"He who wins people, prospers; he who loses them, fails" - Zhou Yu
This game is to turn-based strategy what a Paradox game (say Crusader Kings) is to RTS. The only way to success is through retaining and utilizing the games numerous historical and illustrious characters to the best of their abilities. Each character has five attributes which determine how efficient they would be in overseeing actions such as development, recruitment and training of armies, security. Additionally the characters have cool traits that add various bonuses to the kingdoms and the actions. These attributes and traits also dictate how they perform in short and fun minigames such as Debates (to settle political matters etc), or horseback duels between officers. All of it feels really authentic and relatively realistic, thanks to tid-bits like your characters speaking out cheesy but epic dialogues etc.
With the sovereign present in a settlement, you can also hold council meetings with your able officers, who will suggest the distribution of tasks throughout the provinces under your direct control. This helps a lot in guiding your hand in your initial playthroughs. For further automation can also divide your realm into smaller parts under the control of high ranked officers acting as viceroy, leaving you to focus on cities that you think are deserving of your attention. You can set goals for these AI viceroys such as building up resources to be transported elsewhere (Yes! Each city has its own resource pool), or to build up its armies to conquer some neighboring cities.
It is important to keep officers happy by promotions and rewards based on their deeds, else they might switch allegiance. Viceroys can declare independence, starting civil wars. Promotions also add various bonuses to you officers, helping them perform better. The sovereign himself has his specific station in the Imperial court, which improves as he gains more territory.
The diplomacy or intrigues does not feel as effective or impactful when compared with the rest of the game-mechanics. Instead of negotiations, it seems to be dependent on a math-determined "yes" or "no". So in most part, your path to glory is determined through military conquest. You can raise armies in hundreds of thousands, with five troupe types (based on the weapons - swords, spears, pikes, bows, siege, navy and cavalry), who have a rock paper scissor mechanism to determine the outcomes of the clashes. Troupes are led by officers and deputies, who should be carefully chosen as per their abilities (leadership and war, and several combat traits) and expertise with a particular weapon type.
Combat is dramatic and exciting, with numerous special abilities. Coordinating attacks with multiple units can be challenging and rewarding. To make matters more real, units actually have a finite amount of supply and morale, which get slowly exhausted as it stays in the field. They can be reinforced and resupplied, but low morale would eventually force a unit to withdraw. These and many other complications lead to epic and sprawling battles, with movie-like moments, where the last minute arrival of a powerful unit turns the tides, or when two great warriors clash, and end up fighting a duel.
All in all, this was like a dream game for me. I realize some of the elements, such as the heavy micromanagement, the cheesy dialogues, or multi-layered text menus - can be daunting for casual gamers. This game is not for them. The campaigns can take hours, even days to complete. Fans of Paradox games, or even the older Total War games, may enjoy this (like myself). The character driven game-play was very close to my idea of a perfect strategy game. I am looking forward to see how this series evolves. Hopefully Koei wont mind releasing PC English versions for the future episodes.