Castle Maps

[Puzz3D]

I'm going to have to make all new castle maps because the original STW maps are designed for an attacker entering the map from the top. However, in mtw/vi the attacker enters a castle map from the bottom which puts the AI army too close to the castle and on the opposite side from the gate. I'm also going to use the medium size map for these new castle maps since small is rather cramped.

Beta 8 is missing a required castle map in each of the four castle sets: flat01, flat02, hilly01 and plains01. This can result in a castle battle taking place on the internal generic map with no castle. The level 5 castle map is needed, but I only made 4 levels. To fix this temporarily, copy the four level 4 maps and their four inf files (total of 8 files) from \Battle\Maps to the desktop, rename them to level 5 and copy them back to \Battle\Maps. For example, copy castleflat01_4_0.jjm, rename it to castleflat01_5_0.jjm, and copy it back.

[barocca]

using the same procedure outlined above you will also need to make the following sets

Fortress - - - - - - - - Citadel - - - - - - - - and Citadel Upgrade
castleflat01_6_0.jjm, castleflat01_7_0.jjm and castleflat01_7_1.jjm

[Noir]

Post now edited out... Please see below:

[Noir]

These are a few pictures i took of Kumamoto Castle, while in Japan. Kumamoto-jo was built originally by the Kato clan and handed over to the Hosokawa clan later on. It is unlikely that it is representative of the hundreds of fortifications that were standing guarding every pass of importance during the period of civil wars; however it does give a good idea of Japanese castles, as it is one of the three largest that stand at the moment (the other two being Himeji castle and Osaka castle).
The main keep has been reconstructed in the 1960's to detail with a reinforced concrete frame (wood for such purposes is extremely expensive and further more there's the issue of public safety during earthquakes i guess).

Kumamoto castle is most famous for being the locus of the infamous Satsuma rebellion, during the Meiji restoration, that was the main theme of the movie "The last Samurai".

The inside of the castle serves as a museum, with many items of interest.

The castle being residence of Hosokawa (of Higo) lords and their armour is presented here as it was exhibited inside the museum.

You'll also notice a crowd dressed in samurai gear, that was due to a festival at the time of my visit.

1. Castle Main Gate (guarded!)
https://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1585/castle01ew7.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

2. Moat
https://img339.imageshack.us/img339/592/castle02wx2.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

[Noir]

3. Main Keep - notice the slopping of the walls that gradually becomes vertical all the way to the top. This was to deter ninjas from climbing to it.
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5858/castle03ga6.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

4. Twin Secondary Keep (next to the one shown above)
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/2150/castle04ed0.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

5.Samurai! Here you can clearly see the zig zag pattern of the walls that lead to the castle as they provide more shooting perimeter to the defenders and slow down enemy charges at the same time.
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5060/castle05cc0.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

6.Anti-ninja device - the guide explained that those sticks were "pressure sensitive" and that they would eject to skewer any intruder.
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/2566/castle06tt4.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

7.Castle Grounds model (as it was "then") - it is slightly misleading as it is difficult to realise the sheer scale of the grounds. After careful watching one realises that almost everything past the river is "castle grounds". Notice also the huge external moats at the gates as well as the way they've followed the river with a wall. The main keep has its own ring of walls that provides protection to the lord. The gate showed in pict 1 is infact the gate of the main keep as the rest of the grounds was given to the city past the feudal period.
https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/219/castle07gr5.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

8.Castle Grounds model (detail)
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1778/castle08xe0.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

9.Model of the timber structure
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8985/castle09pu2.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

10. Hosokawa Daimyo armour
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6241/castle11ea7.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

11.Princess' Palanquin
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/523/castle10oz2.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

These last two pictures are from the "Shogun" exhibition, that took place in the Royal Armouries museum, Leeds, UK, for three months in the summer of 2005. It was an incredible experience, and i was very fortunate to manage to visit it. My japanese friends said that "all Samurai items were gone from Japan" during that summer. The Leeds Royal Armouries was requesting the collection from Japanese Museums, Temples etc for 12 years!

12.Honda's famous horn kabuto and armour.
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/4800/castle13xc8.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

13.Tokugawa Ieyasu's warfan-standard
https://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1839/castle12oo9.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

[Puzz3D]

Thanks Noir. Excellent pictures. I'm thinking that large maps might be best for castle maps since we go up to level 7 castles which will be quite large.

[Puzz3D]

Good news on some custom battle test with a castle on a large map. The AI keeps it's army out of range until a breach is made in the wall, and it works on more than one breach at a time. A lightly armored unit takes about 25% losses getting up to the wall, and a heavily armored unit about 10% losses when there is a moderately sloped approach and when under fire from the wall and two level 2 keeps used as towers. Once the wall is breached, the AI attacks with its army and supports this attack with archers firing at any defending units in the breach. The AI divides its forces to attack multiple breaches.

