Samurai in STW ... how good are they ?

**Duke John** · 04-25-2005, 16:35

Well, you already provided a plug for Sengoku Jidai, so I thought why not explain it a bit more. While we strive for realism it actually means more simplicity. The whole techtree concept and 100+ units is alot of mumbo jumbo to give players more variety. I think that it's just a lazy and easy way out since developers only make the game lasting by giving players one little bite of a cookie at a time.

Really if you want simplicity then keep the Sengoku Jidai mod in mind.

**Al Khalifah** · 04-25-2005, 16:47

Ah, thanks Duke. I guess I kind of made my opinion without looking too deeply into the issue. I just got a bit scared because there seemed to be a lot of threads where people were arguing how long a Yari should be (18ft 6 ridiculous! everyone knows they were 18ft 61/2 etc) and I thought it was going down that road of over realism in the place of game play. My mistake, let me explain.

I'm not trying to say that I despise realism in games. I hated all the stupid head hurling and screaching women units in Rome, they really let the game down. I love a highly realistic game experience as long as the realism doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. Too many units can mean I don't have a clue what the units in my army actually do, let alone the ones in the enemy army. They can also lead to the "aha... I slaughtered your 1,000,000 Persian spearmen because my ultra-unique-mega-Suma-Susa-Sumo-Samurai with +10 armour +10 attack and +20 magic........ I must be the greatest strategic mind in the history of the world" effect. I prefer the chess-style/rock-paper-scissors style of Shogun, where non of the units ever really became obsolete because each one was the master of another. They forced you to think about terrain and army composition.

And at the end of the day, why bother making a war-game too realistic anyway. I'm only going to ignore the constraints of historical warfare anyway and most likely so is the AI. If I play the Confederates at Gettysburg, I'm not going to lose because it would be unrealistic not to.

I'm still awaiting the mod very keenly because I love the oriental style of warfare. Its on my list along with Blue Lotus. Just don't worry too much about whether the Hojo should be able to have 18ft yari before the Summer of 1536 and after the Autumn of 1542. Go for the gameplay and you can never go wrong.

**Duke John** · 04-25-2005, 20:29

Ah now I see what you mean. Discussing the length of a yari is indeed far from interesting/exciting to a normal person. But the trick for modders/developers is to make a game in which that kind of detail isn't detracting from gameplay. Once the Sengoku Jidai mod is finished you will not notice that we have discussed the length of a yari, but hopefully you will notice the love for samurai warfare that has gone into it.

**kiwitt** · 04-26-2005, 01:57

I have downloaded all the patches for STW including the Statswapper2.0 file. Does this include the 1.05 stats ?

**Togakure** · 04-26-2005, 02:52

There are recent threads in the Sword Dojo about this, several started by Hellas1. I've explained about the patches and swappers etc. in them. There are several so you may have to bounce a bit, but the info's there.

**kiwitt** · 04-26-2005, 03:51

Yes I have been bouncing around in Sword Dojo. I am looking forward to playing it.

**Cha** · 04-26-2005, 06:47

If you consider the stats of the units in the game then STW: WE has the strongest army.

-Musketeers who are protected by samurai units in STW: WE can wipe out any army from MTW and RTW. But STW: WE is a different time from MTW and RTW so that would be an unfair technological advantage.
-The samurai archer's range was increased in the expansion for the balance of the game. The guns originally had a longer range than the archers.
In additon to that, the samurai archer is good at a melee battle when compared to other archers.
-The units of the samurai's cavalry, infantry, and firing units all had the same number of men while it was different in MTW. The cavalry units of MTW have less numbers of men. This makes the samurai's cavalry cheaper than the cavalry in MTW. The samurai's army wasn't like that in reality but it feels good to have a lot of cavalry.
-The samurai unit doesn't lose morale points when outnumbered. I've beaten two players with only 2 musketeer, 1 yari samurai, and 1 cavalry unit left. One of my musketeer units had only 9 men left.
-The Korean units had archers with compact bows and a powerful navy but they didn't appear in STW: WE. You can see Korean ships in a few maps but they have no effect to the battle. These ships should have catapults.
Korean melee units couldn't fight well. After Korea was unified the Koreans forgot how to fight well in a melee battle. Korea had good cavalry and infantry during a time period equivalent to the later era of RTW and the Early Period of MTW. After that, Korea became a sad fighting force.

-An advantage that MTW has is that MTW units will try to avoid enemy units when they rout. This gives them a better chance to rally.
-The parvise arbalesters in MTW are missile units with good defense. If it wasn't for Shogun's musketeers, parvise arbalesters would be a big threat to the samurai.