Then why does Poseidon have only a 36% win rate against Tsukuyomi? They’re both cavalry-focused civs, right? So why is the matchup so massively one-sided at 1500+ ELO and above? Surely they should have rouglhy a 45 to 55% win rate. These aren’t weak players — people at that level understand the game and know how to play their civs properly. So either Poseidon players collectively forgot how to play, or Tsukuyomi has a very forgiving, low-risk advantage that’s still clearly present even six months after release.
I only started playing in November, but looking at the data this doesn’t feel like normal matchup variance — it looks like one civ simply has too many advantages stacked in its favor against another that’s supposed to occupy a similar design space. And it’s not just Poseidon either — the same pattern shows up across Japanese pantheons versus Greeks overall. So what exactly is it about Japan that makes Greeks struggle this much? Greeks are supposed to rely on strong core units and early hero advantages, which theoretically should give them leverage in these matchups, yet that doesn’t seem to translate into actual results.
At a certain point it starts to feel like Japan’s design overlaps with — or even invalidates — the intended Greek identity. If one faction can do everything Greeks are meant to do, but with more flexibility and fewer downsides, then why would players pick Greeks at all?
What worries me more is that this has been visible for months without meaningful adjustments, especially with another release coming soon. Is the expectation that players need to buy the latest DLC to stay competitive on ladder while balance changes take months or years? And on a separate note, how is Ra still in such a poor state? Concerns about Ra were raised over a year ago, yet it still feels like the weakest Egyptian god.
Japan needs clearer, obvious weaknesses that prevent it from being strong at every stage of the game. When you have 6.3+ speed raiding cavalry that can even counter Poseidon’s cavalry through tech options — like Naginata Riders getting a 1.25x damage multiplier against cavalry on top of Way of the Moon — it starts to feel like meaningful tradeoffs are being removed. Naginata Riders essentially have near-identical stats to Hippeus, only losing 1 hack damage, but gaining superior mobility and scaling. That level of efficiency on such a fast unit makes the matchup feel fundamentally skewed rather than strategically interesting.
Right now it genuinely feels like Japan has all the tools without equivalent downsides, which pushes players away from Greeks instead of encouraging diverse faction choices. The supposed drawback — starting with one fewer villager than Greeks — doesn’t meaningfully offset the mid- and late-game power spikes Japan receives. Yes, early raiding is theoretically an advantage for Greeks, but against a competent Japanese player who understands the matchup, it’s relatively easy to mitigate and doesn’t compensate for Japan’s overall flexibility and scaling.
Even when looking at god powers, the disparity becomes noticeable. Zeus has Lightning Storm as a major late-game swing, but the other Greek gods lack comparable army-deleting options — and Earthquake, while strong against structures, doesn’t decide fights in the same way. Meanwhile, Japanese pantheons commonly access extremely impactful powers such as Dragon Typhoon, and they also gain tools like deployable indestructible objects that reduce or refresh god power impact, which can feel oppressive in late-game scenarios like Swampland. I understand that powers like Plenty Vault are strong especially whenyou can stabilise, but Japan’s late-game toolkit still feels superior overall due to far too many timing attack pushes at all points in the game. As the Greeks the whole game can literally feel like your fighting for your life and no matter how well you play, you can just lose everything far too easily even if making good decisions. If Japanese player starts losing? Dont worry they have a million power spikes throughout the game to refer to.
Additionally, Japan’s favour generation combined with extremely fast, Hippeus-level Naginata Riders gives them strong early map control, which snowballs into mid- and late-game advantages. Altogether, it feels less like a strategic matchup and more like one faction having overlapping strengths without sufficient tradeoffs. Pretty sure Greek favour generation heavily falls off with the more praying. Yet with Japanese it doesnt scale down with more Mikos, Likewise with atlantians too but thats a seperate point.
How can a Bushido Tier 3 Naginata Rider, with just a +10% HP tech, trade evenly with a Hoplite — a unit that’s literally supposed to counter cavalry? Aren’t counters meant to actually counter? Instead, you get a unit with 6+ speed, mobility advantages, and scaling damage that ends up outperforming Greek cavalry as well. Good luck ever using Prodromos in a matchup against Japan. At that point, it starts to feel like they can just spam two core units, add a Shogun and a few Daimyo, and roll through the game. And this is supposed to be the “complicated” civ to play? When a cavalry unit can effectively neutralise its intended counter, something about the design clearly isn’t working as intended.—- Japan is just good at everything that the Greeks does and some more. Might need to buff Greek hoplites im afraid or nerf nagita riders.
Posidon doesnt even have access to Athenas shield or Restoration. and yet its cavalary are not very good against a cavalary god that is Japan. A joke! The November patch notes for Japan were effectively nerfing damage outputs while buffing survivavibility. Thgat’s not a nerf. That’s just tweaking without trade offs.