Hands-On: Sengoku
By Kyle Mann | July 20, 2011 | Previews | 3 comments | Share
The kings–or shoguns, if you will–of PC grand strategy goodness, Paradox Interactive, are getting ready to drop Sengoku, a pausable real-time grand strategy game that tasks you with conquering feudal Japan to become a Shogun. While it may sound a bit like recent genre giant Shogun 2, it’s quite a bit different in terms of its gameplay: Shogun 2 focuses on setting up and micro-managing battles with thousands of troops in a gorgeous graphics engine, whereas Sengoku cuts out all the real-time tactics for a more hands-off approach to managing your (hopefully) massive empire.
I got a chance to mess around with a preview build of Sengoku, and while it’s still got a little more time to go in the oven–it’s due Q3 of this year–it feels pretty complete at this stage of development. To clarify, Sengoku isn’t necessarily all about military management and dominating the map through clever resource handling and battle tactics: it’s more about creating a sustainable dynasty with the characters you’re given (or select) at the beginning of a game. In fact, the number one resource isn’t money: it’s honour. Honour is gained by giving gifts, paying tribute, or doing other noble deeds; it’s spent when you execute dastardly plots or backstab allies with your mysterious ninjas. And, in a clever twist that fits perfectly with the historical time period, if honour is overdrawn too deep, your character will commit seppuku, and you can only continue if you’ve raised a suitable heir to the throne.
This, I think, is what I like the most about the preview build so far: the game is almost entirely character-driven rather than being a detached management sim like many games of its ilk. It’s more Crusader Kings than Europa Universalis, and I think it fits feudal Japan very well. You won’t be building structures, barracks, or castles directly; instead, you appoint advisors to the throne who in turn can oversee upgrades for specific territories of your empire. The game can in fact be won or lost based on whether you’ve made wise decisions on whom to entrust your empire to. For instance, your Master of Ceremonies will perform all your diplomacy, so you want someone who has high diplomatic skills over an advisor who’s just experienced in military endeavors. Similarily, your Master of Arms will handle your armies, so you’re not going to assign the guy who’s never been in battle before. You can assign tasks to each of these roles, such as improving the castle in the region to grant defensive bonuses, or reaching out to a neighboring clan with gifts to improve your honor and stave off an unwanted war.
Aside from officially appointed roles, there are many other characters your fearless leader will need to build and maintain relations with in order to create a strong dynasty: you will need to have a spouse if you wish to have a son to pass your kingdom on to in the event of your death. You’ll also need to appoint regional leaders and send your Master of the Guard off to make contact with the enigmatic ninja clans, which can in turn be used to perform some dirty operations on enemy leaders. I find it refreshing to see each unit or building agent as a person with a face and a name, instead dime-a-dozen low-poly models as it is in many strategy games.
The overarching goal you’re trying to achieve in the handful of scenarios is to conquer all of Japan. To trigger the victory condition, you’ll have to take on the daunting task of controlling over half of Japan, and you’ll need to hang on to the territory for 36 months of in-game time. It’s definitely going to take a lot of patience and strategic maneuvers to pull of; I certainly wasn’t able to get close in my limited time with the preview build.
When I say battles are hands-off, I mean you move your military unit towards the unit you want to attack, and a canned animation plays for the duration of the fight while a window in the corner gives details of exactly how the fight is going. Small morale and strength indicators on the main map screen can give you an overview of how all your soldiers are faring in case you’ve got wars on multiple fronts. In keeping with the theme of the rest of the game, battles are won more through clever army-raising ahead of time rather than smart battlefield tactics. For example, the number of available armies is directly tied into how many territories you have, since each region may have only one (though mercenaries can be hired if you get in trouble with your available units.) If you’ve never played a Paradox grand strategy game before, don’t come in expecting tactical micro-management like the Total War series; instead, expect the overarching empire building and strategy to be far more complex and involved.
If you’re concerned about complexity, this may not be the genre for you, but I’d encourage you to give it a try anyway if and when a demo hits. Just about every icon and menu button has a contextual pop-up explaining its function, and extensive tool-tips appear for most of the major screens and menus in the game. Sengoku has a couple of months left to improve any bugs or niggling issues left, though I didn’t encounter anything significant in my playtime with the preview build. If you’ve got a hankering for a slow, building epic tale of conquest feudal Japan, it’s worth keeping an eye or two on.
This game is already released as Shogun 2 Total war stop making copy's of games that already is out
@UrzhadOwning - It's nothing like Shogun 2. I say as much in paragraph 1.
"While it may sound a bit like recent genre giant Shogun 2, it’s quite a bit different in terms of its gameplay:" Did you even read the article?