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Veteran Sharpshooters and Light Infantry Rebalance - FoTS

Veteran Sharpshooters and Light Infantry Rebalance for Fall of the Samurai (FoTS)

Introduction

I was always disappointed that there was only one tier of light infantry (except for the Jozai) in the game and that it wasn't very useful. So I put together this small mod that adds the Veteran Sharpshooters unit, which is roughly tier 3 and also rebalances the stats of the Sharpshooters and Yugekitai units. In addition, I have increased the range on all Sharpshooter Rifle units so that their role as elite marksmen beyond the ability of their Line Infantry brothers-in-arms is more clear.

This mod makes use of vanilla assets and keeps the units balanced within their respective tiers so that none of them are overpowered, just more useful in their roles on campaign and in skirmishes. If you have ever wanted to build doom stacks of Sharpshooters and roam the map in search of blood, then this is not the mod for you. However, if you felt that adding some skirmishing units to your stacks would add some nice flavour to the game, but have stayed away because they quickly become more of a hindrance than an asset, then please click that subscribe button and hit the thumbs up so that more people see this mod.

Are you interested in Shotguns and Shock Infantry for FoTS? Then please check out my sister mod Shotguns and Shock Infantry - FoTS

Installation

**Steam Workshop Only**

- Click Subscribe at the top of the description.
- Start Shogun 2
- In the mod manager, click the check box for Veteran_Sharpshooters3
- Play and enjoy!

Units

Sharpshooters

Sharpshooters already had a place as a tier 2.5 unit which was capable of taking on a Line Infantry solo with heavy casualties but lost definitively to Shogunate/Imperial/Republican (SIR) Infantry. Now, they will start firing a bit sooner, allowing time for more volleys before the enemy forces them to retreat to the relative safety of their lines. Sharpshooters now beat Line Infantry definitively but will still loose to SIR Infantry after inflicting heavy casualties.

Veteran Sharpshooters

Veteran Sharpshooters fill the gap that quickly opens once SIR and Guard Infantry are unlocked that made their Sharpshooter predecessors obsolete in the late-game. Their stats are the same as the old Yugekitai, making them able to defeat SIR Infantry if placed properly, though they will still loose to the elite Guard Infantry.

Yugekitai

Yugekitai used to be an Elite cost unit which lost to SIR Infantry, but not anymore. They can now fire from farther away, hit more reliably and reload a little faster, making them able to defeat SIR Infantry one-on-one. They will still loose to Guard Infantry in a straight up engagement, but that is not their strength, as their increased range and their ability to remain hidden while firing means that even in the least advantageous terrain, the enemy will have an impossible time seeing them before they fire.

Prussian Jaegers

Prussian Jaegers are a new Foreign Veteran Light Infantry unit that is recruitable as soon as one of the Foreign Trade Districts has been built in campaign. They are more accurate than the other Foreign Veterans, but they have a slower reload rate and a smaller unit size. However, they make up for this by being able to remain hidden while firing and moving.

Future Additions

I am considering creating a Guard Sharpshooter, however I cannot find any historical reference to Japan employing highly trained and specalized Light Infantry until the Second World War. I am open to other Foreign Veteran style units as well. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please leave a comment below. I will be trying to keep these units historically plausable; even if they never would have served in the Boshin War, they should have served in other conflicts during the mid to late 1800s.

Preemptively Asked Questions

While I do love comments (I really do!) here are the answers to some questions which you might have before giving this mod a try.

Does this mod make Light Infantry OP?

No. I tested this mod as much as I could in skirmish mode to ensure that these units did not suddenly outperform any and all opposition at their tier.

What do you mean by tiers?

A rough power level that every unit can be categorized into. Levy Infantry are Tier 1, Line Infantry are Tier 2, SIR Infantry are Tier 3 and Guard Infantry is Tier 4. You could argue that the Foreign Infantry are a Tier 5 of sorts. This mod seeks to place the Light Infantry available in the game into Tier 2, 3 and 4.

What about Tosa Riflemen? They are Light Infantry.

Kind of? They fire a the speed of Guard Infantry and have the accuracy of somewhere between Tier 2 and Tier 3. I am not really sure what the Tosa Riflemen are.

But the Tosa Riflemen could use a buff too!

AHAHAHAHA. No. They do not. Tosa Riflemen are insane value for money in the campaign. I tried giving them 175 range and they could completely wipe out a Guard Infantry before it got more than a handful of return kills. Tosa Riflemen need a nerf, but that is beyond the scope of this mod.

What about giving Light Infantry proper Light Infantry Tactics?

This mod sort of does that. It does allow all ranks to fire, which means that in loose formation all 120 units will use their rifle. It also increases their run speed slightly, meaning that they can no get out of the way of a charging infantry unit.

I did try to include a fantastic mod called Light Infantry Behavior Always On by Aedarin which changes the default animations to better simulate Light Infantry behavior. That mod makes them much harder to hit, which was great. However, until I more than halved the unit sizes and took their reload rate down to 10, Sharpshooters and Veteran Sharpshooters had an unfortunate ability to be able to solo 2 to 3 Line Infantry units of their respective tier. Not exactly the most balanced. I did not want to have tiny skirmisher units running around the battle field, so I chose not to include any of his changes in my final version.

Oh, and I tried his animations with the Tosa Riflemen. I might actually upload a version of that. It was funny to watch.

Are you interested in adding more units?

I want to keep this mod Light Infantry focused, but definitely. Have any ideas? Please, leave a comment down below.

What is the WIP tag next to some units?

These are units that have been introduced but are not yet final. While other units will still receive balance and appearance updates, these WIP units are subject to many more changes in the future, or removal from the mod entirely. Give them a try and let me know what you think of them!

Updates

Descriptions of each update are available on the Change Notes page. Current version is 0.3.4

Thanks

I hope you give this mod a try and enjoy your time with it. It encourages me to use more Light Infantry units (i.e. more that 0) in my armies while playing the campaign but I never feel like a whole stack of them would be a good idea, so I consider it a success. Except for maybe 20 Tosa Riflemen. I might have to give that a try.

Thumb-up if you enjoyed the mod and feel free to leave a comment with any feedback, comments or questions!