Sengoku: Total War (a Shogun mod for M2TW)

[Razor]

This is shaping up very nicely, looking forward to see how it progresses!

Thanks.

Post #200!!

Seems like you're really going detailed with this, I can't complain haha. I agree about the flags, it's a good choice.

And since you inspired me to start a project of my own in S2 a while back, I made a little bit of progress as well, mostly doing retexturing for now. Hopefully it gives you some inspiration in return

Some screenshots. An unlikely alliance of Date and Shimazu heh

Keep us updated as always!

Yeah, I am getting pretty detailed with this. Perhaps a little too detailed. At the moment I'm doing multiple things at once. I'm still trying out new faction colors (somewhat based on colors that factions used) and symbols as well as battle banners. Banners for the Shimazu, Mori, Oda, Takeda and the Hojo are as good as finished. I ultimately plan to use 3D standards as royal standards, so every faction can have a unique standard (golden umbrella for the Oda clan, golden fan for Tokugawa clan, etc.).

I'm also still constantly reworking the map using Google Maps. When I'm investigating and discovering locations of other minor castles, I sometimes have to rework the geography to make them work and fit on the map. Sometimes I need to move them a little bit to prevent these castles from blocking a path completely, even for agents such as diplomats. And while doing that I'm starting to have a better understanding of the geography of the area, discovering mountain passes and rivers that look only a bit off sometimes on my current map and at other times are totally wrong. As of now I've already added some 100 permanent forts, based on actual locations of castles and forts. Thing is, how much is enough? How detailed do I want it to get? It's still nowhere near as extreme as the Dominion of the Sword mod, and the final amount will probably never get that extreme in this mod, but the number of forts will still be a considerable amount if I continue this route.
Then there's the puzzle of finding out the correct geography. Is a mountain pass fit enough for using as a route for armies to march through? Sometimes it's just not that obvious. For example: How did the Takeda end up exerting their influence in northern Hida province? Did they use a mountain pass that leads directly from Shinano to Hida province or did they go through Mino province after taking control of a number of castles in that region and went into Hida from the south? Did they use the mountain pass east of Matsumoto leading directly to Takahara Suwa? Did they use a mountain pass located a bit more to the south ending in the areas around Takayama? It's both interesting and frustrating, involving a bit of guess work.

Then there's the dilemma of which castle I should make the main castle of a province. For example: In northern Shinano the Ogasawara clan had Hayashi castle as their main castle, but when the Takeda clan conquered the Ogasawara territory the Takeda decided to use a smaller sattelite castle of Hayashi on the flatland, called Fukashi, as the main castle of that area which was to become the well-known Matsumoto castle. Similar story with Katsurao (main castle of the Murakami clan in Shinano) and Toishi, which was a minor mountain castle, but can be seen as a precursor to the later Ueda castle located on the flatland. Now, should I be using Hayashi and Katsurao as main castles of their respective provinces or should I use Fukashi/Matsumoto and Toishi/Ueda instead?

Sigh... It's never that simple once you know the historic details...


Anyway, it's good to see that I inspired you to do something of your own. Keep it up! Perhaps you might indeed give me some ideas. Date and Shimazu? Lol, indeed a bit far-fetched, but who knows what could have happened?

[King Athelstan]

Thanks.



Yeah, I am getting pretty detailed with this. Perhaps a little too detailed.

Detail is always appreciated and adds that extra touch - as long as it doesn't mean that the bigger picture never is completed

[Collateral_dmg]

Thanks.



Yeah, I am getting pretty detailed with this. Perhaps a little too detailed. At the moment I'm doing multiple things at once. I'm still trying out new faction colors (somewhat based on colors that factions used) and symbols as well as battle banners. Banners for the Shimazu, Mori, Oda, Takeda and the Hojo are as good as finished. I ultimately plan to use 3D standards as royal standards, so every faction can have a unique standard (golden umbrella for the Oda clan, golden fan for Tokugawa clan, etc.).

