Open Beta 2,75 Update 3 (14/8/2011)

[DARTH VADER]

I offer the new updated beta which balances the DLC Sengoku Jidai to fit the mod and also many other things. I will write more about the changelog but for the time being, please, urgently test this open beta so that I upload the whole mod soon.

Special new in 2,75

• The Sengoku Jidai DLC is adapted fully to DarthMod (various changes to stats and other projectile related things make the new units more useful according to their type). Also their secondary prerequisites have been changed so that the AI can built more of them and also unit limits have been set. Specifically, the new units remain exclusive to certain factions and need certain dojo buildings but now the secondary prerequisites are:
  
  • Hand Mortars: Level 4 Castle, Unit Limit 4, MP Unit Limit 3.
  • Mounted Gunners: Level 4 Castle, Unit Limit 6, MP Unit Limit 0.
  • Fire Cavalry: Region Speciality Horses Level 1, Unit Limit 5, MP Unit Limit 4.
  • Heavy Marathon Monks: Level 3 Fortress, Unit Limit 7, MP Unit Limit 4.
  • Missile Bandits: Level 1 Sake Den, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 0.
  • Daikyu Samurai: Level 1 Region Speciality Craftwork, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 6.
  • Heavy Gunner: Level 4 Castle, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 4.
  • Long Yari Ashigaru: Level 3 Fortress, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 0.
  • Yari Bullet Proof Samurai: Level 2 Armoury, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 4.
  • Wako Raiders: Level 0 Coastal Village, Unit Limit 0, MP Unit Limit 0.
  
  In addition, their stats have been changed a lot, for example the Yari Bulletproof Samurai have now armour 10 and not 9 which was the same with Naginata Samurai (They must have the best armour), the Long Yari Ashigaru have big attack and minimal defense to be very good at frontal defense and weak at flanks, Missile Bandits have more ammo than the usual, projectile factors balanced to create more realistic effects for the new gunpowder weapons etc.
• The melee penetration is fine tuned and now the battles look and feel more real. The unit density values have been altered and the result is that the Yari Ashigaru will fight en mass (as they should be) while other units will fight more independently.
• Garrisoned units will not have so much zone of control which can cause in some rare occasions a bug that traps units (cannot move/cannot attack).
• Archers have reduced charge values so that the AI will not prefer them as much to built them in some occasions (Charge values affect CAI recruitment in my mod).
• No Dachi have more attack strength and a new battle entity model special for them to make them swifter and more agile.
• Probability to capture artillery is increased a lot.
• Probability to have wife and children increased.
• Diplomacy bonus and prestige gained from battles is increased and the penalty after losing a battle is much bigger.
• Loyalty begins from 2 instead of 3 (so it is more important to monitor your generals).
• Prestige values changed so that the Realm divide effect will happen sooner but other values should make it milder a lot. The Realm Divide will create a positive diplomacy effect to fine tune the hard coded aggressiveness of other clans after it. The option of DMS launcher to make it milder gives an even bigger positive effect.
• Lethality factors increased slightly so that the new melee penetration and dynamics are more evident (for example the No-Dachi clear their path inside a unit more easily) and also charges are more decisive, cavalry is not over-enduring and the battles are more difficult for the human player.

Installation instructions:
Just copy/paste the darthmod_shogun.pack to your game folder for example:
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\total war shogun 2\data
to replace the previous older file.

I include also other updated DMS packs in case you want to test with these enabled. And if you want to use these optional files copy/paste them to your game folder as well to replace the older files.

Also go here:
"Hack" for PFM with patch7 unit_stats_land
and +1 rep this clever guy davidlallen
who has revealed to us modders how to adapt the PFM tool fully to the latest patch of CA.

[Yankee fan117]

okay not sure if this is the proper place to put this but i think i found a problem with unit cards i tried all the settings involving unit cards with different ones active and the at the best i got like 2 or 3 of each unit types card to work and theyre just a different color without the symbol in the backround thanks for the quick update and hope ur vacation was well darth oh yeah and haven't been able to test the unit penetration which is probably more important but its a little late here

[Revan The Great]

Just gave it a cursory glance.

I don't think the new DLC units have been updated to have the clan retextures. The Oda Long-Yari Ashigaru have the old (and really flamboyant) Oda look, which really ruins their appeal. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to switch the Long-Yari's vanilla skin for the improved Ashigaru's, which you could do with some other DLC units, presumably. But then again, I'm not at all familiar with modding Shogun 2 and I realize that the clan retexture is just an add-on that Darth didn't make.

[DARTH VADER]

These files I gave have nothing to do with unit cards. It is all about gameplay for which I ask feedback.

[Arksa]

my last Darthmod is 2.55, I guess I should download 2.7 and then 2.75? Eagerly waiting to test the penetration.

[DARTH VADER]

If you use the launcher yes. But if you use the packs it will not be necessary.

[Mr Kami]

Keep the posts in here about the current beta not other mods.

[Yankee fan117]

These files I gave have nothing to do with unit cards. It is all about gameplay for which I ask feedback.

k i then have a problem no longer and ill test penetration and such

[Whiskeyjack]

Hey Darth, the new changes look good. I have not had much time to test yet but did play a number of custome battles to see what the new pentration settings are like. So far it seems like an improvement, I did not see any "side swapping" behaviour so hopefully this has been fixed but obviously to soon to say. I did notice something odd however, on one occasion I saw a Yari samurai unit run straight through my Oda long pike spear wall, but what was strange was that they seemed to be running rather than charging(spears up), once a few men got to the other side of my spear wall they stopped as if waiting for the rest of the unit to reform. This lead to them being routed without inflicting a single casualty on my unit. I have not played enough to determine if this is just a one off but thought i would mention it.

