Some ideas, some praise and some rants..

[nodey]

As a guy that had my best TW moments with STW, i couldnt have seen a better idea for a mod. Everything i've seen so far has impressed me big time, especially the skins and concept art.
The potential success of this mod is quite obvious, but i think relies on the execution.
And to that (yes you guessed it) I do have some advice. However i don't have any modding experience, so please have that in mind in case you feel things are getting a bit fantasy.

I would humbly like to request that you take the following into consideration. I believe that certain things has fallen out of proportion with the TW series and that some crazy kind of rat race is on, where the misconception is that quantity should go before quality. I will explain:

The biggest issue for me is the number of provinces in RTW.
Ask yourself this; do get any sense of accomplishment in RTW when you take a province?
To me, that has lost all its glory.
If we were to analyse why so many people want more (more!) provinces i'm sure we'd end up with the conclusion that its the realism aspect that people are arguing for. But how realistic is it to have 20 "capitals" in central europe, all developed to a maximum?
Or is it "more cities=more money=bigger army"?

Another thing is the rate at which cities develop. I have my first couple of cities maxed out pretty quickly, and end up repeatingly spam armies to take province after province. See what i'm getting at here? Theres nothing but repetetiveness after you get past that first stage of stabilizing your economy and building that first army. Build 2 buildings in the capital you start off with and you have access to high quality units, without even leveling the settlement.
So no real desire to go for a particual kind of unit, and besides ore, no significant recources that affect the gameplay in a direct way. Where is the damn carrot?


Let me give you an idea of what i believe to be the solution to the above mentioned, so that this post does not become a rant. =/

It would make the game so much enjoyable if every province made a difference. Why not have fewer cities, that each generate more income? That way, the build choices you make would be more rewarding/devestating (theres a carrot for you) and you'd avoid sillyness like peasant garrisons.
Not to mention the fact that the cities would really matter for a change, instead of being just a positive or negative income number.
I don't think this would affect the battles in a negative way at all. You would still have to protect the same land mass, your trade routes and recources.

Another carrot to keep players wanting more, how about provincial benefits? Like certain units that can be trained only in a certain province, or units that require a recource in the region? Warrior monks, or an elite cavalry unit perhaps? =P
That would bring so much character back to the game, and I'm sure it wouldnt be impossible to find historical information about units that were a bit "out of the ordinary" or limited to a particular region.


Sorry for the long post, i hope someone took the time to read it.
The reason i'm posting this here and not in the general forums is that i believe this mod has the capability to make the TW series an immersive gaming experience again. Instead of something similar to a tax return sheet.

If you need any help with concept art I'm willing to help you guys out any way that i can, but i'm a pen and paper guy so i'd have to scan some stuff. =)

[Zenith Darksea]

Well, the more provinces issue is often raised. Personally, I do want to see a lot of provinces in a mod (at least when compared to original RTW). My rule of thumb would be this - if a city was important, then include it; if it wasn't, then don't include it. However, I would not advocate slashing cities out just to make the game shorter and make it more of a 'challenge'. I'd have said that it made it easier myself - you'll destroy your opponents so much faster. Also, you have to reflect population density. Take Western Asia Minor for instance in RTW - it had one of the highest population densities in Europe at the time, yet it had barely any cities on it. It's just not realistic to cut provinces out MERELY for the sake of what some people think is better gameplay - Mithridates of Pontus had to conquer a vast number of cities, as did Julius Caesar, and so should the player. If you want to make the provinces 'make a difference', then just make sure that the richer ones historically are represented as being suitably rich in game, so that these become more desirable. In this respect I agree entirely - make the provincial benefits greater and more varied, but don't slash provinces out. And you wouldn't be protecting the same trade routes and resources: fewer provinces = fewer trade routes and resources and less variety.

[nodey]

But does every village need to be a province?
One could probably cut a map into a couple of thousand provinces just because alexander marched through all of them. I guess i'm one of the few who actually like to manage my own cities, and find it gets a bit tedious with too many.

[Rupertel]

i'm also one of those people

once you get over 20 (and that's already a lot) provinces, it gets too messy!

