To say the minimum requirements are similar to Shogun, my computer sure struggles to run it
. I can only play on low or medium (depending on what seems to be random luck of how the game feels like running at any given point in time), rather than high on Shogun. I'm also not a fan of the unit cards, they are ugly and not great for glancing at to see what you have.
In fact, the whole UI in general is bad. Information is hidden in expanding boxes at best, or hidden in the encyclopedia in the case of trying to figure out what buildings do. I also still do not like the building system that has carried over from Shogun, that is the one extra building type per settlement size thing. However, my frustrations at this from Shogun are alleviated somewhat by the up to 4 regions = 1 province thing. Basically up to four regions (and therefore settlements) make up a province. Public order, building effects, recruitment etc. is on a province-wide basis, and all of the settlements in a province can be seen and expanded/constructed in on one interface, which lets you decide how to specialise each town to make the province run smoothly easily. A vast improvement on Shogun, where having to specialise each town individually frustrated me no end.
Another thing with recruitment is that it is done via generals now, rather than by cities. This was odd to me at first, but now feels natural and a good change. Units also replenish over time while in friendly territory, which is nice too. The army stances seem interesting, although I've not put them to much use yet. However, I have one huge issue with the units side of things. Each army must be lead by a general. And there is a limit on how many generals you can have. I hated this in Imperial Glory, and I hate it here too. Not only does it have the obvious implications of needing to have a small number of large armies on your frontiers rather than lots of smaller forces on the move to defend strategic points, it makes rearranging your forces between armies a lot more tedious, to the level of barely seeming worth it, and more worthwhile to just train new units instead.
Upon clicking the end turn button, another problem rears its head. I am forced to sit a good 2-5 minutes between turns once a campaign gets going a little. When you are in a consolidation phase of "set some things building/training->end turn multiple times" this is horrible. Then the campaign map camera starts throwing itself around and changing orientation to follow the opponent turns, leaving you with little idea where it is actually looking in relation to your lands (at least at a glance). This mixed with the vast size of the map (not really a bad thing, although the zoom is so limited a good overview is difficult to get outside of the "tactical view", which is effectively an expanded minimap) make it easy to get lost. Not to mention all the weather effects causing random fps slowdowns as a particularly big cloud floats across screen.
As far as I can see, the reason for this huge time between turns is the sheer number of factions in the game. That is, almost every region in barbarian lands is owned by a different tribe, each represented by a unique (in name at least) faction. Great, you would think. Except of this ocean of factions, a raindrop's worth are actually playable. Obviously there is Rome, wherein you choose which of 3 families to head in the in-faction politics. Carthage is similar in this set up with the politics as well. There are then the Iceni (for Britannia), the Aedui (for Gaul) and the Suebi (for Germania). Two eastern factions and two successor kingdoms (Macedon and Egypt) make up the rest of the core game's lineup. You can play as 3 of the numerous Greek City States for the extra price of the Greek Factions DLC (£5.99). This is a decently wide spread across the cultures in the game, but why can I not play as say the Etruscan League and try to reverse the history books by eliminating Rome instead of vice-versa? Where are the Selucids? (coming in DLC soon I think). Why not add some of the many barbarian factions/tribes to the playable list, and add a bit of variety between them? Otherwise it feels the same as fighting one large faction (ie Rome's Gaul) but with the added annoyance of long turn waiting and having to negotiate diplomatic treaties with each settlement...
I can get past the annoying changes, I can mostly get over having to pay for DLC to unlock factions, but a release with the number of graphical glitches and other bugs this game has is not good. The crazy amount of texture pop in is annoying too. I'm sure after a few patches there will be a good game here, but it will not ever be as good as the original. I hope it is very moddable.