For over a decade now, The Creative Assembly made sure that you got your yearly portion of grand strategy with the Total War series. 2011 brought us the long over-due Shogun 2, which was a direct sequel to the very first Total War game, and in a few weeks you will have even more Samurai, Geisha and Monks to kill - this time with Gatling guns.

The stand-alone expansion, Fall of the Samurai, takes place 300 years in the future and introduces you to the Meiji period. This period not only ended the reign of the shoguns and restored the power of the emperor in the Meiji Restoration, but also made way for foreign powers such as America and Japan’s industrial revolution. Publisher SEGA invited us to see what changes and additions were made to Shogun 2 and which tools you’ll have to rewrite history.

While Japan finally opened up to other countries, the Boshin War was a civil war fought between two mainly Japanese factions: on one side is the Shogunate clinging to its power, on the other are the far more open-minded Imperials who prefer the modern ways of the western cultures. Depending on your allegiance, you’ll enjoy different advantages, but you’ll have to adhere to very specific rules to avoid animosities from allies or even your own people. For example, investing in technologies can quickly increase your level of modernisation. This will unlock more advanced technologies, but also anger the traditional values of the Shogunate devotees. As usual, balance is key, and makes your life as an aspiring Japanese lord, a Daimyo, a lot more interesting.

On the other hand, the allegiances might ease up your own struggle for power. In Shogun 2--also known as Sengoku because of the period it focused on--at a certain point nearly everyone turned against you and not even your strongest alliances were sure to hold. Now--if you choose to activate this option--the Daimyos with the same allegiance as you won’t declare war right away (as long as you don’t give them any other reason to, such as by attacking them). But in general, they’ll still try to outsmart you of course, so be wary. And they’re better and more flexible at that now. Every Daimyo now has specific character traits such as being aggressive or focused on peaceful solutions.

While your allegiance might influence your decisions and play-style, you’ll still be able to use the same units as your enemies. Though, of course, an Imperial player will get the advanced units such a the aforementioned Gatling guns a lot earlier than an honorable--but not bulletproof--Daimyo following the Shogunate. While some of the 40 available units might appear similar to those from Sengoku, almost all of them are either new or completely redone. You’ve got a lot of pistol and rifle-bearing units now which shift the focus from the romantic picture of epic sword battles to lead-laden gun fights.

Another new focus are sea battles. Unlike before, the A.I.now uses its ships very aggressively blocking your ports early on or dropping of units on the coasts. So you’ll need to defend accordingly with a strong naval force. As such, it’s best to take advantage of what might be the most important new skill: naval bombardment. You can use your ships to soften up land troops before engaging them with your army or to use utilize devastating attacks during the real time battles. While they’re pretty strong, these bombardments are limited to a few per battle and need to recharge before every barrage. And if you want a little 3rd person shooter action in your grand strategy, you can even take control of the canons and directly aim for your target instead of simply placing a beacon. 

And grand it is indeed. The Creative Assembly listened to the biggest wishes of the Total War community with Fall of the Samurai and raised the maximum number of units you could take into a battle from 20 to 40. If you don’t feel up to the task of controlling them all, you can hand over control of some of them to the A.I., but in general it’ll make the battles more epic than they were ever before--and probably a bit more chaotic as well. The developers took quite some time to implement the feature, because they weren’t sure if people were actually able to do the necessary micromanagement. But with the option to give up control, it seemed like a valid compromise enabling pros to try their skills without leaving worse players behind.  Complete newbies will also be greeted with advanced video tutorials that should enable you to jump faster and wiser into the game.

While Shogun 2: Sengoku will also receive an update with the advanced A.I., most of the other features will stay exclusive to the expansion. Nevertheless, you will be able to do online-matches between the two games, which the developers assured would be balanced.

Shogun 2 was an excellent experience and Fall of the Samurai will undoubtably build on this. If you’re still playing Sengoku one year after its initial release or love to go back to it every now and then, Fall of the Samurai looks to be a save bet. Look for it to hit stores on March 15th.