For a first clear of Sengoku Rance, build Oda’s army through the Hara and Ashikaga wars, track the five broken gourds, rescue Kouhime, and finish the Official History route at Tenma Bridge. You can reach the ending without conquering every clan or taking every Monster Army province. The essential final destination is Morocco, where controlling all four territories opens the bridge attack.
This walkthrough follows a fresh First Game from Owari to the Official History ending. Recruitment detours are included where they strengthen that journey or prevent a permanent loss. Kenshin, Ran, Isoroku, and Monkeyslayer are replay routes; their separate endings become relevant after your first clear. Story spoilers follow.
Owari: unlock captures before the first wars
Open Owari’s command list and visit the prison to enable capturing enemy commanders. Talk to Kouhime through the first Dango Princess: Kouhime event to open the map’s named recruitment options. These are useful early actions because Hara’s defeat and the first gourd can unlock related features later, but waiting loses opportunities to capture commanders during your opening battles.
You begin with two Action Fans each turn. A province command spends a fan; hiring a prisoner and opening troop recruitment or item distribution do not. Yellow commands require Negotiation, green or cyan commands require Search, and blue commands require Construction. Select up to five commanders whose relevant stats meet the displayed requirement. If their total falls short, those points reduce the requirement for the next attempt, allowing you to finish a costly command over several actions. Keep your high-Negotiation and high-Search officers available for these jobs instead of exhausting all of them in an attack.
Watch the Cost/National Power pair along the bottom of the map. Recruiting an officer normally requires enough National Power to cover their Cost. If story recruitment pushes total Cost above National Power, province income is halved until the imbalance is corrected. Conquering territory or using province development gives you room to expand; filling the roster with prisoners you cannot afford makes troop recovery harder to fund.
Protect Owari and Rance throughout the run. Losing Owari ends the game, and annihilating Rance’s unit in an army battle also causes a Game Over. Katsuie is your starting Ashigaru, Ranmaru is a strong opening Samurai, and Nagahide Niwa begins with a comparatively large Archer unit. Use those officers to share the work while Rance’s small starting unit grows.
In an army battle, put Samurai in the front column; Archers and Ninjas can act from either column. Hover over an enemy portrait to choose an attack, or an ally for support. White banners are unused moves and yellow banners show the selected action’s cost. When the battle clock empties, you win if the advantage marker is on the enemy’s side of the midpoint, even with enemies still alive. Destroying every enemy unit also wins. If your troops are depleted, replenish them through Forces before the next sortie; spending gold on troop healing does not use a fan.
Hara in Ise
Hara can be challenged from Turn 2 for 10 Negotiation. Take the territories in Ise until the clan falls. Shouji Hara is captured automatically when you finish the conquest, so you can then recruit his Archer unit from prison. His Volley hits every enemy unit, giving you an early alternative to attacking one target at a time.
After taking Ise, consider its Persuasive Monk recruitment command. It costs 6 Negotiation and gives you an officer with 8 Negotiation, useful for subsequent declarations and prisoner recruitment. Hara can also declare war while you are fighting Ashikaga, but that event is chance-based. If you want to start with Hara, use the declaration command instead of waiting for a particular end-of-turn event.
Ashikaga in Viper Oil Field and Kyo
You can declare war on Ashikaga from Turn 3 for 8 Negotiation, or refuse their gold demand when it appears. Isoroku Yamamoto joins their army after war begins. Once she is present, the first battle against Ashikaga that includes Rance and Sill is a scripted Oda loss. Attack with other commanders if you want to avoid spending that battle on the event.
Conquer both Ashikaga provinces to capture Isoroku automatically. An earlier capture is possible after defeating her unit and seeing Choushin’s scolding event, but finishing the clan gives you a straightforward recruitment opportunity. After recruiting her, the second purple Isoroku event can add Shigeyoshi Inoue and Tamon Yamaguchi if you have spare commander slots and at least 7 free National Power. Keep those seven points unspent if you want both retainers.
