[Part II] Faction: The Japanese (Late)

[Le Druide Gaulois]

EDIT :After some talks with members of the forum, we decided that the Japanese described here are better suited for part 2. In fact, that's the period I was thinking about when I came up with this concept (roughly from the start of Muromachi Period to the first years of Edo Period).

 

THE JAPANESE

The Nation of the Rising sun is a very powerful and unique civilization. Strong at combat, versatile, dynamic and filled with technologies, the Japanese are an excellent choice for the player. Notable differences compared to other civilizations are:

-Since all of the warrior class was exclusively composed by nobles, the samurai and daimyo wouldn’t bother themselves with activities such as harvest or resource collecting. This stratification of society results in this civilization employing only peasants, both male and female, to do the building and the resource collecting.

-Peasants don’t hunt, but there are fishing ships.

-Depend heavily on a new resource: favor.

- Due to the lack of stone and constant earthquakes of the archipelago, the Japanese mastered the use of wood, primal material for their constructions. They have a unique set of buildings, added to the normal constructions (such as Civic center, blacksmith, etc):

DOJO

-Trains strong swordsmen, like Ronin Samurai as well as fast-attack hand-to-hand infantry. The dojo can also train one martial arts master per building, a unit that will enhance the performance of nearby warriors.

CASTLE

-A powerful, long ranged fort; trains heroes, archers, cavalry swordsmen , cavalry lancers, infantry lancers, armored samurai, daimyo and siege units.

TEMPLES

Since two major religions dominate Japan, two different temples would be available to this civilization:

 

ZEN TEMPLE:

-Famous for their multi level pagodas, Buddhist temples were in charge of basic education, teaching peasants to read and write. Some of those religious complexes, like the fabled Ashikaga Gakko, were analogous to European Universities, teaching subjects like philosophy, calligraphy, religion and even war arts. This building will provide numerous improvements, as well as training warrior monks, who can also work at harvest and healing, although in this last skill they are highly surpassed by their Shinto counterparts.

 

SHINTO TEMPLE:

-Shinto, the faith of the Kami, is the native religion of Japan. Send your peasants and priests to the temple in order to generate favor or perform a variety of rituals, that would help in areas such as unit production, harvesting, healing, war motivation and so on. Trains a priest extremely powerful at healing.

 

 

HOUSES

 

RURAL HOUSE

 

-Also used as a deposit for food, this building supports 5 population.

 

URBAN HOUSE

 

-An update of the rural house, available for city phase, supports 12 population, but no longer serves for storage.

 

TEA FACTORY

 

-Tea is a valuable commodity. Send peasants to work at the local tea factory in order to generate money (metal).

 

SHIRINES AND TORII GATES

 

-Sign of the Japanese devotion to nature, build those monuments anywhere in the map in order to expand your territory and generate favor.

 

BRIGDES

 

-Lay the foundation of an arched bridge in parts of a river which would only be surpassed by ships. Also generates favor.

 

NATIVE VILLAGE

 

-Japan is populated with various indigenous peoples. Build small Ainu or Inuit villages where you can train native warriors and very cheap, yet powerful shamans. Native warriors can hunt and harvest but don’t mine.

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What do you guys think? I'll soon submit some building concepts.

[niektb]

My thoughts:

Interesting read so far but I fear that a certain amount falls out the timespan, taking into account that Millennium A.D. part 1 runs from 476 A.D. till 968 A.D. (although this timespan isn't too strict)

Lot of what I read dates from later times (some clues taken from AOE3 I see) like those different religions.

Also I am not sure if the favor resource works very well (for the AI mainly)(depending on the role it takes).

Lastly bridges are currently not supported, but that is likely to change in the future.

[RoekeloosNL]

is there not a japanse mod in works.

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Niektb, I'm aware of what you point. You're right about it falling out of the timespan, but I simply wanted to give an idea for a far future, or maybe a more near future, if some of the modders get interested . It would be more of a mod "for fun", maybe I should have suggested outside the 1000ad subforum, just as a Japanese mod. Anyways, I'm making some sketches though

[Mega Mania]

Yamato Japanese or Sengoku Japanese?

[Lion.Kanzen]

We need a Japanese faction, I think how many users wants see this one.

[Le Druide Gaulois]

@Lion.Kanzen : agreed! Maybe someone interested in beggining?

@Mega Mania : I was actually thinking of a broader historic period, something between 1200-1600. Buddhism hadn't arrived by the Yamato Period.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Le Druide Gaulois

[Lion.Kanzen]

Im interested but im not sure if Millenium wants or can be in other Mod we have 3 and half mods in development. I need researched first, good researched.

[niektb]

I was thinking of changing the current civilization choice by removing some german tribes and allowing some more 'exotic' civs. Japanese would surely be a candidate for part 1 but, of course, with a different timespan.

An appropriate timespan would be from the Asuka Period till the Heian Period. (From 538 A.D. till 1185 A.D.)

[Lion.Kanzen]

My thoughts:

Interesting read so far but I fear that a certain amount falls out the timespan, taking into account that Millennium A.D. part 1 runs from 476 A.D. till 968 A.D. (although this timespan isn't too strict)

Lot of what I read dates from later times (some clues taken from AOE3 I see) like those different religions.

