Japanese Faction mod [WIP] V0.89a released! (9 December 2011)

[titi]

Hi, I just want to say, that the corrected small spelling mistake made it working in linux again! Thanks a lot!

[ultifd]

First thoughts:

• Music: Modern, but it's good.
• Peasants look good.
• Ninja: Same problem as before, except bigger. Eventually humans can just get enough ninjas and bomb their enemies' whole base. I guess this will just depends.

* Shinobi's primary attack has changed to melee attack.

• This is kinda bad, they are always killing themselves. Even if they do when they use their bombs, in this situation this shouldn't be like this.
• Price of units: Now you kinda have to be a pro to play Japanese. Don't forgot that CPUs have resource multiplyers, so now they actually have a even better chance of killing humans! edit: I guess it isn't that bad.
• Ashigaru: Well, the spears are very long
• Workers have selection issues, there are stones...

Nice Update!

[titi]

ok some feedback:

- New music is fun, but very obvious, not shure if it will maybe get annoying in the future.
- workers have the "selection problem" while minig. this is caused by the small stones flying around while minig. Is it the original glest worker model? If yes, use the new one from current megaglest and it will be fixed. To verify, open a selection rectangle near the mining workers. Then you will see the selection flickering/false selections.
- Selection problems with "terrain" surrounding buildings: Current version shows nice looking grass/terrain around some of the buildings. This looks nice, but causes some trouble with selecting ( I also faced this in the megapack especially with the obelisc in egypt ).  If an enemy unit stands on this grass it can often not really be selected . Instead of the selection you want you get the building instead. This results in attacking the building instead of the fighter unit standing on the ground which maybe was your intention. This is an technical issue of all versions of glest while selecting things. if there are two units under the mousepointer you will never know which of teh units will be selected!.
beside of this the terrain might look great in flat terrain, but it looks bad if it gets hilly
- we only played 3 games yet, but all in all it was fun and balanced. I think that the cpu player has big advantages with this faction (as ultifd does ). It was ok and fun so far.

I will give more feedback if we played some more ....

[ultifd]

Here's the gameplay video/our game. Next time, 2.5 ultras.

Here's a video showing the typical day when you start to play...

And here is a bonus one, leading people to think how much damage a lot of shinobis could cause.

[Hagekura]

Wow I thought Japan mod was to be used with magitech. I love the idea of Japan German and Persian as one tech tree. It reminds me of a RTS Tzar: The Burden of the Crown, which I feel was heavily underrated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzar:_The_Burden_of_the_Crown It had three faction Asian European and Arabian. I woulden't think its strange that you made a faction that was radically different from Japan! Go for it!

First time heard of the game, looks classic but nice! thx!
Yes, for now I'm making this faction magitech-compatible fashion, for people love many factions mixed-up in a single tech-tree (I am the one!).
but in future, probably when next faction was done, I will pack them in an independent tech-tree and I will include simple "rock-paper-scissors" type damge multiplier - such like spear is good against cavalry, cavalry is good against light-armored foot infantry, light-infantry is good against heavy and slow infantry etc,etc... - like many other games do.

It's surprisingly for me that there are actually some support for my german faction idea, then It'll be not so bad I make german(HRE) in next faction. but I might have to hear more people's opinion about it, I want to discuss this matter in a thread like here:https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php?topic=6144.0
Thank you for the in-depth feedbacks, ultifd and titi! It's very helpful for me!

OK, I will lower the shinobi's bomb attack strength.
In fact I don't use so many shinobis, so I didn't realize how strong their bomb attacks become.
About Shinobi's primary attack, in the last version of the mod, I felt a bit annoyed that CPU shinobis never use melee (or bomb) attack and horde of AI shinobis surrounding my army and rains shurikens which actually ineffective. so I changed their primary attack to melee, but I must admit that they become more suicidal as you pointed. I hope future glest - probably Glest4.0? - can handle multiple attack skills of units.

"Ashigaru's spear" yes, they are exceptionally long!  

Their "長柄槍 Nagae-yari" spears were kind of pikes, almost 4.55 ~ 6.40 meters tall. which gave ashigarus ability to knock-off enemies from distance.

About worker's selection issue, I also noticed the problem.
Thank you for the offer to use your fixed worker model for my mod, herr! I will use them!

