I'm working on the stratmap models now and I've come to realize that the differences between a flatland castle and a hilltop castle is perhaps not as clear-cut as I would like it to be as there are lots of variations in-between. I had a similar problem when I was working on the campaign map: how determine mountains from hills, and hills from forests on Google Earth. There don't seem to be clear boundaries. Anyway, pretty much all castles were hilltop castles (where a 'castle' was sometimes little more than an elaborate shed/barn on a hill with a palisade and ditch around it) so for now I'll be doing just the hilltop castles with the big Azuchi/Osaka/Edo-style castles as the highest tier.
I also cut down the size of units in half. Ashigaru units will have 100 men, Samurai will have 50 men and specialized units like Nodachi will have 25 men. I'm aware of the fact that some people may not like this and nothing is set in stone, but it makes battles (especially siege battles) much more flexible and it also helps preventing somewhat odd AI behaviour, that likes to put units like pikemen and arquebusiers into square block formations. Whatever the unit size, the AI will always reform the unit formation of the pike units to either 16 or 20 men wide when they are about to attack. so if your pike unit has 200 men and is in a 5 men deep formation it's 40 men wide. But when the AI attacks with its pikemen it will reform its units from 5 deep, 40 wide to 10 deep, 20 wide causing gaps in the front line. By decreasing the unit size the pike unit is already 20 men wide and the unit won't reform their formation as much, maintaining the front line.
Also, would this armour still fit the Sengoku period? It's armour that was already starting to get outdated at the time, but it's still based on Mori Motonari's armour and I thought that this armour setup would fit high-ranking samurai like family members within a faction quite nicely:
Any thoughts?