Real "Realism" Mod

[L-J-F]

Is there any hard evidence/accounts etc on the effectiveness of various units? Don't bow samurai get annihilated by katana samurai in S2? That is a little bit ridiculous seeing as both have the roughly the same armor and both are using katanas.

Some of the easiest data to find is forces fielded vs lost. The problem is it's hard to work out what a realistic morale would be: did the army turn and flee or was it withdrawn due to high (? to 20%) casualties. For instance (wiki quotes here):
"The fourth battle [Kawanakajima] resulted in greater casualties for both sides, as a percentage of total forces, than any other battle in the Sengoku period"
"In the end, the Uesugi army suffered around 3000 losses [of 13,000 = 23% casualties], while the Takeda had about 4000 casualties [of 20,000 = 20%]."
Current battles have unrealistically high morale, causing them to fight on past extreme casualties, however you must also consider that players push their forces beyond unreasonable losses where real commanders would have withdrawn:
"Battles usually ended when one side or the other had had enough and withdrew, often without decisive strategic effect. Even at Kawanakajima, the two sides ended up returning to their respective domains having accomplished little beyond losing a large number of men. Relatively few battles were 'to the death' and many were in fact a series of skirmishes."

Also, from my understanding, the way gunpowder evolved in Europe was not that firearms were more effective than melee infantry/cavalry (they would certainly become so however) but just that it was more effective to field far larger armies of cheap firearm soldiers, who could be trained in a much shorter period of time. More wiki quotes lol:
"Effective range also was only 80 to 100 meters, and at that distance a bullet could easily bounce off armour."
"According to one estimate in 16th century Japan, an archer could fire 15 arrows in the time a gunner would take to load, charge, and shoot a firearm."

Interesting, dug this up while looking around:
"This work cites the following japanese publication (Suzuki Masaya. banana no kubitori: Sengoku kassen isetsu {Swords and head taking: Another view of Sengoku period battles). Heibonsha, 2000.
"According to Suzuki Masaya, in battles from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries out of 554 examples, the percentage of casualties caused by arrows was 86%, sword cuts 8.3%, rocks 2.7%, spears and stab woounds 1.1%. From the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries 1461 examples are analyzed with arrow wounds at 41.3%, guns 19.6%, spears and stab wounds 17.9%, rocks 10.3%, and 3% for swords.""

Not sure how reliable all that is, but it's certainly interesting. This made quite good reading: http://www.samurai-archives.com/military.html

I look forward to seeing where this goes, good luck with the mod

[Dee Jay]

Thanks for this info, it will help a lot

As it has been said before, the sword was only a side arm, so that is probably why there isnt much casualties for it.

I will definitely aim for a much lower casualty rate (Just like in all my other mods), but it will go past the 20% mark, because it definitely could, but like you said commanders would usually pull back once they knew they were going to loose.

And I will probably make gun units cheaper than bow units (because it seems like they were), take less time to recruit, and maybe have larger units of them (someone has said that the common strategy with these units will not work if they have larger units).

Does anyone have info on how long it took to reload one of these guns?

Also, has anyone read about Gun Samurai, like there is in the game? I have only heard of the peasant gunners.

[Dee Jay]

And another question:

Did Japanese units have a strict formation, like Europeans?

EDIT: And did cavalry use yari as a primary weapon too?

[Trippah]

The Japanese soon worked on various techniques to improve the effectiveness of their guns. They developed serial firing technique to create a continuous rain of bullets on the enemy. They also developed bigger calibers to increase lethal power. Protective boxes in lacquerware were invented to be able to fire matchlocks in the rain, as well as systems to accurately fire weapons at night by keeping a fixed angles thanks to measured strings.
As a result, in the year 1567 Takeda Shingen announced that "Hereafter, the guns will be the most important arms. Therefore decrease the number of spears per unit, and have your most capable men carry guns". At the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, 3,000 gunners helped win the battle, firing by volleys of 1,000 at a time, and concealed across a river and breastwork to effectively stop enemy infantry and cavalry charges while being protected.
Japan became so enthusiastic about the new weapons that it possibly overtook every European country in absolute numbers produced. Japan also used the guns in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, in which about a quarter of the invasion force of 160,000 were gunners. They were extremely successful at first and managed to capture Seoul just 18 days after their landing at Pusan.

[Shos]

Haven't posted on the TWC forever, but this is a worthy effort and I thought I would weigh in. I was briefly involved in the Ran no Jidai mod for RTW as a researcher, but I quit modding altogether for real life reasons. I still keep in touch with TomteOfDoom, though.

