there are Axis & Allies.Fortress America and Conquest of the Empire available. Why not Shogun ( or 2011 version “Ikusa” ) ? the tabletop Shogun is very good game !
I LOVED this game … and sadly sold it a few years back when I found no opponents in a more than a decade. Would love to play it again.
I have a Samurai Swords set somewhere in my collection - I too haven’t played it in a few years, on account of the fact that A) it’s buried under a pile of other games, and B) I have small children in my home.
I’d happily take on the challenge of making a mod for this. The available BGG artwork might be usable for mod-making, and I know where my own set is for the stuff that’s not available. The question becomes whether or not I’ve got the time…
Well, I’ve looked through the available Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa artwork on BGG. There was enough there to get a mod started - about the only thing I couldn’t find was the card deck, but I think I may be able to do some big GIMPing there (if I can find the right Font type anyway). I’m also not certain about the pieces - I did get into my own Samurai Swords set yesterday to make some photos but after seeing how they turned out I think I may have to do them over. I’ll keep y’all posted.
Alright, it took some doing, but I’ve managed to generate a card deck for the VASSAL mod. They’re too large, of course, but re-sizing them shouldn’t be too big of a chore. I’ve also started gathering a few other items - koku, battle markers, a d12, the ninja and ronin markers - and I’ve got a splash and the main board ready to go. No work on the actual mod just yet and I’m still going to have to figure out how to go about getting certain assets (such as pieces) into the mod.
Hey all - another quick update. I was able to get the pieces built today - they don’t look the best, but they’re probably going to be at too small of a resolution to notice too much. At this point I should have all the assets ready to begin building the mod except for fortresses - I still haven’t found a fortress image that A) I like and B) is easy to work with. I’m hopeful that I can get that worked out soon, however. I plan on beginning construction of the mod tomorrow, barring any unforeseen events.
Hey all, quick update. I haven’t been able to devote as much time to the mod this past week as I would’ve liked. It does have some basic functionality at this point, though I do need to make several changes art-wise (the pieces are too large for the board, my dice menu icon is WAY too big and a lot of the at-start stacks aren’t in the right spots). Cards and swords are in, and I’ve started building one of the initial army cards to use as a baseline for the others.
I’m still trying to figure out how best to go about the resource allocation phase of the game, which (of course) is supposed to be hidden from all other players until they are all ready to go about revealing them. I’ll let y’all know what I finally go with and when that functionality is in the game.
Another update for y’all. Yesterday I was able to get a fair amount of work done on the mod. Most of the pieces are now in the game, all of the army cards are in and I’ve got inventory counts working - this way people can tell how much of a certain type of unit they still have available without having an ugly-looking stack of the things in their own little “parts bin”. I’m debating as to whether or not I want those to be private or not; in the original game it was a tad difficult to tell how much of a particular type of unit your opponent could potentially field on account of their screen, unless you were paying close enough attention. Army cards won’t be private at least. I still need to seed them with the proper unit types - right now the units on the cards are Blue, regardless of what army they’re in. I also need to add a marker for assassinated daimyos.
The pieces…well, they need work. They’re functional, but they look like dreck. I think I’ll take another stab at them when I get a chance, and try my best to make something that looks a little cleaner. Swords are working pretty well - I can now take the four and five-diamond swords out of the game though VASSAL throws an expression error when you do it. I’ll try to find a solution for that but for now the end result is the effect I want.
Today I need to test full functionality of all the pieces, make sure they work with both the individual players as well as the overarching “single player” controls I’ve built into the mod, adjust the daimyos as needed and seed the correct piece types to the army cards. I also need to add the “common” pieces (battle markers, koku, etc)., add regions to the map, figure out a way to sort the sword list numerically, write “zones” for the cards to go to for each player so that the card / territory counter will actually work, and figure how I’ll handle the resource allocation. Still a lot of work to do, but I think it’s coming together pretty well so far.
Another update for y’all. I made some pretty substantial progress on the mod yesterday. I was able to adjust the content of the army cards and confirmed that all pieces were working properly with individual player controls. I did go ahead and decide to restrict specific part counts to the players; this can easily be removed if folks start using the mod and tell me they don’t like it. I was able to fix the expression error going on with the removal of the 4- and 5-diamond swords, and added a feature that would allow folks to retrieve those swords in the event that they are removed accidentally during the course of a game. The common parts - Castles, Fortresses, Koku markers, Battle Markers, Ronin and the Ninja - were added and their functionality was tested. Finally, I worked on the part that would count how many cards are in a player’s possession, and was able to get the unclaimed cards / unoccupied territories counter working before the close of business.
I still need to add regions to the map (which has been proving trickier than it should be, IMHO), implement the player “hands” and get the individual player card counts working as intended, and figure out how resource allocation will work - this is the big sticking point of the mod at this point and if I can get it figured out I daresay it’ll be ready for alpha testing. I’d also still like to figure out a way to sort the sword list by number if at all possible, and to figure a way to re-set the rotation of the battle markers when they return to the common pile; both of these aren’t necessary for an alpha test, though.
Got the card counts working - and was able to populate the board for a game for the first time this morning:
So far I think the mod is coming together nicely. Y’all can see what I was saying a few days earlier about the pieces, though. I need to do something about the purple pieces in particular - they’ve got a pretty substantial “aura” going on, which is obvious from this screenie.
Another update for y’all - i don’t anticipate working on the mod this weekend so this should be it for a few days at least. I didn’t get much else accomplished yesterday after getting player hands and the card counters working. I was largely focused on getting the resource allocation in; those involved the addition of the player screens and reference cards. I had quite the setback there - I thought I had them running, but then I realized that the Invisible trait I’d added to the screens would do the exact opposite of what I wanted them to do, which is to allow the player to look at their allocation screen while keeping it hidden from their opponents. The part to move the shield out of the way and reveal the player’s plans works as intended, however; if I can get this figured out, the mod will be playable.
I also added an Action Button for using the Ninja; basically all it does is play a sound and put up a message letting everybody know the guy with the Ninja wants to use it, just to try and get everybody’s attention. And I also started adding zones to the match, which has been a pretty daunting task so far - not only due to the number of territories on the board, but due to their irregular shapes and the propensity of the VASSAL zone builder to connect the points in weird ways. I haven’t finished adding zones - that right now is top on my to-do list - I need to figure out how to get the screens working the way I want, I’d like to get the list of swords sorting itself properly when it comes time to draw them, I need to remove the aura from the purple pieces, and I’d like to get battle markers to re-set to a common orientation when they’re not in use. Still a fair ways to go but things are coming together nicely.
Alright y’all. I’ve completed enough of the module to feel comfortable releasing it as a public alpha:
vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Ikusa
I’ll have some instructions on how to use the module up on the site at a later time; today I only had time enough to prep the release and add screenies. It should be fairly straightforward but there are still a few things about it that are a tad clunky. Feel free to experiment with it, play a game or two maybe and give me any feedback you may have on this thread.
am in for a game online
hello, I am very surprised that its a reality the module for Shogun 
well we can organize a game, I am available to try
PM me for a game
This is awesome, looking forward to trying it out.
As am I
I LOVED this game … and sadly sold it a few years back when I found no opponents in a more than a decade. Would love to play it again.