Shogun Total War mod for MTW-VI

[barocca]

Quote[/b] (Vinsitor @ Nov. 22 2003,05:47)]I start playing Takeda/expert.

I got a Yumi-Shi, then I could train Archers (reading the building description), but actually I can train only Crossbow-ashi, i can train Archers by the Famous Yumi-Shi.

I got also a Yari Dojo, then I could train both Yari-samurai and Yari-ashi, but actually I can only train Yari-ashi, I can train Yari-samurai by the Famous Yari Dojo.

nothing wrong, that is part of the design,
the current beta is of the advanced campaign, thats why you have new units and new clans, the basic campaign will have the old tech tree,
in medieval you can only train basic units at basic structures, the same rules apply to the Beta advanced campaign, you need to upgrade structures before you can train Samurai, but any nickle and dime Daimyo can train peasants.

Quote[/b] (Vinsitor @ Nov. 22 2003,05:47)]I built a Hojutsu but can't train Portugese Teppo.

the Teppo don't become available till 1543, but you can build your factories and your workers can begin experimenting earlier.

Quote[/b] (Vinsitor @ Nov. 22 2003,05:47)]I test portugese teppo V0 vs archers V0 on steppesinland01: they run away when they were 20 (Archers was still 46 :()

Portugese Teppo are Arquebusiers - they were absolutely lousy in shogun too - the benefit of using cheap teppo was the morale penalties they inflicted - getting shot at AND firearms penalties
In Online games i often used valour zero Arquies right behind the line of battle for moral effects
(bolster my troops with the "support and intercept" bonuses' and inflict the double penalties of "under fire" and "firearms" on the enemy)
there we go - one of my online tactics given away for free

Japanese Teppos are Musketeers,
now if you want gun battles then Napoleonic Total War is for you,
if you want Tactical combat the STW mod will give it to you,

We are using the projectiles file for medieval without alteration, guns are never as powerfull as they were in Warlords, and in my humble opinion the medieval gun stat is closer to the historical truth.
Another benefit is you dont need two copies of medieval to play the stw mod, it is an expansion, the ONLY NUISANCE is the ports,
i have no choice but to overwrite the medieval port strategic piece, so ports in medieval games will use the shogun strategy piece, which will lead to some odd results because the two pieces use different angles for display,
i MAY rewrite the Shogun port bif to use the same angles, but that is a very low priority.
B.

[barocca]

Quote[/b] (Skomatth @ Nov. 22 2003,21:32)]I'm working on my own versions of the stats for MP and maybe single player if you want, is anyone interested?

the Release version of the STW mod will introduce at least a dozen new units, and most likely more,

Including a Hognaji Faction which will be MOST impressive for Single Player mode, but will have one major drawback to it, they will be an entirely different religion, meaning you'll get very tough troops, (which wont come cheap),
but holding provinces will be a real pain in the neck until you convert their religion.

Online play will have some restrictions on which of the new units will be available, some of the new units are not at all balanced for online play.

Best to wait for the final beta pack before you get too fanatical about the stats.

The Final Beta Pack will be a QA release, meaning i hope everyone goes very hard core at the final beta so we can nail any little things i may have forgotten,
my hope at this time is to have the final beta pack ready before chrissy and the "Release" in the first week of January.
- but i AM working back to back double shifts monday's through fridays between now and christmas so progress has slowed a little - i need to re-organise my time scheduling to maximise the effort i can put into the STW mod.
... and spending saturday nights all liquored up and partying is not helping the mod
but it sure does help my morale after a bone crunching week at work

[Vinsitor]

Citazione[/b] (barocca @ Nov. 23 2003,03:15)]nothing wrong, that is part of the design,
the current beta is of the advanced campaign, thats why you have new units and new clans, the basic campaign will have the old tech tree,
in medieval you can only train basic units at basic structures, the same rules apply to the Beta advanced campaign, you need to upgrade structures before you can train Samurai

Ok that's right, but maybe the bluildings' description should be modified like this: "The Yumi-Shi (archery/boywer) Dojo trains Samurai in the Way of the Bow. This building allows you to produce CrossbowAshigaru and Archers if upgraded" Or something like this.

