Sengoku-mod - Feudal Japan Mod/Scenario

[embryodead]

Sengoku-mod
Feudal Japan Mod/Scenario

Sengoku-mod is a historical mod that includes an unhealthy number of players & clans
and features like armies, leader succession, dynamic vassals, historical events and more.



Old testing/preview thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=482040​

Download

Latest version is 1.0, released on 7-Aug-2013.

Sengoku-mod 1.0 Setup.exe (Windows Installer, 206 MB)

If you cannot run the Windows installer, you can download the 7zip version and install it manually to your Beyond the Sword/Mods folder. Note: for manual installation, uninstall or delete previous versions of the mod first!

Development versions of the mod can be found on sourceforge. In order to access the SVN repository you'll need a Subversion client such as TortoiseSVN. SVN versions are usually not save-game compatible with the official release, and sometimes between versions as well.

Features overview

- A mod with 2 Scenarios, 56 Players and 70 Clans; play in feudal Japan as one of the great clans such as the Oda or Tokugawa, or as a small one such as the Chiba or Omura
- 200+ historical daimyo (clan leaders), leader units, dynastic succession
- 800+ historical warlords (generals) with their own XP & Promotions to lead multi-unit armies
- Vassals & fiefs: grant captured towns to your vassals, turn your generals into vassals or create new vassals from subjugated provinces
- Improved diplomacy: Trade agreements, Military access, Alliances, Hostage agreements, Diplomats, Fame and Honor
- Improved espionage: Universal Espionage, SuperSpies modcomp, Assassinations of Leaders, Warlords & other characters, Tarnish Reputation, Sabotage Units
- Appropriate soundtrack, sound effects for buildings, units, diplomacy etc.
- Speed: despite the large map with 56 players, the mod is fast and efficient (no MAFs)

Important notes:
- when you start the game, it may take 2-3 minutes to load due to the number of players & units; turn times and save/load times are fine, however
- it is recommended to play 1549 scenario; the other one needs a bit more work and right now may be difficult due to slow start

Diplomacy

New diplomatic treaties include:
- Trade Agreement (trade between cities)
- Military Access (right-of-passage for military units)
- Alliance (like defensive pact, but isn't broken by war declaration)
- Exchange Hostages (non-binding non-agression pact)

Breaking agreements decreases the player's Honor and subsequently worsens diplomatic relations with others.

Diplomat units can be trained and set to your neighbors' cities to provide +1 bonus to their attitude. Additionally, they can investigate cities.

The AI makes use of the new features and will seek large coalitions against the winning player.

Daimyo & Generals



- Daimyo is a special unit that represents the actual clan leader; he is always leading the Hatamoto unit (his elite retainers)
- When Daimyo dies, a new leader emerges; fame & honor is decayed, AI behavior changes, new leader unit is created
- There is a limited number of heirs available to each clan; the last one is not represented by a Daimyo unit, so that he cannot die
- Generals (Taicho) are Great Generals that do not provide free XP to units; instead they earn their own XP and Promotions
- Both Daimyo and Generals have a chance to survive when defeated in battle; if this happens, they re-appear in the nearest city
- Generals who survive also have a chance to betray their lord and join the enemy
- Generals' loyalty depends on their leader's Honor, their own Honor promotion, as well as Itengrity and Deception traits of the lords involved

Vassals & Fiefs



Whenever you capture a city, you can return it to the original owner as per BTS rules. However, you can also grant it to any of your vassals or allies. Moreover, some cities can be used to re-create destroyed clans or create completely new vassal clans. It is also possible grant a captured fief to a General with Ambition promotion.

Fame, Honor, Legitimacy



Fame affects diplomacy, depending on other daimyo's attitude towards expansive players. As you become more powerful and famous, other leaders will become more likely to either join you, or form an alliance against you. Fame increases by capturing cities, building certain wonders and completing historical quests.

Honor affects diplomacy and loyalty of your generals. It is affected by traits, random events, building certain wonders, declaring wars, breaking diplomatic agreements, having your spies exposed and more.

