Premise about daimyos:
What should NOT change because they are integral parts of Japan’s civ designs:
- Their aura makes up for the high unit cost and lack of effective bonuses in the early games.
- Their unit training ability makes up for the lack of training speed upgrades.
What should probably change:
- They can hide in the corner of the map and airdrop units, which is very toxic.
- Their aura when stacked with Golden pavilion buffs, advanced arsenal upgrades and general high base stats in the late game could scale to absurd values.
- They need to be grouped and controlled separately otherwise they’ll run into enemy lines (like missionaries).
My thoughts:
The daimyo could become a “building wagon that can attack”
- Default (“packed”): a unit with a smaller aura , and cannot train units or receive shipments.
- Stationed (“unpacked”): an outpost-like building that can train units and receive shipments. Cannot move. Prone to first TC build restrictions. Aura range increased. If the inability to move already makes them fragile enough, their stats can be increased a bit. Otherwise they could also be made more fragile. These are all adjustable balancing concerns.
As they are already stationary when training units, this would not add much to the complexity of their usual usage, but would add some restrictions to airdropping units.
The idea comes from shogun 2’s “stand and fight” ability. The general dismounts, sits down and can no longer move, making him much more fragile, but grants a higher morale buff to units.
Aesthetically they could re-use the Japanese camps and banners in the campaign.