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Thread: Castles and Siege; Revisited

  1. #21

    Default Re: Castles and Siege; Revisited

    Quote Originally Posted by SBogdanov View Post
    the last post 4 images of babrabian town*

    http://imtw.ru/topic/17475-патч-25-o...2#entry1062202 *
    It does look good.
    RNJ Mod Fan (Shogun 2-Rome BI)

    Get it here!http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=519633

  2. #22

    Default Re: Castles and Siege; Revisited

    Some good japaness models? *but without texture * http://www.3dchaya.com/download_mdl/download_m00_05.htm

  3. #23

    Default Re: Castles and Siege; Revisited

    Because of the flooded paddies for growing rice (their main-most crop), and the huge populations compared to say European cities, of course the castles were not walled around the cities. It would have been impossible to wall all of that off.

    Note these layouts, particularly the second one as it shows the tiered terraced walls (multiple elevations), but naturally the thousands and thousands of citizens living in their own dwellings beyond the walls. See the recent discussion on the Japanese census of millions and you'll see why it had to be that way for living arrangements.


    To replicate the pathfinding would be nightmarish. Leo who did the Third Age castles might be able to pull it off, but it's far more complicated.

    The castle layout was intentionally designed to be confusing. Many servants and courtiers had no idea how to get from one tier to another to prevent an invader from getting to that level. Of course they would eventually penetrate levels and fire has a way making people flee regardless.

    Way back in 2003, Takeda 3 made the 3D models and incorporated it into their game. So it can be done. Maybe somehow their models could be looked at in 3dmax and Milkshape and then created and converted into CAS files?



    Castle Muromachi looks doable.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; July 03, 2016 at 05:44 PM.

  4. #24

    Default Re: Castles and Siege; Revisited

    7/4 Other Observations on the Battle Editor

    1. The way it is currently configured by the 3D CAS modeller for RNJ, there are three levels of forts that can be placed. All of the clans are set to roman, and if you place a roman fort in the battle editor, it allows you to place levels of wall strength such to have the typical wooden fort that we ordinarily see in RNJ when placing a fort, but there are stone forts there which might be routinely placed, but custom tile forts that might be placed of various wall strength. These are customizable and would add diversity.

    2. Looking at the "roman" culture settlements, there are all of the ones we see typically in RNJ, but there's a stout robust stone wall huge city which has not yet appeared in RNJ. Which means that could show up with various defenses as set in the descr_wall and using various projectiles.

    3. In the Battle Editor, when placing a "major settlement", you can also specify a major settlement is actually an "ambient settlement". Now it's been know for about four years that one can place more than one settlement within a custom tile, but it's buggy and laggy, but as yet they've tried all as regular major settlements which the Battle Editor warns you about.

    I'll come back to this.

    4. In the Battle Editor, one can sculpt the terrain such to raise and lower the terrain with brushes. That is well known. However, once a major settlement, say a large town, or village, or even a huge city, is placed, then you can select a brush to ordinarily sculpt the terrain, and it will raise the entire battlemap model which comprises the settlement. Which means you can dramatically raise the terrain such to make the settlement to be very defensible, especially by your archers and arquibusiers who are shooting down on hapless attackers.

    You can likewise restrict the entrance to the settlement based upon the deployment region around the settlement limitations imposed by the various sizes. Which means you can have such cliffs around the settlement that only one path is possible to the settlement as was done in history through pinchpoints.

    Because the landscape can be sculpted, the brush then can also lower the terrain, and if water is around, say in bays next to certain map coordinate points, then you can bring in the shoreline so the water comes up to the deployment area of the settlement, and restrict access as a water barrier. There still is a set land deployment area around each settlement as currently configured, but it's still cool. It creates something quasi-moatlike. See last note.**

    5. Now since the "major settlements" can be designated as "ambient settlements" then I think you could technically have raised and lowered forts as "ambient settlements" on the way to getting to the real "major settlement" in which fighting would take place. The designated "ambient forts" would be no different than the current cropland seen in some battles, but would be a way to sort of depict the tiered castles of Japan.

    6. Using the landscape brush sculpting tool, one cannot raise and lower parts of the battlemap models as they are fixed on a flat plane. BUT, if a CAS modeler designated the inner sections were at different elevation, then of course that would mean you'd have tiers.

    7. Or, if some versions of the forts were designed to be nothing more than walls of various dimensions, that need rams/ladders/saps for entrance, then an outer fort could be placed at one elevation, then a middle fort of a higher elevation, then a final regular stone fort that's configured but not seen would act as the actual place where battles are ultimately resolved. The first two would be "ambient forts" in effect like field battles currently fought when a defender sallies on to the invaders as they make their way through ambient crop land on the outskirts.

    Since each new fort" was of a different elevation, they could be placed and raised and lowered. You'd just need a modeler to make elevations in 3dMax and then converted to CAS.

    8. In MTW2, you can specify the type of the fort using certain syntax. Since there's in effect three levels of forts in RNJ, it might be possible to have three levels of preplaced forts designated in the descr_strat at certain map coodinate locations, and so you'd fight those map battles as any other fort battle, but of various intensity and difficulty. It might be a good way have and help the AI in logistically moving units around the countryside from point a to b and also could be used as centralized hub garrisons from which to deploy to protect other settlements. That's very important in huge provinces that the Date and Useugi have to deal with in the West.