Also I am not sure if the favor resource works very well (for the AI mainly)(depending on the role it takes).

Lastly bridges are currently not supported, but that is likely to change in the future.d

Rise of East?

[Radagast.]

Interesting read so far but I fear that a certain amount falls out the timespan, taking into account that Millennium A.D. part 1 runs from 476 A.D. till 968 A.D. (although this timespan isn't too strict)

Lot of what I read dates from later times (some clues taken from AOE3 I see) like those different religions.

Go

Good point, I had forgotten that this was posted within Millennium and not Rise of The East.

In my opinion and in harmony with our future plan of real flow of time, I would not bother too much as long as the art/religion/et al. is properly tagged with a time range (on base of historical/philosophical research).

Also I am not sure if the favor resource works very well (for the AI mainly)(depending on the role it takes).

We could ask MuteLovestone for his opinion ... (the Hannibal AI should be pretty easy to adapt and I would target it, at least we will distribute the Hannibal AI as soon as possible within our mod-pack/project releases.)

Lastly bridges are currently not supported, but that is likely to change in the future.

True, though I think this time we could live with visual bridges (as was noted in the OP: "only ships can surpass"). We can place bridges with MuteLovestone's mod already, so this should not be an obstacle.

Of course having people walk across it will not work (especially if also ships should be able to pass underneath). A conversation with Ykkrosh resulted in postboning it until we have found proper solutions for pathfinder et al..

I like the Tea houses. We could introduce a food subtype tea (food.tea) if desired. Though I like the metal production idea too. And it's probably easier that way (let's see).

If we start based on the Chinese faction, might this be of advantage?

An appropriate timespan would be from the Asuka Period till the Heian Period. (From 538 A.D. till 1185 A.D.)

Sounds good to me. We can still add content for other time periods later.

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Don't know if they'll be usabe, but here are the concepts for the castle and dojo. Hephaestion, what do you mean about the Chinese civ? The Japanese would work in quite a unique way, though. Is there a plan for Chinese faction(s)?

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Sorry the sketches got very distorted.

[Radagast.]

Thx for Dojo + Castle, very usable and nice to look at. (we'd need a way to turn your 2D sketches directly into 3D model. Currently our only way is Via Stanislas )

We have a Chinese faction in Rise of The East and as we took over the development we will probably rearrange the different projects in a more reasonable way, i.e. have the Rise of The East project as a container for all the eastern civilisations we develop.

This means, the Chinese will probably get their place from the beginning to the end. While currently, we only have the Ancient variant (which has been evolved far already by Scion Development). The Chinese will have their place in this timeframe (Millennium) too, as the Tang dynasty if I'm not mistaken by Niek's plan.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Don't know if they'll be usabe, but here are the concepts for the castle and dojo. Hephaestion, what do you mean about the Chinese civ? The Japanese would work in quite a unique way, though. Is there a plan for Chinese faction(s)?

rise of east mod the CoM have the rights to finish it.

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Some more sketches:

HOUSES:

-Model 2 would be the most common (it's also a completly symetrical building), whereas model 1 would be the rarest, since it's a little more complex ( the roof of this one could be of tiles instead of straw, what do you think?). 2 and 3 have straw roof.

GUARD TOWER:

-Looks like a little castle.

TORII

-Three cohexisting models.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I need a symbol to make it. Japan is not my specialite.

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Lion, here are some symbols commonly used as insignias in old Japan

http://signsanddisplays.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/japanese-vector-symbols1.jpg

[Lion.Kanzen]

Nice, are very good looking but what means each?

Edited May 18, 2014 by Lion.Kanzen

[Loki1950]

They are called "mon" in Japanese each clan had there own they are the equivalent of European Heraldry.

Enjoy the Choice

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Here's a proposal for the civic center. I also tried to draw a Shinto temple, but it looked @#$%. It should be something like this, but smaller and with a torii in the front

: http://www.houseofjapan.com/travel/historic-ise-jingu-gears-up-for-vicennial-big-move

[thamlett]

Nice work!

Yeah, Stan is our only 2d-3d converter unit available .

[Le Druide Gaulois]

Nice work!

Yeah, Stan is our only 2d-3d converter unit available .

Thanks, man! Hopefuly we can find more interested 3d artists and get the work done . So, were the Japanese officially "approved"?

[Ayakashi]

Some very nice ideas and concepts, but please do keep in mind that Daimyos didn't exist back then and the Samurai aren't a fully established institution yet, so I guess they are better saved for part 2? Though I think a warrior class that was a precursor to it did exist.

Also japan would need citizen soldiers, as Ashigaru conscripts made up the bulk of medieval Japanese armies.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Ayakashi

[niektb]

I indeed think they'd (the japanese you are describing) are best for part 2, but in the mean time they of course can being developed, acting as a single mod that will be merged with part 2 once that is started.

The Japanese that would fit (in part 1) better are from an earlier sort.

Edited May 19, 2014 by niektb