ZenMod, 7/30 v4.5 updated for DLC PATCH, Darth & Mutant vers. available

[General Malaise]

Are you sure Morale is only avg +2? Played as Takeda, first battle against the rebel army - they fought to the death. 4 guys survived the battle - no unit routing even after the general died. Repeated cav charges against their rear didn't work.

Also, not sure if it's a bug, bu the Takeda starting cav unit appears to have abilities associated with matchlock units, and even has the tiny matchlock symbol on it's unit card, but the unit only had melee capaibility.

Yes, I'm quite sure...The issue is that darthmod also alters the morale effects values universally, so you are seeing them get frightened less due to darth's alterations and take longer to rout from my stat increase.

EDIT: As for the starting unit the stats don't show up because the engine can't handle representing dragoons right now but they do have stats for shooting and it works fine. Check the stats file.

I should state I tested the dathmod version to see that it worked, but I did not test it for balance the same way I did my stand alone Zen Mod. I simply merged the two and removed any conflicts, because darthmod is not only the most popular alteration out there, but the only one compatible with mine and people were asking me about it. I have not even played darthmod or my own darth zen version for that matter, so I haven't gotten around to seeing how it changes things. Perhaps at some future point I will consider rebalancing in depth for darthmod more.

You're most welcome. I deleted the reference to the font in the script and she is running fine, my frame rate weirds out on campaign screen but that is probably nothing to do with your mod.

There is no need, however for a line in the script for the camera shake. It is easily turned off in preferences.
I have a feeling that STW2 is like Empire, it gets a little nervous about user scripts with four or more lines.

Mine was crashing because I left some other packs in there that were causing conflicts. They are gone now and it runs just dandy.

Yeah, the camera shake thing is just another I overlooked. Do you happen to remember which packs it was you had to delete however for future reference?

I'm getting ghost units, mostly Katana Samurai that have no name, but keep the same stats in vanilla. I'm using ZenDarth.

Also get ghost units for Loan Sword Ashigaru.

Yes, as I stated earlier the AI spits them out as rebels or rewards for quests. I think it may also spawn them for certain factions or they may somehow be recruiting them. I will look into the latter issue later, and fix the missing names, but it wil be too much of a hassle to deal with the scripting to get rid of them in the former instance.

This is a nice mod. I d/l a day or two ago and played around with it and a few things I would bring up:

Using the Darth-Zen mod: yumi ashigaru are nerfed. Overall a good thing but these guys are now absolutely worthless to build. A Taisho can kill an entire unit by himself and only loose like 5 men. And when they do go unmolested and pluck away for most of the battle, kills range from 15 men to 50 men. Hardly worth the added upkeep to 110. Short of being for free in a garrison I would never bother building these guys as is. This is the probable result of both mods nerfing archers at the same time. Haven't tried the upper level archers because the lower ones are so bad. The way to success is to just spam naginata ashigaru.

Well, I'm kind of surprised you're able to charge them with your Taisho as whenever I do that the AI rushes spearmen at me and I certainly don't have time to take all of them out. I actually lost my starting general in the rebel battle of a my Chosokabe campaign trying that. Overall though, yes as I stated above I simply merged by darth's mod and mine and haven't looked over my stats to see how they work with his in depth.

As for the upper level archers I still think they would be worth it, their accuracy and reload is much higher and they have whistling arrows on top of that. As for the naginata ashigaru spam, again, that might be true with darthmod, but I'm surprised at that regardless. How far in the campaign are you? By the time of around realm divide or trying to attack Kyoto I would think you would get slaughtered with armies comprised of naginata ashigaru. I was having a rough time in my test campaign dealing with the number of samurai the AI was pumping out at the later stages, and in my experience, naginata ashigaru rout pretty quickly against them.

You removed Kisho ninja, but the AI still spends money building the ninja den for kisho exp bonus. Prolly need to give it a bonus of some sort or remove it so that the AI chooses the other option for ninja upgrades.

Yeah, I'll just boost the ninja experience bonus I guess so it's higher than the other building by enough to be worth it. Leveling ninjas is a pain in the ass now anyway, should be nice. Thanks for pointing that out though.

