Sengoku-Deluxe: preview and discussion thread

[Storm Grunt]

Last week I got bogged down and bored working on my WW2 scenarios so to give myself a break I started playing the conquests Sengoku: sword of the shogun scenario. I like the scenario alot( how can you not like samurai and ninjas), but I noticed quite a lot of room for improvement and me not being one who can leave anything alone I started tinkering with it. I quickly realized that with some more flavor in the graphics,units,techs,buildings,resources and wonders this could be a whole lot better in a short amount of time.

I don't want to get to crazy with this. Basically an expansion and fleshing out what is already there.I don't want it to take more than a couple of months to have the first version up-running-and posted. How much change and expansion will greatly depend on contributions from you guys and what you want to see done to it. If you want to help in this I would suggest that you start playing the scenario and take note of any changes or additions you would like to see then find or create the files and post them here in this thread for consideration for inclusion.

Changes so far:
The first thing I did was set it to a random map.I know a lot of people like preset maps, but I like the re-playability of a random map.I mean once you know where resources are going to appear its kinda like cheating and for me the randomness keeps it from getting stale quick.If someone wants to do a better preset map I will include 2 biq's in the scenario. Currently I'm using Womoks_Greener2 terrain with the patch.I find it gives a nice Asian feel to the game and I love the way the mountains look. If ares terrain pack II is released before completion of this scenario I will probably switch to that.

I really like the upgradeable king unit.It gives the scenario a bit of an RPG feel. I don't like that the AI leaves it in the capital city at all times,after all didn't warlords get their status by leading their troops into battle? To remedy this I have re-flagged it with capture,offense and defense.That worked, but a little too well.The AI is very aggressive with the king unit now and half of the clans are usually wiped out before the end of the first Era(pre-sengoku).I will keep tweaking it until it gets more balance.
I have replaced the ashigaru swordsman unit graphics from the vanilla swordsman to kinboats bushi without the flag unit. Replaced the galley and caravel with the sampan and tongkang. Made tech icons to replace sword smithing,ninjutsu,contact:ronin and a few others that didn't have a Asian feel to them.Added resources for hardwood,shellfish,pearls,Bamboo,tea,and rice along with changing the graphics of the standard resources with better ones.
I made new goody huts and terrain buildings(still have the colony graphics to do).

Stuff I already want to do:
Add more units. unique units for barbarians and ronin(not shared graphics).Add more techs,right now the fourth era is just a question mark(post-sengoku)I'd like to develop that and have techs to bring in the samurai rifleman and cavalry units. New era splashes and new advisor graphics. More resources, improvements, and wonders.

Who's with me on this!

 

[Storm Grunt]

reserved for Tech previews:

Here are the first few tech Icons I've made as replacements:
They are: Sword crafting, Contact Ronin, Ninjutsu, and Alphabet.

Feudalism

 

[Storm Grunt]

reserved for buildings ETC.

Terrain Buildings PCX preview:

Here is the Goodyhut preview:

City graphics I selected for the scenario:

These were made by: Niessuh

 

[Storm Grunt]

Advisors etc.

Heres the military advisor I made.

 

[Storm Grunt]

Ok. Now you can post. I'll put some previews up a little later tonight

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Nice to see someone's finally getting around to making changes on that thing. That scenario has so many innaccuracies and oddities.

For the ship lines, you can get rid of the European "galley" and "caravel" and use Aaglo's Japanese ships.
Kobaya -> Atakabune -> Tekkousen

Naval warfare wasn't big, but there were some major ship battles and some daimyos did construct considerable fleets.

Another consideration would be to have a Mt. Hiei temple complex wonder that produces Sohei warrior monks every few turns.

 

[Quinzy]

maybe some UU's too?

 

[ShiroKobbure]

well I started a similar project, but stopped it to learn unit making, and I have never picked it back. But mine was going to be a real sengoku mod. With japanese map, and starting with provinces already. The technology was more from the sengoku, the civ 3's sengoku was horrible. I played only once. Since I can make all the graphics needed, units, wonders, heads, tech icons, etc. I just need a team to help and do the rest. If you want to pick up my work, I will help, if not thats fine too

 

[Storm Grunt]

OK. A couple of previews are up in posts 2 and 3.

@Ogedei: Thanks for your support in this project. Yeah I do want to expand the naval aspect of the scenario a little. I will download those ships and go with that line-up you specified.
As for the Mt. Hiei temple complex wonder that produces Sohei warrior monks. I will look up info on that and see if there are enough usable graphics to make it and a UU for that monk. thanks for the Ideas. *Edit- I went to download those ships but I dont see the Kobaya. is that called by another name?

@Quinzy: Do you mean UU's for each of the 18 clans? I don't think there are enough units out there for that and I don't want to wait for new units to be created. Plus that would involve way too much begging and pleading with the unit makers.

@Shiro: Thank you for the offer to take on your mod but it sounds like a major build which I don't have the time to undertake so that it comes out properly. I lived (actually was "stationed") in Okinawa for a year but have very little knowledge of Japanese history so your highly accurate mod is best to be done by you so it comes out correctly. The time frame I have set for myself is important because I get bored and sidetracked too easily and I really want to complete one of my Ideas....
Anything you can donate graphic wise would be greatly appreciated......

 

[Quinzy]

find out of allianced between clans, so there would be UU's for historical aliances
ie: not 18 UU's, but, say the 18 clans were allied into 6 alliances, so 6 UU's. the UU would be for all the allied civs.
in-game, you dont have to ally them, but in a historical sense, this could work.

 

[7ronin]

Some things to consider -

Castle building (very important)
Mountains (many should be impassable. Mountain passes were very important)
The medium of exchange was koku of rice, not gold
Contact with the West
Control the Emperor Win [Spaceship Victory] collect the three imperial
treasures, etc., etc.
Alphabet Tech -not really appropriate for the Sengoku era - How about something to do with literature?

