Samurai Warlords XIII

[R'as al Ghul]

What time does it start tonight? 20.00 GMT?

For us Dutch and Germans it's 20:00.
Please come, we've to take revenge.

[Tomisama]

Samurai Mod - Multiplayer Mini Campaign XIII

Samurai Warlords Battle for Midland Wood Province.

This Sunday September 24th 2006 at 18:00 GMT (7 pm BST UK – 2 pm EDT US).

18:00 hours or 6 PM GMT

8 PM in Germany and Italy*
7 PM in United Kingdom*
2 PM in New York*
1 PM in Chicago*
12 PM in Denver*
11 AM Los Angeles*

*daylight savings time

The map for all Matches is to be fought on (fL)_SW_O_Mizulands 1 – Lush Summer with Fine Weather

Requires MTW/VI 2.01 and STW_Mod_BETA7.1 in MP Era on SamWarsMP_MapPack_2 maps .

http://www.mizus.com/files/files/MTW...Mod_BETA_7.exe

(Warning – This is not just a mod, but a revision of the game to be installed on a separate unmodified copy of MTW/VI 2.01.)

STW_Mod_BETA_7.1_patch

http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mt..._7.1_patch.exe

SamWarsMP_MapPack_2

http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mt..._MapPack_2.exe

All Battles played at 9k, all realism settings on, default unit size, with no time limit, and corner camping is expressly prohibited.

No specified Attacker/Defender roles, and no private agreements on rules are allowed.

Lordship will be won by the Contestant with Best Total Kill score, minus their Total Losses.



Good Luck and Have Fun All

Everyone is Welcome!



P.S. Please be sure to include “ (space)strictserver” on your created desktop shortcut for all MTW versions and mods.

Example:
"C:\Program Files\Total War\Copy of Medieval - Total War\Medieval_TW.exe" –strictserver

The location is wherever you have installed the game, but there should also be a space –strictserver at the end. If not, you can add it to make sure your game does not diverge from the other players.

[Puzz3D]

Most of the technical problems we had today were caused by the (fl)_Samwars 1 map. I looked at the map in the editor, and as soon as I clicked the "models" option, the game crashed. There are too many models on the map. Individual trees you place yourself count toward the model limit, and there are a lot of those on that map. After deleting those trees, I could click on the "models" option, and the game didn't crash. The (fl)_Samwars 2 map has the same problem.

Tomi seems to have a configuration issue with his computer or internet that increases his chance of dropping from a game. Sometimes his game works fine, and sometimes it doesn't.

I played a 1v1 on Bizen with a new player who had just installed the STWmod, and it worked fine. I noticed he selected a faction from the first page, and then changed his color to yellow (the first color) and that didn't cause any problem.

[Tomisama]

Tomi seems to have a configuration issue with his computer or internet that increases his chance of dropping from a game. Sometimes his game works fine, and sometimes it doesn't.

Yes it was very odd indeed

Could play one-on-one with someone else hosting (and me picking the last faction), and the game would complete. But as we exited I would get the “game stat has diverged” server message and was dropped.

If I hosted that message popped up as soon as we left deployment, and all was lost.

The only game that I was in that completed with out that error message was a 2v2 Yuuki hosted (I believe), and where I did not change factions from the one assigned by the game. It worked perfectly.

I will do a complete reinstall from scratch in a new location on my hard drive. But I think that there is at least a possibility that there may be a problem with factions and/or faction colors, that we need to watch for.

P.S. I hosted and played in other games with my vanilla version, both before and after the above, with no problems…

P.P.S. When Tosa hosted a game using the 4th Kawanakajima map, it came up looking like a patchwork quilt. It played fine I think, but wondered about the terrain selection.

Q1. What should we be using for those maps again?

Q2. The two newest maps allow only Temperate and Lush, there seems to be rain in both, is there really any difference between them?

