Back on the grid (somewhat?)

Hello everyone, it seems like it has been years since I have posted anything on the forums. I just drifted away after MTW2 was a disappointment, and never came back after I heard ETW was such a debacle. However, since I heard the there will be a Shogun 2, it sparked my interest to come back and see if anyone still plays MTW?

I have just reloaded MTW back on my computer, and what can I say except that this game is such a wonderful gem to still own. However, finding mods and the patch for VI has been quite the chore.

The reason I am posting is that I am somewhat interested in making my own mod to suite my own playing tastes, and I am wondering if anyone would be interested if I shared it, and or wanted to help in making it.

My idea would be to make the game more like STW in that everything was simple. The player never outclassed the opponents troops because it was easy to build up the infrastructure to make the best troops. This is the main area I feel the vanilla game fails at. The ai still builds peasants in the 1350's.

So here is my idea:

1) No more peasants period.

2) Eras for units, so that the ai has to build better units in later eras.

3) More realistic build times. A advanced spearmaker should not take 8 years to build.

4) Homelands for units, not building longbowmen in egypt, or camels in russia.

5) Adjust the troops available to each faction, in a medmod like way, i.e. italy has great spears, france has great knights, english archers are a force to be reckoned with.

6) I really don't have any experience making new units, or factions, so I won't make this a priority, but if I have time, I may dabble into that.

any feedback on these ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Merry Christmas

Welcome back, Tristrem.

1) No more peasants period.

I leave them in for the revolts, but make them untrainable. Ballistas as well.

2) Eras for units, so that the ai has to build better units in later eras.

I like this idea. The problem I see is the build requirements from Feudal X to Chivalric X might leave poorer factions in the lurch. This would need to be looked into, it might also get solved with 3).

3) More realistic build times. A advanced spearmaker should not take 8 years to build.

Probably a good idea. You would need to balance fort upgrade times with this, and I'm not sure if the AI will be able to budget for it, you can go through a lot of cash with shorter build times.

4) Homelands for units, not building longbowmen in egypt, or camels in russia.

Definitely. Not only is it more realistic, but this will give you a very rudimentary supply chain mechanic.

5) Adjust the troops available to each faction, in a medmod like way, i.e. italy has great spears, france has great knights, english archers are a force to be reckoned with.

To some extent this is already in place. If you want to nudge a faction one way, maybe use the unit discount feature? I'd be careful using the province valour bonus feature, the AI can cripple itself economically in the single-minded attempt to get the build reqs for the unit.

6) I really don't have any experience making new units, or factions, so I won't make this a priority, but if I have time, I may dabble into that.

Never tried new units. Factions aren't too difficult, unless you get super crazy making them unique.

Welcome again Tristrem and Merry Christmas to both of you!

I have found all mods again except MedMod v4 which seems to have sunk with wes.apolyton.net

I am sure you realise that you will have a very small audience for the approval and testing of such a mod, but you should also know that this very small audience will likely be most zealous of all to help you, and I think there may be an advantage there in that you can cater to a smaller field of suggestions and make a very specialised (special) mod.

I agree with drone's comments, but have no experience in modding myself.

My own suggestion is that if you have the time and will, experiment and make a start, and if anyone is in the Hall here, I think you will find support and feedback.

Thank you for the post!

I'll add this: For some good ideas about improving the game mechanics/AI through modding, you could read through the PocketMod/Britannia Divided sub-forum. Martok, Caravel, Psychonaut, and several others did quite a bit of work trying to improve the gameplay through unit and building tweaks. They never did finish it, but there are a lot of good ideas and conversations in the mod forum.

Not sure about the homelands: the AI is not aware of the provinces that are "home" to the factions he is controlling. The most effective for the sake of teh game is units that are nation/faction/kingdom oriented rather than region oriented. Too specific homelands will inevitably make the Ai factions fight with generic units only. I've actually tried that, as did others, and its not a very good idea, despite how promising it sounds.

