Welcome to this guide on the japanese-based strategy game, Sengoku. The aim of this guide is to at least get new and beginner gamers a chance to read up on the basics of the game and hopefully understand to some extent what most of the game mechanics are. It will mainly cover everything that you will encounter when initially starting off and continuing into a game but won't go into too much of the long-term strategies (as admittedly I'm not a full blown expert at the game, but hope to do a advanced guide at some point)

When opening the initial screen (aka the screen when starting a new game) you will be faced with the entire Japanese lands. There are a few options you will be given to consider depending on what you feel like playing. The two main options include playing as:

-The head of a large clan (one that owns territory in a major clan)
-The head of a minor clan (one that owns territory as a vassal to a major clan)

My definition of a major/large clan just means a clan that is shown to own territory when the 'clan' option is selected. Vassal clans do own their own territory, but since they work in service to the head clan their territory is technically part of the major clan.
While it may seem attractive to play a major clan (especially the Usegi, since they are given a large scope of lands), those looking for a challange might want to try making a vassal clan rise into greatness, which is possible via declaring civil war. Just remember that having a lot of lands to begin with means that you will have a lot of problems and rivals early on.

There are a few differences among certain clans in the start. Some clans start off in a period of war while others are in peace. There are many clans that are initially at war, and I shalln't name all of them here but as a general rule the clans in the east and north and far west are peaceful to begin with, though one or two might be at war. Just be mindful that you could be starting off right in the midde of a clan war. Another major difference is the size of the clans at the start. The Usegi, for instance, start off as the biggest clan and have a large amount of territory. Other clans will only start with one or two tiny territories. Realistically it is very hard to start off as a small clan whilst it is a bit easier to start off as one with more territory, though of course this is down to you.

Very early on, you will most likely be given the decision of who you want to appoint in your clan positions. There are three main clan positions which can be held by any male member in your court:

-Master of Ceremonies
-Master of Arms
-Master of the Guard

The master of ceremonies will be responsible for improving villages and relations with other clans. Ideally those with the highest diplomacy skill should be chosen for this role. The master of arms improves castles and recruits ronin (mercenary armies), and those with the highest martial skill should be chosen for this role. The master of the guard will recruit ninja clans and can be made to try and damage relations between a vassal and his lord; those with high intrigue should be chosen for this role.

Vassals:
Not every clan will start with many vassals, but likely you will see at least one or two vassal clans. Vassals are incredibly important in managing your clan, they will make it or break it in terms of your success. The main aspect to them is giving them territory and ensureing they are happy. A very unhappy vassal can lead to them breaking away and even declaring civil war. Some vassals will like you at the start and some will hate you, though this can change when the heir takes charge. You can make a vassal 'kokujin' (owner of a particular territory) or a daimyo (leader of a area of territories). They will regualarly ask you to promise them that you will give them the next territory, and sometimes a daimyo title. If you are happy to give them territory and you can actually fulfil the promise then go ahead with it, as giving them territory will make them very happy. Dealing with unruly vassals can be tricky but there is always the option to strip them of their lands (as the more lands they have, the more powerful they will be if declare civil war). The worst case scenario is having multiple vassals in disagreement with you, as they will literally plot against you with other vassals and even other clans to bring you down. Unhappy vassals with some territory will have the resources to send ninja attacks against you, most likely aiming to bring down your honor. One final important note about vassals is that they can have their own vassals as well. They will hand territory over to them just like you do.

Clan family:
The family is equally important in deciding your fate. At a early point you should be concerned with who to marry off and who your heir is. Sometimes a split of the family can become a vassal, with their own lands, though this split is where pretenders come from. Pretenders are family members who can potentially be heir but aren't part of your direct heritage (e.g. they aren't your son). Pretenders will detest you highly as they aren't quite the heir yet. Sometimes they might gain support from unhappy vassals and then become heir (the majority vote of who becomes heir will win, not what just who the clan leader wants to become heir). You will be given the option at some point to say where your heir will train (master of ceremonies, arms or guard) which will affect the skills they have later on. When the heir of your clan isn't one of your sons and then that heir becomes in power, you won't be in control of the clan. This doesn't mean you lose but you won't be a part of the major decisions involved in the clan anymore. You also want to keep a eye on your daughters. Marrying them off to clans you want to get good with is the main way to use them (and I do say 'use', as unfortunately thats how it is in history; daughters are tacticly used for benefit).

