Ashikaga Shogunate mod v1.01

[Arryn]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
I didn't play this mod for too long, but I'd say samurai archers need more cost over normal samurai. Paying 5 gold for composite bows on all your core army troops makes for some deadly arrow volleys. Just keep in mind that a samurai archer is almost as good as a samurai + an archer, maybe even better. I seemed to have pretty good sucess with my samurai archers.

Personally, if I'm going to spend that much gold & resources, I'd rather have the troops use their swords, which are more effective than arrows in the same quantity, considering how hard it is to hit foes with missiles. And given that preference, I may as well save the bit of gold (or not so small a bit as it adds up over time) and buy the plain samurai. Bows only seem to work decently against enemies with virtually no armor, and those same enemies hack up rather nicely, assuming said weak enemies don't rout (which is the likeliest result).

[Arryn]

I've noticed that the names given to commanders with this mod don't seem to correspond to chinese, much less japanese, names. Not having played T'ien Ch'i (of any flavor) I don't know if this naming convention is normal for the underlying nation. I had been under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that each nation in Dom had its own names list that the game uses to randomly select from. At least the names I've seen for the many games I've played as Jotunheim and R'lyeh do not have those two nations use any of the same names (so naturally I assume that other nations likewise have their own lists).

[LordArioch]

Admittedly bows don't do much against better armored troops, but driving away the fodder and even lightly armored but dangerous units such as elephants, etc. is very useful. The archers do have somewhat lower stats, but IMO, not enough to counteract the power of their bows. The recent boosting of other samurai stats might make them more competative, but since I think you boosted the prec of the archers to 12 as well, they still seem very close in overall usefulness.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
The archers do have somewhat lower stats, but IMO, not enough to counteract the power of their bows.

The extremely high resource cost of the Samurai archers is enough of a limit on their usefulness. To make them have a different resource or gold cost than other units with similar capabilities you must have a particularly good reason.

Hrm. I only have one comment so far until the Mod tools are released.

The Genin and other Ninjas are slightly hard to look at. I don't know if it's just me or not; but the neon green and dark purplish just seem 'off'.

On the other hand, I like the the Mahotsukai coloring and sprite very much

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Potatoman:
I think something that many people may be missing is that Samurai are very vulnerable troops. Without shields and a prot. value significantly less than even standard heavy infantry it is very easy for them to meet death on the battlefield. If you look at other races standard HI, like the Arco Hypaspist, you will see the difference is essentially 4 less protection and no shield to defend against range- this is a very big disadvantage. In order to make them worthy, they must either a) cost less than their adversaries or b) make up for it by having high att, def, or str values.
I'm wary about attribute pumping because there really isn't any way to justify a nonmagical recruit fighter having superhuman strength or skill- 13 is as high as is plausible for foot soldier samurai. Thus, I feel the Samurai's low cost and high stats (13 av, 12 dv, 11 str, 16 gold) are more a counterbalance to his vulnerability on the battlefield (Ashikaga has access to air magic for SoS, but it is expensive) than an unbalancing factor.
In short, this is my excuse for not making him much more expensive.

Genin, on the other hand, are comparable to mini-Vans. They now cost 40 gold.

In v1.02, the samurai is 13 gold, and the archer is 15, a difference of 2. If you have raised the cost of the "plain" samurai to 16, that just makes the cost-effectiveness of the samurai even less attractive (IMO). They are already weaker than comparable HI, as you have pointed out. The Arco Hypaspist is much better protected, and has both 1 higher strength and morale. The 3 resources extra that the Hypaspist costs are cheap compared to the +4 protection they have.

The samurai should have some trait that makes them unique and offsets other nation's HI. One thing that is notable about samurai is the bushido code. Routing would be highly dishonorable, so it should be fairly rare. Hence I suggest the following ...
(based upon stats for the samurai in v1.02)

• Increase strength of all samurai to 11.
• Increase morale of basic samurai to 15 (this will make them one notch better than genin).
• Increase morale of aoi to 16.
• Increase morale of samurai commander to 17.
• Increase morale of taisho daimyo to 18.
• Lower cost of basic samurai to 14.
• Lower resources of basic samurai to 13.
• Adjust the costs/resources of other samurai as appropriate relative to the revised basic samurai.
• Other stats for the samurai are fine as is.

In addition to the above list, if you raise the defense of the samurai from the current 10 to the value of 12 which it seems you are using in your own tests, then I suggest setting the basic price at 16.

With regards to Genin, setting their cost at 40 gold is fine, but they cost too many resources at 9, given the equipment they have. A more reasonable value is 4 or 5.

[ January 29, 2004, 06:41: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[PDF]

Originally posted by 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

The way the mod has been done (new units, no reuse of existing ones) you can change it to replace any other nation easily.
Just change the "#selectnation 15" line to whatever other nation number you want (see modding guides for the list).
Cool, isn't it ?