Quote Originally Posted by Masamune View Post
There is a danger in "the more playable factions, the better." The more playable factions there are, the more testing and balancing will be required, and the more difficult it will be to get that "right." None of us want to play an unbalanced game. Hence, I think they should limit the number of playable clans to an amount they can effectively test and balance within the scheduled time allotted for the project. Within this limitation of scope, yes, I'd say the more the better.

I think it is important to acknowledge Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi as "unifiers" also. Most historians that I've read, do. The three are commonly referenced together as such because the outcome would not likely have been what it was had all three not done what they did. Tokugawa was the shrewd, patient, and fortunate one who took the final "prize," but it is not likely he could have done so without the accomplishments of his predecessors.
I'm aware that there could be a lot of testing and balancing issues. But sometimes we like a challenge. If a clan only has one province, and it's surrounded by tough neighbouring clans, we don't expect an easy game. But a human player can easily turn this situation around. So I still maintain that the more factions there are, the better. Japan has a lot of history, and a person might want to play as their local clan, or a clan their family was related to.

Balancing won't be much of an issue for this game, except for the starting positions. (How many provinces the factions will start with mostly.) As most Samurai clans will have access to nearly the same units. If they're keeping it to 8 though, that'll just be tragic. I'll have to mod that, otherwise it really just might ruin my game.

Nobunaga Oda, and Hideyoshi Toyotomi are also called unifiers, it's true. As the saying goes, and the child's song goes, "Nobunaga gathered the rice, Hideyoshi made the cake, and Ieyasu ate it." In Nobunaga's day, when he first took control of Owari, nobody was really afraid of him. Imagawa thought he could roll right over him. In that area, Imagawa, Hojo, and Uesugi seemed much more likely canidates for unifying the land than him. And Takeda in Kai, though smaller than his neighbours was quite able and strong, Takeda Shingen had plans on the capital. I hope the game give us that feeling, that we could be the one to unify the land. We could start from one province like Nobunaga, and take control of the whole land.

I think it'll be a fun game, no matter what they do. But I want all the clans to be playable. Think about it, in any game, if you include a nation, wouldn't people from that nation want to play as them? Like Armenia in RTW. Why they were never intended to be playable, is just odd to me... All the clans should be playable. Not just 8.