Post your lessons learned in Rise of the Samurai here!

I had about 45 minutes to play Rise of the Samurai last night, and I was amazed by how different the game is. Post your "oh, I get it!" and lessons learned here.

So far, the main thing that I discovered is that influence is a big deal in the new game. As your influence spreads, your guys who look similar to metsukes can ask other provinces to join you. This can succeed or fail, and it also can apparently partially succeed, causing you to declare war against the province while some of their soldiers defect to your side.

There is a building chain that increases your influence. I'm not sure if this is a global statistic, like your daimyo's honor, or a one that spreads geographically like religion.

I also noticed that there is a tutorial for the Rise of the Samurai, but I haven't checked it out yet. Has anyone tried it, and does it explain many of the new features?

The influence thing is just the culture thing from Kingdoms - minus the whole unit-recruitment thing. Kind of neat, I guess.

The two biggest surprises I had was that your general is bow cavalry now, and naginata levies are terrible when compared to ashigaru.

I've converted whole provinces/factions with my agents, too. That's kind of a relief - if you know someone likes you enough you can just get them to join you instead of declaring a pointless war to conquer them. I think it makes a lot of sense that if someone agrees with you, they can just become a part of your faction. I actually really like that change, and it kind of places a whole new spin on conquering territory. Conceivably, you could rush someone with those guys, convert their population and then have all of his towns join you. Kind of dirty, and I can see that being really annoying if the AI uses it to its fullest effect.

Yes! I forgot about the generals being bow cavalry. I love this change. Instead of hanging back providing moral support, your generals can pepper the enemy with arrows. I also was excited to discover that first-level towns lack fortifications, potentially making cavalry and missile cavalry much more useful.

I love that at least the bottom run of towns are not castles, but just very nicely done towns. That makes for much more interesting fighting I think. I also really like that my general is a well armored, and accurate, archer. I really like the new building tree too.

As far as lessons go, I'm not sure I'm much help yet, I haven't had as much time as I would like to play the game.

I've finished my first Gempei Wars campaign... and holy golden sheep of sweet baby Jesus I love it.
Its a huge change from the stale expansions (imo) we've recently been getting for our beloved series and a great big loop/return to the expansions of old (like Mongol/Viking/Barbian invasion and that huge bundle of Expansions from M2TW).
Anyway
Yeah... very very different. Its very much like a Dark Age mod in that Cavalry is king - when used right.
Morale plays a way bigger role so Levies are a huge no no (for anything except town defense).
Don't underestimate the power of Samurai - ever. They can (if they focus fire) utterly destroy groups of Bow Attendants. Like wise in melee they will do extremely well as they are the most heavily armoured unit in the game (well thats "easily" availible).
I like Attendants. They're a great mid point between Levies (or as I call em: Brown Pants) and Samurai. Of course you can't expect to defeat Samurai or Monk equiviliants without tactics/planning. I will actually use Naginata Attendants over Monk Naginatas almost solely for Rapid Advance; it really really helps out against cavalry assaults (of which the AI makese under whelming use of) and is a great way of closing distances (Ambushes, killing off Isolated generals etc).
Bow Attendants; good, I always try and bring some if i'm having an infantry primary force... the main reason you'd have them is because they're cheaper and perform larger volleys - beaware, two groups of foot samurai will utterly devastate them.
Sword Attendants; neat, Banzai is really cool. They're not quite No-Dachi's but thats whats great about them: They don't immiedatly disentergrate into nothing just because they didnt get the charge right.
Samurai: As the game is called Rise of the Samurai, you can expect these units to be very central... strangely the AI doesnt quite relise that (except for Minamoto - although they didn't live too long). They are indeed extremely powerful, although not OP. You have access to them fairly early on but not budget to recruit them liberally until mid/late game (a bit before "Realm Divide")