Beating Nobunaga's Ambition
While it's fresh in my mind, here was my strategy to beat the 50 fief scenario fairly efficiently.
- Select daimyo of fief 50 (Shizuma). He's surrounded by a bunch of weak daimyos you can take care of quickly.
- Jack up the tax rate to 65%, then give the peasants rice on the next turn to appease them. Do this for the next 10 fiefs; after that it's not as important since most are > 50% already. Sorry peasants, but it's wartime.
- Now take out daimyo 49 with one ninja. Next turn, send at least 40 gold to your home daimyo in fief 50.
- Next take out daimyo 48 with one ninja. Send gold to fief 50 (I think you need at least 60 gold total in fief 50 to win fief 47). Move fief 50's men to 48 ASAP or else you may get invaded by 46.
- Take out daimyo 47 with a ninja and give some gold to 50 (you need 90 gold to win the bidding for 45, I believe). Move 49's men to 47.
- Use the ninja one final time to win 45. Move some of the men now in 47 to 45 to keep both fiefs 39 and 46 at bay.
- Make sure your armies are assigned correctly. I suggest 1-2 in each of infantry units 4 and 5, the max you can have in the riflemen (unit 3), then split the rest between 1 and 2. The 20% across the board default is not ideal.
- Now, take a year or two to consolidate your holdings so far. Don't worry about building dams as typhoons are not frequent enough to be worth the investment. Also keep an eye on your peasants' loyalty and troops' morale. Keeping both above 80 seems to keep them in line.
- Go to war with 46 when you're ready. Since I don't bother to train the troops above 300-400 unless I have nothing else to do within a turn, you need a sizable advantage to win a battle. I suggest sending double the opposing army + 150 men to ensure both winning the battle and not getting attacked next round. Here in 46, there are no adjacent enemies, so double 46's army is sufficient.
- Now you have the entire island you started on. Take 3 years and really develop your fiefs. 45 and 47 need soldiers, while the rest should become your main money and rice machines. Arm and train your soldiers, but training too much takes a lot of time and hiring new men for a cannon fodder approach to warfare is much quicker.
- The market rate for rice is usually much higher than > 1.0, so selling excess rice generates cash fast. Don't sell all the rice in a front line fief, though, or you'll be invaded and lose automatically!
- When you're ready, attack fief 39 and begin your march eastward. Always keep all your soldiers on the front lines and add to your ranks through gold or selling rice. Note that fief 36 is adjacent to 41 in the south.
- Before you hire a lot of soldiers to a fief, jack up their morale through gold or rice. That way, after the new men are added, they won't revolt and kill a ton of your hard-earned soldiers.
- When you have 36 built up sufficiently, do a two-pronged invasion from 36 and 47 into the island they touch. At the same time, try to advance eastward above.
- At this point, you're in charge of almost 20 fiefs. The game starts to get much quicker now as you can throw all the resources that your safe fiefs make each fall into generating men and buying arms.
- By the time you get to 30 fiefs, you will have enough men that you can just start steamrolling through the remaining territories and win within 2-3 years. Since there's no point in developing your safe fiefs any more, you'll be passing a lot of turns since your front lines will have all the gold, men, and rice they need and can easily restock as needed.
- Get to fief 1 and dominate the daimyo with like 1500 men compared to his 100. Win the territory and unite Japan!
Comments
Seems....ambitious
Haha.
I've never gotten very far in this game, might have to give this a shot.
I need to play this one. Well, I need to play almost all Koei games come to think of it.
They take forever to learn, but they're all pretty damn good games, although the later ones are definitely better paced than the early ones. I've personally beaten four of them (Romance 1 and 2, Uncharted Waters, and Bandit Kings). Uncharted Waters leans more toward the RPG side than the rest of them. I highly recommend it, although the actual story is meh...I actually enjoy playing it for fun and profit more than playing to see the ending For the strategy games, Gemfire is probably the most accessible, but if you want to play through them all, I would start with Romance 1, Nobunaga 1 and Genghis Khan, simply because they are the slowest-paced and thus the hardest to get into, and are even harder once you've played the later games.
Awesome. I feel like I should play and beat one of these KOEI strategy games. They seem crazy difficult to get into for one that's not good with board-game-type rubrics.
Like I say, try Gemfire. As far as the Koei games go, it's by far the most accessible to newbies. And it's still deep enough to give you that "holy shit, I beat a Koei game" feeling
Originally posted by: the_wizard_666
Originally posted by: SoleGooseProductions
I need to play this one. Well, I need to play almost all Koei games come to think of it.
They take forever to learn, but they're all pretty damn good games, although the later ones are definitely better paced than the early ones. I've personally beaten four of them (Romance 1 and 2, Uncharted Waters, and Bandit Kings). Uncharted Waters leans more toward the RPG side than the rest of them. I highly recommend it, although the actual story is meh...I actually enjoy playing it for fun and profit more than playing to see the ending For the strategy games, Gemfire is probably the most accessible, but if you want to play through them all, I would start with Romance 1, Nobunaga 1 and Genghis Khan, simply because they are the slowest-paced and thus the hardest to get into, and are even harder once you've played the later games.
We played Gemfire for the SNES a lot as kids, and I bought Uncharted Waters II the day that it came out on the VC, hence the "almost." UWII was great, just a fun experience of exploring the world; never did beat it though. It is the harder core ones that I've always stayed away from. Thanks for the recommendations.
Gemfire is fun (I played it on the Genesis), though I found it too easy. I've always had warm feelings for the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it's hard for me to evaluate its learning curve since I've been playing it off and on practically since it came out.
