Shogun 2 in a new light - Historical Sengoku Jidai (a mod you never thought Shogun 2 needed

Hello everyone :)

I don't know how many people frequent this forum anymore, by all accounts it doesn't seem to be a big amount. But in any case, I started working on a new mod, which intends to bring never before seen historical accuracy and realism to shogun 2. I will explain what I mean bellow. Now I know there have been a huge amount of mods that already tried to be as historical as possible (and they are great mods), but there was always something missing to me. Mainly it's the historical armies and units of the period. This mod will try it's best to recreate that. Now with the global situation, I have time so I figured I might as well have some fun :P

What do I mean by this?

As all we Sengoku Jidai fans know, the armies of the period were quite diverse in colors and flags. Just take a look at old Ukiyo-e, especially the battles. You can see the crazy amount of diversity on the battlefields. And that's what I fell in love with the first moment I saw medieval Japan. This mod will recreate those battlefields, just like you see them in paintings. This means that armies won't be uniform in colors anymore. I retextured all the armour in the game (many amazing armour pieces are never even used in the game), so there is much more variety among samurai and ashigaru. Of course, the vanilla game did this for simplicity and to help the player recognize his troops easily. And that's perfectly fine. But in reality, it wasn't like that. Even banners and sashimono within a clan could be different in variation.

Now, how will this be achieved you might ask? Well, it's by simple means of textures and units designed specifically for one faction. Yes, that's a lot of units, but they are all the same, just with different textures. Since all units will be the same for everyone, there won't be any special 'sword infantry' and what not. I didn't quite like that aspect of the original game, as much as it might make the game bland for most people if it wasn't the case. This time you get only the actual units of the period.

And since I started talking about units, this will be the unit list:

• yari ashigaru
• yumi ashigaru
• teppo ashigaru
• nagae-yari ashigaru
• foot samurai (polearm infantry)
• yumi samurai
• mounted samurai
• teppo samurai
• tsukaiban

I will probably make monk units also, but recruitable in specific regions only. And maybe no-dachi units, but much smaller in size and more rare.

Why these units?

Since the mod intends to bring true historical accuracy, unit variety will be much smaller. As much as people love the legendary katana, it wasn't used as often as one might think, and especially not during large battles. The weapon of choice for samurai of the time were polearms, the yari and the naginata (ashigaru used all sorts of yaris also). The katana was a secondary weapon only used in the case of yari/naginata breaking. Hence, foot samurai will be wielding different polearms, much like your medieval knights of europe in the same time period (a BIG thank you to Sara Temer from The Last Alliance mod for showing me a cool trick to make this happen!). Also during that period, daimyos started massing ashigaru on the battlefields. This will be represented by ashigaru units being roughly twice the size of samurai units (except for teppo units).

Looking at the unit list, you might see a new name - tsukaiban. Remember the giant balloons on your generals body guard? Those are actually tsukaiban. They were important messengers on the battlefield, passing orders from daimyo to their generals in battle and vice versa. The horo was there so they could be easily spotted (not for deflecting arrows as some might think, though I suppose it could've acted as some sort of shield). It was a dangerous role that only the most elite samurai had, as they were often the targets of enemy sharpshooters. This unit will be able to inspire other units, and maybe I'll give them some more abilities. Tsukaiban is not a general unit. Generals will have their own hatamoto.

Unit stats will also be changed, aiming for longer battles. Morale values are increased across the board, but it still needs tweaking. Why do I want this? Well, if I will be retexturing everything, I want to enjoy the battles a bit more. Plus shogun 2 has one of the most beautiful graphics of all total war games.

Now enough talking. The best way to explain all this is to show you of course!

There's a lot of new textures, which ensure that there will be hundreds of different samurai on the battlefield:

https://media1.giphy.com/media/gJ2s3...g2WC/giphy.gif

Kyushu clans are finished for now - this is how they will look

https://i.imgur.com/1M8ElJr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jnDEHYq.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PDdzQf4.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qTjDfUT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/biktck8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/KPGoupf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LbODwz3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/doMvaCm.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/uzUprkx.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/Uhnbd7v.jpg

The recruitment system.

