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[Doom]

Our first dispatch. This is also what'd we'd do if we wanted to discover that Search 5 Dungeon. We need a certain value of negotiate, 10 in this case, and Maeda's 4 + Akechi's 6 lets us tell Hara House where they can stick it, unless they have any women available, in which case we'll do the sticking. Let's see how they react!






Hara Shouji is the Lord of Hara House. He don't get no respect.



Princess Aki is his stone cold wife.

That ate an Action Flag and we're going to burn our next Action Flag on "Dango Princess: Kouhime" for the cutscene... and something extra.








Ah, the grace of Princess Kou has unlocked options to recruit two generics and a surprise.

But again we're out of Action Flags, so we have little choice but to end the turn and see if anything happens. You know how it is. Declare war, don't do anything. We're masters of diplomacy.

[Stush]

Haha, oh man, This is gonna be the best LP. I wanted to play this game again sometime, but I think it'll be better to just watch this. It'd be nice to find out about the mechanics I never figured out.

[Don't forget to recruit maria when the chance comes up, Maria is the best]

[Defenestration]

The main character grins like a total douchebag.

[Doom]

Sadly I already asked Leazus for help in my last playthrough, so we'll be begging Zeth for support this playthrough. Sorry, Stush!



Hara tries to invade my territory. This is brought to my attention automatically, removing the need for the between turns ticker. If I lose this fight or fail to send anybody to oppose them, they'll claim 1/4 of my land. But Hara are chumps, so let's go cave their asses in.

I can choose my own lay-out! I'm not expecting Hara to be competent and using Maeda and Akechi to declare war Exhausted them for the turn, so it's up to my best units to win this fight.

Pre-fight antics!





Drawing bamboo swords, Nobunaga defeats Rance by pointing out a UFO for first point, a beautiful woman for second point, and redirects his charge with a graceful aikido technique for the win. Rance is furious. Nothing is actually illustrated here, all the action is described in text.



What'd I say? Losers. If I was at war with multiple nations I'd consider rolling these guys with 2 or even 1 unit alone.

Note that the generic Foot Soldier has a +intelligence arrow despite the absence of an enemy Tactician. There are passive bonuses that give you a 50% chance to give yourself a stat boost and for some reason this guy chose the worst one for his class! Speaking of class, new one!

Diviners are Japan's divine casters who fight Youkai and Ghosts and other nonsense with Shinto or something, who cares. They tend to be underwhelming in offense and defense, but start off being able to cast Guard Shikigami, which will protect an ally from ANY attack, reducing the damage to Zero. This also applies to counter attack damage, so Guarded units that melee tend to forfeit their Guard. They can also spend time Preparing a Shikigami Attack that will hit every enemy unit for Spell Damage based off Intellect vs Enemy Intellect for defense. Diviners can learn improved Guard(including All Guard, which burns every action flag you have to throw up full army shields) and a few other interesting spells, but aside from a token Diviner for Guard Shikigami abuse, they're not a very thrilling unit.

Winning this battle consists of hitting the enemy until they die. The Footsoldier + Guard Shikigamis make it take about 3 attacks longer than it should, but the enemy taps out of Action Flags and has to stand there and die. I defeat them with plenty of turns to spare and my land is safe!



If you reduce a unit to 0 HP, they have a random chance to be Killed(Ally and Enemy) or Captured(Enemy, you can't lose your guys to the enemy but they can die.) Emphasis on Random. You can lose units in a defense, but have their Commander limp back to base next turn for a Gold Injection of HP. Niwa makes it a bit easier, but with an empty prison I had good odds to begin with and get an enemy Warrior and Diviner. They're generics so I'm rather zzzzzz about it for now.



Winning battle has two important effects every time, making it profitable to have as many of your commanders as possible fight every turn. A random unit will gain an Affection point, and every unit that participated will gain Max HP. When your Affection Meter is full, you can often get unique cut-scenes with the character and teach them new Passive Abilities or Attacks.

The main character grins like a total douchebag.

Gahahahahaha. You don't know the half of it.

[Doom]

This Hara cutscene plays automatically, again removing the need for the ticker option.






Purupet is a magical shop-keeper imp but he doesn't show up in this cutscene! I'll get a good picture of him later.