[R'as al Ghul]

Argh,

to think it was my map that I uploaded for us to have at least one map
to play on and to enjoy the beautiful models and all makes me want to:


I can only ask for forgiveness and say to my excuse that it was my first map.
I'm sorry.


I wasn't able to reproduce Yuuki's crash in the editor but something close to it.
For the future we need to things:
1. maps for next weekend that work with our tile set and don't crash
(we can use Yuuki's version with deleted trees or I can look at them again)
2. Some idea on what's the limit for trees and models (Iirc I had only used about 10 % model space)

Do the texture tiles that carry trees also count as Models?
What about the polygon count etc, etc.

R'as

P.S: What about the colours? Do you think they can cause problems, too?

[Tomisama]

No problem R'as

In every engineering endever there are "at least" two phases.

And at the base minimum, those two phases are:

1. First you do it!

2. Then you do it right!

Another engineering gem says that the first 90% of the job takes 90% of the time (and money). And the last 10% of the job takes 90% of the time (and money). So completion takes total of 180% of the origional estimate (of both time and money ).

Just keep on keeping on. You are doing great, and your work is much appreciated

[Puzz3D]

I don't remember the limit on models. By the time the editor won't let you place anymore models, your over the limit for a bug free map. It's best to be a bit conservative with the models and trees. The texture tiles that have trees do not count towards the limit. I was just checking the Woodedroads map made by Kraellin, and it has a very large number of houses and individually placed trees, and yet it's not bugged. That map has always played fine, but it's also a small map. Just to be safe I deleted quite a few of the individual trees. I don't think it's fully understood what causes a map to be bugged.

I would say to refrain from changing faction color until we have consistent battles without drops. We know changing color is a problem in DUXmod if the color selected is beyond the original 16 factions.

I'll have all the STW maps fixed by Friday plus a few of the large WE/MI maps in the set.

[R'as al Ghul]

You are doing great, and your work is much appreciated

Thanks Tomi.

Okay, I hope everyone has recovered from the disaster.

We can try some things to improve our situation.
At first, I''ve finished half a dozen large maps, including the 2 that gave us trouble. I cross my fingers that the number of modelscaused the crashes. In the map editor, when you change your perspective you can see very good how the number of polygons changes when you rotate the camera. Add 6-8 full armies to that and there's a lot to display. I had no idea that the stupid cherry trees had that many polygons, while the buildings are rather harmless. I've stripped all cherry trees from the two maps plus all single trees, leaving only the two temples (deleted one in one of the maps). All additional maps I edited don't carry any models whatsoever.
I can send them to Yuuki for evaluation prior to uploading.
Secondly, we can reduce the number of playable factions.
Hoganji can be left out; slot seven displays Hosokawa but is actually Mongols, I'll fix that; slot 16 is Mongols now but should be Hosokawa. I'll also leave out Taira and Minamoto, they don't fit the timeframe; Tokugawa can be left out and Sanada's colour is similar to Satake.
That's six factions less. Date is #16 then and the last faction that can be chosen safely. There's still 7 factions above Date then which are probably not safe to choose.
I don't doubt what Yuuki said but I've to say I don't believe that the colours are a problem at all. I don't see any evidence for it. We demand nothing more from the engine than the vanilla game. We ask to display 8 separate faction colours, same as in vanilla. Unless the game is bugged I can't see the logic.
I'd like to add a personal note, The mons (family crests/ coat of arms) of the clans are designed to look good when used with the respective faction colour. When you change the colour, the rectangle of the mon gets visible and personally I find this ugly and unfitting.
If anyone has issues with the colours we've now I'm open to suggestions.



R'as

P.S.: How do we explain that both maps worked in at least one game?

[Puzz3D]

P.S.: How do we explain that both maps worked in at least one game?

Bugged maps can work. They crash when troops go near a bugged place on the map. Something is apparently different in MTW/VI because I was just looking at Obake's Riverlands map from WE/MI, and that has a very large number of individual trees and yet it never crashed. I'm converting Obake's maps for use in Samurai Wars, and I'm going to remove most of those individual trees and replace them with tree tiles.

