Fun and Games

A close up of my character, one Mifune Toshiro.
(Yup, named after the actor.)
Screenshot

The name of the game is Sengoku Dynasty, some folks like it, some don't. I'm in the former category. Or perhaps I should create a new category "people who are addicted to it." That's a little more accurate in my case.

Here's what the Steam website says about the game:

Build a life, cultivate your community and start a dynasty in a region once devastated by famine and war. Play solo or in co-op multiplayer and explore a beautiful open world. Gather resources, craft, hunt and build, then automate your village production to survive and grow.

Become a great leader either through combat or by building your economy. Experience the beauty of nature and take part in ancient rituals to uncover the mysteries of the divine. Sengoku Dynasty offers an immersive insight to life in medieval Japan: Choose your path as a Leader, Craftsman, Warrior, or Monk and embark on an epic journey.

It's an interesting balance of building up your village, populating it, providing jobs for your villagers, and keeping them happy. What keeps them happy? Well, food, drink, a roof over their heads, warmth, nice clothes, and health care. Yeah, that too. It's not like you have to buy them insurance or anything, but there are ways to gather herbs and mushrooms to make medicine, which keeps them happy.

Early on, when I was still learning the system, I tried to do a lot myself. Had my own farm fields, went hunting a lot, but never really had time to explore the world or really improve my villages, and the lives of the people who lived in them.

In one early game, when I had no clue what I was doing, the villages started deserting the village, em masse. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong, things got better. The people in this game will vote with their feet if you piss them off!

"Me" in front of one of the village workplaces, a hunting station.
(Yes, it's winter ...)
Screenshot

Now you start off wearing rags and working with stone tools, which you can make with sticks and rocks, which are laying around the world waiting for you to pick them up. I was getting my ass kicked until I got to the point where I could make very high quality steel. Then you can produce samurai armor and really excellent weapons.

There are bad guys in the game, if you set "raids" to "Off" they pretty much leave you alone. Which if you're into building your world (which I am), those raids are mostly a pain in the ass. You can have villagers work as "security guards" but they're like mall cops. In the first raid I experienced, I saw all of my "security" run away. I had to fight the raiders off all by my lonesome.

"Me" preparing to attack some "deserters."
Screenshot

There are seven types of bad guys in the game: samurai (who are very tough), ashigaru¹ (also tough), ronin², deserters (who are best described as ill-disciplined ashigaru), looters, bandits, and pirates. The last three aren't that tough and usually have very crappy weapons. Defeating any of these guys provides your character with loot and experience.

There are non-player characters (NPCs) in the game who will sell you stuff and give you "quests" to achieve. This is when I discovered another benefit of high quality steel, it is expensive and merchants are willing to buy it off you. Once you're rocking your inner capitalist things start to go very well. Didn't grow enough rice? You can buy it!

One drawback to capitalism in this game is that everything is done by "season," you know, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Winter is when nothing grows so you better have ample stocks on hand to keep your villagers happy.

Some people online have described this as a "boring survival game" and to some it probably is. I like the idea of finding the right balance between producing my own goods and buying what I need via having a healthy steel "industry." (It's all rather abstract in the game, you build something like a furnace, feed it raw materials and you extract steel. A lot of things are like that in the game.)

Hunting is interesting, there is also a spiritual aspect to the game. Think old time Japanese gods and kami³ - the people need it (and will walk if they don't get it!)

Oh yes, hunting. There are cranes, rabbits, boars, deer, foxes, wolves, and bears in the game for you to hunt and gather resources from. Meat to eat, from the cranes you get feathers as well (which you need to make arrows), and fur. Fur is important as you can use it to make leather and to make seed bags for your farmers. Beware of the bears and the boars and the wolves, they fight back!

It can get complicated but once you have a system, things start to run smoothly. Right now my people are happy, most of the major bad guy groups have been defeated, and now I can concentrate on making my villages "pretty." Paved roads, fancy tile roofs, fancy stone foundations and other tidbits.

"Me" standing on the main street of my latest village.
Screenshot

You can have up to six villages and 200 villagers depending on the "dynasty" level you reach, 19 being the highest from what I understand. I'm at 17. My character even has a wife now (don't tell The Missus Herself) and we have a child of unknown gender at this time, the game didn't tell me. All it told me is that it had to be educated at the monastery to which I had to bring certain things every season, ya know, to finance the kid's education.

Anyhoo, the damned game is addictive and I'm pretty immersed in it, which gives me something to do while I'm icing the knee. Now if I can only break the addiction when The Missus Herself returns from Korea. (BTW, all my villages have Korean names, even though it's set in Japan. Some of them are names of places I lived in Korea, others use the Korean name of something nearby.)

So yeah, gotta run, we ran out of rice seed and I need to rustle some up before spring.

Otherwise my villagers will walk out on me!

それでは、また！⁴

¹ Ashigaru (足軽) were professional or conscripted foot soldiers who formed the backbone of feudal Japanese armies.

² Ronin were masterless samurai in feudal Japan.

³ In Japanese, kami (神) most commonly translates to a god, deity, spirit, or sacred force, especially within Shinto, Japan's indigenous spiritual tradition.

⁴ See you later, in Japanese of course - Soredewa, mata!