I've had no issues playing the game with my recent but hardly state of the art rig. No bugs, no freezes, and my only quibble is that I can't find a manual for it.

At any rate -
1. Only province capitals have walls. Silly and gamey, but it keeps from having to deal with huge siege fights all the time.

2. Right. And set points matter, Lord Help Us All, for regular strategic map defenses too. THAT I don't like.

3. Haven't had any issue with this.

5. Only if you've trapped them on a beach. I haven't had any bridge fights.

4. Yes, you are capped on field armies. But each city (even those without walls) have considerable garrison forces, which makes taking them harder than you might expect. As your empire grows you can field more armies. Again, very gamey, but I like how it focuses your efforts and I think it's quite reasonable in practice.

5. One nutty admiral, but the rest of the generals are fine.

6. Everyone moves too fast at a run, but the battles are otherwise very melee-total war (same general tactics since Shogun 1 have worked fine for me).

The game is really neat and I enjoy it.

I don't much care for the attempt at faction-leadership politics, but otherwise, I've enjoyed it.

Azi