DarthMod: Shogun II v2.2 Open Beta 6

[DARTH VADER]

[G-Shock]
I thank you for the detailed feedback but in your last post I did not understand finally what was your final opinion because of the below contradictory phrases.

all right, I restarted the shimazu campaign this time with legendary difficulty.
What changed? A lot.

So basically AI wise nothing much changed with the legendary difficulty level...

Also, I must state again, I have no time to play. Either you believe it or not. So basically I need, from all of you, your urgent reports about the CAI behaviour in open beta 5 because I cannot find time to play 2 hours continuously a campaign to understand myself.
Oda, as I read from the few related posts above, is not affected by the new ashigaru recruitment boost?
I tried again to boost their starting armies with the ESF editor 1.4.6 that Bayonet Fodder proposed, but although the changes applied, exiting the game an error pop-up message appeared, indicating the same silent problem that appears with ESF editor 1.4.8. So I cannot trust the tools to modify ESF as I did for Empire: Total War. I will try later by XML editing with taw tools.

[[G-Shock]]

[G-Shock]
I thank you for the detailed feedback but in your last post I did not understand finally what was your final opinion because of the below contradictory phrases.

I was meaning that Ito and Sagara played much more aggressively than before though this could be related to the new test parameters. This report is (and will keep being) on beta5 and LEGENDARY while the other one was on beta5 HARD and this could have affected the AI making it take very different decisions this time.

While both clans failed they both played very differently from the previous test.

Ito failed because they assaulted the newly conquered Osumi too late and I outnumbered their troops almost 2 to 1 in a defensive siege (hint: make armies move faster and reducing replenishment rates would be very good in making Ito catch me almost defenseless on its counterstrike) but still the AI chose to storm the castle when clearly outnumbered rather than calling off the siege and going back to a defensive position).

Sagara played nicely by capturing Bungo (presumably clan Otomo is too static) but then declared war on me without attacking (Satsuma, totally undefended). I was again given time to replenish and then I took Sagara with 2 armies against 1 (miracle victories because I have high XP units). What left me puzzled is that Sagara deployed 1 yari sam and 3 generals with an army composed of mostly bow ashigaru and a few yari ashigaru.

While all of this happened, clan Ouchi sat comfortably and in 3 turns after defeating Sagara, I took Hizen, Tsukushima and Buzen (one in each consecutive turn). Inadeguate strategy, inadeguate army compositions and inadeguate garrisons in this case.

Oda, as I read from the few related posts above, is not affected by the new ashigaru recruitment boost?
I tried again to boost their starting armies with the ESF editor 1.4.6 that Bayonet Fodder proposed, but although the changes applied, exiting the game an error pop-up message appeared, indicating the same silent problem that appears with ESF editor 1.4.8. So I cannot trust the tools to modify ESF as I did for Empire: Total War. I will try later by XML editing with taw tools.

I can't really see what happens to Oda and why it happens so soon. In my case, I am on the what if. Fixing the AI logics will give realistic results and that includes the possibility that Oda might lose a key battle and be utterly terminated early. The fact Oda did prevail depended on other clans losing and your efforts in wanting to keep it alive at all costs are a waste of precious human resources (and time) in view of more important priorities, imHo.

It might be that Oda dies because it plays aggressive and loses in a siege in the silly way Ito does?
I have recommended a few things:

1) Increase movement speeds. Let the AI attack from farther and swiftly when perceiving advantage.
2) Increase disbandment of depleted units when reaching 50% casualties.
3) Reduce (consistently) the size of garrison units.
4) PRIORITIZE a safer strategy both in offensive and in defensive sieges.
5) PRIORITIZE balanced armies (might be that the AI finds itself always being late and has to recruit ashi because sam units take longer. Sam needs half the training time of an ashigaru. He was BORN with the sword in his hand, Darth).

I will keep playing this new legendary level with shimazu unless you want me to focus on something else (or release a new beta). Just let me know.

