Shingen the Ruler FAQ by Eugene Whong Written in Feb.2006 Introduction Shingen the Ruler is a strategy game, in which you control a warlord in Japan's feudal era and try to defeat all the other warlords en route to becoming the Shogun, or de-facto ruler of Japan. Interestingly you are only allowed to play as Takeda Shingen, who the game is named after. The reason why this is interesting is because he died, and his idiot hot-headed son lost his father's entire empire in a single day. The details of this can be seen in the Kurosawa film "Kagemusha". At any rate, Shingen nor his clan actually historically won. But who cares about history? We're here to change it! Let the quadruple diamond banner fly over Japan forever! Err, anyway… The game itself wasn't very popular. It was released by HOT-B, a company most known for its series of Black Bass fishing games. With other competitors out there such as Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, this game probably didn't get much play. This is why my brother was able to buy it at clearance shortly after it was released. It has many faults and exploitable quirks, but overall it is a good game. While most games are easy in the beginning and hard at the end, the general trend of this game is that it is extremely difficult in the beginning and pretty easy at the end. Many people probably quit out of frustration after the first 20 minutes. But once you get into it, the game is quite fun. Let's start the FAQ then. Start-up The first thing the game asks you is to decide between SOUND ON or SOUND OFF. Choosing SOUND OFF will allow you to play with no background music, but you can still hear sound effects. This is a good option if you want to play your CD player while playing the game. The actual music is repetitive and annoying at times, but the battle music is very addictive. BEWARE! Beginning This weird looking bald guy with one eye asks you how many occupied regions you give orders to. Being that it is your first time playing, how should you know? The answer is one. In this game, no matter how many provinces you conquer, you are only allowed to control a maximum of three per turn. This is pretty annoying, but the game would probably be too long, easy, and boring if you could control all of your territory. He will ask this to you at the start of every turn. I recommend that you always be doing as much as you can, so choose the highest number possible. After you select the number you will be taken to a map. The map shows which territories are controlled by the enemy (blue) and which are controlled by you (gray for territories, red for your capital.) You must control at least your capital every turn. So use the map to choose all the other provinces you wish to control. In the beginning of the game, you only control Shinano and Kai. Kai is your capital. The Region Screen This screen shows you the status of the current province and gives you options for what you want to do. The province screen has a lot of incomprehensible abbreviations. Let's go through them. YLD -Yield, or how much rice the region produces. DST - Disaster, how prone to disastrous events the region is. CLT - Culture, Probably a multiplier for YLD and WEL, but not sure. LOY - Loyalty, how willing the people will be to join your army. WEL - Wealth, how much money the region produces from trade. $$ -Available money in the region. PRD -Products, or edible rice G-M -Gold Mines, they create 5 gold per turn PRI -Princesses, how many daughters you have available to marry off to your enemies to create alliances that you will eventually break. EPI -Epidemic, If there is an epidemic in the region or not. Pushing select will bring up an entirely new screen showing more abbreviations. This screen shows the status of your heir and how many troops of each kind you have in the region. HE -Heir, the status of the boy that will one day inherit your kingdom. RNK -The rank of the military in that region. EXP -How much experience the army has HDQ -Headquarters CAV -Cavalry RM -Riflemen AR -Archers LNC -Lancers INF -Infantry On the right hand side is several red blocks with more abbreviations. These are the things that you can do in the region. You can do one of these things per turn. Mi-Military Here you can enlist more troops, go to battle, or move troops, money, and rice to another region. Enlist means to recruit troops. If you choose to enlist, baldy will tell you how many troops you can get that round. All of the troops you get from enlisting will be infantry, so if you want other types of troops, you have to equip your infantry with other types of equipment. Also, your loyalty, yield, and wealth decrease when you enlist, because you are taking the most loyal people in your population away from their jobs as farmers or businessmen. Going means to go to battle. Your army in that region can only attack enemy controlled lands adjacent to the territory you are controlling. Move means to move your troops, cash, or rice to any of your controlled territories. Unfortunately you can only move to one region per turn, so it's a pain if you have a lot of stuff in one land that you want to send to many others. You can still do this all in one turn. Follow my example below. You have $3000 in the capital and you want to send $1000 each to provinces A, B, and C. Before the turn starts say that you control three regions, and choose A, B, and C in that order. Move $3000 from the capital to A. Move $2000 from A to B. Move $1000 from B to C. Ca-Castle Use money to build additions to the castle to increase culture. I don't really know how culture affects anything in the game yet, but it's probably a good idea to have a high culture rating. Fa-Farms Here you can develop your farming technology or aid the farmers monetarily. Putting money into development will increase yield. Giving money to the farmers will increase loyalty and wealth. Nothing like buying friends is there? Fc-Flood Control Use money to decrease the disaster rating, making the region less prone to disasters. Disasters aren't really anything to worry about if they come anyway, so don't waste your money on this. Gm-Gold Mines You can use your money to look for more gold mines, or you can feed some bums to dig more for you. Baldy will tell you how much rice you need per miner, then ask you how many miners you want. It's a total crapshoot. Most of your income