Total War, Total Fantasy: Shogun 2-Fall Of The Samurai

 Any time a developer puts together a game based on an historical event, there’s going to be a tradeoff between accuracy and playability. Whether it’s a tabletop sim or a computer game, some situations just aren’t easily recreated, or would cause a serious problem with game balance. Even the most accurate Japanese history sims like Magitech’s “Takeda” series (that uses actual maps of castles and cities and features some battles that even the developers say are impossible to win-just as they were in history), Paradox’s “Sengoku”, or Si-Phon’s “Genpei Souran: Shogun E No Michi” have to take liberties with history in order to give the player some flexibility in options and play style (to say nothing of dispensing with a lot of micromanagement and recordkeeping). Other games like the Nobunaga No Yabou (Nobunaga’s Ambition) series stray from history even further, introducing abstract arcade style battles and making certain characters supermen that tower over everyone else. Which brings us to today’s selection-Creative Assembly’s “Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai”. Fall of the Samurai is a ‘stand-alone/expansion’ that purports to recreate the turbulent times of the Bakumatsu and early Meiji period where the Tokugawa Shogunate fell and the samurai class was abolished. While CA’s Shogun games have often played fast and loose with history, this time around they’ve managed to take things a step further and create a Japan that has more in common with the Union and Confederacy of the American Civil War than it does the supporters of the Shogunate and Emperor. Total War has become Total Fantasy. 

Take a look at the box artwork above for Fall of the Samurai-it tells you all you really need to know about the game. An American officer brandishing a revolver shares the cover with a samurai in traditional elaborate armor. If this doesn’t bring to mind a certain blockbuster movie starring Tom Cruise, then CA’s marketing department hasn’t done its job. The modernization of Japan and the influence exerted on it by Western countries (particularly England, France, and the United States-for whatever reason, the Russians, Prussians, and the Dutch are omitted) are the focal point of the game, and about forty years of real time are telescoped into the 6-12 years that the game plays out in. This results in armies on both the Shogunate and Imperial sides that wield an incredible amount of firepower and highly developed naval forces-far more than Japan would ever have been able to accumulate or more importantly, afford. To accommodate the wishes of the game’s largely European and North American player base, CA has not only given them ‘Foreign Veteran’ agents (think Nathan Algren from “The Last Samurai”, or historical French advisor Jules Brunet) that can join Japanese armies and engage in combat/duels, but also allows players to field Western army units. That’s right-you can have units of US Marines (or their British/French counterparts) under the direct command of the Shogunate. Now, we can see allowing these units to appear in the game as allies. After all, it only makes sense that a US/Brit/French unit would defend the commercial interests of their country in Japan-and that sometimes this might have them fighting alongside the Shogunate or Imperialists. But to have them under the DIRECT CONTROL of the Japanese? Ridiculous. It serves no function other than to let Westerners shoehorn their own culture into the ‘mystique’ of the samurai-something which has been going on since (at least) “James Clavell’s Shogun” and movies like “The Hunted”, “The Barbarian and the Geisha”, and the glorious “Bushido Blade” but rarely this blatantly. Want some laughs? Check out some of the game cinemas, where the Emperor sans his retinue is shown chatting with Western advisors at the dockyards in 1864, or the Shogun is shown doing the same thing (and depicted in Court Robes at that). 

Don’t even get us started on the myriad of different unit types that can be fielded. Past players of the Total War: Shogun series already know that CA loves to throw in ‘chrome’ units that have little to no historical justification. The player base just loves ‘em whether they existed or not. In the past we’ve seen units armed exclusively with katana or no-dachi-yeah, right. Crossbow ashigaru? This ain’t China, bub. Fall of the Samurai has Imperial Infantry, Line Infantry, Shogunate Guards, Imperial Guards, Republican Guards, Tosa rifles, Kihetai, Shogitai, Yugekitai, Tortoises, Phoenixes, Red Bears, Black Bears, White Bears, Dragons, and Tigers, oh my-and more. All of these represent virtually the same type of unit-Japanese troops armed with Western rifles. The only difference is that Japanese units tended to get impressive sounding names rather than numbers, but CA gives them all different stats, special attacks, and abilities. If they wanted to differentiate troops, a much better way would have been to do so by the type of rifles they were armed with (they did do this with cavalry)-something that was a big factor in making the Imperialists stronger than the Shogunate. One interesting side note is that while Shogun 2 has at least three different female units, Fall of the Samurai has none-despite the fact that women played a much, much bigger part in the Boshin war than they did during the Genpei War or Sengoku Jidai.

Economic development gets the same treatment. While you can’t build railways in every province, you can put together an impressive network that stretches from one end of Honshu to the other. Of course, what the developers seem not to have realized is that the first railway in Japan wasn’t completed until 1872, and was an extremely short line between Tokyo and Yokohama. This means that the short campaign (ending in 1870) shouldn’t have them at all, and that even the long campaign (which runs until 1876) shouldn’t have any sort of rail net-what existed in Japan at that time were a handful of very short, isolated lines. Quite simply, Japan couldn’t afford to build them. Rails were probably thrown into the game for their ‘kewl’ factor-CA obviously hasn’t read Dan Free’s book.

The game map is also a massive failure, being province based instead of han based. We understand they wanted to build on the regular Shogun 2 map, which is province based. And they did add parts of Ezo and a few other islands. And yes, there were over 200 han during the Edo period, which would have made things a bit too complex for some players. However, using provinces instead of han virtually strips the game of any claim to realistic starting positions-not to mention leaving out many important clans. In many cases the daimyo given for the han seem to be invented out of whole cloth (we’re getting to that), as were their loyalties to the Shogunate/Imperialists. The set-up you see is about as abstract as it gets. A province based map also ensures that the Tokugawa Shogunate has no real footprint on this version of Japan-and as you can see by the map in this thread on the Samurai Archives, they had the largest holdings in Japan.

