Fancy testing a GAE Ninja mod?

[Kiko]

Well, it's got ninjas in it, as it's a revamp of the cool Japanese mod. I've got one faction done, and am starting on the second, so that there are different opposing sides. It's very Kurosawa old school Ronin; Villagers against the Greedy Outsiders. Swords and bows only: no noisy guns here, and it's very playable. Weighs in at 18MB at present, and won't get much bigger as I've centralised the models, image and sound files for adding factions.

Liking GAE as I do, and longer gameplay than "Wade in – everybody dead", this features more considered strategy at the start. For example, to build a watchtower you need an archer, peasants who create paddy fields for food can be called to arms once you have a swordsman to train them, and so on. The upgrades vary too, with some units having their own class of upgrade, eg., only armed warriors can study Zen to see better and move faster.

There's less to focus on in terms of lots of different units, but more to focus on in other areas, so it feels more gradual to play. As you need decent amounts of food and supplies to hire Ronin and produce other characters, it begins slower than most mods/factions do and may well be good for newcomers to Glest. The CPU players work interestingly, with some at Weak/Normal level creating communities of monks and farmers! Usually one or two don't though, and on higher levels it turns into mayhem after a little while as usual.

Using paddy fields for food, and also as a distraction for invading troops to attack, is fun. You can also focus on training a couple of armed peasants into ninjas and wreaking havoc in an enemy village, but you still have to keep an eye on your own crops, troops, and armed peasants/workers too. If anyone's interested shout out, and I'll put it on Mediafire.

Just one question, as it uses the Japanese mod, which itself uses parts of Magitech, what's the deal with licensing? I read the long thread on that, but am still unclear. Will a simple read-me saying something like "See previous licenses for conditions" do? (All I've done is rearrange things, so I need no license for myself as far as I know).

[Omega]

Find the Japanese credits and credit them yourself in your mod. Generally, you'd make a plain text file called "AUTHORS" that would be distributed inside of the mod, and would credit who made what (so it might state that some models are by so and so, while the music is by this person, etc). Because the Japanese mod is distributed under CC-BY-SA (the most popular license for Glest mods), you can do pretty much whatever you want with the mod as long as you credit the author and your release is under the same license. It keeps the sharing going.

[Kiko]

Smashing. Cheers Omega.


I decided to upload it just now after a lot of test playing, so if it interests you it's at http://www.mediafire.com/?vf55ciuzdubdj9h

I meant to move the read-me files into the root of the 7zip file, but you can find them inside the mod folder. Do let me know if this kind of thing appeals to you as it does me.

[Hagekura]

Haha, the "Seven Samurai" Minimod? Interesting. I'll check this out.

[Kiko]

Haha, the "Seven Samurai" Minimod? Interesting. I'll check this out.

Just remember my perspective is based upon Zatoichi, 7 Samurai kind of stuff, not accurate Japanese history! (In deference to the 47 Ronin, I should perhaps have made it 6...)

I'm working on the opposing faction today. Going for Rogue Soldiers; you know, the scowling and sneering guys who always turn up in the films and act like they have authority to push the villagers around.

Actually, I quite fancy doing a Zatoichi based mod, but I'd have to get into modelling. See what you've started..?! 

[will]

"Bandits"?

[Kiko]

"Bandits"?

Yeah, bandits would be better Will, but the Japanese mod doesn't have any scruffy looking bandit type units. I don't have time to get into modelling and texturing as I'd have to learn it all from scratch, so I'm working with what already exists. The Rogue Soldiers are half done, so I'll have a look at a third faction for the pack based upon Mr War's Ming Dynasty units as they look different enough.

[Hagekura]

Hi kiko, I've just played your minimod.
It was very fun and fresh experience for me to play as the small village based Japanese faction not so much big as Daimyo Clan.
Here are some my suggestions and offers about your mod:

• You should credit Mr.war also since you are using the paddy model made by Mr.war in your mod.

• The paddy should produce more foods. When playing in smaller maps, eventually there are no space for place paddyfields. Also, currently when you are run out of food and you have no peasants, there is no way to recover your food production. I recommend you to make peasants consume 0 food so that you can produce peasants to recover your food production even when you have 0 foods.

• Since you are making a mod for GAE, you should take advantages of GAE's some unique features such as Multiplier Upgrade, Cost and store modifiers etc.
  