I'm also still constantly reworking the map using Google Maps. When I'm investigating and discovering locations of other minor castles, I sometimes have to rework the geography to make them work and fit on the map. Sometimes I need to move them a little bit to prevent these castles from blocking a path completely, even for agents such as diplomats. And while doing that I'm starting to have a better understanding of the geography of the area, discovering mountain passes and rivers that look only a bit off sometimes on my current map and at other times are totally wrong. As of now I've already added some 100 permanent forts, based on actual locations of castles and forts. Thing is, how much is enough? How detailed do I want it to get? It's still nowhere near as extreme as the Dominion of the Sword mod, and the final amount will probably never get that extreme in this mod, but the number of forts will still be a considerable amount if I continue this route.
Then there's the puzzle of finding out the correct geography. Is a mountain pass fit enough for using as a route for armies to march through? Sometimes it's just not that obvious. For example: How did the Takeda end up exerting their influence in northern Hida province? Did they use a mountain pass that leads directly from Shinano to Hida province or did they go through Mino province after taking control of a number of castles in that region and went into Hida from the south? Did they use the mountain pass east of Matsumoto leading directly to Takahara Suwa? Did they use a mountain pass located a bit more to the south ending in the areas around Ta? It's both interesting and frustrating, involving a bit of guess work.

Then there's the dilemma of which castle I should make the main castle of a province. For example: In northern Shinano the Ogasawara clan had Hayashi castle as their main castle, but when the Takeda clan conquered the Ogasawara territory the Takeda decided to use a smaller sattelite castle of Hayashi on the flatland, called Fukashi, as the main castle of that area which was to become the well-known Matsumoto castle. Similar story with Katsurao (main castle of the Murakami clan in Shinano) and Toishi, which was a minor mountain castle, but can be seen as a precursor to the later Ueda castle located on the flatland. Now, should I be using Hayashi and Katsurao as main castles of their respective provinces or should I use Fukashi/Matsumoto and Toishi/Ueda instead?

Sigh... It's never that simple once you know the historic details...


Anyway, it's good to see that I inspired you to do something of your own. Keep it up! Perhaps you might indeed give me some ideas. Date and Shimazu? Lol, indeed a bit far-fetched, but who knows what could have happened?

Haha, it's just textures on assets, so I can make any clans fight together basically. I won't make major clans recruitable from their provinces (so you don't get Takeda and Uesugi fighting together, or Date and Shimazu as that's a bit too unlikely), but minor clans will have a specific province where you recruit their units. It's a lot of work since there's some 60 factions in S2, but I think it's the only way to do such a system of recruitment. Plus I like texturing work, it's relaxing in a way

I get what you mean when it comes to forts and towns etc. Like you said it all depends on how detailed you want to get. But I personally wouldn't stress it. Obviously you can't recreate entire Japan, especially from that period since no one knows for sure. The major castles and forts are a good idea. But if it means anything to you, I for instance don't like in a mod for S2 which adds a lot more factions and regions, the fact that in south Shinano especially they are just so crowded. You can capture 3-4 regions in like a single turn, just one after another. It just feels weird, and it's not terribly fun either since AI usually leaves things undefended, so it's just a steamroll. Of course it doesn't have to be the same for M2, since they are so vastly different and a lot depends on where you put regions and forts.

In any case things are looking great, and I think this will be one of my favorite mods ever

[Razor]

Haha, it's just textures on assets, so I can make any clans fight together basically. I won't make major clans recruitable from their provinces (so you don't get Takeda and Uesugi fighting together, or Date and Shimazu as that's a bit too unlikely), but minor clans will have a specific province where you recruit their units. It's a lot of work since there's some 60 factions in S2, but I think it's the only way to do such a system of recruitment. Plus I like texturing work, it's relaxing in a way

I get what you mean when it comes to forts and towns etc. Like you said it all depends on how detailed you want to get. But I personally wouldn't stress it. Obviously you can't recreate entire Japan, especially from that period since no one knows for sure. The major castles and forts are a good idea. But if it means anything to you, I for instance don't like in a mod for S2 which adds a lot more factions and regions, the fact that in south Shinano especially they are just so crowded. You can capture 3-4 regions in like a single turn, just one after another. It just feels weird, and it's not terribly fun either since AI usually leaves things undefended, so it's just a steamroll. Of course it doesn't have to be the same for M2, since they are so vastly different and a lot depends on where you put regions and forts.

In any case things are looking great, and I think this will be one of my favorite mods ever

Ah yes, the so-called AoR (Area of Recuitment). It's something that can take a lot of work. And you're right, texturing stuff can be very relaxing, but the catch is that if you start modifying one thing, it's easy to start modifying other things as well. Before you know it, you're working on a complete overhaul.

