After a controversial launch, Empire has gone on to become one of the sleeper hits of the Total War series. A few weeks before the standalone Total War: Shogun 2 expansion, Fall of the Samurai was released, we asked Creative Assembly studio director, Mike Simpson about Empire's strange journey. "It’s weird isn’t it?" he said. "It does keep going – that’s one thing about Empire, it’s still selling now as much as it was a year ago and that just doesn’t stop."

Empire was to be The Creative Assembly's most sprawling, ambitious Total War yet, but its release in 2009 was overshadowed by AI bugs. Passive enemies and weak AI frustrated Total War players. Simpson admits that The Creative Assembly "did take on a little bit more than we were actually capable of delivering by the date."

"We had to have it earlier, so it was buggy on release, and it took us quite a few patches to get that sorted out. But when it was done it gets closer to the product that we originally intended, and it had long, long, long legs."

Empire's vast campaign takes place across three major theatres of war, America, Europe and India. Those are just the land battles, additional coastline zones host naval battles for international trade routes, vital for securing the huge resources needed to fuel a hungry global empire. Simpson described how The Creative Assembly approach each edition of Total War, in stages of "revolution" and "evolution." New titles like Empire are designed to refresh the series and update the engine, acting as a platform for future expansions like The Warpath campaign and, follow-up games like Napoleon.

"Empire was one of those revolutionary steps, but at that point the revolutions were starting to take too long to do, so it started to take more than three years to go around and that cycle was too long," said Simpson. "So at that point we realised you can’t actually throw the whole codebase away and start again, we have to do it in chunks. So we’re going into more of a continuous revolution process, which seems to be working pretty well."

Empire is available on Steam now for £10 / $19.99, and there's a demo available if you fancy trying it out. It's improved immensely in with the patches CA have added over the years, and there are plenty of mods out there keeping it fresh.

More recently, Total War: Shogun 2 could be considered the next "revolution" of the cycle. We've since had Rise of the Samurai and Fall of the Samurai, which means we're probably due another big step into a new theatre soon. Where would you like Total War to go next?

The standalone expansion to Total War: Shogun 2, Fall of the Samurai, is out, and it's a very handsome game, as these launch screenshots demonstrate. Of course, most of the time you'll be floating high above the battlefield, surveying the landscape and dishing out orders to vast armies, but if you take a moment every now and then to zoom down to ground level, you'll get to see every cut and thrust. Thanks to the influx of guns, Fall of the Samurai's battles are much smokier, noisier places.

If you're wandering whether or not to pick up the expansion today, check out our Fall of the Samurai review. If you've already taken the plunge, have a look at our guide to taking Japan. If you want to see men with huge moustaches being rushed by a unit of samurai swordsmen, check out these screenshots.

An epic Shogun 2 patch has landed alongside the standalone expansion, Fall of the Samurai. If a dozen sumo wrestlers were to combine into a twelve foot tall Megazord of sumo wrestlers, the resulting horror would not be as large or fleshy as this update, which adds 40 vs. 40 units battles to multiplayer, 22 new land and sea maps to fight on, Steam cloud support, reduced battle load times, "greatly reduced" AI turn times and some 3000 words worth of balance shifts and bug fixes. Bikkuri shita!

The fixes listed in the patch notes below affect every aspect of the game, from the campaign map, to the real time battles and multiplayer. There's a bit of good news for anyone who bought the Blood Pack for Shogun 2, it'll apply the same effects to Fall of the Samurai's battles, too. Here's the full change list.

Headline additions – also available to Shogun 2 players

40v40 unit battles available via ‘control large armies’ option in Custom Battles and Multiplayer
Numerous Battle and Campaign AI improvements (see Battle and Campaign sections below)
Greatly reduced save-game file sizes and full Steam Cloud support
Battlefield load time improvement (approximately 30% dependent on machine spec)
Greatly reduced AI turn-time
22 brand new Land, Naval and Siege battle-maps

 
Full patch notes
 

The majority of these also apply to Shogun 2.