Yeah, bandits would be better Will, but the Japanese mod doesn't have any scruffy looking bandit type units.

I'm also thinking it might be interesting to add some Bandits or Ronin Units for Japanese faction.
So I'll try make some scruffy looking irregular units such as Bandit Archers or Katana Bandits or something like that. also I'll make a Base building for the bandits such as "Hidden Fortress" or something, so that you can make a Bandits Faction which will be counter for the villager faction.
I'll begin with picture some concept images for them. Expect it, but It'll requires a bit long time so please wait.
Thank you for the nice minimod!

[Kiko]

Hi kiko, I've just played your minimod. It was very fun and fresh experience for me to play as the small village based Japanese faction not so much big as Daimyo Clan. You should credit Mr.war also since you are using the paddy model made by Mr.war in your mod.

Good point, and will be done in the author/credit notes.

The paddy should produce more foods. When playing in smaller maps, eventually there are no space for place paddy fields. Also, currently when you are run out of food and you have no peasants, there is no way to recover your food production. I recommend you to make peasants consume 0 food so that you can produce peasants to recover your food production even when you have 0 foods.

Yep, I'm balancing out the food and other resources while testing now with the opposing Rogue Soldiers faction. Game play testing sure takes a lot of time, eh?!

Since you are making a mod for GAE, you should take advantages of GAE's some unique features such as Multiplier Upgrade, Cost and store modifiers etc.

I'll have a look at those, as I find the extra features of GAE very cool. Might take me a week or so to get into it all, as I have a lot going on right now. (Mind you, as Omega told me recently, some Wiki listed GAE features only work in the latest complied updates and I'm using the old 0.3.2 release from Sourceforge).

I'm also thinking it might be interesting to add some Bandits or Ronin Units for Japanese faction. So I'll try make some scruffy looking irregular units such as Bandit Archers or Katana Bandits or something like that. also I'll make a Base building for the bandits such as "Hidden Fortress" or something, so that you can make a Bandits Faction which will be counter for the villager faction. I'll begin with picture some concept images for them. Expect it, but It'll requires a bit long time so please wait.

That would be very cool. I downloaded Blender to try and modify some of your units myself, but to be honest I got lost, and don't have the time to learn how to do it all properly. I modified the Ronin (swordsman) .tga file so they're brown but still with team colours, though it needs a professional touch.

Thank you for the nice minimod!

Ha – thank you for all the work you put into the Japanese mod! And while you're deep into Blender, how about an Ichi character with a sword stick..? (I always loved the quiet roaming swordsman/woman idea...) I would love to see an Ichi unit who could do a turning draw and cut, just like in the films. Probably take a lot of work though, eh?

Love your work Hagekura, and sometime soon I'll do a Glest Wiki page for the mini-mod and link to your full mod. I think there's a place for considered play as well as "Kill ALL the things!"

[Psychedelic_hands]

Every nice little mod. I enjoy small mods with just archers and swordsmen a lot too.
Nice work Kiko, and of course Hage!   

[Hagekura]

Ha – thank you for all the work you put into the Japanese mod! And while you're deep into Blender, how about an Ichi character with a sword stick..? (I always loved the quiet roaming swordsman/woman idea...) I would love to see an Ichi unit who could do a turning draw and cut, just like in the films. Probably take a lot of work though, eh?

Interesting. It'll be sweet to have kinda Zatoichi like unit as hero unit.
Ofcourse it will take a lot of work, especially regarding it's animations.
Ichi's "殺陣(TATE) = Stage Combat" seen in the movies and TV series are often very speedy and unique and devastating. It would be good challenge for my blender skill to reenact these actions. I might have to watch the movies again and again to study these actions.
but For now development of my "legitimistic" japanese faction is somewhat halted coz I'm struggling to researching historical materials , so It may be a refreshing experience for me to working with fictional heros.

btw I want to go with 2008 remake movie version Zatoichi with girl Ichi acted by Ayase Haruka.
What do you think about it?

Every nice little mod. I enjoy small mods with just archers and swordsmen a lot too.
Nice work Kiko, and of course Hage!   

I'm glad you enjoyed our mod. Arigato

[Kiko]

I want to go with 2008 remake movie version Zatoichi with girl Ichi acted by Ayase Haruka.
What do you think about it?

That would be very cool. I love that film, and isn't she a babe?