Ashigaru Mod

I'm working on a mod to the production values of units to go for what I see as a more Sengoku-jidai feel for the battles. Ashigaru units and Teppo units are kept normal; the rest have their costs increased by 5. Support costs remain the same. Incidentally, as I was editting, I gave Yari Ashigaru a rank bonus of 2, and Yari Samurai a rank bonus of 3 (better training and motivation).

I'm not sure how the AI is doing with this; I played Chosokabe and had loads of fun taking over Shikoku and leaving one province ungarrisoned, with low loyalty and high taxes, just as a testbed to ravage with my Samurai-stiffened Ashigaru forces. I can tell you that there are far fewer "powerful" Daimyo; nobody's really moved too far from their start points. Battles are pitched and fierce, and most pleasingly to me, small.

I'm thinking of tweaking the support costs, but I'm not sure in which way. Sure, it's cheap to raise a peasant levvie, but what about maintenance? Not to mention that these levies would have to be dismissed so they could return to the fields for planting... Maybe I should raise their support costs by 2x or something. Then again, samurai require granting lands and stipends to, so their support may be higher as well.

Also, is there some entry in the unit's data that tells the AI to buy it more or less often?

Hello Irnami,

Nice to see you tweaking it.

You could opt for making ashis a bit weaker, but double the amount of men in each unit for ashis. Battles becomes a quality vs quantity thing, a bit like happened: tens of ashis swarming a high ranked samurai.