Maybe I have to decrease the sizes of the base terrains of buildings.
(I feel a bit hesitate to delete it completely, as I myself like them).

In this vesion, CPUs gained more advantages to humans due to the high-unit costs, yes.
but to put it differently it would work as kinda "handicap", as AI doesn't know how to use units properly (i.e. shinobis) and in many cases Humans are much more clever than AIs!  

At last thank you all for your feedbacks, and excellent vids ultifd! I've enjoyed them!
I'm counting on your further notices and suggestions!

[titi]

Just for info: The selection problem for units standing on the surrounding ground of a building is now fixed in MG ( in svn ).
So no more need to remove it ( beside the "hill problem" which still makes it look bad sometimes).

[ultifd]

So how come the Arquebuser doesn't have splash anymore?

[Hagekura]

Just for info: The selection problem for units standing on the surrounding ground of a building is now fixed in MG ( in svn ).
So no more need to remove it ( beside the "hill problem" which still makes it look bad sometimes).

I'm pleased to hear that. Danke herr! maybe I have to compromise about the hill problem.

So how come the Arquebuser doesn't have splash anymore?

Arquebusers never had splash...
or are you talking about Canon's splash? I rethought that the Canons are a bit too powerful against infantry, so I have reduced it's splash radius. but the Canons still have radius 1 splash.

[ultifd]

So how come the Arquebuser doesn't have splash anymore?

Arquebusers never had splash...

Oh. Well for some reason I thought it would always have some splash, maybe radius 1. Nevermind then.

[Zoythrus]

hey guys, i was on the wiki page for this and i tidied up some of the unit descriptions as well as i wrote one for the Shinobi.

am i the only one who writes stuff for that page?

[Omega]

hey guys, i was on the wiki page for this and i tidied up some of the unit descriptions as well as i wrote one for the Shinobi.

am i the only one who writes stuff for that page?

Sadly, you, me, and Ultifd are the only ones who have actively edited that page. I would really like all modders to make pages for their own mod, but so far that request has been ignored. I expect that to change (or at least for serious modders) once they see one of my most recent posts. The Military page is the best example, being the most complete page to date, though even its got a ways to go (I plan to make pages for every unit and upgrade, as well as add a navigation box to the bottom of the page (you notice these a lot on Wikipedia, and I recently implimented a template that will allow us to make them. Abet, they are useless unless all the pages for Military are done first).

[Zoythrus]

The Military page is the best example, being the most complete page to date.

i wouldnt go that far, the page that i wrote for Constellus is pretty good too.

if only other modders could look at our pages and try to make good ones for their factions....

[Hagekura]

Many thanks to Zoy, ultifd and omega for editing the japanese wiki page!
I still don't understand how to edit the wiki correctly so the help is really welcomed!
but I know it's hard to up the page to date because my mod's current status is unstable and still in development, also I'm frequently change the units and buildings attributes. I have a responsible to edit the page by myself eventually, but I have not enough time to learn how to editing wiki and write the faction's description. I must admit I'm a bit lazy. When the mod is settled, I will edit the wiki page.

[Omega]

Many thanks to Zoy, ultifd and omega for editing the japanese wiki page!
I still don't understand how to edit the wiki correctly so the help is really welcomed!
but I know it's hard to up the page to date because my mod's current status is unstable and still in development, also I'm frequently change the units and buildings attributes. I have a responsible to edit the page by myself eventually, but I have not enough time to learn how to editing wiki and write the faction's description. I must admit I'm a bit lazy. When the mod is settled, I will edit the wiki page.

Here's a few helpful pages:
https://docs.megaglest.org/Glest:Policies
https://docs.megaglest.org/Glest:Style_guide
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Getting_started

As well, because this is the same software as Wikipedia (Mediawiki), most formatting for it works here as well, and Wikipedia has some very good guides and policies, many of which are used on our wiki, but not directly mentioned.

