Preview by: William Abner

I started playing the Total War games from the beginning. I have seen the series, which started with the original Shogun in the summer of 2000, mature with multiple trips through medieval Europe that included an awesome Viking Invasion, jaunt through Rome and back again to Europe during the Age of Napoleon and now – back to feudal Japan. Sega provided me with a beta preview build of the Shogun sequel to get a feel for some of the new stuff The Creative Assembly has in store when the game drops on March 15th.

I should note, before we dig in, that the beta was limited in that I couldn’t play any multiplayer, and every other gameplay option was restricted to the tutorials. I couldn’t even use the advanced land or naval battle tutorials – so we’re talking pretty basic stuff here.

That said, I could play the campaign tutorial which dropped me on the gorgeous campaign map playing as the Chosokabe Clan. Other clans include the Oda, Shimazu, Mori, Tokugawa, Takeda, Uesugi, Date, Hojo, and Hattori. Each clan has strengths in both location as well as general makeup. The Chosokabe are expert archers, for example, and gain bonuses which reflect this in the form of cheaper recruitment costs, access to special archer foot units, and a boost in income from farming. The Oda, as a counterpoint, receive bonuses for Ashigaru recruitment costs and troop morale. Each clan is different in ways such as this – some are siege experts, some brilliant horsemen, and so on.

Each province is also special. Some are poor, some rich, some have vital resources such as quarries, rice paddies, or trading posts, while others offer great defensive positions for strongholds.