Viper Oil Field also offers the Mino Triumvirate after its conquest. See 3G’s purple event there, then recruit Stubborn Ittetsu, Cucumber Andou, and Takuan-sama for 3 Negotiation each if you need a Tactician, Onmyouji, or Samurai. You do not need all three to finish the story. Choose recruits that fill holes in your existing formations while leaving room for story officers.
Expand the roster while keeping track of the gourds
Press F5 or open the map’s objectives screen to see which sealing gourds have broken. Conquering or vassalizing a clan that owns a gourd usually advances that count, and another clan’s conquest can break one too. Ashikaga’s defeat brings forward the first gourd event once the cherry blossom event has played. Other events can delay its appearance, so check the objectives screen before choosing your next conquest.
Waiting cannot preserve the opening indefinitely. If the count is behind schedule, automatic events can bring it to two broken gourds at Turn 30, three at Turn 50, four at Turn 70, and five at Turn 90. Use the remaining time to secure officers, heal your main army, and keep Search specialists ready for Kouhime’s disappearance. On a fresh First Game, the story eventually enters Official History; no special alternate-route preparation is required.
Once Satisfaction reaches 50, choose More Actions Per Turn while Sill is available. It adds a third Action Fan from the following turn. This lets you handle a dungeon or Search command without using the entire turn on two actions. Each version of the bonus is one-use, so check that the extra fan appears before planning a three-action turn.
Iga and Suzume
Suzume joins Oda through early story events. After Inukai learns of her defection, you can declare war on Iga for 15 Negotiation and conquer Yamato. Bring Suzume to the battle for Iga’s final territory. Conquering it without her before entering a route can let Inukai revolt about 11 to 13 turns later and retake Yamato. Her participation also gives 5 Satisfaction for the conquest.
Do not plan a First Game around the Search 35 event that lets Rance duel Inukai and his dogs. That shortcut belongs to Second Games. For this run, fight through Iga’s territories with your army. Suzume also gives you a Ninja for interrupting prepared attacks during later commander battles.
Tenshiism and the route to Mikan
Tenshiism’s war declaration follows the second broken gourd and Rance’s first meeting with Rengoku. It can happen without a shared border. During the war, province command lists show accumulating riot percentages. Suppressing a province resets its accumulation; if a riot starts, you can fight its 1,000 Peasants or accept a reduction of one National Power in that province. A weak reserve unit can handle the Peasants without tying up your best attackers.
Tenshiism controls Naniwa and Mikan. For the western route below, conquer both provinces. Mikan borders Ise and Yamato, so your Hara or Iga conquest gives you an approach once the war begins. Finish taking Mikan before the later lemon shortage; its plantation dungeon becomes relevant only after Kentarou joins and the shortage occurs.
You can finish Tenshiism before Honnoji, or accept the post-Honnoji peace offer and make it a vassal. If you want Seigan while following this guide’s conquered corridor, leave Tenshiism standing until Honnoji, then finish it. His joining event needs an empty commander slot and 2 free National Power. Genri can follow with another slot and 2 National Power. Budget the remaining conquest actions before starting Honnoji so that Mikan is ready when the shortage arrives.
Optional eastern recruits: Uesugi and Houjou
If you want Kenshin, start the Uesugi war with a plan for Houjou too. In a First Game, fighting either Uesugi or Houjou can let Takeda conquer the other. Being at war with both prevents that takeover; being at war with Takeda is another way to prevent it. Manual declarations cost 20 Negotiation for Uesugi and 12 for Houjou. Save before opening this front so that an unwanted takeover does not erase your recruitment target.
Deploy Rance against Kenshin to trigger their automatic Oda victory. Reduce Uesugi to its last province, then allow the linked events about Kenshin’s sleep, dating, and mountain training to play. Night raids retake a territory in the final province until the coup occurs. Repeated attacks alone will not finish that stage.
When the coup’s messenger offers peace in exchange for Kenshin, reject the offer by choosing to slay the messenger, then finish conquering Uesugi promptly. If you miss the five-turn deadline, Kenshin and Ai are permanently lost. The deadline can arrive earlier when your own attack triggers the coup, so use the save from before the offer if the rescue fails. After conquest, recruit Kenshin in Sado and then Ai through their purple commands or joining events.
