Historical basis for STW etc (split from the Shogun II Thread)

[gollum]

Originally posted by Karl08
But that might explain why we do indeed see a realistic division of weapons on the battlefield: mainly spears and bows, with the katana being a secondary weapon.

Exactly. The first idea of the uninitiated to the period is to introduce "Samuari Swordsmen" as a unit, that is actually completely ahistorical; as you say the Yari and the Naginata were the weapons of choice for melee due to their longer reach.

Incidentaly they could perform stabbing as well as slashing moves (and the curvy blade of the Naginata was in order to facilitate those) with both of them and hence were in all respects superior to swords in large scale combat that involved unit cooperation and coordination. It was not uncommon for veteran units of Ashigaru spearmen to have accumulated a large number of kills of "famous" warriors whose fame disallowed to fight as part of a team - they were after individual combat and so predictably cut down by cloes knit cooperating units, particularly early during the era, that idealisation was competing still with practicality. Later on, practicality reigned supreme as the guiding testing principle for what worked and what not, rather than fame or status.

Katana's were indeed secondary weapons, while No-dachis were primary as depicted in the game due to their long reach.

Oh, I'm not asking much. Just an actual keep in there, so it doesn't look like a hastily erected palisade. Which could, perhaps, aid the defenders with a few sympathy arrows.

Agreed castle layout could have been more sophisticated as it was in reality to accomodate zig-zag entrance corridors guarded by high groubd walls that could accomoate archers or gunners - these helped slow the enemy down in a zone that he could be shot if hemanaged to past the gate.

However to be fair, from a developer point of view, i dont think that the path finding of the TW AI wasraedy for such a move at that stage (nor is it today actually but that's again another story)

Personally I find that having every unit type at 60 makes everything look a bit too uniform, and I don't really like cavalry in such great numbers anyway. Cavalry units equal in size to infantry units were not common in Europe (except, perhaps, when heavy cavalry was all the rage), and even less so in Japan. Takeda Shingen was the first to use massed cavalry, not because nobody ever thought of it before, but because the cost of a large cavalry force quickly becomes prohibitive. And it somehow doesn't look right to me on the battlefield, either.

I see, so you have a personal preference and a historical argument against the full size cavalry units.
However there is a third argument - that of play-balance; in the TW engine its far easier to balance the stats of units that have the same size because size impacts on the unit statistical strength - however the impact is hard to assess accurately because of frontage effect (how many men of your unit can be engaged at the same time) and because combat is not deterministic (setting the same match ups does not always gives the exact same result) in TW. As such its far easier to balance the game with all units being the same size.

As for the historical argument, it is possible to maintain the infantry/cavalry ratio in STW in historical values by fielding fewer cavalry units (as they are full size). This does not detract from gameplay neither does it produce a composition of forces that has a disadvantage in battle - actually in my experience its almost ideal for SP purposes, since spears are really effective in STW. In addition cavalry costs twice as much as normal samurai infantry to maintain (and ashigaru cost half) - so the costs do become prohibitive too - its not uncommon to go through the early - early/mid game without fielding cavalry and even if available to have one or two units in total. For the Takeda the situation is different because the recruitment cost and meintenance costs are 25% lower.

MTW is also nototrious for the number of overpowered and redundant units it contains. This comes as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with unt stats because it is clear from the effective range of the combat stats parameters (that is between -2 to 10/12 for defence, attack, morale parameters) that the range isnt that great to meaningfully accomodate 100+ units that appeared in MTW. It would produce either redundant/overpowered units or many units that were in effect duplicates ie same stats different skins. But that's another issue altogether.

By the way Shingen afaik, did not indeed invent the use of cavalry, but he seems to have invented the Yari Cavalry - that is fast melee oriented lancers for raids and charges on the enemy.

Defeated clans could reappear in Shogun? Wow, I had no idea.

Yes they can but only if you have the Mongol Invasion or Warlord Edition. In the original "old" version of STW 1.0-1.12, they dont.