Beautiful campaign and battle maps, cool fighting, smooth, but oh so shallow. The game, sadly, gets boring, and quick.
I've played several campaigns now, and once acquiring eight provinces, I began to realize that how I built my provinces was kind of irrelevant. The auto-replenishment of units negates the efforts of constructing armories and such, which give units bonuses and pre-build experience, because fresh replacements destroy all that, and since one is bound to always lose units in battle, you're always stuck with low-end troops. That is fine if you just want to rush on ahead, slaughter everyone in your path, no matter what the cost, but if you're a planner, like me, the depth of clan development suddenly becomes pointless.
Battles are also very fast. There isn't much time to plan. It's just throw your spears here, cavalry there, archers on the rear. You're bound to win, just watch out for enemy cavalry. They do actually flank, which is nice. Also, it would be nice to have more battle map variations. It gets to be the "same old place" after awhile.
The clan management tab, however, is nice. You can assign certain offices to specific generals, and you can choose your heir. It also tells you your faction bonuses--bonuses that can be acquired through research and development. However, the effort it takes to get all that doesn't seem worth it.
Overall, the most beautiful Total War game to date, but the most shallow. I hope, for the sake of the games longevity, like Rome Total War, they release modding tools to the gaming community.
Best wishes CA on future developments.
D. McGlone