TROM3 - ROAD TO KYOTO v0.75 *27 MAI 2011* (Ikko Ikki Update)

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I want to add that we don't forget the Matchlock Ashigaru...

[Osprey]

I have been playing Shogun 2 since it first came out and have tried all three major mods-S2R, Darth and TROM3-and have never experienced crashes or other such .... but after loading the last version of this Mod, I'm getting a near crash [game freezes and then eventually comes out of freeze] and then a crash at about mid-game. Any others having this issue?

I have completely cleaned my game of all mods, before trying this version. I am in the process of verifying file integrity right now. Just wondering if it's just me.

[T-Duke]

Hello everyone, I have officially joined the team in a unit balancer/tester/coder role. Basically, I wanted to get the communities feedback on certain changes that might or might not make it into the mod. Remember, massive unit editing is not possible until the Pack File Manager can edit DB files. Below are some general ideas that I have about unit changes:

1. Will change Yari Ashigaru unit size from 200 to 220, but attack, defense, spear bonus, etc will be lessened to balance them out.

2. Samurai, warrior monks, and other elite units will have unit limits. Now, the limit could possibly linked to the number of buildings and such, but capping a limit on elite units reflect the times of Japan better. Basically, the more territory you have, the more elite units you can support.

3. Defense and morale values will be increased for all units. Now how much will be balanced, but this will make battles last longer. Defense vaules should be increased by about 15-20% and morale about the same.

4. Bow Samurai and Bow Warrior monks will be given slight bump in melee attack, melee defense, etc because most samurai and Sohei specialized in both. Now, they will not be as strong as their melee counterpart, but they will have a better chance of defending themselves.

5. Bow Warrior Monk units size will be changed from 80 to 100. Reduction to accuracy, melee attack, etc will be done to balance them out.

6. Cavalry charges will be more deadly with slightly higher charge bonus.

7. Cavalry speed will be more balanced between units. Units listed from fastest to slowest: Bow, Light, Yari, Naginata Warrior Monks, Katana, Great Guard.

8. Matchlock units range increased to 120. Matchlock Ashigrau unit size increased to 180 and increased reload to 10. Imported stay at 160, so you have to research to get better matchlocks and higher numbers.

9. Increase melee attack and defense for matchlock samurai and warrior monks, and balance chages. They will be almost identical in these stats to their bow counter parts. Also, decrease matchlock warrior monk unit size to match bow. Basically, bow units will e cheaper, but matchlock will have higher killing power and upkeep cost. Matchlock are good for armored and bow are good for unarmored units.

10. Hero unit size increased to 60. Stats will be cut slightly to balance with their increased numbers.

Any comments or additions by the community would be great. These ideas are a work in progress, and will be changed many times before they are implemented.

Also, Yarkis, is there a naginata warrior monk hero unit? I remember seeing one in the DB files, not sure if everything is there to make it.

Nice, very great stuff!

The only things I don't like are:
More men for yari ashigaru and 180 men for teppu ashigaru
I really love hero unit with 60 men but I don't think the stats have to be lowered. You can just have one hero, it's not easy to recruit, 60 men are still few... I think this unit should make a real difference on battlefield. Same for Bow Warrior Monk, 100 men are not so much so why lower their skill?

Finally a question I've already made
Are you going to add more abilities as Swiss Halabardier did in his mod? I'm using it now with trom.
It woudl be great have pike square formation for yari samurai or spear wall for naginata for example...

[Osprey]

I have been playing Shogun 2 since it first came out and have tried all three major mods-S2R, Darth and TROM3-and have never experienced crashes or other such .... but after loading the last version of this Mod, I'm getting a near crash [game freezes and then eventually comes out of freeze] and then a crash at about mid-game. Any others having this issue?

I have completely cleaned my game of all mods, before trying this version. I am in the process of verifying file integrity right now. Just wondering if it's just me.

Integrity check said I had 3 bad files. Will reload TROM3 mod and try again. Sorry to bother.

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Originally Posted by Kurisu Paifuaa
Any thoughts on how to get the AI to not value military access so highly when offered in addition to an alliance (since it's redundant)? Playing with sort of a house rule currently, but it would be nice to figure out the logic there.

Originally Posted by Yarkis
I fear that's hardcoded.

