Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan Review

Year Published: 2011

Players: 2

Playing Time: 180 Minutes

Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan (Seki) is a two-player wargame that is often referred to as elegant. Beyond being a nebulous word without a strict board gaming definition, and thus being unfalsifiable as an assertion, I do happen to agree with its use here.

Mostly, that is.

Elegance can take many forms. But here, it’s that a single, specific card with only a single symbol on it can be a boon or bane, can do one of about four different things depending on the context, and can do each of those things ineffectually or shrewdly.

Or rather, you can do each of these things with a single card. And you’ll have many such cards throughout the game, as will your opponent. The myriad permutations – all within this simple structure – is what some call elegance.

I happen to agree. But this isn’t the game’s only trait, nor is it without flaws. Let’s take a deeper look.

The “Light” Wargame

“Light” is in quotes for a reason. I chuckle sometimes at the description, even if it fits, because Seki is only light in comparison to the genre in which it resides: wargames. Wargamers often have…we’ll call them different views on what constitutes complexity. So something that takes three hours to play, a half hour to teach, and has a handful of weird simulationist rules that will seem counterintuitive…is legitimately on the low end of the complexity spectrum for some.

Suffice it to say that the depths here are ample, and far beyond what we’d expect from, say, a “light party game” or similar genre. Particularly if you’re not a wargamer, there’s a lot to chew on here.

But it’s also one of those games where the two main subsystems – movement and combat – are taught easily enough and constitute 90% of the game. You’ll see the edge-case rules in any session that will send you back to the rulebook for clarification, but the majority of it flows quite smoothly.

The game plays out over a series of rounds representing weeks, roughly mapped to the real-life conflict it depicts. Each player will take turns of varying sizes in each week; the more grand turns can produce sweeping changes in the board state, while others will be rather quiet.

There’s a movement phase and a combat phase. Movement can also include bringing reinforcements onto the board. Troops are represented on blocks whose values are hidden from the opponent, though you can gradually learn many of them via combats. But there’s a fog of war over exact troop configuration.

Importantly, you do everything via the cards in your hand. Reinforcements. Movement. Combat. And things like extra movement (i.e. forced marches) and prying at the enemy to test their loyalty in combat (enemy troops can end up fighting for you, and vice-versa).

The game can also end one of two ways; either at the end of week 7 when you see who has the most key locations, or when a particular leader on either side is killed. This creates another risk/reward opportunity, to essentially blitz a particular army in an attempt to kill the leader for an insta-win. If you’re not careful, a superior strategic position can lose to this sudden tactic.

Cards are your currency for all of this. Managing them is the dominant strategic demand of the game. If you enjoy nuanced cardplay, you’ll be at home here. If you don’t, it will be your nightmare.

Brilliance in Card Systems

The magic trick pulled off by the best card games is that you still have to deal with whatever random stuff you’ve been dealt, but regardless of your draw, you feel as though you have options.

Sekigahara excels at this. Many games create the feeling of wanting to have one more action. But in each round of Seki, you’ll want numerous additional actions.

And so you don’t just have one hard choice. You have several. Leave that lone block there to die? Or can you risk it sitting there another round? Is the castle enough of a deterrent? And do you have the capital to make a push for one of their recruitment hubs, or would that leave your flank open? And should I discard an extra card to move every unit in my armies, catching the enemy off guard? But will I have enough left to win any of the battles?

No simple answers. And so regardless of your card draw, there’s lots of good things you could be doing. The difficulty isn’t figuring out if there are worthwhile actions, but which are the most necessary.

The fog of war mechanic mixed with these card dynamics also produces an emergent element: bluffing. You might not have a single block you can activate in that gigantic stack of forces in your capital. But your opponent doesn’t know that.

Conversely, a rogue unit of 3-4 blocks might not look deadly, but if certain troop types are paired correctly, and you have the perfect hand to actualize their power, they can match or beat armies that are double their size.

So shows of impotent but impressive looking force or feigned weakness to goad an attack become viable stratagems.

Playing the Player…and the Game

Psychological play enters the chat at this point alongside the geographic movement puzzle and the card-as-resources system that will ebb and flow as the game proceeds. Win a crucial chokepoint early and you may have a commanding lead. But if your opponent picks off strategic locations surrounding this point, they may not need to reconquer it to slowly burn your resources down.

Eventually you’ll also become adept at realizing what’s been played already, so you can begin to anticipate card draws and what your enemy might have in their hand (and also what they may be deficient in!). The card stacks do reshuffle eventually, but they’re not infinite. Armed with this knowledge, strategies like entering a probably-losing battle to cycle through cards becomes viable, in order to draw up into cards that will likely help you win the next series of battles you’re involved in on the same turn.

At the deeper levels, with two who know the game, it becomes a dance, almost in a literal sense. You’ll dance around each other on the board, poking and prodding and looking for the right opportunities to leverage these advantages, and hoping to trick them into an error of judgment in one of the game’s various potential theaters.

Sekigahara – Conclusions

If it’s not obvious already, I love games that provide myriad options for executing an action. Don’t give me 20 possible actions to choose from, give me 2 actions with 10 reasonable ways to execute each. And make each of those matter not just to me but to my opponent(s). And ideally, include psychological considerations in ply, not just spatial or resource-based ones.

In Seki, you have more than two possible actions, but many ways to execute. Each provides delicious complications of the interpersonal variety. And so it’s an organic maelstrom of tactical maneuvering.

And don’t wrap it in a convoluted mechanical system. Yes, modern designers, I’m talking to you.

I didn’t talk too much about Seki’s fiddle. It’s there, of course, in the margins of the various systems. Castle warfare rules still annoy me a bit. The more obscure rules about the Mori defending the emperor lost a friend of mine the game when we played one time. And I’ve gone cross-eyed a time or two when trying to pull off more complex movements that involve breaking and combining multiple armies along different terrain types and with different contingents of leaders.

These things haven’t done much to my overall enjoyment, though. The map and setup makes me think the game might feel similar after enough plays, and yet every session is a testament against this instinct. The story you’ll craft will be your own, and it will be interesting and exciting.

Or stupid and funny as you overextend and get your leader killed in Week 2. But hey, that’s how it goes sometimes too.