[DARTH VADER]

Thanks [G-Shock] for the clarification. I kindly require from you and others to watch among others this special important thing, while you play your campaign with Beta5: Does the CAI attack castles with big numbers or with lower numbers than the garrison+army in castle. There is no need to be twice the size as that cannot be done easily. Important is to be about 25% bigger and up.

[[G-Shock]]

Thanks [G-Shock] for the clarification. I kindly require from you and others to watch among others this special important thing, while you play your campaign with Beta5: Does the CAI attack castles with big numbers or with lower numbers than the garrison+army in castle.

Ito doomed itself at round 4 by attacking my Osumi castle right away with 1100 men vs my 1800 which included the garrison. Since all other clans played static, I conquered Kyushu without suffering a second attempt.

Ahm... Is steam acting up? STW DMS crashed 5 times in a row just now...

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

Does the CAI attack castles with big numbers

started a fresh Hattori and the AI is not taking any chances im either getting hit by full stacks or multi when it decides to siege. Its also being very oppurtunistic in this regard by punishing poor vigilance in your underdevloped regions, bar the first few turns when everyone is building up that is... im relishing the prospect of late campaign as i am on around 38 turns and its already esscalating.

- Ai is also being very pro-active in alliances, lending military aid and funds/manpower permitting, actually starts a few offenses.
-majors are holding well as well as minors alot of clan destruction and rebirth taking place (again though my feeling of the random element in campaign generation leaves this point subjective imo)

• Archers should be slightly more powerful as requested (Needs testing in update 5).

spot on and as i said in the archer debate poll, it really doesnt need any more.

• Troops react better at first contact creating more lively melees (Needs testing in update 5).

this for me has always been awesome from v2.0 so i cant really tell as awesomex awesome still =, well awesome

• -1 defence for cavalry to balance it against infantry (Needs testing to see if cavalry feels not so powerful, Takeda always will be).

My biggest gripe the past few releases was this but they seem allllllot better, still good penetration with higher tiered units good melee etc so yeah not 'OP'd demon knights of the abyss any more'

[DARTH VADER]

Ahm... Is steam acting up? STW DMS crashed 5 times in a row just now...

If that happens... then you have to validate the game installation. Until then your feedback will be less creditable.

Bayonet I suspect you play on Hard eh?
As I am. For Hard I know that all is well, except the newest CAI for which I need more feedback to be sure about.
So lets see others what report for higher difficulties.

[olliehax]

Using open beta 5 with 2x unit size. im on Very hard

In the recruitment menu, All the cards are stretched ashigaru archer symbols, after battle reports they are all cavalry and during a battle they are blank, except for general, whats the reason? mod incompatibility? Anyway down to business because i can deal with the aesthetics being a bit weird.

This regards Archers, the Archers are much better, i think you have it right now Darth, played the first opening battle and immediately saw the difference... they killed men well!!!, in the battle i noticed the units form columns and attack the unit , this is doesnt seem to have any benefit to the attack as they hit the wall of enemy ashigaru and then clump. EDIT: 2 hours later : i have noticed that when fighting the units merge so that every man has an opponent so to speak, i think this is a true reflection on how armies in asian culture fought , as oppose to the western culture. of course that could be wrong its just my opinion, but i like it, and Darth the melee mechanics are much better, i think you have battles down to a fine art now.

I read through the cavalry overpowered thread and tried to see if what they were saying is still true of open beta 5... its not, here is what i found... The cavalry look fine although i think i need to play a few more battles, their light cavalry got decimated by my Yari samurai, and so they should although they held for a bit causing some causalities with i thought was what should happen. 10 mins later... i just played another battle i watched my general attack yari ashigaru after being specifically told to not do that, but attack the bow ashigaru in the opposite direction, oh well perfect way to test cavalry, they were steadily losing men and the yari ashigaru were losing men too, its a bit weird watching an ashigaru duel a man on horseback, i just think the spearman should impale the horse and be done with it, my general lost in the end from a volly of fire arrows killing 6 of my men.