Citazione[/b] (Vinsitor @ Nov. 22 2003,05:47)]I test portugese teppo[...]

Sorry it was my fault I tested Jap teppo not Portugese
I agree with you but I would like to see muskeets a bit more effective in the battlefield (if you can do this).
I don't mean to have gunbattles, but a longer range and a littel better accuracy for muskeets would be funnyer IMHO.

PS: Yes a unique installation it's a good choice I realized it now

[Marshal Murat]

You know what, you should get a map of Shinano, Takeda, and the close provences, because that area was very infuental in the wars, I mean think about it the four battles of Kawanajima and then the others. That would be very nice.

Also for STW seige battles, the MTW castle models could be replaced by the STW castles. The Japanese castles gates were only wood doors. ALso, the walls could be replaced by the STW walls with the banks and all.

[barocca]

Models
i made a test model pack for medieval, (it's in the downloads somewhere)
sadly the shogun gates are not recognised as gates by medieval,
i also cannot aquire the conversion util to make 3dMax models medieval compatible,
i am going to experiment some more with the models,
if the gates dont work i will simply have to reskin some of the VI or medieval models using the Shogun templates,
ALSO i WILL be using the bridge model skin i made, it will replace the darkages bridge skin
(which is simply a clone of the medieval one ayway)
B.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

You could use these bat files to set it up and swap:
The Latin folder is used (IIRC), so you have to swap if you want MTW sound in normal MTW games.

An install of STW WE/MI is required to grab the music files:

http://www.totalwar.org/tosa/STW_Mod_Sound.zip

Choice.com is required to run bat in XP and 2000 (?)

http://www.totalwar.org/tosa/WinXP-Bat.zip

It has a brief readme, don't hesitate to ask for more details.

[Vinsitor]

Lot of tnx TosaInu

[Puzz3D]

Is this mod being made available as an MP only install that can co-exist with the regular vi v2.01 eras and possibly other custom eras such as CBR's MP mod that fixes the RPS?

[Skomatth]

So is there gonna be any effort to balance the stats b4 it goes official?

[barocca]

Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Nov. 25 2003,13:46)]Is this mod being made available as an MP only install that can co-exist with the regular vi v2.01 eras and possibly other custom eras such as CBR's MP mod that fixes the RPS?

RPS??

the mod works with the other era's,

hopefully we will have an MP dedicated "campaign", just need someone who is good at numbers to balance the units,
i am not good at balancing
B.

RPS ??

[Puzz3D]

RPS = rock, paper, scissors

The numbers get you to the starting point in terms of balancing, and that part is apparently done. The fine tuning comes from battlefield testing which can take months. Is this going to be accomplished via a public beta?

[barocca]

so far all the feedback i get from this beta relates to
no-dachi move as fast as nag cav - and that is bad,
no-dachi die reallly reallly fast vs yari sams - and that is bad,
monk shred cavalry - good and bad,
muskets too weak - not worried - we use the mtw projectile stat and that is good enough for me i'm afraid.
Heavy cav kill very slowly, - bad
nag cav die very fast, - bad
Naginata infantry are very tough - that is good imho,
etc etc

I think the mtw engine uses a different set of calculations, so while we can get the numbers where they should be in the stat, they dont give the same results when passed through the engine.

Tosa has reduced the cav charge values, perhaps a fraction too low imho.

The beta is online, feel free to disect the numbers,
(PLEASE disect the numbers)
B.

[Daevorn]

Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Nov. 25 2003,13:46)]Is this mod being made available as an MP only install that can co-exist with the regular vi v2.01 eras and possibly other custom eras such as CBR's MP mod that fixes the RPS?

is it possible to download this mod?
i am really intersted in this kind of mods

cheers

[Puzz3D]

Quote[/b] (barocca @ Nov. 27 2003,05:18)]I think the mtw engine uses a different set of calculations, so while we can get the numbers where they should be in the stat, they dont give the same results when passed through the engine.