This brings us to the game’s largest failing. You can play as all four of the Imperial ‘Satchotohi’ factions who were the prime forces that brought an end to the Bakufu-Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa and Hizen (represented by Saga). But you CAN’T play as the Tokugawa Shogunate, the single most powerful faction in Japan and ruler of the country-five times wealthier than the closest daimyo. The Tokugawa are virtually invisible in-game. If you look at ‘Edo’ domain in game, they give its daimyo as Matsui Yasuhide, a fictitious name. If they meant Matsudaira Yasuhide-then he was far north of Edo in 1864, and even when he was transferred to Kawagoe in 1866, wouldn't be considered part of Edo-Kawagoe was a separate han. Nope, totally wrong-how hard would it have been to just use Tokugawa Iemochi, the Shogun who did count Edo among his holdings? Instead we get Aizu and some minor loyal factions like Obama, Jozai, Nagaoka, and latecomers Sendai. Why? While the spread out nature of the Tokugawa holdings might have presented a problem to an accurate in-game representation, it also would have provided players with a unique challenge-a faction that has huge holdings and a foothold in every part of the country but whose exposed position and fragile condition leaves it wide open to conquest. It just seems to us the Tokugawa were left out because the developers wanted to avoid the play balance problems that might have cropped up. However, leaving them out pretty much cripples the entire game. Fall of the Samurai might as well be called “Total War: Kick the Shogun’s Ass”-a theme reflected in the ‘historical’ battles, all of which give players control of Imperial Forces under Saigo ‘Worms’ Takamori.

And what about those historical battles? As a microcosm of the game’s failure as a sim, let’s take a look at one of them, the Battle of Osaka. This isn’t the famous series of battles that took place in 1614-15 between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa, but rather the action in 1868 that followed the Battle of Toba-Fushimi. What did the Fall of the Samurai developers get right? Well, mostly just the stuff in the opening and closing cut scenes. Tokugawa Yoshinobu did indeed abandon his troops, board an American ship (although the game doesn’t bring that up) while waiting for one of his own to pick him up, and then return to Edo. And the Imperials did indeed burn large areas of the castle after occupying it. Pretty much everything else here is wrong. 

For all intents and purposes, there was NO “Battle of Osaka” in 1868-the Shogunate troops largely followed the leader when Yoshinobu abandoned the castle, and the few that were left surrendered the castle peacefully to the Imperial army. Instead, the game has the player assaulting a force over three times their size that’s entrenched in one of the strongest castles ever built in Japan. This would not have ended well for the Imperials had this been the case-one only has to look about ten years into the future when a small Imperial force held off Saigo Takamori’s attackers at Kumamoto Castle to see what the outcome would have been. The casualties during a playthrough of this single battle end up being about twice what the total was for the entire Boshin War. The layout of the town of Osaka is completely wrong, but not as bad as the depiction of the castle. The extent of the defenses, the schematics and number of the different ‘maru’, the bridges running into the castle, even the location of the site of the tenshu are all wrong. There’s a nicely developed railroad running from the harbor area into town, but as we’ve already seen, Japan wouldn’t even see a rudimentary railroad for four more years.

The game action encourages players to bombard the turrets of the castle, which are holding gunpowder that will eventually be used to blow bridges (usually when players try to cross them). Scoring a single hit on a turret causes a 4^th of July explosion that forces the enemy to abandon their defenses. Now how stupid would a defender have to be to put their gunpowder in such an exposed position? Historically, Osaka Castle’s gunpowder store building is one of the few original Tokugawa structures to survive to the present day-precisely because it was located well within the grounds and built to stand up to a bombardment. 

But perhaps one mistake exemplifies the developer’s disregard for history more than anything else. In the game there’s a really nice tenshu sitting right at the back of the Osaka defenses. In looks, it resembles the original Toyotomi castle far more than the Tokugawa version that replaced it. Of course, this fact really isn’t all that important because in 1868 OSAKA CASTLE HAD NO TENSHU. It was struck by lightning and burned to the ground around 200 years earlier (1665) and was never rebuilt.  

So you would think after all this bitching that we hated the game-but that isn’t the case. We love it! While it’s basically worthless as a simulation, it does give one a sense of the essential issues of the Bakumatsu/early Meiji periods. At the heart of everything is modernization and forming bonds with foreign nations. To do so or not? Not doing so will keep your people happy, but leave your military and economy weak and exposed. Doing so strengthens your economic base and gives access to advanced units, but also ties up more of your resources in policing an increasingly restless populace. Rebellions are far more likely the more modernized your faction becomes and can easily destroy you from within. Allying with the United States, British, or French will also give players the opportunity to gain those Marine units we complained about a few paragraphs back-not to mention unique ships like the HMS Warrior, which could decimate enemy fleets all on its own.

Graphically, the armies of the Bakumatsu are depicted in a realistic and accurate matter. They look great. No one can do ‘real time battles’ like CA. Taking direct command of your artillery batteries is great fun and becoming skilled at this will make many battles (particularly the historical ones) much easier. Naval battles are spectacular, with ships blowing up, taking torpedo hits, getting rammed, hammered by shore batteries, and reduced to splinters by nigh-invincible ironclads-all based on real ships and detailed to the max. Game sound adds much to the goings-on with the crackle of gunfire, the scream of incoming artillery, the deafening roar of a broadside, and the clang when two ironclads ram each other. Special mention should be made of the game soundtrack-it’s outstanding, possibly the best game soundtrack we’ve ever heard (even better than the one for Yoshitsune Eiyuuden Shura). While it’s heavily Western influenced (and actually sounds quite a bit like “The Last Samurai” soundtrack) it does have a few Japanese motifs mixed in.