Not much to say here except whoo-kssh, whoo-kssh.

[Doom]

Ohhh, a cutscene with the Ashikaga House?









Well, that is a conversation that... happened. Pupi.



Ashikaga Choushin is a gold-fish shaped man who has an opposite sense of aesthetics and beauty. He's a colossal shit-bag and wants to be Emperor of Japan and has sworn to crush Oda because... I dunno. He's a dick!



Ikkyuu is exactly what he looks like. A red-eyed little boy with enormous forehead veins. He talks to the little ghost puppet in his hand as though it were a phone/his mother and constantly mutters to himself about nonsense or murder. Truly a great adviser.

[Doom]

Turn 3. I could declare war on Ashikaga House again, particularly as we've seen great evidence that they should be put down for their own good, or I could storm into Hara territory. Hara has 4 zones in it's 1 province, so it will take me 4 successful attacks to conquer it. With my army of 6 guys, I'd have to pull off some improbable 1 Commander victories so as you can see, war is a time-consuming affair... or one in which you need a great many capable commanders to stage consecutive sieges. And you can be attacked while all your invaders are exhausted, leaving no defense, especially if you're at war with multiple houses!

So we need more dudes.



Ah yes, the other use for Negotiate. Recruiting from your provinces comes up very rarely and tends to be easy to do, so once again Negotiation is a bit limited in use. We're going to grab the generic ninja who horked down Kouhime's poisonous dangos in the earlier cutscene as a warm body/bureaucrat-bot.



Generics get a generic acceptance scene where Nobunaga lights up a joint and says "It's all chill, bro. Welcome aboard."



Ninjas deal below-average damage and can Counter-Attack in melee, but have paper-thin defenses and are probably dead if they are actually in the front row. They also can't take hits from Archers very well, so why are they so damn good and vital? Ninjas can deal ranged damage and attack any unit much as Archers, but have an inherent property where their Shuriken Volleys interrupt the Preparation status of Spell-Casting units. Ninjas are also naturally fast in turn order and tend to have high Speed, so they can often prevent any unguarded spellcaster from doing anything that requires prep-time. Takigawa has straight 4s making him average in combat, but he has a 6 in Search, making him a talented scout.

Ninjas can also learn a variety of sub-moves, including spontaneous Battlefield Preparation(like the Construction Map Option), a Defensive Buff, or the real allure, a random chance to assassinate an enemy commander and instantly defeat his entire army. Emphasis on random! You can save-scum and trivialize battles with a Ninja or two, but the chance goes down against larger stacks. And talented enemy Ninjas can do the same to you, wrecking havoc upon the most careful unit arrangement.

[Doom]

With his victory and some gold, I get Rance up to 250 HP. His great offense is no good if we don't improve his army.

I'm exhausting my generics with Negotiation actions, Takigawa(and all joining units) are exhausted when they enter your forces for one turn, and I need my main characters for defense. More guys needed! Our second action fan shall go to scouting Tamagushi Fuuka, a Miko unit! Maeda's negotiation skills will suffice. She must be something special because here comes a cutscene!



WOAH! A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN! *snorts steam out of nose*









Fuuka is a unique NPC, making her better than all the generics, who are bad and should feel bad. She has 4 Action Points, 4 Atk, 4 Def, a great 6 Intelligence and a solid 5 Speed. She has Negotiate 3, but that's it. S'alright, she is our Fighting Miko and will be Fighting!

Mikos are the Female counter-part to Diviners and tend towards direct Healing. They can provide support fire with bow attacks, but what makes them useful is Miko Dance, an ability to heal themselves or an Ally based on intelligence. What makes Fuuka an outstanding Miko is that she starts with one of their passive abilities, Large Propaganda Effect, which will give every unit in a winning battle with her an additional +1 Max Hp, and Miko Storm, one of those Prep-Time spells. Miko Storm will always deal 10% Max HP damage to an enemy at the cost of all of Fuuka's action flags, making it an invaluable tool for a well-planned offense against tenacious defenders.

We're out of flags again, but now we have roughly enough units to risk attacking twice and defending in a single turn. End turn!

[Doom]

A random event randomly occurs. As I've said, there's a lot going on in this game and you'd be hard-pressed to get the same playthrough.






