Best of the historical Koei games?

[shde2e]

I want to get into these series, but there are so many it's very confusing.
Which of these games are generally considered the best? And what is their big selling point?

[tvance52]

Are you referring to Japanese history specifically, or all their historical simulation games?

I'll assume you're interested any time period or historical setting in their historical simulation series of games. So I'll try to include one from each game setting (Japan, China, WW2, etc.). I'll also include old games because some of the historical settings haven't had new games in 20+ years.

I'll also list some of their strategy games that may be of interest, though they are not historical games.

I'm not including games outside their historical simulation series, like Dynasty Warrior and Samurai Warriors.

Here's my opinions:

Nobunaga's Ambition

• Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence. My personal favorite of the Nobunaga's Ambition games. I like the options to really control most details of your clan, fortresses/castles, and so on. You can delegate things to the AI, but in the game settings you can choose to have complete control. This can be very tedious to some, but I prefer it. The AI, if you delegate, isn't very good at optimizing how it builds your fortresses and castles. Overall, I just think the feel of the game and the variety of ways to play the game make this one my favorite.
  
  
• Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence - Ascension. This one will have more role playing potential as you can play as a retainer of a clan and work your way up. This is different than the rest of the NA games where you are the daimyo and control the whole clan. It has some flaws and some bugs that were never fixed (using the in-game editor can fix some of this), but it's the only option for a more RPG experience in a Nobunaga's game and there are definitely people who prefer this over the rest of the games in the series.
  
  
• Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening. The newest NA game, it's possible you may like this one more than Sphere of Influence. I honestly haven't played it, I've watched enough videos to know I'd end up sticking with Sphere of Influence. I'd suggest watching some videos of both games to see which you may prefer. I actually don't like the heavier AI involvement in clan management. I haven' checked lately, so maybe there were updates, but siege battles seemed particularly annoying and I don't care for the newer base building simplifications.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

• Romance... 13 (XIII). If you prefer playing as an officer and role playing as an individual, this is the best of the series. With the expansion pack, there's a lot of officer interaction that a lot of people love. Building bonds between officers, getting married (up to 3 wives, I've never played using a female so I don't know for them). You can set how your kids are raise to influence their stats. Of course the historical strategy gameplay is there as well.
  
  I perfer the more RPG like games in the series such as this one. However, if you want something that's more strictly a strategy game:
  
  
• Romance... 11 (XI). I think this is the best of the Romance games focused exclusively on being a ruler, along with the 9th game (IX). It's a good strategy game, however it's been so long since I played it I can't remember the difference between 11 and 9. Both 11 and 9 are going to be harder than the other games games focused on officer play.
  
  I don't remember if 11 ever had an English version of the PUK (Power-up Kit). If you're not familiar with the way Koei releases their strategy games and their PUK, I can try and explain it in another post as it's a bit complicated.
  
  
• Romance... 8 Remake. This game had a lot of potential, 8 was a phenomenal game back in the day and I think it was the biggest money maker in the series (so I've heard). But the remake that was just released seems like too many remakes these days that fail, they've kind of botched the whole thing and a lot of people really don't like it. If you want an officer RPG element to your game, stick with 13 in my opinion.

Other Historical Simulation games

• P.T.O. 2. P.T.O. stands for Pacific Theater of Operations, it's a World War 2 game that is great if you like the WW2 games. There's really nothing like in modern games. It came out in 1993, so it's an older game, but it's still got a cult following. It can be a complicated game where you're going to want to use guides. Just mentioning this in case the setting and the way Koei handles historical gameplay is of interest.
  
  
• Liberty or Death. Koei once had a North American subsidiary that made western-focused games, with Stieg Hedlund who helped create Diablo 2 and Starcraft among hits. This game was an attempt to make a game like Nobunaga's Ambition set in the American Revolution. You can play either the American colonist or the British. Since there are only two factions, I don't think it is as interesting as the more chaotic NA or Romance games. It's interesting due to the setting and the older (1993) NA-type gameplay, but I don't think it's a good as their other historical games.

Other strategy games

• Aerobiz Supersonic. Aerobiz is a simulation game where you are in charge of an airline, and it is way more interesting that it sounds. You can choose the time period, with the technology of that time, in different scenarios. You have to choose which cities you want to build routes, what types of airplanes to buy from historical companies, what local businesses you want to buy to drive up tourism, and deal with historical events like terrorism, war, and such. This game is deceptively addicting... it sounds so dumb and boring reading the description but it's pretty easy to get hooked on this game. Another older game (1994).

fictional strategy games

• Gemfire. I love Gemfire, and it still has a devoted following. Another game from their long since shuttered North American subsidiary under Hedlund. This like a Nobunaga's Ambition game, set in a fantasy land equivalent to the historical War of the Roses. The daughter of a tyrant King took his crown called Gemfire and spread the gems to other ruling families to break her father's power. Each gem controls a powerful immortal wizard, though the King was able to keep the gem controlling an immortal dragon.
  
  Like NA, you chose a family and it's members/retainers and try to conquer the whole land. It's a very simple game, it's by far the easiest game to figure out on this list, but it has so much character and personality. Another older game (1991), there are some more recent mods for this game.

[shde2e]

Thanks for the list! Way more than I was expecting, I really appreciate it!

[waTTe]

Fine post tvance!

[tvance52]

Since we're all looking for good games in general, I should include a non-Koei game that's modeled in part on Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms:

Chaos Galaxy 2 is one of my favorite games of all-time. It's turn-based, unlike the mixed turn-based and real-time of a game like Sphere of Influence. But my goodness is it amazing if you are looking for a strategy game with lots of RPG elements. It's a bit like a Nobunaga's Ambition game mixed with turn-based tactical battles. Similar to NA and Romance games, it's heavily influenced by who your officers/commanders are and their abilities.

