Japan Rework

goal is to give them better gameplay that relies less on turtle eco while also making them feel more like the hyper aggressive and militarized Japanese mindset of the era. Numbers are placeholders, feedback welcome.

                                       Eco Rework

Shrines no longer generate resources. instead, each shrine increases gather and yield rates by .2%, increased by another .2% for every shrine slot taken by an animal. shrines automatically generate a shrine deer every 150 seconds worth 50 food. That’s 10 minutes to to fill a shrine without hunts. hp is now 1200.

Toshogu Shrine now acts as 2.5 shrines, worth 25 pop with 10 shrine slots. no longer affects other shrines.

maximum 20% gather increase, 25% with Toshogu Shrine when filled with animals.

tempo reform reduces shrine deer and villager train times.

villager limit increased to 80 from 75.

cherry orchards gather at the same speed as hunting. 1 less starting villager in exchange for wood crate.

                                    Cards In General

new age 1 card ships a consulate wagon and grants export for every unit killed and xp for every unit lost.

Gain 3 vills x2 in age 1, 2 vills x2 is instead infinite like all other civs.

2 cherry wagons removed in age 2, cherry blossom festival is now an age 2 card that increases gather rate by 25% and ships 2 cherry wagons. 3 cherry wagon card age 3 that also boost gather speed, and 3 infinite team cherry wagons in age 4.

new age 3 card ships 1 villager for every 8 units killed up to 12. if maximum amount reached improves natural resource yield and gather speed. a similar age 4 version with a maximum of 20 villagers, when maximum reached grants all pre imperial rice paddy techs.

Heavenly Kami now an age 3 card that halves shrine cost and build time and reduces deer spawn time. 7lg gives shrines an xp and export trickle and spawns mm when destroyed.

3 Naganita Riders x2 age 2. Infinite Sohei Naginatas in age 4.

age 2 individual attack cards removed, now only 10% infantry attack/cavalry attack cards remain.

                                   General Rework

Every age up wonder now gives a military wagon.

Dojos are now buildable by default, units spawn at shipment point in batches of 10 pop and have 20% increase in stats and unique models, but also train slower as well.

Golden Pavilion now only has 3 buffs. ranged buff improves damage and range of ranged units, melee buff improves hp/damage and move speed of melee units, and a naval buff.

Daimyo/Shogun are trainable from tc by default, age unlocked corresponding with their cards. requires Shogunate wonder to receive shipments. Shogunate wonder still unlocks and ships a Daimyo, the card Bakafu is now an age 4 tech at this wonder.

Great Buddha no longer ships Naginatas and cherry orchards. instead grants a unique Pure Land native embassy wagon with improved techs and special Sohei Naginatas that are 20% stronger than normal. also passively increases los of all units and buildings.

Japanese Isolation techs and units moved to Torri gates wonder and replaced with American option in consulate. damage buff removed, now only doubles kill bounty xp. Torri gates now ships an assortment of Japanese consulate units depending on age up.

military rickshaw tech changed to allow Ashigaru to build military buildings quicker and cheaper. Clan Offerings tech changed to granting food for every unit killed. Meiji Restoration now an age 5 tech that gives access to WW1 era Japanese units and factories.

                                 Military Rework

focus on more fragile but harder hitting units to promote better micro and make mistakes more punishing. keep in mind numbers are placeholders and probably unbalanced, the direction is what matters.

Samurai cost changed to 120 food 80 gold; train time reduced to 40 seconds. they now have 200 hp, 20% resistance and siege reduced to 40, but their move speed is increased to 5.5 and damage to 40 x1.25 vs cavalry.

The card Sword Saint now increases speed and aoe by 1 and damage by 20%.

Naginata Rider hp reduced to 200, resistance to 20%. damage increased to 40 * 1.25 vs all infantry.

Naginata hp card removed, Bloody Harvest increases infantry multiplier to 1.5x, speed by 1.25, and damage by 20%.

Ashigaru hp reduced to 150 and melee damage to 8 x4 vs cavalry, but their ranged attack is increased to 28.

Close combat card increases melee multiplier to x6, speed by .5, and damage by 20%.

Yumi cost changed to 100 food 20 wood, 80 hp with 20% resistance and 20 range. Damage is 12 x2 vs light cavalry and heavy infantry, x0.5 vs heavy cavalry at 1.5 rof.

Way of the Bow increases range by 2, damage bonus damage to 3x, and damage by 20%.

idk Yabusame.

Most important of all, a new campaign that explores the Sino/Russo wars of the late industrial era.

1 Like

Look, I’m normally pretty chill about posts like this, but I can genuinely say after reading the entire thing, that there is not a single suggestion here that I like.

Most importantly the 40 damage samurai and nagi with 5.5 speed like lol wut on earth is that even

20 Likes

its a 2 pop unit that cost 200 resources and has 240 hp, the damage isn’t high in comparison.

nagi speed would still be the same.

