This is amazing thank you! This is honestly one of the absolute best mods for S2 for historical immersion and it's criminally underappreciated! Now I can take shinobi seriously without them looking like they're at a pyjama party like they're typically portrayed.

Can you split this mod-- one for agents only? The mod conflicts with unit re-skin mods on the battlefield. The ninja agent is great!!!

I can see the mod is very popular.

The Ninja originated around the year 950. During that time China was in constant turmoil from wars. Chinese Generals, monks and common folks left china and started to settle in Japan. Chinese and Japanese culture started to mesh together, things like martial arts, strategies, techniques and so on. That's why one of the Japanese alphabets (kanji) uses Chinese characters.

Monks were known in the east as knowledgeable, well versed in ancient arts and techniques ect.

Some Monks were peaceful during this period and would no fight, during the Heinan priod 794 to 1185, the first known conflict involving Monks was in the year 954. Monks fought other Monks for political powers but slowly Monks started to militarize.

An order or orders of Monks were still peaceful and would not fight so Ninjutsu was invented. Said to be developed by peaceful Monks wanting to protect themselves form violent conflicts that could arise at the time.

These peaceful Monks taught the art of Ninjutsu to common folks, famers, fisher man ect. The idea was that these common folks would become guardians for the Monks and also their own communities. Since it was developed by Monks one of the first principles was that Nijutsu be used to protect the weak and bring justice.

Over time these guards became warriors and warriors became masters. Ninjutsu was practiced and used in secrete. Different techniques were developed over time. Also there were those who left rural areas to more populated areas to become contract assassins looking to turn a buck with the skills passed down to them.

As far as training in the arts of Ninjutsu it was done in secrete, children were taught in the diciplines as soon as they could walk. Children games and activities were developed to be like Ninjutsu it's self, they seemed innocent but carried techniques to form children to learn basic Ninjutsu so they would be ready for the harsher lessons. Ninjitsu was mastered by surviving harsh conditions, like a want to be master would go to the forest and live off the nature and become one with nature, seperating the mind and the body giving Ninjas an edge over the common soldiers and Samurais. The martial arts aspect aside from actual Ninjutsu techniques were learned normally, wether it be sword fighting or hand to hand combat as these did not need to be practiced in secrete so much. Ninjas never stopped training and over a life time mastered many different diciplines in martial arts and weapons.

Ninjutsu was a way of life, becoming invisible, heightening the 5 senses and enduring the harshest of all environments.

Ninjas clans formed and often would trade secrete techniques with each other, there is so little known about actual practices and such, a lot was passed down from generations to generations in verbal forms. Ninjas did not write about their exploits or techniques because remember they are supposed to be invisible. It wasn't until the 1800's when the ninja became obsolete due to the industrialization of Japan ninjas joined the new Japanese Secrete Service. There were a handful that wrote about the ninja as to it not be lost forever.

Ninjas became very popular during the Sengoku period, actually hitting their all time high. Iga and Kogo were the most known provinces for having the highest quality ninjas. Ninjas were almost always spies and saboteurs using arson as their go to method. Assasinations were carried out specially on HVTs but these could take months. The ninjas favorite killing weapon for an assassination was poison, preferably one that would kill the victim slow seeming like they got sick and died leaving no trace at all. Ninjas would not just study the layouts and gather intelligence another princilple in Ninjutsu was not to waste any movement so they trained also in precision. Every move was already carefully calculated.

The kunoichi (female ninja) where also mainly spies and information gatherers and were masters of seduction. In many cases a kunoichi was more suitable for assassinations due to their easier access to a house hold of a prominent samurai or Daimyo by going undercover as a house girl (the ones the handled all chores) or a concubine. They also worked in brothels to gather a lot of information, In Japan there is a saying "a man will tell you anything when his pants were down".

Ninjas were so invisible that soldiers and samurais would get paranoid (not all samurais) if they heard that there was one running around, they would constantly look over their shoulders. Castles were designed "ninja proof" by having things like floors that squeaked, hidden trip wires that would sound an alarm to even making the interior a maze of some sorts. In bedrooms and other parts of the castles existed false floors with access to weapons in case you got cornered by a ninja unexpected.