Houjou’s Ran can acquire Summon Suzaku, which spends all her moves to hit your entire army for double damage without preparation. Scout her battles and avoid sending a fragile formation into that attack. Later events make Souun forbid the summon and remove it. To recruit Ran, capture her after she loses Suzaku, wait for Souun to disappear, and then recruit her from prison. Conquering Houjou before capturing Ran removes both Ran and Souun. Even after capturing her, finishing Houjou before Souun disappears makes Ran unrecruitable. Leave the last territory intact until that disappearance event has played. Kenshin and Ran are useful recruitment goals, but neither is required for an Official History ending. You can leave these wars out if your current army already handles the campaign.
A connected western route to Battleship Nagato
After Ashikaga, a connected route is Kyo, Naniwa, Himeji, Izumo, and Battleship Nagato. Yamato also borders Naniwa if you came through Iga. These neighboring provinces let you work toward Shimazu’s southern lands without conquering the eastern clans. Conquer and hold the corridor yourself; this sample does not depend on launching attacks through vassal territory.
- Take Naniwa during the Tenshiism war. Use Ise or Yamato to reach Mikan as a separate preparation for the lemon event.
- After Oda acquires Naniwa or Tamba, Mouri’s battle with Akashi introduces the western clans. The Mouri war declaration requires 12 Negotiation after that event. Kazemaru Akashi is introduced in a later end-of-turn event; you can then declare war on Akashi for 13 Negotiation.
- Conquer Akashi’s Himeji. It borders both Naniwa and Izumo. Advance from Himeji into Mouri’s Izumo, then use Izumo’s border with Battleship Nagato. Mouri also owns Chuu-earth and Redhelm, but those provinces are outside this sample corridor.
- If a story takeover has changed the owner, attack the clan that now controls the next province. If Kouhime’s disappearance blocks attacks, complete her rescue and Honnoji before continuing west.
Mouri’s purple all-out challenge is optional. You can decline it and keep fighting ordinary territory battles; losing the challenge causes a Game Over. You also need not capture Nagato before Honnoji. The Monster Army may seize it later, so hold your approach in Izumo and resume the push against its new owner. Once Nagato is yours, Cairo and then Morocco form the remaining corridor.
The fifth gourd: find Kouhime before ending turns
After the fifth gourd, Kouhime disappears in a start-of-turn event. Complete Search for Kouhime, which requires 15 Search. You cannot attack other clans while she is missing, although defense, recovering territories in your own provinces, and Operation Permits remain available. If she disappears on Turn 50, for example, the Game Over triggers when Turn 54 begins. Search immediately so that a defense or story event cannot consume the time you were saving.
Finding Kouhime removes your remaining Action Fans for that turn. The ban on new clan attacks continues until you assault Honnoji. This is a useful preparation window: heal your army, arrange items, and assemble a commander-battle team with Rance, healing support, and Ninjas. The assault itself can wait; Kouhime’s search cannot.
| Event | Deadline | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Kouhime disappears | Game Over at the start of T+4 | Complete Search 15 immediately. The Honnoji assault can wait after her rescue. |
| Hirami Lemon shortage | Resolve it in fewer than six turns | Get the fruit on plantation floor 6. Skip the ineffective purple search. |
| Miki runs away | Four end-of-turn events | Finish the searches requiring 20, 25, and 30 points. |
| Nippon starts sinking | Four turns after the trigger | Take all Morocco and attack the bridge. Suzume’s delay appears with one turn left. |
Honnoji has four battles with different objectives
Use Visit Honnoji Temple (Where Nobunaga’s Resting), or accept the start-of-turn prompt to attack Honnoji. At the subsequent three-choice menu, choose the second option to proceed with the assault. The first leads to a Game Over; the third returns to the map and costs a fan. Keep a save before committing so you can change equipment or troop recovery before the sequence.
