View Full Version : Possible Campaign Game improvements..
Here are a few ideas for the Campaign Game that I'm certain would improve realism but am not sure if the would improve fun.. but here goes:
Change the unit support scheme: in order to make campaigns of expansion require realistically more thought and planning, and to make keeping a standing army realistically a bigger undertaking, I suggest this:
All units in a province with a castle cost only the normal 1 koku per guy per year to support.
All units in a friendly province with no castle cost 50% more than the 1 koku per guy per year.
[and possibly..:] All units in a province with the castle in enemy hands cost twice the 1 koku per guy per year.
Note: to make this work, it would probably be simplest to switch to a seasonly upkeep instead of a yearly upkeep, to avoid having to calculate support for units that move around throughout the year, and to make it harder for someone to go into debt.
Add a cost to attacks: have all units that attack during a season cost 25% more upkeep for that season, realistically accounting for the gathering, packing, and supply lines necessary for the operation.
In an attempt to keep my posts shortish and therefore more readable, I will go now and give further ideas in my next post on the subject.
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Khan7
Further ideas:
Attempt to add realism to the makeup of armies:
Make Ashigaru units bigger for the same cost, and make them cost maybe 25-50% less upkeep.
Make the various types of cavalry units slightly smaller for the same cost, and if it isn't this way already make them cost double upkeep as you also have to feed the horse (duh).
Make No-Dachi units slightly to significantly smaller for the same cost much in the way you did with the Cavalry.
Make Warrior Monk units half to 2/3 size for the same cost.
So a possible scheme for unit sizes might be this:
YA - 80
YS - 60
YC - 50
CA - 50
HC - 40-50
ND - 40-50
WM - 30-40
Arq/Musk - 60
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Khan7
The improvements I mentioned above would simulate the difficulties in launching campaigns, the especial costs and difficulties of maintaining a seige (therefore making castles worth something more than just a place to wait for relief; therefore making it possible to actually defeat an attacker by simply waiting him out.) Also they would simulate the difficulties in maintaining a large standing army and the importance of infrastructure to the support of your force. These would make the game probably more somewhat more static, but not necessarily less fun, as battles would tend to be fought with bigger armies and higher stakes when they did happen.
The changes in unit size (and characteristics, in making Ashigaru less expensive to support) would attempt to add the proper incentives toward the more basic units that actually existed in fuedal Japan. No longer would the production of mostly Monk or No-Dachi armies be the dominant strategy.. more basic infantry would always have a place, even late in the game.
So there you have it, a few of my ideas to improve the game. I am very interested in hearing feedback to my ideas, so please speak up.
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Khan7
Koga No Goshi
07-04-2001, 05:45
Khan, excellent ideas. But I want even more options. I do want a basic re-balancing of the cost-to-effect prices of units for multiplayer... sit down and re-think what the in-combat MP value of each unit is, and reprice accordingly. (I'm sorry, but in MP, heavy cavalry just isn't worth more than monks. Much cheaper units can stop heavy cavalry, that isn't true of monks except when badly outnumbered). Or hell, don't let EA decide for us at all. Let us decide. Give us FULL customization options for multiplayer games. Let the host have a slew of options.. from which units can be bought in that game to how many of each unit to what honor they can have to how much they cost! There isn't any reason why this wouldn't be a good idea. They could still let you do the "default" games which would be exactly like they are now, but what would it hurt to let us customize down to the tiny details any game we want to have?
If I could customize like this, I think my first few weeks with it, I would host games where monks cost either 650 or 700 koku (to reflect their greater on-the-battlefield value than heavy cav-as I mentioned in another thread, yes a lucky hc can beat monks, but ys can beat hc- and monks have the ability to beat both hc and ys), up musket price to 300 (that way, if you're gonna use six muskets on me, at least they're not gonna be honor 5 apiece, hehe), and I think I would notch up the default yari cav and cav archer honor in my game to 3 (for the same price), cause they just rout too damn easy. This is what *I* would do, of course since it would be customizeable to the host anyone could do anything else they wanted. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif And this plan would probably need tweaking too, but I think it would lessen the prominence of gun/monk armies. (Which yes, I know I know, experts don't use 100% but it's still a prominent enough fixture out there among new and moderate players that 7 out of 10 games are basically gun/monk. Plus this would help out cav a bit)
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Koga no Goshi
Why did you bring 16 Female Ashigaru? Keep clicking weather, they're only strong one week a month.