Choushin will randomly begin to demand reparations from Oda for "past injustices", starting at a laughably small value like 45 gold, increasing to 90-120-200-400 etc. It's a slow, steady rate and a joke to keep up with if you want to keep Ashikaga off your back. You may be wondering why we waited for it, though? As this is a between turns cutscene, we can get Ashikaga to declare war on us and save ourselves an action fan!



Rance has a pretty great line if you make the payment.



If you decline, Rance has a pretty great reply to Choushin's messenger and Choushin will declare war on you.





Woah, action over in Iga's province. Inukai is a Ninja and a King, the Ninja King, and he's a pretty cool dude. He's the only commander worth a damn in Iga I mentioned earlier and his unusual strength as a Ninja unit can upset invasions of Iga. He also uses Ninja Puppies in battle. They're so cute, with the little kunai in their mouths that slash ankles. :3



It seems a mysterious assassin, Suzume, will be along to kill Rance soon. Oh no! Suzume is not shown in this cutscene, so who knows what terrifying specter of death awaits us.



And with a bit of quality time with the Odas at the castle bath, we begin Turn 4.

[Doom]

Alright! We're going to rush Ashikaga and take half of his land, as this won't trigger a full conquering of him(his castle is in the next district), it will broaden our borders towards three other important nations, and quite frankly, he's a sissy and I want the prisoners, victories and extra national power!

Oh, what's this, a new option? Covert Action uses Search, so it's only doable by Ninjas or Tacticians or other very clever people, and can do things like assassinate enemy commanders, slash troop numbers by sabotage, or even throw the entire house into political turmoil and prevent them from launching offensives. Only the last one is generally useful, because who cares if Generic Commander X of 30 dies? And we can kill troops the old fashioned way. Keeping a dangerous invader from pressing territory is great, though... of course, the outcome is random!



How much of a sissy is he, you ask? We're going to slam dunk these guys with two commanders!



Yeah, look at those stacks. All three of them together could barely hope to overpower Shibata alone. Note that every house has unique troop graphics, which is not only super cool, but they keep the graphics if you recruit them as prisoners!

Also note that their Ninja and Warrior attacked and did horrible damage. The Warrior couldn't hope to dent Shibata with Guard up, and the Ninja have such low numbers Niwa fell asleep as Shurikens rained down around his tent.



Pow! My battle meter starts off low because I'm invading with a smaller force, so I need to murder some dudes and inflict heavy damage to boost morale.



Is not hard job. Killing a unit gives a static boost of about 10% of the bar.



Two more captures of two more uninspiring units. Prison update will once again have to wait. Since I annihilated everybody, my morale caps out, we end early with 15+ turns left, and I seize one of Ashikaga's fields.





Ah Choushin-sama, you are so gracious to your fellow down-trodden nobles. Mouri Motonari's name comes up for the first time, rememeber it. Dude is serious business.

[Doom]

You can have a max of 30 Commanders, which means it's feasible to have five full forces of six commanders. If you can do more with less, that's even better. The early game of Sengoku Rance is best done by testing the limits of how much offensive you can push with smaller armies. We'll attack the Mamushi Oil Fields again!



Two generics and Fuuka. A bit riskier, maybe? Nah, another terrible enemy comp.



Fuuka goes first and Akechi's tactician buffs have given her +50% damage. Removing the enemy Miko is the perfect opener.

From battles to the overall campaign, attacking quickly is everything. Each battle has limited turns, so the more enemies you remove, the less turns they get. You'll get those turns and can go wild up until you start running out of Action Flags! Unless you need to blunt a dangerous enemies Alpha Strike or interrupt some other danger, removing a Unit is usually a winning move.



Generic Foot Soldiers are generic and take a beating even through Guard, especially with that enemy Warrior being Guarded and getting off undamaged Alpha Strikes.



Still another impossible to lose battle. We killed two commanders, which means we'll never see their unit comp again... except they're generics, so they can be replaced by an eerily similar one. My morale trumps the Ashikaga army's, so those 41 Bushido left behind piss their pants and run as we take their territory.