Gameplay accurately reflects the new world of advanced firearms and artillery. Players who are used to success by taking the direct approach in Shogun 2 are in for a rude awakening in Fall of the Samurai. Marching directly towards the enemy is a quick way to lose an entire army. Opposing forces are quick to seek cover and to bolster each other with overlapping fields of fire. Players are rewarded for being patient and meticulous, outmaneuvering the enemy and putting their big guns out of commission with counter-fire. While players can make the choice to eschew modernity, doing so will result in an extremely difficult and uphill battle. We suggest new players try out the historical battles before tackling the campaign just to become adjusted to combat. Trying to wind your way through the mountains of Aizu with armies waiting in ambush on all sides and multiple batteries of Armstrong and Parrott guns looming over the pass is quite the task-and just a warm-up for the final assault on the castle. While spear and sword units have lost much of their utility, they’re still very useful in certain situations, and can easily turn the tide of battle for players who can use them correctly.

Naval warfare in Fall of the Samurai is massively stepped up from Shogun 2. You will no longer be able to concentrate on developing your army at the expense of your navy. Navies can now support land forces with artillery fire, bombard port defenses, economic centers, and shore batteries, and interdict enemy amphibious invasions. A navy is now vital to developing an economy as well as defending it.

Victory in the game is much different than that in Shogun 2. There it was more about conquering Japan for yourself. In Fall of the Samurai, it’s more about ensuring that your faction comes out on top. Personal conquest matters less, but supporting your allies in the Shogunate (or your fellow traitors in the Imperial forces) becomes high priority. Brave players can also take the opportunity to form an independent republic, telling both the Shogun and Emperor to go screw themselves. As expected, this is for the very brave and capable, as it results in virtually every other faction declaring war on you and the defection of many of your agents and forces.

 

And oh yeah, there are geisha in the game. But not the killing machine geisha of past Shogun titles. Nope, here they’re back to doing what they do best-enchant, inspire, entertain, and distract all of the men. Especially those gaijin foreign veteran agents, who were no doubt as helpless against Japanese women as they are these days. At any rate, the killing is now left to new agents like those same foreign agents, the Shinsengumi, and Ishin Shishi. Not to mention our old friend the Shinobi.  

A word here on Online Multiplayer. Many players don’t bother with multiplayer, just sticking with the single player campaign. We’ve played a bit of it, and it’s a mixed bag. Creative Assembly has put together a fun and varied multiplayer experience with several different game modes and an option for up to four playable avatars (we use one each for Genpei, Sengoku, Boshin Shogunate, and Boshin Imperialist). You can play as a standard Shogun 2 army or a Fall of the Samurai army, even pitting the two against each other in land combat (not naval combat-that would be a King Kong sized mismatch). But the player base, particularly in the Ranked matches, can be wretched. Many matches are not decided by individual skill, but rather by players that find exploits in the game system (whether it be Loan Swords or Tosa Rifles) and milk it for all it’s worth (and then bitch like hell when CA patches the exploit). Many veteran players mod their games to use functions like the ‘debug’ camera, giving them a huge edge over players that don’t know about it. And we’ve played more than a few matches where opponents with incredibly good won-loss records show just how they got them-when they’re taking a pounding and ready to lose, they simply break their internet connection. Viola, no loss! And the verbal abuse spilled out by angry teenagers in ranked matches (whether they’re winning or losing) is enough to burn the ears off a hardened sailor. Take our advice and skip ranked matches. Unranked matches are a much more pleasant experience with a more laid back player base, and after all, the whole idea of the game is to have fun.

So is it worth picking up Fall of the Samurai? Yes, indeed. For all its failures as a sim, the tradeoff is a game that is eminently playable and engaging. It looks great. It sounds great. It plays great. For around $29, it’s also a steal. Players would be wise to approach it much like the movie it channels, “The Last Samurai”. Spectacular action, fun and exciting, and involving-but with everything taking place in a Japan that has only the names and places in common with the real thing. It’s a fantasy land that seems to have been developed more as a beta test for the next Total War game (which by all indicators is going to involve the Victorian Era/US Civil War). Yes, CA really should hook up with a reliable Japanese historian (not Stephen Turnbull, a crass opportunist who’s as careless and sloppy as they come) to weed out some of the more obvious and easily avoidable errors. But they’ve still managed to produce a game that looks and plays wonderfully and that conveys the general circumstances and atmosphere of Bakumatsu era Japan. Historically, it’s Total Fantasy-but paradoxically the fantasy of every gamer with an interest in this period of Japanese history.

The History Of Japan-As Seen Through Paradox

Paradox Interactive has long been known as a producer of highly detailed, accurate, and immersive historical simulations for home computers. Their upcoming effort "Sengoku" promises to debut as the be-all end-all of strategy games for Japan's Warring States period (the Sengoku Jidai, which began with the Onin War in 1467 and lasted for well over a hundred years). Slated for a September release, we'll be doing an interview with the game's developers and designers along with an in-depth review. Until then, we'd thought we'd spotlight two other recent Paradox sims that between them stretch from the days of the Muromachi Bakufu in 1399 to the early years of the 20th century. "Europa Universalis III: Divine Wind" introduces Japan and China to the popular Europa Universalis series, while "Pride of Nations" is an original effort by AGEOD that covers the world's great powers between 1850 and 1920.

