Japanese Discussion Thread

[Inst]

About Samurai, you're actually wrong when you say that Samurai are bulkier acav than Ashigaru, if what you mean is that they meatshield better. When you compare Samurai to Ashigaru, what you notice is that Ashigaru are ~173 VS, Samurai are 300 VS, so Samurai cost about 70% more. But Samurai only have 35% more HP.

This is why everyone uses Ashigaru / Yumi mixes instead of Samurai / Yumi mixes. Yimi are glass cannons, and need another unit to abosrb their damage. Samurai are much worse at this compared to Ashigaru.

[bigsmoke]

One suggestion might be to make Torii spawn a number of cows, helping to deal with Japan's inability to function if it loses map control. You could make it spawn 4/8/12/20 cows, which are enough for 1/2/3/5 shrines respectively. This wouldn't do anything unless you commit to building the shrines for them.

Japan is one of the few civs which doesn't need a lot of map control really with cherry orchards and shrines its pretty good cows would just be overpowered

[Inst]

I suppose you're right, peaking out at 75 villagers isn't that much of a problem in Sup.

[wardyb1]

Would giving Torii Gates a faster build time help be a small buff? It is considered the rushier wonder to build so why not augment that side of it and let it go up a bit quicker? Wouldn't by default make it the top tier wonder but might just give them that small boost they need against those civs that are in their base before they can do anything about it.

[Inst]

Well, what are the Japanese wonders in general?

Torii Gates -> Stronger rushing, good if you need a strong defense against a rush
Toshogu Shrine -> Strengthens booms, counts as 150 wood worth of shrines (212 if not using Ports consulate)
Great Buddha -> Stronger rushing (free, early Hussar-equivalent), a bit weak given that 1 Naginata Rider is arguably the worst resource drop of any wonder.
Shogunate -> FF wonder, since you can get two shipments when you hit Colonial?
Golden Pavillon -> Ashigaru Boom/Rush, since you get paper cartridge and flintlocks upgrades. More of a Fortress wonder, though, since you won't have enough mass to make the paper cartridge and flintlock upgrade pay off in Colonial, although having it available is a big plus in Colonial.

So we have 2 rush wonders, a boom wonder, a FF wonder, and a boom / rush wonder.

[Inst]

If you gave any wonder a faster build time, you'd add it to Great Buddha, since it's relatively useless due to its poor shipment quantity.

Also, @ bigsmoke, 1 shrine with 4 cows gathers .7 / food per second, about equal to a Japanese villager. On wood, it's equal to a fully-upgraded Colonial Age Japanese villager (.66 wood). 4 deer, on the other hand, give something like half a villager's worth. So giving Japanese 4 cows is equivalent to giving them half a villager.

[bigsmoke]

If you gave any wonder a faster build time, you'd add it to Great Buddha, since it's relatively useless due to its poor shipment quantity.

Also, @ bigsmoke, 1 shrine with 4 cows gathers .7 / food per second, about equal to a Japanese villager. On wood, it's equal to a fully-upgraded Colonial Age Japanese villager (.66 wood). 4 deer, on the other hand, give something like half a villager's worth. So giving Japanese 4 cows is equivalent to giving them half a villager.

once you get the industrial upgrade it will be pretty big though

[Inst]

Shrine upgrades don't affect herdables or huntables. They only affect the shrine's base gather rate. Tempo Reforms is also enormously costly at 500 f/w/g.

Roughly speaking, a shrine with Tempo Reforms, Heavenly Kami, and Toshogu Shrine bonuses has .89 food generation per second, .583 wood / gold generation per second. The typical villager generation rate in industrial, with all upgrades, is .87 on berries, .97 on paddy food, .75 on wood, and .87 on paddy gold. So 22 shrines is worth roughly 20 villagers on food, 17 villagers on wood, and 14.7 villagers on gold.

[Inst]

In Imperial, Japan's shrines are worth 15 villies on food, 12 villies on wood, and 12 villies on gold. This is actually what I mean when I say that Japan has issues with map control. The solution might be instead to change it so that Japan's Imperial Age economic upgrades affect its shrines too, maybe +100% to +200% would keep it competitive. 88 deer are only worth 4.73 villies on food, 6.16 villies on wood, and 5.6 villies on gold. In Industrial, it's equivalent to 6.35 villies on food, 8.12 villies on wood, and 7.76 villies on gold.

[gamevideo113]

Japan is simply weak to early rushes, the fix should only help in that regard. No need to touch shrines.

[britrouga]

Japan is simply weak to early rushes,

Are they really?
In the RE rush meta, Japan was one of the best civ, because they can hold rushes with walls and CM if needed. The real issue is that the kami boom can't deal with stagecoach semi ff builds.

[Kaiserklein]

Shrine upgrades don't affect herdables or huntables. They only affect the shrine's base gather rate. Tempo Reforms is also enormously costly at 500 f/w/g.