There are three skills that you should be primarily concerned with when assessing a character:
-Diplomacy
-Martial
-Intrigue

Diplomacy concerns how well they will reflect back to other characters and how well diplomacy to other characters goes. The higher this skill is, the better the other characters (namely vassals and clan leaders) will like you. This means it is a very good skill to have as a clan leader and can be vital in maintaining a good relationship with those around you.

Marital affects how well they do in regards to battle. This means its a good trait for vassals to have, though if the clan leader gets involved in war it is good for them to have some of it as well.

Intrigue affects success in terms of defending against ninjas and dealing with plots. Depending on your playstyle, it may or may not be the least useful skill in a clan leader, but it is good to have nonetheless.
When it comes to the masters of areas in your court, the higher their skill is the better they will do their job. Is is also important to remember that your sons will be trained in one of these skills. Just as a suggestion, the future heir might need to be trained in diplomacy (unless they are high in it already) whereas other sons could be trained in martial or intrigue.

Over time, characters may also develop additional traits that support their main traits. This includes things like 'amateur plotter' that increases intrigue. You often obtain these traits from character events that take place throughout a life time.
Character and Clan events are those that affect personality, money or the land in different ways. Often a box will randomly appear in the front of the screen describing the event and the options to resolve it. You will quickly find that options will either only have bad consequences or only good ones. Such as if the building of an improvement is delayed, you can choose to spend gold to keep it going or don't spend gold and let the contruction delay a while longer. One of the few times when, for instance, this isn't the case is when you have to promise lands to vassals, as promising it to them will increase their happiness but not promising it will decrease it. On the odd occasion you will get a event that technically has no option; such as when your character avoids being assassinated as they will only get a bit of honor from having done so.

To be successful in Sengoku, being a master at war is just as important as being a master in land and clan management. The main way you will receive units in the game is by raising levies. Levies are a local force which exist in each individual land and train themselves as far as the levy limit is in that territory. After being raised, the levies in that land are brought down to a very low point, often resulting in no levy being left at all. While it will mean you have a large army to march around with, the territory will have no levy to help defend itself but it will still have a garrison of troops in its castle. It isn't as simple to just create a few big armies and march around with them, as the territory they walk into must be able to hold them there. This is know as the territory's supply limit. This is made better by having lots of improvements. If you have a lot of money and a decent amount of income then you might also consider purchasing retinues. Retinues are just extra units that are paid for and support your clan. Vassals will purely use retinues as only the clan leader can raise levies. Having a lot of improvements is also key when having enough taxes to hold a army. A large army will put a huge burden on your economy, often meaning that you will earn little to nothing at all but anything is better than going into deficit.

Honor is a seriously important part of war. You can't start a war without having honor. Honor is another resource that you gain over time though a lot of it can get obtained from events. Having low honor is a disaster in terms of managing your clan. All your vassals will start to hate you, and the ones that already did will hate you a lot more, so managing honor is important. To start a war with someone it will cost a certain amount of honor, which will increase if the clan is smaller than yours or if your character likes their leader. Characters that dislike your character will do what they can to dishonor you with ninjas, so it might be worthwhile to hire a ninja clan to protect you if you have a lot of enemies.

Once you get into a war, immediately raising some levies or retinues will be important. Each seperate army needs to be a decent size in order to carry out a siege (a 'merge army' option can be useful in organising this part). Battles and sieges are the main actions in war, though using ninjas to perform a number of actions is also possible. Battles are begun simply by two opposing armies being in the same territory. Making sure you have a bigger army is standard practice in terms of winning, though it is possible to win with smallers armies depending on the spread of troops (i.e. horses, spearman), quality of troops and martial skill of the general in command. Sieges are usually won by having more troops than the garrison and a lot of patience. Even if you have a load more troops, you can lose a lot of them if you siege immediately and so its worth waiting a short while for the defenders to get more demoralised or fall in number. A breach occuring in the walls is a key event to wait for before going in, thankfully there is a small advice bit in a siege box that advises you on when best to attack.

