another reason why this would result in less turtling is because being idled and losing villagers now hurts far more than before.
shrines currently do not care if you are idled, inefficient or have villagers die, they produce the same exact number of resources. this makes Japan one of the most self-run economies that is hard to disrupt. and since the resources are free and infinite, losing access to a resource in base isn’t as harmful.
now every villager you lose will also lower the power of your shrines and being idled means your shrines provide nothing. running under Japan tc and keeping villagers inside will completely halt their eco.
it’s meant to be a nerf, ashi will die faster to ranged infantry like skirmishers. 5 shots instead of 6.
yumi have less damage, hp, and range than longbow while being more expensive, and deal a harsher .5x penalty to heavy cavalry in exchange for more anti infantry damage.
if it does end up resulting in more turtle play then the changes shouldn’t go through.
I think daimyo must be limited by the wonder that can be created. So instead of benefits I think they need to be reduced a little more. My suggestions are these:
Antiheroic units like spies and ninjas deal damage to them as if they were mercenaries or heroes. In other words it should have a ‘hero’ label.
They cannot create units near the influence of defensive buildings or town centers. They are a pain in the late games or in the treaty where you suddenly have 10 mortars shelling the factories. Also they start with a big tactical advantage once the treaty ends because you basically start defensively against Japan.
The influence of daimyos should not affect artillery. (Similar to the recent change where missionaries don’t affect cannons and ships).
Daimyos should not create cannons in batches of 10.
Increase the cost of daimyos. There are too many benefits in a single unit for its price to be a few coins. They are also very difficult to kill.
They are vulnerable to the ‘sniper’ scout ability.
but that just make nagi a clean up unit and that is not the role of just about most cav in the game, they wouldnt be able to snare or approach any kind of musk or goon mass without it already being dead by ashi and yumi fire, it makes them dead weight.
we have a low hp hard hitting type (well to skrims anyway) unit in the game, its the sowar and its considered universally bad, and it more hp then your nagi.
the problem is that the yield increase effectively allows japan to stay in base longer which effectively incentivises turtling - note that japan can also send cards like sawmills and silversmith (twice) for even more yields so they can stay in base longer.
I agree that you have reduced their in the short term, but by doing that and also making their units fragile, what makes you think they will actually fight on the open field with those conditions instead of you know, just start walling up and ensuring fights always take place behind walls.
and the assumption that you need to have map to have the eco boost is also misguided, most of the time japan just leave the shrine in the open map and then contiually spam them while sneaking around. Heck thats what swedes do and their eco boost just depletes the map.
and about the idling, idling hurts but japan’s eco by design almost never idles, they gather from cherry orchards remember? you have also reduce the non-food cost of their units so where is the idling going to come from? they just need to have a single wall segment around their starting resources and they would never idle.
This, i like; my personal suggestion was to increase speed by 20% wich is a little less than 1 speed, and decrease their attack time by -20% or something like that, like the inca card for plumed spearman, but increase their base speed to 4.75 and their aoe damage to 1.50 so at the end would be a little less speed and aoe damage split into base and that card.
For everything else, although i appreciate the time, effort and thought that this must’ve taken, i don’t think Japanese need a rework of that sort, i mean, mainly because changing too much of a civ of the original Game wich has been like that since 15 years it’s not much of an option, because it already has an identity and changing it would be like making a whole new Game, so shouldn’t change the whole civ, not because this rework is worse than the original Japanese, wich could have been, but because it’s probably not gonna change that much.
And i don’t see any Big problem with either Japanese identity nor its gameplay, but some little changes like the other civs then yes, and some changes are kinda good, although you went a little out there with the military, i like your intentions, specially with the samurai wich i’ve seen myself agreeing the most, almost the same as you proposed, thanks.
one thing I learned from this is that it’s best not to give numbers when making suggestions as people mistook this for a buff. its intent is to cut off Japan’s economy at the knee from the beginning. and when they transition to rice paddies it cuts shrine power to less than half of before.
these changes would nerf Japan’s eco hard right from the start. if you play the same exact way as before, you will be hundreds of resources behind upon reaching age 2, and this gap will continue to grow. most civs like Germans, French and Russians will have a stronger economy playing standard than your hardcore shrine booming while investing a lot less into it and not protecting 1200 hp shrines on the map.
by the time they reach age 3 they will have thousands of more resources in the bank or on the field not locked in shrines
at max vill/shrine eco, shrines are less than half as effective than before, with best case scenario of food paddies still giving 12 less resources per second, or 720 less resources per minute.
shrine boom is dead because it’s not remotely cost effective without at least 50 villagers, and it is the slowest and most fragile boom with the smallest returns and the highest placement requirements
you cannot xp boom like aztecs as you need to ditch 3 vill card and be constantly losing units rather than use warrior priests afk at firepit. and low hp units make tower and tc defenses worse as they have a weaker meat shield.
and since you need to gather resources rather than generate them out of nothing, you will run out of base resources much faster, a 5-10% yield increase won’t change that.
