One of solution is removing Japan starting cherry orchard.
Create berry bush randomly around the map.
So Japanese players will know what is map control.
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Assuming European civs have rebuildable factories at age2.
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Late games are rarely discussed in balancing because most games are decided before anyone reaches the maximum villager number.
Otherwise Brits would not be considered as a civ with strong economy, because they only have 99 vils + 2 factories just like every other common European civ without special bonuses.
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You see, the same logic fallacy comes back again and again.
“Japan’s economy & map control is fine because you cannot fill up all the shrines.”
How is that taken for granted? Does any other civ have the ability to gather from any pack of hunts far away from the base from the very beginning of the game?
Yeah but that’s fine because you cannot fully fill them up. So just remove the livestock pen and it will be fine as before.
“Torps are not op because you still need to send villagers to gather coin.”
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That’s why I always think the design of Japan is broken, and Sweden is even worse.
By simple design principles, safe economy should be a weak one, strong economy should come with average or weak units, and ability to buff all units universally should come with generally weaker base stats.
Japan and Sweden, however, have strong & safe economy + absurdly strong military, and Japan can even buff their military on top of that.
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If other civs don’t spawn berries on their own. Can you suggest something that doesn’t automatically delete Japan from the game? I understand your frustration, but you have to be reasonable.
If you lose all your shrines it is GG anyway, not cause of resources, but cause of population cap. Same for factories really.
Also, you don’t build your factories all over the map.
Supremacy games now usually go into the industrial age. As people get better at defending the generic FF and age2 aggression.
Because it is true. You cannot fill all the shrines unless you have the livestock pen.
You misunderstand the problem.
hunts are gathering much faster, so you have a faster early game. By the time you reach fortress age farming is faster than hunting. so the argument that “i can’t raid them but they can raid me” doesn’t stand. You should be switching to farming slowly over time anyway.
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Full of reason showing this is design problem but became my frustration and my personal problem from your mouth.
The one to be reasonable should be you. What is your reason?
If you lose half your vils herding outside you gg anyway, no need all. What can this your comment show? Which civ will not gg when losing all houses or vils?
Here are just two simple facts, Japan has the safest and the second strong eco below Sweden. This is well-known except some Japan players, may be dev also doesn’t know.
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That is exactly what I mean. Why does anyone think Japan should always have the shrines work at maximum rate?
I do agree livestock pens are a big bonus, but that is mainly for long treaties or very late game when the villager capacity is reached and all cards are sent.
Even when a normal game goes into industrial age people don’t usually have maximum vils.
So that “still” “anyway” argument is back again.
The reason why Japan is more difficult to raid is because their villagers rarely need to leave their base. Their main food source is placed right next to their base and it’s a huge one that can last even until fortress. When other civs have consumed the hunts close to their base they need to send villagers to more dangerous places, when Japan has already captured far away hunts with the shrines and the villagers are still gathering from cherry orchards.
That’s why Japan is more difficult to raid. That has nothing to do with farms because every other civ needs to build farms later and they don’t place the farms far away from their base.
Maybe ashigarus are not op because most other civs can still create musketeers and will switch to other units anyway.
BTW farming is never faster as hunts without shipments. Hunting has almost double the gather rate of farming. The upgrades for hunting are +10%/+20% and farming +15%/+30%.
True. but people usually send the farming and estate cards in age 3.
I seriously don’t get this raiding argument.
Yes. they have an advantage that they get the cherry orchard (only 1, after that you need to pay shipments for them or build the statue wonder). However, I and most people I play against typically keep 6 or so muskets//pike/halebs/their favorite anti cav unit with the hunters and raiding them essentially becomes equivalent to idling them, not killing them (combine with HP upgrade from market and villies become hard targets).
So now that our objective is idling and not killing the villies, you can idle japan villies just like you can idle any other race.
The gather rate from cherry orchards is comparable to that of farming. If you really have a problem with cherries defending against raids, just build a farm and you’re on equal footing. But you won’t, cause hunting is so much better.
Neither will Japan. I don’t see your point. Also, FI exists.
TLDR:
The current problem with japan is the livestock pen. If they didn’t add the livestock pen, Japan would have been pretty OK with the current crates. I have no idea what they were thinking when they added it.
They could rework the japan military a bit to move some of the power of ashigaru to other units, especially the unique Japanese units. But I suppose that’s never going to happen. The economy is fine (sans the livestock pen).
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Depends on teh civ. Aztecs and Japanese get Farms so good, they do not actually need to Hunt past early Age 2.
Not to mention that Japan gets Rice Paddy Wagons AND a Farming and Coin gather boost, with it’s 2 unique farming shipments.
I think people that believe Japan has a weak lategame economy, just do not send the appropiate cards.
Japan has excellent lategame economy.
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Which inexplicably got a buff last patch >.<
Which is amazingly strange, because almost all Japan decks are stacked with Eco and unit upgrade cards, since you only need at most 3 unit shipments as Japan, since they are doubled.
