Game 470: Nobunaga's Ambition

I'm still playing catchup with Wargaming Scribe - see his AAR/review.

Nobunaga's Ambition was the obvious next choice of the Koei ancestors. Between it and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you've basically got half their library right there.

Thematically, this one's almost a sequel to Battle of Kawanakajima, with the same setting and both clans of that game accounted for. But Nobunaga has more, you could say, ambition. Kawanakajima simulated a battle. This time we're going for Sengoku-era unification.

 

Historically, Oda Nobunaga did not live to see his dream fulfilled. And that's been my experience too; as of this writing, I have yet to survive a game longer than a few years! Poor Nobunaga is weaker than his neighbors, diplomatic options are limited, building up your military strength takes money, money takes time, and pitiless daimyo have a taste for weak neighbors with money.

For this initial post, I'm going to make five attempts, starting at the maximal difficulty, and decreasing on each failure. There will be no savescumming, and no privileged knowledge of the game's workings apart from the things I've already learned.

Interestingly, the game features a two player mode, but I'm not going to subject anyone else to it. 

Attempt #1: Difficulty 5 

Like Kawanakajima, this early BASIC Koei title was never officially released in English, though its sequel was one of the first that was. Unlike Kawanakajima, this was never unofficially released in English either. But Google's translation ability is much more powerful now, and at this point I basically understand what's going on enough to not need it.

It's the spring of 1560. Central Japan, which is as far as Nobunaga's ambition goes, consists of 17 provinces, each ruled by one of 17 clans. There won't be 17 clans for long! But for now, I'm concerned only with three; #17, Owari, is ruled by the Oda clan. #13 to my west is Ise-Shima, ruled by Kitabatake, who's just a kid. To the north, #9, Mino, ruled by Saito. And to the east, #8, Mikawa, ruled by Tokugawa, whose stats are formidable.

My own stats are as follows:

Age: 26

IQ: 80

Constitution: 52

Ambition: 92

Charisma: 39

Luck: 58

 

I have no idea what any of that actually means! But next, in yellow/gold, we have wealth-related stats:

Gold: 10

Rice: 10

Debt: 0

Towns: 1

 

These are straightforward, although the "towns" stat is misleading. We don't care about the number of towns; we care how the town's commercial value, and that stat isn't shown on this screen.

 

In cyan, province stats - I'm taking these from the 1986 edition rather than Google's translation of the 1983:

Productivity: 40

Flood control: 48

Peasant loyalty: 62

Peasant wealth: 49 

 

All of these stats contribute to how much rice you harvest. Raising any of them is expensive!

 

Lastly, red numbers are military stats:

Army size: 10

Army loyalty: 52

Training: 56

Arms: 100

 

We are small, but well armed.

 

Each year lasts four rounds corresponding to the seasons, but autumn is the most important. Taxes are collected, rations and pay are given to your soldiers, debts are collected, and things generally get reset. You have fifteen commands, most of which dedicate the season to the action:

1. Move - Transfer soldiers and/or yourself to a neighboring fiefdom.
2. Attack - Invade a neighboring province.
3. Tax - Change the tax rate. This affects rice harvest, not cash collections, and also affects peasant loyalty and wealth.
4. Send - Transport gold or rice to a neighboring fiefdom.
5. Dam - Spend gold to increase the province's flood control level.
6. Pact - Spend 10 gold to ask another Daimyo not to attack you.
7. Cultivate - Spend gold to increase the province's productivity.
8. Hire soldiers - Spend gold to increase your army size.
9. Trade - Not always available, but if the merchant is in town, you can purchase/sell rice, buy arms, or borrow gold.
10. Hire ninjas - Spend gold to destabilize another province, lowering their peasant and soldier morale and loyalty.
11. Train - Costs nothing, increases soldier training.
12. Status - View the stats of any province/daimyo. Does not cost you the turn.
13. Develop town - Spend gold to increase the town value, which determines annual cash collections.
14. Give - Offer gold or rice to your soldiers or peasants, increasing their loyalty/wealth.
15. Pass. Why do this when you can train? 

So, right away we have a problem. The army eats a lot of rice. The land does not grow a lot of rice. Improving the land costs a lot of gold. We don't have a lot of gold. We have two turns until tax season - I use them to improve the town value and land productivity, 50/50.

Autumn 1560

Tax time, and the soldiers have eaten my entire rice reserve. The harvest only yielded 3 koku - not nearly enough to feed them next year! I train and wait for rice prices, currently at 3.6/koku to drop a bit, but they do not, and I spend my tax collections on cultivation.

Autumn 1561 - invaded!

I'm all out of food, some of the troops deserted, and Tokugawa attacks with an army nearly three times larger than my own.

Holy moly. Look at that kid's stats!

Instant game over.

 

Attempt #2: Difficulty 4

Never mind my stats, let's look at Tokugawa's.

 

He's down about 10 points across the board compared to the last run, but still beats me soundly in every category, and I'm still in big trouble if he gains soldiers while I lose them, which is what I can expect. And my land stats are a bit worse than before!

