A bold claim. Let’s see
Naginata raider
100F + 100G (=200 resources)
Lancer
110F + 90G (=200 resources). But food is gathered faster, so Lancer wins the cost battle until the japanese players builds the shogunate, at which point they are roughly equal.
Damage:
NR: base damage 28, 1.5 bonus to I, 0.67 bonus to HI.
Translation: base damage 28, 42 damage to infantry, except HI, against which it does the base 28.
L: 20 base damage, with a flat 3x bonus against all infantry. So Lancer does full 60 damage against all infantry kinds.
Both L and NR get a +1 modifier to infantry with card, so that evens out.
Results: against infantry, the lancer is clearly superior. When you factor in cards, the base damage of lancers gets to 28.
NR has an edge against artillery, in the early game, but that’s expected, since Japan has lame anti artilery (we will get to your other bold cliam about culverins and flaming arrows in a bit)
Hit points:
Lancer starts with 350. WIth Cards and upgrades. they get 120% HP in imperial age (70% extra in industrial). So 595 in industrial.
Naginata starts with 300. With Cards and upgrades, they get 130% hp in imperial age (80% extra in industrial). 540 in industrial.
Both have 30% ranged resist.
You can follow the math and see naginatas has consistently less HP than lancers.
Winner: Lancer.
So to sum it up: NR has a slight edge at damaging artillery, but not by much. Very far from your initial claim.
Onto your next bold one.
Culverin vs Flaming arrow.
Culverins deal 160 damage against artillery with a 34 range.
Flaming arrows deal 75 damage against artillery with a 28 range.This also makes them inefficient against heavy artillery.
Only out of this comparison we see the flaming arrows are incapable of countering culverins, so the Japanese need culverins on their own in order to survive.
But let’s compare the other stats:
Flaming arrows cost 400 resources, takes 4 population slots, and has 175 hp
Culverins costs 500 resources, also take 4 population slots, has 280 hp.
???
go team culverin.
So supposing we use the flaming arrows against infantry.
falconets have 26 range with 300 damage against infantry, while costing only 100 more resources and 1 more population slot and having 1 extra AOE (which is very important against infantry balls), while having 2 less range (hardly important).
Per population cost, a flaming arrow deals 56.25 damage to infantry, and a falconet deals 60. In order to match the damage output of 5 falconets volley, you need to have 6.6 flaming arrows.
Also falconets have much better dps.
By the time flaming arrows get the -15% cost card that makes them somewhat effective, the EU opponents already have royal guards infantry (which will require extra shots to take down) and heavy cannon (which match flaming arrows in range). So essentially, flaming arrows have no place in the game.
Conclusion:
Japanese artillery is lame, and japan has a problem with properly managed artillery. They will have a very hard time dealing with a ball of HI and cannon, or LC and cannon. The only reason this works for Japan is that they can outproduce cannon fodder and eventually wear down the enemy formation through attrition. If the enemy builds a proxy, it is typically GG.
Naginata’s squishiness makes them very bad at flanking artillery, and they usually get killed by an equal pop artillery mass. This is why japan prefers to use the cav archer to counter cannon, which typically survives against balls of muskets or LC long enough to do the job due to their high ranged resist.
