The Creative Assembly have hit on the right time to release a title with the scope of Shogun 2 as well. A streamlined user interface and the addition of fun, historically appropriate agent units like ninja assassins, monk missionaries, metsuke secret police and geisha spies, demonstrates an evolution of the non-combat intricacies that have always been an essential part of the Total War series. The central concepts of the Total War series are in evidence here - management takes place through a turn-based map while actual conflicts are enacted in real-time battles - but the experience has been simultaneously bulked up and stripped back so that extra features are made available while design frivolities have been axed. Taking place not across an entire continent, but within the confines of the islands of 16th century, Sengoku era Japan, the game sees its developers focusing their expertise in the most highly concentrated edition of their series to date. The gameplay isn’t much changed from previous incarnations of the series, but it has been refined and, ultimately, improved. Shogun 2 is the end result of a developer that is continually taking note of the lessons it’s learned throughout a decade of releases within the Total War franchise. Total War: Shogun 2, The Creative Assembly’s latest work in refining a specific type of strategy game, rejects this notion, demonstrating that, yes, both tactical play and emotional charge can coexist in the genre.

When the genre fails to appeal to our hearts, it inevitably moves into the realm of the - becoming nothing more than an abstract exercise in cold, calculating intellect.

Strategy games can be impersonal things where the people under your control become little more than ants in a farm, navigating their way through tunnels of artificial design.

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