The JDD (Japan\'s Darkest Days)it is HARD!

[Pachinko]

Sheeess...The JDD (Japan's Darkest Days)it is HARD! I was a Daimyo for Mori. I got killed. I won the battles but lost the war. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gifThen I will the Hojo. I was going ok...Then the Mongol was a bitch. It was a HORDE!!! I mean a HORDE!! It was the old time (Hojo Horde).

So tell me Barocca. I was reading your readme.txt...It doesnt work. It didnt for me.

P.

[Pachinko]

Oh.... I am a Expert mode.

[Gregoshi]

Pachinko, to clarify, what in the readme.txt didn't work? It isn't clear to me from post.

BTW, I have notified Barocca of your question here so he can address it.

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Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[The Naked Geisha]

I will apologise for B's games. He has a tendency to make things (like games) very hard and they are generally long term. If you are the sort of player who likes to get through the game as quickly as possible, you won't beat it.

B made a map for Starcraft ages ago. We played it over a LAN and it took 5 of us nearly 8 hours to beat the remaining 3 teams.

Try planning long term in the game and see if it gets any easier.

[jomni]

an 8-hour starcraft game??? didn't the resources run out?

[hecose]

I have discussed with Barocca before. He actually designed his campaigns to be very hard on Normal Level. So I can imagine if you play it on Expert Level it will be impossible (or almost impossible).

[The Naked Geisha]

No, the resources didn't run out. He put a trigger in so if you ran below 50 of the ore (or whatever it is) you got enough to build your SCV unit or whatever it was you needed.

Also, you have to understand the map. It was a maze that you had to work through and there were pockets of gas etc all over the place so you were never short on resources. However, he also had a trigger set up for the enemy. Every time you got their units down to a certain level, the computer automatically got new units. This didn't stop until you had destroyed all the building.

It was a very fun.... very long game.

[barocca]

I developed these campaigns because players were complaining high and low about it all being too easy on expert,
so they are designed to be tough on normal, and as the difficulty level goes up they get geometrically harder.

The different clans allow different playing styles to be tried, the different campaigns allow for differing tastes,

IronMan is designed to be very very tough,
JDD is very hard,
JDD SE is hard, but has definate fun value,

The first turn(1274) will be pretty much standard issue mongols,
1275 there will be a few more reinforcementas than the normal mongol campaign,
1276 well this depends on wether or not you succeeded in slowing the mongol advance sufficiently,

The campaigns can be won, you must not waste a single unit or a single turn,
you must anticipate where the mongol will strike next, and which of your neighbouring clans will betray the cause and attack you instead of the mongol!

There are hints scattered among all the custom clan descriptions across all three campaigns, check all the clan descriptions for a few ideas.


You must watch for opportunites to conquer neighbouring clans provinces, they are quite valuable to you. Even a 1 point boost in armour will have a dramatic effect on unit survivability on the battlefield!

You must get in the way of the mongol as early as possible, this means invading one of the 'frontier' clans, preferably after they have lost some of their initial units to ronin or inter clan wars.

You have to slow the mongol somehow, even if all you do is invade, sell the buildings and run away, you have suceeded in reducing the pillage value of the province, and guaranteed next years mongol reinforcement will be that much smaller.

The mongol will try not to leave anyone alive behind their lines, but even if they cannot eliminate a clan they will continue to advance on Hojo's positions.

The mongol will make repeated attempts at taking a province, but if they take too many losses the mongol will switch to 'containing' that province and wait for further reinforcement.

What you have to do is tie down as many mongol troops as possible into bottling up your 'frontier' provinces, allowing a little time to build up and counter attack the mongol directly.

Your Daimyo will have to be involved in battles for the honour bonus he provides to his men, and for the shock value of his hatamoto charging into a mongol unit that is currently engaged by your footsloggers.
The footsloggers will fight harder, and the mongol unit will break sooner if your Daimyo is directly involved.

your Daimyo is very hard to kill, but not impossible, don't be foolhardy with him - use him where he will do the most good.
A routing MHC will 'cascade rout' many more units than a routing korean spearman, but occaisionally routing a spearman will do nicely.

Ninja assasins are vital to taking out high honour mongol generals, by the end of 1276 there are usually 3 or 4 such generals of honour 2 or above.
Honour 1 or 2 MHC are particularly nasty...

Shinobi can be usefull in a recently captured province that does not have border towers or forts. They can ferment rebellion and bring into play 'fresh' units, be they ronin, yours or the original province owners, they all inflict casualties on the mongol.

Watch for occaisions to 'trap' mongol forces in a province from which there is no retreat route!

MLC carry far more ammo than Ashi-X or SA's, a couple of units of Ashi-X on your flanks, where they will fire less often can be swapped into your front lines once the front line ammo runs low.
Ashi-X will take down plenty of Cav, but are not terribly effective against skirmishers.
A high honour specialty unit, say No-Dachi, charging a Skirmisher after it has just taken a volley of crossbow bolts will often 'break' the skirmishers before actual h2h contact,
if the skirmisher rallies and tries again simply use the same tactic,
soon the skirmisher morale will be so low that an order to attack by the mongol will cause the skirmisher to flee.
remember to withdraw the ND unit back into your formation or the MLC will shoot 'em full of arrows very quickly.

