SENGOKU: ROAD TO UNIFICATION 1.7.0 - PLAYER GUIDE Created by Heisenberg Unite Japan: hold all 38 provinces. You lose if your last province falls or a third succession breaks the clan. Play alone, with up to nine people taking turns at one computer, or just watch the computer clans fight it out; the computer leads every clan nobody plays. Multi-Player games, with other people online, are played in the browser edition at https://games.theiguru.au/sengoku/ - both editions have the same rules, screens and music. The game opens with the credits and the title picture; each moves on by itself after a few seconds, or at a key or a click. STARTING A CAMPAIGN Continue the campaign as it was at the end of the last month played (shown when there is an autosave). New campaign choose a scenario, how many players, each player's fief and lord, and how fierce the clans are, then confirm. Quick start Oda Nomura, 1560, rivals Normal. Load campaign one of your five save slots, or Import from a file. How to play the rules below, in the game. Scenarios 1560 The age of rivals: 28 clans, one province or more each. 1582 The late wars: the Oda hold the heart of Japan. How many players (0-9)? Press a number; ? shows the choices: 0 nobody: the computer leads every clan while you watch 1 one player 2 to 9 players taking turns at this computer Each player in turn chooses a fief on the map (the map on the left, the provinces and their daimyo on the right); the fief's clan is theirs and the fief is the lord's seat. A clan another player has taken cannot be chosen. Then: "Do you want to change your name?" (Y types a new one), and the lord's politics, war, charisma and ambition are set one at a time: each number counts quickly through the range the computer's lords have (politics and war 55 to 90, charisma 50 to 90, ambition 40 to 90), and Space (or a click) stops it at the number showing. Y keeps the four, N counts them again. Last comes "Do you want to watch the other fiefs' wars on the battle field?" (this can be changed later in Other > Settings). Rivals Gentle rivals seldom march Easy rivals march now and then Normal rivals march when they are strong Hard rivals march often Ruthless rivals march at every chance THE MAIN SCREEN The four panels show the selected province (top left), your lord (middle left), the map (top right) and the governor of the selected province (bottom left). Click a province on the map, or use the arrow keys, to see it. Tab steps through your own provinces. Red is your clan; the gold outline is the province you are looking at; the white keep beside a province number marks your lord's seat. Press 0 to 9, or click: 1 Move officers (with their men, gold and rice) to a bordering province of your own; gold or rice to any province of your own (chosen on the map) 2 Develop cultivate land, flood control, develop town, reinforce castle 3 Trade sell rice, buy rice, buy arms, borrow gold, settle debts 4 View province data, officer roster, territory list, the daimyo, relations and debts, the chronicle 5 Personnel search for ronin, recruit officers, dismiss officers, give rewards, train officers, appoint governor, delegate or rule 6 Diplomacy arrange a marriage, propose alliance, threaten, send tribute, break alliance, answer offers (from your lord's seat) 7 Spy spread war rumours, incite uprising, assassinate 8 Military hire soldiers, reassign men, train men, war 9 Other save, load, new campaign, quit (to the title screen), display time, animation, sound, hex battles, settings, how to play 0 Rest end this province's turn Esc opens Other. Each order asks which officer carries it out, and an amount or a target when it needs one; your advisor gives his view, and you authorize it or cancel. Alt+Enter switches to full screen. Each of your provinces gives its orders in turn, your lord's seat first (a delegated province has no turn: its governor gives them); "Orders" on the province panel marks the one whose turn it is. 0 Rest ends its turn and moves to the next. After your last province the month ends (with several players: the next player's turn; after the last, the month ends). With several players, a hand-over screen comes between turns so that nobody sees another's provinces. The players take their turns in the clans' order; a player whose clan has fallen is passed over. OFFICERS Each province has a governor and up to seven samurai (eight officers at most). Every officer has his own politics, war, charisma, ambition and loyalty, his own body points (BP), and leads his own men, with their skill and arms, in one kind of unit: cavalry, infantry or rifles. A province's men are its officers' men together, at most 100. View > Officer roster shows them all: S sorts the roster (by name, politics, war, charisma, loyalty, men or BP), Enter or V shows an officer's page. Every order is carried out by an officer you appoint; those without the BP it needs are shown in red, and one with exactly enough may act. BP come back each month (10 and three tenths of politics, up to 200), so a rested officer can take on the costly orders. The advisor, the officer of the province with the most politics, says what he thinks before you authorize an order (in green); cancelling costs nothing. The result shows the values before and after, and goes into the chronicle (View > Chronicle). Some orders take several officers: Enter marks or unmarks each, and D is done (training men, moving officers, marching to war). Ronin are samurai of no clan, with a band of men, who wait in a province; they come and go. Disloyal samurai may leave, with their men. ORDERS AND WHAT THEY COST Move (20 BP each): officers go to a bordering province of your own with their men, and any gold and rice you send with them. Gold and rice together go to any province of your own, chosen on the map, in an officer's care. Someone must stay in every province. When your lord moves, his seat moves with him. Develop (50 BP each, and the gold you