First time player of any Total War game and I must say that I am enjoying my experience thoroughly. I started with Shimazu since I wanted an easier situation to learn the game mechanics. I read the forums to look at strategies and techniques so I started by becoming an ally and trade partner to my neighbor to the north and positioning my general on my borders to the east since I was at war with that clan. Since I started with a blacksmith, I refrained from training any troops until I could train them with advanced weaponry - which luckily worked in my favor. Slow and controlled build-up and execution have worked for me.

I'm about 60 turns in and I really love the immense feeling when two generals do battle with full stacks of armies (just happened on my last turn). I had the enemy castle under siege when I was attacked and little could I believe my luck when I had a perfect positioning; 2 hills, one massive and minor, both covered in forests. I set a small strike team of my samurai archers/yari on the small hill with my main force and generals on my main hill. I waited until their main army committed to the large hill and then let my samurai archers' fire arrows fly. I took about 400 troop loss since my front lines became fragmented when some of their troops routed but I chalk that up to my not micromanaging.

I really like the ninja in the game. I enjoy having a 5 star master assassin that I can send to remove worrying generals. However, I'm not really sure if I'm using the market unit (the one that specializes in counter-espionage) correctly. Basically he's just sitting in one of my newly acquired castles to improve happiness since the religion is Christianity and I am not.

But as I said, love the game. Can't wait to try something harder once I finish this one up.