We are out of Action Fans, but if we get attacked I have two of my best units and some guy who tosses pointed metal. Ranmaru could probably solo defend with her 8 Attack and Rance can solo defend as long as he doesn't get burst down. Turn end!

[Doom]

ohnoAshikagaHouseisattacking



They wanted their stolen territory back but I guess they sent a bunch of wimps to ask Ranmaru for it. Thanks for the free Affection Point and Max Troops, though!

Oh no, another national development!!!







I can now declare war on the Tanukis of Tokugawa House. However, their border is protected by a Castle in the first zone and Ieyasu and his Sons are all above average fighters. If you didn't want to deal with him, Ieyasu will stick to his declaration of "good things come to those who wait" and not declare war against you until after a *PLOT* event far in the future.



Tokugawa Ieyasu is a very patient and shrewd commander, a powerful Tanuki Youkai who established a land for Tanuki to live in peace. He loves tempura.



Honda Tadakatsu  is the serious, silent type and an incredible warlord. Ii Naomasa is an excitable idiot who loves battle. Sakakibara Yasumasa is always sleeping. Hattori Hanzou is a pretty featureless for such a big name. Sakai Tadatsugu is a drunken ninja.

[Doom]

Save-scum a bit to Scout the enemy army and see if their comp changes. The enemy won't always use the same army so you can't just send the same minimum force needed to win every time or you'll be surprised, but that is not why I am save-scumming. I am expecting Choushin to use unique NPCs I want to capture... but after 3 attempts, I'm already bored and decide to just stomp it. Easy single-unit scouting is basically the entire reason I'm using Takigawa for the first half of the game.



When putting together your invasion or defense force, just click on Scout. You'll have to hit a low Search number and you'll get the entire enemy make-up, including class and numbers, before you commit your organized force. Neat. Also good for making sure somebody you want to catch is there before you drag in your guys with Defeated Warrior Hunt.

Alright, final territory battle to take half of Choushin's land.



Enemy has an overwhelming morale advantage. Castle Siege! The enemy has an exposed Archer in the front row, but a Foot Soldier guards Diviners and Archers in the back.



Rance eats an Alpha from one of those Warriors and I decide to have Katsuie play Guard for the rest of the fight.



Katsuie is one of the better Foot Soldier units because he naturally buids his Guard at a rate of about 110% a Guard, instead of the default 80%. He can guard the front row indefinitely unless the enemy moves twice to his once.

Preparation status is broadcasted, so it's never a surprise that you should have interrupted a caster unit. Niwa guns down the Diviners... but ultimately, I lose to the last defending Foot Soldier with something ridiculous like 49% morale! Boo!



I reload and toss Takigawa in. His attack can pick off weakened units and any attack, no matter how insignificant, will chip 40% off an enemy guard gauge. I pick up the win and two prisoners.

I've conquered a territory and with it, it's nubile young princess. This only increases Rance's satisfaction by 3 points instead of the usual 5, so I may have just discovered what makes this difficulty harder than Normal.



Enraged, Choushin flips a god damn table. He then writes every House in Japan for aid. Somehow... none of them respond.

[Doom]

My Power has increased, boosting my income and letting me operate a larger army! I also get access to anything unique to the Mamushi Oil Fields, such as the ability to search for the Murasame, construct a Foot Soldier training camp in a valley well-suited to it, or... to impose a one-time levy as the conquering lord.



Gahahahaha!



Levies always give you a few thousand gold and a single +Stat book, in this case +1 Attack up to a maximum of 6. There are very rare +Stat 2 Books, which let you exceed the maximum of 6. So obviously, always use the more common books to reach 6.



I got this from an earlier victory randomly. At +4 Affection Points, this powerful little beauty is as good as wasting four Action Fans talking to somebody.



I have 6 generics in my prison, so let's look at it. When you capture enemy commanders, they usually experience a bit of Magus Syndrome and end up available to you with dramatically lower Max HP than they had in battle. Their stats will be the same, but random generics are random. I don't really want to use any of this trash. If I did, I'd task up to 5 of my guys to talk them into it based on their Negotiation. Usually really easy. Unlike other Search/Negotiate/Construction tasks, recruiting from Prison does not exhaust the unit. The unit you recruit will be exhausted for that turn.

