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Description of Gameplay
Sengoku Rance is a hentai Strategy-RPG that takes place in the fictional world of JAPAN. There are a large number of classes: such as Ashigaru (Japanese Infantry / Spearmen), Samurai, Musketeers, Sohei, Archers, Ninja, Tacticians, Onmyouji, Cavalry, and Miko. There are also a few "foreigner" classes from the Rance main series: Mages, Cannoneers, and Knights. The game starts in Oda Nobunaga's home territory of Owari. With only 5 commanders (and only a few hundred soldiers per commander), Rance (the main character of Alicesoft's long running series) sets off to conquest all of JAPAN (roughly 31 territories). As a fictional setting, this includes Texas, Morraco, and South Africa (some territories of JAPAN that don't match up to the real world Japan).

Battles take place in a 2x3 vs 2x3 region. 2-columns, 3-rows. Every unit has a set of skills, largely determined by their class. Although unique units, such as Rance, have unique attacks and skills. For example, Rance's magical slave Sill will heal Rance after every action. The goal of combat is to achieve more than 50% "Advantage". Losing troops will reduce your advantage, while killing enemy troops will raise your advantage. Battles on a field have a 10% advantage towards the defender, while battles in a castle start with a 90% advantage towards the defender.
Army battles follow roughly Lanchester's laws: (
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), which means an army with troop count 300 will do 2x damage (and take 1/2 damage) from an army with 150. However, instead of scaling all the way to 9999, there is a quirk in the calculation. The "Adjusted Troop Size" grows at 50% rate after 500 troops, and only grows 25% rate after 1000 troops. In effect, an army with size 1000 will deal only 150% the damage of an army of size 500. While an army of size 2000 will only deal 200% the damage of an army size 500.Briefly, here's what each unit can do:
- Ashigaru (Japanese Infantry / Spearmen): Cheapest units to recruit and replace. They can "Ally Guard", creating a INT% x2 chance of defending an ally within their column. Each hit removes 40% guard. For example, a 6-INT Ashigaru will Ally Guard at 120% (which will last for 3-hits. First at 120%, then at 80% chance of blocking, and finally 40% chance of blocking)
- Samurai One of the premier attacking units in the game. They can only attack from the front column vs the enemy's front column however.
- Archers Tied (with Sohei) as the 2nd cheapest unit in the game to recruit. They can attack from either back-or-front column, against the back-or-front column of the opponent.
- Ninja: The fastest units in the game. Typically strikes first and has very low cooldown. However, Ninja are much more expensive than other units. Ninja shuriken also cancel "preparation" moves (primarily Onmyouji's AOE attack). May get "Assassinate" skills for a ~50% chance to instant-kill foes (dependent on the relative army sizes. The more troops the Ninja has, the better the chance of instant-kill).
- Musketeers: Very few action points. Their first shot is extremely fast and extremely powerful, the most powerful JAPAN attack (although weaker than the foreigner Cannons / Tulips). However, most Musketeers can only fire once per battle, while there are (rare) heroes who can fire twice. Can initially only fire from the front-column vs the enemy's front column, they do get a piercing shot eventually with 50% damage to one row (both the front and back column).
- Tacticians: Provides an (INT) number of (INT x 5)% boosts to random stats. For example, a tactician with 8 INT will provide 8-random stat bonuses (across all units) of +40% upon the start of combat. They fight with bows, similar to archers except much more expensive. Tactician skills are extremely varied: providing more boosts, cancelling enemy boosts, and even skills that can increase (or even flip!!) the "Advantage bar"
- Sohei (Warrior Monks): Incredibly healthy units which fully recover after every fight for free. While slightly weaker than Samurai, Sohei have the ability to "Guard Cancel" Ashigaru, removing their x2 defense boost and removing the Ashigaru's ability to "guard" enemy hits on behalf of their column-mates (at least, until the Ashigaru's next turn). Tied with Archers as 2nd cheapest unit in the game to recruit.
- Onmyouji (Ying-Yang Magic): Defense Shikigami will block one hit completely (not even removing a "Guard%" if it hit a guarding Ashigaru). Offense-Shikigami is a large-scale AOE attack which hits all 6 enemies, but requires preparation (ie: can be stopped by a Ninja attack). As a magic attack, Onmyouji ignore Ashigaru defense bonuses.
- Cavalry: Only available from the Takdeda clan. Cavalry are warrior units who can perform melee strikes from the back-or-front column against the enemy's back-or-front column. Very rare units however.