I think the mtw battle calculation is the same as stw. The numbers in this mod don't match original STW. For example, the run speed of no-dachi is 18 in this mod, but it's 12 in STW. The run speed of nag cav is 18 in this mod, and it's 16 in STW (WE/MI v1.1). I don't buy the argument that the numbers have to be different because the engine is different since I don't believe the engine is different. Other than the swipe, which has been removed in MTW/VI v2.01, I don't see anything different about the engine in the tests that I've run in STW and MTW/VI. The guns are less effective in MTW/VI which might be good because the engine doesn't model guns properly, and it can't be fixed by stat adjustments.

The mod doesn't have a version number in the filename. It needs a version number so we can tell if we have the latest version.

The battle engine never handled kensai properly because it's not made for single man units. It can't handle that unit properly, and it never will. Also, the concept of a unit (ninja) that is invisible on open ground seems a bit far fetched to me. I don't remember a single player of original STW asking for invisible units.

[CBR]

My "improved" MTW/VI mod should work fine with the STW mod as it does not change any files.

Of course I had planned to add some new units for my MPwars project but I see Barocca has used all custom unit slots so that cant be used in the same MTW/VI installation...but that MPwars project is far away anyway heh.

Daevorn: The mod is still a beta version. I'm doing another close look at the costs and when Im satisfied with it I will either make it a public beta or find some willing vets to test it and see if they even like it.

Hmm I still want better arqs for my Italian Wars era of MPwars..maybe a custom missile stat for both STW and MPwars could be nice

CBR

[TosaInu]

Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Nov. 27 2003,10:25)]

Quote[/b] (barocca @ Nov. 27 2003,05:18)]I think the mtw engine uses a different set of calculations, so while we can get the numbers where they should be in the stat, they dont give the same results when passed through the engine.

I think the mtw battle calculation is the same as stw. The numbers in this mod don't match original STW. For example, the run speed of no-dachi is 18 in this mod, but it's 12 in STW. The run speed of nag cav is 18 in this mod, and it's 16 in STW (WE/MI v1.1). I don't buy the argument that the numbers have to be different because the engine is different since I don't believe the engine is different. Other than the swipe, which has been removed in MTW/VI v2.01, I don't see anything different about the engine in the tests that I've run in STW and MTW/VI. The guns are less effective in MTW/VI which might be good because the engine doesn't model guns properly, and it can't be fixed by stat adjustments.

The mod doesn't have a version number in the filename. It needs a version number so we can tell if we have the latest version.

The battle engine never handled kensai properly because it's not made for single man units. It can't handle that unit properly, and it never will. Also, the concept of a unit (ninja) that is invisible on open ground seems a bit far fetched to me. I don't remember a single player of original STW asking for invisible units.

18 for NODS? That must be a typo.

[barocca]

mod number is beta5
version number is beta5,

only been 2 and 1/2 public releases, beta 4 (and a fix) and beta 5
(i made a small error with beta4 and had to release a new prod file set,)

beta 5 is beta 5

still uncertain if the engine is 100% same, maybe something i am doing is skewing results here,
perhaps height advantage works differently?
but something i am doing here gives different results between engines, but i am not a stats tweak person, never have had the patience for proper testing...
B.

[Skomatth]

I've noticed a lot of different stats btw STW/ME 1.02 and the Beta, did you make a mistake transfering them perhaps?

Too numerous to say all but eg.

Naginata def. in mod is 10, in 1.02 is 8.

I just went ahead and copied the 1.03 over so I'm not worrying about it anymore.

[Skomatth]

btw yuuki is there somewhere i can find the 1.03 unit costs w/o installing stw?

