gonna try to learn how to play nobunaga's ambition with just the genesis manual and see how that goes
he fell ill turn 1 so that's not the best start
man, for a "spreadsheet game", even on the easiest difficulty i'm still getting my ass kicked. i have to wonder how people playing these kinda games back before the widespread adoption of the internet did it (calling hint lines doesn't count even though it's a correct answer)
i played... probably about 10 games? some:
- ended before 5 years from bad luck and the CPUs ganging up on me
- lasted about 25 years and no players (including myself) were making visible moves for long periods, i would make a move and then i'd get my shit slapped into the grave by armies way larger than mine
- seemingly had a stronger start when i used turn 1 to spy on neighbors and see which one was most susceptible to a ninja assassination, then spend most of my money on buying the empty land when it worked
- ended before i even had my first turn because oda got sick (again), invaded, and i lost the fight lol
- had one or two fiefs being tossed around back and forth repeatedly and nobody (including me) was ever able to have enough time to fortify it before someone (including me) attacked it
and man, that push and pull really fucking gets you. nobunaga's ambition really makes me as a bigger think i have hope in the short term, whittling away at one guy suddenly conquering half the map in 5 years, then picks me up and power-bombs me into concrete. and i like that in a game, i'm waiting for the first time when i'll survive the power-bombing, then countering the grapple and DDTing kou shibusawa (metaphorically) into that blood-stained concrete. just uh. who knows how much more time that'll take lol
i mean, i think i have an idea of how the numbers impact the other numbers, the manual was... okay enough at telling me what each stat is? i guess the problem is i have trouble executing things at the proper time, cause it took me about 6 hours of play to realize what the "rates" on the right were, cause the manual didn't really say.
i also probably have no clue what the proper balance is for
- cultivating your army and keeping them trained and fed
- cultivating your streams of income and food
- keeping your citizens happy but not too happy or untaxed
- buying and selling things at good times depending on market rates (and also hoping the merchant is available)
- managing diplomacy with your neighbors (i am terrible at this because i have never once initiated a peace pact or marriage)
- keeping an eye on your neighbors and world events to look for times of Weakness, and learning when is and isn't the right time to strike on the weakness
- probably 3-5 other things i'm forgetting
i don't feel too bad about not getting it right, i watched a zero human player game play out, and in the end oda himself died of old age ~50 years into the game, having made very little progress towards japanese unification. one fella got real close, having all but one fief on the western edge of the map 65 years in, then he died of old age and suddenly the sole remaining holdout won the game after he joined the game late from taking the helm from someone else that died of illness. amazing.
i'm not sure if i want to admit defeat and look up strategies that other people have written or keep banging my head against a wall to get my first win, but at least it's probably easier than tetris the grandmaster