Life of the Samurai - 1. The Original Concept for Battles

The original concept was limited to the Battle Mode - a part of the game in which small units of soldiers fight against eachother on a 2d, top-down view map. I am writing down the original idea as a kind of protocol, even though the final result looks differently:

• Unit positioning

- The units should be composed of independent soldiers, each aware of his own state (moving, standing, rotating, attacking, defending) and capable to act by himself.

- The unit's arrangement would be left to the player's choice. If he could imagine it, then he would be able to do it. Predefined positions would be given, but other than that, the player would have a unit-manager, on which he could manually position the soldiers of a unit in any thinkable formation he wishes. Merging units of the same type would also be possible.

This concept was dropped.

• Gameplay

- This is the part I was most excited about: The interaction of the player with the battle would be neither entirely real-time-strategy, nor entirely turn-based-strategy. What I wanted to do was give each unit on the battlefield a "messenger" (let's call him "Mercury" from now on), a unit responsible for carrying information between the troops and the General's unit.

Picture a real ancient or medieval war. In the midst of battle, the general was unable to give his orders instantaneously, as almost every game these days seem to presume. Instead, his orders first had to reach the troops before being followed.

The same principle was planned for my "turn based real time" implementation. The player could roam freely on the battlefield using the General unit, but the interaction with his troops only takes place through messengers.

So, every time Mercury reaches the player, he can specify the actions that his unit must undertake (by selecting the future positions, the way of movement, the way of engagement, etc.) and send him on his way back to his unit for the orders to be followed.

I originally expected this to require fast reactions as well as good planning and steering the battle as it unfolds. Great generals would have been able to plan entire battles before they had even begun by anticipating the enemy's moves and preparing the right reactions.

Sadly, the messenger concept (having a messenger carry orders from the general to the troops) turned out to be a nice idea only in theory, but in practical terms it made the game boring and annoying. The player was never focused on the battle itself, but on the messengers and the positioning - with the battle paused most of the time. So after implementing it and trying it out, I had to scratch it and started anew - with a 2D Total War take on the battle field, which we will discuss in detail later. This also seems to stay more true to the nature of the Sword of the Samurai's battles, which allowed permanent control over the troops.

The fate of the original concepts