So, if I want to go fast castle with Japan, what should I be building or what strategy do most Japan do when they fast castle?
If you want to do a Fast castle it depends a lot on the map, team vs solo, match up, …
And your plan after the FC also depends on these factors…
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Fast castle is not a worth strategy with japan. You have no bonus or powerup at castle age. All you can do is castle drop or knight olay.
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Alright I’ll ask another question.
Playing Japan in a 4v4 rank team game.
What should I be doing as Japan?
what map and position
There’s a popular saying in the AoE II community:
It dependsTM
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I think the following should be fine:
Fast castle is only common for closed maps like arena. Then you usually do one of the following:
- boom,
- fight for relics (pikes, light cav, monks),
- castle drop
- fight with monks/mangonels/pikes
Of you are in an open map (arabia) and want to fast castle, your main options are:
- knights: best castle age unit. Just be aware that japanese knights are pretty bad in imperisl age agsinst ranged units.
- cav archers: good but need a lot of units and upgrades to be effective.
- pikes + siege
And of course you should add a secondary unit to counter the counter of your main unit
On open maps (arabia)
- go archers/xbows/arbalests if you are on the side if your team (“flank”): it is a position japanese is good at.
- go scouts/knights/cavaliers if you are in the middle of your team (“pocket”). But since japanese lack the last armor, you may have to transition to infantry later in the game. Or Transit to cav archers or arbalesters and ask a flank teammate with better cavalry than yours to go fir a cavalry late game.
On closed maps (black forest), you boom up to imperial age as a pocket and then go yasama towers + halberdiers + cav archers/arbalesters. As a flank you wall your side and defend with castle ASAP. Then survive with whatever counter your opponent army while booming. Then fight with yasama towers + cav archers + trebuchets + halberdiers.
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IF it was me playing, with my bros lol and i happened to pick random civ and got Japanese, what i would do is make 1 unit. Pikes. That’s it.
4v4s, at least 2 enemies will go cavalry, japanese has the best pikes /halbs in the game, so that’s all i’d do. Mix some trebs / rams with the pikes, boom and make pikes, spam defensive towers everywhere, more pikes, send gold to teammates as tribute for keeping my butt safe in the early- mid game 
Maybe many people will not agree with me. It depends on your team and playstyle. Your teammates would also appreciate having 60 halbs or more guarding their bases while they push the enemy. You can still push, just watch out for arbs.
I don’t like the xbow + knights vs xbow + knights dynamic of Team games, so I don’t really play that way. Also max i play is 3v3, usually 2v2.