Kensai

[Puzz3D]

Ok. As repored by another player who ran into a valor 9 kensai taisho, the kensai turns into superman during the course of a campaign. I've also encounted a valor 8 kensai taisho quite early in my latest campaign. Since the kensai is a single man unit and very strong at valor 1 (att=15, def=7), he probably gets lots of battlefield upgrading. The thought occured to me to make the kensai substantially weaker and let the battlefield upgrades account for some of his initial cost. He's very likely to get these upgrades especially the first two which are easy to get. I'm going to try him at att=9, def=7 and see how a campaign goes. That would be equivalent to knocking off 3 battlefield upgrades.

Incidentally, the battlefield ninja looks like a good unit to counter a kensai. The effectiveness of its throwing star weapon is not reduced by target armor and the weapon's power=6 which means it's good for going after the taisho. The BN may also be in need of adjustment to its melee stats.

[R'as al Ghul]

You can also try to change the honour step value.
"Honour step value
Integer
The amount of kills this unit must make to 'level up'."

That's pretty straight forward. Try 50 or more.

[CBR]

I'm not sure that has any effect. I tried using it back in MTW mod days to reduce the battlefield upgrades in MP but didnt seem to do anything.


CBR

[Shichi]

I like the kensai as a powerful unit. Perhaps a geisha in the same land could make him unusable? But he should definitely be the best unit on the field by far!!!

[Martok]

To ask a possibly stupid question, why are the Kensai being included at all? I mean yes, they're great fun to play around with, but they're not exactly the most balanced unit. I figured given that SW was being developed by Shogun veterans, that you guys would have gotten rid of the "sword saints" (not to mention the Battlefield Ninja) straight away. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse or anything, but I am curious as to why this is.

[Bonfire]

the kenasi unit reminds mf of jubei yagu from elder scrolls. and it also reminds me of the hero in samuari warrirors as the kinda units that rack up the kills and stand there ground i say leave them in there.

[barocca]

something i do, just for fun,
is to stack a dozen kensai with my king and put down rebellions,
(i take a couple of sacrificial cav if the bad guys have guns or bows in large numbers)

my king (or heir) soon gets a stack of good combat virtues (and maybe the scar vice)

[R'as al Ghul]

To ask a possibly stupid question, why are the Kensai being included at all? I mean yes, they're great fun to play around with, but they're not exactly the most balanced unit. I figured given that SW was being developed by Shogun veterans, that you guys would have gotten rid of the "sword saints" (not to mention the Battlefield Ninja) straight away. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse or anything, but I am curious as to why this is.

Hi Martok,

the Multiplayer core group prefers a minimalistic approach. If it was only for us we'd probably leave the Kensai and the BattleNinja out. As it is now they're balanced in the MP stats, though. (made a mistake here, Kensai is not available in MP) Kensai is 1200 Koku and will die when charged across the nomansland. It's very susceptible to missile fire. The BattleNinja (800 Koku) can be wiped out by a cav charge. Both of these units are hardly used in MP, though. Some people bring BattleNinja occasionally and they can be effective because they're not expected.
Afaik, both units were hard to balance but since there're no upgrades in MP these units can be included.

SP is a totally different animal. Look at the posts and you see what people want. They're just not satisfied with the fact that Sengoku Jidai is a very restricted affair, in matters of period, geography, weapons, etc.

[Puzz3D]

To ask a possibly stupid question, why are the Kensai being included at all? I mean yes, they're great fun to play around with, but they're not exactly the most balanced unit. I figured given that SW was being developed by Shogun veterans, that you guys would have gotten rid of the "sword saints" (not to mention the Battlefield Ninja) straight away. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse or anything, but I am curious as to why this is.

I would prefer to remove the kensai and battlefield ninja. In fact, the kensai is not included in the MP unit set because it was impossible to balance it. Using the GnomeEditor, you can apparently get rid of the kensai and BN from the SP campaign by changing column 49 from ALL FACTIONS to NO FACTION.

SP is a totally different animal. Look at the posts and you see what people want. They're just not satisfied with the fact that Sengoku Jidai is a very restricted affair, in matters of period, geography, weapons, etc.

The last thing I want to see is for this mod go down the same path that the series took starting with the MI add-on.

[barocca]

my thoughts are we can have multiple era's (different clans and goals),
and different units in those era's,
we can have some "iron man" campaigns with very restricted unit lists,
and some fun campaigns with expanded unit lists.

I can actually see a use for BFN's, but the Kensai...

well perhaps if there was a campaign with units of 10/15 men
(and high loyalty provinces and lots building assists to minimise rebellions)
No Ashi, No Guns - various equipped Samurai...hmmm....(mind is ticking over)

[Puzz3D]

my thoughts are we can have multiple era's (different clans and goals), and different units in those era's,

That would be fine. We could have one era that uses only original STW units.

[Noir]

I had many a lovely campaigns in the original STW and in SWs; SP can be very enjoyable, few units or many its how you use them that counts and the overall atmosphere that accounts for immersiveness, but admitedly few fans will consider things with few units as things turned out now.

MI was awful "a bunch of bad superman invade join the fun with them or the struggle to repel them!" The battles were all the same with the Mongols either with or against them.