To answer some of the questions raised in this thread, it's important to note the socioeconomic conditions at the time. Sure, samurai was about claiming descent from the Minamonoto, Taira, or Nitta (or even ancient Chinese or Korean heritage!), but what really made you samurai, especially starting from the 16th century, was property. On the one hand you have clans like the Imagawa who could proudly claim Nitta heritage through their Ashikaga heritage, backed by developing and indeed functioning feudal relationships with their vassals, but on the other hand you also have "local" clans like the Matsudaira, later Tokugawa, with dubious heritage.
In fact, I'd say the Matsudaira clan is probably one of the most notorious examples because they literally switched their heritage between the Minamoto to the Taira a few times. But such claim would have meant nothing if the clan had absolutely no power, and this is the sort of example that makes you think that being a samurai had as much to do with claim as economic asset: what are you if you don't have the money to maintain your armors and followers?

That brings us to the next issue: cavalry. I belong to the skeptics' camp when it comes to cavalry (but not a denier) because maintaining a horse IS about economics - it costs money to keep your own mount(s), and a healthy one at that.
Not only that, we are dealing with a feudal army (or one that is trying to become one, for the great majority of successful clans) here, so unless you are dealing with a conscripted, badly trained peasants (and that's a relatively late phenomenon), the bulk of armies during the Sengoku era would have been composed of

1) a land-owning samurai rich enough to afford a mount who would have brought from his fief
a) several individuals with surname, rich enough to afford good armors, but not a mount
b) more individuals with no surname, not as rich

....and the guys a) and b) would have fought under the command of the guy 1), who would in turn be commanded by his superior. Of course this changes as infantry gets better coordinated as units in the more successful clans, but the socioeconomic pattern remained essentially the same.

What that means is that a unit composed entirely of mounted men equals to, in modern terms, a unit composed entirely of officers, who are neither expandable nor many. As such, there surely would have been mounted men on the field of Nagashino.... But them charging all at once?
That is not to say that I agree with the view that the use of mounted men was entirely absent in the era. I think a reasonable conjecture is that, if mounted men had to be used, they would have been used for specific purposes such as scouting or a quick hit-and-run maneuver (even then, probably accompanied by people on foot). Either way, if we are looking for a historically realistic setup, I think cavalry units will have to be the most expensive units in the game and very few in men.

Regarding the yari, it was indeed the preferred weapon of the day. Easy to use, many ways to kill (you can smack someone's head with it, too), and a long reach. I think it goes without saying that mounted men wielded yari because, with katana, you really have to get close to the enemy and dig your way in to even hit the enemy!

[Loger]

Everything I've read about your project makes me really excited, I got a few requests.

Since siege weapon "homing missiles" are being reduced, could you change them so they do actual damage? A huge flaming barrel hitting a formation should devestate it.

Would there be a way to gradually improve the quality of the ashigaru troops? Maybe starting with short spears, then going to full long yari length (afaik this is the accurate length of the yari used by the Ashigaru). TROM 3 did a really good job representing the evolution of the ashigaru from peasant levies to high quality soldiers (might not be entirely accurate, but some evolution would be neat).

Will movement speed be looked at? Vanilla troops are way to quick.

Finally, I realize this wouldn't be released in the main mod, but is there a way to remove the ability of infantry to climb walls in sieges? The multiple tiered system of the japanese castles seems to be wasted if the enemy can just climb to the highest tier anyways. Maybe as a sub mod? Please? Pretty please?

[Dee Jay]

1) Yes, I will make siege explosive siege weapons more effective if they get a direct hit, but I will also make siege weapons less accurate.

2) I probably will do that with the Ashigaru, but that's only if it's historically correct

3) Movement speed will definitely be overhaul, it's terrible atm

4) I'm not even sure if that's possible (I haven't looked at the DB files very much) but there isn't really any other way to break into a fort.

@ Shos - those 3 different units you mentioned (1, a, and b), what are the "a" units? I'm guessing the "b" units are ashigaru. And did all Samurai own a mount for battle?

[Shos]

@ Shos - those 3 different units you mentioned (1, a, and b), what are the "a" units? I'm guessing the "b" units are ashigaru. And did all Samurai own a mount for battle?

OK, let me try it again then. You have to think "feudal," not in a clear-cut 18th century regimental system-based European army structure or any other European army structure that followed it.