    9. It can be configured such that the fort is the main settlement, and place a village nearby as an ambient settlement. I made one and raised the fort to overlook the village. In effect the battle will take place in the fort, but the attackers would approach through the village. The village was surrounded by cropland and homes on the outskirts.

    You could have that as a standard custom tile, and then the defenders could sally to meet the attackers before they "take" the village, but retreat to the fort, and finish the battle there. Which would be kind of fun and unique and not anything anyone has tried, and is rather historical for combat. Of course the AI might ignore the "village" because it's only an ambient settlement and not the true target.

    10. A long time ago, it was noted that the battle editor allows not only the designation of custom armies and names of general, and unit composition, but also time of day the battle resolves. But it also allows you to set the population of that custom tile, tax level, and so forth. Now I've long been curious what that might do in a campaign. I believe you can only have two custom tiles per region, and possible there's a limitation on the total number of custom tiles per map in total, but I wonder if these set tax values might then indirectly boost the actual income of those regions. Interesting no?

    **11. There's been a lot of difficulty with rivers on the map, or even mountains, and then using custom settlements. Currently RNJ is not using a campaign script to spawn (say a garrison script). If you spawn an army on to a river or a mountain, they die. If a custom settlement adjusts a river through lowering the terrain to bring in the water, a scripted spawned army might die if it ended up spawning in that water. Not a current issue, but could be in future incarnations of RNJ.

    I'm curious what would happen with minor tiny lakes placed on the map, then sculpting the terrain at certain custom tiles might do. It might facilitate the creation of a moat-like barrier before a custom fort or settlement. In RTW ambient settlement list, there are two water ambients, but they currently do not show up in the Battle Editor for RNJ. They might have to be copied from RTW and into the right folder.

    In MTW2, there are many such ambient water structures that can be placed to restrict the entrance and egress of custom settlements. There's even a stone fort that has a partial moat. Obviously you can't mix and match these because the format is different in MTW2 versus the simplified CAS models in RTW.

    It seems highly likely a CAS modeler could easily change the deployment border around a CAS model of a fort, and designate a moat section. Then if you tiered these per item #7, then you'd have levels of moats within an essentially ringed castle.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; July 04, 2016 at 11:19 AM.

  5. #25

    Default Re: Castles and Siege; Revisited

    Here's proof of concept in a very simplified way demonstrating the power of using various forts to have something sort of like tiers of Japanese castles. This was done in five minutes, so no teasing about aesthetics.

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    The last two images roughly demonstrate various levels of numerous forts, all using various watchtowers, gates, and arrow and ballista towers, and of course varying wall strength.

    There's a lot of untapped beautiful architecture that your 3d modeler made but hasn't been utilized...yet...in RNJ.

    Mixing and matching forts, one might be able to build something very unique in a custom tile. And I haven't even begun to contemplate what might be done with existing city settlements and fort combinations. The issue with the latter is the deployment area for the battle is quite limited as the size increases. Whereas with the fort, there's a lot of space that's not defined and limited, and so these might be combined.

    The various buildings are placed within the battle maps as well. So it might be possible to have levels of forts with various shrines and dojo and teahouses, and these make up those tiers for color and novelty. However for pathfinding, and helping the AI, if there's no ambient buildings within forts, then anyone could go anywhere. Tiered forts could then shoot lower forts, creating some wonderful defensive opportunities. "You're screwed, buddy. Go back to Satsuma and lick your wounds!"

    By altering the orientation(sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun), and the pathway elevations between forts, one might be able to configure a pretty decent tiered Castle of Nippon. The Battle Editor allows the placement of roads. Most of these might simply be ambient forts one has to navigate to get to the final actual battle site, but all could be defended and retreated from to go to an even higher elevation where the actual "major settlement" is located.

    Certainly doing say three of these as a test is now warranted as it would make for an interesting custom battle alone, but even more so doing these as actual map locations within the campaign would be intriguing.

    Note: the descr_small_factions has set all of the clans to "roman", possibly because at one time the Senate Missions might have been configured to create some sense of the Emperor's wishes having an effect on the situation. So you have all of the daimyo vying for control, just as in RTW you have the Julii, Bruti, and Scipio vying for control. Leaving it as all "roman", you could create an Emperor faction that controls Kyoto and thus the Imperial Palace, and then taking it makes you a Kanpaku by default through a trait, but with a high enough command and attributes, declared the Shogun, and far before taking lots of territory. But then battling for control of Kyoto as a prize, just as Rome is a prize in RTW.

    But, since you can designate just what fort each culture places, plus the cost, in the descr_culture file, if you mix and match the cultures for various daimyo clans, then different cultures could place different "forts" and various costs in places around the map.

    Example: the Shimazu are roman, and they place regular wooden forts as currently designated.

    The Mori can place villages but these are cheaper.

    The Amato can place strong expensive stronger wooden forts with arrow towers and watchtowers, giving them a greater overview of the land as a result.

    The Ouchi can place very strong stone forts that are extremely expensive, have iron gates, and ballista towers.

    The Oda can place small towns as forts.

    The Uesugi can place large towns as forts.

    And so on.
    Last edited by RubiconDecision; July 04, 2016 at 12:07 PM.

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