Also about not seeing me complain about jans, what the hell? Ottomans are quite a lower power civilization, jans don’t have 4.5 speed, jans only have one combat card and one cost reduction card(japan has shogunate so that’s the Japanese version of the card reduction card) can jans be made from a walking barracks that gives a powerful attack aura? Do ottomans have buildings that make jans more powerful? Do ottomans get advanced Arsenal for free? It’s like your using the beginner deck and wondering why ashis with no card ups lose to fully carded jans if your going to compare two units you can’t compare the ashis worst case scenario to the jans best case scenario the fact that ashi worst case scenario is slightly worse than Jan best case scenario shows how much the devs just love giving japan everything they can, japan was designed to be a free win civ that would make new players come to the game, because back in Asian dynasties there wasn’t a very good skill based quick search, so japan was made to give noobs a chance to beat people much better than them, but now ranked quick search is an accurate system(unless your a top 100 player playing at one of the lowest peak times of course)
Where did I say Ashikaru are weak? I said they are decent to, just not OP.
It doesnt matter you can mass Ashikaru, every unit is massable, Yumi arguments can be thrown out of the window imeadiatly just like the general Japan stuff that didnt have to do anything remotly with what I was talking about.
Pavilon doesnt matter its free as its an age up building and you still have to pay for it and I am almost certain you are not going to do it age 2. Besides you get the advanced upgrades yes, but not the base upgrades as far as I am aware. Next to that you yourself say Ashikaru also need many cards making the advanced arsenal argument pointless.
Also Japan doesnt have the best eco in game by far. Its early eco is good/decent because of shrines, but will be really bad late-mid to late game. Comparing to most other civs economic bonusses similar to shrines like banks and manor houses they dont differ that much. Are you forgetting you only get 75 vills and 2 factories are about the same if not outproducing shrines?
Also can you give me some actual stats of late game janisarry and ashikaru comfirming that ahsikaru are sooo much better here is what I found:
HP: Jan has 210, Ash has 170, Jan has 40 more.
Resistance: both 20% melee.
Speed: Ash has 0.5 more then Jan’s 4
Melee: Jan has 15, Ash has 10, so Jan has 5 more. The multipliers of cav for Jan is 2 and for Ash 3.5, so Ash will do about same as Jan vs cav. Same for shock where Jan does 1.5 and Ash 2
Ranged: Jan has 20 while Ash has 24, so Ash 4 more.
Rate of fire is same and Jan has 4 more siege damage compared to 21 of Ash.
Looking at the base stats they are about the same when also looking at costs, where Ashikaru costs total 120 and Janissary 115.
But because you wanted to look at upgrades and stuff:
Both get 100% damage and health for all 3 upgrades.
Both gain 35% damage from arsenal and 10% hp. Janissary however also gets 10% speed boost, Ash doesnt get. Making their speed almost the same 4.5 compared to 4.4
Jan will get 20% cheaper card and 15% hp and damage. While also getting the abbility to make barracks and stables, which is basically the same if not better then daimios.
Ahsikaru gets 15% attack and 15% hp and 1 extra multiplier against cav and 33% extra siege.
Still after factoring in all the upgrades and cards Jan will have a total of 150% damage, 135% hp, 10% more speed, 20% cheaper and ability to build barracks. While Ash get 150% damage, 135% hp, 33% siege and 1 extra bonus against heavy cav.
Honestly where do you see the big difference? Also you have the ottoman mosque card allowing them to train 20% faster and get a 0.5 multiplier extra against cav. Basically everythin Ash gets in upgrades and cards you spoke so highly of, Jan get the same. Heck you can argue jan is better, they can spam barracks in enemy land and are cheaper and train faster.
Also I would gladly play a treaty game against you were I play Ottomans and you Japan to see who wins when only spamming Janissaries and Ashikaru. Or where I play Russia and spam Strelets and you Yumi.
Sorry for the delay on the answer. I’m not being very active on this forum lately.
I remember the problem with the siege dance being Cav. Box abusers on prior versions of the game. But I agree that is silly to take the dance off, when the problem always was the Cav. box bug, and not the dance itself.
Also, with the exception of the iroquois/haudenosaunee (Because of the light cannon), the native civs struggle against buildings in general, and the captured mortar is not a good solution when it’s just comes in age 5. I agree that the Sioux/Lakota needed that particular dance.