Did you guys read the old Post on "improving STW" ? There were a great number of good ideas suggested by dozens of players to improve online and SP play. A whole range of problem issues were talked about and solutions offered.
Just hope that E/A noted that Post and will note this one.
I hate to say this Koga, but you're just a whiner who blames his own shortcomings on the way the game is, and hasn't taken the time to think about why things are the way they are. Guns are an often dominant strategy because GUNS ARE GOOD (please tell me I'm not the only one here who is going "hellooo, WHAT revolutionized warfare in the late Middle Ages?"). They are cheap because THEY WERE CHEAP. That's a big reason why THEY ARE GOOD. Please don't tell me that you've never noticed that archers have certain significant advantages over guns.
And I personally think as far as gameplay balancing is concerned the values are all about right (I'm more concerned with realism). For instance HC of equal quality to WM will tear WM to ittybitty shreds. HC defeats any other unit in the game (other factors such as honor and specific situation disregarded), except YS, YC, and sometimes YA. Plus they are fast and heavily armored. Therefore they cost 600. It makes sense historically, and it is balanced gameplay.
If you have your doubts about the effectiveness of HC, that's probably because you've been trying to use them in head-on charges, which is utterly idiotic. If we were dealing with Cataphracted knights in an age of poorly trained and coordinated peasant armies, that would work. But this is feudal Japan, and these Heavy Cavalry are not Cataphracts.
You may have a point with monk pricing, but I think that my idea of just lessening the unit size ultimately works better. And frankly I don't think that having monks be a dominant strategy hurts fun or gameplay at all, my concerns are purely historical and realism. Monks may be great, but they still only fill one role in your army, and you can't get away with buying a whole army of them. And if you have trouble defeating monk-rushers, you just need to practice, it is really excessively easy.
And giving people that kind of flexibility would only mean chaos. It would mean that every young whippersnapper with a mediocre grasp of history and tactics who thinks he knows it all (essentially people like you), would be able to go and very easily put his/her cochamemey ideas into practice, thus bringing a very unhealthy and unfun chaos to the online community. It would be like if on the StarCraft game server, for each game the host could fvck around with the game values and mess up the meticulously balanced game that the good people down at Blizzard spent months developing. For some reason the fact that this is a historically based game gives people the idea that if they just know a tiny bit of history and spend 10 minutes thinking about something that it is a valid complaint and deserves the immediate and fervent attention of the game designers.
People need to lay off.
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Khan7
[This message has been edited by Khan7 (edited 07-04-2001).]
Eh.. if I was a little harsh on Koga, sorry. I should've just stuck to striking down his points in a respectful fashion. At any rate, I'm not trying to start a fight here, this thread is all about the open discussion of ideas.
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Khan7
Catiline
07-04-2001, 07:46
Good to see you saw the error of your ways Khan, I almost posted and then my connection gave up before I could, a lucky esacape :0
THe reason guns changed warfare so much is because any idiot can use them. You point and fire. Bows take years of traiing to be used effectively. Guns don't.
as for historicity, Monks aren't. And they are massively overpowerful, cut them down or increase their cost, the difference isn't that great, except for the fact htat increasing their cost probably discorages them more than keeping them the same cost and reducing their stas because every one killed by missile troops is more effective. monks as a rule don't scare me too much, too many means a rush and that can be beaten. Guns are worse, if only because of the fact they cause no FF casualties
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Unless the Persians fly away like birds, hide in the earth like mice, or leap into a lake like frogs, they will never see their homes again, but will die under our arrows
Guns cause significant FF casualties, and these casualties are reduced by predictable factors, such as if the guns are at a higher elevation than those they are firing over, etc. They don't cause as MANY FF casualties as they should, but one could take the position that this accounts for the fact that they CANNOT fire over friendly troops like they historically would have (i.e. with a line or two of yaris kneeling and protecting them while they reload). But trust me, I've tested it, and the FF casualties are significant, if not as great as they should be or even as great as the casualties caused by the bullets that miraculously teleport through the ranks of their compatriots into the enemy.
And I've beaten a foe several times largely because of his bad force organization which caused him to suffer abhorrent FF casualties.
And though the ease of training musketeers and their consequent cheapness was a big factor in the gunpowder revolution, their superior penetration, flat trajectory nature, and scariness also played large roles in their importance. Keep in mind that in Europe when guns were still just as expensive to get as knights people still went after them for these other reasons.