The original Europa Universalis was introduced in 2000 and proved to be wildly popular among strategy gamers, with two later versions of the game and four expansion packs. Currently, you can play as any of over 300 historical nations controlling more than 1700 provinces and regions in games that can stretch from 1399-1820. And in DAILY turns. Yes, daily-and we're not even going to speculate if it's the Gregorian, Julian, or Lunar calendar. "Divine Wind" is the latest expansion pack, giving a new dimension to the previously generic nations of Japan and China. While Europa Universalis II had released a special version (entitled 'Asia Chapters') giving life to the Orient for Asian markets, this is the first time it has done so in the West. Since this is, after all, the Shogun-ki, we'll be focusing on gameplay as Japan.

The first thing you'll notice is that instead of the game using historical 'clans', it uses a system popular in Japanese gaming-having the nation controlled by the Genpei Toukitsu, the "Four Famous Clans" of Minamoto, Taira, Tachibana, and Fujiwara that almost all samurai supposedly can trace their roots to. Since the game covers roughly 400 years and the entire world, this was probably a good choice-with all the other nations, it simply wouldn't have been possible to keep track of all the tiny clans that emerged and were destroyed over the years. Just think of the 'Genpei Toukitsu' as representing the different clans that descended from them. While you're perfectly free to try anything you want anywhere in the world (we invaded Ming China on Turn One just to see if we could), this will cause disruption and unrest among your people, so it's best to concentrate on consolidating Japan under your leadership first. After all, only the Shogun can effectively carry on diplomatic relations with outside countries.

Juggling your economic resources to keep your people happy, developing your provinces with buildings, and recruiting military units are the basic building blocks of this type of game. However, you can also recruit leaders and other 'great men of history', each with their unique strengths and weaknesses. As the economy and technology develop, more and more choices and options open to players. Missions are given to players and can range from elaborate to simple-our first mission involved adding to the nation's culture by cultivating the art of tending to cherry blossoms. These missions sometimes require concurrent advances in different fields along with using up specialized personnel. Diplomacy allows players to do something as subtle as insulting a rival to provoke a war and leave your opponent looking like the bad guy. You can sponsor artists and writers to heighten the nation's culture. Keeping your military tradition high is crucial in insuring you will have effective generals and admirals to recruit. Battles are played out on a strategic level, and there are no 'real time' tactical level battles. Players can set priorities for their nations by adjusting sliders that determine how much of a country's resources will go into them. Each aspect of the game has repercussions for every other aspect, meaning that a wise player will not just look at the immediate effects of a decision but also how it will affect other factors over time.

The level of depth and options in Europa Universalis is staggering. You can recruit all sorts of agents-spies, admirals, conquistadors, diplomats, missionaries, all with different functions. Spies can perform all sorts of actions, ranging from counterfeiting another area's currency to undermining their guild structures and spreading false rumors. Unlike many games of this ilk, steamrolling province after province without provocation will result in bad things happening to the player. Unbridled aggression will drive up a player's infamy, a game device which fits in well with Japanese history-think of how Oda Nobunaga or Taira no Kiyomori tended to unite the ranks of their disorganized foes. Provoking opponents into rash attacks or coming into a war on the side of an ally who was 'unjustly attacked' provide much safer avenues for expansion.

One area in the game we noticed that comes up a bit short is 'localization'. Most game terms are European (understandable, since the game is centered on Europe, and having more than one set of commands would cause mass confusion). Likewise, many of the portraits the game uses are of Europeans and look completely out of place when matched up with a Japanese character. Many of the Japanese characters have clearly Chinese names. Overall, given the scale of the game, this a relatively minor annoyance.

Graphics are effective, relatively uncluttered, and there are multiple intuitive interfaces and filters that will tell you at the click of a button virtually any bit of information you'd ever want to know. Even though the game runs day-by-day over 400 years, it can be sped up greatly so the days fall away like a fluttering desk calendar. It can also be slowed down or paused during times of great activity where precision is paramount. And of course, playing as Japan just scratches the surface of what's on tap. Virtually any nation you can think of in any time period covered is available, offering a whole new gaming experience. Exploration, colonization, and developing new technologies become a big part of gameplay. While historical technology can be sped up by infusing it with development cash, it becomes much harder to do so the further it diverges from its historical appearance. Victory is determined largely by the goals players set for themselves-obviously, making France, England, or Russia the #1 nation in the world will be much easier than doing so with a small Germanic state-or even Japan. But often realizing a modest goal with a small faction is far tougher than meeting a large goal with a large nation. This makes for an almost endless variety of game experiences, as the goals for each nation are set by the players themselves and are easily changed from game to game. While there are no scenarios per se, there are bookmarked years that allow players to start the game in years of note-like the discovery of the new world, the League of Cambrai, the Thirty Years War, and the American and French Revolutions. There are ample mods for the game, which we'll delve into later in the review. Anyone interested in the game would likely be better off buying the "Europa Universalis III: Chronicles" pack which includes the original game and all the expansions, including Divine Wind. It's far more convenient than buying them separately.

We could go on and on giving details for Europa Universalis, but we still have "Pride of Nations" to cover. While similar in play to the Europa Universalis series, Pride of Nations is even more elaborate. While the main playable choices are the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, you can actually play as virtually any country on the map (albeit without getting country specific 'events').

We started off as Japan again, and found that the game rewards players that proceed in an historical manner. Thus your early goal is to keep the Tokugawa Shogunate in business, putting down rebels and earning valuable Prestige Points that make your nation stronger. Early turns in our mini-campaign were spent building up Japan's basic economy as quickly as possible while also putting together a small fleet that could trade with Southeast Asia. Trying to speed up history and getting rid of the Tokugawa will result in a shattered country that could provide easy pickings for circling Europeans. The change in the political climate will come soon enough, and it's important to have a Japan that can economically take advantage of it-as well as one with enough prestige to count on the world stage.