What a page must have:

• At least one internal link. If a page does not have an internal link, Mediawiki does not consider it a page (and thus, it will not appear when searching, nor on the page counter in the sidebar). Internal links are easy, as Glest, Tileset, Faction, Mod, Map, and many more very popular keywords have pages, and if there is no way to add an internal link of at least some kind, you are doing it wrong.
• It must be linked from another page, anywhere. Pages can be imagined as a web, starting with the main page, which links to most of the popular pages, which in turn will link to all the individual pages. If a page does not have anything linking to it, it is considered an Orphaned page, which also annoys Mediawiki. Factions/Techtrees can have pages linked from Mods/List, while maps have Maps/List, and tilesets have Tilesets/List. Even scenarios have a page at Scenarios/List.
• An introductory paragraph. This is something many older pages lack (and I add it as I find pages that lack it). This is the first paragraph in the article and is NEVER preceded by any type of header. This paragraph (or paragraphs) should summarize what the article is about, or the point of the page. Please do not start pages with a header. Even if the page would seem obvious by the title what its about, always start with an introductory paragraph. It doesn't have to be long. It can be one sentence, but it's gotta be there.

What a page should have:
^{These are not necessary when creating a page, especially if the page is a stub or there is insufficient data to expand the page, but you should try to get these anyway.}

• If the page is a faction, map, tileset, techtree, or unit, it should have the associated infobox at the very top of the page. This summarizes the page, and, like most templates, you will have to use code display to insert them, so you can't use the WYSIWYG editor (I strongly recommend that if you are experienced enough, to set the code version as the default by disabling the WYSIWYG editor in your preferences). They are all named accordingly, so the infobox for factions is found at Template:Faction. Likewise, maps is Template:Map, etc. The instructions for using these templates can be found on the associated page, along with examples. Even more examples can be found by looking at pages that are using the template (every template is used in at least one page). Please avoid making new templates for any of these categories (for example, I noticed GIS made a unit template, which, ironically, has not been used on any pages). Sure your unit might have more features, but those can be discussed in the actual article. The infoboxes are meant to summarize the faction/unit/whatever in a standard (meaning the same across all like pages) way.
• Avoid using external links in the body of the article unless necessary. Try and group the external links at the bottom of the article, under a new level 2 header "External Links". Whenever possible, link to an internal page. So if you mention GAE in your article, do not link to the sourceforge page of the GAE project, but link to the actual GAE page.
• Relatedly, try and have a "See Also" section at the bottom of the article (above external links) that links to associated pages (even if loosely). This gives the reader more pages to read when they finish reading one page, and is an easy place to add internal links (for the minimum one internal link rule previously mentioned). Even if the link was mentioned multiple times in the article already, post it again, because people tend to read other pages after they finish reading the current one, rather than while in the middle of it.
• The Glest Wiki is known as the "Glest Wiki". Wikia is just the host, who modifies the MediaWiki (note the absence of the trailing "a") software on which the Glest Wiki runs on. The MediaWiki software is the same software used to run Wikipedia, and thus the origins of the word Wiki (I could go into a long dialogue on what Wiki means, but just to sum it up, it means "fast"). This might sound a bit of a nitpick, but no more so than those folks at Lua.

_{I also copied this to the Glest Wiki topic just for the reference}

[ultifd]

So I finally fixed the spacing issue, I guess. I figured that it'll take a while for all the pages for the units to be made, so I just added some tables. Info and updates is still needed though. We should also try re-uploading the non-transparent images...thanks
https://docs.megaglest.org/Japanese
Also Hagekura, do you think you could model a Japanese Blacksmith and update the techtree map? Thanks!

[Pizza90]

I got an annoying problem playing against your faction, one of those in the list of titi. I was with an archer and i was attacking the castle (i was winning ) but there was a worker repairing it so i tried to attack him but he was too close to the castle and i could not select him to get attacked! Hope you can fix it

ps: the new music is cool even if it's modern!
ps2: The grass you put under the base of the buildings it's nice but in my opinion it's too much transparent and especially in the winter environment it looks ugly >.< I think making it less transparent would be better (my opinion of course).
Buona giornata

[Zoythrus]

hey, i was looking on the wiki, and i noticed that some of the units and all of the buildings needed descriptions. if i finish the units, will someone else do the buildings? I am not the best at describing buildings....

[Omega]

hey, i was looking on the wiki, and i noticed that some of the units and all of the buildings needed descriptions. if i finish the units, will someone else do the buildings? I am not the best at describing buildings....