And I have no doubt that the awesome effectiveness of monks is entirely realistic (if you doubt me go read some Japanese history, or perhaps contemplate on the fact that Shogun Total War is a very well researched game made by dedicated people). The only thing that gets me is the fact that in reality there probably weren't that many of them and they certainly couldn't have been very easy to aquire in real life. Hence an increase in price or a decrease in unit strength (i.e. fewer men) might be appropriate.
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Khan7
Catiline
07-04-2001, 08:38
tHe monks are overrated for the period of STW, admittedly earlier Warrior monks had been very powerful, by the 16th century the were not the uberwarriors they are in STW. As to STW being very well researched,hmm, it is in most respects, but gamers licence has come in in some points. THe Monks should be reduced in numbers as you say, but also made appropriate to the period, it's like saying the legionaries around when Rome collapsed were as efficient as those of the First century. THey simply weren't, but they were still legionnaries. A game set in the 4th Cent Roman empire with 1st Century legionaries would be a game where that unit was massively unbalanced and overpowerful, IMo the monks are the same.
The faact guns have a 'flat' trajectory is one of the major factors that makes them easier to use. I should ahve stated when i talked about ff though that I meant guns firing into to melee. hten htey don't cause ff casualties, when in reality the results should be 50/50. This is one of the major reasons why they are so devestatingly effective. As to Europe i'm not sure when you're talking about, guns weren't a significant feature on battle fields until htey were sognificantly cheaper than Knight's, which again demonstrates the point we agree on ease of training, ie it takes years to train a Knight, and less time to train the peasants who'll kill him firing cheap muskets.
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Unless the Persians fly away like birds, hide in the earth like mice, or leap into a lake like frogs, they will never see their homes again, but will die under our arrows
hehe, there were NO real legionaires around at the time of the fall of Rome.. they were really an entirely different unit type made up mostly of barbarian infantry, they just CALLED them legionaires.
As for your claims about the Warrior Monks, I'll have to research that further. Any good ideas on sources?
And the fact that guns have a flat trajectory is more important than just making them easier to use. It also brings certain significant tactical advantages in and of itself that I don't have the time to explain right now.
There was a period in which guns were quite expensive and were a coveted item for would-be powerful lords. It took a century or more of refinement before they were cheap enough to equip in large numbers. All-musketeer armies didn't come around until the 18th century, but muskets had been in use at that point for more than 200 years.
Anyway, I hope we're not getting too off subject here, I'm still looking for more feedback on my ideas which are the main topic of this thread.
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Khan7
Koga No Goshi
07-04-2001, 09:29
Khan,
I'm sorry you see my ideas as so personally offensive, though I'm not sure why you did. Customization doesn't limit what people can do, it expands what people can do. Not having to face gun/monk armies in the majority of battles was just one point. I would like to play some games where it's just yari and archers, with a few cav. Maybe another day I feel like trying out some cav skills with someone and make every unit fair game except spearmen. It's not about trying to force the game to this person or that person's idea of what it should be, it's about having more freedom to play whatever kind of game I want to play without hoping if I ask the other guy "hey, no more than 5 of any particular unit, ok?" that he'll honor it.
No, I don't use heavy cavalry in "idiotic frontal charges." I don't use them at all, because I find them absolutely not worth it. Even if my Heavy Cavalry can beat one monk unit, what does that matter if while it's fighting the monk a 100-koku yari ashigaru slams into the flank and game over for Mr. Heavy Cav? I'm yet to play any game under 10,000 koku where anyone used heavy cav for ANYTHING except their Taisho unit, and of course they kept it well to the rear of the army until the battle was already won or lost. Obviously I am not the only person who thinks heavy cav aren't worth their cost. If I was the only person who thought so, you'd see them in the field a lot more.
I'm not just desiring these customize options because of *my* weaknesses, either. I feel bad for people who use cav against me. Even their cav archers shooting at my muskets at their longest possible distance can still be routed quite easily if I target one at a time with my guns (again at longest possible distance). Even enemy muskets don't run as easily unless you've either killed a vast majority of them or close in really close.
As for "guns are cheap because they WERE cheap"... what histories are you reading? The only daimyo who was able to put guns into the field in large number was Oda Nobunaga, and only then because at the time he held the entire region around the capital and almost every major industry city in central Japan. Guns were extremely expensive during this time period. Perhaps the ashigaru who used them were not expensive, but the guns themselves were. So was the powder and shot. Prior to about 1600 there was not a single battle using muskets in Japan where the conservation of powder and shot for cost considerations was not a major issue. So again, there's another historical flaw with the guns having nearly unlimited ammo. That's if you want to get historical about it.