I don't think the AI has a clue how to use the dragoons. It uses them light light cav only they lost their spears and now are worthless charging something frontally. It never dismounts them and utilizes the extra guns. This is just a huge bonus for a human who will run around and fire guns at the AI from behind once it kills all the cavalry.

It doesn't have a clue but fortunately, beyond the one it spawns with at the start, it doesn't really build them. Pretty sure there's nothing I can do about this though unfortunately. I can move around animation types and mix them together, which I had to do for this unit and the mounted long yari ones, but I can't create new animations I believe. As there doesn't seem to be one for firing from horseback with a teppo they have to be dragoons and the AI hasn't known what to do with dragoons since CA introduced them in Empire.

I think someone already pointed out that with beefed up garrisons, inciting rebels is wasted time but thats more a Darth issue I think.

Not sure, I beefed up garrisons slightly in mine but still saw a few provinces go rebel and I almost loss one or two of mine two that way. I suppose this is another aspect of darth's I need to look into.

Overall, I like the more realistic system. But archers need some love or balance will equal who has the bigger naginata ashigaru stack. It's been buggin me that no dachi samurai and naginata samurai have such a huge discrepency in armor for what purpose? Not to mention as pointed out already way to many katanas flying around. If you can get the AI to stop spamming worthless archers it would be nice though. Yumi samurai seems to be the prefered unit for the AI now more than ever.

Nodachi Samurai? You mean the garrison retainers (Kerai)? Those are the only nodachi and you are limited to 2. EDIT: I just checked and I actually already *did* make their armor equivalent to other samurai armor. Though now I'm wondering if it actually shoud be, m.

Regarding the katanas I only saw one. I guess I'll have to run a campaign with darth zen now too and see how it's different from just mine.

EDIT: As for the yumi spam by AI trying using universal campaign AI mod and renaming it so the file starts with Z so it loads last.

[Pagan Deity]

Nodachi Samurai? You mean the garrison retainers (Kerai)? Those are the only nodachi and you are limited to 2. EDIT: I just checked and I actually already *did* make their armor equivalent to other samurai armor. Though now I'm wondering if it actually shoud be, m.

Regarding the katanas I only saw one. I guess I'll have to run a campaign with darth zen now too and see how it's different from just mine.

EDIT: As for the yumi spam by AI trying using universal campaign AI mod and renaming it so the file starts with Z so it loads last.[/QUOTE]

Sorry that was badly worded. I like how your mod doesnt have non-existent katana units running around and leveled the armor among all the samurai. I never understood why CA had different levels of armor.

[OTZ]

Yes, I'm quite sure...The issue is that darthmod also alters the morale effects values universally, so you are seeing them get frightened less due to darth's alterations and take longer to rout from my stat increase.

Sorry - not using Darthmod - I don't like it. All I have is your vanilla mod.

[General Malaise]

Don't know what else to tell you then. I'm absolutely certain it's only about +2. Sounds like a fluke, have you tried any other battles?

[OTZ]

I plan on it - this looks like a great mod, so I don't want to give up on it so quickly. Cheers.

[Seikales]

hey Malaise,

It seems you are using 'Good Stamina' trait for certain units. I came to believe that perk is bugged or refers to actually something else. It does lead to never routing units indeed.

[General Malaise]

Huh. Are you certain? I believe some units already had it in vanilla, in fact I simply regularized the trait so all cavalry have it (horses have better stamina than people after all). What units aren't routing in your games because if it's foot units then that's unrelated. Although I suppose it could be Morale Shock Resistant which is actually the cause. Can anyone else confirm this?

Anyway, I should have a new version out tomorrow or the day after maybe with integrated universal AI mod and lots of fixes and tweaks for those still following this.

[Ecka65]

I'm certainly following your mod. Nothing else has thus far got me back into the game. I'm hoping yours does.

[Seikales]

Take a close look at the good stamina units. Do they say 'frightens enemies' instead of 'good stamina' in the battle cards?

[crunchyfrog]

I tried it... Have you tried it yourself?

Morale is basicly modded out. Units just doesn't rout. No matter what. A battle takes forever, played a battle of two armies with 20 units each. I was defeated because I had it set to 20 minute battles(20 because of the Siege AI), anyway the battle was still going on, with out 25% units left on both sides.

