MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight - Page 6

legowarrior · #51 February 9th, 2012, 03:36 PM

With the Onni-Bushi, I saw the ability Defense. I think that would be better than Patrol for them. They are home bodies. I'm almost tempted to give them home sickness, but that might be a bit much.

shatner · #52 February 9th, 2012, 04:06 PM

Home sickness is a huge disadvantage for a recruitable unit, somewhere on the level of vanishing after one combat like Pythium's gladiators. Typically being map move-1 is enough to discourage using a unit on the aggressive, at least when the nation in question has plenty of map move-2 units to use instead.

I'm not saying a homesick recruitable couldn't work (just as a one-combat unit like the gladiator does work) but you should be aware of the restriction you are placing on it. For it to be worthwhile, it would have to be very powerful and moderately priced or above average and dirt cheap. Plus, if they are a homesick, polearm unit, you would be missing a golden opportunity if you didn't give them a castle defense bonus.

Certainly workable but something has to be given if that much is being taken away. Also, does the Onni-Bushi as-is (high moral, medium-to-heavy infantry with long reach, high-damage weapons) fill a role in MA Jomon's line-up that would need to be filled by some other unit if they were made homesick?

Think on it and let me know. I should have version 0.2 of the mod out pretty soon (now with national spells, pretenders and better images for the cap-only sites).

legowarrior · #53 February 9th, 2012, 11:37 PM

Coolness. I'm having trouble figuring out what to do with the Wokou, image and uses. Any suggestions?

As to the Onni-Bushi, we should keep it is a high morale unit. I'm a little worried that something that should be a rare unit becomes something common, but then you are right, the Attendents are okay, but they aren't great center pieces, like the Onni-Bushi.

shatner · #54 February 10th, 2012, 11:07 AM

I thought long and hard on the Wokou and I think I found the role for them: cheap shock troops. The idea is that the Wokou are very aggressive pirates who know they need to overwhelm the enemy quickly otherwise they'll lose to entrenched defenders. As such, they have stats like the the Ashigaru except: +1gp, +1moral, +1attack, +2Action Points. What that means is that because of their extra APs and lower encumbrance armor, they'll rush forward faster than any non-cavalry on the battlefield, throw their harpoons at the front line and then attack the entangled/wounded enemies with high-quality swords. Sounds pretty piratey to me. Between a higher base attack and the +2 bonus from the wakazashi, these guys will hit surprisingly often for a 9gp unit. The +1 moral will help them deal with the losses they'll take from their low armor. They also cost fewer resources than the ashigaru, so they'll be easier to mass in case you need an aggressive first wave or flanking squad on short notice.

legowarrior · #55 February 10th, 2012, 11:30 AM

Now that is a thought. I was using the Ronin body, but I don't think that will work at all. I'll go through my images and see if I can find that something close. I might use the slingers body, but those guys are way to skinny.

shatner · #56 February 10th, 2012, 11:46 AM

For what it's worth, Eriu's Milesian Slinger looks a little burlier than your typical slinger.
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Milesian_Slinger

legowarrior · #57 February 10th, 2012, 12:22 PM

Yes, yes that might work. I'll send you something tonight with that.

shatner · #58 February 10th, 2012, 03:29 PM

The Miko is excellent against undead/demons but against everything else they are merely a high-accuracy, low, low defense/protection archer. Being sacred combined with cap-only is a real disadvantage for archers since they need to be massed to be truly effective. Also, most blesses don't really help archers (just air, death, and water). As such, we have two routes to take balancing this: make the Miko really cheap (easy but boring) or make them interesting...

To achieve the latter I'm thinking we can add a shield with high parry, zero protection, and zero encumbrance (we can call it something like "spirit ward"). This will be very effective at stopping incoming arrows (and a few projectile-based spells) but will do nothing to prevent damage in melee (since even with a shield block, it's adding zero protection). That way we have a flimsy, high accuracy archer who is almost impossible to take out with arrows.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm stealing this idea from a high elf warhammer mod I checked out once.

legowarrior · #59 February 10th, 2012, 04:57 PM

I can see it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto#...otective_items

Let's throw it in for now, and see if we can get some feed back on it when we put it out for others to play.

legowarrior · #60 February 10th, 2012, 06:36 PM

We should think about forts. I would argue for something very impressive for the starting area (Jeweled City or Tel City or the Great City!) but the default to be something like a Castle. Maybe a Fortified city in Farm land. I really hadn't thought of it, but we are looking at a civilization that is more centralized in the Middle Era than in the Late Era.