Samurai Warlords: "Obake Horselands" -Competition (Hmmmm)

[Tomisama]

Thinking of revising this as a singles competition.

Any intrest

[R'as al Ghul]

How does this work?
Is there any site with more information?

I may be interested....

[Tomisama]

I will have to get a little time to find everything, review it, make whatever improvements are in order, upload all the pages, etc.

After I posted, I realized that I wouldn’t have that time right away, and started thinking of an interim Competition. Something that we could do right away. Maybe something we could do in one Sunday afternoon, depending on availability of interested players.

Basically something that would test the water for a larger investment in time.

What I came up with was a little warm-up Contest called Samurai Lords


Samurai Lords is an eight player Competition.

A random draw pairs the eight players in four 1v1 single Battle Matches.

The winner of that Battle becomes a Lord, and the looser their Retainer for the next Match.

A second random draw pairs the four two-player Teams in two 2v2 single Battle Matches.

The Lord of the winning Team becomes more powerful now, gaining two more Retainers for the next Match.

The Final Match pits the two reigning Lord’s Teams against each other, in a single 4v4 Battle.

The Lord of the winning Team is then the Supreme Lord of the Competition.


All in good fun of course.

Really just an excuse to get together, play a few highly focused games, and see if there is interest to go farther.

Any takers?

[AggonyDuck]

Sounds like good fun and a very interesting concept...

You can count me propably in.

[Tomisama]

Thanks Ducky

I'm hoping R'as and Yuuki will like the idea too.

With me, that would be half of the basic eight needed.

But shouldn't count the Samurai before they sign in I guess

Of course this would be the standard 10k with no upgrades, and thinking that the three of the Mizu maps would be best.

Any suggestions?


Also hoping that we might pull this together, and have the first one this next weekend *crosses fingers*

[donbatti]

sounds interesting :)

count me in..

[Puzz3D]

I'll play in this, but the maps should be chosen to be fair for attacker and defender.

One thing I should mention about STWmod is that it cannot be uninstalled as far as I know, and can conflict with other mods. So, players should apply it to a separate install of MTW/VI if they use other mods.

[Tomisama]

but the maps should be chosen to be fair for attacker and defender

This will have to be a must. But would still like to have maps some sort of terrain, or in other words no totally flat maps. Using terrain is as much a skill as any other in this game.

And I would like to see if we can’t loose the concepts of attacker and defender altogether, with “seek out and destroy the enemy”, the order of the day for all.

.....

One point that was not included in the basic Contest Format in the Samurai Lords post details above.

The whole idea of the progression of this Mini Competition is to establish a temporary and for fun, ranking order. But to be true to this concept, we must include that:

If a Lord’s army is lost in Battle, but that Lord’s Team wins, the Lordship changes hands to their highest ranking surviving successor.

The full order of succession being; the Lord, the Lord’s first Retainer, followed by any vanquished Team’s Lord, and then the vanquished Lord’s Retainer.

So you not only have to have the winning Team in every Battle, to be the Supreme Lord of the Competition, your personal army must survive every encounter also.

Kind of adds a nice little twist to the whole thing. Not to different from real life

[Puzz3D]

This will have to be a must. But would still like to have maps some sort of terrain, or in other words no totally flat maps. Using terrain is as much a skill as any other in this game.

And I would like to see if we can’t loose the concepts of attacker and defender altogether, with “seek out and destroy the enemy”, the order of the day for all.

If the map contains only a few salient terrain features, I think it's paradoxical to say "use the terrain" and "seek out and destroy the enemy". If an army is on high ground and it moves off that high ground, it isn't using the terrain to its advantage. The same is true of armies suited to tree cover or to open ground. You have to stay on the favorable terrain to take advantage of it. This is why you need the concept of attacker and defender.

Maps which have many small terrain features are better suited to discarding the idea of attacker and defender. I'd suggest Totomi_retextured as a 1v1 map to use or Tosa's Tami Kochi, which has lots of small patches of trees, if that one has been retextured for MTW/VI. The 2v2 could use Obake's Horselands which was very popular, but it does have a horizontal ravine running across the center part of it. There are several choices among Orda's realm maps which could serve the 4v4, and there may be some other maps in the mappack which could serve. Obake's Rivercrossing was a fabulous map for combining trees and uneven ground, but unfortunately in MTW/VI you cannot cross water. I'm not sure if that one has been retextured without the water.

