Need to correct wrong image of Date Masamune Daimyo

The historical Masamune Date lost his right eye due to illness when he was a child, but in the image of aoe3de his eyes are intact, hoping to correct this historical mistake
daimyo_massamune_icon_portrait

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The model in the game is also a pair of eyes, I hope it will be changed to be blind in the right eye

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The original version did have a eyepatch, I wonder why it was changed?

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First, most units in AoE3DE are created as a high-polygon model, then baked into the low-poly version actually used in-game. The Date Masamune icon/portrait is not handdrawn, but a render of the high-poly 3D model, with some post-processing effects applied. That’s why the portrait and the unit model look the same.

Icons in AoE3DE feel very inconsistent for this reason: most, perhaps 100% of icons in the original AoE3 were handdrawn, yet their DE replacements are sometimes 3D-rendered, sometimes handdrawn (and the handdrawn art can be inconsistent in quality too).

The Masamune model’s problem has an easy explanation. The artists in charge - modeler, icon editor, but most importantly their supervisor - had misinterpreted the black eyepatch as a shadow cast by a mask’s eye hole. So instead of a normal exposed face wearing an eyepatch, they modeled a sallow-colored mask onto his face.

It’s not the only misinterpretation in AoE3DE’s art. For example, the handdrawn portraits for the Cheyenne settlement & their unit had misinterpreted their bonepipe/wood rod armors into cloth wrappings, though the issue has kinda resolved itself with the June Lakota update replacing them with new Dog Soldier artworks, I guess.

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Left: original Cheyenne settlement.
Center: original Cheyenne Rider unit.
Right: DE Cheyenne Rider unit.


(On another note, technically Musamune’s eyepatch is a modern pop culture anachronism. But that’s outside the scope of our pop culture-loving AoE3.)

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Can we also write about a few random old flavor issues with the Japanese civ? :stuck_out_tongue:

1. The unit name “Atakabune” is misspelt and should be corrected to Atakebune. (Already corrected?)

  1. The Cherry Orchard as a food building has long been criticized, because Japanese sakura fruits are not tasty and have practically never been used as food, and its icon depicts European cherries. My suggestion: change it to an Ume Orchard or Ume Garden.

Ume is a plum with pink flowers that are indistinguishable from sakura at the game model’s level of fidelity, and its fruits are an important side dish in the traditional Japanese diet. It’s also already mentioned in the Cherry Orchard’s in-game history, so you only need to make 3 changes:

  • Replace the unit and card names;
  • Replace the European cherry icon with ume plums;
  • Add a passage to the in-game history article about ume’s culinary use, especially umeboshi, dried plum pickles.

And voila, it’s done, no new 3D model needed!

  1. The recent update has renamed TEAM Cheap Unit Upgrades to TEAM Sengoku. But there is already a card named Warring States, which means the same thing. My suggestion:

The name Sengoku itself implies multiple factions, and is more thematically appropriate for a TEAM upgrade than the old Warring States, which only boosts the player’s own Samurai, Daimyo and Shogun. Shogun Tokugawa in particular marked the final end of the Sengoku period and the arrival of peace.

Therefore it’s better to re-flavor the old Warring States card to be about the end of the Sengoku period instead. A name change is all you need (though the current card icon is pretty weird). Example names:

  • Great Unifier (Tenka-bito), in pop culture the title for a leader who would re-unify Japan.

  • Unification by Force (Tenka Fubu), in pop culture Oda Nobunaga’s infamous motto.

Both are ubiquitous terms in Japan that everyone has heard of.

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Regarding the current Japanese cards, I have not seen cards that are as famous as Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. There is also the Japanese Wushuang, two of the most heroic generals of the Warring States period in Japan, Honda Tadakatsu,Tachibana Muneshige Hopefully in Japan Change Month, cards related to these will be added.


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It’s a good idea to change the cherry orchard to ume plum, and also let the production team make one less model, just change the name. Off topic: ume plums go well with rice. And Chazuke

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