SW, bodyguards etc

[A Nerd]

I recommend Samurai Warlords. It was a great mod. My only complaints were the dead page coordinates they used an the excessive amout of diplomatic pieces. 6-8 emmisaries looking for an alliance on the same turn, then sitting in the province never moving. Made good ninja targets though. Out of the whole mod those are my only complaints and complaints that are quite superficial. I would download it if you can!

[caravel]

SW simply has too many factions IMHO. In striving to be as historical as possible, the map is overloaded with factions to the point where provinces are literally choked with agents. This is made worse as many provinces are very small and the castle sizes in MTW are much larger than the old STW ones - meaning that they take up more room in the province.

[A Nerd]

SW simply has too many factions IMHO. In striving to be as historical as possible, the map is overloaded with factions to the point where provinces are literally choked with agents. This is made worse as many provinces are very small and the castle sizes in MTW are much larger than the old STW ones - meaning that they take up more room in the province.

I agree. I also didn't like the fact that certain provinces were rebel, though without a rebel garrison. Basically up for grabs for the fastest faction to move there. I also used to mod the starting koku amounts drastically down, the AI would have huge armies on my borders and a high degree of infastuctre too quickly for my tastes. Trying to take that river province north of Shimazu was a pain in the tookus! Tech tree was great though. I also liked the ahistorical kensai, I would recruit a merc kensai as soon as I found one. He was honor 9 in no time! Didn't like the producable taisho though, the AI always had 3-4 per army! Polite critisizm though, wasted alot of time on this mod!

[caravel]

Didn't like the producable taisho though, the AI always had 3-4 per army! Polite critisizm though, wasted alot of time on this mod!

I assume you're referring to recruitable hatamoto? The SW modders didn't really have much choice there, unless they went for full size non-retrainable cavalry units (the other option).

Not making them recruitable would mean that they would not be retrainable either. Of course the AI cannot retrain anyway... It's one of those issues that has plagued modders from the start. If CA had made heirs units regenerate their numbers (like the Daimyo's unit), then bodyguard units would not need to be recruitable at all.

My £0.02 is that the non retrainable full size bodyguard units are the better option.

[A Nerd]

I'm not sure I quite understand the regeneration aspect of MTW and SW. I thought I remembered in STW anyway, that after a battle if the enemy daimyo lost all but say 2 bodyguards, the next battle he would have the full compliment back. This wasn't the same in MTW? It's been a while since I played MTW so I don't remember. I never did notice that the AI couldn't retrain units though. Perhaps because I seldom retrained in STW and MTW anyway.

My £0.02 is that the non retrainable full size bodyguard units are the better option

I agree (from what I understand). Those Daimyo and Hatamoto units could be so hard to kill, especially the last one! I would often have my whole army surrounding them, taking many casualties compared to their 12 men, knock them down to 1, taking casualties, he would rout but remain in the middle of my army, inflicting more casualties, and seemingly stay there for 10 minuets inflicting still more casualties until he some how broke free of all those men and ran off the map! I just wanted to kill the diamyo and his sons but they would escape with one or two men, then the next battle I would face them again in a stack with about 3 more full hatamoto units! Don't take this as a rant, I'm just babbling with the keyboard! :)

[caravel]

The MTW engine handles heirs completely differently to the STW one.

STW has heirs that are born at fixed dates, mature at 16 and then appear in the heirs parchment as unassigned. The heir would then assign himself to the next trained unit. When the old Daimyo passed on, the oldest heir would take over as Daimyo and spawn in the "capital" in a newly created hatamoto unit. The Daimyo's hatamoto unit regenerates it's numbers after battle.

MTW has randomly generated heirs, that mature at 16 and immediately appear in the "capital" assigned to a bodyguard unit. The problem with these heir's bodyguard units is that, unlike the faction leader's unit, they don't regenerate their numbers.

[A Nerd]

Oh, I understand. I was getting heirs and faction leaders confused. Some complain about heirs being assigned to the next possible unit, I always liked that though. Sort of earning their mount if you will. Made them more valuable when used on the field. Awful when accidentially assigned to an ashigaru unit though. The regeneration and endless heirs/hatamotos wouldn't have been so bad, regeneration or not, if they were just a little easier to kill!

[caravel]

Bodyguards need to be harder to kill, but not useable as an uber unit as they are in RTW or MTW (as in the case of the now infamous Byzantine Kataphraktoi Princes of MTW). STW approached this by using smaller units that could not be used effectively in attacks, except flanking attacks or against much weaker units (even then do you really want to risk your Daimyo in the melee?). In STW, units could not be pulled out of melee once engaged, so this becomes much more critical. The Daimyo is at his best use leading the battles and that's why he has a smaller unit but is also tougher than other units (to lessen the chance of his being shot by the player at the start of the battle).

I prefer STW's approach to Daimyo's/heir's units and heir assignment than MTW's, but that's just me. The full size non retrainable units are still the better option for the MTW engine though due to how it assigns heirs to (non regerating) bodyguard units instead of regular units. I feel that the non regenerating heir's bodyguard units hit the AI hard, as it has to pay astronomical support costs and cannot retrain them.