One point that was not included in the basic Contest Format in the Samurai Lords post details above.

The whole idea of the progression of this Mini Competition is to establish a temporary and for fun, ranking order. But to be true to this concept, we must include that:

If a Lord’s army is lost in Battle, but that Lord’s Team wins, the Lordship changes hands to their highest ranking surviving successor.

The full order of succession being; the Lord, the Lord’s first Retainer, followed by any vanquished Team’s Lord, and then the vanquished Lord’s Retainer.

So you not only have to have the winning Team in every Battle, to be the Supreme Lord of the Competition, your personal army must survive every encounter also.

I'm not sure what you mean by "army is lost in battle". No army is ever completely lost. Beyond that, if you win the 1v1 and then "loose your army" in winning the 2v2, your retainer has already lost in the 1v1. So, it's not possible for him to be the Supreme Lord of the Competition since his army didn't survive the 1v1 and thus hasn't survived every encounter. It's also not clear how you are going to determine the retainer ranking.

The original concept without this added rule produces a single player who hasn't lost any battles who can be designated Supreme Lord without compromising the team's integrity. To my mind a team win is a team win not an individual's win. So, I wouldn't make a rule that emphasizes an individual winner, and perhaps encourages team players to hold back so that their ally takes the brunt of the fighting. Personally, I detest allies who do that, and it's not fun as far as I'm concerned.

Definition of "integrity": State of being complete, undivided or unbroken.

[R'as al Ghul]

Whatever modalities you finally come up with,
is okay for me, I guess.

I really would enjoy some Samurai mod MP games. I think I only played
it once online. I like the stats from Yuuki, though and have worked
with them for the single player campaign.
I'm reluctant to sign in, because I've no idea how much time it'll take
and if I can make it.
I'll keep lurking a while, but Tomi, you can keep me in mind.
If only one player is missing I'll definitly step in.

[Puzz3D]

Totomi and Horselands are in the STWmaps

[Tomisama]

R’as, not many people have had much experience with this mod online.
That’s why we have to do this!
It’s all for fun, so please come.
Depending on how many show, it will only involve 3 games max, just a couple of hours.

Yuuki, I agree with all points above, and am ready to post an official notice on the Medieval forum for a first try at this.

Was thinking Sunday 4/23/2006 at 19:00 (7 pm) GMT (8 pm BST UK – 3 pm EDT US).

Meet in the foyer for about a half an hour, and get every body signed up who wants to participate. And (if everyone will please stay put) then we could get started with the 1v1 games right away.

Sound like a plan

P.S. Will check out maps this afternoon (off work for the rest of the week ), and will verify suggestions so far

[Puzz3D]

I posted the Samurai Wars 10b multiplayer unit stats in a new thread this forum. There is also a discussion of the gameplay and how the units perform in this thread.

This mod has hardly been used, if at all, in the past year, so it should be a pretty level playing field as far as experience with the mod. The gameplay is straightforward rock, paper, scissors and every unit is worth what it costs if used properly with the possible exception of the ninja which might be somewhat overpriced. Archers are very effective against armor 1 units. Ten volleys by 60 archers (cost 400) can drop 30 warrior monks (cost 1000). The stat is designed for 10k. You can take upgrades, but they are not worth what they cost. You're far better off taking a stronger unit rather than upgrading a weaker unit.

[Tomisama]

After looking at maps until I can't look anymore

I would like to propose we make this particular event the Samurai Warlords Horselands Campaign, and play all of our Battles on STW_ob horselands wle from the STWmaps pack.

It is an awesome map, with many attributes that change in value with graduations in Team size. And as this is a progressive Contest, knowledge gained in previous Matches will only add to the intensity of the final Battle.

Sound doable?

And the time (Sunday at 19:00 GMT), also doable?

[AggonyDuck]

I'm not sure if this Sunday actually works for me, I'm away most of the day and when I return it's time for CWC training.

[R'as al Ghul]

And the time (Sunday at 19:00 GMT), also doable?

I agree on the maps and everything but the time seems a bit late for me.

I'm in GMT+2 and have to get up very early on Monday.
So it'll be 21:00 when we meet, add 30 mins for chatting etc.
Even if we're disciplined we won't finish before 24:00, rather later.

Hmmmm.....

[donbatti]

sunday works for me

[Tomisama]

Thanks Tears

Ducky and R’as, what would be good times and days for you?

