Highlights
- Takeaway 1: In Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening, players should avoid spreading out landholders too far as it weakens territories and leaves them vulnerable to enemy attacks.
- Takeaway 2: It is important to pay attention to the suggestions of retainers in the game, as they offer valuable insights on how to wisely spend resources and make key decisions.
- Takeaway 3: Players should promote exceptional retainers in the game to enhance their abilities and gain advantages in combat, as different aliases provide helpful buffs.
For those who aren't very familiar with Nobunaga's Ambition games, it is a game franchise that dates back to 1983 it merges a traditional feudal Japanese setting with turn-based grand strategy role-playing gameplay to create one of the most intense and challenging strategy games out there.
The sixteenth entry in this beloved series, Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening, is finally here, but rather than jumping straight in and inevitably becoming overwhelmed by the sheer amount of menus, mechanics, units, and the gigantic map that is presented to the player, it can be a good idea to learn a few tips to avoid making the biggest mistakes that most beginners often fall into.
Once players can get stuck into the core gameplay of a Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening and are more familiar with how to respond to certain events and occurrences between the clans, it makes the game so much more enjoyable and rewarding, making for a fantastic grand strategy experience that all fans of these types of games should consider trying out.
8 Don't Spread Out Landholders Too Far
Some units in Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening are designed to work in tangent so that they can lean on one another's abilities to improve the status of the clan and its territories, and this is especially the case with Lords and Landholders. While Lords are tasked with holding castles, Landholders will work on managing territories while also assisting their Lords with their abilities.
Inexperienced players who don't quite understand the role of each unit may be tempted to spread them out across the map to cover as much land as they can, but the truth is this is only going to lead to weak and vulnerable territories. Instead, players should keep Lords and Landholders nearby since they will both contribute to the strength of a castle which becomes crucial when dealing with enemy troops and civil affairs.
7 Try Not To Ignore The Retainer's Suggestions
Once a few retainers are developing smaller parts of the region and building up their areas, they will begin giving the player a few recommendations as part of the side menu. The retainers will suggest all kinds of things, such as how to spend gold wisely, who should be promoted next, and whether a tactical assault seems feasible or not depending on the number of soldiers currently available.
Players can easily breeze through the first few hours of the game and build up their clan without throwing resources and live away unnecessarily by following the recommendations from the retainers, so whenever they pop up in the bottom left corner, it's usually best not to ignore them.
6 Make Sure To Promote Retainers
If a retainer becomes recognized for their exceptional abilities and combat prowess, the player will eventually be able to promote them and enhance their abilities. This can be a little tricky to find since the promotion system is tucked away in its menu and can seem quite confusing at first, but so long as the player keeps track of what units are developing the fastest, they will then be able to improve them accordingly.
Once a retainer earns a new alias, which is essentially the title they are known as they will then receive a few buffs that can help them in combat. So for example, The Wise alias which can be achieved by completing Covert missions will make the Equipment Gauge Restoration meter fill up much faster. Retainers can earn the chance to be promoted and be bestowed by the player by completing either Battle, Civil, Occupy, or Covert tasks.
5 Stop A Betrayal By Using Cross Negotiation
When starting any grand-strategy game, it's always tempting to try and flex some muscles by going to war with anyone who poses a threat to the stability of the player's faction or nation, even if this enemy comes in the form of a former ally, but it's always worth looking at the alternative options.
In Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening, players can acquire castles without the need for any bloodshed by making use of the Double-Cross system where they can trade certain items and some gold. The difficulty of these negotiations will depend on the personality and feelings of the officer, and they can only be used on retainers who are planning a betrayal and in other very specific situations, but it can save a huge amount of gold and lives that could otherwise be lost in an ensuing battle down the line.
4 Encourage Units To Stay In The Clan
No matter how prosperous a clan is, there is always inevitably going to be someone who starts getting irritated with the way things are going and will want to leave entirely, and while this might not be as big of an issue for smaller units, officers can have a much bigger impact on the development of the clan if they decide to walk out.
Whenever there are signs of someone deciding to abandon the clan, a small prompt will pop up letting the player know which will then take them to the negotiation screen. Officers will always have a request that must be met for them to stay, and while these can sometimes be very demanding, they should never be ignored since this is an easy way to cause the core structure of the clan to collapse.
3 Use A Feint Strategy Before Attacking Head On
Four different war strategies can be deployed when engaging in a battle, these being; joint offensive, bolster, ranged attack, and feint. The former three are all designed to strike the enemy where it hurts and deal as much damage as possible by attacking from different points on the battlefield, but the feint retainer's units are simply tasked with drawing the enemy out from their borders before the assault has officially begun.
Not only does this leave enemy units exposed to a pincer-style assault, but it also draws them away from their castles which can make approaching the enemy much safer. Many players will ignore the feint strategy so that they can get stuck into the action as soon as possible, but it's an incredibly useful tactic that will save so many lives in practice.
2 Never Place Large Armies On Narrow Roads
When soldiers are marching to engage an enemy in Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening, they will either be directed to move along a narrow road or a wide road. Out of the two, narrow roads are a lot more risky and nowhere near as reliable since only a few troops will be able to battle at a time, so while it can be good for convoy units who are going on the flank, they are a huge detriment to large armies.
Placing a large army on a narrow road means that most of them will simply be waiting in the back until they can get the chance to fight, so it's very important to pay close attention to the road sizes before an attack is commenced, otherwise things can go horrible wrong very quickly.
1 March From Multiple Roads During A Siege
It's extremely important to siege a castle from multiple different directions since this will make the most use of all the unique war strategies that the retainers can use, and will make for a much easier attack that will get right to the heart of the castle a lot faster. The aim when marching toward a castle is to have all allied troops surrounding it without giving the enemy any avenues to escape.
This also makes it very easy to gain the upper hand in the battle which can cause the enemy Lord to surrender, opening up a much more diplomatic solution to end the ongoing battle.
Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.
