If Giants existed in BC times...

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Considering Samurai beliefs about death and honour, another solution might be to give all samurai units an automatic "sermon of courage", so that, as other units died around them, their morale would actually go up.

I don't understand. How is SoC different from just giving them a high base morale, and why would that make their morale go up? (I suppose it might affect the "average" morale of their squad, but losing units makes your bonus for "intactness" go down.)

Sermon of Courage is simply +2 to Morale, end of story.

-Max

[rdonj]

Considering samurai beliefs about death and honor, you would probably lose your best commander every time you lost a major battle as he ritually killed himself. I'm not sure that sounds like a good idea to me.... Samurai do have decent morale, but perhaps it should be a bit higher thematically speaking. Their defense should almost be a little higher as well. The samurai do make excellent shock infantry as is, it would just be nice if they worked a little harder at surviving.

[Wrana]

Actually, Japanese fencing was more offense-oriented relative to both European and Chinese ones. So, it looks like their defense is quite OK. Regarding arrows, I think lack of shields is partly compensated by their own bows - which, of course, leaves you with more resource-intensive troops, but you can use them for both missile combat and shock attacks. Historically, Japanese army suffered greatly in missile combat both during Khubilai-khan's invasion and in their own invasion of Korea in 16th century...

[Sombre]

Kabuto are significantly more ornate, which I guess is where the res cost comes from.

They could still be 4 or 5 though, rather than 6.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Kabuto are significantly more ornate, which I guess is where the res cost comes from.

They could still be 4 or 5 though, rather than 6.

Wikipedia claims that they were done by riveting lots of small metal plates together. Then during a spesific period of civil war (had to make lots of helmets quickly, I guess) they simplified the design so that they were made from just few plates. At that point, the helmet-makers started adding paper-and-wood ornaments () on top of them.
That shouldn't matter though, because samurai in Dominions need a boost, and having to pay for a tower shield (3 res) without getting the benefit doesn't help.

[Agema]

Edit: removed

Sorry, I forgot to go to the end of the file, bit redundant.

[Sombre]

How would you explain something not restricting movement much (hence low or no def penalty) but still encumbering considerably?

[rdonj]

By being heavy but having very free joint movements?

I'm not suggesting that they actually get a huge defense bonus, for what it's worth, just that it would help them a lot at competing as heavy infantry. But they're not heavy infantry, they're shock infantry with ridiculous hit chances and decent damage, capable of killing light and heavy infantry alike. If you look at them in that light they're fine the way they are. The only thing they lack is a recruitable survivability unit.

[MaxWilson]

Ummm. Defense can come from other sources (shield of gleaming gold has a high parry because it's shiny and makes opponents avert their eyes), so maybe it's encumbering but also so garish that it hurts opponents' eyes?

-Max

[Sombre]

Well shields don't actually give defence (or I guess they might, but not through parry), it's just the misleading way it displays on the unit screen. Actually I think several shields reduce defence.