Sengoku: Total War (a Shogun mod for M2TW)

[Yukinari]

I just can't get enough of the map - it looks absolutely gorgeous with all those settlements. About the custom battle screen, I had 2 questions :

1) Is that bell-flower mon the Saito clan or the Akechi ? If it is the Saito as I'm guessing, wouldn't the "wave" mon of Saito Dosan be better suited?
2) Is the Ichijo clan going to be a playable faction ? If so, it will be fun to play a Fujiwara restored campaign.

(Btw, blue-on-white Shimazu looks really good and authentic)

Great work as usual !

[Razor]

I just can't get enough of the map - it looks absolutely gorgeous with all those settlements. About the custom battle screen, I had 2 questions :

1) Is that bell-flower mon the Saito clan or the Akechi ? If it is the Saito as I'm guessing, wouldn't the "wave" mon of Saito Dosan be better suited?
2) Is the Ichijo clan going to be a playable faction ? If so, it will be fun to play a Fujiwara restored campaign.

(Btw, blue-on-white Shimazu looks really good and authentic)

Great work as usual !

Thanks for the kind words. As for your questions:

1) The orange/black symbol with the bellflower is the symbol that I used for the Saito clan. The bellflower is a mon that the Saito took from the Toki clan, the former governor of Mino province that Saito Dosan overthrew. The Akechi have a similar mon that's only slightly different. Indeed, I could have also used the alternative symbol used by the Saito which is the Dosan wave mon, but I figured that with them taking over from the Toki clan and the Akechi being retainers of the Saito (and formerly the Toki clan) and seeing a picture of a sashimono used by the Saito in red with that exact same black bellflower mon I thought it would be nice touch to just let them have the bellflower. And since the red black faction colors are already reserved for the Takeda clan I decided to go for orange that's different enough to easily tell them apart.

2) Unfortunately, I've replaced the Ichijo clan with the Kono clan. I thought that the Ichijo were more expandable than the Kono, because having the Kono in the north of Shikoku will deter the Mori and Miyoshi from trying to conquer the north of Shikoku. If the Kono territory would start as rebel, it would be more likely to see the Mori or Miyoshi or other factions conquer the territory, which I didn't really like. And I figuered that having the Ichijo would hamper the Chosokabe too much in their conquest of Tosa province, so I thought it was best to replace the Ichijo clan with the Kono clan.

[Darhan]

I hope will be force diplomacy, what will make the gameplay&roleplay very interesting.

[BestWind]

Are you going to keep the shimazu in blue? I personally love their classic green look

[BestWind]

Also, keep up with the good work, the mod looks really interesting to play from what you showed us, I hope everything is going smooth for you

[Collateral_dmg]

Are you going to keep the shimazu in blue? I personally love their classic green look

Historically Shimazu never had green heraldry, it was blue on white or black on white. I guess people are used to the original Shogun and Shogun 2 colour schemes for clans. It depends on Razor in which direction he wants to go though, but seeing something different (and accurate) is refreshing imo.

[Razor]

I hope will be force diplomacy, what will make the gameplay&roleplay very interesting.

I don't have it planned, but I don't see why it cannot be included later on as an optional submod.

Are you going to keep the shimazu in blue? I personally love their classic green look

Also, keep up with the good work, the mod looks really interesting to play from what you showed us, I hope everything is going smooth for you

Since the Shimazu didn't have green in their heraldry and I'd like to keep things somewhat authentic and accurate where possible, they'll keep the dark blue on white. I don't feel much for swapping around colors again and I feel that the current ones are an improvement over what I had before.

Also, Thanks. Everything is going ok so far. Lots of time is spent on preparing and research, but things are heading in the right direction.

Historically Shimazu never had green heraldry, it was blue on white or black on white. I guess people are used to the original Shogun and Shogun 2 colour schemes for clans. It depends on Razor in which direction he wants to go though, but seeing something different (and accurate) is refreshing imo.

The faction symbols and colors that you see in the most recent pics are what I'm going for. The only ones that could still use an improvement are the Amako and the Chosokabe. White/black is being used by the Amako and goldyellow/black by the Chosokabe, but historically the Amako would have black/white, the Chosokabe white/black, but the Hojo are also using black/white (which they also did historically) and using any other color would mess up all the other faction colors. So...
But overall I feel that the current colors are an improvement over the previous colors. I tried my best basing the colors on at least some historical reference, which is easier for some factions than others.

[Vladyvid]

Things looking extra sharp, Razor! Sweet mod, cant wait!

[Razor]

Things looking extra sharp, Razor! Sweet mod, cant wait!

Thanks Vlad.

[KarlTSG]

This mod is really looking great! Every couple months I've been checking up on here - thought this time I'd leave some words of encouragement! Love the work you're putting into it, can't wait!

[k3nntrooper1998]

Great Stuff and super excited to play this mod somewhere soon. Do you have any planned release for this mod? Thanks

[Razor]

This mod is really looking great! Every couple months I've been checking up on here - thought this time I'd leave some words of encouragement! Love the work you're putting into it, can't wait!

Thanks KarlTSG. Encouragements are much appreciated. It's nice to see there's interest outside of those who have already posted here.