This time I put all of my money into the town, and am immediately hit by a typhoon that brings my rice production down to a pathetic 9 points. In the fall, the soldiers eat all the rice again, and the peasants produce none at all, but hey, I collected more taxes! Eight gold instead of seven. And rice is actually cheap, so I buy as much as I can afford; 4 koku.

Experience has taught me to never borrow. The interest is absolutely insane, and is collected on the next tax season. A rate of 1.2 means that for each coin borrowed, you're paying 2.2 in the fall, and this is low! Your income will be nullified next year and you'll just be broke again. Also, you can only do one merchant transaction per turn, and he might not even be around next turn to sell you anything.

I'm left with one coin which I give to the peasants, but this doesn't help. The next tax season brings no harvest, and half my soldiers desert, but gold income is 27, so I buy some surprisingly cheap rice considering the region just had a typhoon. And Tokugawa attacks before I can hire more soldiers.

Yeah... this ain't good. His army is twice as big as mine, and all of his stats are way higher. I already know this battle is lost, but let me explain what's going on.

My units are white, his are yellow. Unit ranks are the numbers on the right of the hex, with #1 representing the daimyo himself, and unit strength is the number on the bottom. Nobunaga is the white #1 hex in the northwest inside a castle hex, surrounded by three allies and two enemies. Unfortunately, the enemies' unit strengths are twice what mine are.

Nobunaga hides within the castle's defensive bonus, his men attack to absolutely no avail, and by turn 2 the enemy breaches the castle walls. On turn 4 they kill me.

 

Attempt #3: Difficulty 3

I'm attacked before I even get a chance to do anything, but this time it's Saito. And they only slightly outnumber me. Unfortunately, their stats are better, and "Yoshi" is an unstoppable 30-point doom stack. I can handle the minions okay, but attacking him would be foolish - so I try to delay.

My tactic of blocking the sole entry point does indeed delay, but not long enough.

Game over.

 

To be continued!

Game 469: Battle of Kawanakajima

Wargaming Scribe did this one before me - see his review and AAR too.

Here's a personal fact - Sid Meier's Civilization is one of my all-time favorite computer games, but the version I played first and by far the most was Koei's SNES port. You see, this was in the days when DOS compatibility was sketchy, but DOSBox didn't exist yet, and console emulation was often the more reliable way of playing games of the era.

Apart from that, I was aware of Koei as a developer, as they churned out a staggering large number of SNES and PS1 strategy titles, but apart from Civ I haven't played a single one of them. They struck me at the time as slow and boring, and even now the Koei brand seems remarkably niche compared to how prolific they were, and thanks to Mobygames I can better appreciate that all of those console games I dismissed in the 90's were localized ports from their true habitat; Japanese personal computers.

It's no surprise that their domestic output is even larger than their export catalog; from 1990 to 1999 they released over 100 games, and nearly half of them never left Asia.

I'm obviously not going to play all of them, but 1985 was the year of their first true whale; Romance of the Three Kingdoms, originally released for the PC-88 and later localized and ported to several platforms including NES, Amiga, and PC.

Before that, though, I will be playing their earliest known game, which translates as "Battle of Kawanakajima" and was never officially localized despite a recent re-release on Steam.

1845 triptych by Hiroshige, sourced by Takahashi Sangyo Co.

 

The battles of Kawanakajima were clashes between the Takeda and Uesugi clans, and the fourth in the autumn of 1561 was one of the bloodiest of the Sengoku period. Historically, these were indecisive, with neither side making gains, but became legendary and brought prestige to Takeda leader Shingen, who became one of Japan's most feared warlords and the biggest thorn in Nobunaga's side until his untimely death in 1573, and with it the decline and fall of the Takeda clan.

PC-8001 version

 

Originally written for a Sharp MZ-80C, this version is likely lost, but two images are floating in the Neo Kobe archives; a PC-8001 tape dump and a PC-8801 disk dump. The Steam re-release, which includes a PC-8801 styled "original" mode is not entirely authentic; crucially, it eliminates one of the game's most obnoxious mechanics, which you will read about (or already know about if you read Scribe's AAR already). Scribe did not suffer through that. I will, but at least I'll be able to play in English thanks to a translation by RPG Codex member Helly, provided to me by Scribe.

Helly's PC-8801 version.

Uesugi is somewhere out there, preparing to attack our position. This is a pretty good defensive position already, but Shingen has grander plans - destroy Uesugi first! Legend has it that Uesugi Kenshin personally lead a charge into Takeda's command post and dueled with Shingen himself before withdrawing, but that won't happen here; both warlords are confined to their immobile castles and protected by similarly immobile rearguards. We'll have to find his and murder him before he knows he's lost!

Crucially, the main visual presents a zoomed-in view of the battlefield; a 400x400 window of a 2000x2000 playfield centered on Takeda Shingen's position. I'm going to call these unnamed units of distance "Chō" (about 360 feet, or 110m) because that feels right. Men can march 200 Chō in a turn, horses 500.

It's really more like this.

 

The other crucial thing, and this is where it gets really annoying, is that the windowed view does not update when your units move! This is a discrete action that a unit spends its turn performing, and causes the view to recenter on the unit, showing any nearby units including enemies. Meaning that a unit can move or report its position, but not both! You look around, you wasted your unit's turn.