Not sure about the medmod adjustement; its true that the battles are more balanced that way but a lot of the diversity or faction fighting styles determined by the rosters of vanilla are lost. It is however a valid option.

Also the more "realistic" build times will take out a strategic management layer from the game. The idea behind progressively increasing build times and cost for more advanced buildings in the same thread (swordsmith, spearmaker etc) is that the player has to choose which direction of recruitment he will take (at least within that province). Otherwise it will result in being able to eventually build everything everywhere, something that will take out that strategic element, as well as the associated risk, ie that a rival faction can put an end to the progression towards cetrain advanced units by occupying the province(s).

I recommend giving the Samurai Warlords Mod a try. It is a mod for MTW:VI and very well done. It is basically Shogun Total War with a bunch of improvements. I think that there are around 25 playable factions on a map of Japan with 60 provinces. The units have been modded so that they are the same as in STW too. Its one of the best MTW mods that I have played so far.

Samurai warlords plays better without the ashigaru xbows, without the kensai and without ships. You can easily mod those out, and you can have a great campaign indeed.

I agree about Samurai Warlords as a great mod. There are too many diplomatic pieces in the beginning of the campaign. But that is a minor detail. Kensai are fun too, as long as you aren't fighting one. An Honor 9 one!

I modified The Samurai Warlords mod a little bit too,) I reduced all unit costs by 15 and added some more resources to the map. I also added trade goods to each region and gave each region Iron for a resource. I also modified the Heroes and Kings in the names file so that no more units with 5 command and extremely high valor will spawn. The game has a tendency to give bad traits to non-royal generals and the high valor units were too hard to tell apart from the other units on the battlefield. The ashi-xbows is a unit with terrible stats. I might try to mod their reload rate. I havn't played far enough to come across any Kensai yet. Other then that, I think The Samurai Warlords Mod is Great!!!

There is also a multiplayer option that comes with the mod. Does anyone know how to use this? Also, how do I change the reload rate for the ashi-xbows? I dont see anything in the unit_prod that would change it:(

Originally Posted by Gaiseric

There is also a multiplayer option that comes with the mod. Does anyone know how to use this? Also, how do I change the reload rate for the ashi-xbows? I dont see anything in the unit_prod that would change it:(

You have to change the projectile_stats.txt file for that, I believe the column is ReloadTime. This will affect every unit using that missile weapon.

The crossbow takes 3 times as long to reload as a bow. Also it has a high velocity which means it fires a flat trajectory, so the unit has to be in front of your army. I am going to shorten the reload time from 12 to 8 to see if this makes the ashi-xbow a more useful unit.

I havn't played far enough to come across any Kensai yet

I always hire a merc kensai within the first couple of turns. They always seem to honor up quickly.

*redundant post, please carry on*

Originally Posted by Gaiseric

The crossbow takes 3 times as long to reload as a bow. Also it has a high velocity which means it fires a flat trajectory, so the unit has to be in front of your army. I am going to shorten the reload time from 12 to 8 to see if this makes the ashi-xbow a more useful unit.

Interesting ideas, but I always felt that the real problem with the crossbows is that the AI recruited too many of them and ended up with unbalanced armies. Improving the unit would only partly address that problem.

I've tried them out with 8 for a reload time and they work a lot better. Now, they are about half as good as archers for around half the cost. Since most factions only start out with two samurai archers, the ashi-xbows can fill the gap until a large castle and famous archery dojo is built. They actually now seem to even be more useful then the yari-ashigaru, since they can shoot back. They are still a poor unit choice for the AI to build if it can build better units. I haven't played very far into the game yet so I dont know how much the AI spams them. If it becomes a problem, what stats would you recommend modifying to better help the AI?

