Jidaigeki samurai mod for MGE

[Cassius Critzer]

Android Linux based screencap(screenshot) based software does not work well under Windows emulation on my tablet. If I can get that working, then I will post a section of the map plus units so you can see the results of the great alterations made by Knight Time.

It looks awesome, realistic, and authentic.

If someone wants to do screencaps, pm me. You could load the test version of Jidaigeki 1.0 easily on your Windows based system and "play" if you promise to show at least ten screen shots of the lands and terrain types and units. This is a great deal. The Shimazu are overpowered with all the tech so I can use every available unit for testing.

Because Jidaigeki is in an alpha state, then I don't want copies out there as that will lead to terrible confusion as the events are not ready yet. Minor text issues exist as wonders that were not utilized have not been edited ie the United Nations is now the Council of Regents but is not corrected yet.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Things that were extremely simple to do in even very early windows games like taking a screencap/screenshot were done by merely a dedicated key combination or just the PNTSCR button. Then you opened up any paint program and copied and pasted that.

This does not work under emulation. While screenshot aps exist, they won't work under emulation and Civ 2. Little speed bumps like that waste time.

Believe it or not there are not keyboard aps with the PNTSCR button as a feature for Android tablets. Everything is a pain in the butt.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Some people may want to see what the units look like. The three disaster units will happen in Jidaigeki 2.0. This frees up three slots. I'm trying to get some interesting double company class units created to add a way to have even more unique very elite units so everything is not a battalion. I badly need a dedicated artist if making a few changes. I did not get the artist gene.

Then 90% of the work is done. Further unit art and one new map would mean 3 or 4 prequels/sequels could be EASILY made. All the struggle on the economy,movement rates,combat resolution, unit composition, historical research is DONE.

Early units are necessary if the Mongol Invasion units are made, but then those later units won't be depicted. Similarly in the Jidaigeki 2.0 and 3.0, the early units are obsolete and not available so other units (Ming and Joseon) can be made and inserted.

The fun submod that has a Portuguese crusade versus the samurai could be made straight away as I have workable units. I can knock that out in a month.

There are some Mongol units but they were made who know how long ago and not like these exceptional units from the Sengoku Jidai mod. Some were taken from another Japanese mod. A few ships from another. It's a hodge podge. I can make some units work for a Mongol Invasion,but they won't be as great.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Although vanilla ToT was not so great, afterwards great ToT mods were created due to the fine modders here plus the exceptional ToTTP software, someone could take this when finished and make daimyo armies. In other words:
Oda Nobunaga has an army and it exceeds the Imperial regiment.
Date Masamune has a similar army with its own values.
Tokugawa Ieyasu does too.
Takeda Shingen does as well.

But what happens if they are lost in battle? See the USA2013 mod has special units and so it's a big deal when lost as you can't recruit them. Severe effects would result due to the massive morale shift. That would be a great mod.

You would have to carefully use them as it could just about ruin any chance of winning.

In history, Shingen and the Uesugi daimyo, Uesugi Kenshin the Dragon of Echigo, actually had a single combat which MUST have made their generals go insane due to risk because if either died, their armies might have disintergrated.

In ToT there are lots of scripting choices. I wish there were in MGE. I wanted to in effect have "medals" based on achievements. Many wargames like Medieval2 Total War have a real programming language and MANY attributes so a general can be excellent at siege defense or cavalry usage or infantry or artillery. And have quirks to their character that affect the economy. There is nothing like that in MGE.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Since the AI is goofy about naval stacking with as many as four in a stack of Wako, I know I need to have a Wako fleet and a later fleet with at least one atakebune and likely more. But I might hold off until Jidaigeki 2.0. I don't want to waste time doing battle testing and counting up all the times and amounts of naval stacking by the AI. That kind of obsession leads to delays.

There were fleet tactics going back a long ways but many were transports with escorts for naval invasions. That can't be simulated.