I never liked the livestock feeding in team games. For some reason the devs decides it should be available in 1v1 as well. Oh well…
Maybe it’s my bad not highlighting and capitalizing words like CLOSE TO THEIR BASE or FAR FROM THEIR BASE because you keep ignoring them.
Of course Japanese villagers still need to dodge into TCs when their base is under attack, but they don’t need to compete for food sources FAR AWAY, which is one major advantage for Japan because most other civs need to do that.
To make matters worse, they could already make use of food sources FAR AWAY in the beginning of the game.
You keep using logic like:
I have $1 in my right pocket and $1 in my left pocket, while you have $10 in your right pocket and $1 in your left pocket.
But we are equally rich, because (1) we both have $1 in our left pockets and (2) we both need to reach to our left pockets anyway after out right pockets runs out.
Now speaking of map control:
Most other civs need to build another TC or at least an outpost to control DISTANT resources, or risk losing many villagers.
While for Japan they only need to put down a shrine (they don’t even need to send a villager to build them because their hero can do that) anywhere on the map in early games, and shrines have many hp and keep gathering when under attack. Not to mention they have so much more resources CLOSE TO THEIR BASE that their villagers need to venture out much later.
Because you’re talking about Japan having weaker economy with maximum vils compared to others, you need to realize most games do not reach maximum villagers.
And FI is not a strategy to maximize your vils either.
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I think you dont understand his point. All people here keep bringing up Japan doesnt have to leave base with vills because of Orchard and Shrines, yet they fail to see that a mill has the same gather rate as someone from a cherry.
You can send the 8 sheep and economy shipment and you can build a mill, which would be 10x better than a orchard shipment, because you will have infinite source and 2400 fast gathering food.
The shrines on average without hunts have ~0.1 tickle, so you are basically forced to build near hunts. And even then 4 deer would only make it 0.28 food and even less wood and gold. This is half of a villager and makes them need to invest 240 wood for the same as one villagers gather rate for 100 food. We wont look here at the age 4 upgrade because everyone here saying late game wont be reached. Even then the European factory will have outweighed the shrine.
Shrines cant be garrizoned or retreated meaning early agression must be faced with your own military or let the shrines be destroyed. The loss of a shrine is by far less optimal then 1 villager, seeing you both lose pop and your half villager.
If they have more shrines then their two-three starting hunts then its your fault giving them more map controll and not doing something about their shrines. They are basically investing in building shrines mid map which are easily destroyed which later in game would hit even harder as mid battle they might suddenly have a pop problem.
Japanese really isnt as op as stated, only problem now is the livestock pen they can get. They should remove that and maybe make it just a few cows you get as a one of.
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Japan has better military than most other civs, and Shrines can take way more punishment than Villagers can.
The time it takes to destroy a Shrine, would kill at least 4 Villagers, if not outright 10 or more, depending on how clusttered they are.
They are much harder to kill, than a bunch of Villagers, and Japan has the Military prowess to effectively protect them.
Military also costs more. Skirmisher units will wipe their ashikara and shrines build at mid map or further are at way higher risk. Ofcourse in base they are harder, but for Japan to make some kind of profit from the shrines they need to build all around them map which is impossible almost to all defend at once.
The main point is tho that every civ can hide in their base from beginning just like Japan. Shrines are half villagers and even less making them not as good as people claim them to be. They only become around one villager when they reach industrial, but then factories outweigh them.
Also there were some people saying Japan was the only one with mini factories age II, but I guess they havent played the Dutch ever.
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Their efficiency more than compensates their cost. Japan’s Ranged Infantry is so strong, you can literally train nothing but Ashigaru and Yumi, and still win a match, a lot of the time.
Their Samurai are better than Dopps, Yabusame dwarf Cavalry Archers in every way, and Naginata are better than Lancers; yet almost none of them ever get used, because Ashis and Yumis are just so strong, it is insane.
Dutch can only produce Gold, while Shrines produce all 3 resources. You can even have them generate XP.
They also have Dojos, in Age 3, that give them free armies.
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Not really Ashikaru are good but they wont be cost effectice against their counters like skirms. Good luck winning with just Ashikaru vs skirmisher.
Next to that it doesnt show much saying Japan only uses 2 of its units. AoE III has in some civs and general always struggled with massing one or two units. British almost entirely use musketeer or hussar. French cuirrassier, etc etc. You never see Spanish player make use of all their 8 barracks and stable units.
Then for the shrines they also can only produce 1 resource at a time. Its not like 5 shrines on coin and 3 on food. The coin producing for banks doesnt really matter much seeing settlers are free to gather everything but coin and you can trade at the market.
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Paired with Yumis, they are cost-effective.
No one denies that the Ashigaru is, by far, the strongest Ranged Infantry in the game. Yumi melt Skirms, it is not even a competition.