There were samurais that doubled as ninjas but they were very few since Ninjutsu was the opposite of Bushido (Way of the Warrior) so to the samurai class a ninja was a thug, a criminal, a very dishonorable person. Most ninjas came from generations of common folks, farmers, merchants, fisher man ect. And ninjas had their own hierarchy, themost richest and powerful wer Jenins to the most lowest called Genins.

The most famous samurai that later doubled as a ninja was Hattori Hanzo. But he was accepted into the Iga ninja clan as he came from a lower class samurai family and built a reputation as a master strategist. Hattori Hanzos's nick name was Hanzo the demon for it was believed he had super powers like psychockinenisis , teleportation powers and precognition.

At the end Hanzo really was a master strategist and deployed techniques that were never seen in Japan in guerrilla warfare at the time. He ran successful raids and rescue operation for the Tokugawas. Hattori Hanzo was very loyal to the Tokugawa clan. He was successful in escorting Tokugawa Ieyasu to safety from the Oda forces when they came to take down Kogo and Iga as they were seen as a threat to the unification of Japan by Oda Nobunaga and his son and heir.

Kogo fell fast to the Oda forces but Iga turned out to be quite a challenge but fell as well as the Oda forces were too many for the Iga ninja clans to handle, but were very successful in sabotaging the Oda forces and demoralizing them as they went up the mountains delaying them at times as well, Hattori Hanzo was also successful in recovering Ieyasu's daughters from an Oda castle where they were taken hostage. For the completion of both missions from escorting Ieyasu to safety and rescuing his daughters in a daunting night attack on the Oda owned castle, that Tokugawa Ieyasu paid him 8000 kokus per mission along with plenty of land and 100"s of man for the purpose of administration of his newly acquired real state.

It is known that Hattori Hanzo was a samurai and master strategist, people were afraid of him but that he was actually a ninja is still debated for that fact that once well known ninja or not you could no longer be invisible thus there was no such a thing as a famous ninja in Feudal Japan. A ninja was invisible, their weapons doubled as tools so if inspected it would just look like a farmer's tool for example or the flute of a monk doubled as a blow gun and small blade.

The stereotypical ninja in black actually comes from Kabuki theater, as you may know you had the performers, the props and prop handlers who would dress from head to toe in the color of the background as to blend in. Once in a while a prop handler (ninja) would strike an HVT sitting in the front thus the ninja we know now was born. It was also said that Japanese theater would represent a ninja as all in black in performances. Ninjas actually wore a navy color in night missions of infiltration or nature like colors to blend in with the environment.

Mochizuki Chiyome became a famous kunoichi which by then disappeared and there were many rumors about it. She had a childhood sob story, Later opened a monastery for girls and women but in reality it was a kunoichi training school were the art of seduction was learned along with self defense techniques. Mochizuki and her army of kunoichi worked for the Tokugawa clan eventually, spying, gathering sensitive information at brothels and in some cases assassinations. She ran a successful operation for like 8 years or so until she got discovered. No one really knows what happened to all her kunoichis but there are a few rumors about what happened to Chiyome, One was said that Tokugawa Ieyasu had her killed because she knew too much to another that she actually ended up marrying Tokugawa Ieyasu because she was very keen and could actually protect him... No one knows apparently

Jesus christ what graphics setting are you on ? It looks like shogun 1 lol

Great effort tho! I would gladly download if the agents were seperate. :D

can't remove units form the game, so it's the least I could do.

Not historically accurate.

Agents are fine but not the units.

@Xenos
Almost every single word of that is wrong.

@Duke
If only he put an explanation in the mod description, eh?

Gaijin Goomba would approve.

How is it historically accurate?

"This will make a fine addition to my collection..."

Nice mod and interesting history lesson :)

This is way more badass than the steriotypical depiction of ninja. Nice work dude.

The Modern popular idea of "Ninjutsu" is mostly modern invention, actual skills required to be an infiltrator, saboteur, spy, and many other unconventional warfare actions, which were actual tactics ("Ninjutsu" literally means Ninja's tactics) as used by actual Ninjas on the other hand, aren't.

Historically accurate Ninjas, good one. There's a good reason for the almost total lack of historical record of Ninjas, it's because Ninjitsu is a modern invention.

Aww. Where's the fun in that? lol jking

I'm happy to see historical mods of this kind. It's a shame CA stopped caring about accuracy.