Fame & Honor are partially inherited when leaders change.

Legitimacy is a measure of your success as the conqueror and great unifier of Japan. It depends primarily on total Land and Population, but is also boosted by funding religious buildings, maintaing high Honor, controlling Kyoto or having the support of multiple vassals. Deposing the current Shogun and achieving a Legitimacy score of 100 is required to win the game.

Espionage

Espionage Points are universal, so you don't have to micro-manage EP weights against 50+ players. Consequently, the purpose of Espionage screen is only to provide information on your total EPs and mission costs.



Some missions have been added and removed. The new additions are:
- Investigate City: a mission equivalent of the passive ability; does not cause the Spy to escape upon completion
- Assassinate Special Unit: kills a Clan Leader, Warlord, Great Person, Diplomat or Missionary
- Sabotage Unit: damages a combat unit
- Tarnish Reputation: reduces the Honor of the target player

The mod includes a modified version of the SuperSpies modcomp (Spy XP and Promotions) and the BetterSpyEscape modcomp (Spies escape to a nearby city, rather than the capital).

Events

The mod features a number of historical and random events and quests to spice up the game.



More screenshots



Credits

Spoiler :

embryodead - mod design & development, map, unit art
Bakuel, Danrell, SaibotLieh, Walter Hawkwood, zenspiderz, chuggi - unit art
Tsuyoshi Nagano / KOEI - leader portraits, general buttons, event pics from Nobunaga's Ambition & Taikou Risshiden series
Shogun 2: Total War - some quest texts and sounds
ColdFever - Blue Marble terrain
The History of the Three Kingdoms Team - the CAR mod, some C++ & Python code, graphics, ideas, particularly for heroes & legions
Realism Invictus Team - some unit & building art
jdog5000 et al - parts of Unofficial BTS Patch & Better BTS AI modcomps
Sephi - BTS on Speed modcomp
Moctezuma - Influence Driven War modcomp (currently disabled for performance reasons)
TSheep, glider1, LordTirian - Super Spies modcomp
Red Key - Super Forts modcomp
Afforess - parts of Ruthless AI modcomp
Karadoc - parts of K-Mod
12monkeys, BUG Team, HoTK Team - Plot List Enhancements
Fall From Heaven 2 Team, RevDCM Team, 3Miro - some C++ code
Emmanuel Martin aka themanuneed - some Sengoku UI sounds
2phunkey4u, AbsintheRed, Folket, Isabelxxx, Osakasayama, PinkPallin, Tigranes, The Turk and others at CFC - testing & ideas

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Hey Embryo I remember your old civ3 asia mod. This looks fantastic I can't wait to try it.

 

[Cruel]

Impressive work, downloading!

 

[dacubz145]

An absolute beautiful looking mod, very nice work

 

[keldath]

At last its on v 1.0.

Congraz!!!

 

[Drakarska]

Agree with the above. lol, now the bad news;

CTD in yr 1559, both times in Jan, and with different civs. Do you have a bug report procedure?

FYI, I was exploring with WB so I could see what was going on with the different factions if that makes a difference.

 

[embryodead]

Hey Embryo I remember your old civ3 asia mod. This looks fantastic I can't wait to try it.

I've never made any Civ3 Asia mod, Yoda Power did.

CTD in yr 1559, both times in Jan, and with different civs. Do you have a bug report procedure?

FYI, I was exploring with WB so I could see what was going on with the different factions if that makes a difference.

Well, that's unfortunate seeing the mod has been publicly tested for more than a couple of months Apart from fixes stuff, I've had just one player reporting crashes at similar times, but those happend on his system only and could not be reproduced on other machines. Do you mean that the CTD happened in WB only, or that you simply launched it sometime before? As for the procedure, if you could post the save, that would be great, thanks.

For that matter, debug mode (CTRL-Z if cheat/debug mode is enabled) is a more convenient way to check what's going on on the map.

 

[Drakarska]

Crap, I completely forgot about debug mode. I"ll run that on my last auto-save and see what happens. My thx.

