Sengoku - Development Diary #3 - Characters

[Johan]

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another development diary. It is very exciting watching the team work hard at it, and seeing all the new features coming in. This week the guys wrapped up the military system, and I also saw the first versions of how ninjas wll work.

Since Sengoku is based on the experiences of Crusader Kings and Rome, it is definitely a character driven game. So in this development diary I'll talk a little about how the characters work in the game. The characters in the game is the core, the things that everything revolve around. In EU we have the countries as the core, in Victoria its the pops, in HoI3 its your armies, while here we have the characters.

As you may notice on the screenshot here, we are using a similar technique as in Crusader Kings 2. There is DNA that descibes how characters look like, and children will inherit those from their parents, which will make people in a families resemble each other. We've been aiming for a stylistic approach on the look of the characters, which will create a specific feeling when playing.

Sengoku has in its historical setup a number of famous characters from the period. The two big war lords at the time were the bitter enemies Yamana Sozen and Hosokawa Katsumoto who would lead the Western and Eastern armies of the Onin War. There's Akamatsu Masanori, who would become one of Hosokawa's leading generals who fought to restore his family's standing, and who starts out as a small vassal. You have the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who is in a dispute with his brother Ashikaga Yoshimi over who will inherit the shogun title, Yoshimi or Yoshimasa's infant son.

Each character have three specific attirbutes that defines them. First of all there is the martial ability, this one affects how good a commander is in battle and how good is troops is fighting. The second one is diplomacy that affects your interactions with other characters. Finally there is intrigue, which impacts how a character performs in plots and handling ninjas.

Characters also have two resources, which they can gain or lose, and those two are honor and gold. Honor is resource that is gained by doing what is expected of a proper Japanese samurai, while you lose it from doing things which may not be perfectly proper. Gold, well, if I need to explain this.. then just send me all gold you have.

Of course, characters will also have traits. Traits are descriptive statements of a character that has gameplay effects. As an example, one character may be stressed, which impacts his abilities to perform, while another is a genius which gives some very nice bonuses to what he does. A character can have several traits at once, but some are mutually exclusive, as you can't be both quick and slow at the same time. Other types of traits include brilliant strategist, calligraphist and ruthless.

 

[Johan]

Can you give us examples of the effects from traits? I'm guessing strategist is straightforward and gives combat bonuses. But what about caligraphist and ruthless?

ruthless = {
	personality = yes
	opposites =  {
		bushi
	}
	
	intrigue = 2
	
	opposite_opinion = -10
	
	ai_rationality = 10
	
}

 

[Birken]

Shojiro looks like a good warrior! 16 in Martial and a Brilliant Strategist I assume? nice


looks good altough I hoped we would hear more about what this game makes it more special than Ck characters or Rome Characters.

will it be more like Rome? or more like Ck/ck2?

More ck/ck2. The game is heavily based around you and your family, everyone wants to make a name for themselves.

Will intrigue affect "desmene" size, as in CK?

Currently no.

Will there be European/metis characters ? Or will they be abstracted as events ?

As events and religious factions.

What do the different character portraits backgrounds indicate?

Flavor.

 

[Birken]

that all looks awesome.
if its not too off topic may i ask why use american english? youre not an american company, its just all the 'honor's popping up all over the place wherever this game is discussed makes it rather stand out.

Well we're not a Brittish either and American English is more widespread when it comes to computers.

 

[Captain Gars]

Will there also be later-era historical characters: Takeda Shingen, the Shimazu brothers, etc.?

It will work just like in our other games where the setup is historical, but after that things like characters are generated.

 

[Captain Gars]

Definitely looking like CK, in all the good ways. Character traits are good, but I hope characters don't get too many of them or change them too rapidly. I know playing TW games I give up keeping up with character traits after a few turns, because the lists grow huge. Traits should be special, and gaining or losing them should be a big deal. Or at least that's what I think.

I think characters will rarely have more than ten traits, and most will probably not gain that many.

 

[Captain Gars]

But there is going to be a desmene size limit, right?

Yes.

 

[Birken]

Will there be just one start date in Vicky style, or are there different scenarios/choose any date options? I want to be able to play as Nobunaga or Tokugawa!

Just the one.

 

[Birken]

Pity.

I think our research department would disagree with you. A character driven game like this contains huge amounts of historical data and most people would only play the gc anyway.