General fixes/additions

Fixes for known multiplayer campaign desyncs
Introduced option to auto-trigger abilities through right-clicking
Towers can now be ordered to fire at specific targets
Domination (capture all points) victories added for multiplayer
General optimisations across all areas of the game
Ability to queue technology tree research
Ability to set groups to AI control
Ability to lock group formations with new UI button
Fixed missing siege models
New front-end background camera pans
Campaign AI turn-times reduced due to pathfinding optimisations
Naval campaign AI improved significantly

 
Naval battles

Fixes:

Fixed attack intercept position when in and around islands
Fixed bug where some submerged ships did not surrender
Fixed several rare crashes in naval battle.
Improved circling behaviour for all ships
Improved range detection for Fire Bomb Kobaya
Removed stop-start movement for AI ships moving in a group.
Improved target selection for naval AI

 
User Interface

Modified the Standard Camera in naval battles to ensure that the horizon is always visible.
Added UI toggle to battle HUD (bottom left corner), so can hide UI elements
Mousing over unit cards now highlights the corresponding unit as if mousing over them
Double pressing group frame or double pressing group number shorcut zooms to groups
Added lock formation button for groups; groups act like did before, locked into formation by default, but can be unlocked to behave like a selection group. This provides an easier interface for players just wanting selection groups. (Can still quickly create a selection group pressing ctrl+g, which can also be used to toggle lock)
Added UI support for more units in a single battlefield, card system now goes onto double rows when required
Cursor no longer gives option to attack unmounted horses, as doing so would give order to attack riders which could be confusing
Inspiration range now drawn for all units with inspiration aura, not just for the general (like hero units)
Added ship schematics to info panel for boshin ships, to provide more detail on ships state
Fixed graphical issues with naval fire arcs in night battles
Added player names to MPC tooltips
Added fade transitions to info panels
Unit cards now coloured based on unit category
Added support for unbound keys, so can disable shortcuts rather than having to give obscure shortcut
Added page numbers to tooltips
New group frames to support double rows, and now highlight when moused over or group selected; as well as showing group number rather than japanese number for easier access via shortcuts
Multiplayer postbattle screen reworked
Added option to invert camera's x-axis
Can now move around battlefield when battle results present
Can no longer use debug camera from preferences while in multiplayer battle
Fixed text running off battle tooltips for some gempei units
Fixed bug where info panel would not update while paused during a replay
Bridge icons on battle radar given better image, and now orientated correctly
Fort walls now visible on radar map/loading map
Pings placed on invalid terrain no longer appear in middle of map
Ship tooltips/cards number of men take into account officers
Inactive battle hud buttons have tooltips
Fix for rotated UI images behaving incorrect when running widescreen resolution
Fix for realism mode setting being lost for campaign
Officers taken into account for ship numbers on unit cards/tooltips
Fixed in game chat highlight issues
Building info panel resizes unit entries dynamically to fix unit names being clipped in certain languages
Can now use context and tracking cameras in replays
Fixed issue where pasted invalid characters into text inputs
Neatend effect bundle tooltips so not larger than need to be
Can now double click on ground in battles to move to that location
Drag out units display now shows two arrows when will result in run on release, 1 arrow when will result in walk
Improved target/path marker spline quality so doesn't stretch out, and head now represents movement speed of unit it represents (so know if running or walking to current target)
Added ability to view replays at end of battle/replay, rather than routing player back to front-end then back into battle
Post-battle screens now appear for replays
Tweaks to main menu button animations
Fix for inconsistent naval crew-icons on ship cards between front-end/campaign and battle
Battle-lobby countdown timer moved so retainer panel not obscured
Tweaked UI banner-scaling (slightly smaller) and UI splines brought closer to ground (fire arcs, paths, etc)
Fixed cinematic borders not always being flush to edges of screen, resulting in gaps at top and bottom
Added UI to toggle auto-triggered abilities. Right-clicking on a supported ability button will toggle it to auto-trigger, where the AI will decide when to use the ability, in order to save the player some micro-management.
Chat-toggle button now hides all chat when currently visible rather than input, and button is highlighted when player has unread messages
Group number shortcuts are now rebindable
Moved pings to left-click rather than right-click for UI consistency
Realism mode changes: radar visible during deployment, morale visible on minimal tooltips