[Puzz3D]

we/mi v1.03

yari ashigaru 100
yari samurai 200
samurai archers 300
no-dachi 300
naginata 425
warrior monks 550
cavalry archers 450
heavy davalry 600
yari cavalry 475
naginata cavalry 450
arquebusiers 100
muskeets 250
battlefield ninja 600
kensai 600

These costs were not under our control when v103 was made.
The v103 had to be adjusted to those pre-existing costs.
Upgrade cost was 40% for honor, 40% for weapon and 60% for armor. Each upgrade category was calculated independently from the base cost of the unit and the final cost was determined by adding the three upgrade category costs. In this regard, upgrades in we/mi (70% for valor, 33% for weapon and 35% for armor) were not like upgrade costs in mtw/vi which are calculated on the current upgraded cost of the unit. Additionally, the cost of upgrading a ranged unit is calculated after first subtracting the cost of the unit's ranged weapon which provides an upgrade discount to such units.

[barocca]

the tweaking of unit capability stats is the last thing on my list of things to do, and i am definately NOT the person qualified to do so,
Puzz has far more experience and if he and Tosa want to get a little group going to balance the stats PLEASE DO SO,
it would be GREATLY appreciated.

Currently the mod weighs in at 70MB download,
the version i have here right now is almost double that,
i have several hundred image files still to create.
unit stats i would happly let someone else build and be in control of deciding,

The unit capability stats should be as close as possible to 1.03,
BUT
the cost structure Puzz has outlined WILL NOT WORK.

The increased costs currently in the mod are simply doubled to overcome a bug in the engine.
if you take your 100 florin arquies into a custom or online battle and upgrade them to the hilt you will see the hardcode bug in action.

ALSO REMEMBER that cavalry charges in MTW engine HAVE BEEN BOOSTED in effectiveness, further changes were made to the code for "pushback effect", and "ignore non elite routing units", and for "friendlies retreating through your lines",
all these factors need to be considered when fiddling with stats.

BY ALL MEANS devise a set of unit costs for an ONLINE PLAYER MODE, just bear in mind EVEN FOR ONLINE missile units absolutely MUST cost more than 100 florin and adjust all other units accordingly,
Further bear in mind the current set of units is not complete. At least FOUR new units remain to be added, and quite possibly we will be adding far more than that, HOPEFULLY including basic artillery.

Please dont muck up the unit costs for SINGLE PLAYER MODE,
as the mod stands i have adjusted province incomes to be as close as possible to STW when taxes are set to NORMAL and difficulty is set to NORMAL
and STILL we see the estern province coming at you approximately 120 years into the game with a HORDE
the current SINGLE PLAYER unit costs are fine as they stand and they overcome HARDCODED ENGINE BUGS regarding upgrading missile units in custom battles while minimising the size of the EASTERN HORDE in campaign play.

Given the way the MTW engine applies province upgrades and allows more refined taxation levels AND allows province governors to BOOST income levels the unit costs for SINGLE PLAYER are fine.

So if you want to tweak the unit stats please make TWO copies,
one for SP with unit costs as they stand now,
and one for ONLINE with modded unit costs AND keep missile units ABOVE 100 florin,
cheers,
B.

[Puzz3D]

barocca,

I see you already have the version number and date included in the file name of the beta 5. That helps me keep things straight. Thanks.

WE/MI v103 is the starting point. That clears things up. That's true there are some differences that I wasn't considering in the engine between we/mi and mtw/vi. The swipe was the big one, and that has been removed in mtw/vi v2.01. You are right that it all has to be tried to see how it works. For the feedback to be of maximum value, I think players have to be testing the same stat so you get a lot of feedback on it. Then you make changes, and we test that for a while. It's an iterative process to get the stat to converge to a balanced system. It takes time and feedback from people of various playing styles.