The recruitment system will be different to what people might be used to. It will use the so called area of recruitment. You will be able to recruit units from provinces you capture. This will simulate your vassals in a way, coming to fight by your side. This was never really replicated in shogun 2 vanilla game. As you can see in the images, your typical army will look something like that. More "clans" fighting along side each other. You will be able to recruit your clans units in any provice you capture, but the amount will be limited. I still have to figure out how I want unit caps to be. You will definitely have less samurai than ashigaru in your armies.

Also, paying homage to shogun 1 in a way, you will be able to see which units come from which clan not only visually in battle, but also on unit cards.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/kU4irum.jpg

The map and the clans

When it comes to the campaign map, I definitely want more provinces than vanilla map, and a bit more clans. I could probably make my own, but I think there's really no need since there are already many great mods that changed the map. If it's possible I would love to use the map from Master of Strategy mod, it's really amazing. Of course, if I end up using anything from other mods (with permission), all credit will go to their creators. I don't want 150+ clans on the map as that's just too much in my opinion, and unnecessary. MoSS mod has about 70 clans, and I would probably reduce that a bit more, only keeping the more well known clans. I still have to figure out that stuff with startpos, changing clans etc. It would be great if someone wants to help with that, if they are interested in this idea :)

Buildings and techs

There won't be many new things here as I don't want to make the mod overly complex than it needs to be. The great majority will stay the same. But since units will change, the buildings/techs and their bonuses will also change. Since there is no katana samurai for example, the Sword School will add bonuses to your units, like melee attack and so on. Same goes for techs. I will try to make them a bit more interesting, but it's not a priority right now.

Well, I hope you get the idea here. Any help, comments and suggestions are welcome! I don't know if anyone is really interested in this kind of hard core historical accuracy, but I love shogun 2 and the whole Segoku Jidai period so I wanted to relive it in the game in some sense. And since there weren't really any mods allowing that (that I know of at least) I decided to make my own. Thanks for reading and see you when I make some updates :bow:

A little bump.

I've mostly been doing some optimization. Namely reducing texture size so the mod doesn't take up so much space. Since there's a lot of new textures this is quite necessary (e.g. any texture I made for sashimono was 5,2 MBs in size, which is quite a lot, so I fixed UV maps and now it's 800 KBs). Now that that's done I'll keep going with units. Currently on Shikoku clans.

Also, I'll update OP with a little gif that shows some new textures in closer detail.

good work, I am looking forward to this!

What, no Otomo? :tongue:

Great! Cant wait to try

Thanks everyone :D

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Originally Posted by Hoplite of Ilis

What, no Otomo? :tongue:

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I got you covered ;)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/5MqGbHb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/aPgimm6.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0GfaxDh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bjISzxJ.jpg

Love the concept and style a lot. Wonderful work. Looking forward for your mod.

looking great my fellow countryman! keep up the good work! :thumbsup2

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Originally Posted by delmat

looking great my fellow countryman! keep up the good work! :thumbsup2

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Haha, hvala sunarodnjače :D

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Originally Posted by Herr Doctor

Love the concept and style a lot. Wonderful work. Looking forward for your mod.

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Thank you I appreciate that :)

More stuff will come next week! Still working on units and textures. I might also get a new pc next week, so I'll be able to show the mod in it's full glory (since my 6 year old laptop can't quite run the game in full settings).

Hey Collateral_dmg. I only just noticed this thread now. Great job on the mod project! Keep it up. :thumbsup2

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Originally Posted by Razor

Hey Collateral_dmg. I only just noticed this thread now. Great job on the mod project! Keep it up. :thumbsup2

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Hey man, thank you! I'm still very much looking forward to your mod, I hope it's going well :D

So excited :), i need more pictures about this. So tell me, what about the Ode clan?

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Originally Posted by mhawari

So excited :), i need more pictures about this. So tell me, what about the Ode clan?

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I didn't get to them yet. But all the clans will be as historical as possible, so you can pretty much imagine what Oda will look like. Patience ;)

Very excited for this mod. I've been dying for a historical Shogun II mod for ages. There's a lot small mods out there but nothing that brings them all together.

Will this mod add new assets? I know someone was working on new flags and armours a while ago.
Will Korea be added, maybe as an end-game challenge?

