Getting started on MP

After creating your character name, customising your banner colours and polishing your armour to make sure your men look unique and just a little bit spiffing on the battlefield, you're then presented with a map of Japan divided up into 65 land provinces and 12 naval regions.

Straight away you'll start to see the multiplayer's similarities to the classic single-player system. In fact, this is exactly the same map as you'll get in Shogun 2's campaign, only it works a bit differently online.

As always, your avatar and army is represented by a token which you shove along the map to a particular region. This time, however, when you give the go ahead to attack that area, you're plunged into a multiplayer battle.

It can be any multiplayer battle of your choosing, you can be thrown into a conflict at random or set preferences and be hand-picked by the game's match making system. The important bit is, if you come out victorious, you're awarded the region you encroached upon on the map complete with all the perks it offers.

Different regions of Japan play host to dojos, for example, which in turn house different unit types.

Don't worry, you'll start off with a fully rounded set of units at the beginning. Players are handed cavalry units as well as infantry, archers and other units needed to have a full Total War battle right from the word "attack". Capturing a region with a dojo, however, will upgrade your army by unlocking a new unit on a particular progression line.

All the time, you're capturing more territory, gaining new units and building up XP. Importantly, by choosing different regions to attack and gaining different bits and pieces on your blood-soaked journey, your army will develop in a way that could be completely different to the one your mate is sporting.

Your military might well be set apart from the rest, however, depending on where you spend XP in Shogun 2's progression system. It's a familiar 'branch style' layout with different routes catering for different approaches and tactical preferences.

Spending XP to progress down the Leadership branch, for example, will make your general and his body guard unit better at rallying the troops and generally inspiring them to fight and keep morale high.

The Bow Mastery branch is just as self-explanatory, as it increases the body guard unit's ability to inflict arrow-headed damage or get creative with things like flaming arrows. It culminates with a sniping ability which allows the unit to shoot from woodland without exposing itself making for a much more stealthy approach.

A Physical chain increases things like speed, stamina and hit point bonus, whereas the Melee branch deals with that up close and personal hand-to-hand malarkey.

The most important bit about the tree of upgrades is that you'll never be able to max out more than one branch, a conscious decision from Creative Assembly to force players to tactically pick an approach and then work towards their strengths.

You can drape your points across the branches and have a well-rounded avatar or you can focus on one chain with the top level ability on each being a pretty powerful tool.

The design of the system means there's all kinds of different combinations of avatar skills that might suit the way you play and the kind of gameplay you want to focus on.

And that's the point; it's clear that multiplayer has been built upon layers and layers of customisation so that players have to study their opponent, look at their approach and counter it effectively. It's all part of making sure that Total War: Shogun 2's multiplayer manages to make as many tactical demands on the player as possible.