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Johan

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Welcome back to another development diary about Sengoku. This week, I'm back at posting it. During the next few weeks you'll see handson previews appearing, as we've given out preview copies to the press.

Today we'll talk about the important concept of honour.

In Europe we have chivalry and Japan they had the way of the warrior, Bushido. A code of honour and duty that spelt out how a samurai was supposed to live. However, like European chivalry the violence of the Sengoku era forced interesting interpretations on the code of Bushido. The era is filled with betrayals, how Togugawa went from being most loyal guardian of Hideyoshi’s son and heir to Shogun was rather creative interpretation.

Our solution is to make honour a currency in Sengoku. Actions that are considered bad, like attacking your evil neighbours, which in reality means advances your chances to win, the game cost honour. The honour cost for declaring war on someone depends on your relationship to them. Attacking someone you dislike is not as bad as attacking your best friend. While things are considered good, like giving out land to worthless good for nothing retainers, which sort of slow you down, gain you honour.

If you go below zero honour, it is an automatical game-over. If you are low on honour and want to restore some, and have some heirs, you can always commit seppuku, which will restore some honor to your family.


sengoku_15_july.jpg
 
Sounds like it's the same as prestige in Crusader Kings, with a with modifications to better fit the Sengoku period. Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

Not really. In CK you can continue to play with a Prestige deficit, it will come back up in time.

In Sengoku, no honour means death, game over, you go the way of Matsunaga Hisahide: blowing up in your castle with your teapot and all your wives and children destroyed.
 
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So what happens to the provinces belonging to a clan with a negative honour? Will the province be taken over by a vassal or something?
 
That's what I'm wondering. I find the "immediate game over" a bit gamey. I'd prefer to have hell spectacularly break loose: your vassals suddenly revolt, your peasant refuse to pay taxes, your children abandon you to save their hides, and you are either banished to Suruga (like Takeda Nobutora) or physically destroyed (like Oda Nobunaga).
 
As far as I remember correctly, we have no Bad Boy Rate in Sengoku, so "honor" seems to be an understandable way to solve too rapid expansion of a clan.
 
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Not really. In CK you can continue to play with a Prestige deficit, it will come back up in time.

In Sengoku, no honour means death, game over, you go the way of Matsunaga Hisahide: blowing up in your castle with your teapot and all your wives and children destroyed.

Well, that's what I meant by "modifications to better fit the Sengoku period." I suppose the difference in opinion stems from how important you view the changes to be.
 
Well, in comparison to CK, honor in Sengoku offers a different challenge.

In both CK and Sengoku, honor/prestige is used as a currency. In CK, you spend it to generate claims. In that sense, they are similar.

However, in CK, a ruler that is a liability is someone you are just stuck with. Remember those inbred, heretical, psychotic, and unfortunately very healthy rulers you would get sometimes? How many players of CK wished for a way to just kill them off manually? Indeed, that was part of the challenge of CK: can you weather the years of gameplay with those tediously bad rulers and hold everything together.

In Sengoku, it looks like ritual suicide is an option when a ruler becomes a liability. This offers more flexibility than CK. On the other hand, I am guessing that there are limitations on when and how often your clan leaders can off themselves. It might be something that is only allowed then your honor is so low that you are in danger of losing.

I do wonder one thing. Will AI clans face this same choice? Or will AI clans just avoid low honor situations altogether. I ask because it might make the game much more difficult if the AI is willing to off its own rulers strategically in order to keep honor at acceptable levels.

Related question: What happens when an AI clan goes below zero honor? Or will the AI always kill itself to prevent this outcome?
 
I really like the idea that it causes a game-over. It seems to represent how, if your dynasty was perceived by the rest of Japan as completely dishonorable scum, it would essentially be over for you.

Assuming it's balanced properly, it's a good natural brake on a human player's ability to expand and overwhelm his AI foes. Very nice. I'm several notches more interested in this game. Due to my lack of knowledge of Japanese history of this era (I've always been more of a Western history aficionado), Sengoku was third on my list of upcoming Paradox games, after CK2 and MM. These dev diaries have moved it up to second. (Sorry, but Crusader Kings 2 is always going to be first!)

I'm looking forward. Well done.
 
Strange strange far east.

Low on honor?
kill yourself!
????
PROFIT!
 
There is something very, very off about this game mechanic, at least the way you've described it so far. You've reduced the most dramatic decision a person can make to something that's basically just plain useful. Maybe there's stuff you simply haven't told us yet - perhaps the transition from one ruler to another carries with it so much risk that the player killing off his current ruler can actually suffer as a consequence. As it is, it sounds lame. If, like in Crusader Kings, there are some mechanics to reduce a character's stats as they age... well, apart from the obvious need to have an heir ready to go, I can't see the benefit of not having my ruler kill himself around the age of 40.

I recall there were many situations in Crusader Kings where I desperately wished for such a button, to get rid of a crazy/excommunicated/otherwise incapacitated monarch, thus terminating the vassal whack-a-mole and getting on with the game. The fact that such a button would have been useful, though, does not at all mean it should be there.
 
An interesting, and very welcome, new take on the old badboy and infamy systems. Though I hope that a) the player doesn't find it too easy to keep their honour up and b) the ai doesn't find it too hard.

Only it's not CK1, it's Sengoku. I reckon it has it's place not as player convenience but as historically & culturally as it actually was.

And please people, have some respect, don't call it 'kill/off himself', call it ritual or ceremony and people would still understand what you are talking about.

Personally I find it more offensive to deem it as an honourable ceremony/ritual, although I can accept the reality of the cukture in that period. Hopefully this isn't going to be a hot button issue like HoI gets though, and other people can accept that too, within that context.
 
Strange strange far east.

Low on honor?
kill yourself!
????
PROFIT!
+1.
And please people, have some respect, don't call it 'kill/off himself', call it ritual or ceremony and people would still understand what you are talking about.
please people, have some respect, don't call apple "an apple" call it Malus domestica,
cause that is how biologist call it?
Umm, NO.
Personally I find it more offensive to deem it as an honourable ceremony/ritua
+1 here.
What is so "honorable" about creating a mess and than ragequiting instread of fixing it?
Should we deem Hitler`s suicide as a honorable ritual?