Sengoku Impressions Preview - First Look

It took more than a strong arm and a sharp blade to unite the fractured country of 15th-century Japan. During this violent time, cunning, diplomacy, and knowing when your best friend might try to poison you were all equally important. Sengoku, a real-time strategy game from developer Paradox Interactive, is aiming to capture some of the day-to-day drama of building and maintaining an empire. Your goal is to bring enough of Japan under your influence--through military, diplomatic, or…nefarious means--and usurp the current shogun from his seat in the capital of Kyoto. On the battlefield, the game takes a hands-off approach to combat, but every other aspect of your empire is at your fingertips--assuming you can keep it all straight in your head.

What you can do in your clan depends on whom you choose to control within it. As the clan leader, all the power and prestige rest on your shoulders to lead your people to greatness. You could also take on the role of a middle- or low-ranking lord if you want to ease yourself in. Whomever you choose, your character has three primary ability scores: diplomacy, martial, and intrigue. Diplomacy manages your ability to play nicely with others and conduct foreign relations with neighboring clans. Your martial ranking measures your ability to make war. Finally, the intrigue stat measures how good you are at being bad and dictates your aptitude at conducting espionage and other underhanded deeds. To give your character some added flair, he is also assigned two to five traits. A charitable character might receive a bonus to his diplomacy (for a price), while a paranoid character might lose diplomacy in favor of a larger intrigue bonus.

Your empire itself is driven by two resources: gold and honor. Gold functions in all the ways you would expect. It pays for your buildings, lets you arm your troops, and even lets you hire pleasurable company. Honor, despite its name, is used for the more nefarious acts. You gain honor by honoring alliances and helping your friends and spend it on hiring ninjas to stab your buddy in the back. And, like the old saying goes, it's not a crime unless you get caught--meaning that your honor could take an additional hit if your ninja gets caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. If your clan's honor gets too low, it could affect your diplomatic standing and inhibit your ability to negotiate with others. In the most dire of circumstances, you could always take your own life and regain some lost honor.

There are three ways to build up your empire. The first is to command and conquer--crush your foes and take their land by force. This may not win you many friends, but it is effective. If brute force isn't your forte, diplomacy is always an option. However, to ally with another clan, you will have to provide a hostage as collateral, and if you don't honor your agreement, the hostage is toast. If your middle son just happens to be a fat slob who does nothing but eat all of your food and sleep on your medieval sofa, then sending him away and "accidentally" breaking the alliance could be an effective means of disposal. On the topic of underhanded deeds, the third way to win is by (you guessed it) hiring ninjas to weaken a clan's infrastructure. Burn down enough of their buildings and poison a few of their wells, and you could turn their misery into a pretty nice extortion racket.

From your clan's capital province you may deploy your three masters to improve territories under your control. Your master of ceremonies, in addition to planning sweet parties every Friday night, can help improve diplomatic relations. The master of arms aids in military production, while the master of the guard manages your guilds and the hiring of ninjas. However, as your empire expands and you bring more territories into your fold, you'll soon discover that these three individuals can't manage your entire empire on their own. For that, you're going to need allies. You can team up with the AI, or with up to 32 of your friends in multiplayer, and delegate parts of your empire to be managed by others. Allies can come from clans you've conquered or otherwise folded into your empire, or they can be friends taking on different roles within the same clan.

The battlefield is the one aspect of your rule that is outside of your direct control. You can outfit your armies with the best weapons and training money can buy, but when they take to the battlefield, their fate lies with your general. You can observe the battle's proceedings through a small window on the world map, but that's about it. Your troops are composed of foot soldiers and cavalry. Their specific combat capabilities are determined by the types of buildings you've built in the city from which they were recruited. A city with a gunsmith, for instance, would provide a significant combat boost. Committing your clan fully to the religion of Buddhism also provides a substantial combat boost, but you lose the other bonuses afforded by Shintoism (honor) or Christianity (gold). Committing yourself fully to one religion will sow unrest in your empire from nonbelievers, so allowing all three is also an option (however, you forfeit your ability to get any of the bonuses).

As we've seen, there are numerous systems at play in Sengoku. To help ease new players into the ebb and flow of the game, the development team at Paradox Interactive has been working to streamline the user interface to prevent information overload. After our brief demonstration of the game, we felt like we could handle piloting an empire to greatness (or, more likely, ruin). For those of you who are more management than military, you can find Sengoku on the PC this September.