I'm a big KOEI fan so I'll offer up a few thoughts on a few I've played.
Romance of the 3 Kingdoms ecent game I beat back in the day. I like the recruiting of Generals. Each General commands 100 men. You need to increase your popularity to get more Generals. The more Generals you have and can bring into battle the easier it is to roll over. Good starting KOEI game like NA.
Uncharted Waters: Beat it but I can't remember much about it lol. Was a great game when it came out but I'd recommend people pass on it and play the sequel UW:New Horizons.
Gemfire: Great game. Fairly quick and I've beaten it in an evening.
L'Empereur: have it on the shelf but barely touched it. I'd love to hear from someone who has played this one.
Bandit Kings of Ancient China : Very fun game and hard! I've never beaten it but I had the pleasure of playing a 2 player game and while I was close my friend took out the Emperor Gao Qui first. One of the neat things is there is a time limit to beat the game. Game turns are played over each month. After a certain # of years if you haven't defeated Gao Qui and unified China the Mongols will take over and invade ending the game. I've had a few games where I've been close and during the last year of so the Mongols would taunt me that they are about to take over. Last turn I'm about to attack Gao Qui and he runs away......then all the province insignia's change to the same......the Mongols have invaded Similar combat as Romance. You recruit Heroes(Generals in Romance) and assign a 100 men max. On the map you can start fires which is a cool tactic. Pricey game but one I'd recommend.
Genghis Khan: My all time fav! Very cheap game(similar to NA and Romance in price) I like this one the best for several reasons. Each season(year has 4) you can issue 3 commands to your home country(1 to countries under your control) Each command cost you points in some of your attributes(You have 6, Leadership, Charm, Planning, Judgement, Body, Battle) You can also "train" yourself to increase an attribute score if it has become to low. You have lots of flexibility with this system. I like how each year you can produce children. One could be your heir(must be a male of a certain age) in case you die or you marry off a daughter(must be a certain age to be able to marry off of the Groom will object!) to a high ranked leader you've captured to ensure his loyalty. Each time you conquer a country you're given a choice to try and recruit the leader or you can execute him(and he'll curse you if you do!) You need loyal General behind your lines producing men and pumping resources to your front lines. I tell everyone who has a Nes if you're going to try a KOEI game for the first time it's gotta be Genghis Khan. I fell in love with it over 30 years ago on my friend's dad's IBM 386 and I still fire it up once a year
Good strategy write up. I remember buying Nobunaga's Ambition when it came out and beating it several times back in the day. I always played the 50 fief scenario as Uesugi in fief 10. I always changed my army to 1% in the command unit(infantry), 79% in unit 2(Cavalry) and 20%(max allowed in the game) to the rifle unit(never put anything in Infantry Unit's 4 or 5). I'd use the Cavalry unit to hunt down the enemy command unit(usually the AI had an even 20% distribution in each of the 5 units) while hiding my command unit in the corner. Tried it again a few years ago and couldn't get into it to give it another play through so I sold it off.
I'm a big KOEI fan so I'll offer up a few thoughts on a few I've played.
Romance of the 3 Kingdoms ecent game I beat back in the day. I like the recruiting of Generals. Each General commands 100 men. You need to increase your popularity to get more Generals. The more Generals you have and can bring into battle the easier it is to roll over. Good starting KOEI game like NA.
Uncharted Waters: Beat it but I can't remember much about it lol. Was a great game when it came out but I'd recommend people pass on it and play the sequel UW:New Horizons.
Gemfire: Great game. Fairly quick and I've beaten it in an evening.
L'Empereur: have it on the shelf but barely touched it. I'd love to hear from someone who has played this one.
Bandit Kings of Ancient China : Very fun game and hard! I've never beaten it but I had the pleasure of playing a 2 player game and while I was close my friend took out the Emperor Gao Qui first. One of the neat things is there is a time limit to beat the game. Game turns are played over each month. After a certain # of years if you haven't defeated Gao Qui and unified China the Mongols will take over and invade ending the game. I've had a few games where I've been close and during the last year of so the Mongols would taunt me that they are about to take over. Last turn I'm about to attack Gao Qui and he runs away......then all the province insignia's change to the same......the Mongols have invaded Similar combat as Romance. You recruit Heroes(Generals in Romance) and assign a 100 men max. On the map you can start fires which is a cool tactic. Pricey game but one I'd recommend.
Genghis Khan: My all time fav! Very cheap game(similar to NA and Romance in price) I like this one the best for several reasons. Each season(year has 4) you can issue 3 commands to your home country(1 to countries under your control) Each command cost you points in some of your attributes(You have 6, Leadership, Charm, Planning, Judgement, Body, Battle) You can also "train" yourself to increase an attribute score if it has become to low. You have lots of flexibility with this system. I like how each year you can produce children. One could be your heir(must be a male of a certain age) in case you die or you marry off a daughter(must be a certain age to be able to marry off of the Groom will object!) to a high ranked leader you've captured to ensure his loyalty. Each time you conquer a country you're given a choice to try and recruit the leader or you can execute him(and he'll curse you if you do!) You need loyal General behind your lines producing men and pumping resources to your front lines. I tell everyone who has a Nes if you're going to try a KOEI game for the first time it's gotta be Genghis Khan. I fell in love with it over 30 years ago on my friend's dad's IBM 386 and I still fire it up once a year
I'm not big on Koei myself - but I do love a good game of Genghis Khan!
Thanks for the feedback. If anyone else gives it a try soon, let us know how it goes.