I like the combat system, it's simple and, currently no, will allow you to choose between RT and Turn Base. The story is generic. But I repeat, it's fun and it runs well on my potato XD

You get pauses when you want them, so you have exactly the rhythm you're comfortable with at that particular moment.
Far easier than in full real time. And what's going on has to do with the information that's displayed, not with the combat style. Entirely likely to not know why something's happening in turn based too, if the inner workings aren't displayed.
Hardly the same thing.
The first is not in the least the same thing, in fact I may say it's the opposite of what I'm referring to, since in that case the enemy is guaranteed to act first. And that sort of suspense is definitely what I want to avoid; play for immersion, escapism and a power fantasy, not to trigger my often already crippling anxiety even more, thank you very much.
Some games have those systems, I also play them, but I don't prefer them and wouldn't exactly say that they work fine in general. And being able to move and attack in the same round is, again, hardly the same.
Autobattle options take away control from the player, no thank you. And please, let common encounters be easy, especially later in the game, that reverse difficulty curve that I know you hate but which is something I look for, see the power fantasy part. And taking away regular attacks is an unnecessary complication in itself, and really wouldn't work with how I play, slow and patient and as frugal as you can possibly be (since I'm assuming that non-regular attacks use some sort of resource in some manner).
Again, it is a good thing for me, and being constantly threatened is not.
And, also again, knowing what's going on has to do with what information's displayed. If the proper information is shown, you'll know exactly what happened.

Except not because you pretty much need auto-pause enabled.

Even without auto-pause, there's the problem that you might not press pause fast enough, at which point you're punished for you, the player, lacking the reflexes to react in time. In my view, this makes the game less of an RPG.

To me, real-time games are typically action games where you control a single character, not RPGs (as I define them). Games of this sort are, in some respects, easier to follow because there isn't as much to keep track of.

You can keep track of more things in turn-based combat than in real-time combat, and that ends up reflected in the design of such games.
If the enemy is guaranteed to act first, then that party-wide healing spell you're casting is guaranteed to go after the enemy, allowing it to heal the damage inflicted each turn. This reliability can be quite useful. (For example, the SaGa 2 remake's final boss is much easier if you ensure that your healing goes either always first and always last, and the latter is easier to accomplish (though I've done the former).)

The suspense helps make things less predictable. When things become too predictable, things become boring, as every encounter with the same group of enemies plays out the same way. Add some decent RNG, however, and things become much less boring, as you never know what might happen. (I note that this sort of thing is why roguelikes/roguelites are so popular; the randomness in world and treasure generation helps keep the game from being too predictable. Also, randomizers.)

Autobattle could still be controllable, or at least have your party's actions predictable (like having everyone only use regular attacks, or the action that was just used). So, if it's optional, it doesn't take away control from the player.

There's also the idea of having common encounters not always be the same difficulty. Put in some easy encounters that aren't serious threats, but also throw in the occasional problem enemy, so that the player can't just snooze through all the fights. This sort of thing also makes it so that the player has to decide whether it's worth spending resources on a fight; if there's a problem enemy, it might be worth using that costly spell to get rid of it as soon as possible, but you don't want to use it on less dangerous enemies.

(Like, for example, if there's a level draining enemy, you really *don't* want it to be able to act, so you may be willing to spend resources to get rid of it quickly (or to disable it), whereas it doesn't make sense to use too many resources on the benign enemy it comes with.)

Being able to move and attack in the same turn, or simply being able to move multiple squares in one turn, is needed for melee and ranged combat to feel balanced.

Just look at Ultima 3-6, or Nox Archaist for that matter; on your turn you can either move 1 square or attack. This sort of setup heavily favors ranged attacks in a way that a game like, say, Pool of Radiance, does not.

It has to do with having the time to read those messages. In RTwP, you could easily not realize what's happening until it's too late, as the messages keep appearing. Turn based, on the other hand, gives you as much time as you need to read the displayed information, or to check the state after each round without having to be fast enough (as a player) to paus in time.

I feel like debating between real time with pause and turn-based is like trying to convince someone else that your genre of game is better. Might be a fun intellectual exercise but I don't see it convincing anyone. People like what they like.

Besides, turn-based enjoyers are eating well lately with developers like Larian doing well. Not every game has to cater to your taste.

There was, however, a time when this was definitely not the case. Lots of RTwP games (like Baldur's Gate) got released that became popular, while turn-based WRPGs became scarce and basically disappeared for a while.

I actually see that period of time as the start of the worst period as far as CRPGs (both J and W) are concerned.

(JRPGs had different issues around this time.)

That's fair, I feel a bit similarly with so many 4X's for a while going real-time (Paradox games being a prime example) when I vastly prefer turn-based in that genre. That said, rather than discouraging real-time 4X and grand strategy, I just try to support and encourage turn-based versions. The industry is big enough that we can all get something to our tastes luckily.

(Wish we had more immersive sims and stealth tactics games like Desperadoes though ...)

At the time, it felt like the industry *wasn't* big enough to support both turn-based and RTwP.

I guess that you played already Blades of the Shogun?

This particular game does both. That's what started this line of conversation...I know e.g. Pillars of Eternity II had issues trying to add a turn-based mode to a RTWP game (once it became apparent that "turn-based is dead" was actually the opposite of true). Designing for both from the start does have a better chance of working, probably.

All of Mimimi's games are great! Still haven't played the last DLC for Shadow Gambit though.

Looks interesting, wishlisted.