combat has gone.  I won't argue about how well it's done, because that is silly, but anything from point A to B is purely in your mind.

It will never have total war battles.

But having squads just magically fade out the dead numbers, oh i mean soldiers (sorry, easy to lose immersion), is just so utterly dull that it makes combat just feel like a numbers game, like a die roll.
All i want is for some Visual goodies, something to suspend my disbelief and immerse me into the world, show me soldiers flying back, show me soldiers dying and their corpses slowly rotting down into the ground (if you HAVE TO have them remove mid-combat).
Show me ANYTHING to indicate that the soldiers are dying and fighting for their lives, not just fading away as if it was a game of chess.

I accepted long ago that it wasn't going to be Total War esque.  I, personally, think it would have been a far better game if they'd stayed on that path.  But I've played HOMM, MOM, Kings Bounty, and many other games and was hopeful that Stardock could emulate or exceed those games.  So, moving beyond the 'I wish it was Total War style combat' comment, I think we can all agree that tactical battles are in dire need to fixing, if not complete revamping.

This paragraph gives me more hope for the game than a dozen changelogs.  I've seen conspicuous absences of design focus and consistency ruin several of games and wondered if something like that was going on.  Organization Ftw.  That's not to say there was malicious intent by some mid-level designer to imbalance their race or gameplay preferences (though I think I've seen that too), just that it is hard for invidividuals spending years working on a game not to skew it to their preferences in a genuine effort to make it better--but if that is done in a discoordinated way one gets unpredictable results and different parts of the game not working together.  Most game companies where this happens never get so far as to admit the game is flawed, and it's just denial denial denial, so it looks like Stardock's introspective efforts are coming along well and I look forward to reading the past-mortem.  I welcome the iron fist of Frogboy.

I´m here for 2 weeks and i dont care about what was on the table weeks/month/years ago. I dont wont total war -battles. Maybe this battles look epic, but i really dont like the gameplay, the rush and in the end its always a big bunch of pixels. 

I like battles in a HoMM Style (never played MoM) and thats what i get.   

I think he meant the real-time tactical, which got dumped.

Probably for the best that it is, this game is enough of a Frankenstein right now as it is, that getting some coherency is needed, and once it's achieved the game should really start to shine.,

Are you going to allow tech research in Book 2 and 3 or will it be like Book 1?