I don’t really care too much about the specific numbers, just a general idea of where to take the unit.

1 Like

axe riders don’t even do that much damage. yes it’s like my 3x shipment of cav that deals 50 dmg to musket units lol

its a lancer unit. low base damage is key to that unit type

probably. I’m not confident in the units, hence i said the numbers are place holders. i know they probably arent balanced. and that’s ok, none of the numbers should be taken for granted without playtesting.

1 Like

things I’m wondering about with this approach would be if the shrines feel good and impactful early enough, does the scaling feel good as well. does faster cherry make up for one less villager, does the shrine wonder feel worth picking, are the cards interesting but fair, if it results in more fun age 2 gameplay. stuff like that.

there is no real benefit for non-japanese players, so why a team-card?

age 3 cards should give a value of ~1000 resources; also applies to age 4 card with 1200 res.

dont like the “spawn at shipmentpoint” idea → shoguns will run through your base and periodically drop of units without need to stop for training; also you get these units basically for free so you get also a free 20% stat increase

it only makes sense, to either commit to isolation or to foreigners. How can you be isolated if you trade with europeans?

why should they get WW1 equippment?

thats really OP populationwise

yumi need a high wood price, so the japanese player cant just build shrines and spam yumis at the same time

Im also not sure what to think of this eco rework… 80villager * 25% = +20 (unupgraded) villagers = 2 factories. But keep in mind, that this is only achieved with full villager pop and early on you get almost nothing out of it. So i guess most japanese players wouldnt even consider building all shrines (still over 1000Wood after the discount) before being max. villager pop, especially not with just 1200hp. So japanese would have a really slow and fragile early eco.

1 Like

Unpopular opinion: I think that Asian civilizations should have an age increase system more similar to that of North American or African civilizations and the sanctuaries should be similar to the houses of the Incas.

just liked the idea of sharing cherry trees like in real life Japanese diplomacy, cherry trees in Washington dc for example.

wanted a card that rewarded earlier age 2 aggression with an eco boost, kill units early on for a strong eco bump later. maybe numbers too high, maybe design itself is bad.

wanted to spice up dojos while making it fair with slower training. the mobile shipment point does bring up gameplay problems though.

wanted to improve the Torri gate with a thematic inward focus. also wanted an American consulate option. could be too much.

just a fun post imperial option in non treaty games.

that was my biggest concern, would you really shrine boom if you only got 1% gather speed per fully upgraded shrine? and you started out with 5 villagers? maybe lower the percent increase for a more imediate reward, or a split between resource generation and eco boost.

the goal is to push Japanese players to aggressively attack while slowly scaling rather than turtling up, changes may not hit that mark.

1 Like

if this is the goal, why would you

  1. give a shipment for more cherries that also increases eco gather rate simultaneously-great for camping in base even longer
  2. reduce the coin cost on every unit, letting you sit longer on your better cherries and in base coin longer
  3. give all the ranged units even stronger ranged damage and weaker melee, further incentive to sit them behind walls and sit on your better cherries and in base coin
  4. make the shrines spawn animals by default, so you can build them in base and sit your units behind walls and gather from your better cherries and in base coin longer
  5. give dojos as buildable and have even crazier stats so you can vomit free units behind walls while you…

edit:
6. add a card that gives you export for killing units and xp for losing units so you can camp your free dojo units behind walls while…

2 Likes

1
to help make up for the loss of villagers and shrine resource generation. was afraid 1% per 125 wood shrine with low villager start may hinder them too much in the mid age 2. if its too could be reduced to 1 orchard.
2
only samurai coin cost reduced to encourage its usage.
3
the ranged units also lost significant amounts of hp, making them less effective in holding out with tc and castle fire. only ashi has a weaker melee to encourage samurai usage as well.
4
if it takes ten minutes to fully upgrade a shrine to give 1% its a pretty poor boom. the spawn is a fallback to eventually get back on your feet if your denied, it wont match any other civ with the default spawn rate.
5
im not sure on the dojo design, they would also spawn slower than live. could be the wrong change.
6
along with free military rickshaw every age up the idea is to create an incentive to constantly attack and have attrition on both your units and theirs. if you aren’t fighting the card is useless and worse than 3 vills. you either need to attack them or get attacked yourself.

1 Like

what you’re not understanding is that what you’ve actually designed is a way to further reinforce japan as a turtle civ. longer ranged yumi with higher dps, higher dmg ashi, less reliance on unit upgrade cards to make units trade well so you can ship cherries, vills and whatnot even more safely, etc. literally no downside to camping

2 Likes

the downside is that you would fall behind more drastically than before, the resource generation is a big reason why Japan was able to turtle without leaving tc for such a long time.

now your eco scales much slower and you have less resource income right from the beginning of the game. if you stay defensive your opponent’s score which was higher from the start will continue increasing much faster. you simply won’t be able to compete as they will have a vastly bigger economy.

