Mettle Blades and Skill **BETA ver 005 12tpy RELEASED 30May**

[Nokter]

Hope your good progress and implementation of the new features will go smoothly. I'm waiting with growing anticipation. Cheers!

[Raftor]

Do you plan to make the mod 12 TPY, I think it would be better for several resons :

-first because the troops movement would be more realistic for 1 month.
-because it would let more time to finish the game.
-because if recruitement times end construction time were longer, battles would be more decisive because you would'nt have the time to rebuilt an army.

[Hazbones]

Yes, I plan to have a regular and 12TPY flavor of MBS.
It takes alot of work to change all the tables from regular to 12TPY so I will probably release with a regular version and then afterward create the 12TPY mod.

[Yerevan]

waw, this looks rather promising. You just pointed what might be TWS2 main weakness : uniformity. With a mod like this, I will never get out of this game...

[Hazbones]

I will leave it up to the community to create mini mods for individual provinces. I just won't have time I discovered, to be as in-depth as I want to. But even out of the gate MBS should give you plenty of variety in game play as each OS requires you to overcome specific challenges and are meant to be played differently. The only exception is the Military OS, it is going to be pretty close to vanilla in how you manage your clan; conquer, absorb, build, repeat. The others will be vastly different.

[Yerevan]

It looks very good already. I wish I were a modder (& had more free time) to be of any help. Good luck to you.

[Hazbones]

Progress Report:

TROM Incorporated!
Well, it looks like I got most of TROM working in MBS to include the TROM Tech Tree!
If you haven't seen his tech tree then you should take a look. I always liked it because it made more sense than the vanilla tech tree.

There are several other pieces of TROM that I cherry-picked to incorporate into my mod too. Those that have played his mod will be able to spot the pieces when you are playing MBS.
I cannot use all of TROM just because it won't work the same way in my mod as it does in his. There is also the balance issue. I think I glued mine and his mod together nicely enough to make it a smooth experience.

True Samurai Incorporated!
Still working on this one but I have also used several pieces of Fra70's True Samurai v3 mod.
Again, not all of it since I cannot get his unit rosters and stats to work in MBS simply because I have 5 different unit rosters as opposed to his single one.
I had to cherry-pick the parts I could use that did not conflict with my mod or TROM. This is what has been taking so long.

I think matching up what Yarkis, Fra and I have created has made a unique game so far. Where one modder did not spend much time, the others surely did!

Darth Flavor
I do plan to make a Darth mod version of MBS as well but seeing how long it takes me to mesh my mod into someone else's I think I will wait until after release to work on incorporating Darth's unless there is something in his mod that isn't covered by TROM or True Samurai mods.

So, please hang in there. It is coming along swell. Just trying to work on the technical AI stuff now and then we'll be done.

[Fra70]

I think that merging mods is the most difficult thing to do ...good luck !!

[Hazbones]

I think so too Fra.

First you have to find what you want in the other mod, rip it out, make it compatible with your own mod, then piece it all back together in a single mod.

A LOT OF WORK...

[Yerevan]

Progress Report:

TROM Incorporated!
Well, it looks like I got most of TROM working in MBS to include the TROM Tech Tree!
If you haven't seen his tech tree then you should take a look. I always liked it because it made more sense than the vanilla tech tree.

There are several other pieces of TROM that I cherry-picked to incorporate into my mod too. Those that have played his mod will be able to spot the pieces when you are playing MBS.
I cannot use all of TROM just because it won't work the same way in my mod as it does in his. There is also the balance issue. I think I glued mine and his mod together nicely enough to make it a smooth experience.

Tech tree is not the only good thing in TROM ! I found there campaign AI was one of the best for major clans dev and I saw very interesting things (like the ashikaga working with their allies in a very productive way and conquering each half of the western provinces). It's a 4 turns a year but I never witnessed a faction blietzing the others / in the midle game I often saw many faction blocks and diplomacy was pretty coherent.

True Sam is very interesting for it's rebellion management, the reemmerging factions, etc... and the units rebalance, new units and diversified uniforms, well, this is quite unique to watch on the battlefield !

Hope to play your mod soon, hazbones.

[Hazbones]

Progress Report:

Just letting everyone know that I am still working on the mod, I haven't let up. It is getting close to a release as soon as I get through with the CAI tables. Of course these are the tables that are very important to allow the pc player to have a chance against you. I am trying to use TROM as the base ai but changing all of his buildings and units to fit MBS is mind-numbing.