- The opening army battle pits you against Apostle Shikibu, two front-row Ashigarus, and two Archers plus a Miko in the back. Win this battle with your normal troop formation.
- The next fight is a timed commander battle against human-form Apostle Rengoku and two Ashigarus. Damage does not decide this phase. Use fast commanders, particularly Ninjas, to rotate units and preserve HP and moves until time expires. Suzume can switch Sill out to help run down the timer.
- Rengoku then transforms for an untimed fight you must win. His normal attack removes one of the target’s moves. His prepared magical attack hits everyone and takes three shurikens to cancel. Interrupt that attack and use your available damage dealers to defeat him.
- The final fight is Xavier. Rance must be on the battlefield for attacks to hurt him. Protect Rance with healing and defensive support while the rest of the team deals damage. Xavier’s standard and immediate magical area attacks make wounded commanders vulnerable.
Before Xavier, defeated commanders revive and moves recover, but HP does not refill. Revived officers return with 1 HP. Do not confuse a restored move count with a healed party: use a Miko or another available healer to keep Rance and your attackers alive.
A loss during the assault sends you to Alice’s Mansion, where a retry restores HP and moves and lets you choose a team again for that fight. Each visit also lowers Xavier’s level by 10, down to 20, even if the lost battle did not include him. Retrying costs ending-score points, but it gives a first-clear run a recovery option. Finish the assault to reopen clan attacks on the following turn; your remaining fans vanish when the assault ends.
Kentarou and the Monster Army
Kentarou joins Oda a few turns after the Honnoji incident. Keep an empty commander slot for him: a full roster causes the first ordinary officer to be removed. His later purple adventures each grant 5 levels. These events appear in Yamato, Maso, Shikolalamity, and Cairo once Oda has conquered or vassalized the corresponding province. Use the adventures you can access to prepare him for the duel and Xavier.
Usually seven to ten turns after the first Xavier battle, he takes over Shimazu and forms the Monster Army. It cannot be vassalized. If Battleship Nagato belongs to Oda or Mouri, the takeover can seize it automatically. Xavier can also absorb other surviving clans during Official History, so recruit an officer you want before their clan is swallowed rather than assuming every prison opportunity will remain.
When your directly controlled provinces border the Monster Army, the Shimazu brothers can launch five consecutive event attacks: four brothers followed by Agireda. They happen once, have no normal warning, and can interrupt your own turn or Operation Permit activity. Leave enough usable commanders to defend successive battles instead of spending the whole roster in one attack.
Kouhime joins as an Ashigaru two turns after the Monster Army appears. Make room beforehand: if the roster is full, the game removes a non-important officer to admit her. Annihilation of her army unit causes a Game Over. Equip Kouhime with an Immoral Immortal Charm to prevent that Game Over. Without the charm, reserve her for fights where you can keep her unit intact.
Get Hirami Lemons from the plantation dungeon
The lemon shortage usually begins about four turns after the Monster Army appears. You have fewer than six turns to resolve it. With Mikan under Oda’s control and Kentarou recruited, open Mikan’s command list and select the red Battle: Underground Mikan Plantation entry. Defeat the enemies on floor 6 to obtain the Hirami Lemons. The plantation has ten floors; reaching its bottom is unnecessary for this deadline. The purple Search for hirami lemons event does not supply the fruit.
The dungeon command shows Floor x/y, with x giving your next starting floor and y the dungeon’s final floor. After clearing at least one floor, you can choose to leave. Your next visit starts one floor deeper than your previous entry, regardless of how far you fought that time. For example, entering at floor 1 and leaving after floor 5 still makes the next visit start at floor 2. Losing a floor resets the next attempt to floor 1. Continue through floor 6 while your party can manage it instead of assuming that an early exit saves all five cleared floors.
Keep Rance and a healer ready for the deeper fights. To replace a tired commander, use another active commander’s turn, hover over the ally you want to remove, and choose Retreat. An officer cannot retreat themself. Sill is the first replacement for an open back-row position; other replacements arrive randomly.