19th infantry is so dead.

Even stupider, attacking reveals the location of each enemy unit in range anyway, just not in a graphical manner. You'd never want to use it when an enemy is in combat range.

So I'm going to be relying a lot on Excel to keep track of where everyone is.

I need to know where Kenshin is, and I have just enough units to get a recon on the entire northern half of the battlefield with two reserves to spare, though it will take a few turns to get them into position. Units are moved freeform with a θ/Δs notation, and Excel proves useful in calculating these precisely.

Shingen's view on turn 2. Two gunner units are kept close.

  

In the middle of turn 2, some of my troops reported being attacked.

 

No good visual, but the 10th spearman, who I had moved 200 Chō northwest of his starting position, is under attack, so I rally the other spearmen and gunners to his position while everyone else keeps scouting forward. The 17th infantry also reports running into enemies, so I send the two closest infantry units to lend support.

Turn 2 overview

On turn 3, the horses keep scouting, and the spearmen in the southern conflict take a severe beating before I get the chance to counterattack, and see who is actually there.

Eight companies! Ignore the graphical view; it's completely stale and not centered on the action anyway.

 

The turn isn't great. I lose all three infantry in the northern clash, all three spearmen in the southern, and one of the gun companies is nearly destroyed.

Turn 4 isn't great either. Both gun companies are destroyed, and Shingen's guards are fired on from the northwest. But my horsemen have arrived at the north end of the map!

 

As turn 5 begins, and Shingen starts shooting blindly at the horsemen camped outside, I get a curious alert - horse company #8 is being attacked by enemy unit #1! This means I found him - at the north end of the map, which shouldn't have been a surprise at all.

Shingens' guards concentrate their fire on the attackers, destroying one horse company and weakening a gun company, while Kenshin's guards return fire on horse company #8, destroying it.

 

Turn 6 starts. That's... a lot of targets.

Dang.

 

New tactic. Horses stay put, and everyone else moves to Shingen's northwest guard position. We'll wait a few turns, and then my mobile units are to converge 500 Chō south of where I think Kenshin is, and move in for the kill all at once.

Turn 2 start from Shingen's POV

Uesugi horsemen arrive ahead of the main. We waste them easily.

 

They're here!

On turn 6, my tightly clustered troops inflict heavy damage on the Uesugi units who stepped into range on turn 5, and the survivors who didn't step quite as close (which is why they survived) have difficulty hitting me with their return fire. Two of their infantry companies are destroyed by my guards, a third by the horsemen, and as more of them step closer throughout the turn, we easily take out a spearman and a fourth infantry. All they manage in response are some grazing shots on one of my infantry... and Shingen. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Turn 7

Turn 7 is less exciting. A few new Uesugi units step into range but most continue attacking from their combat ineffective ranges, and few of them are hit by us. We only manage to destroy two more infantry unit, and I expect they have seven units left, plus their guards.

On turn 8, I break the standoff and rush them, and this costs me a horseman and a bowman company.

Turn 9

I don't have a lot of time left. The horses and spearmen stay and fight, taking out three of the four units on Shingen's northwest flank; a gunner, a bowman, and another infantry. Everyone else moves due north, and suffer a few potshots en route.

Turn 10

The guards ineffectively shoot at the barely-in-range infantry units, who ineffectively shoot back, but my horsemen chop up one last infantry unit on the northwest flank. Now there's just the four units on the north.

On turn 11, I move my horsemen and spearmen right into the thick of them - this gets one nearly killed and another completely killed, but I still have three healthy units in the middle and ready to cause mayhem. My bowmen, two gunmen, and seven infantry units keep pressing north.

Turn 12

The survivors of the last jump inflict three heavy blows on the north flank, but they finish off my wounded horse company, leaving one horseman and two spearmen.

On turn 13, I have the horsemen disengage to catch up with the company moving north, who are now halfway to Uesugi Kenshin, leaving the spearmen behind to fight four companies, three of them heavily wounded.

Turn 16

Uesugi is reduced to one heavily wounded gun company at my gate, and his guards. My horsemen have caught up, and in one turn we will rally at his gate.

Turn 16 from the horsemens' POV

 

On turn 17, forces at my gate are eliminated, and my forces are stacked up 230 Chō south of Uesugi Kenshin. The southmost guard lands a lucky shot on one of my gunners, nearly killing it. We all move forward.

The guards let loose on turn 18 and kill two infantry, nearly kill a third, and finish off the gunner. But this will not save Kenshin. He dies today.

Again, ignore the stale graphical view. We're all within bashing distance of Kenshin.

 

GAB rating: Below average. I don't hate this game, and I admire it a little bit more than Nihom Falcom's inaugural Galactic Wars for being somewhat original, but this is primitive and shallow. Kawanakajima might as well be one-dimensional for how irrelevant the gameplay map turned out to be - during my second attempt where I had some inkling of what I was doing, I barely noticed the lack of a useful graphical overview at all.

But this was just an appetizer before the grand strategy of Nobunaga's Ambition, which I'll have to attempt in Japanese as it was never translated by anyone. Wish me luck!