Game Title : Campaign of Sekigahara
Publisher : Kokusai-Tsushinsha
Game Designer : Yasutaka Ikeda
Game Thema : Sekigahara Battle in 1600
Game Scale
Period : from June 1600; expedition to Uesugi to October 1600; battle of Sekigahara
Map : from Osaka-castle to Kitame-castle
Units : 80counters, minor daimyou is represented by one unit, major daimyou is represented by several units
Game Sequences
Card distribution
Kyusyu campaign
Initiative determination
Main actions
End phase
Background of History
Conventional viewpoint on Battle of Sekigahara is composed of mainly documents of Tokugawa who won the battle. This is because Tokugawa side had wiped out many documents, which are not favorable for their side. Recent study of this battle shows many unknown episodes of Ishida’s side. And now we have a little bit modified long shot of this critical battle.
This game starts with Tokugawa’s expedition to Uesugi. And at this timing Mitsunari Ishida decided to raise the force in Western area to pincer drive Tokugawa’s force. This pincer drive became possible by strong trust between Mitsunari and Kanetsugu Naoe who was the most important subordinate of Uesugi.
In 2009, we have TV series “Ten-chi-jin” which is strongly affected this new viewpoint. And this game also is strongly affected this new viewpoint.
Characteristic game mechanics
Basically this game uses card-driven mechanics. Tokugawa-side gets 9 cards per turn. Ishida-side gets 8 cards per turn. But, once Ishida-side gets total control on Western territory, they can get Hideyori Toyotomi to make a sortie from Osaka-castle and gets 10 cards per turn.
The mechanics above shows the fact that at this moment nominally the conqueror of all Japan was Toyotomi family. So that, both side tried to make their expedition suitable for highest principle for Toyotomi family. This was very political struggle between Mitsunari and Ieyasu. But, this part was very important.
In this game, the card-capacity of Mitsunari was strongly affected by the sortie of Hideyori. And also there are many important neutral daimyou here and there, such as Maeda, Date, and Satake. They are basically moved and fought by specific cards, which are got via random distribution.
Challenge for players
In case of Epoch’s “Sekigahara”, it had a game mechanics that the players can struggle politically. On the other hand, this game doesn’t have such system but includes political element softly among the game mechanics of card-play and trigger of Hideyori’s sortie.
From the surface viewpoint, this game is a card-driven move and combat game. But, political matters are covered softly among the submechanics.
Players must understand these tricks set by the designer and struggle against his opponent to utilize the tricks for their favor.
Final words
The best point of this game is that this game is basically a simple card-driven game. Thus, this game has shorter rule than conventional Sekigahara games and played in shorter playing time.
The bad point is as always with card-driven game, the play balance is strongly affected by random card distribution. Though this game doesn’t have critical killer-card, it can be sometimes very unbalanced by the cards. But, don’t worry too much. The playtime is not too long. So, you can have next play if you don’t satisfied with your first play.