Do not be afraid to commit Ashi-X to h2h with mongol cav, usually they should be supporting a YariSam unit that is already engaged with the cav, a decent honour Ashi-X with some form of armour/weapon/morale bonus will hamstring enough horses for the tide to (hopefully) turn in your favour.

Ashi-X are expendable at all times, they can take the charge bonus off a MHC and allow a counter charge by a Yari Sam. They can soak up Skirmisher's javelins that would otherwise be employed to shred a far better unit.

Do not spread your forces too thin, if you defend a province with 400 men you are guaranteed to lose around 120 of them to a mongol attack,
you must be capable of beefing the province up repeatedly,
the mongol will try to take it season after season until he has depleted himself, and then he will 'bottle' the province up until he is reinforced. Then he will try again!

I generally find i can hold and reinforce 3 provinces early in the game, providing i don't spend all my koku too soon!

As time goes by new ports come online, farmlands are improved, new provinces are captured from the other japanese clans and my income increases.

The key is time,
Alliances bolster your finances, and your allies!
Ports provide an economic hedge against bad harvests.
Both mean more koku for you, which means more units and thus more time to build and counter attack the invaders.

Watch which provinces the other Daimyo's attack, knocking off an opposing Daimyo by trapping him can turn his provinces into ronin early in the game, perhaps giving you the opportunity for some expansion room!


Try starting on normal, and then step up to the next difficulty level.

above all have fun,

...


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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://doragon.cjb.net)

[Pachinko]

Thanks,Barocco. What do you think the easy clan?

[hecose]

Are these campaigns designed mainly to be played as Japanese clans other than Hojo? Are they suitable to be played as the Mongols or the Hojo?

[kagemushashingen]

Barocca. Sounds like an interesrting mod and I am thinking of downloading it. Just a few questions though...not relaly interested to play the mongol horde. More interested in Sengoku Jidai era..can I play japanese against japanese using your mod?

[kagemushashingen]

Barocca. Sounds like an interesrting mod and I am thinking of downloading it. Just a few questions though...not relaly interested to play the mongol horde. More interested in Sengoku Jidai era..can I play japanese against japanese using your mod?

Looking for a tougher (much tougher) version of the game rather than the one. I am sick of playing expert and conquering all of japan within 40 yrs (same daimyo).

[solypsist]

im working on one that is the same period as mongols, but without the mongols. not very tough, though, so maybe next time.

[hecose]

kagemushashingen, I think what barocca has created is not so much of a mod rather than a custom campaign. The campaigns were set in the Mongol Invasion era, so you will be seeing Mongols. But the campaigns were also designed to have a number of Japanese clans instead of just Hojo, so you can play Japanese vs Japanese. If you are interested in a tougher Sengoku Jidai era campaign, try Zen_Blade's Nobunaga's Dilemma campaign. I find it challenging and quite like it.

[barocca]

Pachinko,
i think the easiest clan is Mori,
they have the capability to stem the horde's advance early on,
but as the horde crush Shimazu you will have to be very adept at anticipating fresh mongol landing sites.

The hardest clan is probably Shimazu,
they tend to get bottled up on Kyushu unless Uesugi expend or transfer too much strength on the mainland.


hecose,
You can play as Hojo, you will need to slow the mongol by 'projecting' some power into his path,
ie. invade some of the other clans provinces close to the invasion site and attack or block the horde.
If you fail to stem the mongol advance sufficiently his reinforcements each year could pose a serious problem.

Playing as the mongol you will face tough units with high honour early on, as the game progresses you will face more of a mixed bag of honours and upgrades.

The game is not seriously balanced for a human controlled mongol, but you can definately have some fun with it.
Mori and Imagawa are the greates threat to the mongol.
and of course in JDD SE you will face some very interesting unit mixes!


kagemushashingen,
these campaigns are not really suited to japanese vs japanese only.
If you eliminate mongol or hojo the game ends (victory for hojo or mongol),
we can't change this setting, it's hard coded into the program.
I will try and develop a tough campaign for humans players set in Sengoku era.

Unfortunately Ashi-Xbowmen can only be built if the campaign starts in 1274, (i happen to like Ashi-X, a cheap all purpose unit!)
Other units cannot be built at all in 1200's (WM's, Arq's, Mu's, BF-Ninja)
also there is a problem with no heirs available for Daimyo's other than hojo when the clan is active outside the games pre-defined timelines,

(ah well - all wishes for the patch...)

I will also test campaigns around the 1200 mark and see what i can devise.
A campaign where you have no heirs, limited access to special units and must preserve your Daimyo at all costs may appeal to the masochist in me...

