Japanese ranged units need a rethink

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Yumi ashigaru (japanese archer) and onna musha (japanese “crossbow”) just need a rethink.

In the theory, yumi ashigaru has better mobility and it’s cheaper than regular archers, but in practice they are useless because:

  1. You can’t mass them and not expect the other to just put a few horsemen to hunt your archers.
  2. If you go with the logic decission of training spearmen, then the extra mobility of the yumi ashigaru is lost, because they will go at same speed of the spearmen.

Hence, the only viable strategy with them is do small groups and try to harass, expecting to the other to just not go horseman, then the fun is over and you will need to use them with spearmen, as regular archers, and they are a lot worse than regular archers.

Onna musha, can seem like wow, a mounted crossbow, but far from reality. It’s way way worse than regular crossbows, they are weaker, expensive, and haven’t as much dps as crossbow. The only situation where you will do onna musha is where you want something to get with your mounted samurai.

I’ve found that in regular army, it’s better just more samurai, and then get samurai with something you need. If they do crossbows, then mangonel or onna bugeisha. If they do knights, then spearmen, but never onna musha, cause samurais kill everything but knights, so all you have to do is mix spearmen with the samurai.

With that all said, I think the ranged units from japan need a rethink. The archer need something or the spears need something, but right now yumi ashigaru is unused.

Then the onna musha… First of all, in the fully remapable keys they need a special one, because they are in R key, which is the same as Yumi bannerman, and they count as horse archer, same as horse archer from rus or mangudai from mongols, so you can’t assign them to W because then you scrap the other civs. And last, they are somehow underperforming.

Japanese need some rethinking on these units, or give them normal crossbows.

Let me know what do you think.

2 Likes
2

100% agree. Japanese feel half baked as a civ right now.

3

Make the onna musha a samurai unit. Give them an ability that massively increases their bonus damage for a short time.
Give the spearmen a unique feudal age tech that increases their speed. Maybe have the tech at the Koka Township?

4

I don’t know if this would make Onna Musha broken. Maybe the shield as samurai would be enough, but honestly I don’t know.

No please, Koka township is only viable in water maps and when the player has enough micro to manage them.

Maybe give Yumi Ashigaru +1 damage and reduce a bit their movement speed, then they will become more like normal archers.

They have base attack of 4, archers are 6 if I remember well. So put them at 5 attack and reduce a bit the mov speed (or not reduce, whatever…).

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5

samurai are better then normal MAA or not? now you want improved range units too?

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6

That’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying japanese ranged units need a rethink, not a buff.

If you have read what I wrote previously, I said make archers more like normal archers and give them crossbows, so they can use Onna Musha or regular crossbows, same as abbasid has camel archers (way way better than onna musha) and crossbows.

The problem with japanese is their ranged units performs below the base units (archers, crossbows), so you end just massing samurai.

Other problem with Onna Musha is they receive the buff only from the horse bannerman, paying attention to this you can notice that they are 100% designed to go with horse samurai not with infantry as crossbows does. Maybe make them receive buff from mounted or ranged bannerman, and not give crossbows to the japanese.

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8

The Japanese already have enough with their Feudal Rush of Onna-bugeishas + Samurais:

  • If we also consider the Combo of Ninjas Rushing Villagers or damaging structures, I would say the Yumi Ashigaru has low stats precisely so that the Japanese do not have “Triple Rush” in feudal with archers (Apart from the historical reason, the representation of the situation of the Ashigaru in the Heian era, with low quality bows and defensive equipment, but more speed because it is a bamboo bow).

On the other hand, the Yumi ashigaru and the Onna-musha shine in the “Castle Age” when you can build Yumi Bannermen, which increase their attack by up to 15%, a bonus that is too high compared to other civs, in the Castle Age:

  • The Veteran Yumi ashigaru acquires 6+2(Blacksmithing)*1.15= 9.2 attack, and
  • The Onna Mussha (9+2)*1.15= 13.8 (->14),

Therefore, at this age, they match other civs and on top of that with cheaper units. If you manage the movement of your ranged units well in groups separate from the melee, the Japanese are quite fierce with these units.