That means lengthy delays to recruit such a unit too when I want the AI to make battalions and regiments. I need a triggered event that allows fleet tactics and I have two techs left so that's likely turn based so they are automatically granted as event driven not researched but at the end of a chain of tech as requirements. So on X turn maybe in July of 1600, a text message fires and now a new fleet unit can be manufactured if all the Bushido tech are complete.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_history_of_Japan

For example, during the abortive Imjin War, while the samurai clans launched a thousand ships (and they had launched 9,000 + before), 125 of the samurai ships (many others were not employed and many were very orchestrated transports) faced the brilliant Joseon Admiral Yi Sun-sin who had ten turtle ships, and then he used his vast knowledge of the current flow and tactics and his ships were far better and kicked their butts. So the samurai turn around with tails tucked between their legs rather than use overwhelming numbers. They most likely would have prevailed if orchestrated better but at what cost?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin

Turtle Ships
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship
They used that and the Panokseon. So I have to get that figured out for Jidaigeki 3.0.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

In effect, the Panokseon has a ranged rocket cannon (it has a payload) that would break hulls and it and the Turtle ships are very manueverable. The Atakebune is sluggish by comparison and the samurai were excellent fighting sailors so they want to get close and board their enemies. Both ships are using sails plus oars to manuever.

But the Joseon would fire from a distance with a Heaven cannon (very large) on these ships. So really what I could do is the Joseon get a very short range missile weapon and it goes on their vessels. That is way cool. So they get a ranged shot off and then also have superior firepower and more movement points.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

The really superb ToT Japanese mod's People.gif graphic came from this French mod site.
http://eyn.free.fr/TOT/TOT3.htm
The excellent disaster unit graphics come from The Rape of Nations mod.

The Scenario League has a great wiki site, but the link to it is found in a roundabout way as there are dead links here. That should be any would be modders first place to go visit.

Some of the Civ 2 downloads are in curious places instead of all in one place, and so I spent a lot of time sorting through some of the oldest original downloads. Everything did not get migrated to one database. So those are legacy downloads which is confusing.

From that collection, there was a mod by Chris Wilcox called Feudal Japan: the way of the samurai and some unit graphics were utilized for batallion units.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Here's what the Jidaigeki map looks like. You can open it in the map editor, but unless you see it with the terrain1.gif, the terrain2.gif, and the terrain.bmp overlay, you cannot see it correctly.

Go into your civ 2 folder and create a new folder called "orginal civ terrain". Move those terrain files into that folder.

Now place these terrain files into that main folder. Then open the Jidaigeki.mp with the map editor. Impressive no? Then save these files elsewhere, and put your originals back. Otherwise, the original are read and the map will look wrong.

You can see in the map editor where each city has been preset on all the land masses. In the far Northeast, there is no improved land as the 254 cities were quickly created in a race against time as all the other clans rushed. In ToT with no 254 city limit using ToTTP, then the Uesugi have a huge advantage as they could put LOTS more cities in that area.

I think lots of modders will want to use the terrain files.

The zipped file has a terrain.bmp, a terrain1.gif, and a terrain2.gif plus the jidaigeki.mp. The forum software won't accept a map file (as an upload)which is what a .mp is. The terrain1.gif (has the color swatches) and the terrain2.gif (rivers, forests, hills, and mountains) are the base files and the terrain.bmp is the overlay for irrigation, mining, and farms plus the resources and when they're is a special resource typically for grassland, that this is for special use. What I did was put a house on it so the city space looks occupied by villages outside the actual city/citadel.

That is what the Civ 2 map editor can read or a .sav file.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

The Roster in post #23 left to right, top to bottom.
1. peasant
2. Imperial Regiment
3. Yari Ashigaru Level 1
4. Yari Ashigaru Level 2
5. Yari Ashigaru Level 3
6. Ninja
7. Shinobi
8. Earthquake (this will likely change)
9. Warrior Monk Level 1
10. Cavalry Archer Level 1
11. Cavalry Archer Level 2
12. Cavalry Archer Level 3
13. Warrior Monk Level 2
14. Warrior Monk Level 3
15. Imagawa Ninja
16. Yari Cavalry Level 1
17. Yari Cavalry Level 2
18. Heavy Cavalry Level 1
19. Yari Cavalry Level 3
20. Typhoon(probably replaced)
21 Heavy Cavalry Level 2
22. Heavy Cavalry Level 3
23. Ronin
24. Uesugi Archer
25. Canon
26. Wako ship
27. Atakebune ship
28. Yari Samuri Level 1
29. Yari Samurai Level 2
30. Yari Samurai Level 3
31. No Dachi Samurai Level 1
32. No Dachi Samurai Level 2
33. No Dachi Samurai Level 3
34. Busousen lower level escort
35. Unsou lower level transport
36. Defender class battalion