The reason why I expressed them in a) and b), as opposed to 2 and 3, is because 1 would have led these two categories of people (note that 1 is an individual; 2 and 3 are multiple individuals). a) and b) would have fought directly for 1, not as completely separate groups as another.
(and to answer your question, conventionally 1 and a) would have been considered samurai and b) ashigaru).

Now, that's how each land-owning samurai individual was expected to show up when he was called into battle. In the later years of the Sengoku era, ashigaru were more systematically organized in some of the more successful clan, creating a command structure where ashigaru were organized into different units, each led by a leader. Obviously, the higher one was in this command structure, the higher your socioeconomic structure. Mounted samurai would have been located pretty high in this hierarchy.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we are dealing with a period in which, like I wrote in the prior post, being a samurai was something to be "claimed". The reason why I discussed two different examples of samurai clan was to underline the importance of economic status in acting like one: if you were rich enough and had enough connection to the land (easiest way would have been generations of land ownership), you could give yourself a surname.
If it went unnoticed, I'd like to emphasize here that having a surname and acknowledgement of it was, so to speak, a prerequisite for acting like a samurai. If you noticed, the individual called 1) and the people from a) all have surnames - hence they were considered samurai; the b) people, on the other hand, did not, which is basically a statement that they weren't recognized as the "people in the club".

[Shos]

I guess Dee Jay is looking fore more direct answers, so I'll write a few.

1) Samurai units ARE fantasy units
As noted in my first post here, a unit composed entirely of samurai are tantamount to having a corps composed entirely of officers (not even NCOs). 18th century European armies might make comprehending this easier because in Europe, too, the upper cadet of the military was composed of nobles. There aren't too many of them to begin with, and these men were expected to lead, not fight alongside fellow elites and the people below their socioeconomic rank.

But a single-type unit is what we got, and we can't mod that so we gotta stick with what we have. I guess what could be done is to raise the cost and the upkeep cost of samurai units like the OP suggested, and possibly decrease the number of men to depict all of the above.

2) Cavalry units are probably fantasy units, but we can't rule them out
It took something (i.e. material possession) to act like a samurai. It took even more economic asset to maintain your mount. That means if there were mounted individuals in an army, they would have been pretty rich even among the samurai. Imagine you are amassing a unit out of these well-to-do samurai - they would have been even fewer in number.
Also, because they were land-owning samurai who were expected to bring their own men from their fief, they would have been accompanied by around a dozen men on foot so that, if 10 mounted samurai charged against the enemy, there would have been close to a hundred men on foot near them.

There still is a debate going on in the Japanese academia on the extent to which cavalry was used like we imagine it to be during the Sengoku era, and it's hard to give a definitive answer. But I think it's reasonable to make cavalry units even fewer in men & more expensive than samurai units on foot.

[Dee Jay]

Ok, for the foot units, we would have a Levy unit (is this the right name?) composed of the b) troops, and a samurai unit composed of a) troops. Is this ok?

And at what date did Ashigaru start showing up in armies?

About the cavalry, it sounds like only the wealthy land owners could afford these. But I still want a scout type of cavalry unit, low in numbers, with only low quality, steppe quality horses, and they will still be pretty expensive.

Seems as Cavalry are more of a "luxury unit" of these Japanese armies, I think I should merge the cavalry building tree into the barracks and archery range building chains, and you can only train the horse units at high levels. Would you agree?

[Akaie]

For the ashigaru, it really depends what you see the timeframe of the game as.

Early in the sengoku period, you'd find a lack of distinction between ashigaru farmers and ashigaru soldiers. Nobunaga had the capacity to split up farming with soldier life, seemingly around the 60's/70's. Hideyoshi made such a split law in his separation edict, ultimately meaning soldiers were soldiers and farmers were farmers. The specific point in time eludes me, but fairly early during the Tokugawa bakufu ashigaru were no longer defined as such. I'm hesitant about calling them samurai, but they seem to have been generally perceived as low-tier samurai.

As for a far more realistic representation of ashigaru, we should be seing a generalized yari/yumi ashigaru and a distinct matchlock ashigaru unit. No point paraphrasing what Shos is saying in regards to samurai. The timeframe would define just how far you would go to firstly weed out the yari and secondly weed out the ashigaru's collectively weak nature.

Ultimately, the unit rosters would be pretty bland due to the fact your project would demand many of the units to be seriously nerfed or even destroyed. Personally, that sounds awesome.

[Shos]

Ok, for the foot units, we would have a Levy unit (is this the right name?) composed of the b) troops, and a samurai unit composed of a) troops. Is this ok?

Yup, an artificial categorization, but that's what we have to live with.

And at what date did Ashigaru start showing up in armies?

