Master of Strategy Sengoku (MoSS) Encyclopedia - Better Late than Never

[arsl31]

Hi guys!
I can't believe I'm doing this... But yes, I'm doing it. All of it. On my own. Encyclopaedia for Shogun 2 Master of Strategy Sengoku (MoSS) Mod. And it has been years since this mod is released...

Anyway I made a bit of progress in the project so I thought I might as well upload some bits and pieces for you to comment on. And while it is still early because it's gonna be troublesome to edit everything again for one single feature that I miss (which hopefully doesn't happen). After all, I'm working on this on my own. So THIS IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. I ain't even 1/4 done!

For now, here is what the encyclopedia will look like:





Here is another sample:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For now these are the approx entries I have to make, and I've only done like 2/3rds of the units.

# of entries

Buildings: 298

Character Skills:
General: 29
Ikko: 12
Kunoichi: 13
Metsuke: 15
Missionary: 12
Monk: 16
Ninja: 16

technologies: 163

Units
Units: 295
Yogi Art: 3
Yogi Nav1: 9
Yogi Nav2: 30

Resources: 15

Regions: 203


=1129 approx

For now, I have no plans for other indexes (buildings, characters, etc) but I have plans on what to include in the "Manual" (the very first tab above).

The questions I would add in the Manual (FAQs)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

FAQS. Is it a bug, or a feature?
-There are too many mods required. What and which should I install? And in what order?
-this will include screenshots of mod in the old and new mod manager on the new launcher

-mod hotfix of mod
-I think this is required as MoSS is an outdated mod now. From what I read new mods are placed in another directory now instead of the old data folder of the game? IDK

-it says in the mod manager that the mod is outdated. What should I do?
-I think this needs to be addressed as the new launcher has a big yellow warning sign on this mod that will scare new players surely. I don't want this mod to die just yet (and waste my efforts)

-the diplomacy tab is showing the wrong resources. Why is that?
-I think this needs to be addressed to new players to avoid confusion. This is why the resources tab in my encyclopedia has links on it.

-where are the monks and where to recruit them?
-this is one of the many common questions to Weierstrass's Steam Workshop page and the Steam version of the mod. They are in unique buildings called "wonders" and are only recruited there, by specific clans, which needs entries.


-where are the ninja units and Hanzo's Shadows?
-this is one of the many common questions to Weierstrass's Steam Workshop page and the Steam version of the mod.

-Some buildings are too expensive to build / I can only build one type of building at a time for the WHOLE MAP. Why is that?
-again, one of the many common questions to Weierstrass's Steam Workshop page and the Steam version of the mod. Where did I put the answer again

Anyways, this is the gist of the mod for now. I've barely done anything yet, but I want to tell everyone that somebody is working on this mod's encyclopedia, even though it is slow (I'm only working this on my day-offs, which is very limited per year) so here it is. The gist and my plans. For now.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

Mods are all well and good but documentation often is sparse or nonexistent, kudos for your focus on the latter and good fortune in completing this effort. Do keep us posted...

[.ara.]

This is a great idea, I wanted to get into MoSS with a friend but the lack of the encyclopedia is a big roadblock. If you're interested @arsl31 I can probably help on the automation side since I have a decent knowledge in html, javascript and some programming languages (but I haven't mod for TW since Rome 1).

[dogukan]

Is this accessible as of now?

[Apm101]

Any update on this? It has been 6 months since this was posted, no rush just curious. Also is there an incomplete version of this available to download so we can at least have access to whatever is done so far?

[arsl31]

Update v0.01 (22nd-Apr-2024)

It's been a while since I made this post, and seeing there are already a few who are taking an interest in it, I might as well post an update. However, please note that all "updates" I'll be mentioning here are almost for visual/aesthetic purposes focused, meaning it won't have a significant change in the base game whatsoever, save for a few bugs that I found and needed to address to align with the encyclopaedia (some units having no abilities whatsoever, some units being unable to be recruited for certain clans and so on). For now, here's the journey(read:excuse) of how it went on in this mod project.