Two ashigaru units fighting will apparently only kill one of each other every second or so...

[General Malaise]

Take a close look at the good stamina units. Do they say 'frightens enemies' instead of 'good stamina' in the battle cards?

No, they say good stamina. I think you're talking about the PFM tool which hasn't corrected the tables to represent all the fields right. However, I tested it in-game to make sure the traits were assigned properly. I'm quite sure the traits aren't bugged, it's just the PFM doesn't list the tables right as I said so you have to guess where it is then test it in game (which, again, I did).

I tried it... Have you tried it yourself?

Morale is basicly modded out. Units just doesn't rout. No matter what. A battle takes forever, played a battle of two armies with 20 units each. I was defeated because I had it set to 20 minute battles(20 because of the Siege AI), anyway the battle was still going on, with out 25% units left on both sides.

Two ashigaru units fighting will apparently only kill one of each other every second or so...

Yes, of course I've tried it. What a weird thing to say. I certainly had no problems with units routing, although if you are playing the darthmod version, as I said, I did not test that one much when I first released it. Now I have removed darth's morale boost so this should no longer happen. However, if you play on a difficulty higher than hard with my mod battles will take a very long time and the AI is very hard to rout because of the bonuses the computer gets combined with my adjustments. That said, if you are the kind of person who only likes to spend 20 minutes on a battle and finds 1 unit dying per second in a melee to slow, this mod is probably not for you.


_________________

In other news, v2 is now out, and includes a slightly edited version of Hedge Knight's Universal AI (for both standard and darth zen mods). Here is a changelog:

v2 Changelog:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-ADDED VERSION OF HEDGE KNIGHT'S UNIVERSAL AI (BOTH VERSIONS)
-GAVE TAISHO GOOD STAMINA TRAIT
-DROPPED SHO IDAN'S RANGE BOOST TO 65 FROM 75
-FIXED SOME MISSING UNIT NAMES
-NOW USE MY UNIT MOVEMENT MODIFIERS (NO LONGER DARTH'S, DARTHMOD VERSION)
-ALTERED NINJA FORTRESS CHAIN TO HAVE HIGHER NINJA AGENT XP
-INCREASED ARROW PROJECTILE DAMAGE, LOWERED RELOAD TIME, AND GAVE FIRE ARROWS AP (FOR DARTHMOD ONLY)
-MADE IMPORTED TEPPO CHEAPER AND FASTER TO RECRUIT THAN IN VANILLA
-REMOVED BASE MORALE BOOST (DARTHMOD ONLY)
-LOWERED ALL SPOTTING VALUES TO MATCH DARTHMOD'S (DARTHMOD ONLY)
-FIXED VARIOUS AI RECRUITMENT PRIORITIES, SHOULD BE LESS ASHIGARU
-ADDED PROPER UNIT AND BUILDING DESCRIPTIONS
-FIXED HOKIHEI RANGED STATS NOT SHOWING
-FIXED AI RECRUITING RESTRICTED UNITS
-FIXED ASHIKAGA RECRUITING MULTIPLE HEROES
-CORRECTED ERROR WITH YARI SOHEI BATTLE ENTITY ENTRY
-CORRECTED WRONG VOICES FOR CERTAIN UNITS
-GAVE OFFICERS PROPER WEAPON FOR UNITS WHERE OFFICER HAD WRONG WEAPON TYPE
-FIXED DOJO UNITS STATS/UPKEEP
-GAVE MUSKET TROOPS DARTH'S RANK/FILE SPACING (DARTHMOD ONLY)

Same links as in OP for downloads.

[Miyamoto]

Why Mori have better monks?, they only where allies of the Ikkō-ikki........ to much shogun I ..............

[Seikales]

About the Good Stamina thing:

Yeah, the column in PFM editor, that reads 'Good Stamina' is 'True' for some units in Zen Mod. That leads to the never routing unit problem. Perhaps you found some way to actually make units have Good Stamina (I would appreciate if you point out the location, by the way) BUT the units which have Good Stamina 'True' in the PFM editor are problematic nonetheless, even if they don't correspond to the real stamina.