Whoops, I think I was mistaken about that. I thought military access came along with an alliance treaty (in addition to being individually negotiable), but it seems to be wholly separate. That actually makes a lot more sense. My bad

[crazyman fromrussia]

Nice, very great stuff!

The only things I don't like are:
More men for yari ashigaru and 180 men for teppu ashigaru
I really love hero unit with 60 men but I don't think the stats have to be lowered. You can just have one hero, it's not easy to recruit, 60 men are still few... I think this unit should make a real difference on battlefield. Same for Bow Warrior Monk, 100 men are not so much so why lower their skill?

Finally a question I've already made
Are you going to add more abilities as Swiss Halabardier did in his mod? I'm using it now with trom.
It woudl be great have pike square formation for yari samurai or spear wall for naginata for example...

About yari ashigaru and teppo ashigaru, increased number are there to reflect the massive amount of peasants that fought, compared to Samurai and Sohei. Now, this might unbalance too many things because their unit stats are so low. For now, I will keep their unit size the same.

About hero unit and bow monk unit, I might do this, but their upkeep might go up slightly to balance it out.

Finally, unit abilities are something I would like to do, but I need more experience before being able to do them as effectively as Swiss. Swiss is good at what he does, so I need to view his files and see what he modded before committing to this. If anything, TROM could include that part of his mod and give credit to him.

[crazyman fromrussia]

I added one other addition to my post about unit edits that I need some feedback on:

Special clan units have higher unit size with slightly increased cost and upkeep. Uesugi have morewarrior monks in their units, Shimazu have more Katana samurai, Takeda have higher cavalry size, Oda have more troops in ashigaru units, Chosokabe have more archers, etc.

If possible, these clans could have a higher cap on certain units, such as samurai or warrior monks.
Sorry for double post!

[Frank9Diesel]

yari ashigaru i think are weak enough. i'm against increasing the size of units for some and then lowering their stats. would rather leave them be all together. especially dont nerf the archers! please. thats why i dont play one of the mods that is currently out.

[crazyman fromrussia]

yari ashigaru i think are weak enough. i'm against increasing the size of units for some and then lowering their stats. would rather leave them be all together. especially dont nerf the archers! please. thats why i dont play one of the mods that is currently out.

Archers are already slightly nerfed in accuracy because Yarkis edited the arrow projectile table, but they will not be nerfed anymore than they are. Now, their melee attack and general defense might be increased to make them a more offensive weapon after they run out of arrows, but they still have low morale and are prone to routing.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

We have to think about what we want to achieve with all those changes. My first goal with changeing unit stats would be to slow combat down a bit more. A second goals is to make proportions of samurai vs ashigaru a bit more historical. The same applies to the use of weapons (most armies had at least 50% spears). This means that spear ashigaru units may get more men while samurai should stay unchanged. I wouldn't increase the number of men in teppo units (matchlocks). Also their range should get gradually increased to the range of bows or even more, since they became the main ranged weapon during the century. Global moral changes can be done without having to change the unit stats. Cavalry needs a boost, so it is able to disengage from melee fights better. As it is now their charges are quite good, but they receive too many casualities before you can disengage the unit. The general slowing of combat will help here but some extra stat changes may be needed.

[crazyman fromrussia]

We have to think about what we want to achieve with all those changes. My first goal with changeing unit stats would be to slow combat down a bit more. A second goals is to make proportions of samurai vs ashigaru a bit more historical. The same applies to the use of weapons (most armies had at least 50% spears). This means that spear ashigaru units may get more men while samurai should stay unchanged. I wouldn't increase the number of men in teppo units (matchlocks). Also their range should get gradually increased to the range of bows or even more, since they became the main ranged weapon during the century. Global moral changes can be done without having to change the unit stats. Cavalry needs a boost, so it is able to disengage from melee fights better. As it is now their charges are quite good, but they receive too many casualities before you can disengage the unit. The general slowing of combat will help here but some extra stat changes may be needed.

The main idea with these changes should be making battles last longer, like you said. The defense increase helps, but we should either make a global moral increase of about 2 or 3, or increase each unit's morale by a set percentage.

I think we could get the historical ratio of samurai to ashigaru units with unit caps, but increasing yari ashigaru unit size could help solidify this.