First, the encyclopaedia itself.

As of writing this post, I am 14% finished, haha... sigh. As Weierstrass doesn't have the original Photoshop files anymore for the unit cards, I have to extract and edit each file manually. This took a LOT of my time before I began with the encyclopaedia proper but I'm a sucker for Shogun 2's ukiyo-e artstyle so it's a win for me? Still, there was a LOT of png to edit manually that to be honest, it made me think that I bit off more than I can chew, even though I'm expecting it to be this many in the first place.

For now, this is the progress
MoSS Unit Classes (index) - done 18/18*
MoSS Sword Infantry - done 26/26*
MoSS General - done 1/1*
MoSS Heavy Infantry - done 22/22*
MoSS Spear Cavalry - done 9/9*
MoSS Siege Units - done 8/8*
MoSS Spear Infantry - done 19/19*
MoSS Missile Cavalry - done 11/11*
MoSS Special Infantry - done 9/9*
MoSS Bow Infantry - done 19/19*
MoSS Matchlock Infantry - 0% 0/21
MoSS Sword Cavalry - 0% 0/5
MoSS Heavy Ship - 0% 0/5
MoSS Medium Ship - 0% 0/7
MoSS Trade Ship - 0% 0/3
MoSS Cannon Ship - 0% 0/1
MoSS Light Ship - 0% 0/5
MoSS Galleon - 0% 0/5

MoSS Building Index (index) - 0% 0/1
MoSS Buildings - 0% 0/298

MoSS Character Index - 0% 0/1
MoSS Agents (including the character skills) - 0% 0/113?

MoSS Technology Index - 0% 0/1
MoSS Tech Tree - 0% 0/163

MoSS Resources Index - 0% 0/1
MoSS Resources - 0% 0/15

MoSS Regions (Provinces) 0% 0/204

*the count is per unit but in actual the numbers are pretty much higher, as the garrison units and ikko units also have their own entry (even though it's just duplicate of the original unit). So please don't be surprised if you find duplicates in the files. oftentimes, you'll find they have suffix "_g" or "_ikko" in them, but I assure you that is intentional.

Oftentimes you will find the game "updating" when launching from Steam. This could be bad news as Steam may be doing a filecheck of the game. If this happens, there is a chance that some of the entries in the encyclopaedia maybe patched, causing you to lose the entries I have created. If this happens, simply navigate in the encyclopedia units folder and search for the "Backup - Replace if game patches it" folder. Copy everything and paste it and replace to restore the MoSS entries that are affected.


Now, the other things.

To be honest, I also fell into a quite the rabbithole while making the encyclopaedia. It all began when I discovered that I will need a separate pack file because the building entries in the mod had their encyclopaedia entries disabled (meaning if you right-click on the building in-game, the encyclopaedia window won't pop up at all, and nothing happens). Actually, some units in the mod have problems already (some classified as cavalry even though it's not, some having zero abilities, some having no names, etc) but that was bearable. However, the building one is a no-go.

Then I thought, if we're making the packfile and all, why stop there?

And so I began doing a "patch" for the mod itself. Not just any patch, but significant changes on the mod as well. Here's an overview of what I made:



Merged the "Original Clans" and the "New Clans" into one packfile.



This means that you won't be needing to switch mod files to play the new clans anymore. I also addressed a bug where when you start the campaign as the new clan, the starting camera would be shifted all the way to the top-center of the map, wayyy far to the sea. This occurs because there are no starting mission implemented in these new clans, which also includes the settings for the starting camera.

By the way, I've also fixed the starting cameras of Rokkaku (Hattori), Date, and Honganji (Ikko-ikki) together with this fix.



Partially fixed the problem of Trade Goods not functioning properly in the Diplomacy Panel



When I learned how to mod the ui of the game itself, I fell into another rabbithole once again. I thought to myself, hey, if I follow this logic, wouldn't it also apply to the ui for the Trade Goods? And I succeeded in adding the icons themselves. But there is one problem.