 
Campaign

Fixed rare case where pre-battle camera would trigger too early if an agent or neutral army was between the attacker and the defender under certain circumstances.
Campaign variable "family_rounds_between_wife_offers" now also determines the earliest round a wife can be offered
Stopped generating movement extents for armies on the pre-battle screen
Fixed rare campaign lockup caused by an agent being forced out of its reserved area
Fixed very rare campaign lockup involving an ambush across a land bridge, where an agent or third party neutral army is between the acting army and the ambusher
Fixed multi-turn AI actions against the human player causing the game to drop out of speed-up mode even though the action will not complete that turn
Changed format of campaign height-map to reduce load time and significantly reduce memory usage
Fixed very rare crash caused by autosave saving an army in an incorrect order
Fixed bug when issuing orders to agents on navies against target agents in armies
Fixed trade-route tooltip which showed only one imported resource per route
Fixed a rare lockup caused by a successful agent action causing an army to move, whilst another army is also in motion under certain circumstances
Fixed rare crash when two multi-turn embark orders – to embark two different armies onto two different navies – resulted in an attempt to perform both embarks at the same port in the same turn
Fixed rare crash caused by the Daimyo's brother not being demoted from command of an army when the Daimyo dies while there is a superior general in the army
Fixed a few issues with commerce-raid value updates when merging and splitting raiding navies
Added information about when a diplomatic action would be considered dishonourable by other clans
Selecting an agent in an army now shows the agent’s movement extents.
Improved rope visuals on campaign map buildings
Fixed trade-route information not being updated when a port is damaged
Fixed obscure issue which prevented other factions’ movement extents showing if they had military access to player’s territory, but player did not have military access to theirs.
Modified several game areas to fail gracefully instead of crashing when loading incorrectly modded data
Various memory-usage optimisations
Fixed being able to get more than three agents in a city
Fixed unusual crash in pathfinder related to blockaded ports
Fixed crash in event-log system
Fixed crash when issuing an order to a previously merged army
Fixed crash related to capturing artillery
Fixed bug where reinforcement armies solely comprised of units that can't enter as reinforcements (such as artillery) were counted as reinforcements in pre-battle
Fixed bug where region ownership for unseen rebel regions was visible
Fixed bug where attrition-indicator showed on rebel banners when they weren't suffering attrition
Fixed crash when bribing cities that are under siege
Fixed issue with missing army-templates causing lockups
Fixed crash in sound tracker
Fixed crash in agent-options dialog
Fixed issue with ‘surrender imminent’ message
Fixed issue where certain melee and charge bonuses were not working correctly in battle
Fixed issue where shroud was updated many times when a Clan dies, causing some slowdown
Fixed unit exchange issue when in ports
Fixed issue where some characters destroyed in battle remained alive
Fixed issue where pre battle UI appeared in odd order when player was playing as AI in MPC
Fixed issue where campaign thought ships needed 0 crew to function
Fixed case where MPC players are forced to spectate an AI-vs-AI game
Fixed issue where MPC co-op allies received message that enemy is retreating when allies are retreating
Fixed issue where ambush cursor did not show for characters in garrisons
Fixed bug where a force would act on incorrect orders after capturing units
Fixed issue where recruited agents were unable to enter the settlement they were recruited from on the turn they were recruited
Fixed missing building name in ‘legendary building built’ event-log entry
Player now gets full spying information on a force after attacking it
Improved campaign experience-handling
Removed timer from certain battles to prevent exploit
Port selection marker is now centred around the flag
Armies now only get region-unrestricted replenishment in enemy regions
Tweaked some message events to be more informative
Various campaign load-time and memory usage optimisations
Reduced memory usage in front end startup process
Reduced campaign animations memory-usage
Improvements to campaign building-display resource usage
Fixed religion/allegiance zeal display in religion tooltips for more than two religions
Various mission bugs fixed
Fix to clear military crackdown repression on handover of region
Only primary generals now get full XP in battles; generals commanding reinforcements get reduced XP
Technology goal can be selected to guide auto-selection of next tech when research completes
Save games: compression and other size reductions to make files dramatically smaller; Steam Cloud support added