Overall for battles it seems very well balanced , tactics rules over sheer force.

I tested auto battle system as i i see some complaints around the forum, i auto battled a normal battle on the campaign with the odds well in my favour i had 75:25 approx, odds in my favour, i lost badly... seems like it should have been 50 :50, ill have to do more autos i think.

Need to play further before i make any more comments, as im on my 45th turn as the Hojo and i havnt been besieged yet, which is kinda weird, maybe the Ai is waiting to build a big enough army? which would make them sensible.
thanks Darth! * bows * if there is anything else you want me to look at then tell me im gaming all night =]

[[G-Shock]]

Oli, the unit cards problems is related to clan retexture. Disable it and you'll be fine.

Darth, I have no idea of how to validate the install of S2TW, honestly. I entered the game key again and steam said this key is already valid. No clue ... this morning all working, at lunch the game crashed 5 times in a row before the videos at start... what does it mean to validate the game installation?

[olliehax]

try re installing works usually everytime, if not use your game key to download a fresh copy from steam.

[[G-Shock]]

Well reinstalling wouldn't make sense... besides it takes almost 4 hours to redownload the game. I hate Steam, i always did but thank God Darth uses S2TW Steam based too. AHAHHAHA
Anyway thanks, after putting the key again in the game, it worked.

[olliehax]

WOO!!! good now play open beta 5. See if you feel that the AI are a bit more cautious about seigeing

[SplaTt]

Ok, so I have tested 2.2.

AI is really nice, challenging even on Normal difficulty level.

About archery - it's better than 2.15, but for me it's still too weak.
Yes I know, it's more realistic this way with spreading arrows etc, but if during entire fight bow samurai unit kills only 500 yari ashigaru for player who's strategy highly rely on archers (just like to play this way) it's too low.
Now they are as they should be in super realistic game, they only weaken enemy units before they engage my meele units. But as I said, some ppl (including me) play for fun, not for super realistic strategy (enought to say I play on Normal diff. when you're playing legendary).
And yes, I know when I upgrade archers they are better, and in certain regions they're better too. Still I do think their power were about O.K. in basic game, where you also could upgrade them so they become even more lethal.

But I do also understand, not all people may like strong archers (those people who mostly rely on infantry, cavalry or those who play super-mix of units with great tactics of theirs).

So I do not ask you to make archers stronger, I just ask to make archery changes optional as other parts of the mod. Or perhaps a submod with vanilla archery?

[olliehax]

I think Darth is going for Archer realism, and a bow samurai unit killing 500 ashigaru is pretty damm good.

[SplaTt]

Than you mr obvious, I've noticed ^^ My point is, what about ppl who don't like archer realism, but totally love rest of the mod? I bet there is way to let them play without it, as this is what modding is for - making game experience mostly personal comfortable.

[DARTH VADER]

Please leave a little the archer problem (if I have time I will make a damn option... 20% more damage will please the sniper lovers) and please focus in this update 6.
Do you see that the CAI is now better comparing to update5?
I leave both betas for testing purposes but it is not necessary to use the old.
Just notice if the CAI attacks castles with sufficiently large forces.

The patch did something and I think it deteriorated this factor I had perfected it before.

[olliehax]

i was only ever sieged once , the uesugi attacked me with 1.5 stacks , i won. Also i have noticed the Ai raids your province and builds up forces and then attacks, it seems now that they will only siege when the odds are in there favor.

[DARTH VADER]

Can you check if in 6 this is better or worse please olihax?

[pyccos]

(if I have time I will make a damn option... 20% more damage will please the sniper lovers)


Thank u darth ur Awesome will let u know about CAI.

[olliehax]

Yeah i will check this was in 5 on VH, ill get 6 working tomorrow morning, it annoyed me though, it seems the AI don't take risks anymore, they didn't expand as much just sat and got lots of units and then attacked.

[gunnyfreak]

I seem to encounter a LOT more archer spams now...

archer spam to me is basically %50 archers

can provide screens if needed

does anyone else notice that?

gunny