Nobunagas Ambition II

Nobunaga's Ambition 2 is a brilliant strategy game placed in ancient Japan. Oda Nobunaga was a daymio with a single goal; to unite Japan under his rule. Something he almost managed to do as well, but now KOEI has given you the chance to do what one of the most powerful warlords throughout history never accomplished.

I think this is my favourite of all the old strategy games made by KOEI, there is just so much that you can do in this game. First of all you get to choose between 38 different daymio's, each one with a different starting position and power. Then you have the rich political aspect to the game, from recruiting more soldiers to bribe enemy generals. If you don't treat your loyal soldiers good, they might suddenly prove to be not so loyal anymore. Your enemies are constantly trying to buy your generals, and are also spreading negative propaganda about you, making it harder for you to hire new ones. Of course, you are allowed to do the same by sending spies into foreign regions and tear them down from within.

Then we have the actual fighting. The best way to fight is to use the numpad in combination with numeric commands, and to use large amounts of strategy, of course. When attacking a region, you will first try to break down the defences outside of a city, then move on to infiltrating the castle and kill or capture the enemy generals. If you are so lucky to capture any generals, you have different things you can do to them. You may either behead them (to set an example to your enemies), employ them as generals under your command (easy and cheap labour), or you can let them go.

All in all Nobunaga's Ambition 2 is a well-balanced strategy game that is fairly easy to learn, and a game that can be played again and again. You haven't really completed the game before you have completed it with each of the 38 different daymio's, and that is a long time into the future. Truly recommended.

The game supports multiplayer up to 4 players.