[LeChuck]

great mod, I started a campaign with Oda(expert) and it seems to me that the AI is very peacefull(if I could say so), almost every faction on the map stay in her teritories or conquered a province or 2 in 30-50 years, the rebels and the other factions(especially Uesugi) make to manny ships instead of landtroops and yeah the no dachi are to fast and they die too fast


other thing - manny of the provinces of the rebels are empty that make the game to easy even on expert

I think the mod must be much more agressive, the factions must be more active ...

not to complain, this are my observations, the mod is great and I hope the final release come out soon

[barocca]

currently the rebel provinces are empty because when i made the first incarnation the rebel faction was very rich and very very aggresive,
i keep trying to determine at what point the clan factions begin expanding by monitoring what triggers their aggression and adjusting their start buildings and units accordingly,
i have noticed that increasing the difficulty level changes what they "want" in their provinces before they get all aggressive,
try switching -ian on, (see command line switches in repository forum) and then hit G in game to "see" all provinces - you may notice quite a few battles,
around 60 years in the factions start getting killed off until only one or two eastern factions remain, and Hyuga is genberally controlled by only one clan at that time, then they will pause and build up before they resume annihilating each other, and both the west faction and east faction then turn on the central factions (oda, ashikaga, ukita and mori)
basically we want the east to remain peacefull as long as possible, they have an economic powerhouse over there and they can quickly swamp the west with large amount of troops,
the AI builds ship looking for invasion opportunites and to prevent themselves being invaded, also trade can be a big big boost to income and they want that boost as well.
but sometimes they do go overboard - am going to lower the build priority of ships a little - have seen huge navies of 2 or 3 full stacks sailing around...

[Skomatth]

What I did was make 2 unit_prod files. One for custom battles w/ 1.03 stats and costs. One for campaign w/ 1.03 stats and the beta's cost seemed to work quite well. I'm doing a Satake campaign and im churning out 4+ star generals, is that normal?

[barocca]

some provinces grant command stars with ttle,
each faction also gets heroes every five to ten years - many of them have command stars,
some buildings also grant titles - some of those have command stars,
then the program also determines wether a new unit will have an extra capable general at random,
add all those together and you should be able to "promote" some generals to nine stars - very handy in a tight situation,

ALSO watch for ANY Yari Ashigaru unit whose commander gets the PRIDE vice (+3 valour) - they are almost fearless,
AND if you are lucky enough to have built that unit where you have a Golden Palace (+4 morale)
AND a Legendary Yari Dojo (+2 Valour) you'll have an ashigaru unit that can scare the pants of almost any cavalry unit
Then give them to a Nine Star General (+4 valour) as foot sloggers and watch them shred almost anything
(and they'll cause valour zero monks to get the jitters too)

my current campaign i have THREE units of them, i equipped them with legendary armour and legendary weapons too
Watching IMPETUOS Ashi slaughter No-Dachi, Yari Sams and enemy cav is GREAT FUN - i just keep them away from missile troops...
i also sat them in a high rebel province and let them build some extra valour as well...

[Puzz3D]

hi barocca,

I've looked through the beta 5 stats. The combat stats appear to be based on WE/MI v103, and the unit speeds based on WE/MI v1.01. I think this is good because the slower speeds of v103 would make fatigue more of a problem and it affected the tactics. The no-dachi is definitely incorrect.

name walk/run/charge (STWmod, WE/MI v1.01)

kensai 10/16/16, 10/16/16
ninja 8/18/18, 8/18/18
no-dachi 8/18/18, 7/12/12
monks 7/12/12, 7/12/12
yari ashi 7/12/12, 7/12/12
yari sam 6/10/10, 6/10/10
sam archer 6/10/10, 6/10/10
naginata 4/8/8, 4/8/8
teppo units 7/12/12, 7/12/12

hatamoto 8/22/26, none
heavy cav 8/20/22, 8/20/20
naginata cav 8/18/20, 8/16/20
yari cav 10/24/26, 10/24/24
cav archer 8/24/26, 8/20/20

Just looking at those cav speeds you can see that the yari cav can no longer catch the cav archer. Looks like a mistake on the cav archer. It should be 8/20/22. Also, the naginata cav is slower than the more heavily armored heavy cav. Although this is how it was in WE/MI v1.01, it doesn't seem right. I would consider making heavy cav 8/18/20 and naginata cav 8/20/22.

If you want the cav archer to be faster than the naginata cav then you could make the cav archer 8/22/24, and possibly bump up yari cav to 10/26/28. While you could leave yari cav at 10/24/26, a running speed difference of 2 won't really allow the yari cav to catch the cav archer within a reasonable distance if that's what you want.