The strongest aspect of the game is the military component (an aspect of play that AGEOD has excelled at), an armchair general's fantasy. You have all the building blocks you need to form any unit from a company to an army, and they can be combined in any way imaginable (although there is a minimum size for an independent unit). Supply units, engineers, infantry, artillery, cavalry, and more-they're all here. Leader units usually have a photo of the historical leader on their counters, and clicking on each unit will show an illustration of their uniforms and arms-again, specific to each country. Individual ships will have a photo of the historical ship on the counter wherever possible. Garrisons are raised automatically as needed (representing a sort of 'local militia'). Each unit is rated in a mind-boggling variety of categories-range, ammo, cohesion, aggressiveness, speed, discipline, and recon being a few. There are over FIVE HUNDRED special abilities a unit can possess. Combat is again played out on the strategic level-no tactical battles. Units can simply march to a location, or use rail and naval transport (if you have it).

Pride of Nations also emphasizes logistics and supply. Putting together a large force to send to East Africa is easy-keeping it alive once it's there is a whole other story. An army far from home that doesn't has access to plentiful ammo, food, and replacement parts is an army in a world of trouble. Whether it's horse drawn supply attached to units, rail, or naval transport, setting up your the supply network is all important. Attrition to units via climate, disease, and moving through rough terrain can deplete an elite unit in no time. Much like the real world, non-battlefield casualties account for just as much damage or more than those sustained in battle. And also much like the real world, the army with the best logistics will be the one in the best position to win. Players with the patience and ability to put together a strong supply network will find the going much easier. Other than the Takeda series of games, we can't recall a sim involving Japan where supply was such a crucial element.

Diplomacy is a bit abstract-there are the standard options for making alliances, defensive treaties, and right of access along with less common ones like making inter-country loans. Declaring war is somewhat difficult-it's not as easy as just saying so. Players will need a casus belli to do so, which often comes out of a 'crisis'. This is an event generated by the game and is determined by several factors-the state of diplomatic relations between counties, troops gathered on a border, or a disputed parcel of land being some of these. This triggers a crisis where the player has six turns to either go up by three dominance points or simply be ahead at the end. Dominance is established by press conferences, oratory, calling for a resolution or delay, or attempting to gain the support of third parties. Winning a crisis might garner enough prestige points to justify declaring war on an opponent.

The economic aspect of the game is excellent. It's largely based on manufacturing while keeping your population happy enough to prevent rioting. Manufacturing allows for lucrative international trade in conjunction with a merchant fleet. These are vital for procuring raw materials and items not found in your country (a real problem for resource-starved Japan) to keep those factories running and the cash rolling in. The level of detail is so layered that a player can actually set up a factory in a different country (pursuant to an agreement to do so) and ship finished goods back to the homeland. Another nice aspect is the distinction between private and government funds-government funds are raised from different sources and are used mainly for military funding, whereas private funds bankroll factories. Colonization is obviously a big help in supplying whatever resource a country might be lacking in, so most of the game's battles center on colony disputes rather than direct invasions of the mother country. In countries that have elections, you can also attempt to push one candidate over the other (although as always your people might have different ideas!). Social classes, education, religion, nationalism, and ethnicity all have a hand in determining the stability of the home front.

Graphics are a bit more whimsical than in Europa Universalis, with tiny animated ships traversing the globe. We found the old fashioned real-time clock in the upper right a nice reminder that we needed to keep track of things in the real world, since the game is very addictive. Another nice touch was the background music-over 100 selections that reprise some of the more memorable period tunes. The map has several different modes (military, economic, decision, colonial) and several filters can show the supply grid, key cities, and even the weather. Unlike a lot of games, turns are simultaneous-when you click end turn, all of your orders made during the turn are then executed at the same time that every other country's orders are executed. This makes things far more unpredictable, as enemy forces will often move before an attack can be carried out.

Even with all of the research that went into the game, there were still some things that made us groan in the set-up. Shimazu Nariakira was shown as Daimyo of Tosa on Shikoku, not in Kagoshima (Satsuma) on Kyushu. Likewise, one of the Tokugawa is shown as being in control of Hiroshima and Tokugawa Yoshinobu is installed as a leader in Edo in 1850 (when he's only 13 and should be in Mito). Thankfully, he hasn't been made Shogun yet.

The biggest complaint among players of the game centers around its length. The Grand Campaign runs for 1680 turns, and on top of that the computer AI takes a LONG time between turns to make its decisions and sort out/coordinate all the orders given by all the factions. Mods are on the way that will double the time periods each turn covers (halving the number of turns), and hopefully some sort of patch that will address the AI decision making lag. If you're really impatient, there are four short 'battle scenarios' (including the Russo-Japanese War) that remove the economic element and allow you to slug it out-with the Spanish-American War scenario also available as DLC.

Pride of Nations is an amazing game that provides players with an avalanche of information, options, and materials but somehow makes it all manageable. With the different situations facing each country, it also has unlimited replay value-which is extended even further by the AI giving each country different objective cities each playthrough. With a strong military aspect, an excellent economic and diplomatic component, and establishing trade and colonialism as an integral part of success, it takes its place at the top of the list in grand strategic games.

