Shogun: Total War is the first of Creative Assembly's "Total War" series. It is a history-based grand strategy computer game that combines turn-based city building with real-time battles. The player assumes the role of one of eight daimyos attempting to unite feudal Japan during the Sengoku period ("The Age of the Country at War") and become shogun. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is central to the game; its precepts are quoted often and its strategies recommended.

The play involves a strategic phase building up armies and moving them into provinces followed by a real time battle phase. The three dimensional battles are notable for including aspects such as morale that had up to its publication usually been ignored by computer war games and are more typical of table top gaming.

It has a key weakness in that the computer players do not understand the balance of power so a human player will become unstoppable once reasonably powerful because the computer players do not see the need to gang up against the human player.

It was followed by the Mongol Invasion expansion which added a Mongol campaign, played as either the invaders or as Japan. The Total War series has been continued with Medieval: Total War and Rome: Total War.

External links

• Official website