Nobunaga's Ambition 2 Download (1989 Strategy Game)

Nobunaga's Ambition II is the sequel to Nobunaga's Ambition. The setting is 16th century feudal Japan, a period when ruthless daimyo (feudal lords) contended with each other for dominance. Ultimately, the winner in this struggle will become Shogun and hold actual power over the islands, while being nominally subject to the Emperor.

The game casts the player as one of the daimyo, allowing them freedom to decide the fate and future of feudal Japan, through diplomacy and ultimately war. The objective is to unify Japan under the player's rule. If the player fails through death on the battlefield, assassination at the hands of a ninja, or through natural causes, they can choose a successor and play on. Functionally, the first job is to let prosper the fief (province) under the player's control through agricultural development and town investment.

Nobunaga's Ambition 2 is a brilliant strategy game placed in ancient Japan. Oda Nobunaga was a daymio with a single goal; to unite Japan under his rule. Something he almost managed to do as well, but now KOEI has given you the chance to do what one of the most powerful warlords throughout history never accomplished.

I think this is my favourite of all the old strategy games made by KOEI, there is just so much that you can do in this game. First of all you get to choose between 38 different daymio's, each one with a different starting position and power. Then you have the rich political aspect to the game, from recruiting more soldiers to bribe enemy generals. If you don't treat your loyal soldiers good, they might suddenly prove to be not so loyal anymore. Your enemies are constantly trying to buy your generals, and are also spreading negative propaganda about you, making it harder for you to hire new ones. Of course, you are allowed to do the same by sending spies into foreign regions and tear them down from within.

Then we have the actual fighting. The best way to fight is to use the numpad in combination with numeric commands, and to use large amounts of strategy, of course. When attacking a region, you will first try to break down the defences outside of a city, then move on to infiltrating the castle and kill or capture the enemy generals. If you are so lucky to capture any generals, you have different things you can do to them. You may either behead them (to set an example to your enemies), employ them as generals under your command (easy and cheap labour), or you can let them go.

All in all Nobunaga's Ambition 2 is a well-balanced strategy game that is fairly easy to learn, and a game that can be played again and again. You haven't really completed the game before you have completed it with each of the 38 different daymio's, and that is a long time into the future. Truly recommended.

The game supports multiplayer up to 4 players.

This sequel to Nobunaga's Ambition is to its predecessor what Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2 is to RTK 1: better graphics and sound, but almost identical gameplay. The AI has been improve somewhat in this incarnation, as taking over cities and espionage acts are more difficult to achieve. The biggest improvement over the original is the tactical battle mode: there are now many more attack options and realistic factors, e.g. fire arrows are much less effective in rainy weather, and naval battles are now more important. Personal statistics of major personage have also been adjusted to less god-like levels, so winning as a custom character or lesser known warlords is not as impossible a task as in the first game. Overall, if you like the first game, you'll definitely love this sequel. Yet another solid strategy / war hybrid from KOEI. Highly recommended!

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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