Regions, Provinces, and Castles

Overview

One of the major obstacles I faced in playing NA games as a non-Japanese person was the sheer number of provinces and castle names. I knew that a good hierarchical categorization was helpful in remembering a large amount of data. So I did some research to figure out how to organize this categorization. At the end, I found that the hierarchical categorization in order of Regions – Provinces – Castles was quite useful in remembering geographic whereabouts of provinces and castles.I made this quite a while ago since it was a work in progress. However, I got busy and couldn’t continue. And in an unfortunate accident, I erazed the save file I was using for this guide. So I decided to publish what I have compliled so far. Otherwise it would never get finished. I am currently engaged in a total domination game on the same scenario so that I might be able to continue this guide. However, I don’t know how long it will take since my play time is limited.

Regions of Japan

Note 1: The provincial boundaries on this map are based on modern Japan, and do not exactly match the Sengoku era provincial boundaries. However, these boudaries more or less follow the historical precedents enough to be used as reference points to identify the general boundaries of each region.

Note 2: In the game, “KInai” region is mentioned. “Kinai” means the neighboring area of the capital. So Kansai region can be understood as “Kinai” region. However, “Kinai” is usually defined as the much narrower area leaving some of provinces in Kansai region not included. As a result, I use Kansai rather than “Kinai” as the regional name to inculde all the provinces organized into regions.

Note 3: Since the area covered by “Ezo” in SOI is limited to the southern tip of Hokkaido, Ezo as a region and as a province is essentially synonymous.

Provinces: Overview

Note: In SOI, some of the larger provinces are broken up into smaller provinces. For example, Dewa province in Tohoku region is broken up into 3 provinces as Ugo, North Uzen, and South Uzen. To avoid any confusion, I am going to follow provinces defined by SOI for this guide.

HOW TO RELATE AND REMEMBER THE NAMES OF PROVINCES

Tip 1: Many of provinces will end their names with zen, chu, or go. This means Front (zen), Middle (chu), or Rear (go) indicating shared provincial name with denotation of how far or close from Yamashiro, the capital province. For example, Ugo and Uzen in Note 4 can be understood as U-Far and U-Near provinces. Similarly, Bizen, Bicchu, Bingo can be understood as Bi-Near, Bi-Middle, Bi-Far provinces or Echizen, Ecchu, Echigo can be understood as Echi-Near, Echi-Middle, Echi-Far provinces.

Tip 2: In Kanto region, some of the provinces share the same name but in a different way from Note 3. They are Kazusa (Upper-Fusa) and Shimosa (Lower-Fusa) provinces. The same rule applies to Kozuke and Simotsuke provinces.

Tohoku/Ezo Region: Overview

Tohoku Region is the notheastern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It covers a very large area with low population density. Historically, there were only 2 provinces, Dewa and Mutsu in the region. Due to its size and the highly fractious nature of power division within the region, the game divides the region into 9 provinces.

Ezo literally means Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan and, by extension, the land belonging to Ainu people. Historically, Ezo as a province did not exist during the time covered in the game. Only in 1590, by the order of Toyomomi Hideyoshi, Matsumae clan formerly known as Kakizaki clan moved from Mutsu to the area referred in the game as Tokuyama Castle to form Matsumae District as the nothern frontier. So Kakizaki clan in control of fictional Ezo province beginning from the early 1500’s is a bit of historical revision.

Tohoku/Ezo Region: Ezo, West Mutsu, East Mutsu

Ezo

Starting Popularity: 45

West Mutsu

Starting Popularity: 50

East Mutsu

Starting Popularity: 60

Tohoku Region: Rikuchu, Rikuzen, Ugo, North Uzen, and South Uzen

* Yuri is not a regular fortress but a contructed one during the game. However, this is a location you are forced to construct a fortress because there is at least 1 to as many as 3 tribes unable to control unless you build one in that area.

Rikuchu

Starting Popularity: 50

Rikuzen

Starting Popularity: 50

Ugo

Starting Popularity: 50

North Uzen

Starting Popularity: 55

South Uzen

Starting Popularity: 70

Tohoku Region: Iwaki and Iwashiro

Iwaki and Iwashiro are provinces created in 1868 during the Meiji era. Since the game tries to break up Dewa/Mutsu provinces into 9 smaller provinces, the names of Iwaki and Iwashiro are borrowed from a different time period. But then again, I am also doing the same thing when I use “Tohoku” region which is a modern terminology.

Iwaki

Starting Popularity: 50

Iwashiro

Starting Popularity: 60

Kanto Region: Overview

Home of Hojo clan in most of scenarios and Tokugawa clan in Sekigahara scenario. In addition to 8 provinces, Izu province is also included in this section although it is a part of Tokai region. Since whoever controls Odawara also controls Izu in the game probably because Hojo clan historically started out from Izu province, it makes more sense to consider Izu and Sagami together.

Kanto Region: Provinces

Note: Some fortresses appearing in other scenarios and therefore not appearing on this map are denoted by *.

Hitachi

Starting Popularity: 65

Shimosa

Starting Popularity: 50

Kazusa

Starting Popularity: 55

Awa

Starting Popularity: 65

Shimotsuke

Starting Popularity: 55

Kozuke

Starting Popularity: 55

Musashi

Starting Popularity: 50

Sagami

Starting Popularity: 70

Izu

Starting Popularity: 65

Shinetsu Region: Overview

Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, and their famous battles of Kawanakajima. Enough said!

Shinetsu Region: Echigo, Shinano, Kai

North Echigo

Starting Popularity: 45

South Echigo

Starting Popularity: 65

North Shinano

Starting Popularity: 55

South Shinano

Starting Popularity: 50

Kai

Starting Popularity: 65

Tokai Region: Overview

Imagawa in Suruga, Tokugawa (Matsudaira before the name change) in Mikawa, and Oda Nobunaga, the man this game is named after, in Owari. The region where history was made that changed the course of a nation.

Tokai Region: Provinces