By the 1470's if you are talking about the earliest example. The kind of Ashigaru that were seen on the battlefield in 1545 (the starting year in S2TW) were farmers who served as part-time soldiers, and I think it's fairly safe to justify giving all clans access to Ashigaru.

About the cavalry, it sounds like only the wealthy land owners could afford these. But I still want a scout type of cavalry unit, low in numbers, with only low quality, steppe quality horses, and they will still be pretty expensive.

Not bad. The biggest problem I have with cavalry units in Total War series is that they are deadly when killing routing units, which I think contributes to the staggering death count. Not much can be done about it, I guess... otherwise you'll have to really slow down the cavalry movement speed.

Seems as Cavalry are more of a "luxury unit" of these Japanese armies, I think I should merge the cavalry building tree into the barracks and archery range building chains, and you can only train the horse units at high levels. Would you agree?

If you weren't mass conscripting petty soldiers, things worked in reverse: you call a man rich enough afford own mount, and he would come with men with spears and bows.

That's not really translatable in game terms I suppose, think of it as just another nitpick. I don't know what to say to your proposal yet.... I need time to think.

Ultimately, the unit rosters would be pretty bland due to the fact your project would demand many of the units to be seriously nerfed or even destroyed. Personally, that sounds awesome.

Looking forward to your Sekigahara mod, btw! As a modder myself (last TW game I modded was RTW, though), I understand your pains and excitement.

[Dee Jay]

and secondly weed out the ashigaru's collectively weak nature.

What do you mean by this?

And about the starting date, I'm not exactly sure what I want, I'm fine with the time that vanilla has 1545, because there are many small clans every were, which is what I love about Shogun2 What start date would anyone suggest for the mod?

EDIT: And thanks for all those answers Shos I am getting pretty excited about making this mod now

[Shos]

What do you mean by this?

That, as a competitive daimyo, you should seek ways to improve the weak nature of Ashigaru and turn them in to reliable force, not a bunch of ad hoc conscripted farmers who came to fight because their landowner told them to/wanted to make extra money after plowing their field for the year, etc.
In game terms I'd say that would be something like researching and getting better Ashigaru units.

And about the starting date, I'm not exactly sure what I want, I'm fine with the time that vanilla has 1545, because there are many small clans every were, which is what I love about Shogun2 What start date would anyone suggest for the mod?

You could try a later date, like the early 1560's. By this time you have a lot more daimyo whose rule actually extended province-wide, and the majority of the prominent "old" Shugo daimyo that would not make it to the Edo era (e.g. main branch of the Hosokawa, Ouchi, Shoni, three Uesugi branches, etc.) are all gone, not to mention the fact that most of the clans that are considered "major" in the game justifiably have province-wide power base.
That requires additional modding, of course, and not having modded this part of the game, I don't know how time-consuming that would be.

[Erwin Rommel]

What start date would anyone suggest for the mod?

Same vein as the Seki mod......albeit this one, another interesting era might be.....the time AFTER the death of Nobunaga, and you have Toyotomi hot on Akechi to take his throat down, and other Oda retainers siding between the two and maybe just opting to go alone and then we cant forget the other clans.

[Dee Jay]

Same vein as the Seki mod......albeit this one, another interesting era might be.....the time AFTER the death of Nobunaga, and you have Toyotomi hot on Akechi to take his throat down, and other Oda retainers siding between the two and maybe just opting to go alone and then we cant forget the other clans.

I'm more interested in a time without major alliances, and more close to an all-on-all type of thing

You could try a later date, like the early 1560's. By this time you have a lot more daimyo whose rule actually extended province-wide, and the majority of the prominent "old" Shugo daimyo that would not make it to the Edo era (e.g. main branch of the Hosokawa, Ouchi, Shoni, three Uesugi branches, etc.) are all gone, not to mention the fact that most of the clans that are considered "major" in the game justifiably have province-wide power base.
That requires additional modding, of course, and not having modded this part of the game, I don't know how time-consuming that would be.

It's not possible to add any regions, and I'm actually not even sure if there are any more factions that can be placed on the campaign map.