Letting the lemon deadline expire makes Miki become the Archfiend and ends a First Game. Keep a save from the beginning of the shortage and prioritize the plantation over optional wars. Once the fruit is delivered, taking and holding Battleship Nagato allows the Shikibu duel to occur. A sufficiently fast advance can finish Official History before that duel, Miki’s disappearance, or Sill’s freezing. The following sections cover the usual event sequence.
Kentarou’s duel with Shikibu
At the start of a later turn, Shikibu duels Kentarou. Her HP is set so that defeating her takes five attacks. Kentarou reveals Youmeishu during the duel; it restores his HP and all his moves, but spends his current turn. Hover over Kentarou himself and select the skill manually. It does not activate automatically.
Use Youmeishu before Kentarou runs out of moves or dies. A Skill Textbook 2 given beforehand provides another way to prepare, but you do not need to rely on a lucky attack bonus to finish. Losing this duel causes a Game Over, so reload the preceding turn if you missed the self-targeted recovery command. Winning turns Kentarou into a Fiend and makes Miki run away.
The three searches for Miki
Complete the searches requiring 20, 25, and 30 Search points. You can accumulate the required points over multiple actions, so a roster with lower total Search can still finish each command. Budget the fans for all three searches before spending them elsewhere. If Miki remains missing after four end-of-turn events, a First Game ends in a Game Over.
While she is missing, new clan attacks are blocked, but you can defend and retake territory inside your own provinces. If an attack command is unavailable during this stage, finish the searches first; the pause is part of the story.
In Official History, finding Miki also freezes Sill. You lose her dungeon support and cannot obtain the foreign-force summoning Satisfaction bonus afterward, although previously arranged reinforcements can still arrive. Complete the two purple Frozen slave: Sill events and wait for the event where Kouhime slaps Rance to stop his recurring Satisfaction losses. Asking Miki to use her power to free Sill leads to a Game Over.
Gigai and the Soul Binder
When Gigai challenges an Oda commander, sending an ordinary officer kills that officer; sending Rance before preparing a counter causes a Game Over. Fiend Kentarou can survive the challenge and gain three levels. If you recruited Souun Houjou, he can defeat Gigai outright.
After the first confrontation, open Rance’s purple event about countering Gigai. At the next challenge, choosing Rance now starts a party battle against him. Gigai’s normal attack removes a move, and his prepared attack hits everyone; three shurikens cancel the latter. This countermeasure event is what makes the Rance option safe to choose.
Soul Binder Victim attacks can reduce your units’ maximum troop counts, while their counterattacks do not have that effect. After the infection story advances, the curse can make an affected commander unavailable at the start of a turn. A Motivating Letter lets that commander act, and a Tange Dog prevents its equipped commander from being targeted. Keep another formation available when your main attacker is disabled.
Conquering South Africa and defeating Apostle Madou removes the curse in Official History, but that is an optional detour. Madou has two forms, and finishing the event removes your remaining fans. Save before the fight: losing during the second form can leave you retrying without a fresh team or restored moves. You can instead continue toward Morocco and finish the story with the curse still active.
Push through Nagato and Cairo to Morocco
For the direct southern advance, take the three territories in Battleship Nagato, the four in Cairo, and the four in Morocco. Keep your army healthy as you push west. You do not need to clear Amazon or South Africa to unlock the Official History finale, so leave those branches for optional recruitment, curse removal, or another run if they would delay the bridge.
Use your own Action Fans for the Nagato, Cairo, and Morocco attacks. Amazon remains optional. If you choose that detour, attack it manually too: Operation Permits fail against Monster Army territory in any of these four provinces, and Kouhime confiscates all your permits.
Green Monsters defend like Ashigarus, red ones fight like Samurai, blue ones resemble Archers but can counterattack, and white mushroom-headed Monsters use magic. Once they have appeared, a province’s final battle also includes a back-row Time Killer Ar with Pass Time. The generals in Cairo and Morocco are immune to instant-kill attacks, so bring normal damage and support rather than expecting an assassination to end the castle battle.