 

[Cassius Critzer]

37. Naginata Level 1
38. Naginata Level 2
39. Naginata Level 3
40. Shimazu No Dachi
41. Mori Warrior Monk
42. Oda Yari Ashigaru
43. Attacker class battalion
44. Elite Cavalry Archer
45 Army class battalion
46. Disease (probably replaced)
47. Hojo Shinobi (the forum autocorrect software turns this to "stinky" sometimes)
48. Geisha
49. Merchant
50 Nagamaki Samurai
51 Elite Cavalry
52. Arquibusier Level 1
53. Arquibusier Level 2
54. Arquibusier Level 3
55. Samurai Archer Level 1
56. Samurai Archer Level 2
57. Samurai Archer Level 3
58. Musketeer Level 1
59. Musketeer Level 2
60. Musketeer Level 3
61. Daimyo
62. Takeda Cavalry Archer

 

[Cassius Critzer]

In the game on the highest level, it's a blur as you rapidly gain tech and then the lower level units then are replaced by the upper ones as the tech upgrades change their armor. At lower levels with less.money, then you would see samurai wearing these lower level armor and slow upgrades.

This means that you can have these show up in 1274 from this base roster of units like Samurai Archer Level 1 for example and Heavy Cavalry Level 1 might not be available at all, yet the Mongols are invading and fierce. Jidaigeki 3.0

In Jidageki 2.0 lower level units might not be seen at all. That happens in Jidaigeki 4.0 as the plan is a Ming Joseon roster so these lower level units are removed to make room.

That is what I mean about the majority of the code being done. I need some mapper to add the Joseon lands (Korea) and Mongol, Ming/Joseon units, and I can crank out five versions pretty rapidly now.

I can fudge on it with far less accurate mapping by hand, and try to scan some military minuatures for these others and export them, but that will take me a long time because I lack the right software tools.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

As you can imagine, to be a samurai company of a 100 then running into a battalion (650 samurai), you get crushed. The AI loves the battalions and uses the Attacker class with a kind of malicious glee. Depending on the terrain, a platoon level of cavalry or a ninja squad can wipe you out. Or you may survive because the terrain offers you cover.

Shinobis (like scouts) just get squashed like bugs as they are constantly trying to sneak into enemy territory and get a peak. The battalions in effect have scouts as you can imagine as any army would by necessity.

In the venerable Shogun 1 Total War game, there were battlefield ninja which never existed. But ninja were used to create major havoc so they are used to ambush company class units. They can't pull that trick with battalions or a regiment.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

For the Mongol Invasion version, all the clan names are different, but that is a huge time waster to swap out those names and flags and locations. And some turtler players might even have a LONG campaign and work their way to 1600 or beyond. That is quite an amount of time at 3 turns per year.

The real clan names were Minamoto, Fujiwara, and Taira (though the Hojo were definitely in their heyday) but I don't see it being worth the hassle. In ToT with more unit slots, you could have the same tribes in the later years, but have like Otomo, Chokosabe, or Miyoshi samurai show up just by having different flags (clan emblem called mon or kamon), yet under the rule of the main tribes. That is not correct but there were vassals. It's just the limitations of how many tribes can be depicted.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Many years ago, someone made a mod ( Ran no Jidai) for Rome 1 Total War and made gorgeous armor. If someone is interested in making units,here is an example. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel as with a Civ 2 friendly paint program, things can be imported and exported to switch up and add diversity to the roster. They had several ronin class units ie a bit dodgy as the Brits say.

These are standard samurai though wearing historically correct armor colors and the correct sashimono which is a very strange banner that is attached to the back and flutters.

Samurai cavalry did a very peculiar yet effective thing as an inflated device was strapped to their backs, an inflatable cloak called a "horo", and as it fluttered and they were struck by arrows, they bounced off. Historians thought that was nonsense, yet when tested in recent times, it was remarkably effective. Not so against firearms.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

When a matchlock fired, remember that this was many hundred years ago and not only did the gunpowder vary based on the conditions and people being careful about the mixture, but the projectile did not always penetrate. See this helm and cuirass as examples. Some would severely smart and impact with a wallop and knock the armored samurai down, but they might live.

