Anime Mod

**Unknown72** · August 01, 2013, 09:54 PM

I was just wondering if anyone was planning to create an Anime based mod. On which anime i was thinking Toujou or something like it. If no-one has even considered it i would ask that you do.

**Honeyman96** · August 05, 2013, 12:17 PM

I reckon a Naruto based mod would be pretty sweet.

**Sigmar Heldenhamer** · August 12, 2013, 08:47 PM

Nope must have a Sengoku Basara Mod

**MrGonesHead** · August 12, 2013, 08:56 PM

Actually, this is where my mind is currently at as well and why I'm now on these boards learning all I can, as I think I may have the perfect scenario to fit within the Shogun 2 era, while combining an appropriate amount of "anime fantasy" to be thoroughly interesting and engaging to even a casual mod player: Mononoke Hime - Princess Mononoke!

Imagine starting a Mononoke Campaign: you pick between the Emishi, Eboshi, Asano, or Akukami factions, each with specific objectives on how to win the game.

The Emishi - A once powerful native people to Japan, the Emishi have been pushed to the brink of extinction, into the Aomori province, where few Yamato-born Japanese dare tread. When the Akukami of the once benevolent Nago appears in their village and curses their last true prince, Ashitaka, the Emishi are faced with a terrible dillemma: to send Ashitaka on his lonesome quest in the hope that he can lift his curse on his own? Or instead, to unite one last time under the banner of this accursed man and bring a terrible vengeance on the Shogunate of Kyoto, marching to war under the super-natural powers of their now hate-filled prince? Riding their red elk into battle, the Emishi are the original guerrilla fighters of Japan, and truly deadly at mounted archery. In fact, the very reason the Shogunate was founded was to defeat them, and it took three hundred years to do even that! With a warrior as powerful as Ashitaka at their helm, what can the other clans of Japan do but tremble at their wrath?

At the same time, the Emishi are a very spiritual people, worshippers of the original Kamuy animism rather than this crossbreed of Shinto-Buddhism that has taken hold over the rest of Japan, and now the very head of the Kamuy, the Great Forest Spirit (or Shishigami) is under threat by those who would destroy the land to gain the metals within. So the Emishi also have the goal of preserving the the Shishigami from destruction and converting the rest of Japan back to the roots of their religion, back to the ways of the Kamuy, in order to appease these forest gods that terrorize mankind. Unless of course, the allure of modernity is too great and they decide to convert that is . . .

Features - - -

They follow an ancient religion of Japan, and as such have a unique religious Agent in order to increase its spread - the Wise Woman - who cannot exactly inspire morale in friendly troops or demoralize enemies as a buddhist monk, but can instead "foretell the future" in any particular unit, which can be either good or bad, creating either a long standing (multiple year) morale buff or debuff (it's a big coin flip basically, but when it works in your favor, it REALLY works).

They also get the unique Elk Cavalry, which have unique advantages and disadvantages of their own. On the plus side, they can leap tremendous heights and distances, even over an enemy spear wall to attack from the rear, and to move effortlessly through wooded areas or even down stony hills, while their antlers and an instinctual wariness that is not entirely bred out of them make it more difficult to hit an elk rider (increased melee and arrow defense), and if they do fight other horses they can spook them to throw their riders. On the down side, the increased hopping in the elk's stride and the breeds still natural hesitance makes them all but useless in a cavalry charge (so no charge bonus whatsoever), and if dismounted, the elk tend to be fairly skittish and will run off at the first sign of trouble (increased spook effect and range once dismounted). However, the elk aren't meant to be used like traditional cavalry, instead, they're just prime platforms for what the Emishi are better at than anyone: mounted archery, for which the Emishi have heavy bonuses in on both accuracy and range and even damage, as they use stone arrowheads (though this comes at the cost of less ammunition). The Emishi have even learned the proper use of wood in their battles, carrying such a dishonorable tool as a shield!