Sometimes you will have to face up to a clan that is a lot bigger than you. This is when plots come into play. A plot is a conspiracy against a clan to attack them, without declaring war immediately. A plot allows you to invite other clans into your plan to attack another clan, so that you have a powerful unified force against them. The more powerful your combined force becomes, the more likely others will want to join but then it is tricky to get to this point as clan leaders are often reluctant to get into a war. Joining a plot costs a fair bit of honor which might turn leaders with not so much honor away from it. If your clan is a good size and has a somewhat decent army, then other big clans might want to join up, opening the way to convincing the more insecure clan leaders. Improving relations with them will also help towards this. Plots must also be a certain power (calcuted by how your army matches up to the clan being plotted against) in order to be initiated, which of course is increased by having more people involved. Though I'm not sure to what extent, I believe intrigue is involved in plotting.

In terms of long-term strategy nothing is more important than improvements. Improvements are those that the court members perform on territories. Vassals will conduct their own improvements on their territory, so that you only manage the lands that you own. There are four different types of improvements that can be made:
-Improving a village (increasing tax income and supply limit)
-Improving a castle (increasing supply limit, levy limit, recruitment speeds and defence)
-Expanding and building a guild (provides all sorts of improvements)
-Building a religious structure (increasing either honor, recruitment speed or tax)

For the most part you will focus on the first two improvements as they are free, whereas religious and guild buildings cost money. The first two do have a cost in the sense that the local tax where the improvement is being made is lowered for the duration which could become important when you really need the money, but other than that they are very crucial.

In general the first 5-6 castle improvements should be the bare minimum for every territory, though it is good to establish at least the first castle improvement in every territory whilst making occasional improvements where ever else in the village. Once you have the first castle improvement in every territory, you can choose to selectively improve some territories with only castle improvements and others with only village ones or you can try to equalise it across all your territory. Pay close attention to what improvements give what to choose what you want to do. Village improvements are quite similar to each other but castle improvements will increase levy limits in certain parts (remembering that levy limits are super important for increasing the size of your levy for big armies later on) though many of the improvements will increase defence.

There are so many different guild buildings and it would be worth you going them at some point, thankfully you can have up to four guild buildings in one territory. There are only a few religious buildings however and the more of them you build the better your relationship with that religion will be. Shinto shrines increase honor production, Buddhist shrines increase recruitment speed and Christian shrines increase taxes. When you have some shrines you can announce your dedication to a religion and then you will get the benefits of that religion on a larger scale. You can only have one shrine in a territory but you can have as many different shrines as you feel necessary in your whole territory. If you have enough shrines and you have announced your faith, you may have enough dedication to become the leader of that religion. Being the leader will mean you have the joining reward but even bigger again! Clans will often compete over this position, but other than that, at least being part of a religion is usually worth it.

Understanding diplomacy is a somewhat crucial part of Sengoku. The main way to conduct diplomacy is to find the character that you want to talk to and right-click on them, choosing the option in the top right to speak to them. Depending on who you talk to, you will get a variety of options. When talking to other clan leaders, the few options will include either declaring war on them, sending a gift or offering marriage. With vassals, there is the option to given them lands (called a 'landed title') and take away their lands. Sometimes you can invite someone in your court into your clan

When declaring war a box will show stating how much honor will be lost and why before you make your decision. When it comes to declaring peace there are a few more options depending on what kind of peace needs to be settled, they are as follows:

-White peace - This is where there are no extra conditions in the signing of peace and the two clans agree not to attack each other for a while
-Conceded defeat - This can offered or asked for. This is when peace is signed, but only if one or the other clan offers up a hostage to secure the peace
-Subjected defeat - This is also either offered or asked for. This is when the clan offering subjectification gives up their land to the opposing force and comes under vassalage of the other clan leader

These peace conditions are obviously only available during certain times. A white peace or conceded defeat would be good for one large clan versus another, whereas subjectification is more likely for smaller clans to larger ones.

Seperate from clan diplomacy are options that concern the imperial court. For some bonus honor, if you have the cash, you can pay the imperial court money to help them out. One option will give your leader a imperial position that will give him honor over time like a trait. Depending on how much money you have, you may not deal with the imperial court much but remembering that the option is there is good if you really need the honor.

Hopefully after reading this guide you will have gained a better understanding of what to do in the game. Some of the details (such as the particular guild buildings) have been left out as understanding them is a step up from being a beginner. I've tried to offer some advice where necessary but mostly this guide was for a covering of the basics rather than a strategy guide.

If you need any questions answered then feel free to comment and I can try to get back to you. Any feedback would be much appreciated, even if its just a small compliment! I may add some screenshots and images to help explain some of the points if I do a later edition.