People way underestimate samurai armor's strength.

In both cases that samurai got hit many times, either all from the same battle or in lots of battles over time implying longevity. The armor is peppered with impact divots.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Here is a battle clip from I think Heaven and Earth where you can witness some of the things I have talking about.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Takeda cavary totally shocked and repulsed by arquibusiers at Nagashino.

Later to cope with other arquibusiers and muskets, there were bamboo that were bundled (taketaba ta ke ta ba) and the projectiles struck that and/or the screen placed to protect those infantry.

Samurai archers actually had a board with a slot in it that they used to reposition and fire through that acted as a shield. These are some of the rare shields they utilized unlike the west. They are called tate (ta te).

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Here are screenshots of the massive AI buildup of company class (100 samurai) units and battalions (650 samurai). Then terrain improvements, then units.

In most mods, when terrain is improved, you have no idea what the terrain actually is underneath as all farms and roads look alike. It's no longer that way.

If the resources were reduced to 1/3 then they would be recognizable yet not obscure terrain anymore.

In the units screenshot, the Imperial regiment is depicted by a gold Emperor figure.

In the 12-17-58.png, the thatched house can be clearly seen as no roads are made yet. That represents a resource/village.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

At this point, I'm adjusting the defender battalion unit stats.

Otherwise 90% is done. This is what remains and these are very basic.

Events to fire spawning of company and battalion units and this is mostly to have some other combat and promote diversity of units especially for the simplistic AI. Bushido acquisition "gifts" otherwise neglected unit diversity so the AI has way more offensive units of multiple strengths so it can try many tactics.

Then minor text changes.

Then possibly add in two unusual units. One is a double company strength of a no dachi coupled with nagamaki and the other a double platoon strength of mixed cavalry. These will be labeled as "aggressor class" units. This is to give you some extra options for tactics.

Then two fleet units for far later in the game. Likely they are wako fleets and atakebune fleets. I'm doing that so later the AI stops stacking naval vessels. These unit additions are needed in Jidaigeki 2.0 and 4.0.

If I lack an artist to make something, a mere designator will indicate these next to a current unit like a special emblem or armor change.

Anything that I asked help on, that doesn't get accomplished like the current walled cities being made into a fort then can wait for Jidaigeki 2.0 and beyond. These are nice things to have, often for aesthetics or needed in later versions.

If we lack units, then I'll switch gears and make the fun Portuguese submod to fill in the gap. Mapping and new units being accomplished pushes those parts forward.

The Mongol Invasion was very risky to samurai authority because the Mongols are so much stronger than the samurai of that time period. If they establish a foothold, the samurai will have to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them. This is why the miraculous typhoon that knocked out the Mongols TWICE who had giant fleets then became the stuff of legend.

In their Shinto religion, then "kami" are venerated ancestral spirits who watch over the family and are remembered at Obon which is when they bring food offerings to the tombs. So these miraculous typhoon that annihilated the Mongols are considered a "Divine Wind"[kami kaze] but not in the way we in the West think of divinity and gods.

This is why when young men were asked to be kamikaze pilots, since it might save the nation, then parents wept that their family were being so honored to take that risk. That was the mindset. This is very alien to the West.

Recall that Western Civilization was freaked out by the Mongols as well because they could not cope with their ferocity and accurate and quick horse archers. Sometimes watch a youtube video on Mongol archery competitions. They are quite remarkable...even today. I have no doubt that this was an impetus for the samurai to develop the art of yabusame because it concerned them. What if the Mongols or others returned?

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Many Mongol military innovations end up getting adopted. The horn based composite bow was actually quite short yet has remarkable range. The Joseon end up using something similar but this factoid rarely shows up in historical mods. This short bow has a range nearly as good as a longbow (a bold but true fact) and in no way could one draw and fire with accuracy a longbow while mounted. The latter is drawn and released in a unique way.

The Mongols were devasting Asia so if the event driven typhoon units don't take out the Mongols, then it's scrambling time for the early samurai. Expect massive samurai death tolls.

Some of the Mongol armor I have seen is very beautiful so I hope some authentic units can be made.