is that
really true? I haven't played the latest versions of many mods but many of them still bend a lot of historical consideration to make the game "fun".
For example here is a screen shot of darthmod for shogun 2
maybe my history is outdated but when i learned a bit of japonese history sword was a backup weapon, not the main weapon for line confrontation.
If my memory for mods like radiant and divide et impera for rome 2 spears still don't beat most units. IRL spear is an extremely good weapon yet in the mods/game is one of the worst.
Again the line of the "historical purist" is usually women. There might be true historical purists but i doubt those play total war, after all, most of the gameplay of the total war series is not historical accurate.