I plan to start a new Tokugawa campaign tonight so hopefully will be able to provide more detailed feedback at a later time.

[Revan The Great]

Here's some feedback.

I think cavalry is a little too strong. Playing as Mori with vanilla ultra-size, no vanilla AI boosts or handicaps: I ran a unit of 156 Yari Samurai out to fight an Amako level 1 general with 40 bodyguards, no experience, nothing special. I used Rapid Advance on my Yari Samurai, and inspired them with a general. The general's 40 bodyguards killed 55 Yari Samurai and routed with 12 men left, general unslain. This doesn't seem very appropriate to me for the 'hard counter' to cavalry, so maybe the issue is too much penetration or not enough anti-cav bonuses.

Edit: And at the end of that same battle another enemy general with 'Wavering' Morale (because all of his other units were routing) charged into a Yari Ashigaru unit of 217 men in 'Yari Wall' formation, killed about thirty, and then finally routed at 20-some men in his unit.

That second example is a little more reasonable, I think, but still not great. Mostly because Yari Wall was involved and the enemy general was 'Wavering', but I guess he was their Daimyo so whatever.

[Mr Kami]

We need feedback and lots of it so keep posting!
On these areas in particular,

-How is the AI's army composition?
-Melee penetration looking better then in 2.7?
-Are you seeing archer heavy stacks?

And remember if you have suggestions for the upcoming release now would be the time to put them forward.

[Big Punisher]

I just started a campaign as the Date clan, and the beta seems to be working nicely. I have not gotten to RD yet so I'll update later on that as well as the army composition. Exactly what are you looking for when you say melee penetration? I can be of more help if I know what it is melee penetration is referring to. Like charging, animations, ect.

[ChristianB]

So I'm around 1570 in my Oda campaign, and I downloaded 1.75 today. The campaign was awesome already, with a nice balance between alliances, treasons, collapses, naval invasions and what not. After I installed 1.75 my vassal, Tokugawa, which at the time had only their starting province decided enough was enough and they attacked me. Which was smart, actually.

In the turns before this, my ally Uesugi attacked my other vassal Mogami, and I broke the alliance to defend my vassals. The next turn, my other more powerful ally Hattori attacked another vassal, Yamana, so that alliance was broken as well. I then was forced to move my forces about in order to defend my own and my vassals' lands. I had expanded both north and south and thus my center regions were left alone (I lost Echizen to some Christian clan (EDIT: Otomo! The most powerful clan in the game) at this time as well, naval invasion). Tokugawa, with their two full stacks then attacked me -- they took my capital, then my next capital, and one more region in the very same turn. Perfect timing, awesome. Of course I've got it all under control now, but it really did set me back a lot. I have yet to claim Kyoto...

But enough of the awesome part. I have -1600 something "territorial expansion" with Tokugawa (total -1951), and with several other clans as well. Is it supposed to be that way?

[Mr Kami]

-1600!?!
No its not supposed to be that way.

[DARTH VADER]

This annexed territory negative effect is corrected in the update 2 I just uploaded (thanks for reporting).
The changelog is updated as well.
Tomorrow I will release the whole mod because from Monday I will not have much time to monitor the uploads.

Give urgent feedback and if you can start a new campaign because by applying to an old one may result to weird CAI behaviour sometimes.

[crazyivan]

Unit penertration IMHO is near perfect now not to many units crossing completly over upon contact. The Yari walls etc stand up a lot better over all well balanced.

Haven't taken Kyoto yet so i dont know about any archer stacks from this provance, but have fought agianst several other Clans playing as Shimazo and have noticed very good unit builds in there stacks.

One thing since 2.75 the archer unit card has come back in place of the Ikko loan sword used the launcher settins as follows

Clan retexture on
Demoks recolure mod on
JFC cards of
Unit varity of
Toons lite on
Don't use AUM and the only other mod in Coconuts latest unit cards colours.

Speaking of which can we please have Coconuts Units cards incoperated in your DMS Darth
as they look very awesome.

Other than that keep up the awesome work.

[Yankee fan117]

okay i stated a Tokugawa campaign and heres my general feedback
-melee penetration is good but still needs to be toned down slightly because my yari ashigaru in spear wall got plowed through by another yari ashigaru and it seemed the spear wall didnt make any difference whatsoever

-ai acted kinda weird with archers they had 2 bow ashigaru and i had 1 and they somehow decided to charge with one whill the other stayed back and shot and why dont the ai use loose formation against other archers it reduces casualties affected by arrows?

-miscellaneous= ashigaru boost does not affect AUM units and since historical correctness is a main focus of darthmod shouldn't yari ashigaru have the samurais spear instead of the current one?

thats basically it thanks for updating and constantly looking for ways to improve your mod

[Mr Kami]

No the BAI cant be made to use loose formation.
Doesnt Ashigaru have the short Yari allready?
I have never thought about myself it since i use all in one wich adds the Yari "fix".
But if you want it there are one or two Yari mods out there if you dont want to get the all in one.
Or you could change it yourself using PFM its an easy task just copy pasting the Samurai Yari to the Ashigaru.

[alexjs]

-No Dachi have more attack strength and a new battle entity model special for them to make them swifter and more agile.

Darth,

Thank you! They needed it, IMHO. What exactly do you mean by attack strength, though? I'll have to play more with my Date campaign to see how they do to really give concise input. From the last version I was actually one of the few who was grumbling about them being oddly weak against units like yari ashigaru in certain instances. (IE: I have an army mostly composed of Dachi and the enemy has an army with mostly yari - the battle should be a simple, no-brain win-win for me, but sometimes it would end up being a tough call to my surprise.)

[Yankee fan117]

k then ill download that the only other problem that i had was the AUM ashigaru units not being affected by the ashigaru boost. and is there a hardocode issue with the ai not being able to use loose formation?