I agree with hecose, have a bash at Zen_Blade's Nobunaga's Dilemma campaign, it is definately worth a look!


solypsist
keep us advised of when it is available, i'm having a fair amount of fun making and playing campaigs at the moment and would love to have a bash at yours,


Time for playing online is severely restricted by work commitments, recently started a new job, so i love the campaign where i can save, and resume later.
I can escape from a battle to go to work and no-one gets annoyed...etc. etc.


...


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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://doragon.cjb.net)

[Pachinko]

I won.. A little help http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif I used a Hojo. And I was the timer on. Eeek.. I used the Expert mode though.

At the begining it was hard. I was the defensive after defensive and defensive....It was kinda boring. It was the Mongoling 4,000 men v 1200 samurias!

It was kewl, because I used a emmisary was bribing...Hehe..Especialy the best 4 general!! That was a key..

It was fun the mongol v mongol.

P.

[This message has been edited by Pachinko (edited 10-11-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Pachinko (edited 10-11-2001).]

[Cici]

Beat Ironman on expert.

I tried a few clans but had to settle with Hojo. Other clans, such as Mori, don't have enough funding and they are surrounded by rebels. I could hold the hometown but couldn't stop mongol's advance.

The most important thing as Hojo, is to build a few emissaries and use them to port invade Mori. From then on, Hojo gets access to WM, a front base and a port. Mongol will eventually bypass it after two or three defeats but by then, Hojo is strong enough to confront them near yoshidomi (sp?, the Emperor's place). Once Mongol is stopped, Hojo only needs to defeat one or two mongol landing and all will be easy.

Ignore other clans unless they invade you.

My way to beat MHC is to fight them in trees. The most annoying Mongol troop is the LMC. They run fast and it's very hard to ambush them. And they have soooooo many arrows? (when I play mongol, their arrows run out fast)

And it seems AI Mongol can always rally his troops. So those 1000 samurai vs 3000 mongol battle is extremly long. They keep coming back!

After defeating mongol's hordes and force them to retreat to a corner. I bribed 50+ mongol troops and used them to wipe out all other clans. MHC with +3 sword/shield/moral upgrade and a rank 5 general is unstoppable.

Thanks Barocca for this very fun campaign.

BTW, I can make WM but can't make BG ninja even I captured the infamous ninja house. Strange?

[barocca]

you lucky beggar,

every time i try and capture the temple it gets destroyed...grrr...
lol


In JDD I often play as Uesugi, i invake Aki, and the harima/bizen (cheap port) provinces and kawachi,
this doubles my starting lands,
then i wait while mori and takeda to go at it, and pick up the pieces, some of their buildings have been destroyed, but it's worth waiting while they exhaust themselves fighting each other,
then i take the wakasa/yamashiro/kawachi line and hold it while invading kyushu (shimazu's lands) finishing whatever is left of shimazu and push the mongol up to hizen/chikuzen/buzen. (the mongol is usually pretty beat up after taking on shimazu, especially if shimazu took chikogu and held it a while)
then it's wait for hojo to finsih imagawa and for the mongol to come full force.
build whatever units i can afford and upgrade the rest.
i build lots of ports allowing me to redeploy rapidly, being able to move from iyo to wakusa in one turn is quite usefull.

as Mori i invade all 5 adjacent provinces immediately, then nagato next turn, takeda's daimyo will invade one of the provinces on mori's eastern border, every now and then he dies in battle!
making some very usefull expansions for next winter.
remember mongol reinforcements come in summer, so beef up the northern mori provinces as high as you can, and you should be able to hold most of them.
Takeda will either be dead or 'busy' elsewhere allowing you to expand eastwards a little,
do not allow the mongol to trap your daimyo!

as Shimazu take chikugo and bungo as fast as possible, and hold the hordes first assaults, then turn on uesugi and take his starting provinces and aki at the very least.

as Imagawa advance on hojo and bottle him up as much as possible, you should then have some leeway to build up and face the mongol.

as Takeda you have many choices, go east, crush imagawa, bottle up uesugi and squash hojo.
or go west through mori.
or southwest through uesugi and shimazu, letting mori take on the first wave of mongol reinforcements.

as Hojo, go west young man, go west...


In Ironman, i die, horribly...
but i have won once, as Shimazu...

...

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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://doragon.cjb.net)

[Moriboy]

Am I missing something? Monks & clans other than Hojo fighting the Mongols? How do you do this? In my manual it says Monks & Battlefield Ninja are unavailable in the Warlord Edition. I downloaded the beta patch but didn't notice any unit or clan changes.

[barocca]

Moriboy
go here http://www.totalwar.org/
download Baroccas_campaigns.zip
(it's listed in the article on the front page)
extract the file/folders within to your hard drive and follow the instructions in the ReadMeFirst folder to install,

it's a set of custom campaigns,
with custom clan and campaign descriptions,
These campaigns change none of your original game files,
you simply move/copy the files and folders to your campmap/startpos folder,
STW/WE/MI will detect the new campaigns and descriptions for you when you load the game.

for more infromation see the Editing/mods/Patches forum here at the org.

...

above all have fun

...

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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://doragon.cjb.net)

[Moriboy]

Thanks a million Barocca! I'll give feedback ASAP!