Total War games, steep learning curve?

Hey, so i've recently picked up Total War: Shogun 2 for the first time. I have to say, it's an amazing game. But there's one thing... I kinda suck at it, is this just because well... I suck? Or is there a pretty steep learning curve?

The real-time segments of the game are the easier portion for me, maybe I should stop playing like a tyrannical fascist and prosper as a nation :P

I only have Medieval 2, but I'm a lot better at it than I used to be.

Empire building requires learning the UI and how to successfully build settlements (income depends on farming and farming improvements, trade income, and the tax rate)

Combat requires building the right units, and usually handling each unit individually. This was the biggest change from the RTS combat of other games: Combat is usually slower, and more about positioning. But in some cases learning things like guard mode (where they don't case routing enemies, and stay in formation) and skirmish mode (where archers will avoid melee, which I don't use for example with English longbowman) helps a lot too.

It has a learning curve because it is unique.

I found the series to be extremely difficult. I will freely admit though that I may just be terrible at RTS games. I will probably buy some more of them once I make progress on the backlog (if that ever happens!). They seem quite a bit different than standard RTS games and require good tactics to survive.

I'm relatively bad at TW and I've been dominating on battles in normal. Then again, I'm only really fighting off one clan at the moment(Takeda, I'm the Date) and most of the major battles I've fought are defenses of my own castles. I'm also nowhere near where most of their armies are situated.

I'm still pretty impressed with the campaign AI(they seem to act actually diplomatically logical this time), and I've heard hard is much different battle wise.

Shogun 2 is probably the easiest Total War game I've played. If you hate learning curves, don't play Empire.

Don't get me wrong, I love learning curves. It's actually the first RTS i've ever played. And I love it so much, i'm still learning aswell. Just hoping that i'm not a total noob because i'm having difficulties at the beginning -.-