Current Stats for ashi-xbow are: Charge Bonus 0, Melee Bonus -6, Defense Bonus -3, Armour Level 2, Honor Level -4, Ammo 28.
Compared to yari-ashigaru with: Charge Bonus 0, Melee Bonus -1, Defense Bonus -1, Armour Level 2, Honor Level -4.
and samurai archers with: Charge Bonus 2, Melee Bonus 0, Defense Bonus 0, Armour Level 2, Honor Level 0, Ammo 36

The ashi xbows are ahistorical, and like all flattrajectory/high reload time units usually poorly used by the AI. I would take them out altogether, however if you must have them, increasing the range will give them more time to shoot, which is essentially the same workaround you did from another end. My worry with decreased reload times is that the player will get again the better of it.

The problem is that the player can use xbows to deliver coordinated volleys(all units fire at once) and this can rout AI units all at once when used properly. The AI can't do the same. Making faster reloads will increase the effectiveness of volleys perhaps quite a lot.

Another weakness of Ai flat trajecory units is that they are hampered by the autoskirmish especially when of short range. A common tactic is to scatter them using fast horses on the flanks - they will autoskirmish away - and then engage the enemy melee troops with your own and flank them with the cavalry. Soon they will all be in a huge rout without the xbows having fired a single shot or otherwise participated in any way.

I don't remember what range ashi-xbows are in SWs, but try leaving the reload as was and increase the range and see how the AI performs with that, or try a middle ground between the two. The AI units, automatically are aware of the range their missile weapon has and you need not update anything else, or so at least i have found. In any case hoewver, the AI uses bows much better, especially bows that can melee somewhat. This is because they can fire overhead and so useful while pretected by their melee troops, they have a decent range and if they can melee can be used by the AI for the occasional flank/reinforcement to win the melee engagement. Ashi xbows are too weak in melee and making them stringer would require making them more expensive and that would be again historically unplausible - these guys aren;t samurai or regulars like say the tough Genoese pavise xbows in the medieval period.

I just reinstalled MTW again, and I have been enjoying playing the historical campaigns (finished one so far). Always enjoy using various tactics, one right now is those longbowmen, gotta love these guys if you have them. Had group of mine rescue my king in one battle, most of the French troops had already done a first retreat, but a tough group of knights was still whittling down my own group of knights. Brought the longbowmen over to the battle, and after surrounding the French knights, eventually drove them off. Then of course the longbowmen kept peppering the other troops whose morale had returned in the mean time, eventually routing them!

Originally Posted by gollum

The ashi xbows are ahistorical

Why ahistorical? I thought that the Japanese had crossbows but they were not favored by the samurai. Ashi Xbows sound about right to me. I'm guessing you know something about it I don't know. What is it?

Its from a tag in the Royal Armouries museum, Leeds, UK, that i vistited that the information comes. They have there a Japanese xbow, and the tag said that the few of them (including the one in display) were kept in the Tokugawa (the Shogun) castles just for show and that they were imported from the Westerners. It said that they never were used in battle. The xbow itself seemed to coroborate the account: it was too well decorated to have been a battle weapon.

I also have read/own a book, called "Secrets of the Samurai" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secrets-Samu.../dp/0804816840). It does reference all weapons techniques from the Nara period (10th-11th century) to the Tokugawa Shogunate (1615, end of 19th century). Xbows are not mentioned as a battle weapon in Samurai warfare. I doubt its because of conservatism because they did adopt gunpowder weapons.

That's my sources - i am pretty certain about it - but of course i could always be wrong.

Well, you could also be right. Either way, I'm not crazy about the ashi Xbows in STW

Originally Posted by gollum

... I also have read/own a book, called "Secrets of the Samurai" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secrets-Samu.../dp/0804816840). It does reference all weapons techniques from the Nara period (10th-11th century) to the Tokugawa Shogunate (1615, end of 19th century). Xbows are not mentioned as a battle weapon in Samurai warfare. I doubt its because of conservatism because they did adopt gunpowder weapons. ...

[tangent] Just my two cents re: Secrets of the Samurai--it's an excellent reference. If I had only one, it would be my choice of the books I own or have seen. On another side note, the authors have also written a superb book on Aikido: Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere: An Illustrated Introduction [/tangent]