From the revealed Crane and Lion strongholds, we can assume that on a typical turn a player will have around 7 Fate to spend. Each turn they will reveal 4 provinces from which personalities can be recruited. The personalities we have seen so far have a Fate costs which range between 0 and 4 Fate. So it could be possible to recruit 4 personalities in a single turn, but no more without some special card effect. Each personality has a Military (red) and Political (blue) skill which is used during conflicts. Winning these conflicts will be important to achieve victory.

Although the numbers vary, each point of Fate seems to get one point of Military skill and one point of Political skill. The Eager Scout is 0/0 for 0. The Steadfast Bushi is 1/1 for 1 Fate. The Borderlands Defender is 3/3 for 3. Obviously, it is not a perfect set (we’ve seen no 2/2 for 2); abilities can differ and personalities can favour one skill over another. It does give us an idea of what we can expect. Using these personalities as a baseline and 7 Fate a turn from the stronghold, let us consider some different approaches.

Style 1 — Blitz. The first approach is to just spend all the 7 Fate on personalities each turn adding no extra Fate onto them. So, assuming the perfect set of personalities every turn you produce 7 Military and 7 Political Skill. It looks something like this.

Playstyle 2 —Long term. A second strategy is to start adding Fate, in the below case we’ve added 3 fate every time. So a personality will stick around for 4 turns. Turn 1 and 2 this style is behind the total skill of the blitz approach but from turn 3 onwards it retains control.

Style 3 — Focused. A third approach is instead focused on a single turn. In this example, all personalities are made with the goal of being around on turn 5. So the 3/3 personality on turn one gets 4 Fate to make sure they will stick around, on turn 2 a 4/4 personality is recruited with 3 Fate and so on until turn 5 when all personalities are recruited with no fate. This is on par with the Long term approach on turn 1, beats it on turn 2 to 5 and from there on is behind.

Based on the above examples it seems unlikely Blitz will be very effective as a long term strategy. Unlike the old version of L5R, it does not impact your opponent’s production and instead only sets you back. The turn focused strategy clearly has an advantage over the Long term strategy and I believe this will be the primary approach. Of course, judging exactly what turn to peak at will be the challenge. As recruiting occurs at the same time alternating between players, you will be able to see your opponents recruitment and will have an opportunity to adjust your own. The above examples have also assumed Military and Political Skill are equal which will not be the case, and a strategy might peak on turn 3 for their Military skill but turn 5 for their Political skill. Lots to consider, and this is only a facet of the game.

The above examples are not perfect, you would have to be very lucky to get exactly the right personalities every turn. In addition, the above assumes only one personality per turn and completely ignores the conflict deck and the costs associated with it. Hopefully, it will get people thinking about how exactly the game will play once released and what sort of decisions we will need to make in the game.