 

[HUNK]

Nice mod. First, I have played 2 games, with 350 turns each, close to the end, and I haven't got any CtD. Very stable, for me.

well, I'll say the pros:

Very immersive. Good music. All japanese names (I would put the buildings names too). The events. The diplomacy. The new features. Very nice and great work.

The cons:

One, but very important. The fight. It's really bored and frustrating. Any mod has a problem if the unique method to win is to build a incredible amount of catapults, and then, to commit suicide with them. It's the unique method. I needed cities with the only purpose to train catapults (with ALT command). All units are unbeatables, except mounted vs pikeman ( I don't remember the name of that levy unit).

First: to apply or to active the shoot to adjacent tiles. A lot of mods have this feature.

Second: Important rework to the bonus/malus of units. To add: Gun vs melee, mounted vs archer, penalty to gun/archer to defend or attack forest, etc. I want to listen the opinion of other players about this point. I can help you if you want, and to discuss it.

 

[embryodead]

Nice mod. First, I have played 2 games, with 350 turns each, close to the end, and I haven't got any CtD. Very stable, for me.

Thanks, and it's great to hear!

The cons:

One, but very important. The fight. It's really bored and frustrating. Any mod has a problem if the unique method to win is to build a incredible amount of catapults, and then, to commit suicide with them. It's the unique method. I needed cities with the only purpose to train catapults (with ALT command). All units are unbeatables, except mounted vs pikeman ( I don't remember the name of that levy unit).

It is true that taking cities in the mod is difficult, but suiciding units is not the only method at all. In fact, there are two more unique methods for combat, not found elsewhere. This has been discussed in the old testing thread, where this issue was raised and apparently resolved with alternate strategies. Also, I've recently won with Date without using catapults at all (OK, I used one, for bombing only). They're handy in the beginning though, until you get good generals & spies.

1. Generals, or rather "Unit + Leader + Quest promotion stacking". Combine Yari Samurai with Way of the Spear, City Raider III, Siege Expert II and you have a killer unit; as it gets more XP add Cover, Combat I+, Infantry Command I-II, Stealth I-II, Cloud Dragon etc. See this post for example. Such units have 85-95% odds when attacking cities. There are similar combinations for killer Archers, Cavalry and to some extent Teppo units. Hire Ronin for extra Generals (more become available in later stages of the game).

2. Spies. Espionage is easier to use now that you don't have to micromanage EPs, and spies are much better in being faster, stealthier and having less downtime. Key mission: Sabotage Unit. It's not found in any other mod I believe, and it's easily overlooked. It can be better than catapults. Move 1-3 spies into the city to damage best defenders, and make it easy for your troops to finish the job.

I don't want combat to frustrate players either way, but try these suggestions first, see if it's a matter of unfamiliarity, or is it frustrating regardless. The mod may need in-game combat tutorial/hints, or a combat overhaul, or a bit of both.

First: to apply or to active the shoot to adjacent tiles. A lot of mods have this feature.

I feel that adjacent bombard is a little awkward for medieval units, considering the distance... it's good for artillery, battleships and such. I'm not completely against it, but I'd rather avoid it.

Second: Important rework to the bonus/malus of units. To add: Gun vs melee, mounted vs archer, penalty to gun/archer to defend or attack forest, etc. I want to listen the opinion of other players about this point. I can help you if you want, and to discuss it.

Unit types re-balance is possible, though mounted units do not seem to have a problem with archers at all, except for sieges, obviously. I'd like to hear what others think too and I'm open to suggestions of course. There was some discussion in the testing thread, and I'd like to rework some of the poorer areas, civics and late techs for example.

 

[embryodead]

Re: taking cities, I've been thinking about another experimental feature, risky of course, but it's an experimental mod, so why not. I'd possibly remove catapults altogether and add sieges. That would be historical and another new way to take a city.