In STWmod, all factions have the same units which makes having more than 8 clans superfluous, but it's nice to have more to choose. The basic number of factions in MTW/VI multiplayer is 16, and changing colors isn't a problem. I'm not sure that changing colors is a problem in Samurai Wars, but I'm suggesting not doing it for now so that we can eliminate that possiblility as a cause of drops. Changing colors alters your starting position, but you can achieve that by changing the clan you've selected since all clans have the same units.

[R'as al Ghul]

I'm not sure that changing colors is a problem in Samurai Wars, but I'm suggesting not doing it for now so that we can eliminate that possiblility as a cause of drops.

I agree.
We've to keep in mind that we do a lot of things with Samurai Warlords that no other mod does. New tile set, new animations, etc.
On the battle map there's hardly anything left from the vanilla game...

[Tomisama]

The mons (family crests/ coat of arms) of the clans are designed to look good when used with the respective faction colour. When you change the colour, the rectangle of the mon gets visible and personally I find this ugly and unfitting.
If anyone has issues with the colours we've now I'm open to suggestions.

This may not help any. But when we were trying to put together player clans mons (one in my signature), and you provided the mons sample page. I chose to have our mon as white on black intentionally, because it would look good on any colour. White on black or black on white works for all.

And personally I like the ability to change my deployment position by just changing colours. That way I can still almost always play the same faction, which can be a benefit in the heat of battle (helps during senior moments also ).

[Puzz3D]

I'd like to add a personal note, The mons (family crests/ coat of arms) of the clans are designed to look good when used with the respective faction colour. When you change the colour, the rectangle of the mon gets visible and personally I find this ugly and unfitting.

You won't be able to avoid that in a team game where a clan wants to play under its own mon.

And personally I like the ability to change my deployment position by just changing colours. That way I can still almost always play the same faction, which can be a benefit in the heat of battle.

I think a well rounded player should be able to play any position. I just take whatever position I happen to get with the clan I've chosen.

[R'as al Ghul]

You won't be able to avoid that in a team game where a clan wants to play under its own mon.

I realise that if we had mons for clans like VDM, Mizu or Hunter (like I had planned at some point) all of that clan would choose that mon, otherwise what's the point in having them. I was thinking more about our situation now. It's not that I want to whine but I'm not satisfied with the poor possibilities the game offers in that respect. I tried to make the best out of it, only to see that players decide that they like the rectangle.
If I had my wish, the mon would be on a transparent background so that there wouldn't be a rectangle. Additionally there would be 3d standards etc, etc....all that Japanese Heraldry has to offer.
But please don't feel obliged to change anything, I see the point with the starting positions.

I think a well rounded player should be able to play any position. I just take whatever position I happen to get with the clan I've chosen.

I'm not a good player and I've never given much thought on the starting position. I am aware of it but didn't consider it to be that important. I just try to cope with whatever the game throws at me. Whether i'm on the left flank or right doesn't matter too much to me. Even in the last game where I had the center position and was rushed by Tosa, I did farely well if I may say so. Caused Yuuki some trouble and even had the highest kill ratio iirc. But usually I'm not to keen on sitting in the middle.

But all of that is not as important as getting to play at all.

[R'as al Ghul]

I'm working on a patch for MP.
It will provide six maps, overwriting the two that gave us troubles.
I'll also edit the startpos, making some factions unplayable.
Details in the newsletter, haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.

I'll send the patch out to you guys with the newsletter before Sunday evening.
Watch your inboxes.

[Puzz3D]

R'as,

The 6th map is bugged, and I wasn't able to fix it.

[R'as al Ghul]

Gah, okay.

So, it's only five maps.
I've sent out the installer and hope I've everything covered.
5 Mizulands maps and a little change to the startpos file Samurai_Wars_MP.