: So why am I here?! There are two incredible hidden stats behind the prison. First of all, the more full your prison, the less likely you are to capture enemy commanders in battle! So don't keep people around just in case! Naturally, this is never mentioned in game and you'd think they would always have room until they're entirely full? Second of all...



Every time you release 5 or more prisoners, you get a free Happy Pokkuru! It's always given at 5, so don't release more. Always 5 at a time.



We'll use this next turn, but it's very useful so running a revolving door prison is a great idea.

[Doom]

New neighbors.



Asai Asakura House is a single province mountain kingdom ruled by a level-headed pacifist, they won't pick a fight with us unless we start clearing out a ton of other Houses. An average campaign, they tend to favor defense but have bad unit comp due to a new class we'll see soon.



Miko Institute, the headquarters of Japan's Mikos, a single province mountain kingdom... that heavily favors Defense. They're worth attacking early for various reasons, not the least of which is to keep them from turtling up... and that they're a nation of ladies.



Takeda House are the baddest Human dudes in the game. You can conquer Takeda early and there is great reward for doing so, but be ready to be on top of your game and to die horribly if you can't cut it. I was able to barely defeat them early on my first playthrough using every AAA tactic available to me, but most Rance vets say that Takeda are so tough you need New Game+ bonuses to regularly defeat them.

[Doom]

Let's discuss the map screen a little bit! Here is the theme.

Sengoku Rance OST - Sengoku World



You may have noticed that I have not mentioned Hara Shouji in a while! Hara House and all Houses attack randomly, often based on preferences unique to their House, with patterns you can see based on their Lord's personality. Hara's Lord doesn't really want to fight me and it reflects in his reluctance to attack, even if I were to begin seizing his territories. Choushin is an arrogant moron and will constantly attack me, especially to reclaim his own land. Later Lords will be more consistent in attacking, but a few will stand out as having reasons to be reluctant as well. Just keep it in mind when you pick a fight with a guy or gal who is known to be mean as Hell; they'll probably attack you once a turn!

I'm 9 points beneath my Power Cap, so development still isn't necessary. Battlefield Preparation is actually an influence of the Battle Meter and not any actual unit stats. I don't want to scout Hachisuka Muneyana because he's a mere generic and I already have two foot soldiers, a perfect number for my current army size.

I want to find and clear the dungeon, but later. War is a high priority early in the game and the faster you carve out an early lead and capture some good commanders, the better. I've mentioned that Botan Hunt is a money-making thing and a minor easter egg, I may pursue it later if I want to pump my Score near the end of the game.

Force a student to become a commander is what it sounds like. Rance walks up to a group of high-school girls and will make one of them a Warrior, Archer or Foot Soldier. And they'll usually have all 2s or worse for stats. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an easter egg or a hidden boon related to it, but I don't much want to put the effort towards it.

I have a few cutscenes available for Fuuka and Ranmaru at least, but their affection values are at 1/7 each and I can raise those with battles or gifts. Item-use doesn't consume Action Fan, but keep in mind that Exhausted Units can't use items or swap them! Ideally, you want to only talk to somebody if you want to accelerate their affection, see the cut-scenes... or wait to do it at 7/7 so you can see a cutscene and trigger their Affection Bonus to improve their unit.

Sometimes, the cut-scene and talking will happen randomly between turns! It's not reliable enough to sit on every time, but it can be an unexpected and welcome Action Fan saver.

For now, we'll need to end our turn before we make any more decisions.

[Doom]

Ashikaga is up to something and it represents an overall change in his army composition, particularly when invading his land. This is what I've been waiting for!



WOAH! A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN! *honks nose*





Blackmailing the last surviving siblings of a Noble House, Choushin has recruited Yanmoto Isoroku, a talented archer. Not only will she begin showing up in his army formations, Choushin is mad as Hell and will begin gracing us with his presence in battle. Even Ikkyu will show up randomly. I can barely contain my excitement!

[Doom]

This is no translation error. Asai-Asakura's province is known as Texas. Perhaps to suggest I should not mess with them.



