Yamaga Shimazu
12-13-2000, 16:12
Hi fellow taishos,
recent historical updates, 2 months of testing, and a prolonged testing session lasted for 6 hours yesterday, have definitely pushed me towards the second phase of development of these rules.
I am posting them in here so that everybody knows what we are testing both in and offline and to be able to organize testing games faster.
These rules are easy to follow and introduce the player into a new way of playing shogun. Monk rush, Mongol hordes, monster troopers and other (in)famous and irrealistic events will no more take place.
The purpose of these rules is to give a new significance to the game. When players agree to use them in battle, victory will be achieved by tactics and not by unit shopping and smart koku usage.
Honor will no more make 7 monks stand when 53 have been killed and fights to the last man will not occur. Ch'i/cheng, ambush, manouvering, manual and automatic skirmishing and formation commands will now be the key to victory.
Of course these rules are far from being perfect or complete. I am the first one saying so.
Much work needs to be carried away still but i already see the game behaving better.
Any discussion, comment or suggestion will be appreciated, all i ask is that u test them with and without me before complaining or appreciating.
I will be personally available here at the org, on the ea server, via e-mail (dmihqp@tin.it) and icq (# 58294718).
--------------------------------------------
NOTE: When talking of SAMURAI, i am meaning hc,yc,ca,sa,wm,nd and ng.
When talking of ASHIGARU i am meaning ya,ar and mu.
As u can see, the ys are now off limits. This brings an advantage to the cav units since the worst they will face will be ya.
--------------------------------------------
1) TAISHO : The taisho must be samurai.
2) HONOR : the maximum honor the player can get for a samurai unit is 5. While the maximum honor ya can have is 2. Gun equipped units have their own honor rules, please refer to rule 4.
3) RATIO : ratio of sam/ashi units is 1-3.
This means the best an army can have is 4 samurai and 12 ashigaru. If a player has 2 samurais then, he must have 6 ashigaru at least. To be able to get a third samurai, the player must also be able to support it with 3 more ashigaru units.
4) Gun units : Gunners have their own rules which try to balance the (1) gun scare, the (2) fire through friends and (3) inaccurate max range factors, with an extra koku cost and a honor limiter for gun units which is different from the one of ya.
The cost of gunners is 500 per arq and 600 per musk. The honor of the guns is fixed at 0.
--------------------------------------------
How to buy a gunner at 500 if the cost displayed is 100 ?
Well, if gun unit is bought at last, this is very easy.
Let's say the player has bought his army and needs 2 more ashigaru units to remain in correct ratio.
If the player chooses that he needs 2 gunners, then, he must have, at the moment he is to buy them, 1000 available koku (or 1200 if both of them are musks).
So if player has 2400 koku left and wants 2 musks, he will buy the gunners, lower their honor to 0 and consider he has spent 1200.
He can now spend only 1200 koku of those 2400 the game displayed available.
---------------------------------------------
This is it.
The most difficult thing of all has been to balance the gun cost with their performance.
As ashigaru, gunners should rout but in battle they are really difficult to catch for their fast skirmishing speed.
With a fixed honor of 0, they will rout though, instead of shooting back behind their friendly units...and it is realistic to me. If i had to fight with a club against a sword, a yari, a katana, or a naginata i would run for it.
The honor fixed at 0 will grant fewer kills than archers...and this corrects the fact that in reality archers have much a better range than guns. It helps as well with the -fire-through-friend- issue though guns will still be lethal in combat.
The battles have been tested at fixed koku value of 5000 per army.
The increasing of koku will unbalance the game again...and i repeat, With these rules, koku are not important. Tactics are.
recent historical updates, 2 months of testing, and a prolonged testing session lasted for 6 hours yesterday, have definitely pushed me towards the second phase of development of these rules.
I am posting them in here so that everybody knows what we are testing both in and offline and to be able to organize testing games faster.
These rules are easy to follow and introduce the player into a new way of playing shogun. Monk rush, Mongol hordes, monster troopers and other (in)famous and irrealistic events will no more take place.
The purpose of these rules is to give a new significance to the game. When players agree to use them in battle, victory will be achieved by tactics and not by unit shopping and smart koku usage.
Honor will no more make 7 monks stand when 53 have been killed and fights to the last man will not occur. Ch'i/cheng, ambush, manouvering, manual and automatic skirmishing and formation commands will now be the key to victory.
Of course these rules are far from being perfect or complete. I am the first one saying so.
Much work needs to be carried away still but i already see the game behaving better.
Any discussion, comment or suggestion will be appreciated, all i ask is that u test them with and without me before complaining or appreciating.
I will be personally available here at the org, on the ea server, via e-mail (dmihqp@tin.it) and icq (# 58294718).
--------------------------------------------
NOTE: When talking of SAMURAI, i am meaning hc,yc,ca,sa,wm,nd and ng.
When talking of ASHIGARU i am meaning ya,ar and mu.
As u can see, the ys are now off limits. This brings an advantage to the cav units since the worst they will face will be ya.
--------------------------------------------
1) TAISHO : The taisho must be samurai.
2) HONOR : the maximum honor the player can get for a samurai unit is 5. While the maximum honor ya can have is 2. Gun equipped units have their own honor rules, please refer to rule 4.
3) RATIO : ratio of sam/ashi units is 1-3.
This means the best an army can have is 4 samurai and 12 ashigaru. If a player has 2 samurais then, he must have 6 ashigaru at least. To be able to get a third samurai, the player must also be able to support it with 3 more ashigaru units.
4) Gun units : Gunners have their own rules which try to balance the (1) gun scare, the (2) fire through friends and (3) inaccurate max range factors, with an extra koku cost and a honor limiter for gun units which is different from the one of ya.
The cost of gunners is 500 per arq and 600 per musk. The honor of the guns is fixed at 0.
--------------------------------------------
How to buy a gunner at 500 if the cost displayed is 100 ?
Well, if gun unit is bought at last, this is very easy.
Let's say the player has bought his army and needs 2 more ashigaru units to remain in correct ratio.
If the player chooses that he needs 2 gunners, then, he must have, at the moment he is to buy them, 1000 available koku (or 1200 if both of them are musks).
So if player has 2400 koku left and wants 2 musks, he will buy the gunners, lower their honor to 0 and consider he has spent 1200.
He can now spend only 1200 koku of those 2400 the game displayed available.
---------------------------------------------
This is it.
The most difficult thing of all has been to balance the gun cost with their performance.
As ashigaru, gunners should rout but in battle they are really difficult to catch for their fast skirmishing speed.
With a fixed honor of 0, they will rout though, instead of shooting back behind their friendly units...and it is realistic to me. If i had to fight with a club against a sword, a yari, a katana, or a naginata i would run for it.
The honor fixed at 0 will grant fewer kills than archers...and this corrects the fact that in reality archers have much a better range than guns. It helps as well with the -fire-through-friend- issue though guns will still be lethal in combat.
The battles have been tested at fixed koku value of 5000 per army.
The increasing of koku will unbalance the game again...and i repeat, With these rules, koku are not important. Tactics are.