Japan with Tori Gate politician is over performing

Currently Japan is one of the most played civilization among sweden, that’s mainly because of the strenght they gained especially from the fixed crates and overall nerf to Trading Posts. Currently it’s much harder to rush japan since they age up way faster and the samurai that comes with the politician is just killing the forward base.

What could be done?

  • 50 food from the starting crates could be removed

  • Tori age up no longer giving samurai would be an option aswell

4 Likes

I think Ikko-Ikki will no longer be able to build shrines, shrines can no longer attract animals, and they should be able to generate only 0.2 to 0.3 food resources. And I think we should change some cards that upgrade the shrine so that the Heavenly Kami card only offers a discount on the building price of the shrine, and the Seven Lucky Gods card allows the shrine to generate wood, gold coins. And I think it would be better to increase the efficiency of the shrine by work rate upgrade in 5age.

I think this change will no longer interfere with the Japanese player’s hunt for ally animal hunt, a villager is required to build the shrine, and will help Japan’s economic power in treaty matches. perhaps they expect the initial economic power to deteriorate and play more defensively, but I think it will be good for both Japanese and other players.

I agree.
Either removing 50 food or 50 wood would be fine.
Even their standard build is stronger now because of their crate start.
Although their mid game has been nerfed a bit, it is a lot harder to punish their boom because they have a much faster start than before.

2 Likes

Everyone knows Japan is too strong in 1vs1, yet for some reason it is left untouched. But Japan needs to be adressed. Maybe its not completely overpowered in the sense that it stomps all other civs, but it is too easy, too forgiving and too powerful and punishing opponent mistakes, while allowing the Japanese player to make more mistakes.

The build which we are talking about highlights exactly why Japan is too powerful.

  • Ashigaru’s movement speed is simply overpowered. Its a fact. 4.5 speed is too much, it needs to be reduced to 4.25 like Caroleans. 4.5 allows Japan to have terrible positioning, but not lose any units. It allows Japan to win games by picking off units, whereas no other civ would be able to because their ranged units are slower.
  • Easy to macro: If your ressources are unbalanced, one click on the shrine will fix your ressources to make sure you keep building 5 units at a time.
  • All villagers gathering food are always save right next to the town center.
  • You don’t have to herd any deers, bisons or other animals under your TC. Hunting animals into the correct direction is a task that needs to be performed constantly for every civ in the entire game, otherwise villagers are exposed. Only Japan doesn’t have to do this at all, so they have more time to micro their units or do something else.
  • The fact that you have more APM (actions per minute) because you are not busy keeping your villagers save, means you can micro your army better, and since your Ashigaru are much faster than most other ranged units, you make good use of their overpowered movement speed all the time.
  • Daimyo and Shogun regenerate hitpoints when idle, just like explorers. No other units regenerate hitpoints. This is another instance where Japan allows players to make mistakes and not get punished for it. Have your Shogun too far in the front? Just move him back and he will go to full HP in no time.

Here is what needs to be changed:

  • Reduce Ashigaru movement speed from 4.5 to 4.25.

  • Reduce starting ressources (either wood or food) by 50, like you did to France.

  • Remove hitpoint regeneration from Daimyo and Shogun.

  • This will make Japan much more fair without hurting their performance too much.

Here is a video showing the build in action:

5 Likes

This opening has been there since the dawn of Japan in aoe3. It is easy to counter by scouting the wonder or generally playing meta counter rush. The Indian dude had no units around 10 minutes mark. The only civs that might have an issue with it are china and Dutch.

Also, shogunate into double damiyo is much much worse.

You ignore the fact that Torii gates wonder has been buffed recently and all the hundreds of balance changes since The Asian dynasties released. DE and the old game are very different from each other. Please don’t try argue by comparing this game ot the old game. It doesn’t help at all.

This guy nailed it 100%. Easy, great and fair changes that also won’t kill the civ.

3 Likes

I like these suggestions.
Both of these changes are reasonable.
Crate reduction would slow their early game a bit while ashi still have good speed but wouldn’t be able to iust chase skirms so easily unless they use the speed boost from the pavilion.
I dont think the damyo nerf would make much of a difference, but that wouldnt be a bad nerf either.

2 Likes

The decrease of ashigaru speed should be a priority. They shouldn’t be able to catch skirmisher that easy.

5 Likes

It’s not that easy to bo honest. Ofc it’s not instant win but you can get 30 ashi arround 7.30 min with a ok eco and a daymot wich can train unit AND receive futur unit right in the front (it’s a little absurde, we have TC radius but not for japan ^^), and if you miss clic ONE time, your get snowball’d by ashis 4.5 speed.

2 Likes

I’m losing hope of a nerf, my topic on that is in the top 10 topics in this forum, surpassing that of the Inca and the Carols, with multiple requests and proposals to balance, and Japan was not even touched 21

1 Like

This right here is the main nerf japan needs. We saw what was happening when we had caroleans runing at 5.25 out countering even their counters. Ashigaru at 4.5 base and 4.95 with pavilion is a little too much. They are a Musketeer unit. The closer to stat all musketeer gets the better the balance.

  • Take recent updates. Where the Developer team changed how Carolean work to look more like a real musketeer. By having 12 range base and nerfing their 17 range at imperial

Keep in mind that each musk already looks different and has a different lore. This doesn’t mean that one musk should overperform over the others. Speed per say is very important in this game and facing 30+ ashi closing to your skirms/archers feels hopeless.

  • By nerfing their speed it would bring japan to be using other tools instead of just ashigaru to raid and probably ashi+arrow to win most games
4 Likes

Completely agree. Keep in mind that because of their speed, hand infantry is (even more) hopeless against them as well. I’ve seen 10 ashi kite 5 ronin multiple times, barely taking any damage if any; this is not the case vs other musks.

1 Like