is going to come from military booty or selling rice to merchants, so don't waste your money on gold mines. Al-Alliance If you have princesses, you can marry them off to other warlords to create temporary alliances that you will eventually break. In addition to the princess, you need to give your enemy a cash dowry, which he will undoubtedly use to increase the strength of his military, which will only increase the difficulty of defeating him later. I suppose if your military is spread out really thin, it might be a good idea to make an alliance, but it's better to just make a huge military with that alliance money so that the enemy will be less inclined to attack you. You shouldn't be telling your hot daughters who to marry anyway! Mr-Merchant The merchant comes along and you can buy stuff from him or sell stuff to him. You will generally be buying military units from him and selling him rice. When you buy military units from him it changes infantry into whatever you bought. If you want to buy 100 riflemen, you need to have at least 100 infantry. If he is ever selling rice for $1, then buy as much as you can, you can sell it back to him later for much more! Dr.-Doctor If there is an epidemic you can pay him to cure the people. If there is no epidemic you can pay him for preventative care. Epidemics don't really affect anything in this game, so don't waste your money. He-Heir The real Shingen's son was a dumbass who told his cavalry and infantry to charge some dug in riflemen, losing his father's empire in a day. You can make sure that your heir is not a dumbass by paying lots for his education. There are three categories for your heir, strength, IQ, and morals. It generally takes about $4000 to max out IQ and morals, but strength takes about $10000 to max out. These probably are multipliers for how well your military fights, or how persuasive you are when recruiting, and how well your tax collectors work. I've never seen Shingen die, so I've never really needed an heir, but as it might be a random event, it's probably a good idea to max out your heir's abilities. Nj-Ninja You can use the ninja to check the status of other territories. You can also give him rice and he'll go try to kill enemy troops. I gave him 200 rice and he killed 4 lancers. I'm sorry, I'd rather sell the rice to the merchant and have $1000 to buy 25 riflemen. Sv-Save You can save the game only in the capital. If you're not using an emulator it's a good idea to save every turn. Ps-Pass Do nothing. You should never do this, there is always something to do. Sometimes snowfall will prevent you from going into battle. If that's the case, enlist. If you can't enlist, spend money on farm aid to increase the loyalty so that you can enlist. The only reason you should ever pass is if you have no money and there is snowfall so you can't attack. Special events Before your turn if a special event happens, it will appear in the bald guy window and a message about the event will appear in the dialogue box. These can be good or bad and will affect your territorial stats or military. Here is a list of a few of them. 1. Snowfall is so severe that you can't go into battle or move anything out of the region. 2. A signal flare is sent up from a region, meaning that it will be attacked at the end of your turn. 3. Your Dad comes to town to mooch off of you. He eats a lot of rice. 4. There's a festival, your culture increases. 5. There's a huge storm, you can't go into battle or move anything. 6. An emissary from Kyoto comes along to tell you that the Emperor is in your corner, and gives you some presents 7. A messenger from your friends comes along with some presents. 8. A ninja posing as a messenger from your friends comes along to try to kill some of your troops. 9. A princess is born, loyalty increases. 10. Your heir is born, loyalty increases. 11. Riots, loyalty decreases. 12. An epidemic starts. 13. Lightning strikes the castle, culture decreases. 14. You die, your heir takes over, loyalty probably decreases. Taxes Every October, you will collect taxes from your capital and no more than three occupied regions. You can collect anywhere from zero to 100 percent. The more you tax, the less loyal the people will be. Yield and Wealth will also take a hit. Battles Battles occur when you attack other territories or when other warlords attack your territories. There are two battle stages, the field battle, and the castle battle. To advance to the castle battle the attacking army must first win the field battle. To capture the territory, the attacking army must win the castle battle. Battles give your army experience. If you accumulate enough experience, your rank will rise. You will be given the option to have a manual battle or an automatic battle. Automatic battles put your troops up against the opponent's, rolls some dice, and kills lots of troops on both sides. It's generally not a good idea to choose automatic battle because you will lose way too many troops unless you severely outnumber your opponent and don't want to waste time in a manual battle. Before a manual battle starts, you will be asked to divide your troops into units that you can control directly and exert your battle strategy. There are six types of troops. You can only have a maximum of 255 of any one kind of troop. Headquarters are the general's guard. They have the best defending power. If your lose your headquarters or kill all of the opponent's then the battle will come to an abrupt end. If a defender has no headquarters then he will lose the battle without a fight. You can't attack without headquarters. Headquarters can move six steps and can attack only adjacent units. They can't be divided into more than one unit. Cavalry are warriors on horseback. They have the best attacking power and can move 9 steps. Riflemen have guns. They can attack from a safe distance of 7 steps, but only if the enemy is directly in the same north-south or east-west line. They are terrible when being attacked or when attacking adjacent units, so use them from a distance. They can only move 5 steps. Archers are like riflemen, but they have slightly less attack power. They can attack from a distance of 5 steps. They are terrible when they are attacked or when attacking adjacent units. Lancers are only a small upgrade on infantry and have medium attack and defense. They can only attack adjacent