 

[Mithadan]

Yay, I hope this gets finished! I haven't even bothered playing half of the Conquests, and the one I really wanted to play -- Sengoku -- sucked...which is funny, because I don't know much about Japanese history either. "how can you not like samurai and ninjas"? Right with you there, buddy. I do know enough about Japanese history to find the Vanilla Swordsman woefully out of place! I'm glad you already changed the graphics. He probably shouldn't be called an Ashigaru, either. They came later, if I'm not mistaken?

At any rate, I'm quite excited about this project, although the best advice I can give you is listen to everybody else on this thread so far, they seem to have it going on.

 

[Storm Grunt]

Thanks for all the input guys.

@Qunizy: I couldn't find anything on alliances between clans so what if all the UU's are spawned from wonders?

@7Ronin:

Castle building (very important)

I agree.I have replaced the fort in the terrain building pcx with one that looks like a warlords castle.I will rename the "palace" as well.

Mountains (many should be impassable. Mountain passes were very important)

Good Idea I will add this to my working model and see how it works.Since it's on a random map (settings:standard size>Pangaea>high land mass>wet climate>warm temp>smoother world) this could cause an unfair isolation problem but, I will test and adjust if necessary the allow only foot unit flags.

The medium of exchange was koku of rice, not gold

OK,renaming the labels wont be hard, but I will need new resource and civilopedia pcx's to go along with this right?

Contact with the West

Contact with the Portuguese is already in the 3rd era(Late sengoku).

Control the Emperor Win [Spaceship Victory] collect the three imperial treasures, etc., etc.

I have never tried to mod the spaceship victory but I'm willing to try.You need to elaborate on this Idea.I know nothing of Imperial treasure and such...

Alphabet Tech -not really appropriate for the Sengoku era - How about something to do with literature?

Alphabet is in the first era which is labeled "Pre-Sengoku" so I think it does fit.The time line of the game is off though,it starts too late I will adjust it back quite far and change the units of time per turn to match so your still hitting the early sengoku in the 1400's.Literature is already in the second era.

@Mithadan: Thanks for your interest and support.I promise this will get done.How well depends on the amount of help and contributions.

He probably shouldn't be called an Ashigaru, either. They came later, if I'm not mistaken?

Can you research this and come up with a more appropriate title for him?


Now for new Business: I have a thought on barbarians. While playing I have noticed that the barbarians are usually wiped out by the end of the first era,So since the first era is Pre-Sengoku and the Mongols did invade in the 1200's(I think.Don't yell if I'm wrong just correct me ). Would it make sense to use them as the barbarians?

 

[conquer_dude]

Looks interesting. Although I never cared for this scenerio that much.

 

[The Last Conformist]

*Note* They look better than this image shows,for some reason it came out looking a little distorted and speckeled...

It's a result of jpegification - save previews as gif files to avoid it.

 

[Storm Grunt]

Some things to consider -
The medium of exchange was koku of rice, not gold.

In my research of this topic I am finding fault with your statement. Koku is a unit of measurement And that "Koku of Rice" was used to place a value on parcels of land. How many Koku of rice the land was able to produce was used to determine the lands value. Warlords would sometimes pay samurai in koku's of rice instead of land grants or salaries and the rice could then be sold or used. Gold and silver were still mined and coins were still used. Some coins were made by Each Diamyo and some were imported from china.

To me it seems a correct statement would be that "Gold and silver was still used as money(weather directly minted into coins or used to purchase minted coins from the Chinese) While Rice was a major part of the Economy and often used as trade or payments in lieu of monetary coinage."

This can easily be reflected in the scenario with high values placed on the rice resource while still having gold and silver in the game as well.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

"Ashigaru" refers to common foot soldiers who were all conscripted commoners. They were poorly armed and poorly disciplined. At this time, everyone practically took up arms (some women did as well and were pretty good at it too) and individuals could actually move in and out of social classes based on their merit.

Horse Archers in the "Sengoku" Conquests scenario were way too weak. Horse Archery was an extremely important martial art to the samurai, as samurai codes of honor were founded upon the fundamentals of "Kyuuba no Michi", the "Way of the Horse and Bow." Also, armies of spearmen armed with yaris typically formed the mainstay of Sengoku-era armies. Swords were quite important by this time, but did not necessarily become the single definitive factor of the samurai until the Tokugawa Period.

 

[Storm Grunt]

"Ashigaru" refers to common foot soldiers who were all conscripted commoners. They were poorly armed and poorly disciplined. At this time, everyone practically took up arms (some women did as well and were pretty good at it too) and individuals could actually move in and out of social classes based on their merit.

Horse Archers in the "Sengoku" Conquests scenario were way too weak. Horse Archery was an extremely important martial art to the samurai, as samurai codes of honor were founded upon the fundamentals of "Kyuuba no Michi", the "Way of the Horse and Bow." Also, armies of spearmen armed with yaris typically formed the mainstay of Sengoku-era armies. Swords were quite important by this time, but did not necessarily become the single definitive factor of the samurai until the Tokugawa Period.

Good info Ogedei. I adjusted The Samurai horse archer To: attack 6, Def 4, bombard str 4 (was 0!) ROF 2, Flagged with zone of control and lethal land bombardment. does that seem right?


Renamed palace to "Daimyo Shiro" and replacing Building pcx with one that looks like a castle(shiro)

 

[conquer_dude]

Bombard Strength?

 

[Storm Grunt]

Bombard Strength?

Yes bombard. All the missle weapon units in the scenario had range of 1 by default.
Would you guys rather see this changed to range 0 so they only get the defensive first strike out of it? If thats done then the samurai horse archers lethal land bombardment will be useless though.