turtle play is dead simply because your economy is much smaller and grows slower, and you need to find new mines a lot sooner.
and once late game hits your economy is the worst in the game.
it is supposed to be a nerf, taking nagi from a superb cav into a mediocre one.
nagi will kill units like skirmishers at the exact same amount of hits while dying much faster to ranged fire regardless of cards sent. they are straight up worse at their job in exchange for higher general damage.
nagi are losing 180 ranged hp and will die 16 skirmisher shots faster while not killing them faster. with cards the ranged hp difference gets bigger while still killing skirmishers in the same amount of hits.
yumi perform worse at everything not heavy infantry or light cavalry as well, making them more specialized.
and that’s the point of the changes, to make Japanese units worse at defending and tanking damage while reinforcing an attrition playstyle where both of your units are dying quickly. these feeds into your export/xp gains and helps prop the worse eco.
walling up just leads to a slow but guaranteed death as your economy will be far behind.
that yield increase will not stop Japan from needing to move out to find new mines like it is currently. they will still need to gather coin faster than before, 200-400 extra gold in mines won’t change that. it is still a lot worse than infinite resources generated.
and if they are sending yield cards, that further requires them to get access to resources out of base to pay itself off. otherwise, you’re just going to get out boomed by the other player sending better cards. 10% yield on your first 2 mines is 400 extra gold if you haven’t gathered from mines at all. it’s generally worse than sending 300 gold crates.
if they don’t fight and try to boom, they will fall even further behind. their economy is significantly worse, you will lose if you try and turtle.
you can idle Japan by attacking them in their base and forcing vills into town center, while currently shines are still gathering. and if reducing samurai gold cost results in Japanese players using them behind walls, why not.
this is the complaint I understand the least. in a game that begins in the medieval ages before the siege of Constantinople and discovery of the new world and ends right before ww1 with the hole in the wall gang and the Age of Porfiriato ending in 1910, the Sino Japanese war makes sense.
even Chinese cards support it, with the period of westernization ending because of the war, and the boxer rebellion 6 years later was caused in part due to it.
exactly where do you think the aoe3 timeline begins and ends?
in a game where soldados and chinacos fight slingers and coyote runners, gatling camels are unlocked in the same age as Elmeti, and the Hungarians are duking it out with Finland on the great plains, I do not.
we have a campaign where a Chinese princeling takes over the Aztecs before Cristopher Columbus finds the new world, and the sepoy rebellion succeeds.
even the main campaign has the Knights of Malta unironically fight the illuminati in the new world for control over the fountain of youth and Cuba.
aoe3 isn’t historically accurate. it uses history as an inspiration to make interesting and fun gameplay designs and stories.
campaign exclusive units representing the Russian and Japanese military of the time isn’t unprecedent.
right but you also want them to fight and have map control and a cav that cant take hits and are likely to instant kill units doesnt allow them to snare or pursure the enemy, ie japan cant actually take any decisive fights.
heck they shouldnt be able to take fights at all because the oppoennt can just walk away and not be punished cause the nagi cant snare. and so they cant kill the opponent and get the resource gains that you want
You have turned their military comp into age 2 india without the agra to take map control and no consulate hussars, meaning like they would have to turtle just to live.
Its not just that its a mediocre unit, its a unit that doesnt allow the civ to do what you want it to do.
About the yield point, why is 10% your base number for these assumptions? cause atleast from the description the max is 20% unless im misreading?
That doesnt happen now because as I described before, they gather from cherry orchards and if you are attacking their main tc already, that forces them to stay in base and turtle even more, and they wont use samurais because why the helll would u use melee units behind walls?, they would need their ashi and yumi mass.
This is why currently the play is to just send pikes to kill the shrines, cause you aint idleing the vils, that just never happens.
And in your new version, since the shrines are much worse value wise then killing vils and the vils are likely to be safe, I see no reason anyone would try to raid them, easier to just tutrle and boom themselves since japanese units cant take hits anway.
as I’ve said before, I actually do not care at all what the numbers on their units are like as long as it allows them to function. if they are fun to use, fair to fight against, and enable to competent players to have a roughly 50%-win rate with them, then I’m happy.
if they are too weak, they should be buffed. if they are too strong, they should be nerfed. I’m not going to tell you that the numbers I gave are the only ones that will work because I never believed that.
shrines have their resource value cut down by 90-62% throughout the game, turtling is not a path to success. and if the units are too weak to make aggressive play succeed, then they should be stronger.
10% is just a reasonable expectation in an average game where there is pressure and map contention, and you are gathering gold from the mines. could be higher or lower, I’m just using 50% of shrines as a benchmark.
I mentioned samurais because you kept mentioning reducing gold cost, which only the samurai received. I also don’t know why reducing samurai gold cost would make Japan better at turtling.
its 125 wood the enemy spent for a 1200 hp cache of xp. they lose out on their wood investment and los; you gain a big bump to your next shipment.