It’s mainly in team games the siege dance was op as a big fight can take place on one part of the map and then boom the cav comes in and shreds villagers, the main argument I’m trying to make is that why would they nerf the one that need the siege more if it the only way Lakota can tear buildings and leave the civ that has flaming arrows and whatever those Japanese mortors are called when japan has options to tear buildings already
Yeah, but why do you think shrines are that broken? A fully filled shrine still gather 1/3 of what a settlers would, meaning that a Japan players need to spend 225 wood to get the same gathering that a villager would.
I mean, if you argue that Japan units are incredibly strong on late game because of so much improvements that stack up, I could agree. But saying that Japan is broken because of the shrines, I can’t really agree on that. Shrines aren’t broken.
Because any civ needs houses as is, I don’t see why japan gets cheaper houses and a trickle, it makes no sense, that’s why I think instead of 75 wood shrines they should have 106 wood shrines a shrine can get 6 wood in less than 20 seconds, so after 20 seconds it’s nothing but value a shrine can get if they were 106 wood.
I think the trickle purpose is to compensate for the fact that Japanese settlers cannot hunt, and this results on them having to gather from berries at a smaller rate than settlers of other civilizations.
Also, I checked into my game and the shrine cost 125 wood, I think it’s a Definitive Edition thing. I haven’t played Japan in a while, so I guess I had the Asian Dynasties number in mind 
EDIT: Just played on Asian Dynasties. The price of the shrine always was 125 wood.
Japan has a card “celestial kami” that become shrines cheaper. This stacks with portuguese consulate giving them 75w shrines and cheaper age up.
Maybe thats the problem right there, celestial kami and Portuguese consulate bonus should be removed to fix Japan.
Portuguese is already the weakest Consulate option, only useful in Water maps, and those are exceedingly rare as it is.
The building discount is the only reason to use it at all.
Hum that’s actually explains a lot. I never really send this card and I always went with the Japanese mercenaries at the consulate to get the early clubs.
I will have to test this build. How does this it works? The celestial kami would be the first card that you send in? And you build a consulate on age 1 or 2?
This is exactly what I said earlier, I think one should be removed,I don’t think both should. I also think heavenly kami should be the one to be removed, because the 3 fishing ships from port consulate really defines Japanese on water maps in the early game, also not sure why you guys are saying celestial kami, was that a name change? Also without heavenly kami, japan can send 300 wood first card, assuming the japan player does the port consulate opening, the 300 wood can go to a trade post and an additional shrine, this could actually balance japan overall if combined with a unit nerf, as I think either sending 2 villagers or 300 wood first would address japan lamers complaining japan is slow.
The thing about the 300 wood shipment, I used to send them as the first shipment to have a consulate and a barracks up, so I can send the 300 export and train clubs and some troops from the barracks so I just not die with 5 minutes of game. The 2 villagers or 3 fishing boats was from when I was not expecting early aggression, and I thought I could play more greedy.
With this build order Japan is quite slow and take some a lot of time until it gets ready. But again, my last game with Japan was almost 2 years ago now that I checked, and I need to test this build order with heavenly kami.
Again, I’m imagining that heavenly kami is not your very first card, because you need to deal with early aggression, and the Portuguese consulate does no help in that regard. How is that build order? I’m genuinely asking to test out.
Your 1st build can be the consulate with starting crates, then you can gatjer wood and spam shrines.
Most cards dont stack with other effects, they work on base stats. Exceptioms are dances, wonders and other auras but not Karni Mata.
Its name is heavenly kami but no-english players forget that because we play on our languages, thats all. Everyone know which card is, Its not a great issue and both words are synonyms too.
I see you didnt answer me but did on others so I am gonna assume you agree.
Shrines do not cost 75 wood, they cost 125. The 25% cheaper card makes it 94, not 75. And thats basically the same type of card every civ has with an unique building. Dutch get cheaper banks and Brits get cheaper manor houses. Even with investments to Portugueze consulte then it becomes 75, seeing you waste a lot of export on it and wont have it imeadiatly, I really dont see your problem here.
Also are you sure its 75 and not 80? Or does AoE calculate oddly? As its more logical to apply the cheaper cost to the current price not what it was before another cheaper cost.
As I already mentioned in the thread, nobody is going tot take you seriously if you complain about some of the weakest units and effects in the game and call them overpowered. This simply shows it is a problem of learning how to play rather than a civ being OP or broken.
