Total War is the best RTS I have ever played, hands down. I own Medieval 2 w/Kingdoms and Empire: Total War. I have yet to play Shogun 2, but it looks like they ironed out everything. Medieval 2 was awesome, but the AI was god like at times and the gameplay was overly complex. Empire was better in turns of simplification and it introduced several new features like interactive naval battles. However, what pissed me off most was they got rid of agent mission videos as well as the ability to take prisoners and ransom them off. Also, what my other friends who owned the game hated about it was the AI was too easy (If you had an island, they would never invade it.) After playing the demo for Shogun 2, it does look really good, but my comp can barely run Empire so....yeah X(