Yeah, I noticed that too. I would consider doing it, but I haven't played Japanese enough and my version is probably outdated by now. It would be nice to have pages for each unit too... (yeah, I know, I bring that up a lot, but persistence is the key to success).

[Ishmaru]

Sorry OT but haven't heard from Hagekura since disaster hope hes doing ok...

[ultifd]

Sorry OT but haven't heard from Hagekura since disaster hope hes doing ok...

Thank you, I'm ok.
but very surprised. Earthquake is an unremarkable event in here, but this time soon I realized it's unusual. I felt the ground is moving, momentary I felt a fear. It's a biggest quake I have ever experienced. the quake continued for a while. It was very ominous experience.
All of the pacific side coasts alarmed tsunami. nuclear plants stopped operation, power failure in some places. trains stopped, fires in some plants and buildings. some casualties are reported.
Currently Information is confused, I don't know how much damage japan suffered by this quake.

He should be doing fine...Maybe he evacuated Akiruno, but he should be OK. Others though...  :'(

[wyvern]

Hakegura, I tested your faction for the first time in a full game and was surprised to see there wasn't any cavalry and by how strong the japanese faction is. All of its units seem under-priced for their strength and overly powerful. If you are aiming to balance this with the megapack, I think you should up-price all units except the cannon. Another thing I noticed is that in a straight up fight, one on one, the archer beats the arquebuser without fail. Otherwise it was very fun, I liked the smoke effects and was very impressed by the models

[ultifd]

I don't know about calvary...there's already a lot of units and there's shinobi too.
Yeah, the faction still needs balancing, but note that it's not meant to be balanced with the megapack.

[wyvern]

I'm not saying there should be cavalry, I'm just surprised there isn't any. And about balancing, sorry, i wasn't sure if it was to be balanced with megapack or not since theres talk of adding more historical factions

[Hagekura]

I'm Sorry for the long time missing and make you worry.
I'm fine and still living in the Tokyo. I was just off modding. Now I'm back.

>>Omega
Thank you sir. I will try to learn about wikis from the links. 

>>Ultifd
Many thx for updating the japanese faction wiki page! the new layout looks great.
I'll edit units and buildings descriptions after I learn some more about wikis.

Also Hagekura, do you think you could model a Japanese Blacksmith and update the techtree map? Thanks!

Yes ofcourse. I'll make a japanese blacksmith model. but it's priority is low. I'll make it after I finish some more new unit's models.
I wrote some rough esquisses for japanese blacksmith model.

also, I want to update the techtree map, but it will take some times. for now I write units/buildings roster of the faction currently I'm planning in here.
Units
Melee Infantry

• Ikki mob(Uprising Civilian)
• Nagae Ashigaru(Spear Ashigaru)
• Nagamaki
• Warrior Monk
• Kengo(Swordsman)
• Samurai
• Samurai Taisho(Samurai General)

Ranged Infantry

• Tsubute(Stone thrower)
• Yumi Ashigaru(Bow Ashigaru)
• Teppo Ashigaru(Gun Ashigaru)
• Yumitori(Samurai Archer)
• Catholic Musketeer

Cavalry

• Kiba musha(Mounted samurai)
• Yumi kiba(Mounted samurai archer)
• Mounted Samurai Taisho

Support/Special

• Worker
• Peasant
• Medical Priest(Healer)
• Catholic Missionary(Healer)
• Shinobi(Ninja)
• Odutsu(Large musket/Cannon)

Buildings

• Castle
• Farmhouse
• Blacksmith
• Gunsmith
• Buddhist temple
• Seminario(Seminary)
• Daimyo yashiki
• Barrack
• Dojo
• Watchtower
• Yagura

>>Pizza
OK, I will reduce terrain size and make it less transparent. also according to titi said, The problem is solved in new megaglest. Grazie!

>>Zoy
I'm counting on the units description. In fact writing descriptions is really hard for me especially in english.

>>Wyvern
Thx for the feedback!
Yeah, this faction has a lot more to do about balancing. I will consider your opinion.
This faction will have Cavalry, but for now I haven't finished modeling horses yet.

[Psychedelic_hands]

Very nice drawing
That techtree is massive!  Good luck hage.