[Kagemusha]

Thank you for your posts gentlemen.
I can give answers to some of your ideas.First provinces.We have been creating a map now and we have stumbled across some problems and opportunities.The total count of Historical provinces in that period of time was 66,but these were constructed of smaller districts and areas.So we decided to chop some of the bigger provinces in smaller parts.So i can say at this point the total number of "provinces" will remain under 100.
About special units.We have one team member digging up special regional units for the game.But i wont tell you yet what those will be.
Nodey if you like,you could draw a picture of Samurai and post it in the show your ability thread.
Thatway we can judge it and then maybe contact you. :original:

-Kagemusha

[Zenith Darksea]

Well like I say, if the city wasn't significant in history, then don't include it. But it's wrong to get rid of important cities just because of the opinions of a minority of people on what good gameplay is.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, we're going to have development in provinces limitted to historical levels. We're going to also represent small villiages with resources tiles and minor cities with city tiles. Etc. These tiles will give a rought measure of the wealth and population of a province.

[random hero]

I totally agree, and I hope the end result will be WAY under 100, but oh well...

[italiano]

I agree with the small (compared to most mods anyway) number of provinces. I wanna feel I've achieved something when I take a city. Less provinces also means less armies running around, which I think is a good thing. Armies should be high upkeep. Like capturing a province, I want each battle to mean something. I like only having a couple of armies knowing that if I lose a battle or suffer heavy losses, I might not be able to recover.

Smaller # of provinces keeps money tight too, which means less armies, which means more important battles etc etc.

[Musashi]

Hi. This is litle oftopic but since this is the only one of those topics that has somecind of possipility to make a proposal of what to make in this mod I'd like to add here something.

Propaply this will be difficult to make and you might find this needles or someother way unnessecery but I'd like to have blood in the battles. I don't mean splashing showers of blood during the fight but more like the bodies left in the battlefield bleeding. I'ts just that I find it littlebit disturbing for that not to hapend after big hard battles.
Expesially when thinking of the Japanese way of armors and warfare and Katanas. Atleast I have an understanding that in old days samurai could cut the otherone in half even through hes armor.
Although I could be wrong in this.

Just an idea.

[TomteOfDoom]

Expesially when thinking of the Japanese way of armors and warfare and Katanas. Atleast I have an understanding that in old days samurai could cut the otherone in half even through hes armor.
Although I could be wrong in this.

Hehe, well there are instances when armor has been cut through rather violently, but the cleaving of entire bodies was pretty rare. Japanese swords, while certainly the best cutting-swords in the world, are still just steel, if you cut against something hard and edgy, you will chip or perhaps even ruin the blade. Kabuto-cutting happened from time to time, but trying to cut a helmet, or even other parts of plated armor was putting your sword at great risk, and thats something you dont really want to do in the heat of battle. You would go for safe strikes against an armored opponent: the throat, armpits, wrists etc.

About the blood-thing, I'm not so sure thats even possible.



I would like to add my viewpoint about the provinces thought:

In reality, not all gains are worth much, in reality you could fight for years and at enourmous costs over land that meant very little. Some provinces are huge but don't give much incomes at all, others are very small but gives loads of income. Some provinces lack all strategical importance, some provinces are strategically all-important.

In this mod, provinces will be much more diverese than in RTW. Some will harbour mountains of wealth, some will be little more than just land. But even just land is important as natural barriers and fields of strategic possibilities.

By giving the strategical map more character and diversity, the strategical part of the game will be more interesting, thus, every loss and every conquest, wether it's meaningful or not, will be satisfying in some regard.

[John Wayne]

That is really nice. It seemed to me that the provinces were balanced out, more or less.

[antisocialmunky]

Why cut him when you can stab him in the neck with a spear?

[Winkelried]

I know, it's too late to influence your ideas but ...

TEPPO IDEAS


In general :

ashigaru : "en masse" shooters

- fire in ranks
- lot of bullets but not really precise
- close standing to improve accurency
- can stop a light (later medium then heavy) infantry charge
- destruction unit

samurai : marksman able to counter ashigarus armed with the same weapon

- fire at will
- longer range , better accurency and more fire power than ashigarus (better equipement : social statut and money --> better weapon)
- sitting position to avoid counter fire
http://img317.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ta09jj.jpg
- harassement and demoralization unit
- can not stop a charge
- marksman --> longer reload than ashigarus

Fire reform (need conversion or a lot of money)
- gives teppo ashigarus better stats (due to european trainers) and volley fire making them able to stop a cavalry charge.