The warrior monks who faced Oda Nobunaga and defeated him were only able to do so because of three factors. One, in many of the encounters the monks were backed up by Oda's rival clans, Asai and Asakura. Two, the monks held an extremely strong castle at Ishiyama which Oda wanted to capture. Three, the Buddhist groups in Japan were extremely wealthy and owned tax-exempt lands, and were able to afford guns. The sword-and-spear warrior monks were no match for the samurai once these three advantages were taken away from them, as proved by Oda completely slaughtering Mt. Hieizan, one of their strongholds with about 20,000 monks. In the game, the warrior monks do not have Asai and Asakura backup, they don't fight with guns, and they're not defending Ishiyama Castle. So again if you want to get historical, the monks are inaccurate.
If the options I described and the type of game I would set up offend you, you wouldn't have to play it. There are people who come into Shogun obsessed with Roman legion/Hannibal formations. They'd be free to customize the game to how they want to play. You'd be free to do the same with however you want to play. Having these options wouldn't mean you'd have to play "my way." But I think it would add a lot of diversity.
btw, just for your info, I'm not whining. I'm not gonna stomp my feet and cry and quit the game if I don't get these options. I just think they'd be great.
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Koga no Goshi
Why did you bring 16 Female Ashigaru? Keep clicking weather, they're only strong one week a month.
AAAK! Sorry about that, I was really just feeling mean and superior for whatever reason at the time I wrote that post, and I can now admit it was utterly moronic. I still disagree with you on many points, but that post was really dumb.
Especially embarrassing is the fact that many of my historical "facts" I stated turned out to be wrong. I knew at the time I was writing it that I was sort of gambling that the assumptions I had made (to make up for my relatively small specific knowledge about Japanese history) based on OTHER areas of history (of which my knowledge is VERY extensive), would not be wrong. Well, I got burned. You win that one, hehe.
A couple points about muskets: very few if any of the Lords had access to Warrior Monks. At this time there were employed very few No-Dachi shock troops. But practically EVERYONE had access to plenty of guns, it seems. Even all of the minor clans depicted in Kurosawa's 'Ran' seem to have no lack of them (and indeed they make up quite a large portion of all the armies depicted in this movie; also, don't try and argue about Kurosawa's historical accuracy). They couldn't have been terribly terribly expensive. I would be interested in what your opinion of "large numbers" is, since only Oda could put guns in the field in "large numbers". If "large numbers" is thousands, then he wasn't able to put large numbers of GUNS in the field because he was rich, he was able to put many many many men period in the field because he was rich. Armies of that time tended to be very small, like in the order of hundreds up to maybe a couple thousand.
Also your story of the demise of the Ikko-Ikki is, as it is told at least, totally irrelevant to the question at hand. You speak of various strategic and logistical advantages the Ikko-Ikki had which allowed them to hold out against Oda. Then you speak of Oda taking strategic steps to strip them of these strategic and logistical advantages, and then winning a battle at Mt. Hiezan with what I assume were superior numbers and other considerable logistical advantages. None of these facts even address the issue of the Ikko-Ikki's fighting prowess (or lack thereof).
So the Ikko-Ikki were strategically outmanuevered. So maybe we'll even say that their commanders were tactical morons (?). That says nothing about whether or not the monks could fight. Sorry, but you're going to have to come up with some RELEVANT historical evidence to prove your point here. Until then, I'll just assume that the game designers aren't TOO full of crap, except about the WM availability issue.
As for being tired of facing up to gun/monk armies, you have a point about monks, they certainly weren't particularly common in Samurai armies, but you have no point about the guns. If you were fighting a battle with any but the most nobody clan in the mid to late fuedal wars covered in this game, chances are you would've faced guns in some form. Possibly in the game they should have less ammo, but their near-constant presence is totally realistic (this much Japanese history I DO know! yay for me!).
But my main point is that the type of customization you're talking about would be the equivalent of someone like Stephen King writing a book and then sending it out to a few hundred thousand publishers, giving them instructions to alter the book in any form they see fit and publish it with the same cover and his name. The makers of STW have a right to maintain the artistic purity and reputation of their product, to maintain a level of order and stability for the benefit of themselves and their customers (much in the way a King or any government does). Making it very easy to alter in very big ways would seriously create chaos and destroy any credibility the product has.
