Ashikaga Shogunate mod v1.01

[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.

[Potatoman]

In more recent Versions I have been fiddling with the mod balance again. The starting army lacks a scout because, for some reason, the command to add #startscout "Scout" appears to not work. Putting in the unit # doesn't work either. So, if anyone knows how to get this to work, spill the beans.

After having a group of 23+ Samurai wiped out to the Last man by 11 Pangea Revelers (cheap berserking satyrs) I also have decided that they were underpowered. At the moment I'm experimenting with raising their attack up to 13 and seeing how that works. So far the beef seems to be doing about what I want: heavy casualties on both sides when serious battles start. Bowman precision was also increased to 12, as a 15 resource archer with 10 precison would be pretty bad.

The movement discrepancies are a good catch. I'll probably change that. About Unwise flags, I don't know. It would be awesome if he did want to make a flag for Ashikaga but I'm wouldn't expect him to, especially when the mod is essentially unfinished.

[ January 29, 2004, 02:56: Message edited by: Potatoman ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Potatoman:
At the moment I'm experimenting with raising their attack up to 13 and seeing how that works. So far the beef seems to be doing about what I want: heavy casualties on both sides when serious battles start. Bowman precision was also increased to 12, as a 15 resource archer with 10 precison would be pretty bad.

Just remember when adjusting costs that improving a unit's stats from the basic 10 all around increases their gold cost, but the equipment is resources. Precision 12 archers typically cost 12 gold(Man's longbows, Black Forest rangers).

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Potatoman:
After having a group of 23+ Samurai wiped out to the Last man by 11 Pangea Revelers (cheap berserking satyrs) I also have decided that they were underpowered. At the moment I'm experimenting with raising their attack up to 13 and seeing how that works. So far the beef seems to be doing about what I want: heavy casualties on both sides when serious battles start. Bowman precision was also increased to 12, as a 15 resource archer with 10 precison would be pretty bad.

Ouch on your samurais. At least they died honorably. heh

I'm finding that the genin are by far more cost-effective than samurai in terms of what they accomplish in combat (due to poison, fast move, etc.) and their higher survival rate. Nevermind their ability to sneak around, or reduce a castle quickly. Simply awesome. Thus I've switched to churning genin out rather than samurai. Also, since it's easier to increase gold than resources, you can build more genin than samurai, which is a bonus feature.

I've built no archers, so I can't comment on them.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Potatoman:
After having a group of 23+ Samurai wiped out to the Last man by 11 Pangea Revelers (cheap berserking satyrs) I also have decided that they were underpowered. At the moment I'm experimenting with raising their attack up to 13 and seeing how that works.

Samurai should have 12 or even 13 attack and defense as well as cost more, IMHO. Plus I think it's ludicrous that Ninja fight better than them -- even without taking into account Glamour.

[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.

[Potatoman]

The Samurai Archers only cost 3 more gold a pop than normal samurai, but they have reduced attack and defense (especially after standard Samurai were boosted.) I think that the change leaves archers in a support role and still allows the player to amass enough to do some good as pure archers.

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.

[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).