Retainer unit idea : Marksman
The marksman is an accurate samurai or ashigaru armed with a bow (later a teppo) and who in case of siege or battle has capacity to kill or hurt (demoralization) the enemy daimyo (or one of his general).

Units ideas

Siege attack teppo unit

- ashigarus hidden behind "bamboo protection walls"
- fire on the defenders can be used if the attacker as a "siege tactician" (need a new name) retainer with him.
- without siege tactician the ashigarus aren't protected by bamboo walls.

Siege defense teppo unit

- ashigarus in the forteress in fact firing walls (rolling fire)
- can be used if the defender as a "siege tactician" (need a new name too) retainer with him.
- without siege tactician the walls dont fire at all or without unity (some shoots but not regular and numerous)

Canon unit (for siege only)
to attack forteress walls not units (a lot of shoots are needed to break a wall).

Siege Artillery infantry unit (for siege only)
- armed with a small canon on fork
- can fire both on walls or on units (with less precision than siege teppo unit)
- could be used in defense too (walls firing small canon balls) ?

Try to find a pic !

Heavy teppo samurai unit
- infantry unit armed with big caliber teppos with greater penetration power but longer reload time and smaller fire range.
- special regional (western) unit

http://samourais.free.fr/Teppo_01a.jpg

Long teppo samurai unit
- real marksman armed with teppo more accurate than normal samurai unit but with longer reload time and smaller caliber.
- special regional (western) unit

Sorry to take our time

Two links
http://www.samurai-archives.com/ste.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ab8/gun/

[Musashi]

I just had another idea even tought I'm not sure if this is just a litlebit too late for atleast this version of the mod but I whas just thinking about that trade thing with the european and other western cultures in STW. I't would be a nice ad to get extra support in the form of guns and trade from europeans just like in STW. I'm not sure if you guys have even tought about this so....

[Kagemusha]

I just had another idea even tought I'm not sure if this is just a litlebit too late for atleast this version of the mod but I whas just thinking about that trade thing with the european and other western cultures in STW. I't would be a nice ad to get extra support in the form of guns and trade from europeans just like in STW. I'm not sure if you guys have even tought about this so....

I can assure you our thoughts are in that thing....

[Musashi]

Thats nice to hear. Just one more thing that I would like to talk about. I really like Japan and it's Feodal time period and I will be playing only this mod as soon as I get my hands to it, even if this next thing won't be corrected but if it would be I would be in heaven.
See I ahve always been ****** off becouse of the finansial aspect of RTW. In RTR I think it's even wors than in the original game and in SPQR it's more or less like I think it should be.
The thing is that if you don't expand all the time you whill run out of money. More the cities have people more you start to loose money instead of gaining it. There is no logick in that. How the hell do RTR makers think that this is realism. The Roman empire should have died because the lack of money in the wery instant that it stopped expanding if this whas true.
So I would be wery wery wery wery happy if in Ran no jidai it would be possiple to ceep you're empire alive without expanding so that you could ease up and build youre cindom for a while and not just attack in panic and blindly all the time in the fear of ending up with the greatest ampire in the world and proke.

[Kagemusha]

Thanks for the tip Musashi. This is exactly the kind of stuff we would really like you fans to post here.Ideas that you think are important,so the mod will be enjoyable for you when its ready.This is the way how you can effect the production.There are always stuff that we dont think of becouse of the time/ hurry factor.So the best way to be sure is to tell us your wiew what would make the mod even better.Ofcourse sometimes we might disagree. :wink:
About the Economy.Wild Bill Kelso has studied the real Kokudaka income values for the provinces and we try to get those as properly as we can into the game. :original:

[Vyktrius]

I would like to ask about the fort/castles. In RTW the forst are nothing more than wooden pylons driven into the ground in a square for a semblance of defence. But I know that in Japan forts and later castles were much more than that. Of course the cities will have formitable defenses but I would be nice if you could fill a choke point with a little more than a glorified camp. Perhaps something could be made so that you could first build a fort and later upgrade it to a castle and so on, at a cost of course. But its just and idea, even if its one that I would like to see.