spend): cultivate land raises the land under the plough, up to what the province can cultivate, and the rice harvest and support, but weakens the flood banks; flood control strengthens them (the river decides by how much); develop town raises trade and gold; reinforce castle helps in battle. A handful of gold does nothing. The result rises on the screen (Other > Animation). Trade (40 BP): sell rice, buy rice or buy arms at the market's price, which changes every month (rice is cheap after the autumn harvest). A trader with good politics gets a better price, and the price and the total are shown before you agree. Arms go to every officer's men. Borrow gold from the moneylenders, up to 300 for each province you hold: they add a tenth to the debt when they lend (borrow 62, owe 68), with no interest after. Settle debts pays back all the province can, with no officer needed. A clan that owes more than it may (it has lost land) is pressed each month, and support falls in every province. Personnel: search for ronin (70 BP; if one is found you see him and choose whether to take him into service, with his men); recruit officers, the samurai of a bordering rival (70 BP and the gold you offer, spent either way; he brings his men); dismiss officers (your lord, 20 BP; the officer answers first; he and his men leave); give rewards (the governor, 20 BP: 10 gold gives 5 loyalty); train officers in politics, war or charisma (90 BP and 30 gold, 2 points); appoint a governor in any of your provinces (your lord, from his seat, no BP), and then rule it yourself or delegate it; delegate or rule changes it later. A delegated governor gives the province's orders each month as he sees fit, well if he is loyal, and an ambitious, disloyal one may keep some gold; a delegated province has no turn of its own. Each of his orders goes into the chronicle. Power wears down an ambitious governor's loyalty, and a disloyal, ambitious one may rebel and take the province over to a neighbouring clan: the advisor and the officer's page say how reliable he would be. Officers whose loyalty falls low are reported each month, and when a new head takes over the clan his officers' loyalty wavers. Diplomacy, from your lord's seat, by an envoy you choose there: arrange a marriage (100 BP and 100 gold, given back if refused; 24 months), propose an alliance (100 BP; 12 months), threaten (60 BP: a weaker clan may pay, and a small one may submit; a refusal sours relations), send tribute (80 BP: relations improve, and an alliance may follow; a small gift hardly impresses), break an alliance (the clan is angered and your other allies trust you less), and answer the envoys who come to you (accept, refuse, or imprison the envoy) in the month they come; each offer is put to you when the month begins (Decide later leaves it under Diplomacy), and a tribute may ask for six months of peace in return. A marriage weds the officer you choose to the daughter of the other clan's ruler; the tie lasts through saves and successions, keeps relations warm, and shows on the officer's page and in the list of clans. You are told a month before an alliance ends and when it ends, and a friendly ally may send an envoy to renew it. The list of clans shows each one's head, provinces, men, your relations with them (0 hatred, 50 indifference, 100 friendship; they drift back towards 50), any alliance, and for the clan under the cursor its marriages with you and the last events between you. Allies do not attack each other. Spy: spread war rumours (100 BP) in a rival province that a third clan is preparing to attack it: their alliance breaks and their relations fall; incite uprising (90 BP and 10 gold) lowers its support, and may set the peasants on its stores; assassinate (100 BP) its governor. A failed agent may be discovered: the clan is angered, and the agent may be put to death. Spies are not sent against allies. If a player's lord is killed, the clan has a new head: one more succession. Military: hire soldiers (50 BP: 1 gold and 10 people each, and support falls; you give the new men to officers; they are untrained and unarmed); reassign men (the governor, 20 BP: pick an officer and his men go back to the pool, then set how many he leads, until the pool is empty); train men (40 BP for each officer you mark: skill rises by 2 and a point for every 25 of his war); war (below). THE SEASONS In month 3 (spring) gold comes in from trade; in month 9 (autumn) the rice harvest. Soldiers eat into both. Floods come with the rains of months 5 to 7 and typhoons in summer; good flood protection keeps the fields. Unhappy provinces rise up. Envoys of weaker neighbours bring tribute or offer alliances; strong, hostile ones mass on your borders. YOUR LORD AND HIS SEAT Your lord governs from his seat. If the seat falls, he escapes to another of the clan's provinces. If he dies, an heir succeeds him; a third succession breaks the clan. At the end of a campaign a summary shows how long it lasted, the provinces, soldiers and officers held, the battles won and lost, your rulers and your major battles; then the map as the campaign left it. THE CHRONICLE AND THE OVERVIEWS View > Chronicle keeps the campaign's news, orders, battles and decisions; it goes with the campaign into its saves. The territory list shows how each of your provinces is ruled (seat, delegated or direct) and warns of unrest or a shortage of rice; the line under it names the governor of the province under the cursor, with his loyalty and ambition. WAR AND BATTLES Military > War: choose a bordering rival, mark the officers who march (someone must stay), choose the commander from them, and how much gold (for bribes) and rice the army carries. Each of them pays 40 BP. With Other > Hex battles off, the computer fights your wars for you and you see the result. Every officer leads his own unit: C cavalry, I infantry, R rifles, with his men's number under it; the pennant marks a commander. The field