Nobunaga's Ambition: 1HN Confusion in Defeat

When I was an undergrad, I studied Japanese language, history, and culture. Admittedly, at the time, I wasn't much of a language student and much preferred the elective history classes I took over learning kanji and memorizing dialogues. One day, while I was browsing the game stacks at Electronics Boutique, I happened upon Nobunaga's Ambition, which instantly caught my eye because of my appreciation of Japanese history, particularly the warlord period before the Edo/Tokugawa period (1600-1868). It was during that period when Japan's three greatest warlords brought about events that would unify the Japanese archipelago. This game focuses on the time period of Oda Nobunaga's rise to power. He was the first of the three great warlords (who were technically not "shogun," but are often considered as such) and was probably the most fascinating of the three for his penchant for megalomania and ambition to establish himself as a leader to be worshipped.

Even knowing a little about Oda Nobunaga should interest anyone in a strategy game about conquering domains, forming alliances through marriage, and conducting trade, which is what Nobunaga's Ambition promised as a game. I remember when I first opened the game and inserted it into my Sega Genesis. I actually perused the rather substantial manual -- I didn't just scan it, but read it deeply. I started the game and duly chose to be Oda Nobunaga. I was assaulted with the bright 16-bit glory of Genesis graphics and inundated with information about my domain and my military strength. Things started out so well and I was fully prepared to engage in hours of strategic gaming...

Except it didn't last hours. In fact, my first game didn't last more than 10 minutes because in short order I invaded a neighbor, got routed, tried forming an alliance and failed, and then got routed by another neighbor who took advantage of my weakness. I recall not being upset or frustrated, but confused. What just happened? What on Earth could I have done?

Well, I tried again... and again. At the start of one game, I tried to boost my rice production and go with a trade strategy, but I would inevitably be tempted to expand militarily and be summarily slapped down. I would then try to stockpile my fighting units only to be taken out from all sides due to my refusal to act. There were some strategies I refused to try because I didn't agree with them, and probably failed as a result; one such tactic was marrying into alliances. Because it seemed dishonest to me to establish alliances only to break them, I never tried that approach, though it could have been a route to victory. (Actually, Japan was largely unified through alliances, diplomacy, and the Battle of Sekigahara, which wasn't a direct military victory for Tokugawa Ieyasu as much as it stoked the formation of a political coalition among the victorious domains). Anyway, I tried several tactics and avoided other tactics, but the results were always the same: failure to advance.

The common response to repeated failure in strategy games is to seek out whatever tips, tricks, and information out there to play and win, but because I was more of a sports gamer at the time, I didn't have the patience to find strategy guides to win at what was essentially a resource management game. In little time, I shelved the game, never to crack the case again. Today, I still own Nobunaga's Ambition. As I write this, I think about how my new-found interest in Euro-style board games, which has stoked a parallel interest in Nobunaga's Ambition. Perhaps I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with this game: as a 22-year-old sports fan, the game was too slow and too opaque for me to sit back and enjoy it. However, as a 38-year-old board gamer, I think I'll try this game again. With the Internet and mounds of potential strategy information at my disposal, I can approach the game with a renewed vigor, with optimism, and with an appreciation of the management of resources. Stay tuned for Part II, when I give Nobunaga's Ambition another try...

Unplugging: An New Old Trend in Gaming and Communication

As I finished writing what was going to be my newest blog post this morning, I realized that my post was too lengthy to be a post, so I decided to publish it as an article on Epinions:

Unplugging: An New Old Trend in Gaming and Communication

In general, this article reflects my views on gaming, challenging people to step away from Internet-based and even technology-based entertainment in favor of face-to-face interaction and board games. This article seems to run counter to my enjoyment of video games, but I proposed a moderate approach to video games in which we play video games but only for a set amount of time and with people in the same room. For example, arcades twenty years ago were social hubs of interpersonal interaction and shared physical space, even if people were facing video game screens.

Anyway, to summarize, I support more board game time and face-to-face time, and less Internet time and social media time. Slowly, methodically, we are being enfolded into a electrically-powered technological collective that both shatters physical space and creates binary walls. We must overcome these walls and realize physical space once again, but endeavor to obliterate physical space by simply stepping away from screens and stepping towards each other.

Stratego: 1HN Childhood Dream Fulfilled

As my legions of fans know (okay, I DON'T have legions of fans, but that phrase sounds pleasantly grandiose), I was, and still am, an only child. I say this because I grew up with few playmates. Not so surprisingly, this had its advantages: I always knew where my stuff was, I tended to keep all the weapons to my GI Joes and Transformers and not have them lost by a younger sibling, and I only had myself to blame if a game or toy was damaged or wrecked. Sadly, though, being an only child had its downsides, namely the aforementioned lack of playmates or opponent for games. This was especially tragic because I loved, and still love, board games. I used to collect all the classics, like Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Advance to Boardwalk, Doorways to Adventure (a VCR game!), Chess, and Stratego. Now, you might be asking yourself, "What about your mom and dad? Didn't they play board games?" To be fair, I may not have asked them to play, but as I got older they didn't seem to enjoy playing games. Anyway, because I was an only child, I had few opponents except for friends. The other tragic thing about me was that I despised losing, and one has to be accustomed to losing at board games because results often do not favor oneself. That's another story.

One game that I collected that I mentioned earlier is Stratego. It's a game that involves two armies on a map with grid lines. Both players place the soldiers, bombs, and flag of their armies on squares in the back four rows of their sides of the board. Soldiers occupy many ranks from number 9 (which is a Scout) to number 1 (which is the field marshal). Pieces are deployed with their backs facing their opponent, so one never finds out what his opponent's pieces are until one of his pieces engages one of his opponent's pieces. That's how the game works essentially; two pieces engage in combat and the lower-numbered (or higher-ranking) piece wins. The object of the game is simple: capture the opponent's flag whilst avoiding bombs (which can only be defused and removed by the Miner, which is number 8) and higher-ranked pieces. A pleasing twist is the Spy, which cannot eliminate any other piece but the opponent's field marshal; the Spy can play a key end-game role, especially if the opponent favors an attack spearheaded by good ol' Number 1.

The wonderful aspects of Stratego are the placement of one's pieces and the various strategies one can employ to seek the opponent's flag. By this, flag placement is most crucial; does one place the flag in a back corner and surround it with bombs (even though this is directly out of the Stratego 101 textbook), or does one place the flag away from a cluster of bombs to fool the opponent into going for the cluster of bombs (which may also be a basic approach)? Does one lead a wedge attack with the field marshal, or does one use Scouts to feel out the opponent's front line and then send stronger troops in pairs or groups? Does one use the field marshal to defend the flag?

I'm certain there are numerous tactics one can apply and various websites that explain each tactic, but I won't delve into those here because, frankly, I'm not well-versed in all the strategies. Instead, the focus of this article is on the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Now that I am a father with two boys, I not only have the opportunity to watch them play Stratego with the same board and pieces that I collected as a youngster, but I also have opponents against whom I can play; and, I must say that my sons are the best opponents because I like to watch them beat me and I also enjoy winning against them in hard-fought matches. Stratego, along with many of the board games I still own from my childhood days, embodies what it means to live retro: to appreciate the utility and  fun of the old stuff. If you are in your teens or twenties now, save your board games, card games, and video games; though they may not have much collector value, they will have replay value with your descendants. Moreover, if you are in your thirties or older, do not be afraid to dust off the old games for your young ones. For me, dusting off those old games and playing with my sons fulfilled that childhood dream of having ready opponents that I would be as happy to lose against as I would be to win against.