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Originally Posted by skillfultree

Very excited for this mod. I've been dying for a historical Shogun II mod for ages. There's a lot small mods out there but nothing that brings them all together.

Will this mod add new assets? I know someone was working on new flags and armours a while ago.
Will Korea be added, maybe as an end-game challenge?

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Yes those guys are still working on their mod, but progress is going slow due to RL, they have a discord you can join if you want. Iirc the name of the mod is Tenchijin.

As for Korea, I don't have plans to include it. That's just too much work for me and I'm not really interested in it, though I understand the appeal people might have. Fortunately there is the expanded japan mod for that :)

I made some new weapons, you can see them in some of the pictures. I would love to make uma jirushi banners, but that requires me to learn 3ds a lot more, as I'm not making assets completely from scratch. I don't plan on making new armours as I don't feel it's really needed. Like I mentioned in OP, there's a TON of basically unused assets (most armour is used only for your multiplayer avatar). But I might try something we will see. I'll definitely make some new sashimono though (like the double and triple ones), and maybe some more weapons. Here's a little example of what I have in mind:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/rmfwlZl.jpg

I can't see the images... 😭

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Originally Posted by Collateral_dmg

Hey man, thank you! I'm still very much looking forward to your mod, I hope it's going well :D

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I's going well enough. I've added a lot of castles on the map, but many still need garissons with named characters. Lots of stuff to do. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Collateral_dmg

Yes those guys are still working on their mod, but progress is going slow due to RL, they have a discord you can join if you want. Iirc the name of the mod is Tenchijin.

As for Korea, I don't have plans to include it. That's just too much work for me and I'm not really interested in it, though I understand the appeal people might have. Fortunately there is the expanded japan mod for that :)

I made some new weapons, you can see them in some of the pictures. I would love to make uma jirushi banners, but that requires me to learn 3ds a lot more, as I'm not making assets completely from scratch. I don't plan on making new armours as I don't feel it's really needed. Like I mentioned in OP, there's a TON of basically unused assets (most armour is used only for your multiplayer avatar). But I might try something we will see. I'll definitely make some new sashimono though (like the double and triple ones), and maybe some more weapons. Here's a little example of what I have in mind:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/rmfwlZl.jpg

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I agree with you on Korea. The thing with including Korea is that it not only involves a lot of work, but should also be considered beyond the scope of Shogun 2 Total War or any game focused on the Sengoku Jidai period.


Anyway, I don't know much about modding Shogun 2, but is it possible to line up the loops wrapped around the poles with the loops on the cloth of the sashimono? It has always bugged me that they don't line up perfectly, but I've never seen it being fixed in any mod.

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Originally Posted by LordKainES

I can't see the images... 

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Hmm that sucks. I used imgur to post pictures so I don't know what could be the problem.

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Originally Posted by Razor

I's going well enough. I've added a lot of castles on the map, but many still need garissons with named characters. Lots of stuff to do. :smile:



I agree with you on Korea. The thing with including Korea is that it not only involves a lot of work, but should also be considered beyond the scope of Shogun 2 Total War or any game focused on the Sengoku Jidai period.


Anyway, I don't know much about modding Shogun 2, but is it possible to line up the loops wrapped around the poles with the loops on the cloth of the sashimono? It has always bugged me that they don't line up perfectly, but I've never seen it being fixed in any mod.

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Good to hear :) The amount of stuff you can do with M2 is just amazing. I really wanna try and make some scripts, like Nagao clan becoming Uesugi, Matsudaira becoming Tokugawa and things like that. I think it should be possible, but I really have no experience with lua so we will see.

Yea if I wanted to add Korea I would wanna do it justice, and then the game simply wouldn't be Shogun 2 anymore (and lets be honest, I really have no experience in that type of overhauling :P).

The sashimonos are indeed annoying, but the problem is that the texture is simply wrong. As you can see on the pole there are 7 lines, while the sashimono has 10. So no matter how I adjust the mesh it will never align. I can try fixing the texture but I'm not too experienced in photoshop. I'll see what I can do though. People would be surprised how many textures are actually not finished or a bit misaligned etc.

Ok I managed to fix the sashimono. I'm starting to get the hang of UV mapping and texturing, it's not that hard really :P

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/fjnK7bT.jpg

Very beautiful, nice work with sashimono.