For some reason, out of 15 resources, only 9(stone, copper, coal, wood, tea, weapons, incense, sake, and luxury weapons) work, with the remaining 6(iron, silk, cotton, crafts, washi paper, and luxury goods) all-greyed out even if you possess the resource itself. I wasted a lot of time fixing this, but to no avail. In the end, I just gave up and removed the not-working resources for now. And now that I've noticed, these resources were also not working even in the base mod. If someone knows how to fix this, then any help is welcome. For now, I want to focus on the encyclopaedia first.



All fixes:
Merged the "MoSS_Must_clans_Original_PICK_ONLY_ONE.pack" and "MoSS_Must_clans_New_PICK_ONLY_ONE.pack" into one .pack

• ​added Miyoshi, Imagawa, Mogami and Satake to the Original Clans campaign selection menu.
• added starting missions to the above clans, which also fixes the starting camera for each clan
• added the custom daimyos and their unit cards for Imagawa, Miyoshi, Mogami, and Satake. Satake however has identical unit cards for the father and son, unfortunately.
• fixed the starting cameras of Rokkaku (Hattori), Date, and Honganji (Ikko-ikki)

Partially fixed the diplomacy panel problem of Trade Goods not working properly

• working resources (stone, copper, coal, wood, tea, weapons, incense, sake, and luxury weapons) now show in the panel
• not-working resources (iron, silk, cotton, crafts, washi paper, and luxury goods) are now removed in the panel (they still work but are just not showing properly (they remain greyed out no matter what I do) in the diplomacy panel.

Attaining gold attribute (exceptional morale, exceptional accuracy, exceptional melee, exceptional armour) is now possible as some buildings have been buffed to provide sufficient effects (personal changes. You can remove this if you want).

• Buddhist temple tree now boosts morale to units recruited in the province where it is built, also to provide them more utility coz they cannot make you recruit monks unless you're Uesugi
• Jesuit building trees for the Otomo and the Wonders unique buildings also do the same.
• Tier 2 and tier 3 Iron mine buildings now provide bonus melee atk to units recruited in the province where it is built. With proper building combinations you can now achieve exceptional melee for these units.
• Copper mine building trees now provide bonus armour to samurai units recruited in the province where it is built. With the proper building combinations you can now achieve exceptional armour for these units.
• Cotton farm building trees now provide bonus armour to ashigaru units recruited in the province where it is built. With the proper building combinations you can now achieve exceptional armour for these units.
• Silk workshop building trees now provide bonus armour to special units recruited in the province where it is built. With the proper building combinations you can now achieve exceptional armour for these units.
• Tier 3 of lumbercamp (sawmills) now provide bonus accuracy to special units recruited in the province where it is built. With the proper building combinations you can now achieve exceptional accuracy for these units.

Fixed some errors to some units in-game.

• fixed Naginata Militia and Veteran Naginata Ashigaru wrong unit class from infantry_spearman to infantry_heavy
• fixed Yari Sohei wrong unit class from infantry_heavy to infantry_spearman
• fixed Yumi Sohei Ki wrong unit class from infantry_bow to cavalry_missile

For those who are interested in the early WIP release, you can download and test it on the file below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VLZ...ew?usp=sharing

[vylade]

Registered to say that I appreciate your patch. Some good polish you've started on here to help make MOSS more intuitive and consistent. The jankiness can be real... I don't mind the personal balance changes you made given that they seem to help some less useful setups provide interesting options.

Aside from the patch-type of things, something I've thought with MOSS is that it'd be interesting to take the '46 clans playable' approach where all clans are playable, and most have interesting options available with traits. Something like that merged into the fascinating building system of MOSS could be great!

[arsl31]

Registered to say that I appreciate your patch. Some good polish you've started on here to help make MOSS more intuitive and consistent. The jankiness can be real... I don't mind the personal balance changes you made given that they seem to help some less useful setups provide interesting options.