Matchlock range should be increased to about 150, but it should be less accurate than bows at long ranges. Maybe edits to the projectile tables can simulate this.

About cavalry, increasing their armor or defense values slightly should make them harder to kill. Maybe bumping their unit speed slightly would also help with casualties. Their charge is good, but maybe a slight bump of 1-2would work. I always hated how CA always does even number of 15 or 20 with cavalry charges.

Most of the other changes I listed were just things that annoyed me about warrior monks, heros, etc

I am going to start writing some base units changes in a excel document and get your feedback on it

[RobotDwarf]

First off wanted to thank Yarkis and Co. for the great mod. Out of all of the available overhauls, this one has (IMO) done the most "right". Thought it was challenging before, sheesh!

Wanted to give you a glimpse of two of the big sharks circling around my territories since you mentioned the ratio of yari ashigaru to samurai's. I think the AI has taken your thoughts and come up with its own solution....MOAR Yari Samurai!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And here I am playing as Takeda with lots of cav...

Overall I'm finding the game to have a much more subtle balance to it. Factions seems to act less like suicide machines and each campaign so far has gone in a different direction rather than being able to plan out how to start off to a tee. Case in point, Oda in that first screenshot is a Godzilla eating Japan up in giant chunks. Never seen that faction live more than a couple turns in the past.

Nothing really jumps out to me as totally off, it seems the majority of your tweaks have simply served to make the campaigns more of a challenge (in a good way).

Keep up the good work, I'm off to download your new updates and start a Shimazu campaign!

[Slith]

3. Defense and morale values will be increased for all units. Now how much will be balanced, but this will make battles last longer. Defense vaules should be increased by about 15-20% and morale about the same.

I do not like this. I don't want basic ashigaru or samurai fighting to the last 5-10 men every battle. Morale should be important, it should not be used simply to make a battle last longer. It's there to allow a clever player to route forces using good tactics and morale shocks.

Increasing morale so that battles last even longer than they already do in this mod just means everything turns into a battle of attrition. Hell, it is already a battle of attrition. Increases to morale need to come with increases to morale shock so that things like flanking actually have a vastly more pronounced effect.

4. Bow Samurai and Bow Warrior monks will be given slight bump in melee attack, melee defense, etc because most samurai and Sohei specialized in both. Now, they will not be as strong as their melee counterpart, but they will have a better chance of defending themselves.

Bow samurai already beat the out of ashigaru units. Hell, even light cavalry get torn to shreds if they ever engage a bow samurai unit. I really do not think they need even better melee stats!

5. Bow Warrior Monk units size will be changed from 80 to 100. Reduction to accuracy, melee attack, etc will be done to balance them out.

What is the point? Do you simply want more units? Personally, I do not have a super-computer. This is change for the sake of change, not because there is a balance issue.

10. Hero unit size increased to 60. Stats will be cut slightly to balance with their increased numbers.

As I stated previously, I am not a fan of increasing unit sizes just because they can be increased. The balancing seems too arbitrary. Just leave the unit numbers as-is unless/until there is a pressing need for more or less of them.

Also, balancing for a change like this is not as simple as reducing melee attack or some other stat. More units means the unit is more resistant to morale changes, it also means the unit is harder to kill, unless you go and reduce armor. But then units like warrior monks - who already have little/no armor, only see benefits to increased unit size, even if it means their other stats drop a little. So you'll have to make the stats drop a lot, and then it's extremely questionable whether to use them over samurai.

And at the end of the day, if you perfectly balance after the increase in unit size - all you have done is increase unit size, increased resources required to play the mod, and changed absolutely nothing about the gameplay. I just think it's a waste of time and effort to do this.

I would prefer we leave most unit numbers alone and don't mess with stats for things unless there is a definite need to make something more powerful or less powerful. [Like if Katana Samurai can cut through three ashigaru units by themselves, there may be a balance issue there.]

[Toryn]

Not really liking the latest crazyman changes. The mod is better when it is cleaner.

I had downloaded the latest version of the mod but reverted to 0.35 when it made too many messy and nonsensical changes like reducing the effect of armourers on monks, editing unit sizes without a clear goal in mind.

Measure twice, cut once

[Panzeh]

I think an addition that might help cavalry is the re-addition of loan swords to add more variety to ashigaru, as well as give cavalry more of a role. As is, the primary melee unit of the game seems to be yari ashigaru, which makes cavalry difficult to use.