[L-J-F]

A few more things to consider also:
* A single soldier who has charged off alone into the heart of the enemy formation can survive for ages because the new animation/combat system only allows for 1v1 fights, in reality you would be stabbed in the back, side, other side, front, back again and die.
* I agree with previous posts on cav: "Cavalry still had an important place on the battlefield and yet even this veteran symbol of the samurai had been relegated to a supporting role by the time of Sekigahara. Like guns, horses tended to be difficult to acquire in large numbers, and unlike guns required both a high degree of skill to use in a military capacity and were even logistical burdens."
* Similarly armed and armoured units should have similar stats: Katana samurai absolutely destroy teppo samurai even though once in melee it's difficult to tell the difference between the two (both have katanas and the same/similar armour).
* Buildings seem to catch fire as though they've been soaked in flammable liquid of some kind - even the castle walls (large, thick tree trunks) will go up with only a few fire arrows. If you throw a similar sized log onto a huge fire it takes a few minutes at least to catch properly.
* About the wall climbing: I think the big problem is how passive the defenders are. In reality you would find it very difficult to climb up a wall while being shot at by archers and stabbed by spears from above. I know very little about Japanese siege history but it would seem that breaking down the main gate would be far less costly than climbing the walls. This was a problem with Empire as well, the defenders just let the attackers climb up. That's one of the reasons other nations developed siege towers isn't it? So your forces have a chance to break through instead of being killed one by one? It would appear they did climb the walls however, but it was usually a stealth attack while the bulk of the defenders were at the gates or the wall assault was spread out to thin the defenders which would make assaults on the gates much easier (granted, that last bit of info was more like 5th hand info so who knows .

I'm not so sure about the effective musket range now, since 80-100m could potentially be the effective range against a single target, whereas when used in formation against another formation the range could be higher?

[Shos]

It's not possible to add any regions, and I'm actually not even sure if there are any more factions that can be placed on the campaign map.

I'm talking about replacing the ownership of some provinces, which is necessary if you're changing the start date. For example, the Mori should control more provinces than just Aki in 1561, etc. That sort of thing.

[Akaie]

I'm more interested in a time without major alliances, and more close to an all-on-all type of thing

Seriously consider 1560. TBH, 1545 was hardly a favourite point during the period. At 1560, while you wouldn't yet have the Tokugawa clan, you would have a few more of the greatest sengoku generals (Nobunaga and a historically-valid Kenshin). Plus, the point in time was before Nobunaga's unification, so the civil war feel would still be very much alive.

But, that's all assuming you don't want to go with 1545. There isn't a huge amount of things wrong with 1545, and I suspect having a slightly later year would be somewhat cosmetic.

[Dee Jay]

A few more things to consider also:
* A single soldier who has charged off alone into the heart of the enemy formation can survive for ages because the new animation/combat system only allows for 1v1 fights, in reality you would be stabbed in the back, side, other side, front, back again and die.
* I agree with previous posts on cav: "Cavalry still had an important place on the battlefield and yet even this veteran symbol of the samurai had been relegated to a supporting role by the time of Sekigahara. Like guns, horses tended to be difficult to acquire in large numbers, and unlike guns required both a high degree of skill to use in a military capacity and were even logistical burdens."
* Similarly armed and armoured units should have similar stats: Katana samurai absolutely destroy teppo samurai even though once in melee it's difficult to tell the difference between the two (both have katanas and the same/similar armour).
* Buildings seem to catch fire as though they've been soaked in flammable liquid of some kind - even the castle walls (large, thick tree trunks) will go up with only a few fire arrows. If you throw a similar sized log onto a huge fire it takes a few minutes at least to catch properly.
* About the wall climbing: I think the big problem is how passive the defenders are. In reality you would find it very difficult to climb up a wall while being shot at by archers and stabbed by spears from above. I know very little about Japanese siege history but it would seem that breaking down the main gate would be far less costly than climbing the walls. This was a problem with Empire as well, the defenders just let the attackers climb up. That's one of the reasons other nations developed siege towers isn't it? So your forces have a chance to break through instead of being killed one by one? It would appear they did climb the walls however, but it was usually a stealth attack while the bulk of the defenders were at the gates or the wall assault was spread out to thin the defenders which would make assaults on the gates much easier (granted, that last bit of info was more like 5th hand info so who knows .

I'm not so sure about the effective musket range now, since 80-100m could potentially be the effective range against a single target, whereas when used in formation against another formation the range could be higher?

1) I'm not sure how to fix that, or if it is possible to fix

2) Yeah, were going to fix that. And once we do fix it, the Katana Samurai units will be inferior to the rest, plus their unrealistic because the Katana was only a side arm. So there going to be removed.

3) I'm not sure if we can make building catch alight less often or over a longer duration.

4) Thanks for all the info, but how are we going to make troops break through the gates?

EDIT: And I will think about the time frame. So far I'm tossing up between 1545 and 1560. I might want to go further back though, not sure.