Considering I have every TW game except Napoleon as its an expansion pack you can be sure I will be buying this.

I also wish it will be so and that they don't go (too much) in the "everyone will play it in MP anyway, then why bother with the AI" direction..
Also, let's hope for extensive moddability!

It will use Steam. Passing.

But still, one will not fight "the poor ashigarus", the other only fights on sundays, two are playing a turnament of "down a sake each time the general says slaughter and glorious victory", but the last one, he's totaly ready to kick ass and chew rice balls, and he's all out of balls.

Me too, I want a good SP and a good skirmish against AI. But games are now all about MP, plus I didn't liked the setting of Empire.
Someone should make an age of empires-like game (or mod if you wish) with this engine and this AI they're developing. ;)

http://blogs.sega.com/totalwar/2010/06/08/shogun-2-total-war-qa/

I hope to God this is gonna work. I mean, Gods. Convert to Shinto and kill all jesuits once they give you their boom sticks.

Oh, bloody hell. I just got done reading, and posting on, the Fallout: New Vegas post about THAT game being tied to Steam, and now this? *sigh* Well, I don't see much hope of me holding out against getting a Steam account any longer, unless this Total War game is a real stinker. Total War games are like crack to me, and I had been hoping they would remake Shogun... bloody Steam...

Publisher's decision to tie it to Steam isn't really Steam's fault, you know :-P

Steam isn't all bad. Once you assimilate, you, mmm, urg hkkkh jjjjJOIN US!

You won't die because of using steam for 2 or 3 games you like the most. ;)
There's no other way around anyway, as I said their 2 previous games were tied to steam before.

No, I won't die, but I still don't like the idea of needing to use a third party client (other than an OS, obviously) to run a program, unless it is my choice (e.g. DosBox). It has kind of a Big Brother vibe to me, just the feeling I get. I suppose it boils down to this: I don't like being forced to go through more hassles to own a program legally than pirates are forced to go through to steal the same application. I don't think pirates will need to log into a third party client to play their game, will they?
Sure, Steam offers a lot of extras, but what if I don't want ANY of them? I rarely play multiplayer (The last time was Diablo II, and Diablo III will probably use Battle.net anyway, which would not be third party), so I don't need that. I don't need an IM service, I already have Skype. I don't need yet another forum to frequent, I have plenty. I don't care about the auto-updates, sometimes I don't like to patch right away or just like to do it manually. I don't care about being able to access the program from anywhere, that is what a physical DVD or network is for. Is there anything Steam would offer me other than adding an extra step to running a program and consuming HD space and system resources (as minor as that use might be)?
On another subject, they last TWO games were? Medieval II wasn't, because I bought that and was never required to install Steam (that i know of). I know Empire was tied to Steam, but what is the other one you mention that they released since Medieval II? I am not being sarcastic, I am honestly curious as to what I missed.
EDIT:
Ah, it was Napoleon that i totally missed. That went totally under my radar, heh. Just as well, it doesn't really interest me anyway.

I'm with you on this, I don't like being treated worse than a pirate is treated. We, the people who purchase original games, are suffering a lot more than pirates for some years already.
I don't care for the forums, community and instant messaging and blah blah, but I do like the auto-patching; for example I wasn't even interested in playing Empire or Napoleon online. I don't like much the setting of both games too, so I'm looking forward to this next game.
Sorry if I sounded harsh before, it was a bit of a joke ok? It's live or die, it's play Shogun 2 or not play Shogun 2, get it? ;)

No biggie, yours was just the third reply to my post in a row, so I figured I would answer :). Even after everything I ranted about, this game WILL probably force me to install Steam, unless the Total War guys totally muck it up. On the balance, I would rather Shogun be awesome and force me to install Steam than Shogun be horrible and let me go on existing without Steam.