The aspect that I think should be balanced would be the Japanese “Handcannoners” that have a problem in 2 aspects:

  • 1.- The Yumi Bannerman + Handcannoners + Chemistry Combo → "Handcanonners with 48 attack", is devastating, and worse than a single Yumi Bannerman is capable of influencing dozens of these units just by being close. The most similar but in a smaller version is the HRE, whose prelate must use his ability 1 at a time, up to a maximum of 8 units and they generally do so out of combat.

  • 2.- The Historical One.- Medieval or Sengoku Japanese armiies did not have Handcannoners, but T4N3G4 CH1M4 matchlook arquebusiers, (“which I have to write like that because the forum autocorrector censors because its alghoryth think I am mixing ##### (Black) with Sh1 (death)”). There is even a 4th age Landmark with that title and it is a bit sad that they are not produced.

I would suggest that the Japanese Handcanonners be replaced by Ashigaru Muskeeter, and since they are ashigarus, they have, like the Yumi Ashigaru, less HP and less attack than a basic Hancanonner, but some bonus, such as more movement speed. This way we would solve the imbalance and at the same time respect its historical counterpart.

Anyway I’m just giving ideas.

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13

The onna musha doesn’t get the buff from yumi bannermen, they get from knight bannermen. One of the changes I mentioned precisely was this, make the mushas get the buff from knight or yumi bannermen, this way you can use them more like regular crossbows without the need of a stable.

Also the knight bannermen since it’s a melee unit tends to get away from the mushas or get killed easy when you are using infantry. Also this change would make mixing yumi ashigaru and mushas more sinerging.

Respect of the handcannoners, I don’t think they feel broken. Example english has up to 40% more dps just with a tower close.

14

That would be nice then the basic gunpowder unit would not slow down the archers they are grouped with.

15

I did not know that. In fact, I started testing it to see if it’s true (since the Aoe4world page also mentions it), and I just found a terrible BUG that NO ONE has noticed until now:

ONNA-MUSHA DOES NOT RECEIVE BONUSES FROM ANY BANNERMEN. UNIT LIGHTS UP AND THE SYMBOL APPEARS, BUT YOU DO NOT RECEIVE THE BONUS.

I confirmed it "Shotting a Boar", literally. It doesn’t matter that she has 2 Bannerman nearby, Onna-Musha’s maximum attack on Imperial is 13+6 (3 blacksmithing, and 3.2 fire arrow). If he received the +15% bonus he should have 22…8 attack (in-game: 13+10), but NOT HAPPENS.

It only deals 15.2 damage to the boar per shot (19.2 - 4 pig armor = 15.2, and the 0.2 stacks and does 1 extra damage every 5 shots). Extra note: Yes, the game considers damage “Decimal” when a unit receives a “Percentage” bonus from technology or aura, such as fire arrows only in statistics it “appears” as rounded, but it is not actually rounded.

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Another problem is that the Onna Musha lights up and has the symbol for receiving the bonus of Bannerman, but it does not receive anything, and it is not that the bonus does not appear in the text, it is that it adds nothing and does not give you anything.

This is a very serious bug. Well, I better report this in the bug section.

1 Like
16

Well, maybe this is why I’ve found them underperforming :joy:

I will test it tomorrow.

PS: I’ve read again your maths, I think the buffs are all applied to the base damage, not base+bonus. So, the 9.2 from archers go to 8.9 and the onna musha goes from (9+2) *1.15= 12.65 to 12.35. not a great difference.but just saying.

Since onna musha is bugged we cannot corroborate it, but maybe spearmen, samurai or other units can be tested, if they have less than 0.5 decimal they will go to the lower value, if greater they will go to the greater value if rounded (in theory).

I will try to test this tomorrow afternoon.

17

I’ve tested the things, it seems the 15% extra damage it’s applied to the base damage + the blacksmith upgrades, so it is 1.15 x (base_dmg + blacksmith_upgrades), that it’s better than what I thought it was.

Didn’t know where I read the porcentual increments were applied to the base damage always, then the other upgrades, but it’s better than I thought.

18

Why do you need the speed bonus absolutely though?
Your whole argument is that they don’t have speed bonus in formation…

Ok but then they are just regular archer with cheaper wood cost, which is good, when you have the Bannerman they deal same damage as other archer.

Also the speed bonus is good for rallying point. They will reach your rally point faster