I hate the Japan lame as much as anyone but what really agrivates me is the double explorers that can poof away from danger. That bugs me to no end. My explorer is constantly under threat of snare why should they be immune.

Lastly the 100% vil performance is grating. You see any players idle vils and compare to a Japanese player it is ridiculous. Japan always has virtually 0 vil downtime most of any game.

I would live with all the rest just to be rid of these.

4 Likes

to make the change clearer, at the proposed numbers it would take over 50 villagers gathering at the faster orchard rate to match a single shrine with deer compared to before.

until you reach 50 villagers the shrines are much worse, strictly more so when you can have that resource income within the first minute of the game rather than eventually reach that income 15+ minutes into the game with multiple tcs. and if you are idled or inefficient with villager micro that income drops to 0.

if your denied hunts and have to wait for deer to spawn the shrines are essentially not worth building, its .2% plus another every 2 minutes. and with shrine hp dropped to 1200 hp its harder than before to defend if you’re not active on the map and hiding behind walls.

the unit balance and dojo changes are valid concerns though, I’m not sure on them.

1 Like

the nagi’s design here is kinda all over the place.

You have removed its ability to tank any shots or melee hits (only 250 range hp compared to 450 of a hussar) yet you want this thing to actually make contact and shred infantry. the moment they make contact they are also snared so they would die on the spot

There is a reason why the lancers have 30 range resist and mind you lancers don’t have a vet upgrade.

5.5 speed samurais are also cracked, people were already â– â– â– â– â– â– â– â–  with skull knights at 4.5 speed and those werent trainable.

I agree with @dansil92 here, all these changes are more likely to make them even more turtly then before,
your new shrine system doesnt just increase the gather rates, it also increases the yield so effectively its just a net increase in gather rate tat doesnt force them out of the base.

So now a shrine boom isnt as powerful as before in terms of raw rates but at max that is giving them the same gather boost as all getting all the age 1 market techs and once and the shrine wonder is adding another 5% on top of that (and then all the yield increase)

They take longer to scale but you have also gave them 3 vils x 2 and then they can also just send 4 vils x 2 to scale, and then just send cherry orchards if they want to stay inbase even longer and that would work since you reduce the wood and coin cost of their units.

Another implication that I think is unexplored is whether it affects fishing or not (the implication that it is global), increasing yields of fish would be very OP for japan on water maps since they can already send 3 fishing ships twice + consulate ships and on top of that + 25% gather rates.

Making the eco more fragile means that japan would have to defend its existing resources harder and defend harder to maintain its scaling and since the units are also more fragile that means more walls and more turling

The yield upgrade means that you are incentivsed to max out on shrines as soon as possible

And also strangely, I think you have made shrines a lot less worth it to kill.

each shrine is only contributing 1% to the rate increase so it would have killing 10 shrines before you would reduce eco by about 1 vil.

compare that to the current system where a boosted shrine generate about 1 vil so killing a shrine is reducing eco by 1 vil

So what you have turned japan into is effectively an xp boom civ since you want as much xp to send as much as much resources for shrine booming as possible and defend that with turtling in the mean time

1 Like

For God’s sake no, increase hit points, siege or melee damage, but not ranged damage.
I believe that if you want to allow Japan to have more options within the game, the way would be to think about cards or even a new ally of the consulate, the USA for example.

Japan diesnt need more options on the consulate lol. Currently they have 3 unique options, the 3 most usefull ones lol.

India needs a better option for lategame, everything they gets is just 4 villagers, pathetic

3 Likes

Meiji Emperor died in 1912, so WW1 soldiers doesn’t make much sense, Meiji Japan has other many options for units.

a more fragile but harder hitting nagi means you need to be on top of how you engage. your nagi can no longer tank shots for free, you have to commit or wait for the right oppurtonity.

the yield will be too low to have an effect before midgame when you run out of resources in your main base. to get resources you have to collect them now rather than generate it out of thin air. being denied map now actually hurts more since you have no way of getting those resources without a farm.

a 5%-10% yield increase before you leave base is a lot less turtle ability than generating those resources out of nowhere.

that 3 vill card does not fully compensate for starting out with one less villager, japan will always have less resources compared to before. and if you plan on fighting and send the consulate wagon instead, you are 3 villagers behind compared to before.

water is already unbalanced with the most lopsided matchups in the game, this only affects villagers base rate.

to defend that eco boost you have to be on the map, you can’t wall most herds and spending 125 resources now for a 1% boost ten minutes later is not viable for most of the game. being denied hunts is now far more deadly than before.

what this does is make it so Japan will always have less resources than before at every stage of the game, and the only way to compensate for that is to constantly be fighting and causing attrition on both sides.

you start the game with one less villager, will be several hundred resources behind by the time you reach age 2, will be several thousand resources behind when you reach age 3, and once you move off orchards to rice paddies your eco will be far worse at max than any other civ.

so essentially fight or die.