Ashikaga Shogunate mod v1.01

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Welsh - tall men - long arms - long draws possible.
Japanese - short men - short arms - short draws possible

Well, I believe the height remark space is actually true. I lived in Japan for years, and the older the generation the shorter the people. According to statistics, the average height of a Japanese man was 5'4" before WWII, and it has steadily gone up ever since. One theory is better nourishment, another is the interracial mingling with Americans and Europeans that has increasingly taken place.

As for the Short Draw, that is not correct. The arrows are extra long, with the space between teh bow and the bow-string at the nocking point to be relatively narrow. The arrow is drawn back behind the ear, whereas with a European-style bow the arrow is drawn back to the cheek. The string keeps contact, and keeps pushing the arrow, for a longer distance, thus keeping the acceleration going for a longer time, thus giving the arrow a higher launching velocity. v=a*t. This is why the arrow is so effective at hitting small targets at over 120 meters. 100 meters is the regular distance event that even beginners participate in. 120 is the special seated event at Sanjusangendo temple. Long distance events will send arrows (fairly accurately) up to 300 meters. Fairly accurately meaning elephant sized targets--not eye-sockets.

It's a great bow, but just to put it in perspective, modern compound bows are much more powerful and accurate--unless you are talking about the mythological bows of the Heike era.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Japanese Magic Items

Heike Bow -- the 7 man bow that sank ships. Make it do double strength damage?

Grass Sword -- this is one of the three gifts of the Sun Goddess to the Imperial Line. It is a very powerful sword. Not much is known of it, other than it cuts enemies down as if they were grass. Multiple enemies hit each time it is swung?

Sun Mirror -- this is a charm device. It is another of the three gifts of the Sun Goddess. Everyone who views it is under the power of the wielder.

Brass Bell -- demons, spirits, conjured troops are banished by it's sound.

Kappa Cup -- the commander with this can take his troops under water.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Lord_Devi:
That's complete crap The japanese couldn't suit up thier ENTIRE air force with 6 foot tall Japenese. Don't believe everything you see on TV - It's possible though that maybe there was some sort of special unit maybe using some foreign design - or something.. that merely required different pilot dimensions. I mean really, other than the size of the cockpit(which were designed by japs), there's no reason to have tall pilots.

I'll dissect your "rebuttal" sentence by sentence:

1. No crap. Check it out for yourself. It's easy enough to do. When you have a documented counter, then come back to me and tell me I'm full of it. Otherwise, be civil and mind your tongue.

2. I never said their whole air force. I said fighter pilots. Ever heard of the "Zero"? (The A6M, to be precise.)

3a. Newsreel footage, shot by the Japanese themselves, along with veterans who are still alive today.

3b. The Japanese did not use foreign designs. At least not until after 1943 or so, and then it was their own heavily-modified (improved) Versions of the German jet and rocket fighters. It's a little appreciated fact in the West that the Japanese had the world's most advanced air force in 1941, even over the Germans.

4. Sure there is. Pride. The Nazi SS originally only accepted tall, blonde, blue-eyed (etc) recruits (from "pedigreed" families). As the war progressed, they had to lower the standards -- a lot. The Japanese wanting tall pilots had to do with the logic of politics rather than the logic of engineering or combat.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Uh-Nu-Buh:
I lived in Japan for years, and the older the generation the shorter the people. According to statistics, the average height of a Japanese man was 5'4" before WWII

True, but misleading. Averages do not mean anything when taken in an inappropriate context. The average American male height is 5'10", yet there are 7'6" basketball players, and any BB player under about 6'9" is considered short. A population average is meaningless when discussing special Groups. Japanese fighter pilots were elites. There were considered, at the time, modern samurai.

With regards to medieval samurai, also bear in mind that nobles ate better than commoners, and had better housing, health care (such as it was), and bloodlines. The average peasant in Europe or Japan was short, but the nobles often were not. There are plenty of tall medieval suits of armor in museums. Someone had to fit in them when they were made ...

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Uh-Nu-Buh:
Kappa Cup -- the commander with this can take his troops under water.

Sounds just like Sea King's Goblet ...

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Potatoman:
Mahotsukai Master: 7 magic levels, 310 gold. High Stats, sacred.
Mahotsukai Adept: 4 levels, 200 gold. High stats, sacred.

I strongly suggest you reduce to 50% their resistance, its too abusable really.

secondary subject : Holy cost compared to non holy would be at +50% I would say.

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With resists lowered to 50% for fire & ice, what would you set as their cost? I'm thinking of 475 & 300, respectively.

BTW, great point about the abuse of using the monks as bodyguards for the mages.

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they are sacred but are not priests, so no need to increase by the whole 50%, in my opinion. IF you reduce their resistance to 50%, something around +70 gp for the master, and +40 gp for the apprentice would seem right, but here too we will need some time to get the right feeling about them. I suspect the high accuracy is a tremendous advantage, combined with their quickness from spell and holy quickness (dunno if it stacks in fact). They can transform themselves into sharpshooters on steroids

[Osium]

I don't know if it is correct to say the Japanese airforce was the most advanced in the world in 1941.

I mean, the Zero was a good plane when compared to the clunkers the Americans were using. The german me109 for all its glory is about as highly over-rated as the Zero.

Once the Americans got some planes that could climb and handle somewhat decently the advantage in manueverability the Zero enjoyed was gone, as was the aura of invincibilty of the Zero. The Zero became a death trap for its pilots who were sitting ducks for faster American planes that simply climbed away from the Zero only to turn and strafe them.

In 1941 I would say the British had the "best" fighters in the world.

The Zero was the most manueverable plane of the time, but it was like flying a card board box, no pilot protection, no armor for the tanks. When they got hit they went down.

Lets compare and contrast the Hurricane and the ME-109.

Armament, the 109 wins hands down. Manueverability, technically the ME-109 was more manueverable, however due to being a difficult plane to handle very few German pilots ever pushed the plane to its limit. This afforded the Hurricane a win in the overall manueverability due to the fact that an average British/Canadian or American pilot in a Hurricane could get more out of the plane than a German in a 109. The Hurricane also had better cockpit visibility and a higher top speed. However because it used a carborator it had a tendancy to choke out in high G dives, whereas the 109 used fuel injection which defeated that flaw in the Hurricane. The 109 also had a tiny fuel capacity and no ability to carry external drop tanks if memory serves.

In the end most people agree the Hurricane was the best early war fighter in all theaters due to a WIDE range of things.

Liken the Hurricane to a Leopard, and the Zero to a cheetah. Highly specialized versus a more well rounded package. The hurricane was around the entire war and was one of the top fighters throughout the war, the Zero on the other hand went the way of most specialists in evolution, extinction. It was replaced by faster, heavier armored better climbing planes eventually. The Zero was used throughout the war, but it was by no means the top plane in the Japanese airforce by wars end.

However, if you mean the fact that the Japanese were the first to really key on the Aircraft Carrier as the key to naval combat and aerial power projection then you are dead on and sorry for my tangent ;p