Paradox makes their strategy games mod-friendly, so there are tons of interesting player-created mods for Europa Universalis and there are probably just as many on the way for the recently released Pride of Nations. Mods range from simply setting up new scenarios to changing the map, introducing new artwork and unit appearances, and plugging in new scripts. The load screens for the games even allow you to choose any mod you've downloaded before booting up! The best place to find mods to download is at the Paradox Interactive Forums...not to mention the skilled and knowledgeable players that will be able to help you out in any situation you might get into. Both games also offer online multiplayer (both LAN and online), with up to 32 different players taking part in the same campaign for Europa Universalis.

Both of these games make for great learning tools for those who don't just want to read about why history played out as it did, but also to experience it. They're the descendants of the monster board wargames of the 1970's and 80's with the advantages of greater depth and zero recordkeeping. While you won't get the 'real time battles' of "Total War-Shogun 2", you will get a much greater sense of running a faction's diplomacy, economy, and military along with an unmatched level of control and detail. There are no quick fixes here-you have to be thinking out your strategy years in advance, just not a couple of turns. You won't find more involved, well-researched, and addictive history games than these. Did we mention how inexpensive they are? Europa Universalis Chronicles lately has been on sale at Gamersgate for under $10, a steal. Pride of Nations is less than 20 bucks. Considering the amount of well-spent time you can enjoy playing them, it's the cheapest entertainment option around.You can find "Europa Universalis III Chronicles" and "Pride of Nations" on Amazon.com, or (recommended) in downloadable form at venues such as Gamersgate or Steam.

Interview With Takeda 3 Creator And Magitech Founder, Ming-Sheng Lee

Ming-Sheng Lee is the founder of Magitech, producer of what many consider to be the most historically accurate and true-to-life Japanese and Chinese PC strategy games. He graduated from Taiei City College of Business in the late 80's when he and a few college friends were thinking of getting into the computer game industry. Since none of them possessed sufficient programming knowledge, Ming then attended Polytech University in New York to get a C.S. degree and then founded Magitech. Ming continues to be involved in all aspects of Magitech's operation, from research, coding, and troubleshooting to marketing and customer feedback. Ming took some time off from working on Strength And Honor 2 to talk about Magictech's latest release, the Sengoku strategic/tactical simulation Takeda 3 (in the following interview, SA is the Samurai Archives while ML is Ming-Sheng Lee).

SA: You founded Magitech in 1993. What prompted you to form your own company rather than work for an established developer?

ML: I guess I was young and didn't know that earning money can sometimes be more important than the passion. I was naive to think that working for other companies would prevent me from making my own games, so I jumped in, created my own company and started this journey.

SA: How did you develop a love for computers and an interest in Japanese history?

ML: I got in touch with computers in the early 80’s. I was fascinated by the new Apple II (6502) personal computer and started working on simple animations for the ground works of gaming. I remember my first animated character was a Japanese Ashigaru infantry. Speaking of Ashigaru, the Japanese theme of Takeda was seeded even way earlier when I was in elementary school. My father took me to Japan several times to visit my grandfather. The castles and the samurai were my bed time stories.

My addiction to tactics and strategy came from my father also, who always told me fascinating stories of history. Not just battles, but finance, economics, and life experience as well. I use the same tactics and strategies I learned from history in the stock market, which other than strategy games is my other hobby to explore my passion for strategic thinking.

SA: All of Magitech's releases to date have been historical simulations, and they have been far more true to history than similar games from other companies. Was the emphasis on historical accuracy done to differentiate the games from other products, or out of a desire to produce a 'simulation' and not just a 'game'?

ML: OK. You got me. The emphasis on historical data isn't really meant to differentiate from other games, but it is my desire to make a historical simulation rather than just a game. Many times I was struggling to change the design into something more suitable for the game market, but there is a part of me that always pulls me back to focusing on the simulation. The balance between game play and simulation is always a challenge for us.

SA: Can you give us a general outline of the different steps taken in the development of a game? What all does it go through between the initial concept and the final release?

ML: First we have a meeting about the concept of the game. If it is a sequel, we discuss features that we would like to add to the game. Normally we write a two-page outline document. We tried a fifty-two page design document once, but it ended up being too complicated. Then we assign tasks and have the team start working on the project. This part is the easiest, but we always have to go back to the design sheets and make some adjustments. Then we have to integrate the other aspects such as the art from the artists and the music from the musicians, more or less putting every piece of the game together. After that, we can start balancing, testing and fine-tuning the game. Part of the team will continue to work on the interface and fix bugs while the other part of the team will start testing all aspects of the game. After we finish the initial testing, we will start working on demo versions for publishers and do localization when a deal is signed with foreign language publishers. It actually takes a lot to finish a game. Coding is the easiest part.

SA: Even with an emphasis on history, compromises always have to be made for the sake of play value. What in your opinion was the biggest compromise Takeda 3 had to make that sacrificed accuracy for playability?

ML: There are many features we have to give up for the sake of game play or due to a lack of resources to expand a feature such as the number of castles, the number of generals, or the scale of the battles. The biggest one I would say is the death rate of a general. Since Takeda 1, we have tried to create a connection between the generals (the game characters) and the players. To achieve this, we make the characters 'die' at a more realistic probability. The player will need to make a decision between saving his/her favourite general(s) and winning a battle. In Takeda 3, however, we are short of portraits. To lose a general at a realistic, historical probability, the player will run out of characters pretty quickly. Thus we have to tune down the 'death rate' so the players are able to finish the campaign.

SA: Takeda 3 features graphics that are much more detailed and impressive than those seen in Takeda 2. The 'Multiplayer/Online' aspect from the original Takeda also makes its return. What other improvements and new features have been made to the game?

ML: Takeda 3's new improvements are really focused on the castle battles. We've made some breakthroughs in path-finding which allow the units to go through mountain roads in fairly complex terrain and castle layers. This really allows us to make the castles look much more realistic than in our previous games.

