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Takeda

by Steve "Biggs" Beardall

Article Type: Review
Article Date: November 21, 2001


S'funny…whenever I think of a strategy game, I have this vision of a couple of old duffers reliving their regimental days. I imagine them lining up their tin soldiers and re-enacting this battle or that battle, hurling cushions across the room, smashing through rank and file, and screaming phantom orders to their troops. All the while, drinking their afternoon tea and reminiscing about their past campaign glories.

Hold that thought for a moment, under the dulcet tones of a shamisen comes Takeda, the latest offering from Magitech and produced by Xicat. I remember seeing this title during my recent visit to the ECTS show and was intrigued by what it would include (I've had a long-standing interest in the feudal period of Japanese society). The game is based on the life of 16th century Samurai warlord, Takeda Shingen.

Big Install!

Installation was straight forward, although a bit lengthy.... The game occupies a good 1 Ghz of hard drive space, at the time I thought Whoa! What do you get for that much space!? Visions of samurai on the battlefield, clashing sound of Katanas floated through the mind, a veritable bloodbath in the making, right?

Well, sort of…

Main Menu

Gameplay Options

After the title screen has disappeared, you're presented with the main menu. The interface is well laid out and navigation to the game of your choice is a breeze. The Historical Battles are great for those who've not much time to spare (or if you're sitting in the office at lunchtime). The Multi-Play option is there and you can hook up with a fellow player over a LAN or the Internet. Magitech do state that as this game is still in development it's important that the two players have the same version to be able to play together. I get the feeling this requirement could cause some consternation, though. Demonstration Battles are exactly that, an opportunity to see certain re-enacted engagements. It's helpful to see someone else doing the manoeuvring so as to glean a bit of tactical insight from it, as well as to see how the different troop types react to each other.

Multi-player

Set-up Options

I thought first of all to have a look at the options available, they're pretty basic. Resolution can set to either 1024x768 or 1280x1024. There isn't a great deal of difference between 'full on' effects and completely off. Though there are a few nice weather conditions you can add to pep up the atmosphere as these can affect the outcome of the battles. Sounds are entertaining, the roar of a thousand demented souls charging at each other brings a smile to your face. Despite these nice little features I must admit I was a little underwhelmed with the initial content, that and the fact that this is a pretty big game.

So I sat there for a moment, thinking, "what's the point I'm missing here?" Strategy, dopey…Strategy with a capital S!

Campaign

As you start a new campaign a scroll of parchment floats across the screen setting the stage for what's to come. Behind it there's a map of Feudal Japan showing the banners of clans, their location and stats.

Feudal Map

Stats

From here you can see what strengths are of your own clan, allies and those of your enemies. Here also, in-between rounds, you can do any political manoeuvring that you might feel appropriate. If all else fails, hitting the war helmet icon brings up the main deployment interface; it's from here you place your units on the field.

As you move your pointer over a particular general's icon, it shows the type of division and how many battalions contained therein. If you then right-click that icon a pop-up menu will appear showing the sub-division capabilities. Smaller icons are also present to show what function/quantity/calibre of troops are in that division. These icons range from green for recently recruited to gold, being top class.

Should you loose a lot of your best troops, it will take time for the new recruits to acquire the skills necessary to perform well on battlefield. Clicking on an additional set of buttons will change what each division's function will be in the coming battle. If, for example, you feel a defensive posture is more appropriate, it will change that division's role from cavalry to archers or spear men depending on the situation at hand.

I've found that studying what your opponent's stats are will often give you a clue as to what he might field on the day. Again if he has more horses to play with he might very well use them to trample your infantry down, so stocking up on spearmen may very well help save you from annihilation. All this kind of reminds me of the rock, paper, and scissors game…If you see what I mean?

Having selected what types of divisions you're going to use you then deploy them into a formation.

Deployment Screen

Given that in the feudal period there was very little of this modern day, spec-ops-type of skulking about (it was considered dishonourable) the two opposing armies would square off and arrange themselves into collective 'postures' or formations. The point of this type of tactic was to try to lure, or force, their opponent into a disadvantage, therefore creating a weakness.

A hint from the manual points out that the soldiers' morale is strongly linked to their loyalty to their commanding officer. This loyalty can be used to create a weakness. Taking down a general or unit captains directly can be a way of crippling the divisions' morale; chances are the enemy soldiers will leave the battlefield if you take out their leader.

The other quick way to victory (if you can manage it!) is to lure off or occupy the bulk of the enemy's infantry and while that's happening, take your cavalry and head straight for the enemy's camp to cut down their flags. Cutting down the enemy's standards basically signifies that they've lost the fight; the majority of the time, the remaining combatants will drop tools and head for the hills.

Mixin' it up

Commanding The Troops

Rather than having to command every single troop on the field, (which would take some seriously fast point and clicking!) your orders are passed through a chain of command and end up with the unit's captain. Your captains then carry out the final commanding of the soldiers. Selecting and right-clicking on a specific unit during the battle brings up a sub-menu giving you a list of orders as to what you want any given unit to do.

At this point you may begin to find out that you are completely hopeless as a tactician (like I did) or perhaps you'll find you are at the other end of the scale and are a virtual Kasparov of the feudal era. After a fair bit of head scratching and swearing at the insubordinate infantry (for not doing as they're told!), it was back to the manual to brush-up on the finer points on how to win the day.

Docs

The manual comes is of the slim-line paper type, there is also a PDF manual on the CDROM. It's content is pretty comprehensive and goes into some detail about how to choose your troops, tactical considerations you might want to make, and how to go about deploying said troops on the field. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of unit and your opponent's stats will determine your formation strategy and will make the difference as to whether you survive for another day or get a kicking!

Back to the Campaign

As the campaign progresses the battles get tougher. You make the odd allegiance, several mortal enemies too, which is why making good political decisions makes sense. Trying to keep your casualties down is a must, as it can take considerable time to rebuild your battle strength.

The campaign will branch as you make choices, giving you quite a few possible endings. I got the feeling that the AI might be taking it easy on me for the first few rounds, only to try its strategically superior programming out on me at a later date—I was proved right! Having secured my position in the northern territories (and feeling kinda smug about it) some jumped-up slip of a lad, called Ieyasu Tokagawa decides to give it his best shot. To cut what would be a somewhat sorry monologue short, he kicked my butt all over the battlefield. To quote that marvellous line from Monty python and the Holy Grail…"Run away! Run away!"

RUN AWAY!!

Bring Out Your Dead!

After each battle the game puts up a scoreboard to show how well, or how badly, you've done. Points are scored for bravery and heads taken, and losses due to bad tactics or cowardice to name but a few. If you find yourself in this dilemma as I recently did, you're going to need all of your accumulated strategic skills to survive another round, or face being wiped off the map.

Score board

Verdict

Like any PC title, you're going to know pretty quickly whether it's going to cast a spell on you or if its going to be a dust gatherer. Takeda weaves its spell pretty well. Once you get stuck into battlefield management the hours drift away without realising they're gone. Given my initial disappointments, I must admit I'm rather surprised at how much fun it is to play. When initially running the game on a PII/300, with 192 MBs of ram it could get pretty slow when there was the full compliment of about a thousand troops on the field. Because of this, I caution you that the minimum spec on the box is VERY minimum, if you know what I mean?

Review Systems

• System 1:
  PII 300 Mhz
  192Mb SDRam
  Win98
  Voodoo5500
  Creative Labs Awe64
  
  
• System 2:
  Athlon XP1600
  512 DDR ram
  Win XP
  Voodoo5500
  Creative Labs Live5.1

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