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Captain Gars

Lead AI Programmer
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Oct 4, 2010
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Hello and welcome back to another Sengoku developer diary. As you may have noticed there have been a shortage of these dev diaries for the last couple of weeks due to vacations and the internal team being busy putting the finishing touches to Sengoku as well as preparing several projects for the upcoming GamesCon. The topic this week will be civil war.

Even though large parts of Japan are already embroiled in a civil war when the game starts, an individual clan may also find itself in an internal civil war - a power struggle for the title of clan leader.

Unlike the kokujin and daimyo titles who are automatically passed on to your heir, the clan leader title is an elective title. So to make sure that your heir will continue to also lead the clan you need to make sure that he receives more votes than any other eligible character. Anyone who has received a vote is a pretender for the title and as such can decide to declare a civil war to challenge the reigning clan leader for his position. Even the nominated heir can do this should he be too impatient to take over.

Once a civil war is declared the clan will split in two halves, where the revolting side adds the name of the pretender's home province in front of the clan name, like Soejimo-Ashikaga. The clan crest will be the same as the original clan with the addition of two crossed swords on top of it.

sengoku_civil_war.jpg

The two halves will then fight it out with each other until one side either concedes defeat or are wiped out. Whatever side won the conflict then continues under the original clan name and clan crest.

Historically many of the clan civil wars were often triggered by a succession crisis, and at the start of the game there are already three of these going on. So if you start as the Hatakeyama, Takeda or the reigning shogun's clan, the Ashikaga, you will not only find yourself entangled in the Onin War that rages in the middle of Japan, but you also need to defeat a threat from within before both halves of the clan are overrun by power hungry neighbors taking advantage of your temporary weakness...
 
Civil wars within civil wars! Sounds like we'll have plenty of wars going on in Sengoku...
 
I wonder if it is possible that an internal civil war will permanently split a clan? Let´s assume that there is a civil war among the Ashikaga clan and now an ambitious and most powerful vassal from a different family, say Saito, will overtake Soejimo-Ashikaga clan. Is this going to end the civil war as the Soejimo-Ashikaga is crushed or will the Saito family continue the civil war in the name of Soejimo-Ashikaga?
 
About Takeda's civil war: Does this mean there are two Takeda "clans" we can start the game with
or is the game going to be ahistoricial so Takeda Shingen is the clan daimyo and his father is the rebellious one
as in history Shingen was the one who decided to rebel against his father.
 
About Takeda's civil war: Does this mean there are two Takeda "clans" we can start the game with
or is the game going to be ahistoricial so Takeda Shingen is the clan daimyo and his father is the rebellious one
as in history Shingen was the one who decided to rebel against his father.

the game starts before not only Shingen, but even his father is born..
 
Very nice :cool:

I like how the internal and external civil wars have the potential to interact, it could get appropriately chaotic.

Is there any way to encourage civil war in a neighbour? And how is the split of provinces, armies, courtiers etc decided when a civil war breaks out?
 
I wonder if it is possible that an internal civil war will permanently split a clan? Let´s assume that there is a civil war among the Ashikaga clan and now an ambitious and most powerful vassal from a different family, say Saito, will overtake Soejimo-Ashikaga clan. Is this going to end the civil war as the Soejimo-Ashikaga is crushed or will the Saito family continue the civil war in the name of Soejimo-Ashikaga?

An internal civil war ends if only one side remains. How this happens does not matter. So the war might end by one half being conquered by an outsider. So being in a civil war is dangerous as your clan becomes divided and thus weaker and can be more eaily overtaken by outsiders.

this is nice :) and takeda got better colors now than in the first dev diaries. :)

Yes, the previous setup were just using random colors. Now each dynasty have had their colors scripted in.

About Takeda's civil war: Does this mean there are two Takeda "clans" we can start the game with
or is the game going to be ahistoricial so Takeda Shingen is the clan daimyo and his father is the rebellious one
as in history Shingen was the one who decided to rebel against his father.

You can start as either side in the civil wars present at the start of the game.
 
Can there be multiple-way civil wars? Say, some faction in the clan rebels, does the rest of the clan immediately solidify for/against the rebels unconditionally? Or can another faction of the clan also rebel, giving us a three-way war? :D
 
Thank you for these DD's, Captain. They are very informative.

I'd like to encourage the team to continue posting more of these; even a brief paragraph or two about the game really helps increase one's interest.

Many previous games have focused on the battles themselves; this is the first I've seen that focuses on the dynastic ambitions & the politics driving this period of warfare. I think Paradox is carving out a unique niche with Sengoku, and it will be a grand addition to the games currently available on Japan. I'm definitely looking forward to it!
 
Can there be multiple-way civil wars? Say, some faction in the clan rebels, does the rest of the clan immediately solidify for/against the rebels unconditionally? Or can another faction of the clan also rebel, giving us a three-way war? :D

that would be nice.

also, let's say your son rebelled against you, and won, what does that mean? game over? will surrendering let's me continue or will it be a game over as well? i'm assuming being defeated means game over here

EDIT:

i'd also like to ask a few more questions if i may

1- about ronin generals that we can hire, hiring them makes them in our service until we dismiss them unlike ninja whom we use for a certain task, correct?

2- i'm not sure about this, i kinda of took it for granted before, but, i'm assuming Oda and Matsudaira are kokujin in the start of the game? former under Shiba, later under Hosokawa?

3- about the rebellious takeda faction, are you implying the eastern takeda clan is split in-half? or do you mean the other one all the way near Nagato area in the west? just asking to be sure...
 
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Can there be multiple-way civil wars? Say, some faction in the clan rebels, does the rest of the clan immediately solidify for/against the rebels unconditionally? Or can another faction of the clan also rebel, giving us a three-way war? :D

No, there can only be one civil war at any time. So if you also plan to start one, you have to sit it out and once the war is over you can declare another on the winner. You can also switch side during the war.

Thank you for these DD's, Captain. They are very informative.

I'd like to encourage the team to continue posting more of these; even a brief paragraph or two about the game really helps increase one's interest.

Well, Johan ordered me to do one for next week also, so I guess you'll get your wish ;)

also, let's say your son rebelled against you, and won, what does that mean? game over? will surrendering let's me continue or will it be a game over as well? i'm assuming being defeated means game over here

You can't declare a cilvil war against your father if he holds the clan leader title.

EDIT:

i'd also like to ask a few more questions if i may

1- about ronin generals that we can hire, hiring them makes them in our service until we dismiss them unlike ninja whom we use for a certain task, correct?

Yes, they stay in your severice unless you disband them or give them land.

2- i'm not sure about this, i kinda of took it for granted before, but, i'm assuming Oda and Matsudaira are kokujin in the start of the game? former under Shiba, later under Hosokawa?

Both those dynasties are in the game, starting out as smaller vassals.

3- about the rebellious takeda faction, are you implying the eastern takeda clan is split in-half? or do you mean the other one all the way near Nagato area in the west? just asking to be sure...

The two starting leaders are Takeda Nobumasa and Takeda Nobukata.
 
Can there be multiple-way civil wars? Say, some faction in the clan rebels, does the rest of the clan immediately solidify for/against the rebels unconditionally? Or can another faction of the clan also rebel, giving us a three-way war? :D

I was thinking exactly about this.

What would happen if someone inside the clan decided to create his own clan? :)
 
I was thinking exactly about this.

What would happen if someone inside the clan decided to create his own clan? :)

You can do that. There is both a diplomatic option and a plot to do that.