 
Battles

When units are climbing walls men can now fire their bows or guns when at the top of the walls while men in the same unit are still climbing
Movement arrow now appears when units are ordered onto positions on zones such as fort walls
Fixes for units not being able to fire at units behind fort walls in certain circumstances
Unit destination proxies (shown on space bar) now update when the game is paused
Fire arcs now only turn off when ‘fire at will’ is off and melee mode is enabled
Improvement to display of fire arc facing when defending a zone (e.g. on a fort wall)
Fix for not being able to turn off fire at will when defending a zone (e.g. on a fort wall)
AI unit shooting-line analysis tweaks
In siege battles where the AI is attacking, artillery can now deploy on multiple lines.
Units now change their tactic state more effectively if they are idle and under fire in siege battles (when AI is attacking)
Stopped units behind fort walls being unfavourably targeted by artillery
Fixed several fort-reinforcement AI bugs
Stopped units from being issued attack orders when they are climbing fort walls
Stopped units from prioritizing the capture of distant towers in siege battles
Fixed several bugs with idle cavalry during AI-attacking siege battles
Fixed bug where AI was unable to place units on a sensible fort approach
Fixed strange movement bugs in AI fort defence
Fixed rare crash-issue resulting from a scenario where the player enters a battle with no units because they are reinforcing another player, and all their units are artillery (which cannot be deployed as reinforcements)
The ‘last stand’ morale state, triggered when castle defenders are fighting to the death, now imposes penalties on ranged accuracy and reload rate
Battle AI is more likely to deploy cavalry on both of its flanks, allowing for greater opportunities when flanking and executing a double envelopment
Fixed an issue where naval reinforcements sometimes did not fully enter the map
Introduced a variety of improvements to the battlefield AI's use of outflanking and double envelopment manoeuvres, making these tactics more effective overall
Fixed a rare issue where some reinforcement units did not enter the battlefield because they were not correctly resized to avoid obstacles outside the playable area
Battle AI now performs a deeper analysis when it decides between walking and running, resulting in the AI moving more swiftly when appropriate and tiring its troops out less often
Fixed an issue where ships left a battle with incorrect experience data, causing them to gain experience prematurely
Fixed an issue in Battle AI which delayed its ability to move to a good defensive position outside its deployment zone once the battle starts
Fixed several issues in the way that the Battle AI assembles and holds a defensive line. The AI is less likely to reform when an enemy is near, and will be more stable when holding the line
Battle AI now does a better job of advancing a firing-front towards an enemy, by performing a more robust selection of a direction from which to attack
Mounted shooters now avoid shooting through friendly units before firing in the same way that infantry shooters do
The duration of the friendly-fire penalty has increased from 6 seconds to 30 seconds
When trying to set buildings alight, archers no longer continue to fire on buildings after their flaming arrows are spent
When a unit is within range of multiple friendly passive inspiration auras, it is now given a bonus equivalent to the largest single aura; the multiple auras do not stack. Previously only the commanding general's aura was ever applied

 
General multiplayer fixes

Fixed issue where a veteran unit could gain its statistics bonus prematurely during the battle, once enough experience points had been earned but before the end of the battle
Fixed issue where LAN server browser contained wrong information
Fixed some crashes with multiplayer
Improved chat-room population system
Fixed issue where battle voice was not working
Fix for rare case where land units could be taken into naval battle

 
MP abilities

Stand and fight: melee attack bonus reduced from 3 to 2
Standand Fight: reload bonus reduced from 10 to 5
Hold firm: melee defence bonus reduced from 6 to 3
Rally: morale bonus to non-routing units reduced from 2 to 1 (bonus for units already routing is unaffected)
Naval whistling Arrows duration halved
Special abilities for towers

 
MP unit caps

Kisho Ninja capped at 4 per army
Mounted Samurai capped at 3 per army

 
MP retainers

Infantry officer: +1 morale
Way of the Ikko-Ikki: +1 morale, +2 melee defence & +5% cost for monks and ashigaru
Rennyo's teachings: -1 melee attack, +3 melee defence all units
Stricken unholy forge: -1 armour to enemy melee troops
World-Weary: -1 morale (enemy veterans)
Shirabyoshi dancer: +1 morale (veterans), +5% cost (monks, nuns)
Naginata Warrior Monk Cavalry no longer affected by retainers affecting all monks, to bring them in line with their Samurai equivalents.

 
MP skills

Fire by rank: cost reduced from 250 to 120
Rapid Volley: cost reduced from 250 to 120

 
MP key buildings

Reduced morale bonus from Shrine

 
MP unit costs

Yari hero (decreased from 1200 to 1100)
Bow hero (decreased from 1500 to 1400)
Bow ashigaru (decreased from 450 to 400)
Matchlock ashigaru (decreased from 500 to 450)
Bulletproof samurai (decreased from 1000 to 950)
Nuns (decreased from 900 to 850)
Tetsubo monk hero (increased from 800 to 850)

 
The following brand new Fall of the Samurai maps will also be made available in Shogun 2:

Land battles:

Awa Ridge Pass
Gigu Crossing
Happo Ridge
Ishiyama Ruins
Iwaki Foothills
Jigokudani Valley
Kawabe River
Kurobe Gorge
Nishizawa Valley
Osaka Plain
Ubayu Onsen
Usui Pass

 
Naval battles:

Hokuriki Coast
Seto Inland Sea
Tohuku Sea
Tokai Coast
Tsugaru Straits
Sea of Japan

 
Siege battles:

Iburi Castle
Satsuma Castle
Uzen Fortress
Wakasa Fortress

 
EDIT: Additionally added fixes

Rally (land & naval)
Active time reduced to 60; recharge time reduced to 180

 
Hold firm

Range reduced to 30
Active time reduced to 30

 
Stand and Fight

recharge time increased to 45

 

For every Total War game, there are dozens of ambitious mods. Some, like Europa Barbarorum for Rome, overhaul the game to reflect the period in which it's set with a scholarly degree of historical accuracy. Others, like the Darth mods, prettify everything with a bundle of graphical updates tweak enemy AI to make the games more challenging.

