Total War Shogun 2

[Ashington]

The game's pretty god damn great, it's on a much more managable scale than Empire:Total War but keeps some of the really nice features it has (such as trading posts for income) and the A.I is significantly better (Any difficulty above average the A.I makes really effective use of units and they use naval units/naval landing properly unlike previous games).

The game uses a good blend of turn-based strategy for managing territories, moving armies, diplomacy, finance, clan affairs and mastering arts(of which there are 2 types, peaceful and military) but none of these are too complex and a reasonably quick to pick up but take a bit of time to properly master. Battles are handled in beautifully detailed real time affairs with some pretty big armies on the field and nice mechanics. Battles can be fun but challenging, especially sieges and you can't rely on auto resolve very much on any difficulty higher than easy, meaning you get stuck in more which adds importance to each battle.

Each side has the same unit types but each faction/clan (of which there are 9, 10 if you have the limited edition) produces a specific type of unit to a better standard and have complimentary traits (the mori build better ships, cost less to maintain and repair them and they can sail further and the shizamu can train/maintain supirior katana units and their generals have greater loyalty) and the generals/daimyo(faction leader) have skills/retainers they can pick up as they get better through victories.

I'd love to say more but i think you should just give it a play and see for yourself. There's a demo but it's a bit restrictive and you can feel free to ask me about anything in the game.

[Sinitron]

it's too damn slow and apparently multiplayer is all about sitting in a corner and doing nothing the entire game

will play it some more when i get on my desktop though

[Ashington]

it's too damn slow and apparently multiplayer is all about sitting in a corner and doing nothing the entire game

I haven't personally had any speed or pacing issues with the game and it's shitty when people resort to doing that, but it doesn't take long for people to work out how to discourage that kind of play. I haven't tried multiplayer yet as i've recently finished an easy campaign and im starting a harder one with one of the tougher factions for the 3rd time (i've been beaten in less than 10 turns twice so far) but i'll give it a go soon and see how it is.