[General Malaise]

Good Stamina in PFM table is actually the "Scares Enemies" trait. Good Stamina is under Heat or Cold Resistance (can't remember). Scares Enemies doesn't have anything to do with units not routing, only heavy horse, generals, and heroes have it and I'm not having any problem with the first two routing. Heroes won't rout because their morale is too high. Have you tried v2 and still units won't rout for you?

[Seikales]

Hi,

It wasn't my problem, but someone else had the problem, actually. But, I am telling you that when you have the Scares Enemies thing, it does the opposite and encourages (the enemies, not the units themselves) them to fight forever. Anyways, I am bored of this discussion. As long as you don't observe a problem, so be it

[General Malaise]

I see what you mean now, and I've seen others claim it's bugged too. I don't use cavalry too much so perhaps that's why I'm not noticing anything. Not sure if I'm going to change it just yet though as, if it is bugged, I'll wait to see first if the new patch is going to fix this. I've seen some say it does absolutely nothing, and others say it boost enemy morale.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...overview/page9

I realize you say you are bored of this, but I'd appreciate it if you could point me to something that says it actually does the reverse of what it claims rather than simply nothing. Thanks.

[General Malaise]

I see what you mean now, and I've seen others claim it's bugged too. I don't use cavalry too much so perhaps that's why I'm not noticing anything. Not sure if I'm going to change it just yet though as, if it is bugged, I'll wait to see first if the new patch is going to fix this. I've seen some say it does absolutely nothing, and others (well you, just now really) say it boost enemy morale.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...overview/page9

I realize you say you are bored of this, but I'd appreciate it if you could point me to something that says it actually does the reverse of what it claims rather than simply nothing. Thanks.

[OTZ]

FYI - campaign as Hattori now. I've played 5 battles now, all costly victories - AI is still fighting to the death even after losing their General. Using your non-Darth version.

EDIT - just noticed an earlier post. I am playing on VH, but would this really be the cause of the AI fighting to the death? I can't imagine the AI bonus being that significant...I'll reduce the battle difficulty to see what impact this has.

EDIT 2 - ok, it seems the non-routing issue may be related to a few different things. I'll wait until this gets resolved. Cheers.

[Swede]

Hi i have been playing Toon all in one with realism and becom curius about this mod.
But when i installed this after taken out toon and realism i get instant crash when trying to start Shogun. I think its because Toons userscript is conflikting whith this mod so if some kind soul could upload the original i would be very grateful Thanks in advance.

[Seikales]

Hey Malaise,

Let me tell you my experience on how I discovered the weird effect of setting the 'Good Stamina' on PFM Editor Column Entry to 'True'. Then you be the judge of it

I have set fatigue high for combat actions for my two mods, the Mutant Mod and the mini-mon SGG. To make certain units more important in pinning enemy down, I wanted to give them Good Stamina and I believed back then PFM editor had the right entry headers. So, I went ahead and set Good Stamina 'True' for Yari Samurai as a test.

I recognized that the unit showed 'Scares Enemies' instead of 'Good Stamina' on the battle card. Then I recognized something weirder. When you approach that unit to an enemy unit, their morale simply skyrocket! And they NEVER rout. Even the LAST man will fight until he dies. I tried setting positive/negative values to Unit Frightened entry in the morale table, to see if that had any effect... No. So, I concluded that the Good Stamina column entry in PFM editor was wrong and if you ever set it to True, it leads to non-routing enemy units when the True set unit gets near. I also recognized another entry in PFM editor, that reads Scares Enemies, but I haven't gone ahead to try what in the world it does so far.

I haven't noticed other people report similar things, but it makes sense they do

I hope this was helpful.

By the way, I am really interested in combining Mutant Mod with yours. I have some nice morale and fatigue settings that, honestly, improve the battlefield experience. I have enjoyed the battles MUCH more after modding it to my taste and I believe a lot will also enjoy it. Somehow however, it doesn't get much attention, only 50 downloads so far, and I believe most of them are fellow modders, cause only a few drop comments I would kindly ask you to try it out, make some comments and see if you are willing to join forces.

Thanks in advance for comments! Take care

Note: High up, when this mod was first introduced as an idea, I have stated that you should not reduce the number of units. It seems you have introduced some more in fact, with alterations. So, I reword my interest: Very interested. Cheers!