Castle Maps

[Puzz3D]

I'm going to have to make all new castle maps because the original STW maps are designed for an attacker entering the map from the top. However, in mtw/vi the attacker enters a castle map from the bottom which puts the AI army too close to the castle and on the opposite side from the gate. I'm also going to use the medium size map for these new castle maps since small is rather cramped.

Beta 8 is missing a required castle map in each of the four castle sets: flat01, flat02, hilly01 and plains01. This can result in a castle battle taking place on the internal generic map with no castle. The level 5 castle map is needed, but I only made 4 levels. To fix this temporarily, copy the four level 4 maps and their four inf files (total of 8 files) from \Battle\Maps to the desktop, rename them to level 5 and copy them back to \Battle\Maps. For example, copy castleflat01_4_0.jjm, rename it to castleflat01_5_0.jjm, and copy it back.

[barocca]

using the same procedure outlined above you will also need to make the following sets

Fortress - - - - - - - - Citadel - - - - - - - - and Citadel Upgrade
castleflat01_6_0.jjm, castleflat01_7_0.jjm and castleflat01_7_1.jjm

[Noir]

Post now edited out... Please see below:

[Noir]

These are a few pictures i took of Kumamoto Castle, while in Japan. Kumamoto-jo was built originally by the Kato clan and handed over to the Hosokawa clan later on. It is unlikely that it is representative of the hundreds of fortifications that were standing guarding every pass of importance during the period of civil wars; however it does give a good idea of Japanese castles, as it is one of the three largest that stand at the moment (the other two being Himeji castle and Osaka castle).
The main keep has been reconstructed in the 1960's to detail with a reinforced concrete frame (wood for such purposes is extremely expensive and further more there's the issue of public safety during earthquakes i guess).

Kumamoto castle is most famous for being the locus of the infamous Satsuma rebellion, during the Meiji restoration, that was the main theme of the movie "The last Samurai".

The inside of the castle serves as a museum, with many items of interest.

The castle being residence of Hosokawa (of Higo) lords and their armour is presented here as it was exhibited inside the museum.

You'll also notice a crowd dressed in samurai gear, that was due to a festival at the time of my visit.

1. Castle Main Gate (guarded!)


2. Moat

[Noir]

3. Main Keep - notice the slopping of the walls that gradually becomes vertical all the way to the top. This was to deter ninjas from climbing to it.


4. Twin Secondary Keep (next to the one shown above)


5.Samurai! Here you can clearly see the zig zag pattern of the walls that lead to the castle as they provide more shooting perimeter to the defenders and slow down enemy charges at the same time.


6.Anti-ninja device - the guide explained that those sticks were "pressure sensitive" and that they would eject to skewer any intruder.


7.Castle Grounds model (as it was "then") - it is slightly misleading as it is difficult to realise the sheer scale of the grounds. After careful watching one realises that almost everything past the river is "castle grounds". Notice also the huge external moats at the gates as well as the way they've followed the river with a wall. The main keep has its own ring of walls that provides protection to the lord. The gate showed in pict 1 is infact the gate of the main keep as the rest of the grounds was given to the city past the feudal period.


8.Castle Grounds model (detail)


9.Model of the timber structure


10. Hosokawa Daimyo armour


11.Princess' Palanquin


These last two pictures are from the "Shogun" exhibition, that took place in the Royal Armouries museum, Leeds, UK, for three months in the summer of 2005. It was an incredible experience, and i was very fortunate to manage to visit it. My japanese friends said that "all Samurai items were gone from Japan" during that summer. The Leeds Royal Armouries was requesting the collection from Japanese Museums, Temples etc for 12 years!

12.Honda's famous horn kabuto and armour.


13.Tokugawa Ieyasu's warfan-standard

[Puzz3D]

Thanks Noir. Excellent pictures. I'm thinking that large maps might be best for castle maps since we go up to level 7 castles which will be quite large.