Debatable as the best Total War Game to date
It's almost obvious that people didn't like guns too much in the two previous games. But a lot of people loved it. So Creative Assembly decided to go back to it's roots, but not exactly. I've only played total war games from Rome and I have to say that was the best in the series, but not anymore. Now the single player game is what CA was famous for, but that's not the only thing this time.
Let's talk about the single player first.You get to choose 9 clans to play with (10 with limited edition which is unavailable now) and each of them have their specialties like better land units or more money from farms. It's the same formula as all total war games, but they have been improved. The campaign map is in 3D, and I guess in previous games they were in 2.5D, it looks a lot better with a paper style map as the fog of war.
The land battles now involve more strategy thanks to the comeback of melee combat. The siege battles are multi-staged, however I like the siege battles better in Rome and Medieval 2 where you had to siege a city or castle with houses inside it, instead of just really empty castles. The sea battles are greatly improved and you will see most of it from your enemies raiding your trade ships.Now you can't really keep a huge army and gaining a bunch of money at the same time each turn. Make sure you have mostly ashigarus.
The diplomatic options are just CRAP. Stripped down from Empire and Napoleon. There should be options to allow you to ask your allies to send troops to help you attack the enemy. The agents are also not as good as I expected. The ninjas are the best. However, there should be an option to ask an enemy general or a unit to join your side if their general's loyalty is low. Also I can't seem to find any geishas in the game.
If you really want to play this game, I recommend mods that will add more units and more balance to the game because the archers are OP in the vanilla game. I recommend Shogun 2 Realism, All In One Mod, Darthmod and Additional Units Mod found on TWCenter.com. Artificial Intelligence still sucks so it's a good thing to play the online component which is greatly improved compared to previous games. Avatar conquest lets you create a general with your own flags. They level up as you play more battles and win them. On steam you can find clans and fight them on the island of Japan. Competitive or casual gamers will enjoy it no matter what. However, the multiplayer campaign should involve more players rather than just 2.
PROS:
Improved realtime battles for the most part
Mostly melee combat
9 clans to play with
3D Campaign map
Less unit variety but better to know which units is against which.
Fabolous multiplayer
Extensive encyclopedia
CONS:
Helpless AI
Crappy Diplomatic Options
Boring agents
a bit of unbalanced units
Expected more CGI cutscenes