- Assaulting anything less than a Fortress is a land battle outside the settlement- preferably each turn is a month
- Overhaul of recruiting system:
Each region has 1-3 units of samurai retainers with 0 upkeep; amount determined by region's base crop rating
The requisite samurai units will be automatically "awarded" once the region is captured. When awarded, they will all be bow cav
Samurai units will be identified by their original family clan in the unit names. So if you conquer Noto, you will gain a bow cav unit with "Hatakeyama" in their name.
Some special regions (esp home region of Major Clans) may have a 4th unit which will emphasize a specialty (ie: a Takeda Yari Cav in Kai; a Shimazu Katana in Satsuma)
Military tech tree can be used to alter the samurai composition, to get options other than bow cav
Samurai can be re-recruited to other options by disbanding the existing unit(s) and recruiting that slot as a different unit type in its province
Outside the "home region" and vassals, provinces accrue unhappiness every turn their samurai are away. This unhappiness can be reset by sending all the base samurai from that region home for 6 months. If a province awarded a 4th unit, that specific unit may stay in the field indefinitely.
It might be advantageous to ditch the idea of individual unit xp and try to adopt something like R2's "army traditions" as a replacement. This would make it trivial to "disband" samurai units in order to send them home or change their type. Whereas if they've gained a lot of xp, it feels crappy to delete the units =(
Another idea is to have unit ranks become part of a general's traits - if a bow unit reaches what the game would internally consider "rank 3" during a battle, then their general gains a trait that increases stats of all bow units he commands (to an equivalent of rank1) - and have this be incremental. (while the actual unit ranks provide no benefit)
A stacking +1 morale when Samurai from 1 province are together on the battlefield (only works for Samurai from that province though). 1 unit - no change, 2 units +1 morale, 3 units +2, 4 units +3
Ashigaru may be recruited to any amount in any region but consume 1 excess food ("rice") each turn
In some regions (I'm thinking the Temple resource), monk units will be hirable as mercenaries from the castle town. They will consume 1 excess food but cost a lot of gold
Ronin samurai available as mercenaries - but there needs to be a way to limit how many/often they're available. Will also consume 1 excess food and be very expensive
Upgrading docks increases food. The scale of food modifiers from buildings is generally increased to allow above options to work. Perhaps by a factor of 3-5?
Every region has at least 2 recruitment slots - namely for less micromanagement of raising an army and moving it across the map; also facilitating the option of disbanding un-needed ashi and mercenaries. I want to highlight the idea that ashi are farmers when not on campaign.
Fortresses have 4 slots; Citadels 6 slots
- Vassals
Every clan reduced to 1 province. This means every province can also be made a vassal.
When you vassalize a clan, you control their Samurai units and gain their food excess.
This means you are unequivocally responsible for the vassal's safety -- if they get conquered, your daimyo's honor will suffer significantly
Vassals will have high loyalty so long as their borders are secure
- Tech tree overhaul
Current military tech tree has spears/guns on the left and bow/cav/swords on the right.
This will be changed to instead emphasize improving Ashigaru on the left with spears/general stats/bows&matchlocks ... and Samurai on the right with bows&matchlocks/cavalry/general stats
As the "middle" part of each branch is mandatory to reach next levels for their 2 sides, this means that as you upgrade in the Ashigaru line their stats will increase and as you upgrade in the Samurai line more forms of cavalry will become available
Initially the only recruitable Samurai are bows (cav and foot), and the only recruitable Ashi will be spears and loan swords
As expensive mercenaries, Monks will start off with all their full benefits; and will be the only arquebuses available until deep into the military tech tree
The goal is that by the end of the Ashigaru tree, they will be near-equivalent to basic Samurai (reflecting the end of the Sengoku period when they were officially made Samurai by Toyotomi)
This is done partially by upgrading armor (like the Date did), upgrading weapons (see the way spears lengthened), upgrading training (spear wall and bow training), and upgrading technology (arquebuses)
The goal of the Samurai tree is to highlight the progression of Samurai warfare. For example, changing from Bow Cav to Light Cav to Yari/Katana Cav. As Samurai are primarily cavalry, there will be a large focus here.
By upgrading both sides incrementally, the idea is to highlight the change of early armies where Samurai were focused on archery and Ashigaru primarily formed the line as infantry... to changing to an army where Samurai acted as shock and fulfilled specialized roles, while the Ashigaru took on the role of massed ranged infantry. Resulting in a more balanced and superior army composition.
It's also to make it possible to decide to choose how you want weapon focus to be distributed in Samurai or Ashi. For example, if you choose to upgrade ranged weapons for Ashigaru... the Samurai side can focus more on melee weaponry. Your tech decisions will have a direct impact on the style of army you field.
The AI may focus on different tech angles depending on history. For example, the Oda will focus heavily on modernizing Ashigaru.
- Ensure existence of some key historical characters
I got about halfway through a campaign with the Date when I realized Masamune was never going to be "born". I subsequently lost all interest.
Possibly add the option of hiring some generals as mercs or made available to player and AI; such as the Sanada if their region is already owned by Faction A they could be recruited or offered as a mercenary General to neighboring Faction B?
One idea is to have historical generals for conquered provinces recruitable.
Conquered provinces will initially have low loyalty, and so will their generals. If a general is left unrecruited (in his home province), there will be a chance that he raises his own own army and rebels
If recruited and taken out of province, it is as if he's a hostage. However, the army he commands may also be easy prey for diplomatic bribing. If a general turns, his province enters rebellion (and vice versa)
Similarly, marrying such a general into your family - provided there's a daughter - will make that province a "homeland" territory (allowing their samurai to stay on campaign in perpetuity and ensuring loyalty for both province and general)
Limit armies to a maximum of 10 units. The idea will still be to field 20-40 for major battles, but I'd like to represent the components of these large armies (ie: vanguard + center + 2 flanks) along with their strategic map maneuvering and each component commanded by a general.
This way you can try to surround or outflank an opponent leading up to a battle, or use the center of your army as a holding force in a strong defensive position while a cavalry-heavy flank disrupts your opponent in other ways
The hope is that it also allows the AI greater freedom, instead of just smashing into each other with 20 unit stacks head on.
As generals gain experience on campaign (in charge of an army), they will generally grow closer to your daimyo and increase loyalty for themselves and their region. However if they become too awesome, that may also cause problems.
Units may not leave your territory (including vassals) without a general
- agents
Attrition from sabotage and winter now both only affect ashigaru. Samurai and Monks are professionals. Sabotage can still make the entire army immobile, however. Though it's my hope that there will be 2-4 stacks of 10, so you're really only delaying 1 element of a larger army.
Metsuke will be more like governors - used to increase the economic efficiency of your empire and the loyalty of conquered provinces - allowing their samurai to stay on campaign longer
Ashigaru tech
spearwall form bows recruitable
morale
spear +x attack matchlocks recruitable
armor
long spears fire arrows + fire-by-rank + buildable defensive positions for ranged
accuracy & attack
Samurai tech
fire arrows + defenses recruit yari (& enable spear ronin building)
light cav
reload speed recruit katana&no-dachi (& enable sword ronin building)
yari&katana cav
matchlocks recruit special sam foot units
recruit special sam cav & ranged units