Ah the manual thing!
In the B.C. era (Before Computer that is) wargaming manuals had to include fundamental things as! Combat Result Tables, Terrain Effect Modfiers and so on. So you had the "numeric soul" of the game staring you in the eyes. Throw in the rest of the rules and voila! here are you're game tactics/strategy! Some times it was easy, some times not, some times they had an "air" of their own and some times they were just plain difficult for the sake of being... uhm plain difficult. But the game manual was a there. Even if it was badly written you could always introduce some "home rules" if you had some "experience" (the equivalent of "modding").
Than came the A.C. era (After Computer obviously eh!). Hey no need any more to sum attack and defense values and throw the dice and consult this or that table. The puter does that! Right? Well yes! So If you don't use the tables and the charts and all that frustrating items any more why should you even be "exposed" to them!
So the developers, promoters, etc decided:
1.) Informative manuals can be complicated and "scare off" casual players
2.) We can "hide" major portions of the game engines/rules as "hardcoded" and/or "protecetd"
Now you need to experiment more with the game you choose to play. This maybe good or bad. Imagine spending your little free (gaming) time for weeks on a game that is too simplistic or too complex for you. Now this could happen in a table top game too but as soon as you opened the box and had a glimpse on the manual and the game components... well somehow you Knew if the game was right for you or it would end up in the top shelf...unused.
...of course you have movement and graphics that get better all the time and hidden enemy units... but I was born in the B.C. era.
