Thanks - praise and chat

[Puzz3D]

Interesting family history you have Nakamura Lobato.

If you are using the Beta 7 for the SP campaign, I could make available as a separate download the maps and textures I made which fix the impassable terrain problem since it seems the release of Beta 8 is delayed. Also, the castles have more towers, but they are still too weak overall and we haven't done any further work on that issue yet.

[Nakamura Lobato]

Puzz3D-sama,

My family history is quite funny. My Okinawan mom decided to marry an American serviceman in 1962. It was still controversial at the time, and there were reams upon reams of papers to fill out, mostly due to American security issues. See things do really change. Any way, the Nakandakari were so angry, that they changed their name to Nakamura right when she had completed all the paperwork. Nakamura is a real common name. She had to re-file everything. It was done to create delays in the marriage.

I'm over at my parents for Xmas. My mom is supposed to dig out the Nakandakari genealogy. It was prepared a few years ago. I'm curious to see the relationship with the Shimazu clan.

Thanks for the projectile update.

Peace,
Nakamura

[Nakamura Lobato]

I have some ideas about sieges. It seems odd to imagine that the samurai could cause enough damage just battering the gate. I could understand if they actually were using siege equipment, but just clanging swords or flinging arrows at the door would do squat. It may be far better to leave things as is for game dynamics, but here's some ideas.

My guess is that most sieges were effectively ended by subterfuge (the only authentic use of battle ninjas), or from simply waiting until the water and food run out. Why not have a food and water gauge that runs out based upon the size of the castle? After a certain length of time the modifiers for the defenders gets so bad that the AI choses to come out from the castle. The current times for waiting out a siege seem ridiculously long.

On the other hand, Osprey publishing discusses siege warfare in Japan, so they did have these devices. The attacker could chose to go ahead and harass the defenders with fire and siege engines. Tossing the dead in could add a whole element of infection, or simply large reductions in morale.

Peace,
Nakamura

[Puzz3D]

The size of the castle divided by the number of defenders (cav count as two men) determines how long a castle can hold out. I think the number of turns a castle can hold out for is a holdover for playbalance reasons from Shogun. That time is not something the modder has control over. The idea behind it is to allow time for a relief army to arrive so that you can adopt a strategy of using a single, centrally located army to defend a whole group of provinces.

An attack on a castle is a bit of an abstraction. In Shogun, there wasn't even a gate that closed, and walls and towers were indestructable so an assault was just a fight for the open gate except for shooting over the walls with archers. Samurai did use ladders to assault castles, and the destruction of a wall could just symbolize the taking of a wall or the gatehouse. The idea is simply that the attacker should suffer substantially more casualties than the defender in an assault. Right now I think it's too easy to attack a castle, and therefore very little incentive to starve out the defenders. So, basically the walls and towers have to become a lot more resilient or the rate of fire from them has to increase. However, I wouldn't say that walls and towers have to become indestructable.

The AI doesn't know how to use artillery. It makes too much artillery, brings it to open field battles, and then moves its moblile units to high ground leaving the artillrty undefended. I think introducing artillery would damage the gameplay.