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.