Cross your fingers and please give me feedback as soon as possible.
It would be nice if someone could test this tonight so that we're save for tomorrow.

R'as

[R'as al Ghul]

Mailing the mappack didn't work for all.

Here's a link:
http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mt..._MapPack_2.exe

Edit: @ Tosa Inu: I've also uploaded it to Mizu's.

[Puzz3D]

Ok we had desyncs today, but I've analyzed the logfiles and there is a common factor in all the games which desynced. Unfortunately, Alex was in all the games that had desync, and none of the games which had no desync. He was also the first to drop in the games that I hosted.


1. (fl)_SW_mizulands 1: CBR, Tosa, Alex, Tomi, R'as, Yuuki, Aqua. desync
2. (fl)_SW_mizulands 13: CBR, Tosa, Alex, Tomi, R'as, Yuuki, Aqua. desync
3. magyarorsag: Tosa, CBR, Tomi, Yuuki, R'as. no desync
4. totomi: Tomi, Alex, Tosa, R'as, Yuuki, Cain, CBR, Hwang. desync
5. totomi: CBR, Alex, Tosa, Tomi, R'as, Yuuki, Cain Almighty. desync
6. yamagahara: Alex, Tomi, Tosa, Yuuki. desync
7. woodedroads: Tosa, Tomi, Yuuki, CBR. no desync
8. niban nohara: Tosa, CBR, Yuuki, Tomi. no desync
9. longhill: Tosa, CBR, Tomi, Yuuki. no desync
10. mikata ga hara: CBR. Tomi, Tosda, Yuuki. no desync
11. hachiman hatake: Tosa, CBR, Tomi, Yuuki. no desync

[L'Impresario]

The weird thing is that in 2v2s the game doesn't crash. You didn't have any 3v3s or 4v4s without me, so there isn't a clear picture there.
Maybe the fact that I installed mappack 2 in the map folders first has to do something with it, as I didn't know there was a startpos in the installer.

[Puzz3D]

The weird thing is that in 2v2s the game doesn't crash. You didn't have any 3v3s or 4v4s without me, so there isn't a clear picture there.

There is one 2v2 (game number 6 in my list) where you went out of sync. The game didn't crash because Tosa, who was hosting, didn't have -strictserver enabled. I verified after the battle that Tosa, Tomi and I all saw the same outcome, but you didn't. I think you played a 2v2 game before that which I wasn't in so I can't say if there was a desync, but Tosa didn't have -strictserver enabled for that one either. For battles numbers 7 to 11, Tosa hosted but he did have -strictserver enabled.

Maybe the fact that I installed mappack 2 in the map folders first has to do something with it, as I didn't know there was a startpos in the installer.

I'll bet that's the problem. Apparently, the number of factions available for MP was reduced. I would say that download should be called beta patch 7.2 because it changes one of the configuration files.

[R'as al Ghul]

I'll bet that's the problem. Apparently, the number of factions available for MP was reduced. I would say that download should be called beta patch 7.2 because it changes one of the configuration files.

Maybe Tosa can do that even though it's already uploaded, I'll PM him.
Another thing, one of my last recorded battles that didn't crash was a 4vs4 with Alex. Sadly it's from the 3rd of September and it was the beta5. But it does tell us that Alex PC is capable of running 4v4. Don't know about you guys but I've developed all kinds of weird theories.

7. woodedroads: Tosa, Tomi, Yuuki, CBR. no desync
8. niban nohara: Tosa, CBR, Yuuki, Tomi. no desync
9. longhill: Tosa, CBR, Tomi, Yuuki. no desync
10. mikata ga hara: CBR. Tomi, Tosda, Yuuki. no desync
11. hachiman hatake: Tosa, CBR, Tomi, Yuuki. no desync

Those were hosted on LUSH? So the tile set works?
Are there any models on those maps?

I wish I could've at least played on game without problems.
In #3 we only rushed after realising that it worked.