This is also actually somewhat historical, as it's far more likely for ashigaru to have come with only a sword than for samurai to have done so, though the pike was still more common. This is why there were 'sword hunts', because the peasantry and others often brought these to battle.

[Arksa]

Leave the units alone! What's next?

"Added 5 units to general's bodyguard but reduced melee attack and charge bonus to compensate"


Why is this necessary do these tiny increases and then tone everything down a notch?

[madpluck]

is anyone else experiencing a trade bug? i can't seem to have a land-trade with any of my neighbours, but when i have a free trade-port, land-locked clans (like the shogun) can suddenly somehow have a sea-trade route with me. it's killing my income and making me sad. i tried to test this in my current save, but the save wouldn't load without the trom files anymore...

[newt]

Leave the units alone! What's next?

"Added 5 units to general's bodyguard but reduced melee attack and charge bonus to compensate"


Why is this necessary do these tiny increases and then tone everything down a notch?

I have to agree here.

If you were to increase the size of specialty units (Shimazu Samurais etc.) The up keep should be the same as the equivalent units for other clans

[tarvu]

I currently only play with the campaign mod and am worried that crazyman's proposed changes means I can no longer really do this. I am one of those people who does not want endless battles with no routing, I think this is inaccurate for the period. People confuse the bushido code (developed mainly in times of peace) with the reality that warfare would not really be possible for such an extended period like the Sengoku Jidai without retreats. The warring state's period did not decimate Japan's population, on the contrary it ended with a large amount of trained warriors hanging around, not all dead in the field (except the victor). This also wasn't generally a warfare of annhilation but warfare between clans of the same nation. So I just don't see why everyone would fight to the last man, every battle.

I'd personally prefer it if there remained two versions of the mod, the campaign mod being one of which does not affect game balance (morale and defense of all units) quite so much, which I thought was the original purpose of the mod to create better challenge without drastically remaking the game from scratch because the base game is very good as it is, and I don't see how all of these changes are necessarily improvements.

[TheJian]

Not really liking the latest crazyman changes. The mod is better when it is cleaner.

I had downloaded the latest version of the mod but reverted to 0.35 when it made too many messy and nonsensical changes like reducing the effect of armourers on monks, editing unit sizes without a clear goal in mind.

Measure twice, cut once

I do not like this. I don't want basic ashigaru or samurai fighting to the last 5-10 men every battle. Morale should be important, it should not be used simply to make a battle last longer. It's there to allow a clever player to route forces using good tactics and morale shocks.

Increasing morale so that battles last even longer than they already do in this mod just means everything turns into a battle of attrition. Hell, it is already a battle of attrition. Increases to morale need to come with increases to morale shock so that things like flanking actually have a vastly more pronounced effect.

Bow samurai already beat the out of ashigaru units. Hell, even light cavalry get torn to shreds if they ever engage a bow samurai unit. I really do not think they need even better melee stats!

What is the point? Do you simply want more units? Personally, I do not have a super-computer. This is change for the sake of change, not because there is a balance issue.

As I stated previously, I am not a fan of increasing unit sizes just because they can be increased. The balancing seems too arbitrary. Just leave the unit numbers as-is unless/until there is a pressing need for more or less of them.

Also, balancing for a change like this is not as simple as reducing melee attack or some other stat. More units means the unit is more resistant to morale changes, it also means the unit is harder to kill, unless you go and reduce armor. But then units like warrior monks - who already have little/no armor, only see benefits to increased unit size, even if it means their other stats drop a little. So you'll have to make the stats drop a lot, and then it's extremely questionable whether to use them over samurai.

And at the end of the day, if you perfectly balance after the increase in unit size - all you have done is increase unit size, increased resources required to play the mod, and changed absolutely nothing about the gameplay. I just think it's a waste of time and effort to do this.

I would prefer we leave most unit numbers alone and don't mess with stats for things unless there is a definite need to make something more powerful or less powerful. [Like if Katana Samurai can cut through three ashigaru units by themselves, there may be a balance issue there.]

The thing i liked about this mod was it was not like all the others, making "nonsensical changes" every other day. Lets face it we cant mod much, but dont get like all the other and just mod 2 keep people downloading .....You had some good work going keep it up............