- Miko (Shrine Maidens): Healer units who fight with bows. Although healing does not provide any "Advantage" in battle, the healing will save lots of gold in the long run.
Foreigner classes:
- Mage: Magic attacks which ignore Ashigaru defense bonuses, but Ashigaru will still "facetank" hits on behalf of their column-mates.
- Knight: Exclusive to the character Leila, the Royal Guard of the Leazas army. Combines the best attributes of Ashigaru and Samurai: she can hit hard while providing Ally Guard. Tied with as Archers / Sohei as 2nd cheapest to recruit.
- Cannoners: Rocket launchers. Exclusive to Maria and her subordinate Kasumi. Hits even harder than Musketeers and they come with 3 action points. They're still very slow however and need lots of +Speed boosts to get all their shots in by the endgame. Tied with Musketeers as most expensive unit to recruit.
The above only discusses Army battles. All characters have a 2nd set of commands when you enter "Commander" battles. Commander battles use a standard HP formulas you're probably used to from typical JRPGs. (A commander at 1HP will still do full damage). Commander battles are for clearing dungeons: sources of important loot. (+stat books, +affection items, and treasures such as +20% damage).
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The country-wide strategy element of the game is very free-form. At the heart is a hentai-game you'd expect: the more H-scenes you give Rance, the stronger Rance (and probably the girl he's Hing with) become. In general, captured enemies start at "Scorn", after 7-affection points, they become "Normal". 7 affection points after that becomes "Trust", and finally some characters (most females but not all) can reach "Love" after another 7-affection points + character specific events. For example, Ai (who is the Tactician serving under Kenshin) will only be able to grow to "Trust" if Kenshin is already in "Love" state. The many, many triggers are documented on AliceSoft Wiki:
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Every 7-affection points provides a major bonus to that character (usually new attacks, new skills, or even +Stat boosts). So H-ing female commanders is the absolute best way of improving stats and your army. These character-specific story scenes are represented by the "Pink ????" that you can select in territories.
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Outside of fucking girls, there's also the whole war mechanics. "National Power" limits how many commanders you can hire. As commanders get more powerful, they cost more-and-more "National Power". You can build up cities, or conquest other territories, to increase your national power. There is also a gold-and-income mechanic. Every territory will provide you with taxes, which you can spend on hiring more troops (increasing the strength of a commander in Army battles), or healing troops back to max. Gold is also required for some rare events.
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Commanders may also be used for non-combat events. Blue Construction events require "Construction" skill, which either provides a +% boost in defense / attack for one fight, or can raise national power. "Search" can be used to scout enemy units (allowing you to see their army composition so you can better deploy "counter" units)... or search for treasure or dungeons. Finally, "Negotiation" can recruit units (either from your Prison, or from territory events), increasing the size of your army.
Finally, "Negotiation" can either start a war, or end a war. You are not allowed to attack enemy territories until you declare war, which can require hefty amounts of negotiation (some states need 20 negotiation to start a war!). Ending a war makes the opponent a vassal state: which means you get +National Power, but no extra income. Rance typically will want to rape the princess (typically only possible on actual conquest... although there are exceptions...). So I don't think negotiations would be very common.
Description of Story
After the events of Rance VI, Rance travels to the fictional country of JAPAN to fuck more ladies. But JAPAN is in the Sengoku "Warring States" period, filled with many different independent provinces. So Rance does what any hentai-protagonist wants to do and starts conquering, and raping, across Japan. Ultimately, the "True Route" plays into the continuity involving the Fiends, Arch-Fiend, world-destruction... and so forth. But its kinda spoilers to tell you more about that. The 3-alternative routes are for the 3-route heroines: Kenshin, Isoroku, and Ran. Which instead of following the canonical story, Rance will (primarily) romance that one girl associated with that route.
The gallery hits virtually every fetish, as per AliceSoft. Off the top of my head: Ryona, NTR, Loli, Shota, Rape (lots and lots of rape), missionary, doggie style, bondage, Futa... honestly, if there's a fetish you can think of its probably in the 100+ pictures available in the gallery. But as a Rance game, its mostly rape.
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These are the two guides you'll need to 100% the game. The Gamefaqs guide is less complete, but is more logically written. There are other guides on Gamefaqs but they aren't worth reading... just stick to those two guides only. Unfortunately, these guides are based on fan-translations from years ago, so the new English translation doesn't seem to match up to these older guides.
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