I just threw out 19:00 Sunday, to have a starting point so we could talk about it.

And we don’t have to have all Matches in one sitting. It could be set up for a single phase, once a week. In fact doing it like that, with weekly Contest status reports, might enable us to draw some more folks interest in this thing.

But I think the “mass” meeting of Samurai, whenever we do it, is very important. The alternative of independent Match scheduling, no matter how well intended the participants are, will not pan out in the long run for our mini community of interested players (trust me in this).

P.S. I will be thinking very hard on how to integrate our current plans into the map based scoring system, like we had for the CWC Samurai Competition. No additional rules, just a way to show progress, and encourage others to join us.

[Tomisama]

Put up the Samurai Clan Wars Competition home and map pages from last year.

http://www.clanwarscomp.org/samurai/map.html

Click on "see the current competition" to see the progress of that Contest.

And be sure to read the "situation commentaries". Great stuff!*

What it was

*The source of the commentaries being the actual Clan Emissaries conversations, role playing in their Battle Assignment negotiation threads. The only editing being to convert what was said, to a documentary format.

[R'as al Ghul]

R’as, what would be good times and days for you?

I just threw out 19:00 Sunday, to have a starting point so we could talk about it.

And we don’t have to have all Matches in one sitting. It could be set up for a single phase, once a week. In fact doing it like that, with weekly Contest status reports, might enable us to draw some more folks interest in this thing.

Sunday is fine. Especially when we aren't going to have all matches in one setting. I'd be happy if we could meet an hour earlier.
1 or 2 games once a week on a Sunday is perfect.

Sign me in.

Another thing is the compatibility issue. See, I have like beta 6 and 7 of this mod living in the same folder with the beta 5.
Yuuki mentioned the error when he and Krast played with the model addon by barocca. I don't have that installed but all my graphic files, that are used on the campaign map, and all frontend files, used in the menus, are changed.
I do have the original beta 5 startpos file, the projectiles and unit_prod for samuraiwars_10 and all the maps.
Are there any other files that are checked for compatibility?

How many players are we now?

[CBR]

Count me in then.


CBR

[TosaInu]

I'll join.

[Puzz3D]

I do have the original beta 5 startpos file, the projectiles and unit_prod for samuraiwars_10 and all the maps.
Are there any other files that are checked for compatibility?

I think you'll be ok, but we could do an online check before the scheduled start time to be sure.

And we don’t have to have all Matches in one sitting. It could be set up for a single phase, once a week. In fact doing it like that, with weekly Contest status reports, might enable us to draw some more folks interest in this thing.

I would at least try to play all three rounds in one session. If everything goes smoothly, 3 rounds can be played in under 2 hours. Guns only have 7 minutes of ammo, so long shootouts don't occur in STWmod games. If someone has to leave, then you can defer to a later session. If you plan three sessions, then all 8 players have to show up three times which could be a problem.

P.S. I will be thinking very hard on how to integrate our current plans into the map based scoring system, like we had for the CWC Samurai Competition. No additional rules, just a way to show progress, and encourage others to join us.

I think you have to be carefull here Tomi because the reason the Samurai Clan Wars contest failed was that the players felt it was unfair.


Hosting is a potential stumbling block in the current 8 man event. In the first round, you need at least 4 players who can host, and pair them against the other 4 players. If there are 4 players who cannot host there is a very small possibility that they will all end up in the same 2v2 second round game. You could avoid that possibility by making the opponents in the 1v1 games allies for the 2v2 games. You could carry that idea through to the final round making the opponents in the 2v2 allies for the 4v4. In the final round, you will have played with or against all the players on your team.

[Tomisama]

Hosting is a potential stumbling block in the current 8 man event.

That is an important point, and one that we will have to solve in pairing contestants, as much as possible. Of course there are work-arounds, like having a third party host a pair who can’t. But we will see if we can’t just get it right in paring in the first place.

No matter who wins the 1v1, those two will be together in the 2v2 against another pair. And the same two will be together again, with that other pair, in forming their Team for the 4v4. Your enemy will become your ally in every case. One will be Lord, and the other(s) in service to him under the same banner, but all with the same mission and purpose, to win for their Team.

This Feudal Hierarchy concept is very important, as it will the basis for the “new”map game. Those Battles will all be 1v1s, but the idea that if you loose a Battle, you must then fight “for” the one who beat you, is pivotal, and has to be understood and acceptable.