Going for the port consulate gives up either the damage bonus, faster shipments (spanish consulate synergies very well with torii gates btw) or the dutch economic buildings. If a japan player goes for ports consulate in the early game, they are almost 100% toast in case of aggression.
It seems to me this is all just a problem of letting a civ boom and then getting streamrolled by it.
This game has an asymmetrical balance. Any civs will have better or worse match ups. Japan isn’t any different.
What does ‘if you complain about some of the weakest units in the game’ mean, Japan doesn’t have any weak units. People mentioned that celestial kami and Portugese consulate bonus were the cause of ultra cheap shrines, which are in turn the cause of Japan’s OPness. I admit that I have never played Japan because I refuse to play an OP civ, it disgusts me when someone picks Japan because it means they don’t want a fair game. I think I know how to play after 250 hours on DE and a year of playing the non DE version. Its hard to imagine the Japan player being ‘toast’, when I play India sometimes I don’t even build a consulate and India doesn’t have anywhere near the OPness of Japan, as discussed in this thread, although they do have one really good unit, Urumi, but at least they dont have ALL really good units like Japan does.
Yes, I have been trying out this build order. I have been dividing the 6 initial vills 3 on food and 3 on wood, so I can have a stable shrine production and villagers production.
I’m still testing some stuff out. But so far I found out that this build order slows my age up time considerably (I’m going up with 16-18 vills and almost 5 to around 5:30 minutes in), also I think it’s quite dependent of wood treasures. I imagine that you need to go up with the Toshogu shrine, to get the export and the 7 besteiros from the consulate to help you hold out. The second shipment I imagine should be the 600 wood, but could be 300 wood if you are worried of early pressure and need to put barracks immediately.
To be honest, so far I don’t think this build is better than the standard 2 vills/3 boats. Do you suggest any improvements?
I mean. Then it’s kind of difficult to agree with you.
If you gonna come guns blazing, claiming that Japan is disgusting OP, that when someone pick Japan they don’t want a fair game or that they don’t have any weak units, you should have played the civ a little bit to see if your claiming.
I did backed down in my position because I never actually knew it about this 75 wood shrine. I consider myself relatively up-to date on AoE3 meta, and never heard about something like that, but I didn’t immediately discarded as a bad build without testing it out first. You should test it out the civs that you claim that are broken OP before making such claims.
There is a lot of topics on this forum about the Aztecs, that I don’t wrote anything because I barely played the civ, so I don’t think I have enough embarrassment to say if the civ is underwhelming or okay if I almost never played they. Like, this is the same logic, I can’t just claim that the civ is OP without testing it.
It is 75 wood, indeed. I tested and after the portuguese Consulate and Heavily Karma the cost for shrines are decreased to 75 wood.
The build you see people do is build the consulate with 2 villagers, chop 6 wood, ally with Portugal(with Portugal alone and no heavenly kami shrines are 106 wood, once you chop 6 wood everyone on food, first card heavenly kami, (shrines gather faster and cost less, it stacks with t consulate for 75 wood shrines) also age up wonders count as buildings, so your age up costs 680 food after port consulate. Age when you can afford it even if you need to idle your tc slightly. This should consistently give you an age up just under five minutes or a few seconds after if you have your villagers walk around too much, in transition out your shrine on wood,6 villagers on food, and rest on wood, build as many shrines as you can while again while making sure you’ll have 170 wood when you age up(for your rax) send 600 wood, or if you have to send a unit shipment, do so next card can be 600 wood, a daimyo, or more units, you can also send colonial militia if being under heavy pressure. If your opponent rushes you, try to pop a batch of units, (if you have some units already keep them away from attacking the enemy army until your big pop of units) the 5 units you already should have, combined with another five your going to Train, and the five you ship, plus you minute men pop, should be able to hold off any rush, and once you hold off the rush you win, so if you execute it how. Told you here, you should get easy wins against anything that isn’t a native fast age rush, a 10/10 rush, or a two rax rush
(double rax jans, Spain logistician, etc,)
If against one type of the rushes I said above, send a unit shipment as your first age 2 shipment, constantly train units from your one rax, send colonial militia ( I’m quite sure the card is called sentry rebellion but I could be thinking of something else) and once you pop Minutemen, with the units you train and ship, plus sentry rebellion, should allow you to clear up your opponents army if they commit, if they don’t commit, try shipping 600 wood next to drop more shrines and a second rax. I hope this helps you @ToroidalLeaf69