For sieges to work, they need to be simple & usable by the AI:

1. Siege is called automatically if the number of enemy units adjacent to the city is equal or greater to the number of defenders (combat units only); if the number of attackers becomes smaller than the number of defenders, the siege is called off
2. Siege is represented graphically by stakes around the city (using the wall system)
3. While siege is active, units cannot move out of the city; not sure if they should be able to move in (reinforcements) as that would easily break the siege
4. While siege is active, defenders cannot heal and suffer up to 5% damage per turn (5% of current HP, so they won't die this way)
5. Siege Expert promotion could increase the damage by further 1-2%
6. Siege damage could possibly kick in only after foritifications are down to 0%, making castles more important

That would mean 8 months of siege (4 turns) would soften the units by about 19% HP. This doesn't stop the player from using super-armies to capture the city faster, or from using spies (sabotaged units won't heal). I'm not sure if catapults should remain or not, possibly they could stay but come at a greater cost.

The AI would be at a slight disadvantage, unless I manage to add some extra routines to calculate whether it's beneficial to try to break the siege.

How does that sound?

 

[dacubz145]

That sounds like a pretty smart idea, but it would have to sort of go outside of just military. Not only should military units not be able to leave, other things such as trade routes, food etc. should be cancelled. If I am surrounding a city, I am not going to let people bring in food, hammer etc. from the countryside. It would also starve the city (as in real life)

but in that case, the player can take advantage of the siege. Even if your attacking with much less units, you can create sieges on the cities, if you are outnumbered, so what is stopping the player from just sieging every city, without having a big attack?

 

[platyping]

Refer to point 1

 

[dacubz145]

I assumed that was when the AI would do it

Meaning once there are more units outside, AI would automatically siege. Meaning i took it as you choose when you want to siege, and thats when AI would

 

[Ixor_Drakar]

A few buildings could also slow the attrition on the garrison, like the granary.

 

[Yoda Power]

Looks great ED. I'd love to try it out, even if it would mean playing Civ4. Now, if only I could get my BtS version to work.

I've never made any Civ3 Asia mod, Yoda Power did release a never finished and somewhat unbalanced beta-version of such a mod though.

Fixed that for you.

 

[embryodead]

Looks great ED. I'd love to try it out, even if it would mean playing Civ4. Now, if only I could get my BtS version to work.

Go for it, I won't tell anyone If you need help let me know.

Fixed that for you.

It was an inspiration for Civ4 RFC Asia mod, BTW.

 

[embryodead]

That sounds like a pretty smart idea, but it would have to sort of go outside of just military. Not only should military units not be able to leave, other things such as trade routes, food etc. should be cancelled. If I am surrounding a city, I am not going to let people bring in food, hammer etc. from the countryside. It would also starve the city (as in real life)

Some kind of penalty is possible, but shutting the city down won't happen for two reasons. One is game balance, another is that Japanese economy and siege warfare was different from Europe's. No walled cities/towns. In fact, no cities at all except for Kyoto (arguably Sakai and later Edo could be counted). Economy was very rural. People lived in villages and in small towns that sprung around castles. Then, even the castles were just keeps by European standards. That's what the in-game "city" represents, and the goal of a siege is to storm the castle or force it to surrender, not to kill all the populace in surrounding lands (you can do that by pillaging, though).

I assumed that was when the AI would do it

Meaning once there are more units outside, AI would automatically siege. Meaning i took it as you choose when you want to siege, and thats when AI would

No, no, siege would be a city effect that starts and ends automatically, both for humans and AI. You can't just start a siege, you would need all those units.

 

[Ixor_Drakar]

I was wondering what exactly the game balance options do. Do they just affect AI behavior or give bonuses to the Oda and other successful Clans?

 

[embryodead]

I was wondering what exactly the game balance options do. Do they just affect AI behavior or give bonuses to the Oda and other successful Clans?

They give bonuses to Oda and other successful clans. They also determine how likely and how accurate (in terms of date) some historical events are, like deaths of daimyo, generals and emperors, betrayals of generals (Matsunaga, Ukita, Akechi), or creation of vassals by the AI.