Of course, the rest of Japan looks upon the Emishi as Barbarians, so they naturally are at a disadvantage when it comes to diplomacy (and thus trading to all but the Ainu, their cousins, who provide a bonus), and their livelihood is more primitive, still more focused on hunting and gathering rather than agriculture, so they receive less and more inconsistent tax yields. On top of everything else, the Emishi are, as a separate ethnicity compared to the Yamato originated Japanese, very noticable with their large, heavy, beards . . . so no Emishi ninja agents can be recruited, as none would be able to hide amongst the common populace of Honshu long enough to strike. But the Emishi are proud, fierce warriors, and can prove to be quite a threat if properly managed. I imagine the Emishi would be a faction similar to say, the Scottish in Medieval 2, or the Polish in the Kingdoms expansion, in that they're sort of a high powered early game faction with poor tech tree growth unless they give up the very things that make them unique (so, they ALWAYS have the option to convert [to Shinto-Buddhism], where they lose the Elk and religious differences as well as the objective to keep the Shishigami alive, but gain standard farms and the normal tech tree as well as the normal Shogun objective to take and hold Kyoto for a year).

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The Eboshi Clan

Rising from street urchin to Jisei, Lady Eboshi has recently acquired a strange weapon from foreign lands - the dragon's fire matchlocks from China! Not only that, but she and her mercenary band of Ronin have defeated the local Kami, Nago, and laid claim to Irontown for themselves, separating the small mountain village and its attended lands from their rightful daimyo, lord Asano.

Unfortunately for Eboshi, her claims to power are looked down upon by the rest of society. Not only is she so irreligious as to strike at the gods themselves, but she's a woman, and has no place controlling a province without a noble husband! But Eboshi has one possible way forward - the Emperor has heard that the Shishigami's head is said to grant immortality, and if she can bring it to him, she will be recognized in the imperial court as the rightful ruler of the Mimasaka province, and from such legitimacy, can great ambitions be born.

Features - - -

The Eboshi clan has very early access to gun units, and since these were brought from China rather than by dealing with Nanban loike the Portugese, this comes without having to deal with religious turmoil! This would include some very simple pole based matchlocks and flamethrowers (this technology would also allow us to infer the timeframe of such a mod as pre-sengoku, likely 1500-1515), and Eboshi's tech tree would be modified to prioritize gun advancement much earlier than other clans, and grant her unique units like "Irontown Girls" a unit of female Ashigaru well versed in the ways of the gun.

Plus, after a recent rewatch of the film, there's even the unique "Battle Umbrellas" that Eboshi deploys, which both allow her matchlock units to fire in the rain, and protect from arrows!

On top of all of this, she would start the game with a very advanced fortress: Irontown itself! Aside from the fact that this means the Eboshi player would gain the Iron deposits as an economic resource, this walled city is imminently defensible, with multiple tiers and nigh unscalable walls (though they can be burned down easier than most).

Unfortunately, Eboshi has supreme difficulties on other fronts, both politically and geographically. First, she is trapped between two big threats, Daimyo Asano, who views her as a rebel on his lands, and the Great Forest, ruled by the Shishigami and the animal gods that are going to great lengths to defend it. She must deal with both, though she is heavily constrained politically, as if she takes any other province before defeating the Great Forest Spirit, her situation as a proto-revolutionary woman seeking power immediately raises her to the status of national threat (so 100 fame and thus Realm divide) in the eyes of the Emperor and the Ashikaga Shogunate. Which means she must defeat the Shishigami first to remove this threat, but this is no easy task, even with her advanced technology. On top of this, if she does manage to behead the Shishigami (and survive the chaotic aftermath) to deliver the head to the Emperor, it will incur the wrath of the last Emishi tribe, who will never stop on their war path to destroy her.

Thus the Eboshi campaign is marked by a very difficult start with a lot of Catch-22 consequences, but also with several technological advantages that a savvy player can use to survive, if they're capable enough on the battlefield that is.

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The Asano Clan

In many ways a typical Japanese clan with a typical set of advantages, the Asano are pretty much a normal Samurai faction in a standard Shogun 2 game, they just start in the Bitchu or Bingo provinces.

Features - - -

The one big advantage the Asano start off with is the Mori as vassals (I hap photos, but this forum won't let me post them for some reason), and considering the fact that the classic tale of the Forty-Seven Ronin is based on this clan, both higher loyalty for generals and morale for samurai units (and perhaps a free Ronin unit whenever a Dainyo is killed, maybe?)