WOAH! A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN! *eyes bug out of skull*





Asakura Yoshikage is the father of about 6 children and a widower, wholly devoted to his youngest daughter and the idea of unifying Japan through tactical negotiation. Yuki is that youngest daughter, known for her beauty throughout all of Japan. The rest of his children are mere generics. Let's shift back to Oda and watch Rance receive the Asakura peace offering...





Welp. So much for any actual alliance!

[Zaratustra]

I'm honestly stumped as to why they added sex scenes to an otherwise rather decent and complex game.

[Doom]

The Rance series is rather long-running(this is the seventh game) and I think at this point it's a great deal of tradition and Rance wouldn't be Rance otherwise, especially to the fans. Obviously it's a pain to mass market the game, but I've become a big fan of the humor, as we'll soon see...

We join Rance, Sill and Kouhime at the Dango Cafe. We haven't heard anybody butchering anybody else outside, so let's Chekov's Gun some shit.



Nobunaga and Kouhime have private guard units that we can never use in fights. Chekov'd!



Whoops. I guess you got the discount ninjas, Kouhime. Give them back, I need them to scout.
 




WOAH! A BEAUTIFUL POET! *jaw drops, tongue rolls out like a carpet*






The next screen-cap's line had me howling with laughter for three minutes straight, at which point I knew Sengoku Rance had won my heart forever.

After massaging her ass a bit, we remove her panties... OH NO!!!
Warning us that more traps await in her lovely bits, Rance tells us what a man does when faced with obvious danger.
Fingering Suzume, we discover... "If you had inserted your dick first, it would have burst." The importance of foreplay, folks.

And from there, Imperial Juice.



Having fucked the evil out of her, we let Suzume go. Don't worry, 50 Ninjas is like 200 Rance Dollars to replenish.



I get 5 Satisfaction for banging Suzume, which corrects what I said earlier. Maybe the Satisfaction bonus from before was always 3 points?

Either way, I've gone up to 13 points, which is more then 10, so Satisfaction bonus! Every 10 points, Rance can burn an Action Fan to reflect on what a good mood he is in and resolve to work harder for Oda. The bonuses for doing so are incredible and game-defining, so if you languish or turtle and don't conquer land and fuck women, your odds of victory are nill.



Hopy Shit what do all these mean.

Call for Reinforcements will summon a new unique NPC unit in about 3 turns from Rance-World's other alternate Earth countries, Leazus or Zeth, which are both sort of traditional fantasy instead of Japanese fantasy. Or something. Leazus favors martial might, Zeth favors magical might. We won't use that bonus yet, but I recruited from the Leazus path last time so I'm going with Zeth later.

Rance's Rance Attack is what we're taking this time and I'll cover that when I use it in battle. It unlocks a super-move for Rance that consumes all of his Action Flags.

Replacing Rance's troops with elites boosts all of his combat stats except Action Flags by 1 Point. We want to feed Rance stat books up until their limit of 6 before we use that.

Katsuie begins the first 30 or so turns of the game with a mild injury. Healing it grants him +Intelligence and +Speed or something. Not really worth it.

We can make a generic, Maeda Toshiie, become a ... Kabuki Actor? It doesn't do much at first and you need to blow a second Satisfaction bonus later to transform Maeda into an improved unit, but I don't give a shit about generics. Note that this is the sort of thing you'd have to do for full Completionist credit.

The Mannequin Cat is a good item with a huge drawback I don't want to deal with. Sometimes we get access to other items that are good and I'll take them later.

Recruit Amazing Old Man?! How amazing?! How old?! I actually like this one as it will recruit a famous Japanese politician(complete with grainy photo portrait) to your army. They're bad at fighting but have 8s in every bureaucrat stat! I enjoy having one around.

Complete Heal all units is self-explanatory and not worth it unless you're in the middle of a game-ending emergency, in which case it probably won't do the trick. Troop maximum affects Rance's unit only, making it a poor sale compared to +50 Max for EVERY commander. When you have 20+ Commanders, that's 1000 free Recruit. A really great default option if you've exhausted the better unique bonuses.

Weaken Enemy countries is... weird. It's probably great, but I've only used it once and it felt like a placebo effect.

Battle Prep is Battle Morale and totally zzzzzzz. Might be great if blown before a super-hard battle, like trying to finish off a Takeda province.

Again, we grab Rance Attack and begin Turn 6.