"Le Fred's" Epic Stories!

**le_fred** · June 26, 2012, 10:28 AM

Shogun epic battles

Welcome to my series of illustrated battle reports!

The idea of shooting battles came when i was trying to mix some of the best mods around to enhance my experience to the maximum and took a few pictures to show the resulting visuals on twcenter. This is how i also realized how much passion animated the many modders around Shogun II Total War, namely Darth Mod Shogun 2 by Darth Vader, Alternative Color Clans from Demokritos and the Texture / Performance mods of SuperGhostBoy and many more mods from many other talented contributors.

This thread is the combined effort of all their visual and gameplay improvements.

I am not a recent Total War player. Actually, i bought my first PC to play the first Shogun in 2000. Still, Shogun II is probably my favourite Total War game because of its simple but very effective and refined gameplay, the period and culture it covers, and because it reaches even higher levels when the mods come into play. Being not a modder myself, but very enthusiastic at the work of others, this thread is my way to share the fun i have while playing, and my thanks to all who build mods for the community!

Contents

The thread is not very organized, but it is quite simple to navigate into it. Each battle i cover is usually split into 3 to 6 posts with pictures in spoiler tags.

I have not decided how many battles i will do, i hope it will not become a repetitive task, but i still enjoy giving a simple battle a kind of cinematic touch. Here is the list of the battles i have illustrated:

1- Mori / Chosokabe
2- Date / Takeda
3- Uesugi / Ikko Ikki
4- Hojo / Tokugawa
5- Shimazu / Otomo
6- Oda / Asai
7- Hattori / Kikkawa
8- Choshu / Ozu (FotS)
9- Aizu / Sendai (FotS)
10- Taira / Ogata (RotS)
11- Otomo / Ashikaga
12- Date / Takeda (to be released)

Mods

First, i would like to mention i don't have a killer machine. Most of the battles are running smooth, even at 40 units on each side.
I believe this is due to the performance mod i use. ETW or NTW certainly do not run as smooth as Shogun on my machine.
I play with 1.25 multiplier on huge size units, it is perfect to me to be slightly more epic and remain playable for siege battles.

The mods below are the ones i use, and they operate without conflicting together. The first battles include the first 1 to 4 while the latest battles include generally all of them.

1- DarthMod Shogun - for the overall AI improvement, the ambitious melee penetration of units, the very nice visual improvements and the combo of others mods (smoke, blood, trails, bayonets etc)
2- Alternative Clan Colors - it is impossible for me to turn it off, it is too good to play with it - it is comprehensive, historical source based and already released. New version coming in soon.
3- Performance & retexture mods - dramatically improves performance, unit texture, blood quality and gloss rendering, i have no idea how it is achieved but it works perfectly !
4- Daimyos and Generals - replaces the generic vanilla Daimyos by unique expertly redesigned clan leader models, in battles and on the campaign map
5- Horse & saddle retexture - graphical improvement of the horse and saddle texture, lovely if you like better looking horses.
6- Boshin war & Modern army uniform - for tweaking your FotS experience with improved faction colors and alternative uniform and equipment for your soldiers.
7- Bow retexture - available in the thread, get rid of the flashy red bows and get a nice light beige color instead
8- RotS playable clan recolors - my own in house mod to enjoy better the RotS battles
9- Portuguese Terco Variety - much better looking Portuguese soldiers for the Otomo clan with many model variations
10- The Sheathe and the blade - add scabbard for katana swords, immersive graphical improvement
11- Traditional Shogunate daimyos - for using samurai armors and uniforms in FotS for the traditional leaders like Matsudaira Katamori etc
12- Faction color tint removal - for suppressing the artificial colors of units when zooming out in battles

To be shown in future battles:

1- Vastator Unit Style - very impressive variations on unit armor, complete re shape of some vanilla units - compatible with Alternative Clan Colors.

Thank you,

-----

MORI / CHOSOKABE

Mori Tomonari and Chosokabe Motochika meet on the field of Northern Shikoku.

The army of the Mori clan is ready to fight.