It still gives around +0.5 res/sec/shrine no? So with 20 shrines, it gives roughly 10 extra vils, I don't think that's so bad.

Anyway yes, if you push to super late game, japanese eco is lower than standard european civs. Just like if you push dutch to super late game, the eco is bad. But what matters mostly is that until mid-late game, japan and dutch have a very strong eco, and that they can get this eco quickly: for example russia has potentially a very good boom, but it takes forever to make all these vils; while japan and dutch can just build/ship some stuff and have a great eco in a few minutes. That is much more important than the fully upgraded age 4 or 5 eco which essentially never happens in a decent level game...

And btw, even in the case of super late game, the insane units make up for japan's lack of eco. They also have an extra 25 pop for military.

[britrouga]

Yea, japs with Russia have the most cost efficient late game, so the eco doesn't matter that much.

[gamevideo113]

Japan is simply weak to early rushes,

Are they really?
In the RE rush meta, Japan was one of the best civ, because they can hold rushes with walls and CM if needed. The real issue is that the kami boom can't deal with stagecoach semi ff builds.

Apparently the EP wall nerf and fair hunts kinda negate that aspect of japan. Against stagecoach i think japan should contest the trade line, but it's just an idea since i can't test it in a realistic scenario.

[britrouga]

Japan is simply weak to early rushes,

Are they really?
In the RE rush meta, Japan was one of the best civ, because they can hold rushes with walls and CM if needed. The real issue is that the kami boom can't deal with stagecoach semi ff builds.

Apparently the EP wall nerf and fair hunts kinda negate that aspect of japan. Against stagecoach i think japan should contest the trade line, but it's just an idea since i can't test it in a realistic scenario.

Yea you should try but early you'll have less units and if you commit too much in colonial you'll lose to the age 3 timing because you can't beat falcs in age 2

[Darwin_]

I think the best way to improve their early colonial is to give them an extra food crate or buff torii gates (personally I think it would be cool if it gave you like 2 coin crates or 2 ashi instead of the samurai). But then again, does their early colonial really need a buff?

[britrouga]

I think the best way to improve their early colonial is to give them an extra food crate or buff torii gates (personally I think it would be cool if it gave you like 2 coin crates or 2 ashi instead of the samurai). But then again, does their early colonial really need a buff?

Japan is really hard to balance, even more than Dutch, because if you buff their early game too much, they become unkillable in early/middle game and it's simply impossible to beat Japan in late game. I think that with one food crate they would become op because they'd age 20sec earlier and it snowballs from here. It means that they can wait the 600w to build the rax, ie they have a better early game eco etc...

I'm not too fan of the current Torii because the samurai can kill a fb if you age early enough, which is a bit broken. In general, I don't think that age2 should give military units.
Giving 2 coin crates instead of the samurai is interesting, but it would change the meta and people would maybe start playing Torii instead of Toshogu, which is probably not the goal of the patch.

[Darwin_]

I think the best way to improve their early colonial is to give them an extra food crate or buff torii gates (personally I think it would be cool if it gave you like 2 coin crates or 2 ashi instead of the samurai). But then again, does their early colonial really need a buff?

Japan is really hard to balance, even more than Dutch, because if you buff their early game too much, they become unkillable in early/middle game and it's simply impossible to beat Japan in late game. I think that with one food crate they would become op because they'd age 20sec earlier and it snowballs from here. It means that they can wait the 600w to build the rax, ie they have a better early game eco etc...

I'm not too fan of the current Torii because the samurai can kill a fb if you age early enough, which is a bit broken. In general, I don't think that age2 should give military units.
Giving 2 coin crates instead of the samurai is interesting, but it would change the meta and people would maybe start playing Torii instead of Toshogu, which is probably not the goal of the patch.

I totally agree with both of your points. I think that if the food crate buff were added, changing the golden to be a boost off of base stats, and not modified. I also see your point with Torii gates, and you make me think that maybe the toshogu shrine should receive a little bit of a nerf, rather than bringing other wonders up to the strength of the shrine, and then Japan should get a little bit more of a substantial early game buff.

[Inst]

Tempo only gives +.49 for food, it's equivalent to 10 vils on food, 8 vils on wood, and 7 vils on gold. If you compare it to a shipment, it's roughly a 10 villy card if you put it on food.

[deleted_user0]

Deserves a small buff. I'm in favour of 300w fixed crate, just like china to buff early game.

[Kaiserklein]

That's a huge buff, not a small buff

[n0el]

The hypocrisy of random crates being good for the game

[Riotcoke]

Random crates are fair though, as both players get the same random crates xD.

[Garja]

Food and gold spawns are just as fine for Japan as they are for the other civs. Especially now that specific builds are finally assuming shape.

[n0el]

And China would be fine with random crates too xD