Despite modders' enthusiasm for the series, the Total War games have never been especially easy to meddle with. If anything, they're getting harder to tweak. Is this a deliberate move to help sell more DLC by reducing fan-made alternatives? We asked Creative Assembly studio director Mike Simpson that very question.

"That isn’t the case. If anything, we tend towards: the more mod support, the more DLC you’ll sell," he said. "It has always been quite difficult to support mods quite well and it’s quite a lot of work, so we’d end up not doing something else."

The increasing complexity of the Total War engine will have made modding trickier, but it also makes creating user friendly mod tools more difficult on the development side, too. "We’ll do more," Simpson said. "We will do more."

We asked Mike Simpson if the team at Creative Assembly have been watching the launch of the Steam Workshop, and the explosion of TF2 and Skyrim mods that have resulted.

"Yeah, we’re looking at that as well. We should be letting people do this," he said. There’s no philosophical problem with modding at all."

"I can imagine situations where it might run into trouble if someone started to do a mod that happened to be the thing we were doing in the next game, then we’d be thinking do we really want to encourage that?" he added with a laugh.

The standalone expansion, Total War: Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai, is coming out on Friday. It's good. Find out why in our Total War: Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai review, and have a peek at our ten top tips to help you take back Japan. Hint: use guns. Lots of guns.

Standalone Total War expansion, Fall of the Samurai, is out, and it's really rather good. You can find out exactly why in our Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai review. You'll be fighting for tradition and the Samurai way on the Shogun's side, or battling to restore the Emperor to supremacy, but carving out your empire in the midst of a civil war isn't an easy task. The standalone expansion adds 39 new units, three new agents and a bunch of new boats. There's a new tech tree, railways and dramatic new weapons like naval artillery and gatling guns to get to grips with.

There's so much to do. Where should a new general start? Who should you kill first? Which are better, swords or guns? Is Sun Tzu's Art of War actually useful? (yes, if you're monitor's a bit low down, plonk it on top of the ancient tome, voila). Here are ten top tips to help you take back Japan.

Set up trade routes quickly


Building an empire is expensive. Never mind the cost of training troops and building boats, it's the upkeep that you need to worry about. Soldiers are always hungry and boats have a habit of breaking. That'll cost you a set amount of gold every turn. In Total War, quick money is hard to come by. You can take an enemy town and sack it for all it's worth, or just set up a trade route.

Doing a deal with another clan will instantly secure you a boost to your income every turn, but the number of trade agreements you can set up is limited by the number of ports you control. Your first step should be to send out a small fleet to skirt the shores of Japan. Whenever you catch a glimpse of an undiscovered faction, you'll be able to set up a meeting straight away and start negotiations.

In Fall of the Samurai, your relationships with other clans will be affected by your allegiance with the progressive Emperor or the traditionalist Shogun. If a clan's on the other side, they won't like you very much. That's why it's best to discover as many factions as possible as quickly as possible. The deals you do should be limited by the number of ports you have, not the number of factions you can talk to.

It's worth keeping an eye on which resources are in demand. If you see one selling for a good price, upgrade the mines and mills that generate that resource to boost that vital trade income.
Use artillery always


Ships can now bombard cities, mines, farms, railway stations and even armies from the safety of the sea. If one of your armies enter battle within a friendly fleet's circle of influence on the campaign map, you'll be able to call down artillery to smash your enemies on the battlefield. This is an extremely powerful ability that you'll want to use constantly throughout your Fall of the Samurai campaign.

On the strategic campaign map, you should use fleets to strike at unguarded resource buildings scattered throughout enemy provinces. You can hammer farms and mines into disrepair, damaging your opponent's economy. They'll have to spend some gold to get those buildings repaired as well, making shoreline bombardments a great way to soften up a province for invasion.

Naval artillery can be even more useful in battle. As long as the fight is initiated within the circular range indicator of your fleet on the campaign map, you'll be able to call down a couple of devastating bombardments during the real time battle. You can choose a focused bombardment, which is useful if you're going for a high-risk strike on a vital enemy unit (the one that carries their general, for example), but you'll probably do better with the less accurate strike. This will spread out the incoming shells, delivering less destruction over a wider area, but more disruption to the enemy line.