Off hand, I would say the hatamoto should have better morale than 4, but I'm not sure about that.

One other thing I noticed in the costs is that monk is priced at 1000, but they cost 550 in v103 and 2x550 = 1100. The monk is getting armor 1 in the STWmod since that's the lowest number that can be used, but they had armor 0 in WE/MI v103, so the monk is better vs arrows now.

Cav charge has been reduced in the STWmod, but some tests I ran with Orda online and custom offline of heavy cav vs monks indicate that charge kills are about the same between STWmod and WE/MI v103 and the heavy cav is about as effective in beating the monks in both mods. This could be the combat engine differences showing themselves. While heavy cav was as effective vs monks in the STWmod as it was in WE/MI v103, the naginata cav seems to have lost something. I don't know why.

[barocca]

as you know i have zero skill when it comes to stats balancing, i suspect the unit speed errors are simply typo's or misreadings, the cav charge bonuses were adjusted to repair some imbalances.

I trust Your's and Orda's tests on such matters far more than my own obsevations,

i like your ides regarding cav speeds and also your suggestion regarding the size of musket unit to improve effectiveness,

I agree regarding making nag cav faster than heavy cav, but not too fast, we dont want to make them irrelevant when it comes to online play. I am uncertain how to "repair" what Naginata Cav have lost - perhaps they need a little boost to charge value or to attack value?

I also agree with improving Hatamoto morale, i would suggest Hatamoto match archer cav for speed
Hatamoto are Leader Cav and in Warlords were meant to be faster than all but yari cav to keep the Daimyo out of trouble. They should also be excellent morale to reflect elite status.

I know monks units are more effective vs missiles now, am uncertain wether or not that needs attention, personally i think they were too vulnerable before and they appear to suffer from missile casualties at approximately the same level in MTW-VI as they did in WE/MI

To Avoid Duplication may i suggest you tweak the current build prod file to reflect fixed no-dachi speed, nag cav combat, adjust the cav speeds and gun unit sizes, (i would suggest not adjusting the Ashi Teppo mercenary unit - they fill their campaign game role quite well) - you could remove them from the unit mix available for online play altogether.
Then make a SECOND copy and adjust the unit costs for Online play.
Then email both copies of the unit prod files to myself and to Tosa,

At this time i will not add any more factions to the currently available copies.
Once i have your adjusted stats files here i will add in the new factions and new units and then I will send you copies of those unit prod files (and a campaign script file set to activate them) for further testing
thanks
B.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

Part of the 1.03 balance was to counter 'super'units due to upgrading/downgrading. MTW has a better upgrade cost system, so that's no longer an issue (missile discount is an exception). MTW charge seems more effective than STW's.

I wouldn't say that monks are better protected against arrows because they have the required minimum of 1 instead of 0. Arrows seems more effective: it was a mission impossible to kill a kensai with arrows in STW, I've seen him die many times in the first volley here (there are also AP Longbows around in this mod, halving the protective armor).

A 100% accurate port of 1.03 STW data to MTW will not give the same thing.

The opposite may be true. The nagcav and no-dachi were fine units in STW because they were 'cheap' to upgrade. There may be other things, but that's where they lost now.

[Puzz3D]

barocca,

The no-dachi speed and cav archer speed are clearly wrong because they are not the same as WE/MI v1.01 while all the other units are the same except that charge on all the cav is +2 over the run speed in the STWmod. Why don't you just change no-dachi to 12 run and 12 charge, and change cav archer to 20 run and 22 charge, and we'll see how that plays in the next release.


Tosa,

There is a major difference in the arrows between WE/MI and MTW/VI, and that difference is in how the ammo of dead men is treated. In WE/MI, the living took the arrows from the dead men in the unit conserving total ammo, but in MTW/VI they don't and total ammo is lost. So, a depleted ranged unit in MTW/VI is less effective than a depleted unit in WE/MI. Of course, if the ranged unit remains at full strength, there is no difference.