Just a lot of tedious work so not much excitement to report on unfortunately.

[McCarronXLD]

That's okay, still appreciate your work on the mod! Looking forward to it.

[Raftor]

Keep up the good work

[Hazbones]

I might have some awesome news for you guys this weekend.

[Yerevan]

We're all ears !

[Dooz]

Whoa. Reading the info on this right now is blowing my mind. I can't believe what I'm seeing.

[Hazbones]

Good, that's what I was going for.

[Dooz]

Yes. Well. I since finished reading it all, and I can't wait for this weekend.

[Hazbones]

Yes folks, that is right...

MBS HAS GONE ALPHA!!!

I have started a closed alpha with myself and a couple other family members to iron out some of the major issues before I release MBS for the public BETA.
It is hard to believe but I have NEVER played Shogun 2 all the way through a campaign yet.
For this reason, I will probably play for 1 week and see what kind of late game issues arise before I let the rest of you all join in.

So far I think I have incorporated all the community mods from TW Center that I want in my mod but this Alpha phase will help me determine if there are any other mods that really need to go into it.
If all goes well during this Alpha then you should expect a release by next weekend.

I know I probably crushed a few people's hopes for a release THIS weekend but remember that I have been working on this mod by myself for MONTHS and I'd like to enjoy it a little before I get washed over in bug reports when I release it.

Not to leave you with just this announcement, I will of course feed you some eye-candy to get you hyped for next weekend.

Here are some units that will make up every faction's starting stack (the ones you start the game with)...

Starting Armies

Ichizoku- Family Unit The family unit consists of your immediate relatives. There is another family unit for certain OS's that consists of all relatives. This is usually a garrison only Kashindan unit. There is just some kind of wonderful feeling slaughtering the family of your enemy in battle. I don't know what it is. Fudai- Inner Lord Mentor and member of your inner war council. His bodyguard are elite Escort Guards. You can create 4 of these units to have your very own mobile council. Tactically the unit is small but strategically he has a policing bonus in garrison and helps to support morale of weaker units on the battlefield. Once you lose him, they can only be recruited at the very late castle levels. Early Samurai- (Spear and Bow) Every faction will start out with the same stack of units. This includes two early samurai units. Use them wisely! Mercenaries Every region will either start out with a Stealth building (to recruit mercs straight away) or a Religious building (to recruit religious forces right away). Neither mercs nor religious units require any techs or resources, they are just there offering you their services for a price of course. These units are small so don't expect to steamroll anyone with them and their upkeep costs are so high that you will wreck your economy if you buy too many of them. (yes, they are capped too). Peasants They are always there to do your bidding. Cheap and quick to recruit, the peasant units are large but untrained and morale is a serious issue with them. Mostly, you will fight the first few seasons with huge peasant armies until you complete techs and construct buildings to buy other units.

​

[Hazbones]

Here are some more shots taken from the game...

The Kashindan is your "clan government" so these units are not meant to be used on the battlefield. Some Kashindan units are recruitable and can go out to battle with you but you don't want to be throwing them out to fight. Keep them close to your maku! You can identify them with units cards having a light blue background.

The Hatamoto units are your personal retainers. Some are used to fight, others are used in more ceremonial or administrative roles. You'll see the first Hatamoto you can recruit are pages and followers. These are low rank members but still picked as Hatamoto for their non-lethal skills.

Garrisons and Kashindan
As I mentioned before, several of the Kashindan units are "garrison only" and you'll see them when you look at the info panel for the castle. The more buildings you create in your town, the larger the garrison will get.

Merc Armies
These units are plentiful but very expensive (and extreme upkeep costs). You can only buy them with a healthy economy! All mercs are bought from the Stealth Building Chain.

Region Rosters
Each region has their own unit roster. This means that as MBS grows, each region will have very unique-looking units. I created all of my own unit models but I don't have time to do them all right away. This is where I hope to get some community help.

Religious Armies
These units, like the mercs, are always available. All you have to do is build one of the religious buildings (Buddhist or Ikko or Christian) and they will be available. Again, they are small and expensive so you cannot buy all of them just because they are there. I made it so that you can build any religious structure but beware of the religion effects on your province!

Starting Armies
All factions start with the same units. There are some missions that give a few clans more units but those I have weakened so that they won't hurt you with your smaller force.