We also resized the map to show an army’s path more clearly to the player, and we now allow players to build facilities around a castle. These facilities have a direct impact on the player's military and economic strength.

SA: In games such as 'Shogun: Total War' or 'Nobunaga No Yabou', an unskilled player can win by simply outproducing the computer and crushing them with sheer weight of numbers or by using oddball ahistorical superunits like 'sword saints', 'battlefield ninja', or the infamous 'geisha assassin'. The Takeda series, on the other hand, has proved difficult for many players to beat because it stresses the role of commanders, proper formations and tactics, morale, and especially supply. Careless players who use reckless all-out attacks soon find themselves with all their capable generals dead, losses of horses and guns that far outstrip their production, and huge desertion rates attributable to not keeping an eye on their supply lines. In fact, it's easily possible to win a battle that ruins your chances of winning the game. It makes the game an extremely helpful learning tool for explaining just how difficult it would have been in real life to unify Japan. What sort of tips would you give to someone sitting down to play Takeda 3 for the first time to help them lay down a strong foundation for success early in the game?

ML: Watch out for the riflemen/teppo (sorry, I still don't know what to call them properly)! For most veterans of Takeda, mastering a field battle shouldn't be a problem if they properly manage capable generals. The campaign may run into deep muddy ground if the enemies build up strong defences with a high number of riflemen/teppo guarding the towers, however. As for a beginner, I would say carefully plan out your strategy regarding diplomacy. Winning a battle is one thing; but winning a war is another. Choose your allies carefully and watch out for their relationships with one another. You can't make friends with everybody because your friends will fight against each other later and you will be caught right in the middle. You also need to arrange political marriages to cement alliances.

For beginners on the battlefield, try to select all your good generals and put them into one army. That should give you a good start. Eventually, you will need to split your army as your territory expands, but by then you should have mastered the battle system.

Most RTS players will create a lot of armies to outnumber the enemy. Players might want to keep a few castles to use as supply depots, however, instead of creating armies from every castle.

SA: The portraits of the historical figures in the new game are small works of art-detailed, sharp, and colorful. The artist is particularly talented in his depictions of women. Who was this talented individual and how did you end up using them?

ML: The artist’s name is 練任 (Lian Zan). Though I have not personally spoken with him, he is a good friend of our Taiwanese publisher. Alvin Hwan, who works for our main publisher in Taiwan, believes in the potential of Takeda's engine and sponsored our Sango project's portraits with his own money. After that, we liked the style of the portraits and decided to upgrade all the portraits for our upcoming games.

SA: Speaking of women, Takeda 3 includes dozens of female characters-far more than any other Japanese warfare sim to date. Many of them historically were involved in defending castles during sieges. Game wise, they’re of course useful for 'marriage politics' but also for transferring supplies and troops from one castle to another. What prompted you to include this often overlooked aspect of a woman's role in samurai culture and give them a greater part in the game?

ML: It was a time in which women didn't really have the same rights as men in Japan. After researching a few historical records and legends, I decided to include many of the exceptional stories of women in Takeda 3 to tell their stories which unfortunately often get left out of history books.

SA: Unlike 'Shogun: Total War' or 'Nobunaga No Yabou', Takeda 3 replicates the actual terrain, layouts, and look of castles taken from historical records and blueprints. They showcase to good effect how even a small force inside a well laid out castle can hold off and decimate a huge attacking army. Were there any castles you had problems finding documentation for, or that had to be substantially altered for the game?

ML: We researched many books and sites and included as many details as we could. Almost every castle is based on some sort of historical reference. Sometimes we had only a small piece of a picture or layout from the historical records, but we tried our very best to show what it would look like based on the picture. In many cases, we can only show a corner of the castle. It wouldn’t be possible to present a whole castle like Odawara in the game. Sometimes we have to take out or reposition the gates or rivers to make the castle fit the battlefield. We mostly studied how each castle was taken in historical battles and we tried to present it in such a way that the players can re-visit the history and experience how the battles were actually fought. The biggest problem we have with the castles is the limit of the attacking army's units. Due to the speed of most computers, we couldn't have that many units on the attacking side which sometimes makes attacking a castle very difficult. Although we can reduce the number of defenders, it would create some other game play issues in world mode.

SA: The individual biographies for each of the 600+ historical figures in the game are another nice extra feature. From what sources did you gather the information for these?

ML: We did the research about the characters in the game mainly from our in-house library books. Most books are imported from Japan directly. I have a personal interest in the history of Feudal Japan so we put a lot of effort into discovering information about each character in the game. There have been some translation errors when we finalized the descriptions, however, and we were fixing some of the errors right until the last few days before the release of the game.

SA: Magitech has published games in China and Russia as well as Japan and North America. Which country seems to be most receptive to your games and what do you attribute this to?

ML: From the sales side, the Russian market seems to be the most receptive, and China seems to have many players playing our games as well. We are very pleased that we are able to get into Japan's market with a localized Japanese version for them. It shows a great recognition for the hard work that we put in to make the game historically accurate to Japanese history.

SA: The staff of Magitech not only develops the games but also plays and supports them once they’re released. This takes the form of answering questions from gamers on the Magitech forums, releasing patches to enhance and expand gameplay, incorporating suggestions from players in future releases, and even taking part in tournaments and online battles with the player base. Does being actively involved with the people who actually play the games help with designing future efforts? Do players ever come up with tactics and strategies that surprise you and weren’t factored in while designing a game?