R'as

[L'Impresario]

Another thing, one of my last recorded battles that didn't crash was a 4vs4 with Alex. Sadly it's from the 3rd of September and it was the beta5. But it does tell us that Alex PC is capable of running 4v4. Don't know about you guys but I've developed all kinds of weird theories.

No, I didn't have any problems prior to this. Nor is it a specs thing, I 've been playing 4v4s for many years now heh (current pc is 3.01 ghz)

[R'as al Ghul]

Maybe the fact that I installed mappack 2 in the map folders first has to do something with it, as I didn't know there was a startpos in the installer.

When did you realise that? How many and which games have you joined without the new startpos?

[L'Impresario]

I had the new startpos. Else I couldn't join any game. But the first time I installed the mappack, I selected the maps folder. Only later did I learn from you that it contained a startpos, so I installed the files by selecting the main folder and proceeded to play, with the already known results.

[Puzz3D]

Maybe Tosa can do that even though it's already uploaded, I'll PM him.
Another thing, one of my last recorded battles that didn't crash was a 4vs4 with Alex. Sadly it's from the 3rd of September and it was the beta5. But it does tell us that Alex PC is capable of running 4v4. Don't know about you guys but I've developed all kinds of weird theories.

If you are going to rename the maps, that download could be deleted. I'm for drastically reducing the number of factions in MP all the way back to 8 if changing colors is a problem, but we haven't determined yet that is a problem for this mod.

Those were hosted on LUSH? So the tile set works?
Are there any models on those maps?

I think the tileset is fine. Games 7 thru 11 were all hosted on lush, and woodedroads has lots of models and individual trees. An idea that occured to me is to copy the lush textures into the arid folder, and that would provide a climate without rain.

I wish I could've at least played on game without problems.
In #3 we only rushed after realising that it worked.

And that made it appear it was the tileset since that game was hosted with the MTW arid tileset, but Alex wasn't in that game. Unfortunately since we have so few players at this time, a single player with a tech problem will stop everyone from playing.

[R'as al Ghul]

Alexa had the correct starpos in all games and colours chosen were from the first 16, Lush seems to work, Models no problem, Ind. Trees no problem.....

So, we're back to square one without any valid theories?

[Puzz3D]

So, we're back to square one without any valid theories?

Dropped packets. The game will retransmit dropped packets, but if a client's connection is dropping too many packets, eventually the client's game will fall too far behind the host's game and the host will consider the client to be out of sync. If the host is using -strictserver, it will then drop the client from the game. I believe the time window was relaxed a bit in one of the MTW patches to reduce the number of desyncs.

We should have joiners make note of their latency to the host before they join a game because that can be an indicator of a poor network connection. Sometimes a player who has a poor connection to one host will have a good connection to a different host. Although in Alex's case, he had problems with Tosa and me hosting.

[R'as al Ghul]

Everyone of us is using broadband, aren't we?
Just asking....



The positive side is that we have attracted new players again and they like the mod.

[Puzz3D]

Everyone of us is using broadband, aren't we?
Just asking....

Yes, but that doesn't guarantee a good connection.

The positive side is that we have attracted new players again and they like the mod.

Except those new players were in the games that went out of sync which will damage their impression of the mod. Not only that, but many players are not willing to sit for 20 minutes while we attempt to find another player to even the sides. We have to proceed with the battles promptly, and I'm willing to sit out to facillitate that even if it means sitting out every game. Also, the long time some players are taking to buy armies and setup is not warranted. It's less important who wins the battle at this point than it is seeing if the game is going to work.

[R'as al Ghul]

Except those new players were in the games that went out of sync which will damage their impression of the mod.

Well, I remember Hunter_Almighty saying that the mod "kicks ass" in a game where two dropped and we all left the field pretty soon after that. And the new ones thanked us for waiting for them, which isn't that common either.
But otherwise you're right.
I'm just trying to be positive which I wasn't at all when I had to leave yesterday.