Nice graphics, interesting setting and interesting new features. Lousy battle AI.
But I am sad that despite various modding efforts showing that the AI can actually be pretty decent, CA never seem to be able to improve on it.
Especially the battle AI is still pretty bad. The AI will still try to "flank" your forces with a single cavalry unit, with absolutely no support. Ofcourse leading to the inevitable death of that/those units, at the hands of my spear men.
Yesterday I laid siege to a castle, and even as I was scaling the walls at the back of the castle, the archers from the front, who had no targets, refused to move to rain death down on my troops.
It ended with them having a single bow unit standing with their back towards the invading forces in the court yard, and I could move my fire bombers over to rain fire and explosions on them without the archers doing a thing to defend themselves.
Also the AI is suicidal .. I caught one unit of spear men alone, with an army with a siege engine, two bow units and a samurai unit. Did the spearmen turn and run?? ... nope. They just started walking towards the rain of bombs and arrows in a leisurely pace. There seems to be little unit preservation from the AI.
This lack of AI in the battles, makes the game go stale pretty fast, as eventually the battles will all resemble each other, and the rest of the game feels a bit too shallow for my tastes.
With a moronic AI, this games sadly fails, and almost ends up at level with the very disappointing Empire. This setting being a bit more interesting though.