However, to maintain this power, the Asano clan must defeat Lady Eboshi and conquer Irontown before she defeats the Shishigami, or the Shogunate will relinquish Asano's rightful claim to the Mimasaka province and grant it to Eboshi, and Asano would have to commit seppuku in absolute shame, and which would likely cause the Mori to rebel (though this will happen no matter what in 1545, when Vanilla Shogun 2 intercedes upon this campaign).

One big advantage that the Asano clan can gain though, is in a particular unit. In dealing with Eboshi and her guns, the Asano samurai have made one of the first adaptations to such weaponry - the heavy metal armor naginata troop. In effect, this gives Asano access to a unit similar to the Date Bulletproof samurai, except it uses naginata instead of yari, and comes in a cavalry flavor too!

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The Akukami (Wrathful God) Faction

What happens when those hairless apes called humans get uppity and you're literally a semi-immortal nature deity? Why, you crush them of course!

This is what Moro of the wolf tribe, and Nago and Okkoto of the Boar tribes are trying to do anyway (and perhaps other animal tribes as well, ones we just don't see in the film, like Bear tribes and even Whale tribes). While the Shishigami seems unwilling to defend itself, perhaps because it is, after all, a god of life and death and assumes it is impossible to kill, the rest of the wild gods of nature have decided to be more proactive, either driving the humans back from their sacred lands, or hastening their own destruction, only time will tell.

Features - - -

Obviously, the Akukami would play the MOST different of any of the other factions, as they're nature deities with very different rules and abilities.

One of these rules is that they don't exactly have settlements, and need not raise them. Rather, they gain more "currency" (called Musubi, a sort of natural "mana", and represented by Kodama) the more the land is reclaimed by the natural world. To do this, they must destroy human settlements, then send their night apes in, who replant trees and aid nature taking its course (or spend musubi to enhance the growth process more quickly, but making it harder to summon armies). This is followed on the map screen by spreading the forests on the provinces, making them larger, and cutting off roads that humans would otherwise use.

But they still need armies to fight the humans, and to do this, a player must go to an appropriately natural province with one of their generals, the "gods" like Moro and Okkoto we see in the film, and put out a call of the wild to summon armies of their species to them. While this works, one big problem is that these being animals, don't generally like leaving their homes and are fairly undisciplined, and when moving armies on the campaign map, will suffer from attrition every season after they move as animals leave to go doing their animal thing.

One other aspect of playing as these guys are their generals, which are huge hulking hero unit gods. While their main armies of wolves and boars and such can be killed like normal through spear, arrow, and sword, these big guys have a lot of HP and can take massive damage. With particular types being resistant to even flaming arrows.

Unfortunately, the possess and extreme weakness to any and all gunpowder weapons, from matchlocks to explosives. Still, once killed, they get one bonus, as a Forest God (kami) gets one year as a true demon covered in that black worm demon blood stuff, in which time they can wreak supreme havoc on human settlements!

On top of this, in order to screw with humans even more, these guys have access to a unique agent, the Tanuki (which I'll lift from Pom Poko, another Ghibli film), who can appear to be human and thus sneak into human lands and dispatch rival agents, or even sabotage human structures (again, as seen in the film Pom Poko).

Of course, there are some major challenges playing as this faction, namely, that they have an instant killswitch in the Shishigami. If the Shishigami is ever defeated (the immediate threat is Eboshi, but any other faction can do this as well and gain favor from the shogunate) the Akukami faction dies instantly. On top of this, these guys are literally animals, and so cannot participate in any sort of political game and negotiate alliances or the like. They're in this on their own. Their only win condition is hard too, as they cannot win by anything less than pure domination - they must clear honshu and Kyushu of all human development (and only these areas as they really can't build the boats to transport troops across to the Chokosabe lands (though possibly whales and megasharks can be used to fight other ships in naval battles?). Plus, if the Emishi religion spreads, they have a hard time conquering their lands, as this religion speaks of a love for nature, and it is difficult to summon armies from these lands or convince the apes to plant there.

Their only hope is their strength, their size, and their ferocity.

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And there you have it! One perfect mod for Shogun 2 based on an anime! I'm already getting started myself, and at the very least, the Emishi, Eboshi and Asano are all seemingly quite doable (heck, if nothing else, I'm working on a 'Historical Emishi' mod, as they were a real tribe of people). The Akukami are going to be tough though, and I'll probably be back here once I've got more to show, looking for help on turning horses into boars and wolves and the like.