The factions not only have their own tech trees (called "policies"), but also gameplay based on it's culture type. You can play an Imperial faction (with Imperial ranks that boost stats), Mercenary (get paid to take planets), Pirate (capture and use other faction's units), Merchant (basically an economic superpower), Assassin (get paid to defeat enemies), Democratic revolutionaries (cause planets to revolt and join you), and AI robots (copy the blueprints of any ship or mecha you defeat). You can even mix and match cultures to tech trees with custom factions. It's really awesome, my most played game over the past 2 years.

Additionally, you can play with an alien invasion on or off, or even play as the alien invaders. The aliens are similar to Tyranids in Warhammer 40K: they want to consume all organic matter and there is no negotiating or reasoning with them, they are enemies of everything.

Here's my review if you want more detail: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198010482499/recommended/1537910?snr=1_5_9__402

I've done a couple of guides for the game, so I can answer any questions over on their Steam discussion board if you have questions on the game.

[shde2e]

Can confirm, it's doing a lot of interesting stuff!
Also much more narrative driven than most strategy games.

[Lestrad]

Originally posted by tvance52:

• Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence - Ascension. This one will have more role playing potential as you can play as a retainer of a clan and work your way up. This is different than the rest of the NA games where you are the daimyo and control the whole clan. It has some flaws and some bugs that were never fixed (using the in-game editor can fix some of this), but it's the only option for a more RPG experience in a Nobunaga's game and there are definitely people who prefer this over the rest of the games in the series.

If I had terrible experiences with both Sphere of Influence and Awakening, is there any reason to believe that this "RPG experience" wont just be more of the "try to do anything and get totally stomped" broken AI garbage?

[tvance52]

Originally posted by Lestrad:

If I had terrible experiences with both Sphere of Influence and Awakening, is there any reason to believe that this "RPG experience" wont just be more of the "try to do anything and get totally stomped" broken AI garbage?

I don't know, I've only watched Let's Plays of Ascension so I can't say for sure. You may like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games better, the "officer play" RotTK games are generally considered easy since you can make overpowered characters and the AI can be manipulated.

For Sphere of Influence, if you start a new discussion topic here on Steam mentioning the scenario and clan you want to try I can try and walk you through it and give you an bit of a walkthrough. Others may be able to weigh in as well.

[Lie Chen Zhou]

Originally posted by tvance52:

• Romance... 11 (XI). I think this is the best of the Romance games focused exclusively on being a ruler, along with the 9th game (IX). It's a good strategy game, however it's been so long since I played it I can't remember the difference between 11 and 9. Both 11 and 9 are going to be harder than the other games games focused on officer play.
  
  I don't remember if 11 ever had an English version of the PUK (Power-up Kit). If you're not familiar with the way Koei releases their strategy games and their PUK, I can try and explain it in another post as it's a bit complicated.

Great post, just want to add.
RoTK 11 is turn based grid mode game where you can use skills to push,pull or other things to influence your enemy. you can also push them into traps, or into the range of your archer towers

RoTK 9 is real time mode with pause, your soldier types you choose when you march them from your base play more importance as the skills usage is not controllable but tied to your soldiers morale (higher morale = better chance of skill usage)

[Silva]

Originally posted by Lestrad:

Originally posted by tvance52:

• Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence - Ascension. This one will have more role playing potential as you can play as a retainer of a clan and work your way up. This is different than the rest of the NA games where you are the daimyo and control the whole clan. It has some flaws and some bugs that were never fixed (using the in-game editor can fix some of this), but it's the only option for a more RPG experience in a Nobunaga's game and there are definitely people who prefer this over the rest of the games in the series.

If I had terrible experiences with both Sphere of Influence and Awakening, is there any reason to believe that this "RPG experience" wont just be more of the "try to do anything and get totally stomped" broken AI garbage?

Nope. Ascension officer play is awful. Play any Crusader Kings entry or one of RoTK officer-based entries instead (the remake of RoTK 8 was recently released and was well received).

About the OP question: the appeal of the series is it's historical flavor coupled with management of officers (aka historical characters). It's pretty unique in this sense. About which one is considered the best, that's tough to answer. See, barring that central premise above each game is pretty different from each other and tend to realize their individual scopes very well. I've played all modern ones (SoI, Taishi, Awakening) and liked them all, having a slight preference for Awakening only because it's faster paced. My suggestion is for you to watch some playthroughs on youtube and see what play loop feels more enjoyable for you, then get it.

The observation I would do is: our English version of Taishi is unfinished, meaning the game is somewhat barebones, lacking all the updates and expansions that the Asian version received (Ascension sees a similar case, having it's development cycle finished prematurely, with some bugs and imbalances remaining, but in this case the game is fairly playable and with enough content for me to recommend it regardless). Due to this, I would advise you to not start with Taishi, and only get it after trying one of the others and enjoying the series premise first.

Also, there's talk of the next NA game being a remake of an older title, probably Iron Triangle if the polls are any indicative. If true, that may be good news, as some old games had some great ideas that were lost in new entries.

[asapas]

wait, did they got UPDATES for Taishi that we in the West didn't get?????

[Nox]

Originally posted by asapas:

wait, did they got UPDATES for Taishi that we in the West didn't get?????

Yes, there was a pk (think expansion) for what ever reason koei opted not to bring it west. Awakening and sphere have everything tho.