Indeed, I can't recreate Sengoku era Japan with 100% accuracy and I won't. As far as the amount of regions and forts is concerned, I'd like to keep it reasonable. Certain regions like the Kanto region, Owari, Kyoto and south Shinano will be more crowded than other regions. The way I see it, the problem isn't so much that you can capture 3-4 settlements in one single turn. It all depends on what the settlements actually represent. The problem that I have is that capturing 1 settlement could mean that you automatically control a big swath of land. In Shogun 2 Total War provinces only have one castle where I believe only the huge Mutsu province is chopped up into a few smaller provinces. Whole provinces like Echigo, Musashi and Kozuke can be conquered by just winning 3 sieges, while these regions had a lot of castles and fortifications and weren't even that unified to begin with.
However, the other end of the spectrum is what Dominion of the Sword has done:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Although very impressive, this is what I absolutely DON'T want either. So it's a bit of a balancing act. Again, I'd like to keep it reasonable, which in the case of the examples shown above would mean: scrap some 50-75% of the forts.



And you're right, the AI does seem to act a bit funky when it comes to defending settlements versus forts. There are a number of things that you can tweak, but it's never 100% satisfactory. To counter this I intend on making all factions being able to "horde", which allows factions to exists even though they lost their last settlement. They could for example still have family members walking around the map or have them garrisoned inside forts.

[Morrowgan]

Still sad that DotS died

[Razor]

Definitely, but I'm glad they did end up releasing what they had.

[Collateral_dmg]

Ah yes, the so-called AoR (Area of Recuitment). It's something that can take a lot of work. And you're right, texturing stuff can be very relaxing, but the catch is that if you start modifying one thing, it's easy to start modifying other things as well. Before you know it, you're working on a complete overhaul.

Indeed, I can't recreate Sengoku era Japan with 100% accuracy and I won't. As far as the amount of regions and forts is concerned, I'd like to keep it reasonable. Certain regions like the Kanto region, Owari, Kyoto and south Shinano will be more crowded than other regions. The way I see it, the problem isn't so much that you can capture 3-4 settlements in one single turn. It all depends on what the settlements actually represent. The problem that I have is that capturing 1 settlement could mean that you automatically control a big swath of land. In Shogun 2 Total War provinces only have one castle where I believe only the huge Mutsu province is chopped up into a few smaller provinces. Whole provinces like Echigo, Musashi and Kozuke can be conquered by just winning 3 sieges, while these regions had a lot of castles and fortifications and weren't even that unified to begin with.
However, the other end of the spectrum is what Dominion of the Sword has done:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Although very impressive, this is what I absolutely DON'T want either. So it's a bit of a balancing act. Again, I'd like to keep it reasonable, which in the case of the examples shown above would mean: scrap some 50-75% of the forts.



And you're right, the AI does seem to act a bit funky when it comes to defending settlements versus forts. There are a number of things that you can tweak, but it's never 100% satisfactory. To counter this I intend on making all factions being able to "horde", which allows factions to exists even though they lost their last settlement. They could for example still have family members walking around the map or have them garrisoned inside forts.

Ye I would say that at this point I'm kinda making an overhaul I was in love with this era of history since I was a kid and played the first shogun, and would love to do it visual justice as accurately as possible. This of course means a crap ton of work. We'll see how it goes. One step at a time

LOL, that mod is what I would call way over the top. You are definitely not even close to that level of settlements haha. While S2 has a lot less regions, you can make new ones (as many people have done, tho it's not a particularly easy task), and what I like about S2 is that settlements have garrisons. You can create buildings with mods that can increase the garrison as well so the AI can actually defend it's castles at least somewhat. I forgot how it is in M2, but I saw you mention garrison scripts? It's something to consider for sure. And yes making factions a horde if they lose everything is a good idea. So in that case everything freezes for the AI or? I mean they don't have any income, so I imagine they don't pay upkeep for units and obviously can't recruit new ones.

[Razor]

Ye I would say that at this point I'm kinda making an overhaul I was in love with this era of history since I was a kid and played the first shogun, and would love to do it visual justice as accurately as possible. This of course means a crap ton of work. We'll see how it goes. One step at a time

LOL, that mod is what I would call way over the top. You are definitely not even close to that level of settlements haha. While S2 has a lot less regions, you can make new ones (as many people have done, tho it's not a particularly easy task), and what I like about S2 is that settlements have garrisons. You can create buildings with mods that can increase the garrison as well so the AI can actually defend it's castles at least somewhat. I forgot how it is in M2, but I saw you mention garrison scripts? It's something to consider for sure. And yes making factions a horde if they lose everything is a good idea. So in that case everything freezes for the AI or? I mean they don't have any income, so I imagine they don't pay upkeep for units and obviously can't recruit new ones.