A well timed strike can obliterate enemy armies in tight rank and file formation. If you're lucky, your strike will result in plenty of casualties, but even if you don't score a direct hit, the force of the impacts will send soldiers flying. This can scatter your foe's formation and open up gaps in their gunlines. Once you've called in the big guns, there's a bit of a wait before it arrives. Getting barrages on target can take a bit of practice. If you master artillery, you've added a devastating weapon to your arsenal.
Build boats. Lots of boats


Naval artillery is an important weapon, but your fleets have an even more vital task. You must protect your trade ports at all costs. At high tech levels, you can upgrade those ports to international trade centres. These bring in immense riches and give you the opportunity to recruit troops from overseas. If your enemy blockades a port, it'll cost you thousands in gold and you'll lose those recruitment options.

Don't let that happen. A fleet can travel a long way in a turn, which means they can protect wide stretches of coastline from would-be pirates. It's worth keeping a few souped up fleets as high-impact defensive armadas designed to crush raiding parties. Likewise, send out small squadrons yourself to harass enemy resource points and raid trade routes. Maintaining all these ships will be expensive, but it's worth it.

Once you've researched the tech, it's worth upgrading your port defences. This will install a series of huge cannon emplacements around your shipping centres that will automatically lay damage on any enemy fleets within range. You'll even be able to see these tiny cannon emplacements firing away on the strategic campaign map.

Mind the seasons


Each turn in Fall of the Samurai reflects just a few weeks of time. In previous Total War games, clicking the End Turn button could move the game ahead an entire season. This has some knock on effects that you'll want to keep in mind as you plan your conquest of Japan.

Winters last a lot longer. If you leave armies out in the field during the winter months, a number of soldiers each turn will freeze to death or desert. As it can take many turns to train replacements, you'll want to keep these casualties to a minimum by planning around the winter months. When you plot an army's route on the campaign map, you'll be able to tell how long it'll take them to reach their target from the number of times the arrow changes colour along the journey. Making a note of this will help you avoid stranding your armies in the cold.

That means the winter months are good for up your forces and planning your attack. When the snows thaw, start the war.
Manage the pace of change


Moving down the new tech tree in Fall of the Samurai can be a dangerous business. You gain new advances by increasing your faction's overall modernisation score. You do this by building modern buildings, researching certain civic techs and training advanced troops. Their are several tiers of modernisation to unlock, and each time you cross into a new tier, the chances of a samurai rebellion increase.

As you start to head into that final tier it's a good idea to pull some troops off the front lines to garrison some of your central towns. When the samurai rebel, they really go for it. Large armies of them will pop up in the middle of the countryside in your weakest lands. They'll make a beeline for the city of that province, trashing your mines, farms and taverns as they go. Build structures that increase repression to stop this from happening, and keep your forts well stocked with troops. Their mere presence will discourage disgruntled warriors from turning their blades against you.
Be aggressive with your allies


Just because you're allied with a faction doesn't mean you're not in competition with them. There are a lot of factions fighting over a limited amount of territory in Fall of the Samurai and you'll have to be boisterous if you want to take more cities than your nearby friends. Securing lots of territory early on can solve problems later in the campaign when the only territory you can feasibly take belongs to an ally.

Betraying a faction you have a long term relationship with will have a negative effect on all of your negotiations. Word travels quickly, and the other faction leaders will quickly get wind of your backstabbing behaviour and trust you less as a result. Damaged relationships have a direct impact on the amount of profit you make from trade, which makes all-out war with friends a bad option.

There are sneakier alternatives, though. When the campaign starts, there's a rush to conquer the many tiny factions scattered across Japan. If you don't take their territory, your allies will. I often found myself racing allied armies to undefended enemy cities. In these situations I would employ Shinobi agents to sabotage allied armies. This would freeze them on the campaign map and give my army the chance to occupy the province that should have rightfully been theirs.

If your Shinobi is good he'll complete the mission and leave no trace. In that case, sabotage isn't an act of war. Your ally might suspect your involvement in their army's difficulty but they'll never be able to prove it. The perfect crime.
Turn the enemy


There are several new agent types to scheme with in Fall of the Samurai. Used them well and you can destabilise enemy provinces and even turn enemy troops to your cause. Imperial factions can recruit Ishin Shishi agents, Shogun players can recruit Shinsegumi. They play very similar roles on the campaign map. They're good agent hunters, can repress rebellions, inspire friendly troops or waltz up to enemy generals and talk them into joining your cause.

It's worth sending one or two agents wandering through the wilderness, converting small enemy forces whenever he can. These turncoats can hang around behind enemy lines, sabotaging resource points and throwing themselves suicidally in front of large enemy forces to slow their progress. Cruel, but effective.