Plus, most of the things you talked about could be solved very simply-- just find people who will be a sport and play by your rules. I, for instance, would be open to a game with certain historically based constraints every once in a while. It would really be possible to get almost everything you want right now with the current system (without causing anarchy).
But anyway, I want to apologize again for my previous crudeness. But I don't really know why I AM apologizing, cuz I'M the one who got wicked BURNED. hehe :-P
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Khan7
Koga No Goshi
07-05-2001, 04:19
Khan,
I do agree with some of your points. However, with the argument you made about EA protecting its artistic purity with regard to its product... is there any difference really between what I'm suggesting and what you're suggesting with the graduated unit sizes based on unit power? Either way we're talking about altering the "set order" that currently exists. If it's going to be changed, I would just rather the players have their own say in how it be changed rather than EA arbitrarily doing it for us. I hope you take no objection to that view. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
I do agree with you it would create some chaos. (My idea, I mean.) After awhile it might get tiresome looking through the open games and trying to find one that didn't have x, y, and z crazy restrictions on it when you were in the mood for just a straight forward game. So in that regard I agree with you. Maybe the best thing to do if EA were to do what I suggest (which I doubt they ever will, but there's always hope, hehe) is to make a room for "custom gamers" aside from the standard foyer already there. (And from what I hear the re-entry of several hundred old Shogun players when the Expansion comes out will probably necessitate the use of extra rooms anyway, so this wouldn't be a far-out idea.)
Ahh well. I think we're going too far into theoreticals anyway since from what I know of EA, it's very unlikely that even a very good and very widely-agreed upon set of changes would ever be manifested in a patch. I used to play Ultima Online by EA and there was a patch about once every three weeks... but never for anything useful. It was always something stupid like "grass color now fixed" or "small books are now stack-able." heh
Khan, I really don't mean to be circular here, but if you demand that I show some "relevant proof" that the monks weren't uber-warriors, can you show me some proof that they WERE? That Buddhism and particularly the Ikko-Ikki movement were widely influential and powerful institutions is not in question, it's historical fact. But outside of the province of Kaga and some regions of Echizen and Kii, the warrior monks of sengoku Japan were never a major dominant player in the Japanese military, they were actually much more like they are portrayed in the campaign game... thorns in the side of the major clans, sometimes obstacles, but not a dominating military force. I have a book about the military life of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (from childhood to death, not just after becoming Shogun) and it includes descriptions of several encounters with warrior monks.
In not a single one of these encounters, unless the monks had vastly superior numbers or were being directly supported by outside daimyo, were the warrior monks ever able to make much effect against samurai armies. And the fact that Tokugawa, who was *never* a major military power (army size and quality wise) until well after Hideyoshi's rise to power, was able to repulse warrior monk confrontations at least a half dozen times in his military career doesn't do much to support a claim that they were very elite. One example I can give you is the Komaki campaign. 30,000 warrior monks out of Negoro moved against Hideyoshi's 25,000 (which were mostly conscript levies from around the capital region, which was known more for its decadence than ferocious warriors) at Otsu and were promptly routed. In the account this is mentioned almost as a side note to the real battle.
To the daimyo, having the Ikko-Ikki on your side was a plus, a tactical advantage. Not a deciding factor. It was sort of like outnumbered armies in Feudal Europe hiring mercenaries to bolster their forces. Better than ashigaru? No doubt. Better than having true samurai? None of the daimyo thought so, and history doesn't indicate so either.
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Koga no Goshi
Why did you bring 16 Female Ashigaru? Keep clicking weather, they're only strong one week a month.
If what you say about the Warrior Monks is true, then that's wild.. I'm really gonna have to go and investigate that. Maybe the designers just made it up because they felt they wanted an ultiunit. I dunno. I really sort of pictured the Warrior Monks as being some equivalent to Mamelukes, but now I'm gonna hafta look into that.
It is also good to note that this is NOT an EA game, it's just produced by EA.. Dreamtime or the Creative Assembly are the ones who would be handling patches and such..
Anyway, I'm gonna keep making a little noise, and others will too, and hopefully we can all perhaps get something done. If we really wanted some change, we should like form a coalition and have meetings to iron out our platform and go en masse to Richie.. hey yeah! that's a good idea! I'm gonna go and work on that now..
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Khan7
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