Formations in the Camaign

[Cyanator]

I have been working on a mod that ads the missing unit abilities to FoTS that were present in Shogun 2, but not in FoTS. Many of which make no sense not having them (e.g. no spear wall for yari kachi etc...). Also on the premise that more options in battle = better.

I have currently added:

• Spear wall to spear levy, kyoto police, yari kachi, and also to yari ninja and naginata kachi from Radious' unit pack 3.
• Wedge formation to all melee cavalry units.
• Cantabrian circle (Swooping crane in-game) to all missile cavalry (Works a treat with carbine and revolver cavalry. ).
• I am also trying to get the shield wall ability to work in campaign, because in much of the artwork depicting the Boshin war, you see units taking cover behind shield walls. But I'm not sure how to get this working.

All of what I have added (with the exception of shields) works beautifully in custom battles.
However when I play the campaign, none of these new abilities are available to my units.
The only exception is that spear wall seems to work on spear levy, but not on their superior kachi units. I have tried vetting them, and that does not work. I have tried deploying them with a general to no avail. Any advice would be appreciated.

[rob-a-dogg]

1. spear wall was never on anything other then Ashugaru units. If you want samurai and custom superior units (monks, ninja etc) to have it for yourself that is fine, but from a 'sense' perspective the ashugaru group are basically inferior peasant soldiers who were recruited from among the farmers. They had little skill relative to monks, samurai, or ninja and thus were most effective when employed in group focused formations like the yari wall (phalanx) as each man supported the man next to him. Monks, samurai and ninja however excel in single man-to-man comabt. They are not trained to use spear wall. Ninja because they are ninja and were really employed only in smaller numbers for particular jobs, they are not really battlefield troops and especially not front line grunts used to maintain a line (i.e. in a spear wall). Samurai are trained in single combat a so battle comes down to hundreds and thousands of 'duels' rather than the cohesive unit smashing its way through the enemy. Monks are a bit of a grey area to me, as they are not restricted to the bushido code of honor as far as I am aware it is possible that they did or it would be at least feasible in my mind for monks to make phalanx/yari wall formations.

I dont think that the warscape engine even has a sheildwall ability. You might be punching a brick wall trying to add this in.

Now the most likely issue you have here without looking at your pack file, is that you have created these units for each faction, but have not disabled the original units and are using these instead of your modified ones. Thus the units work in multiplayer custom battle but not in the campaign. You should upload your pack file and i will have a look later at at and see what is going on. If you are lucky i will be able to help, or someone else with more knowledge then me (not hard to find those!) will be able to help.

[Cyanator]

1. spear wall was never on anything other then Ashugaru units. If you want samurai and custom superior units (monks, ninja etc) to have it for yourself that is fine, but from a 'sense' perspective the ashugaru group are basically inferior peasant soldiers who were recruited from among the farmers. They had little skill relative to monks, samurai, or ninja and thus were most effective when employed in group focused formations like the yari wall (phalanx) as each man supported the man next to him. Monks, samurai and ninja however excel in single man-to-man comabt. They are not trained to use spear wall. Ninja because they are ninja and were really employed only in smaller numbers for particular jobs, they are not really battlefield troops and especially not front line grunts used to maintain a line (i.e. in a spear wall). Samurai are trained in single combat a so battle comes down to hundreds and thousands of 'duels' rather than the cohesive unit smashing its way through the enemy. Monks are a bit of a grey area to me, as they are not restricted to the bushido code of honor as far as I am aware it is possible that they did or it would be at least feasible in my mind for monks to make phalanx/yari wall formations.

I dont think that the warscape engine even has a sheildwall ability. You might be punching a brick wall trying to add this in.

Now the most likely issue you have here without looking at your pack file, is that you have created these units for each faction, but have not disabled the original units and are using these instead of your modified ones. Thus the units work in multiplayer custom battle but not in the campaign. You should upload your pack file and i will have a look later at at and see what is going on. If you are lucky i will be able to help, or someone else with more knowledge then me (not hard to find those!) will be able to help.

I'm not sure what the point of this comment is.

1. The spear wall formation is mostly used to defend against cavalry charges, in which working alone to be a hero is a fast way to get killed.
2. Nowhere in the bushido code does it say that you cannot use teamwork, especially when it improves your chances of survival in battle. The bushido code is not to desire death and glory, but to accept the possibility of death, such that it does not cloud your jugement. It is also not to seek rank or status among others but to seek and achieve personal excellence in everything that you do. I do not believe a samurai would be too "proud" to cooperate fully with their fellow samurai and clansmen.
3. Kachi are not samurai anyway. They are a warrior class above Hinin (Non Warriors), but are not samurai.

http://www.ikkotaizen.com/Structure.html

[weirdoascensor]

Hmmm...I Know the problem for Spear Square, Swooping Crane, and Wedge... SS and SC were a researched ability through Art in the Sengoku Campaign...and in Boshin Campaign, there were none...You need to make Boshin Art to enable them.

For Spearwall, I have no clue. Hell, even Bayoneted Royal Marines could use Spearwall.

Deployable Oodate Pavises...have you played a defensive field battle with the mod of yours?

[Cyanator]

Hmmm...I Know the problem for Spear Square, Swooping Crane, and Wedge... SS and SC were a researched ability through Art in the Sengoku Campaign...and in Boshin Campaign, there were none...You need to make Boshin Art to enable them.

For Spearwall, I have no clue. Hell, even Bayoneted Royal Marines could use Spearwall.

Deployable Oodate Pavises...have you played a defensive field battle with the mod of yours?

Thank you for your advice. I will have to see what this involves by studying some more of CA's scripts. Hopefully I can get this working.

As for shield walls, I have added the ability flag to some units in the unit to unit ability junctions. It was there on some Shogun 2 units but not on any FoTS ones. I added it to see if it would turn up in-game, since some people have reported it working in shogun 2. But it was really only an experiment, since others have never seen them despite them being a vanilla feature. How odd. Perhaps they too required researching, or were removed by CA for some reason.

I have also found the wooden stakes ability. They are the only deployable defensive ability that has worked in testing. But they look ugly at the moment since they have no texture. There is also reference to a fougasse ability in the code, probably a remenant from empire, but I havent tried it yet.

[Erwin Rommel]

perspective the ashugaru group are basically inferior peasant soldiers who were recruited from among the farmers.

Actually, the Ashigaru were starting to become semi-professional during the, I think mid-Sengoku Jidai, equipment standardized, and orders having specified lengths for yari and doling out loan armor.

[rob-a-dogg]

Actually, the Ashigaru were starting to become semi-professional during the, I think mid-Sengoku Jidai, equipment standardized, and orders having specified lengths for yari and doling out loan armor.

Relative to the samurai who were trained their entire life in the art of war, even professional ashugaru will have always been inferior peasants. Like having a professional football team (Liverpool say) compete vs my companys social soccer team. My comapnies soccer team is pretty good, they win their league every 2-3 years and are far better players then the average joe, but the Liverpool team would make...chopped liver of our team easy peasy. Even an individual Liverpool player in the enemy team for my company team would be a massive threat because of his insane individual skill. The only thing he does in play soccer. Thus the only way to beat him is via team work on the part of my companies team. Which is still not guaranteed for success.