Ashikaga Shogunate mod v1.01

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Japanese Bows are over 7 feet in length. Historically, they are the largest in the world. They are laminated composite recurves, made of bamboo wood and natural resins. They are labelled according to how many people it took to string them: 7 man bow, 4 man bow.... The tales of the warring states give the impression of their power being akin to siege engines, with great archers destroying ships by puncturing their hulls. The bow is peculiarly suited to mounted combat as well, since it is asymmetric, with 2/3'rds of the bow above the grip, and only 1/3'rd below, it is very manouverable from the saddle. They have dozens of war arrows, each producing a different effect. One howls thru the air producing terror in the enemy, another whistles as it destroys evil spirits, another has an indented curve that allows it to catch and cut ropes/strings, fire arrows were common. Just as with an English longbowman, it takes years and years to train a Japanese bowman.

I suggest that these bowmen be powerful, but expensive. Japanese footsoldiers were essentially draftees. Inexpensive, poorly equipped, and fodder. Samurai were often well-equipped (they routinely looted the dead), well-trained, and deadly. I suggest that the commander samurai be very powerful att/def/armor/weapon, but that the regular samurai come in low/med/high with corresponding stats--and the high being much more expensive than the low. I suggest that bowmen only come in one Category--high. The bow was the weapon of the aristocracy.

[Potatoman]

I have decided to hold off on releasing more changes until the next Dominions II patch comes out, but work continues on the mod.
Thanks for all your compliments and criticisms, they are very helpful.

Also, a note to Illwinter: a banner is included in the setup, but it has an odd name. The file is samurai.tga and it extracts to the /ashikaga directory by default.

[PvK]

It would be good if they replaced someone besides Tien'Chi, so you wouldn't lose an Asian nation when playing Japan. Though, with present modding tool limits, this may make the most sense for now.

PvK

[Tune]

Hello.

I'm creating Japanese mod, too, and unit's name of a part in your mod is the same by chance.
(e.g. Ashigaru Spearman, Samurai Commander, Yamabushi Monk.. )
May I keep creating mod by using these names ?

[Potatoman]

All the names and titles of the units are historical in origin, and as such are not owned by anybody. So yes, do whatever you want with your mod.

[Tune]

Thanks.

I was surprised, because class of units chosen from the history was a like.
(But, I didn't think of using Falchion for the substitution of Katana. Good Idea. )
I will make Japanese mod which is close to the Fantasy.

Cheers,

[Arryn]

I'm playing Ashikaga on the Orania map with 14 difficult AIs (indies at 5). So far so good. I just captured the Marignon mausoleum (on turn 12). Marignon's home was only 3 provinces away, so they were pretty well doomed. Ulm is 5 away, so they're next.

It's a great deal of fun playing with these historical type units, but compared to my Favorites of Jotun or R'lyeh, it's definitely slower going.

Here are a few early observations:

• The starting troops in the army lacks a scout. I don't think it would hurt play balance to give players one to begin with.
• The Jotuns begin with a giant scout, 8 giants, and a giant commander. By comparison, the Ashikaga starting force is much weaker. You may want to consider increasing the number of samurai to 18-20 from the current 15.
• The yamabushi monk moves 2/11 while ashigaru and samurai move 2/12. The monk, being lightly encumbered and highly trained, should move somewhat faster than the armored troops, 2/13 at least, and preferably 2/14-2/15. By the same token, the ashigaru should be slower (lack of training) and thus move only 2/10. The samurai bowmen should move at least 2/11, if not the same (2/12) as the other samurai.
• The senin master only moves 1/9. The strategic move should be 2. Only moving 1 doesn't make much sense given what the guy is wearing and his familiarity with living outdoors and being close to nature (unless he wastes time stopping frequently to smell the wildflowers). Also, the text description mentions them "wandering in the mountains", yet they have forest, not mountain survival.
• The average Jotun giant costs about the same as two samurai, but is worth the rough equivalent of three samurai in battle. I don't know if there's anything you can do about that (ie: making the samurai tougher and/or deadlier, or lowering their cost) without messing things up in relation to other nations. I just wanted to point it out.
• Any chance that you can get Unwise to make one of his custom shields for Ashikaga in place of the normal Dom-style flag? There are likely dozens of suitable mon (japanese clan symbols) that can be used as the design on the shield.