Cairo’s General Yisun uses Battle Tactics III and Status Cancel III. Your Tactician can buff allied units and remove enemy buffs to make him spend moves responding. In Morocco, General Wispin replaces Status Cancel III with Pass Time. Give yourself enough damage and available moves to win before the timer slips away.
After the Shimazu brothers plan an ambush, it can trigger when you win a Monster Army battle with Rance in your team and Kouhime absent, before the scene following General Yisun’s defeat. Your attacking team immediately faces the ambush army and then a commander fight. The original victory no longer grants its territory, so you must repeat that conquest afterward. If you want to postpone it, keep Kouhime in the attacking formation: the ambush trigger excludes teams that include her. Her own annihilation still causes a Game Over, so use this only with a formation that can protect her.
If the ambush does happen, the army fight restores your units to their troop counts from before the triggering battle and restores their moves. Losing that army battle causes a Game Over. The next fight is against Yoshihisa Shimazu, normally level 42 with 1,158 HP. You cannot bring in replacements, so the original attacking group needs enough commander-battle strength too. A loss in this second fight permits a retry and lowers Yoshihisa’s level by 10, down to 20. Winning consumes the remaining fans on your attacking turn.
The four-turn threat to sink Nippon
Taking one territory in South Africa or two in Morocco triggers the Monster Army’s attempt to sink Nippon. You have four turns to stop it by attacking Tenma Bridge. Press F5 to check the warning when one turn remains. Avoid opening South Africa early unless you can handle the resulting countdown.
Once you occupy every Morocco territory, open its command list and choose the red Attack Tenma Bridge to stop Stone Geezer command. If F5 warns that only one turn remains and you own a province bordering Morocco, Stop Stone Geezer’s growth lets Suzume postpone the Game Over for one turn. Repeat that mission if needed while arranging the final attack. If Miki is still missing, Kentarou blocks the bridge event and refunds its fan; finish her three searches before trying again.
Tenma Bridge: win the army battle, then defeat Xavier
Before selecting the bridge command, heal your commander-battle party and distribute equipment. The command makes unavailable officers available, but does not restore their HP. Officers chosen for Xavier’s fight are then unavailable to the army formation, so reserve enough effective troop units for the first battle. Kouhime cannot join the Xavier party.
The first battle uses six generated Monster units: two red and one green in front, then a Mage, a green Monster, and a blue Monster behind them. Use your troop formation to break the front while dealing with the Mage’s damage. A loss returns you to the map and spends the action, giving you a chance to adjust the army before trying again.
The commander battle follows against Xavier, a Bodyguard, and Toukichirou. Xavier begins at level 98 with 2,010 HP; the Bodyguard has 250 HP and Toukichirou has 650. Rance or Kentarou must be present on the battlefield for Xavier to take damage. Keep at least one of them active, bring healing support, and rotate wounded attackers when their remaining HP cannot withstand another hit.
Toukichirou can target any commander and remove one move. Watch move counts as well as HP, particularly on your healer and the officer keeping Xavier vulnerable. Xavier’s magical area attack needs no preparation, so there is no shuriken interruption to wait for before healing. If you lose, Alice’s Mansion provides a retry; defeating Xavier finishes Official History.
Keep the clear save for your next route
Retain the cleared-game save when starting another run. A game begun with a clear save is a Second Game, which opens alternate story routes and bonus selection. A Game Over does not count as a clear. Your bonus budget uses your highest ending score plus 5 points for each cleared route. A low-scoring first victory still opens the alternate routes.
For a later Kenshin or Ran run, plan before Honnoji and preserve saves while the gourds are still intact. Kenshin’s branch requires conquering Ashikaga, recruiting her and Ai, seeing the riceball event with Rance while she is at Trust, and then seeing the Imperial Headband event. With Kouhime still present, choose A picnic with Kenshin in Sado. Ran’s branch needs her Souun and Petroleum Pit event chain before five gourds break. Isoroku has a separate Kouhime-search branch after her relationship prerequisite. Monkeyslayer instead starts from the Enable Killing Toukichirou Second Game bonus and the Owari command available from Turn 7 until the first gourd breaks.