Goal: unite Japan by holding all 38 provinces. You lose if your last province falls, or if a third succession breaks your clan.

On the title screen choose New campaign, then the scenario (1560 or 1582), then how many players (0 to 9; press ? to see what each number means):

• 0: nobody plays. The computer clans fight it out while you watch, month after month, with pause and speed keys.
• 1: you against the computer clans.
• 2 to 9: players taking turns at this computer (hot-seat). A hand-over screen comes between turns, so nobody sees another player's provinces.

Each player chooses the fief whose daimyo they will be, on the map or in the list beside it, confirms it, may change their lord's name, and then sets his politics, war, charisma and ambition one at a time: each number counts quickly through the range the computer's lords have, and Space stops it. N counts all four again; Y keeps them. Then: do you want to watch the other fiefs' wars on the battle field? Last, the level of the computer clans (Gentle, Easy, Normal, Hard or Ruthless).

Quick start begins at once as the Oda clan in 1560. Continue picks up the game from its last autosave, made at the end of every month. Load campaign opens a save slot, or imports a save file.

Click a province on the map, or use the arrow keys, to see it. Tab steps through your own provinces. Red is your clan; the gold outline is the province you are looking at; the small white keep marks your lord's seat.

Esc opens Other. Mouse and touch work as well as the keys.

Each of your provinces gives its orders in turn, your lord's seat first; Orders on the province panel marks the one whose turn it is. 0 Rest ends that province's turn and moves to the next. After your last province the month ends (with several players, the next player takes the screen; after the last, the month ends).

Each province has a governor and up to seven samurai: eight officers at most. Every officer has his own politics, war, charisma, ambition and loyalty, his own body points (BP), and leads his own men, with their skill and arms, in one kind of unit: cavalry, infantry or rifles. A province's men are its officers' men together, at most 100. View > Officer roster shows them all; View > Province data shows everything about the province, with the ronin (samurai of no clan) waiting in it.

Every order is carried out by an officer you appoint from the roster. Officers without the BP an order needs are shown in red. BP come back each month: 10, and three tenths of the officer's politics, up to 200. Before you Authorize an order, your advisor (the officer of the province with the most politics) says what he thinks of it.

Ronin come and go. Disloyal samurai may leave to become ronin.

• Move > Officers: an officer goes to a bordering province of your own with his men, and any gold and rice you send with him (20 BP). The last officer of a province cannot leave. When your lord moves, his seat moves with him.
• Move > Gold or rice: choose a province of your own on the map, then the gold and the rice (either may be 0), then the officer who takes them (20 BP).
• Develop (50 BP and the gold spent): cultivate land raises the land under the plough, up to what the province can cultivate, and with it the rice harvest and support, but it weakens the flood banks; flood control strengthens them, by an amount the river decides; develop town raises trade and gold; reinforce castle helps in battle. A handful of gold does nothing, and the advisor says so. The result rises on the screen (Other > Animation turns this off).
• Trade (40 BP): sell rice for gold, or buy rice or arms with gold, at the market price. Arms go to every officer's men. Borrow gold: the moneylenders lend up to 300 gold for each province you hold, and add a tenth to the debt when they lend (borrow 62, owe 68); there is no interest after that. Settle debts pays back all the province can, with no officer needed. A clan that owes more than it may (because it has lost land) is pressed each month, and support falls in every province.
• Personnel: recruit ronin (the gold is paid only if one accepts); recruit officers, the samurai of a bordering rival province (not its governor; the gold is spent either way, and his men stay behind); dismiss officers (they become ronin, and their men stay); give rewards (loyalty); train officers in politics, war or charisma (2 to 4 points; 60 BP and 30 gold); change governor (not your lord).
• Diplomacy, by your lord only, from his seat: a clan that agrees will not attack you, nor you them. Propose an alliance (12 months); send a gift of gold, which makes an alliance likelier; arrange a marriage (24 months; 100 gold, given back if refused); break an alliance.
• Spy: spread war rumours makes the officers of a bordering rival province less loyal, and easier to recruit; incite uprising lowers its support; an assassin may kill its governor. A caught assassin dies, unless he is the governor himself. Spies are not sent against allies. If a player's lord is killed, the clan has a new head: one more succession.
• Military: hire soldiers into an officer's unit (1 gold and 10 people per soldier); reassign men from one officer to another; train men raises one officer's men's skill; War attacks a bordering province, with an officer you choose commanding (he needs 50 BP).

In month 3 (spring) gold comes in from trade; in month 9 (autumn) the rice is harvested. Soldiers eat into both. Floods come with the rains of months 5 to 7, and typhoons in summer; good flood protection keeps the fields. Unhappy provinces rise up.

Your lord governs from his seat. If the seat falls, he escapes to another of the clan's provinces. If he dies, the next officer of his province succeeds him; a third succession breaks the clan. A province you capture is held by your samurai who led the most men, with half the army; its own officers flee to another of their clan's provinces, or become ronin.

Make war on a bordering province from Military. Your three units (red banners) face the defenders. Each unit is led by the best at war of your officers whose unit is of its kind, or by the governor.

• Click one of your units, then click an empty hex to move or a neighbouring enemy to attack. With the keys: the arrows move the cursor, Enter acts, Tab picks the next unit.
• 1 Attack, 2 Rifle fire and 3 Charge choose how the next attack is made. Rifles hit hard without being struck back, but must reload: move or wait before firing again. A charge hits twice as hard and is struck back twice as hard.
• W waits. Infantry who wait lie in ambush and strike double.
• Cavalry move two clear hexes in a straight line. Forests protect, mountains block, and a weakened defender shelters in the castle.
• Destroy the enemy commander (the pennant) to win. Each side eats rice every three rounds, and the defender wins after 90 rounds. X withdraws.

With Other > Hex battles off, the computer fights your wars for you and you see the result. The computer clans fight their own wars on the same field; with Watch other fiefs' wars on (Other > Settings) you see each one at the end of the month: Enter skips a battle, Esc skips the rest.

Display time (1 slow to 5 fast) sets how long the battles you watch and the results take. Animation shows a develop order's result rising. Sound turns the music on and off; Settings also sets its volume. Quit goes back to the title screen. In the browser the music starts at your first key press or click, and F, or the button at the top right of the page, shows the game full screen.