I think you have to be carefull here Tomi because the reason the Samurai Clan Wars contest failed was that the players felt it was unfair.

The only similarities between original Samurai Clan Wars and the coming Samurai Warlords Individuals Competition to come, is the Samurai Mod and the Contest Map. And even those will need minor modifications (need one more faction maybe, and seven less provinces for sure).

This is a whole new deal, and a much simpler approach. And an opportunity to have a go, without the release of Rome breathing down our necks

[Tomisama]

Ok, I think we need to clear the air on this. I wasn’t going to say anything in way of explanation, but feel that the that the following statement might lead folks in the wrong direction.

I think you have to be carefull here Tomi because the reason the Samurai Clan Wars contest failed was that the players felt it was unfair.

I never worked so hard on a Contest as I did on Samurai clan Wars. It was a total innovation, grown from the ground up. Or should I say from the map up But really, countless hours of artwork, writing Concept explanations, and Rule definitions. I wanted it to be as magnificent, as the mod it was celebrating.

Now, just as we were about to get started, we got the news that informed us that the Samurai Contest was going to run into the release of Rome (about the Second or Third Round). I posted a warning on the forum, thinking that we might want to postpone. But no one seemed to agree with me, and there were a few encouragers saying that there would be no problem. But I wasn’t so sure. We pushed on anyway.

Now there were some bugs in this Contest that had to be ironed out. This to me was not to be unexpected with something that no one had ever done before. But there was one complaint that came after the First Round ended, that was disturbing to me, and really made me feel quite helpless at the same time.

The plan for the Competition was that when you mounted an attack on an enemy Province, that the Attacker and Defender would meet on the Border of the attacked Province. And that the two Border Provinces would then provide the Battlefields that had to be won before conquest could be claimed.

Now I didn’t make the maps, and did not fully realize that virtually all of the converted Shogun maps were Defender friendly (like their predecessors ). And this presented a particular problem for this Competition because if the Attacker lost, they lost everything for their misadventure.

If I have it straight, that was the problem. And at first I did not understand the complaint, as the Rules were clear, and were to have been read and understood. If some one did not think it would work out right, they should have said something. But in truth, no one (including me) could have seen the unfair results of actually playing this all out.

But alas, once this was clear, and conversation could have started on what should be done about this, Rome hit the shelves. The die was cast, all heads were turned to the most awaited game in of all Total War. So the Samurai Contest ended in silence, with a problem still hanging in mid air.

So at least to me, the words “failed” and “unfair” could give people the wrong idea. There was a major problem that would have been solved, had it not been for what was soon to be found to be the true “Titanic” of all Total War games, the first release of Rome!

From my point of view at least

[Tomisama]

Now I said all that, not really for the past, but for the future.

These Competitions I cook up, do sometimes have problems. But I am virtually working alone, and depend on feedback to approve or disapprove things put forth. And if problems are found, I am very willing to consider suggestions, and work with some of the brilliant minds we have here, to try to make things right. But flat out, I can’t do this alone, and need your help, and your willingness to pursue the problems until they are solved.

Probably more than enough said. Just wanted to be totally transparent on this.

And I hope my carryings on have not derailed any of our current plans to meet tomorrow online.

So far we have had seven responders.

R'as, Ducky, Tears, Yuuki, CBR, Tosa, and me.

Though Ducky may not be able to be there this Sunday, we may be able to do three 1v1s, and a winners versus losers second chance 3v3 (a suggested alternative by Yuuki).

Even though the above will no follow the primary plan, it would still give us a chance to get in some practice

If I am correct, we are now at one hour earlier than before, that’s Sunday 4/23/2006 at 18:00 (6 pm) GMT (7 pm BST UK – 2 pm EDT US).

[R'as al Ghul]

I'll be there. 18:00 GMT.

[TosaInu]

I'll join.

I just have to check MP compatibility today. It's a long while ago and I may have broken something during some editing back then (custom battles work).

Edit: the 'new' graphic card forced (?) a reset to an unsupported resolution and caused CTD. Problem solved, will try to play some MP before the meeting to make sure all problems are gone.

[Tomisama]

Thanks Guys

It's posted! https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63663

[Puzz3D]

Tomi,

You do not need a max 4 rule for STWmod. In MTW/VI the hard coded 20% tax kicks in on each unit of the same type over 4. The STWmod doesn't need that tax or any unit restrictions, but there is no way to turn off the tax.