Hello, Shoguns in training, and welcome to another issue of ''So you wanna conquer Japan?''! In this month's issue, we’re going to begin building our fief into a regional powerhouse while also warding off our ambitious neighbors.

''Nobunaga’s Ambition'' is a historical simulator, so this game begins in the extremely accurate year of 1560. Each turn represents one season, and there are four seasons in one year (obviously). Now, this is important; you can only do one thing each season, so if you want to train your troops, that’s going to take up the whole season, and if you want to try to assassinate a rival leader, that will take up another season. Now, there are some exceptions; for example, viewing an enemy fief (so you can see how many troops they have) does not take up a whole turn (but it does cost a small amount of gold). Likewise, failing to see the merchant does not take up a whole turn. Because you are only given 4 turns per year, it's important that you think out your moves and plan carefully.

[[File:SW-Shoey-A.png|thumb|center|200px|The map for perspective.]]
Now on our first turn, we’re going to recruit as many troops as possible (probably about 39), because more than likely you will be invaded by those rats in fief 3. And, speak of the devil, here comes those bastards attempting to conquer our beautiful homeland.

[[File:SW-Shoey-C.png(https://i.imgur.com/OfBSyw3.jpg)|center|thumb|150px|Our Home.]]
As you can see, each side has 5 units, with 3 of those being infantry, one being calvary (the pony), and one being a rifle unit. Now, the big golden circle on the first unit means that that’s the unit with the commanding officer; it can either be you if you chose to lead the troops personally, or some random general if you don't. This is very important, because if that unit falls, the battle ends and you lose. The Cavalry unit is probably the most useful unit, because it hits for 2x and it doesn’t require any special conditions like rifle units. Rifle units hit for 3x, though you have to have enough rifles to cover that unit (rifles can be bought from the merchant), so if you don’t have enough rifles, you won't be able to change the % of troops on the field that are riflemen. The other 2 units are simple infantry; they don’t have any special powers, and we’ll be cutting their numbers eventually.

Now, our job is to eliminate our enemies while also minimizing our losses. At this stage, your enemy will probably have more troops, but fear not because we have an advantage over them. See, an enemy can only place its units in the direction they attacked from, so since we know fief 3 is below us, we know that they’ll only be able to place their units on the bottom of the map. Meanwhile, we can place our units anywhere on the map, so we can actually box our opponent in depending on where he places his troops. At this point there isn’t a whole lot I can tell you; ya move your troops and take out his units. But here are some general tips; you always want to target his general because if you destroy the enemy general unit the battle ends automatically and you get a portion of his troops. If that general has a filled-in golden circle and you kill him, you get all his territory (so when you go on the offensive it can be beneficial to split a daimyo from the rest of his territory so you can kill him and win a bunch of land without a lot of fights). However, a daimyo will often times flee if he’s about to be eliminated (it’s important here to note that these battles take place on turns, so you get to move all your units before the enemy gets to respond). If the daimyo flees it’s basically the same thing as if you kill him, you’ll still get a portion (or sometimes all) of his troops, but you won't get his territory. In this specific case I think it’s better to just allow him to flee, because he usually sends the bulk of his troops on the first offensive so you probably wont be able to defend the territory you gain cause you'll have basically no troops.

Now that we’ve defeated those fucks at 3 and won the loyalty of his troops, it’s time to actually govern our little fief. And what does a government need to function you may ask? Why, cash money. So, the very next turn we’re going to raise the tax rate to 50%. Now be warned, this is gonna piss off your subjects, so on the next turn we’re going to going to give them some rice. It’s important to keep your peasants happy, because the happier they are, the more money they give you come tax season (which is in the fall), and because if they’re too pissed off, they’ll rebel against you. I usually give my subjects rice in the spring; it doesn’t really matter which season you do, but I personally find something special about giving them rice right after the harvest. For the first summer I suggest training your men so that they fight better.

Alright so the first year has ended and it’s time to collect our tax dividends. Now that we’ve got some money in the coffers, we can start investing in our little fief. Now they’re are 3 things we can invest in; farm, dam, and town.

