Just great
But it's still great and alot of fun. It's certainly my favorite of all the total war games.
The main improvements I enjoyed:
1. How they've limited the number of agents you can possess while simultaneously allowing you to specialize them. The result is your agents become reeeeally important, and when they die or get assassinated it hurts. Same goes for your generals.
2. Armies and structures are expensive so trade is critical. This in turn means diplomacy is critical.
3. Vassal system works well. Making a conquered province a vassal is now very tempting because they are a goldmine. You make far more money off a vassal than you would if you controlled the province yourself. The downside is that sometimes they rebel...but that can get exciting too.
4. AI is aggressive
5. Carrying over sea battles from Empire adds a nice strategic dimension.
The main things they still need to work on:
1. Tactical battles almost always seem to turn into scrums.
2. It would be nice to bring the major figures in the game to life much like Civilization does with it leaders. So like Gandhi, Lincoln, Bizmarck in CIV it would be nice to have the faces of Takeda Shingen, Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu show up on our screen when we engage in diplomacy with their clan. I think it would really add some life and personality to the game.
That's all nitpicking though. If you like the total war series you wont be disappointed with this latest edition.