-Edit: If you have original STW (v1.12 - without MI (not the Warlord Edition) give it a go as battles tend to be a lot harder due to unlimited koku for the AI, none of the later fantasy units and no retraining*, disbanding or demolition.

*at least I'm pretty sure there was no retraining.

[A Nerd]

as it has to pay astronomical support costs and cannot retrain them

It would seem resonable that something in the coding could be done to automatically retrain the AI's body guard unit and charge them appropriately even if the AI didn't willingly allow for it. Perhaps by merely having the army in a garrison or something like that. On the field would be a different story. Perhaps this wasn't done because the AI would often have 3 or so bodyguard units per army and would be very difficulty to defeat if they regenerated on their own. I know nothing of coding however.

Also in STW, units could not be pulled out of melee once engaged, so this becomes much more critical

I would often pull out my generals from melee I engaged them in when they started to take too many casualties, mabey I was exploiting the mechanics. Now that you mention it, not being able to do such seems much more appealing. Though the fact that they can still run away safely when totally surrounded still remains.

[caravel]

It would seem resonable that something in the coding could be done to automatically retrain the AI's body guard unit and charge them appropriately even if the AI didn't willingly allow for it. Perhaps by merely having the army in a garrison or something like that. On the field would be a different story. Perhaps this wasn't done because the AI would often have 3 or so bodyguard units per army and would be very difficulty to defeat if they regenerated on their own. I know nothing of coding however.

The developer (CA) could easily have made bodyguards non trainable and regenerating. It didn't for some unknown reason which is why you have the flawed system in the vanilla (MTW) game. They would not regenerate on the field, obviously, but after battles or at the end of next turn. In MTW it was a bit of a mish mash and a mess, which indicates to me that the devloper didn't really finalise the bodyguards functionality. Byzantine Kataphraktoi have full units as do Russian/Novgord Boyars, whereas all other factions get the small 20 man units that are so easily taken down with missiles. (I've often wiped out most of a royal line in a single battle). The SW mod went for the approach of being as close to STW as possible in that respect, but in my humble opinion it just doesn't work with the MTW engine. I found that when playing with factions such as the Asai, Mori or Sanada that the support costs for heirs can be absolutely crippling - a known problem inherited from vanilla MTW.

This campaign started well, but the economic stagnation got to me after a while though: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-Asai-Sukemasa

(It's still by far the best MTW mod though, in my humble opinion).

[A Nerd]

It would seem to achieve some sort of game balance the developers gave the weaker factions strong bodyguard units to compensate for the others starting positions and available resources (?). This wouldn't seem to make much sense for the byz, perhaps it was unbalance in unit roster, concerning the AIs use of them or somehting along those lines. I haven't played MTW in a long time and when I did was always a catholic faction.

It just seems strange that if support costs were so expensive for bodyguard units, why would the AI produce so many, in terms of SW anyway? Perhaps I am missing something.

Going to read the link now! :)

edit: Just read it. Impressive! Makes me want to play again. STW though, not SW! Not that SW was bad though...

[caravel]

It just seems strange that if support costs were so expensive for bodyguard units, why would the AI produce so many, in terms of SW anyway? Perhaps I am missing something.

For the most part, the bodyguards are auto-generated when an heir matures.

Moved this thread here from the Sword Dojo.

[A Nerd]

For the most part, the bodyguards are auto-generated when an heir matures.

I realize that, but the AI also seems to produce alot of those hatamoto units. I don't know what the support cost is for these, but I tinkered with the files and made them more expensive to produce and he still produced alot of them. I could have had them confused with heirs though. Does the AI get an easier job at marrying other clans princesses? I used to have a heck of a time getting my sons married! Even early in the game! Not to change the subject of course.

[caravel]

The AI tends to train a lot of bodyguard units if they're available too easily - I can't recall the requirements for Hatamoto in SW. Also making a unit more expensive seems to make the AI think it's a very good unit and try to train more of them. As a general modding rule, it's best not to alter raising costs to acheive any other end than to reflect a unit's value.

It's also possible that the hatamoto units that the AI is fielding are the remnants of former bodyguards or heirs that have fallen out of the line of succession. If the AI is going all out training Hatamoto though, this probably needs addressing.

[A Nerd]

That's probably true. A lot of sons come of age when comparing MTW to STW, I guess I forgot that. Too bad in SW sons who came of age were assigned lesser units like in STW and got the bodyguard unit upon becoming daiymo. I always liked that coming of age aspect in STW. Ashigaru heir, what a blast!

Someone once told me you could disable the bodyguard unit such that they were unproducable, I couldn't figure out how and eventually SW got deleted. I definately lack all the necessary and appropiate skills when it comes to modding. MTW, in certain aspects anyway, was quite user friendly from what I remember. Anyway, I've heard windows 7 doesn't like MTW so it probably won't get reinstalled any time soon.