units and they can move 6 steps. Infantry are basically guys with sticks. They pretty much suck at everything and should only be used to attack as a last resort. Their defense is only slightly better than Riflemen and Archers. They can only attack adjacent units and they can move 6 steps. Terrain In manual battles there are different types of terrain. These generally restrict movement and range attacks. Grass/Dirt/Bridges – no restrictions. Forests/Rocks - If your unit has a forest in front of him, he can't be shot at from beyond the forest, nor can he shoot through the forest. Counts as 2 steps. Water – counts as 2 steps. Walls – The castle walls or wooden barricades allow riflemen or archers to shoot at the enemy from behind them, but prevent the enemy from shooting back. Additionally, units can't walk on wall spaces. Deep water – you can't walk on deep water. Regions There are 21 regions in the game. To win, you must capture all of them. At the beginning, you control Shinano and Kai. If you want to know more about each warlord, take a history class or search the internet. All of the warlords are actual historical figures. For some reason the game developers ran out of warlords so they gave some territory to fictional characters, a sect of Buddhist monks, (who probably wouldn't be interested in territorial expansion), and a Chinese general. They called him General Li. Reminds me of a certain orange car. Strategy The general strategy is to build up an army and attack. DUH! But in this section, I will tell you how to exploit the game's quirks to get the best advantage. This is only a suggested strategy, and there are many different approaches to the same end. I encourage you to figure out how to win by yourself, but if you can't, then please read on… Creating a Market If a region has a high yield, wealth, and culture, merchants will pay more for rice in that region. They will also sell you things at a higher price. An easy way to exploit this is to choose one territory for buying and do all your selling in the capital. Keep the capital at maximum wealth and yield. Selling rice to the merchant for $5 is sometimes possible if you do this. In the buying territory, keep wealth, culture, and yield at the lowest level possible. (tax 100 percent at tax time until it is at zero, enlist every turn, never give any farm aid or development) Early in the game, you might be able to buy rice at $1. If you ever see the merchant selling it to you for so cheap, pounce on it. Later in the game, he won't go that low. Exploiting the ranking system One thing that sucks about this game is that the ranking of your army depends on which province they operate out of. For example, if in battle, the rank of your army rises, and you take over a new territory, the rank of the army in the previous territory will remain the same, while the one in the new territory will be the higher one. This sucks because the army in Kai has a rank of 1. The game is extremely difficult in the beginning because all of the surrounding warlords outrank you. Rank does affect how well your troops do in battle. Nothing infuriates me more than having 100 riflemen shoot something and because of the rank difference, the opponent loses only 1 troop. To exploit this, in the beginning of the game, it might be beneficial to allow an enemy to take your territory. His forces will be divided and you can probably easily re-capture it. Keep doing this a lot and the rank of your army will rise rapidly. It's also a good idea to only attack with your strongest army if you can help it. Exploting the tax system ALWAYS charge 100% tax. The people will be pissed off, but you'll get lots of money and rice. Give $1000 back as farm aid and they'll love you just as if you hadn't taxed them in the first place. You keep the rice and any cash above $1000. Battle Strategy Headquarters are pretty expensive, so don't buy any. You only need 1 HDQ to go into battle, just keep it in a safe place. The first unit you should stock up on is riflemen and protect them at all costs. When fighting against enemies that outrank you, it's a good idea to have all your riflemen in one unit, but if you outrank them, two units of riflemen are good. Never allow an enemy to get near your riflemen. When advancing, place infantry or lancers in front of your riflemen to act as human shields. It sure sucks to be them, but you can always recruit more. When an enemy outranks you, you can minimize losses by dividing your infantry and lancers into shield units. Let's say you have 50 lancers and 50 infantry. Divide your lancers into units of 1 and 49, and your infantry into units of 1, 1, and 48. If you have one infantry soldier standing in front of 255 riflemen, the enemy can't shoot through the infantry guy. Yea, he will die, but you may have saved 60 riflemen at the cost of 1 soldier. Next turn, your guys will get to fire back with a vengeance. When advancing on castles, try to stay out of range of the riflemen and archers inside. To get close to the door, have your troops walk single file so that bullets and arrows can only hit the guy in front. Sucks to be him… Play defensively and allow the enemy to come to you. This doesn't work when you are attacking castles, but it does work everywhere else. Advance slowly and avoid close combat if possible. You can wipe out everyone with your riflemen and mop up with the cavalry. If an enemy attacks you, don't try to win the field battle. Get a few shots in with your riflemen and flee to the safety of your castle before he even gets a chance to attack you. This is a good strategy everywhere except Kai. Kai's castle is tiny and surrounded by forests. Close combat is unavoidable even for the defender. When defending castles, never leave the castle! Use your riflemen and archers every chance you get! Plug the doors with shield units to halt any advancement. You can shoot through your own units, so having three shields at the door with a zillion riflemen behind them is a good way to eliminate anyone. If by chance they do break through, have your cavalry attack the offending unit and plug the hole again. Save the expensive riflemen at all costs. Conclusion I was going to write a step by step walkthrough for this game, but I think I gave you enough information to figure out how to win. The game is hard in the beginning and pretty easy near the end. Happy conquering!