has plains, a road, forests, hills, mountains, a river crossed by a bridge and a ford, and the castle, where the defenders stand. First place your units in the lit hexes on the left. T shows the ground alone (any key brings the units back). Then each day has a morning, an afternoon and a night, when the field turns dark and rifles cannot fire. In each phase every unit of yours acts once, then the enemy's. Click one of your units, then a lit hex to move. Cavalry have 6 movement points, infantry and rifles 4: a road costs 1, plain or castle 2, forest or hill 3 (cavalry 4 in a forest); mountains and the river cannot be crossed. A unit may stop early, and may still attack after moving; with no points left and nobody to attack, its action is over. To attack, choose the method, then click the enemy: 1 ordinary (an enemy next to the unit); 2 rifle fire (rifles, one or two hexes away, not after moving, no reply); 3 charge (cavalry, not from a forest or hill nor into the castle; twice as hard both ways); 4 ambush (infantry who halted in a forest: twice as hard, no reply). Forests, hills and the castle protect those in them. M and A remind you how. H halts (in a forest the unit lies hidden). F flees to a province you choose; your commander fleeing withdraws the whole army (X does the same). V shows a unit in full. S Spy: bribe an enemy unit (not their commander) with the gold the army carries, and it may change sides; or call in a reserve, a samurai with men from a province of yours that borders the battle. Tab picks your next unit; the arrows move the cursor (passing over a unit does not choose it), and Enter or a click on one of your units chooses it, or acts with the chosen one. Both armies eat rice every day; when yours runs out the attack fails, and you are warned before. Destroy the enemy commander to win; lose yours and the battle is lost. The defender holds after 30 days. Afterwards a page tells every officer's fate: the victors hold the province (the commander governs it, with the rice and gold left); after a defeat the army falls back where the commander chose, and some may be killed, captured or desert, the disloyal first. A summary heads the page: the men on both sides and what is left of them, the rice and gold carried, eaten, spent and returned, and the province. After a conquest you choose who governs it (Esc keeps the commander); if your lord led the army he governs it himself, and nothing is asked. DEFENDING YOUR PROVINCES When a computer clan marches on one of your provinces, you are asked after the month's wars: lead the defence yourself, or leave it to your generals. Leading it, you fight on the same field from the castle: the enemy deploys and moves first in each phase, then you move your units (M, A, H, V and T as above). S calls in a reserve from a bordering province of yours; defenders do not bribe. F (or X, or Esc) gives up the castle: your army leaves with its men and your lord goes to another of your provinces. The result goes into the month's news and every officer's fate is shown. Closing the window during a defence leaves it to your generals. The computer clans fight their wars on the same field, the computer leading both sides. With "Watch other fiefs' wars" on (Other > Settings), each one is shown at the end of the month: Enter skips a battle, Esc skips the rest. WATCHING With nobody playing, the months go by on their own: the map, the clans by size and the news. Space pauses, + and - change the speed, Enter plays the next month now, Esc stops. SAVING Other > Save keeps up to five campaigns; the previous save of a slot is kept as .bak. The game also saves itself at the end of every month (autosave.sav), and Continue on the title screen picks up from there; the autosave is removed when a campaign is won or lost. You are asked to save before quitting, loading or starting anew. Every line of a save is checked when it is loaded, so a damaged or cut-short file is refused. Export to a file, the last item of the Save list, writes the campaign to a .sav file of your choice (offered as, for example, sengoku-oda-1560-04.sav). Import from a file, the last item of the Load list, opens one and plays it; as with Load, you are asked to save unsaved changes first. An export is a copy to keep or move; it does not count as a save of the campaign. Saves are kept in the "saves" folder of Linux: ~/.config/Sengoku - Road to Unification/ Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Sengoku - Road to Unification\ as slot1.sav to slot5.sav and autosave.sav. Music and watching settings are kept in options.ini in the folder above. A game nobody plays is not saved. Saves are in format 7, the same text format as the browser edition: the officers with their numbers, delegated provinces, relations, the market prices, the battles won and lost, debts, the offers waiting, marriages, diplomatic events, battles, rulers and the chronicle. Saves from earlier releases (formats 1 to 6) still load. With several players, a save keeps whose turn it is. The browser edition has Export and Import too: a file exported there imports here, and the reverse, so a campaign can move between the browser and the desktop. THE RULES TABLE The body point costs and other balancing values can be changed without rebuilding the game: copy rules-example.ini (Linux: /usr/share/doc/sengoku/; the source has it in docs/) to rules.ini in the folder that holds options.ini, and change the values you want. Values out of range are kept within limits, and unknown keys are ignored. Online games, played in the browser edition, always use the standard table. MUSIC An original looping tune on the Japanese five-note "in" scale. Other > Settings turns it off or sets its volume; Restore defaults puts every setting back. On Linux it plays through pw-play, paplay or aplay, whichever is installed. GNU GPL version 2 or later. Copyright (C) 2026 Michael Slater. Provided WITHOUT WARRANTY. See COPYING and NOTICE.txt.