It's worth remembering that some targets are much more precious than others. When you're harassing enemy provinces, you'll want to burn trade ports and advanced resource gathering structures to the ground. Above all, you'll want to target railway stations.

Build railways


Railways are so expensive, and require such a level of infrastructure, that they only come into Fall of the Samurai towards the end of a campaign. If you get a line up and running, you have an enormous advantage. Troops and agents can travel from one end of a route to the other in the space of a single turn.

This will let you respond to invading armies very quickly. More importantly, it'll let you get new units, cannons and gatling guns to your forward forces almost instantaneously. The cannon factories you'll need to build gatling guns have to be upgraded many times and take a long time to build. You're not likely to have many, and they'll probably be tucked away safely in the middle of your empire somewhere. Unless you have a railway, getting these monstrous weapons to your armies can take a long, long time.

If an enemy takes one of the stations along the line, you won't be able to transport troops to any location beyond that station. As you'd expect. Trashed stations are very expensive to repair as well, so you'll want to make sure they're well guarded. Conversely, you'll want to break enemy stations at every opportunity, using bombardment, agent sabotage, or ordinary troops.
Look after your Generals


Fall of the Samurai's campaign spans a relatively short amount of time, which means you won't get the problem that could crop up in larger Total Wars like Empire, when leaders tended to die of old age on the eve of an important battle. In this expansion, your generals be there until the end, as long as you keep them out of trouble.

With each battle they survive, your generals will gain experience. As they level up you can buy advances from their personal skill tree, improving their ability to command in the field, or turning them into masterful siege warriors that excel in defensive situations. Keeping your leaders safe in battle can be a delicate business. Their "rally" and "inspire" abilities are tremendously useful for those moments when you need to give nearby a troops a much needed morale boost, but generals must stay close to the front lines to use them. Keep spearmen at your leader's flanks to protect from enemy cavalry attacks and equip give his bodyguard revolvers when you can. This will let these elite warriors deal damage from a short distance, just out of harm's way.

The campaign map is almost as treacherous as combat for your brave generals. Enemy Shinobi can assassinate them outright, and high level Geisha can woo them away from your cause. Use your own agents to counter these threats. Install your own Geisha in your biggest armies to keep morale high, and counter Shinobi with Shinsegumi, Ishin Shishi and Foreign Veterans.
Guns are great


Archers can compete for a time, but in the end, guns will win out. If you're used to meatgrinder melees then the stand-offish art of mid-range gun combat can seem a little odd, but the rules are simple. Focus fire on weaker units to break them quickly, this will have a negative impact on troops near the fleeing unit. It's hard to stand and fire when your friends have turned around and started running for the nearest pub.

Royal Marines, US Marines and infanterie de marine units are very powerful. They're very accurate, reload quickly and can even put on a good show when they go toe to toe. They're well drilled, too, which means they're less likely to break. If you get the opportunity to recruit these chaps through international trade ports, you won't regret it. Shogunate Guard and Imperial Guard are good all-round gunners, and support these quality elite troops very well.

When you can, grab the high-level "kneel and fire" ability. This will train the front rank of a unit of gunners to take a knee while firing, bringing more guns to bear on your oncoming foe. Wait until the foe is just entering rifle range, throw down some artillery and enjoy the spectacle as your troops mow down the enemy army. In the face of all that gunpowder, the Samurai were doomed to fall.

Fall of the Samurai's new steamboats explode as you might expect when you consider the racks of torpedoes stored within those mighty hulls. The new steam ships and sturdy ironclads of the era are just a few of the powerful new weapons that standalone Shogun 2 expansion Fall of the Samurai brings to Japan. It's set 300 years after the events of Shogun 2, at a time of rapid modernisation triggered by the arrival of boisterous Western traders from America, Britain and France. The rising number of foreign troops and advanced technology would grow to infuriate the traditionalist samurai classes leading to unrest and eventually, full-scale uprising.

As leader of a pro-imperial or pro-shogunate faction, you'll have to deal with these rebellions, ideally by using the devastating new gatling guns. Plonk one on a hill in front of a unit of swordsmen, halve the game speed and you'll get something akin to the final scenes of The Last Samurai. A fitting way to crush one's enemies. Fall of the Samurai is due to drop on March 23, check out our Fall of the Samurai preview for a detailed overview.

