Gameplay
Gameplay
Development
As this is the first update we will be starting out simple. You are able to develop your castles. Development comes in three forms, Crops, Crafts, and Conscripts. The three C’s. Crops determine how much food(rice) is harvested when near the end of the year in the harvest season. Crafts determines how much gold your castle is producing every month. Finally Conscripts determines the amount of soldiers you will have at your Castle. Each month you can work on developing one of the three in each castle, this costs one hundred gold per month. Your overseer influences how much each is developed based upon their Politics skill rating. The higher the better. Without an overseer development is a pittance amount. When a castle develops enough it is able to expand which we will go into later. Buildings on the castle’s land also determine development amounts and the speed at which each can develop.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is a civil action. You send one of your officers off for a month to improve relations with another clan. Doing so costs hundreds of gold which can be risky in early game. However there is a great profit to be had for the investment as when you reach 20 trust with a clan they open foreign trade with you adding to your monthly gold. Clans will either be Neutral, Friendly, or Hostile. Hostile clans have their trust raise incredibly slowly and are effectively unlikely to be worth it. Friendly clans have the trust gain heavily improve, while neutral clans simply have the normal amount. How much trust is gained is based upon the intelligence of the officer you are sending.
Deploy
From the map you have two main menus. There is Civil actions and Military actions. You can either click on deploy under military actions for the game to automatically designate which forces will attack the enemy. Another option is to click on a castle or fort and give the order from there, you get to choose how many troops to send with what supplies. Supplies include either horses or muskets. This will effect how they perform in battle and what abilities they will have available.
Battle Ranged
Battle itself in Nobunaga’s Ambition is fairly simple as far as strategy games go. You control typically up to three armies for a normal battle, they can be your own forces or those of allied clans or tribes. Allies are aqua while your clan’s unts are blue, enemies are red. When facing a foe your army will attack with ranged weapons which do low damage before the age of muskets. Flanking causes more damage and when an enemy is flanked they need to shft their formation to face and return fire upon you.
Battle Melee
When two forces meet in close quarters they enter melee. Each army will bite into one another and feel a pull towards one another and be slowed down. In melee casualties for both side are high and come fast. It is best to have overwhelming odds or powerful melee abilities before entering melee because it is mainly a numbers game.
War Report
At the end of the month while in battle against an enemy the battle can be called off to be finished later, if you decide to continue you will miss giving commands for an entire month, but can finish the battle. The war report at the end of the month will tell you the numbers you have, are facing, and who is winnnig.
Trade
You may not be able to trade with other clans manually. Instead that is delegated to diplomacy and the amount of trust you have, as mentioned 20 causing foreign trade to open. What you can do from the civil menu is open trade with merchants. These merchants can be regular merchants, Sakai merchants, or Western merchants. Those of Sakai and the West offer greater amounts of trade and rare goods more often. You may buy supplies, such as food, horses, and guns. You can also buy special items which can be used to improve relationships with other clans or with your own officers. All that you are able to sell is food. Near a harvest season buying and selling food is cheaper while out of season or during famines and droughts it is pricier. You want to buy food if you need it around a harvest and sell it when out of season for a profit.
Castle/Fort Upgrade
You may upgrade your forts and castles. This will allow them to gain attributes that are helpful for battles and sieges. Castles and forts can be blockaded, stormed, or razed. You want resistance to blockade and storming mainly, which will help when under siege or when field battles are happening outside the walls. As well upgrades can have civil benefits such as increasing population, trade, or with specialty buildings. Building any castle or fort upgrades requires 5 labor. Upgrading your tenshu is generally the most important aspect to upgrade as it increases your amount of troops and population. As well how upgraded your walls are determines whether you are allowed certain upgrades. Early on upgrade castles and forts is expensive but can be helpful for early battles before you have large amounts of troops or castles to allow for you to fight greater numbers.
Labor
Labor determines how many construction projects you can have take place during each month. It costs 2 labor to develop a castle, 3 to upgrade roads, 5 to upgrade a castle, 4 labor to add a facility, 2 labor to repair a castle or fort, 4 labor to fortify a post, 8 labor to expand a district, 8 labor to change a district, 12 labor to build a castle or fort, 12 labor to dismantle a fort. How much labor you have is based upon your population. Buildings and upgrades that grow your population will allow you more labor over time.
Vassalage
We have gained our first vassal. A vassal is unable to do any dealings or any acts of war without the ruling state’s permission. All trade is directed to the greater power making vassals quite profitable to their rulers. At the same time vassals can be seen as weak and may be targeted by other actors. It is important to protect a vassalage. Often when taking a vassal they will send their ruler a daughter as a ward who can be used to marry those in other clans or even your own to create alliances or to improve loyalty.