ML: Basically, we love what we do here. It is my passion as well as the team's desire to make these games fun and historical. We feel bad when the game doesn't work as we expected and we try our very best to fix or improve the game in every way that we can. Our friends from the forum do help us a lot in finding bugs that we fix, giving us feedback and suggestions for future developments or improvements, and encourage us to continue the titles even when things don't really work very well. It's because of these friends that have made it this far.

When I designed Takeda 1, I expected to see players lose generals and fall into different ending paths. After the game was released, I found out that some players would play the same battle fifty times just to save a generals' life. In the game Sango 1, I accidentally had a general with no skill but setting up fires in the battle of Chang-Ban Po. There were players using this character with one of the best horses in the game to set fires everywhere and turn an impossible battle into a total victory for the player. It is amazing to see players develop their own strategies and tactics using something even the developer didn't think of.

SA: What are some of the other games Magitech has produced? What are you currently working on for future release?

ML: Other than the Takeda series of games, we also make the Sango series, similar to Takeda but set in China's Romance of The Three Kingdoms' era, and the Strength & Honor series which is set during the Roman era with a map that spans from China to Britain. Different from Takeda and Sango, Strength & Honour is more focused on empire management than battles. An empire's internal conflicts are much more emphasized. Strength & Honor 2 is our latest game in development and shall be released in the summer of 2009. In the future, however, we are thinking of making casual games and iPhone platform applications.

SA: Thanks, Ming. We at the SA wish you and Magitech continued success in the future.

Weapons & Fighting Techniques Of The Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD

Wow, I thought to myself as I unwrapped a large parcel from a bookseller in the UK-Thomas Conlan (Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Bowdoin College and a leader in the scholarly examination of samurai warfare) has written a coffee table book-Weapons & Fighting Techniques Of The Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD! It's loaded with lots of color photos, diagrams, and artwork, including step by step demonstrations of fighting with bows, swords, spears, harquebus, and more. I can’t say I’m very impressed with the maps. Overall, the graphic presentation is a lot like Kure Mitsuo’s Samurai: An Illustrated History-but with more impressive writing.

While I’ve only given it a quick read through (I’ll post more on it later), these are my initial impressions. As far as text goes, there is a LOT to chew on here for those interested in samurai combat and tactics. Conlan brings the same fresh perspective that he’s brought to his two former books (In Little Need of Divine Intervention and State Of War). Even those who have kept up-to-date with the newest findings among Japanese historians will find some startling new material. Conlan continues the fine work that he (along with Karl Friday) has done in exploding the old myths of samurai combat and bushido. Samurai warfare is shown to have had over 75% of its casualties caused by projectile weapons (this concept isn’t new, but more evidence is presented). The impact of the small Japanese horse on battle is examined in depth (along with the extreme reluctance of horse owners to risk them in close combat), further reinforcing the notion that there were few if any massed cavalry charges in Japanese battles, with cavalry usually only being used in close combat to go after an enemy that had broken and was in retreat. Another interesting point Conlan makes (using contemporary accounts) is that the small horses put brawny warriors at a disadvantage.

Conlan also reexamines some of the more popular accounts given in most history books and puts a new spin on them. His section on Nagashino reinvents the likely course of the battle, beginning with debunking the numbers of guns fielded by the Oda. While most of us on the Samurai Archives realize that the Oda/Tokugawa forces had 1000, not 3000 (normally the number seen in Western histories), guns, Conlan takes it a step further and puts forth the notion it fielded 500 or fewer. Using the results of recent excavations of the battlefield, he postulates that Nobunaga achieved such a decisive victory by using the Tokugawa army as bait, concealing the Oda forces, and unleashing a massive ambush on the Takeda when they attempted to envelope the Tokugawa. The famous notion of ‘three ranks’ of rotating gunfire is largely discounted as an Edo period fabrication. It’s fascinating stuff many people won’t agree with, but it’s a well supported and thought out argument. Likewise, Conlan has a different viewpoint of the Uesugi army than is normally seen-he considers them to be right there with the Oda in terms of innovative and effective use of gunfire (largely due to their contact and friendly relations with the Ashikaga Shogunate, gaining access through them to early gunpowder and firearm technology) rather than the ‘traditional’ cavalry based army it is usually portrayed as. He ascribes the collapse of the major Eastern daimyo (the Takeda, Hojo, and Imagawa) largely to their failure to incorporate firearms technology quickly enough. Conlan even makes corrections to common attributions, such as identifying what is perhaps the most famous portrait of Minamoto no Yoritomo (as seen here) to be in reality a portrait of Ashikaga Tadayoshi (this info has been around since the mid-nineties, but is the first time I've seen it presented in an English language book).

The book comes up short in at least one major area-being written for a more general audience, it has no footnotes or endnotes. This makes further examination or study of Conlan’s points difficult to impossible. For example, he twice brings up a female warrior, Tsuruhime, who according to oral legend fought in several battles in the inland sea around 1542 (there’s an existing suit of modified armor attributed to her). He also mentions that there is an account of a group of female cavalry that fought in western Japan in the 1350’s. I find this interesting, but a dead end-what account? Contemporary? A war tale? Temple tradition? Where do the accounts of Tsuruhime come from? Without the notes, it’s impossible to tell and evaluate these claims.

Still, it’s a book that anyone with a serious interest in samurai warfare, Japanese history, or weaponry should have on their bookshelf. It will be interesting to see how the book is received by the public-the general audience it is aimed for will likely not take kindly to having its romanticized preconceptions dismantled so effectively. It’s sure to cause some spirited debate and get its readers reconsidering their positions on a multitude of topics. At around $13 for a 225 page hardcover loaded with color shots, it’s an absolute steal. Buy it today-you won’t be sorry.