Farm: Pretty self explanatory. Your farm is what grows the rice you use to feed the troops and buy loyalty. This one is probably the second most valuable thing to invest in earlygame, because you can sell rice to the merchant, give it to the peasants to increase loyalty/happiness, and feed the troops when you go to war.

Dam: This game has typhoons that appear at random that can cause your fief (and other peoples') to flood. A flood causes damage to your farm, dam, and town so they can cause quite the setback early on. In theory, the dam is supposed to help prevent that, but I’ll be honest I’ve never really seen the use of investing in a dam. Once you get a few fiefs under your belt, a flood can barely touch you in a significant way, and early on your money can be better spent elsewhere. In my opinion, the dam is the least important of the three and should never really be invested in.

Town: Ah city management, what a wonderful thing. Investing in your town causes you to gain more money when tax season comes around, so if you wanna make the big bucks you gotta invest heavily in the property market. However, city building does lower the peasants approval rating of you, but hey that’s nothing that a few hundred barrels of rice can’t solve! A high town rating might also help prevent plague outbreaks, but don’t quote me on that one. Town is probably the most important thing to invest in because it helps control how much money you get in the fall, and baby, money basically controls everything.

It’s better to just use all the money you get during the fall on one thing rather than trying to spread it out, because you’ll get the biggest return possible with one big investment rather then several small ones. Also, since you can only do one thing per turn, it makes sense to take care of your investments early on so you can still have time to train soldiers and feed the poor.

I think now is a good time to go over some of the things that can happen in between your turns. Probably the most important thing that can happen is war being declared. It’s fairly common (especially in early game) to see your fellow daimyos declare war on each other in an attempt to claim new land. This can force you to change your plans if a fief you were planning on taking suddenly gets conquered by a much stronger neighbor. However, this can all help you if the war wipes out both sides' troops, allowing you to conquer a weakened fief (honor is for the weak). Basically, after a war between fiefs, if you were planning war against one of them it’s always good to view them so you can see how many troops they have.

Another thing that can happen is some sort of rebellion in either an enemy's or your own fief. Rebellions can have any sort or reason behind them such as cultists rising up, peasants rising up, or some sort of military coup. Rebellions can honestly suck, because if they happen to you you’ll usually be far outnumbered and eliminated. Now with some rebellions you can bribe the rebels with gold to stop rebelling, but sometimes they won't accept your money. If you choose to fight against the rebellion, it basically plays out like any other defensive battle. A rebellion in an enemy fief can be useful because it usually leaves the enemies weak and prime for the taking.

If a neighboring fief considers you a threat or is in a weak state, they may offer you an alliance. These usually lasts durations of between 2-3 years, and you cannot (as in the game wont let you) attack that fief or any territory it has. Now the good news is that usually the fief offering the alliance is also offering up a large amount of gold in return for the alliance. So if you don’t really have any plans to manifest destiny them at that moment, it can be quite profitable to accept the alliance. Plus it takes out a potential enemy for a little bit if you decide to invade a fief they are adjacent to. Another form of diplomacy that can happen is a daimyo offering to pay you for your daughter's hand in marriage. This can actually be quite funny, because you can offer your daughter to any daimyo and you can basically do this forever without ever running out of daughters. This option is better than a formal alliance because it gets you the gold without having to promise not to attack them. Sadly, you’ll rarely see this in game, but it’s neat when it happens.

Something that can happen but rarely does is that a daimyo can die during the game. If this happens to you, well, better luck next time because your game is over. But if this happens to another leader, that can lead to something interesting. Usually they’re just replaced by their successor, but sometimes the territory is put up for auction and you’ll get the chance to purchase it for cash money. This can be a good investment if you have a lot of cash and don’t want to fight another war. Or, you know, you can say "fuck it" and just take the new owners by force if you want.

Alright, I think that’s good for this issue. We’ve covered a lot of important topics and some of the basics. Join me next month when we begin building our forces and start planning for success!