Total War's biggest expansion will also feature their most modern setting to date. That doesn't mean that we'll lose out on cavalry charges and mass infantry melee, though. Japan's traditionalist forces will put the art of war to the test against new threats like long-range artillery, gatling guns and well-drilled ranks of gunmen. Each of the six new factions will be fighting for or against the Shogunate. Your role as the leader of one of those factions will be to push Japan in one direction or the other, ideally by creating an army that consists entirely of horses and rampaging them from one end of the country to the other, trampling the enemy underhoof. Horses FTW.

Fall of the Samurai is a standalone expansion, so you won't need a copy of Shogun 2 to play it. The expansion is due out on March 23. Which side will you take?

Which are better, guns, or bows and arrows? Guns, of course, you might think, but then you have to consider the long reload times, their tendency to explode, their unreliability in wet conditions. These are some of the issues that Total War lead designer James Russell and the team at The Creative Assembly think about every day as they balance the clash of old and new weaponry in Fall of the Samurai.

"Bows can be better than guns in the hands of a skilled user" says Russell. "If you fire arrows more frequently than you a fire a gun it can be more lethal. It's not direct fire, you can fire above, and behind a rank of guns in front of you."

But then there's the cost of teaching men to wield a bow effectively. It can take years of training and strong arms to fire a bow effectively. A unit of marksmen can be taught to use guns in weeks. A big advantage. The improving technology and craftmanship also made guns a tempting option.

"This is the era where the guns start to become more effective than bows," Russell says. "The effective ranges start to become greater. This is the last hurrah of archery, guns are really taking over."

In Fall of the Samurai you can choose to embrace the new gunpowder weaponry being brought into Japan from the West, or you can fight for the Shogunate and try to save the Samurai, and find out once and for all whether bows can beat an army of gatling guns and rifles. The standalone expansion is out on March 23.

Lead designer of Shogun 2, James Russell, knows just how much fans love Total War. The series typically produces enormous games capable of generating epic storylines across decades of war. Even then, it's surprising just how much time players spend building their empires. Russell says that "the average" Total War campaigner "plays for about a hundred hours." That is a lot of war.

The process of managing your empire from the strategic view and then fighting hour-long battles can eat up a lot of time, but "the real crux of it," according to Russell, is that "Total War has great replayability."

"With Shogun 2, any of those clans could have won the day and become Shogun, so you can have a lot of playthroughs and a lot of different things can happen" he says. "What we want to do is really put the player in an immersive, very specific setting and say 'you write your own story'"

The upcoming, standalone Fall of the Samurai expansion looks to do just hat. The six new factions are split into two groups, pro-Shogunate traditionalists and imperialist sympathisers. All of them have their own self-interest at heart, but will be able to specialise in different aspects of war to take Japan for themselves, whether that means training expert samurai, or trading with the West for powerful new guns.

"We choose preiods that have a lot of depth, a lot of interest, a lot of things going on, a lot of factions vying for control" says Russell. The culture clash and technological battle that lies at the heart of Fall of the Samurai should provide plenty of the famous depth that keeps Total War players coming back for more, and will let us play with some powerful new toys at the same time.

For more on Fall of the Samurai, ceck out more from our interview with James Russell, when he talked to us about the difficulties balancing historical accuracy with fair mechanics, and revealed that Shogun 2 players will be able to fight with Fall of the Samurai players online. You'll find much more in the six page Fall of the Samurai preview in the latest issue of PC gamer UK.

 
Shogun 2: Total War’s standalone expansion will let you play online with existing Shogun 2 players, even if they haven't bought it. Whether you’ve discovered Fall of the Samurai’s trains, gatling guns and cannons or not, you’ll still be able to compete online with swords and muskets.

“One of the things that we made sure of with Fall of the Samurai is that we didn't split the online community”, says James Russell, Lead Designer on the series. Players without Fall of the Samurai can play against people with the expansion. That's really important to us. We want to make sure that people who buy the new game can play against the guys playing Shogun 2.

James stressed that maintaining context during the online battles is still a priority for Creative Assembly.

“Total War - particularly the campaign side - is a very unique, thoughtful, deep experience that we want to maintain. We definitely want to keep Total War as an immersive experience even though we want to create multiplayer battles that you can get in and out of quickly, and have fun if you’ve only got half and hour.”

"We have lots of plans to make multiplayer into a more compelling experience,” continued Jamie.

Shogun 2: Total War was the most multiplayer-focused game in the franchise so far, bringing a co-op campaign and fully-featured online component to the franchise. Yesterday we also chatted to James Russell about how the team juggle historical accuracy with a need for balance and sensible mechanics.

For more on Rise of the Samurai, watch part one of our exclusive interview or read Tim Stone’s in-depth feature in PC Gamer issue 236.