I've cut back on the strength of the castle structures by about 30%. It takes about 4.5 minutes for a unit to break down a wall. This time doesn't seem to be dependent of the type of unit that's attacking the wall, but is dependent on the number of men actually hitting the wall.

I've tested concentric ring designs and maze designs, but the AI pathfinding is hopeless.

[Puzz3D]

I've discovered a bug in MTW/VI v2.01 with regard to the firing arc of keeps and towers. These structures will only initiate shooting at targets that are within the 90 degree firing arc that faces the top of the map. Once the target is being actively fired upon, these structures will continue to fire at the target until it enters the 90 degree firing arc that faces the bottom of the map. Units that are within the 90 degree firing arc that faces the bottom of the map are never fired upon.

In view of this behavior and the fact that the AI never attacks keeps or towers, I'll be using non-shooting keeps and towers for the castles. I'll rely upon the 6 levels of walls that are defined to increase the firepower of the castles as they increase in level. I've already tested this, and it works fine with a citadel able to inflict between 300 and 500 casualties on an AI assaulting army using 60 man units. This firepower may have to be reduced if the AI doesn't assault citadels with sufficient forces in the campaign.

[Noir]

Sounds good!

Can't wait to play sieges in the larger level castles.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Puzz3D]

I've got a preliminary set of seven castleflat01 maps finished, and renamed them to substitute for all three castle map sets used by the campaign. I can make this available for download if anyone wants to use it to test a campaign. Included would be a new model damage file as well.

[Bonfire]

i will be glad to volunter bro. paul_tulkas@hotmail.com is my msn messenger name

[Puzz3D]

SW_castles_1 (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/SW_castles_1.rar) is a set of 8 castle maps repeated 3 times to replace castleflat_01, castlehilly01 and castleplains01. Also included are new model parameter files to adjust the strength and firepower of gates and walls.

To install this first delete all the castle maps in \Battle\Maps, and then unrar this archive to your main Samurai Warlords beta 8 folder. Let the install overwrite the existing files. Don't install this to a version of beta 8 that you use for MP, because it will make your game incompatible with other MP players.

[Noir]

Great news - thanks Yuuki-Sama.

Castle 6 works ok, a slight problem with the pathfinding - there is a zone around the inner perimeter buildings were AI units stuck and also the player cannot issue fire and attack orders for units there. (*edit* - sorry, i should have been more specific =>) That is the player's units cannot shoot/attack AI units there.

Its apparently the same type of pathfinding problem that happens in pitched battles, however now is slightly more pronounced as most of the fighting happens there and there can be plenty of units whithin the castle (enemy or not) during an assault.

In the grand scale of things i doubt that it makes a difference (i dont think that battles can be won/lost by it) but it it seems able to affect to some extent AI performance that could (?) perhaps make a difference if a battle is on the line.

Perhaps introducing a gap of 2 buildings would help (adjacent or not). This may happen in a different fashion for each side to smooth out the symmetry if so you wish - not that it is a problem IMO, it looks great.

The AI performs really well in the siege in terms of deployment of units in space and time. The only thing he could do better is flank on a large scale from the back entrances once he takes the inner corridors (he does so but with a single cheap unit or so) - his assault units seem to linger there more than they should after they have no opponents - i don't know if this has to do with the next-to-buildings pathfinding issue.

I'll test some more with more equal armies and report back. I've also saved replays in case you need them.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Puzz3D]

Castle 6 works ok, a slight problem with the pathfinding - there is a zone around the inner perimeter buildings were AI units stuck and also the player cannot issue fire and attack orders for units there. (*edit* - sorry, i should have been more specific =>) That is the player's units cannot shoot/attack AI units there.
I don't think the unbroken rows of buildings are going to work out. Leaving gaps is going to be necessary due to the pathfinding. Rather than use the buildings, for asthetic reasons I'm going to try using some short sections of the low wall from STW that barocca included in the model pack, but the same issue remains that the AI units bump into obstacles without realizing they are there. I've also encountered unit men getting stuck on some of the non-castle maps that have models placed too close together, and I'll be correcting those problems. There are also some temples placed too close to terrain drops resulting in an air gap under a corner of the model, and one bridge map with impassable terrain extending too close to the bridge.

[Puzz3D]

Here is SW_castles_2 (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/SW_castles_2.rar) with modified interiors hopefully for better pathfinding on the large castles.