I think I might end up with 25%-50% of the number of forts that the Dominion of the Sword mod has. Thing is that Japan is littered with castles of some sort. With that in mind, I plan to identify river crossings, mountain passes, choke points on my map, then check on Google maps if there are any castles near that spot (and try to identify it) and place a fort nearby on my map. I also try to keep only 1 fort inbetween settlements at chokepoints, but sometimes there might be 2 inbetween. That way you don't need to first take out a whole train of forts until you finally reach the actual settlement. It also adds an extra motivation for conquering these forts because they can be used as an additional defense for both your main settlement as well as the neighbouring enemy main settlement.

Yes, in M2TW you can use garrison scripts, that will fire when the settlement gets besieged. I want to tie it to some kind of beacon building (alarming nearby samurai and people to gather inside the castle to defend it) so that players are informed on this feature and they can actually see which settlement will have a garrison script and which settlement doesn't.

And yes, factions will live on once they go horde, but can't build/recruit anything. They still pay upkeep for their units, but forts can be set to allow for free upkeep of a number of units. I do plan to have some kind of money script so the AI doesn't get too deep into debt in such a scenario.

[Gigantus]

Horde units do not have any upkeep by default afaik (that's why the mongols and timurids get so rich while hording). They can recruit mercenaries (not sure if they actually do) and I am not aware of a satisfying way to stop a horde recruiting mercenaries.

[Razor]

They don't? Hmmm I'd have to look into it some further when I have the time. I could always use a script that sets a maximum amount of money that factions can have when they go horde. I don't mind horde faction recruiting mercenaries, but it would be a bit ridiculous if factions get filthy rich while they don't own any settlements.

[Gigantus]

Setting the kings purse to zero when a faction has no settlements and resetting the purse to it's original value when they have one again should be an easy fix.

[Maximus030]

This sounds/looks incredible!!! Wow!!!
Are you working alone on this? I don’t want to be impolite but can you say when you think it would be close to a release?
Seems like we will have a EBII for sengoku period.
great! Please don’t stop

[Razor]

Thanks Maximus030. Yes, I'm currently working on this project on my own. I think that I should release something this year. It won't be perfect and the way I would like it to be - especially the first version - but at least it's something.

Ha, it's not quite at the level of EBII. And don't worry, I'm too invested in this project to let it go down without a release.

[King Athelstan]

That's the spirit!

[R.P. Gryphus]

I can't wait to play your mod and I would like to submit my candidacy to be a beta tester if you ever need one!

1) I've decided to rename the papal states as the Imperial Court again, with the Emperor as the "Pope". The Ashikaga Shogunate is now represented as a rebel subfaction with a named character, Yoshiteru Ashikaga, governing Kyoto, while I've moved the "Pope faction" to an isolated island that can't be invaded. I've decided to do this because my tests showed that factions (most notably the Miyoshi clan and the Oda clan) when they expand towards Kyoto were outright reluctant to attack Kyoto, because it was owned by the "Pope faction". The campaign stalled at that point and didn't quite progress as I would have liked to see; it went totally against the goal of the campaign and how clans would have acted during the Sengoku era (i.e. take Kyoto and unite Japan).

This is excellent. While reading through the posts I also thought the same. As for the clan being too passive against the 'pope' faction, why don't you divide all clans by two types, the catholic and the muslim one? The catholic would be those more loyal to the Shogun/Emperor, and the muslim would be those a tiny bit more ambition, like Nobunaga, Ieyasu, or myself.

The College of Cardinals will represent the Court and the Cardinals will be renamed to Court Nobles which you can recruit in Kyoto to gain influence in the Imperial Court itself. "Piety" will be renamed to "Etiquette".

Don'T know about etiquette. How about influence? Or even authority? As much as the daimyo have authorities, so does the nobles at the imperial courts.

7) Does anyone know how to create custom settlements? That would be lovely! As of now I only have the M2TW settlements with a possibility of implementing the Imjin War custom settlements (but without permission that's a bit of a no no for me). What would be epic is when someone pops up and is able to create new settlements that fit the Sengoku era, i.e. castles with multiple rings of walls and moats etc.

