Ashikaga Shogunate mod v1.01

[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 ?

[Arryn]

Latest observation:

When Ashikaga units are paralyzed (by illithid Mind BLasts), instead of the unit graphic becoming "grayed out", the transparent background of the sprite is replaced by black. It's very odd-looking to see these 2-D vertical black squares with samurai images embedded within them littering the battlefield. It ruins the whole illusion of the sprite (a 2-D object in reality) being thought of as a 3-D object.

Just thought you might want to know this in case there's anything you can do about it.

[Osium]

The bow the Japanese used is called the "Yumi", it was a fairly unique bow in that the hand grip was about 1/3 of the way up the bow itself. This allowed for a large powerful bow to be fired from horse back. For all intents and purposes it is an assymetrical longbow designed for mounted soldier use.

It was also a very tall bow by most standards some over 200cm tall, the draw on the bow for a strong man was around 18 kilo's whatever that is in pounds, but due to its akward shape I imagine that accounts for the reputed difficulty in drawing.

Japanese archers also often used frog crotch arrows, basically an arrow head in the shape of a V so they'd look something like this. These were cutting and slashing arrows.

###--------<

The purpose of this arrow was to cut the straps of the bamboo armor that was commonly worn, they also used standard AP arrowheads as well.

Firing the Yumi was almost an artform. I've heard that a proper Yumi when fired should actually almost spin out of the holders hand so that bow is pointed towards the archer after the arrow is released. I assume this is due to its assymetrical design.

The Yumi was every bit as important to the Samurai as the sword was, and it is an arrow that a Samurai broke in half when he swore an oath of allegiance.

Perhaps a mounted horse archer with high precision would fit into this theme?

[Potatoman]

Names: Yeah I noticed too. Don't know how to change them though, so nothing I can do at this point.

Sorry the Ninjas don't look as good as some of the other sprites, they were definately the hardest to make. Trying to make a thin man dressed in a tight black suit look good at 32x32 pixels against a light brown background was a much bigger challenge than I anticipated . Some of the early incarnations of the Ninja were quite startlingly ugly. This is one of the reasons they have glamour in combat- so you can't see them very well. The green knife is from back when they all used bane blades (this is also why their resource cost is relatively high).

About the paralyzation problem- I don't know what the cause is. Does the same thing happen with the user created units of other mods?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Potatoman:
Names: Yeah I noticed too. Don't know how to change them though, so nothing I can do at this point.

I'm just playing the game, enjoying your mod, and reporting things as I spot them. Given the current state of the game's mod capabilities, it doesn't surprise me when you say that nothing can be done. We can only hope that the next patch will address these issues.

This is one of the reasons they have glamour in combat- so you can't see them very well. The green knife is from back when they all used bane blades (this is also why their resource cost is relatively high).

That's a, ahem, sneaky way to, ah, dodge problems in drawing ninja sprites. (Sorry for being pun-ny, couldn't resist.) You didn't comment on my suggestions for "balancing" the samurai or reducing the resource cost of the genin. Eh?

About the paralyzation problem- I don't know what the cause is. Does the same thing happen with the user created units of other mods?

Yours is the only mod (of the half-dozen I use at present) that creates new sprites. Perhaps another player, or IW, can shed light on this foul darkness.

Once again I wish to say that you've done a wonderful job with the mod. The sprite graphics for the various samurai and casters are a joy.

[PvK]

Originally posted by PDF:
... 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 ?

Ah, super! And yes, extremely cool!

PvK