Whereas PC players in every single place are flocking again to Fallout after having a good time watching the brand new Amazon TV sequence, I am over right here quietly despairing that there is solely a single episode of FX’s Shogun left to air. The brand new adaptation of the 1975 novel has been so glorious I even thought of taking part in the Nineteen Eighties PC video games that attempted to place their very own spin on the story similar to our information author Joshua Wolens did, however then I got here to my senses and went on the lookout for choices that are not fairly as outdated as computer systems with 64 kilobytes of RAM.
And I discovered the right one within the first place I regarded: the Complete Battle: Shogun 2 Steam Workshop.
The Sekigahara Marketing campaign jumps Complete Battle: Shogun 2’s marketing campaign ahead in historical past roughly 50 years, to the 1590s. In the course of the time interval of the sport’s vanilla marketing campaign beginning within the 1540s, warlord Oda Nobunaga and his ally Tokugawa Ieyasu gained a string of victories till he was betrayed and assassinated by his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide; not lengthy after, Tokugawa allied with one other of Nobunaga’s allies, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to shortly defeated Mitsuhide. The 2 would later be enemies after which allies once more, and Hideyoshi would go on to unite Japan and finish the “warring states” interval of the final 100-odd years. The broad strokes of these occasions kind the backdrop for James Clavill’s novel, with all the foremost gamers having their names modified:Â
Tokugawa Ieyasu – ToranagaToyotomi Hideyoshi – Hidetoshi (The previous Taiko, solely seen in flashbacks)Hosokawa Gracia – MarikoHonda Masanobu – YabushigeIshida Mitsunari – Ishido
The occasions of Complete Battle: Shogun 2 allow you to play by the many years previous to the present and novel, then, however the Sekigahara Marketing campaign jumps as much as simply earlier than the occasions of the TV sequence. Must you select to take command of the Tokugawa clan, you may lead the real-life model of Toranaga to victory. Or, as a substitute, step into the footwear of Hidetoshi just a few years previous to his loss of life or management the clan of Toranaga’s most important rival from the council of regents within the present (Ishida Mitsunari is the real-life determine).
I put in the Sekigahara marketing campaign with a click on from the Steam Workshop and had no difficulty getting it working. My marketing campaign, sadly, did not fare as effectively. I am clearly not the savvy politician of the present’s model of Tokugawa, as a result of my preliminary makes an attempt to commerce with my neighbors—who I used to be on “very pleasant” phrases with—have been flatly rejected. They did not even need my youngest son as a hostage!
After I lastly declared battle on a close-by clan and marched my new military off to battle, I acquired Tokugawa killed by charging right into a unit of spearmen. Let’s hope his 18-year-old son, who’s out of the blue now the chief of my clan, is a bit more competent than his analogue within the TV sequence.
The Sekigahara marketing campaign mod makes just a few massive additions by way of models, that are coated on this information. It makes matchlock rifle models extra widespread and likewise gives every clan a hero unit, a function The Artistic Meeting would embrace itself with later Complete Battle video games. It does away with faith and replaces it with political alignment, with every clan leaning in direction of both Tokugawa or Toyotomi. It additionally replaces monks and missionaries with political brokers who’ve the identical perform, however it’s a pleasant parallel to the TV sequence, which focuses in so tightly on the intra-clan politics of the interval.
Whereas the mod has some optionally available faction packs that change who you may play as, I like to recommend simply sticking with the default set up to pit your self towards the primary gamers from Japanese historical past (and the novel’s alternate historical past). With only one episode left you could not get to see the aftermath of Toranaga’s ascendancy, however in Complete Battle you may reside it your self.