Aside from the patch-type of things, something I've thought with MOSS is that it'd be interesting to take the '46 clans playable' approach where all clans are playable, and most have interesting options available with traits. Something like that merged into the fascinating building system of MOSS could be great!

This has already crossed my mind, actually. And it is possible as I now know how to add clans in the campaign selection. It's just that... the task was too big for a single person to handle... especially at this time, mostly because I have very limited time to play, or mod for that reason. Truth to be told, many, many things have affected my progress of this encyclopedia, one of it is the intention of making it "46 clans Playable".

In fact, I have already thought of adding the ff clans but I lack the time to do so... yet:
Amako - already done the "lore" (basically finished reading their history) and the theme - they will be focused on guerilla warfare (sea) and defensive network of forts (Amago Ten Flags and Amago Ten Forts) but I have no idea how to implement them yet in game.
Ashina - planned to be a hard to play clan. They were historically focused on "Cleanliness" so no ninjas, no geishas, cannot build geisha buildings, but high tax rate (they are corrupt), no veteran units but gain huge boosts in the tech tree to simulate the "cannot be promoted (coz corruption) but units get stronger as time passes by" trait. So like an ordinary militia can wreck havoc in the late game, haha. If they survive the early and midgame, that is.
Ryuzoji - Ryuzoji Red Bear Cavalry. Friends with Otomo = firearms early.
Saito
Nanbu -
Ito
Kitabatake
Uragami
Jinbo
Hatakeyama
Yamana - nobility?
Honma - Merchant family

If anyone wants to help, all in all, I will need the "lore-accurate description" of the clan, their anecdotes of which I can get inspiration to get their clan trait(or straight-up suggesting the clan trait altogether), 3 starting missions (required or the starting camera would go weird) and others. You can also suggest new buildings as long as you provide the ukiyo-e pics and it is in lore.

I also have many other ideas, like exclusive clan traits for a clan daimyo similar to the "Night Fighter" trait by the Hattori, even expanding them like into a tech-tree like setting where you must do a certain thing like this to gain a specific trait, and then when you gain a certain group of traits there's a chance you can unlock a mega trait and so on... but that trait has certain caveats to balance it off. There is also "accident" traits, like slipped on the stairs if staying on a tier 4 castle for too long, "Training" traits when you make them stay in provinces with certain buildings, and even unique events to gain that trait like some sort of DND fashion. But again, too big.
Here is an example:
This trait below is a General-exclusive trait he has a chance to acquire if he has never stepped foot on enemy territory, NOT in castle/fort, is in own faction lands and is stationary for more than 10 turns.

"Well-liked by the Populace" (Tier 1)
+3 to morale for militia units led by this man

"Too-liked by the Populace" (Tier 2)
+5 to morale for militia units led by this man
+2 to melee attack for militia units led by this man
-7 to morale for non-militia units led by this man

"We will protect this man from everything! EVERYTHING!!" (Tier 3)
+15 to morale for militia units led by this man
+5 to melee attack for militia units led by this man
+15 to melee defense for militia units led by this man
+50% upkeep for militia units led by this man
-14 to morale for non-militia units led by this man
-10 to morale for this general and his bodyguard

Imagine staying too long in the fields and being friendly and all that the populace starts to like you to the point that they are overly obsessed(read: Yandere/stan) with you. Yeah, that's the idea of the trait. Each has a "story", if you know what I mean.

By the way, speaking of events there was one time I really want to improve the "Vassal" system. Like, when you get a certain clan to be their vassal, they would gift you units unique to them (that I will have to create of course) for a certain turn/s per year. Or gold, or any other things a vassal would do to butter up their master. Coz vassal feature sucks. Even trade sucks. you know what, even the diplomacy sucks. So it also crossed my mind, why not do events that trigger when you are trading/allied/vassal of a certain clan? I really want to add that idea. If only there was someone who would make it so that I could just straight up copy it and put it in this mod, haha.