Great Stuff and super excited to play this mod somewhere soon. Do you have any planned release for this mod? Thanks

Actually I have nothing planned yet. I really really want to release at least something this year, even if it's just a beta or version 0.1 with updates following. I just feel a bit unhappy with the 3D models that I use right now which are based on the the Imjin war mod units. They're the best Sengoku era units there are for M2TW at the moment and yet they're so messy. Right now I'm working out my own models and textures and am planning ahead organizing stuff so that I can easily expand on it in the future.

[Aragornnn]

great progress, don't you think there are many white factions? I hope they can differentiate themselves in battle xD.
also, will factions (or some of them) have unique units?

again, great progress.

[Razor]

great progress, don't you think there are many white factions? I hope they can differentiate themselves in battle xD.
also, will factions (or some of them) have unique units?

again, great progress.

Yes, I understand your concern about the amount of "white" factions. The clans at the time thought the same and often added different colors to their sashimono to make them stand out more. Luckily there's a secondary color so you should still differentiate between them fairly easily. And if not, you can still click on the "flash own troops" button during battle.

As for adding unique units for specific factions. I might add a few variations of the Nagae-yari Ashigaru units. The usual length fo a nagae-yari was 5 meters, but some clans preferred even longer pikes (up to 6 meters), while other clans used shorter ones (4 meters).

The Shimazu clan relied more on their samurai, whereas the Oda clan relied more on ashigaru units as well as teppo units. The Mori had ties with the pirates of the Kobayakawa and the Murakami as well as the Kono which are situated around the Seto inland sea so it would make sense to make them have more and easier access to ships with lower costs. But I also think that if other clans take over the territory of the Mori and the Kono, they should also gain easier access to ships.
It's also important to note that while the Oda clan and Toyotomi clan made use of ashigaru units, they were very well-equipped and professional soldiers, whereas the ashigaru units of the Chosokabe clan were still parttime farmers and were poorly equipped in comparison. I'm not sure how to implement this difference quite yet. It could be a combination of armour upgrades and buildings representing reform of ashigaru from parttime peasants to professional units.

I'm also looking to implement special units like "red devil" units, which are units all clad in red armour (inspiring friendly units and instilling fear in enemy units) that can only be recruited by certain generals with a certain trait. Historically the Ii clan used all-red armour, but they've taken the idea from others (such as the Takeda) where soldiers in red were grouped together into one "red devil" unit to form the front line.

So, I do want to implement certain bonuses for factions and add variation between factions, but it will probably be a combination of using slight variations of units, upping or lowering unit stats and increasing the recruitment pool of units for certain factions.
I don't like too many differences that you can't change in the course of the campaign, like faction X can recruit unit Y, but others can't recruit that unit (or an equivalent of that unit) ever. I also like the concept of so-called AOR (area of recruitment), but I don't want to go overboard with this. The differences will largely be in recruitment pool and stats.

[AntonisTheGreek]

.

I'm also looking to implement special units like "red devil" units, which are units all clad in red armour (inspiring friendly units and instilling fear in enemy units) that can only be recruited by certain generals with a certain trait.

When I read this, I immediately thought of this discussion that you may find useful:https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...t-or-ancillary

[Razor]

When I read this, I immediately thought of this discussion that you may find useful:https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...t-or-ancillary

I saved this thread before, but lost it because I had to reinstall my browser. Thanks for linking this thread!

[Gigantus]

Yes, I understand your concern about the amount of "white" factions. The clans at the time thought the same and often added different colors to their sashimono to make them stand out more. Luckily there's a secondary color so you should still differentiate between them fairly easily. And if not, you can still click on the "flash own troops" button during battle.

In Rise of three Kingdoms we actually disabled battle banners (full alpha for textures, not via CFG entry) and then used banner carrying officers.

[Razor]

In Rise of three Kingdoms we actually disabled battle banners (full alpha for textures, not via CFG entry) and then used banner carrying officers.

May I ask why you've disabled them using alpha layer instead of just disabling them in the .cfg?

In Japan big unit banners were all carried on foot, not on horse, so displaying unit banners for cavalry units correctly would be impossible in M2TW if you want to use the officer entries in export_descr_unit.txt. With that in mind I thought that the best way to do this is to make it more abstract by using floating banners.

[Gigantus]

We started by removing some elements of the texture file like the small experience banners but eventually ended up removing most (not all) elements over the course of the various releases. This picture was from my archive and I am not sure which version it was taken from.

Not using banner man officers for cavalry and re-enabling the cavalry sections in the banner textures would then appear to be the best compromise. This is what we ended up with eventually by way of battle banners - main banners only:

[Razor]

We started by removing some elements of the texture file like the small experience banners but eventually ended up removing most (not all) elements over the course of the various releases. This picture was from my archive and I am not sure which version it was taken from.

Not using banner man officers for cavalry and re-enabling the cavalry sections in the banner textures would then appear to be the best compromise. This is what we ended up with eventually by way of battle banners - main banners only:

Ah I see. I personally would keep the floating main unit banners at the very least but I'll also keep the floating xp banners to add a little more flavour and variation to units. And to keep things consistent I prefer all banners to be 'abstract' (floating in the air above the center of the unit) rather than carried by an actual soldier on the far left side of a unit.