Well you can try and go on an asian website to find the author of Imjin War, or there's also Asia Empire that has Sengoku assets like settlements and units. The guy from Asia Empire is also here on TWC but I think he didn't call the mod the same name, but I don't recall what it is exactly. It is a dead mod about Sengoku period.

And here's a gift, since I don't really like the portraits showcased in your previews. 4569 portraits, around 2000 that can be use for agents (but still mixed with warrior portraits, so just need to delete those) and around 1200 for named characters and another 1200 alternative portraits for named characters. Hope you find it useful. And again, think about me to test the $hiiteeeee out of your mod if you ever need a tester. I'm also very comfy with most of the files so I can even help you correct bugs and things like that.



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PREVIEW

[Gigantus]

Those portraits look familiar guess Seether was using a similar source for our Rise of three Kingdoms portraits.

[R.P. Gryphus]

Yes they were made for the same kind of game, and I guess by the same artist(s). ^^ Just love them, but for some reason Seether went for newer portraits for many in RoTK that have a very arcade feel. So in my submod I'm working on for RoTK, I've bring back the old portraits and even more. I'm working slowly though, I'm alone and so easily distracted. x)

[Gigantus]

Don't forget all the custom portraits...

[R.P. Gryphus]

Don't forget all the custom portraits...

Yeah... I've reverted all of them back to older style portrait. Took me quite a time. And I've added a bunch of other missing character too, some fictional and others historical.

[Razor]

I can't wait to play your mod and I would like to submit my candidacy to be a beta tester if you ever need one!

I will release a first version for everyone to 'test'.

This is excellent. While reading through the posts I also thought the same. As for the clan being too passive against the 'pope' faction, why don't you divide all clans by two types, the catholic and the muslim one? The catholic would be those more loyal to the Shogun/Emperor, and the muslim would be those a tiny bit more ambition, like Nobunaga, Ieyasu, or myself.

Haha yourself. Lord Takeda is speaking . Well yes, but the thing is that if you use the muslim religion, the 'pope' will call a crusade on the muslim faction sooner or later. Having a crusade that early in the game kind of breaks the game as armies tend to get stuck. I only want to allow crusades when there's a dominant faction where crusading armies can pass through friendly territory easily. Also, it still needs some more testing. Also many Japanese worked from within the court system until or unless they were powerful enough to go against it (like Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu).
For the Ikko-ikko I'm using the orthodox religion as M2TW doesn't allow a crusade to be called on factions with the orthodox religion.

Don'T know about etiquette. How about influence? Or even authority? As much as the daimyo have authorities, so does the nobles at the imperial courts.

As of now I've called it 'etiquette', which is a nod to the tea ceremony which is becoming famous among the samurai in this period. Influence is also an alternative nut I believe that one is also used by diplomasts and authority is already displayed for faction leaders. My reasoning behind this is that samurai who are good at etiquette/tea ceremony also have a high reputation/influence/authority so to speak. Either way it's not definitive.

Well you can try and go on an asian website to find the author of Imjin War, or there's also Asia Empire that has Sengoku assets like settlements and units. The guy from Asia Empire is also here on TWC but I think he didn't call the mod the same name, but I don't recall what it is exactly. It is a dead mod about Sengoku period.

Yes, I believe Asia Empires shares a number of things with the Imjin War mod if I'm not mistaken? It's not quite centered on the Sengoku period, but on the Imjin War, which is close enough. I'm aware of its existence and I'm already using some of its assets. The units are based onte Imjin War mod as are some of the UI elements. However I'm unable to contact the Imjin War mod team so I'm a bit wary of using assets of mods without clear permission.

And here's a gift, since I don't really like the portraits showcased in your previews. 4569 portraits, around 2000 that can be use for agents (but still mixed with warrior portraits, so just need to delete those) and around 1200 for named characters and another 1200 alternative portraits for named characters. Hope you find it useful. And again, think about me to test the $hiiteeeee out of your mod if you ever need a tester. I'm also very comfy with most of the files so I can even help you correct bugs and things like that.



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PREVIEW

Thanks! It's funny that you say that. My portraits are already based on the portraits that you posted. All I've added to it is a more realistic skin tone/color since some of the portraits look a bit cartoony. Granted I haven't done 4569 portraits as of yet. I'm currently at above 100 I believe.

I'll take a look at your assets and see if I've missed any portraits. Ultimately I still plan to rework them so that they have a similar style that resembles the portrait style of RTW and M2TW.