By the way beasty said their most units are unique so they wil only have 3 or 4 same units with other civs
I donât usually be very critical in terms of historical accuracy, but perhaps they should remove that cav shield.
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I think he sayd only 2 units have same stats. My guess is that the ones that have same stats are:
Spears and Handcannoner. Maybe also horsemen.
I donât think Japanese have MAA, or the samouraĂŻ replace them. Archer have different stats. And their knights probably has special stats too. They donât have crossbow.
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I hope they have the time at some point to update the (cav) shields to be square at least.
But yeah, man Iâm very excited for both the new full civs.
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Japanese looks cool overall, I have nothing to remark on really, at least not so far with still limited information about this civ.
I guess the Shinobi will be that niche unit that looks interesting / good on paper, but will be very hard to pull off in practise, especially when players learns to counter them. But I hope Iâm wrong, would love to see ninjas causing chaos in towns.
In any case, canât wait to try this civ out. 
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The Japanese never used early handcannons (the kind that handcannoneers use in AoE4). They saw the Mongols use cannons during the 13th century, but they were described as strange fire tubes or bells, and were never reverse engineered by them. The first cannon the Japanese ever got their hands on was imported from China in 1510, and the Japanese didnât start producing firearms until the Portuguese introduced them to arquebuses in 1543, which they quickly began to mass produce. So they skipped the early handcannon entirely in their firearms production.
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The ozutsu is a later evolution of the arquebus. So it being shown as coexisting with early handcannons is doubly nonsensical. Itâs like showing M16s alongside Brown Besses.
The Japanese handcannoneer should be replaced with a unique unit that uses an arquebus. We already have units in the Musofadi Gunner, the Janissary, and the Streltsy, so it wouldnât be out of place for the Japanese to have a long gun.
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In the Gunsmith screenshot, we can see Japanese handcannons as well as the Ozutsu units.
Ozutus was not really the direct evolution of arquebus. Itâs basically a rifle vs a cannon. It would be more akin to comparing rifles to mortars and claiming they are the same thing.
Well yes, Yabusame could have been another viable name. At least itâs the one used for the horse archer unit in Aoe3.
I just have a guess, that like other unique units in this game, La Onna-Musha probably also has unique technology, and the only one I can think of might also be âYabusameâ.
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Yabusame: For those who donât know, Yabusame, although today in Japanese it also means horse archer, in medieval times it was a martial art practiced by Japanese Samurai horse archers. It consisted of shooting at 3 targets in a single moving race, to practice aiming. It was one of the 3 possible training techniques, the other being two.
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Inu Oimono.- It consisted of competing with other horse archers who shot the most moving dogs. As Buddhists considered it animal cruelty, they changed the arrowheads to blunt or padded tips and added a target on top of the dog. It was discontinued because over time it became very expensive to get so many dogs, and the Buddhist animal protection society made many demands on the samurai.
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Kasagake: It consists of shooting from horseback at many different targets, usually with varied shapes, and can be from a hat, fans, fair toys, etc. The trick of training is that the archer is prepared to shoot anything at different distances and not just human targets. Since it does not have a strict methodology like the other two techniques, this technique became a kind of entertainment at carnivals.
Personally, I would have preferred that the Onna Musha be infantry with Naginata, however, since apparently the Sohei (warrior monk) will be the unit that has this weapon, in order not to repeat themselves, they gave the position of horse archer to the OnnaMusha, which was another of the weapons that samurai women could use.
On the other hand, the term Yabusame could also have helped to have both male and female horse archers, but I suppose the devs wanted to give their own unit to the wives of the samurai, while their male counterpart on horseback would be the lancers and horsemans units.
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Okay, it was considered that the Nanban trade allowed the Japanese to obtain cannons, giving them a forge-market called ########### Gunsmith. Perfect, thatâs good.
Ribauldequines.- They are doubtful, it only occurs to me that of the Dutch, I am going to consider them Dutch (I hope they donât think of adding ribauldoquin to the Portuguese again in the future, they have been roasted since Age III by that unit).
Bombards - could be of Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch origin.
Ozutsu.- The Ozutsu gunner seems very good to me, and it was a unit that I wanted to be in the game. And since itâs optional to decide between one Age IV landmark or the other, itâs better. I wonder if it fired a bo-hiya or just a mortar round, if it was a Bo-hiya it would be excellent.
"Handcanonner.-" Now letâs talk about the elephant in the room, the âhandcanonnerâ. As far as has been commented many times in the forum, the Japanese did NOT use handcannon on a massive or common basis. The few that were used were generally bought or stolen from China. The first firearm they mass produced for their armies was the ########### Arcabuz. In fact, the name of the Landmark refers to the weapon:
In fact, even Landmarks Firearms itself has the name of the musket it should produce. If they donât give him his Tanegashima harquebus after producing the landmark with that name, it would look pretty bad. Please consider that, or at least that this landmark has a technology to give ########### harquebuses to the Japanese. All Japanese users who play the game will instantly notice the bug, especially otakus.
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Japanese already have like 10 unique units, they donât need EVERY unit to be unique lol.
While Nanban trade was where they obtained originally western gunpowder weapons, Japan did craft their own inspired by them, and ########### was a really important place for that. I donât think you are actually building directly imported weapons (afterall this landmark unlocks the Ozutsu, a Japanese exclusive unit)
PS 10/10 censoring, even the name of the landmark is censored KEKW
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It may be as you say. In fact it seems that Raven Castle, and its amphibious trading unit, best represents nanban trade, and its ship mode is probably representative of the Red Seal Ships of Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Returning to the ########## Gunsmith Landmark: We would have to see the complete rooster when we can test it to be sure if there is not at least a hint of Portuguese and Dutch weapons. Of course, at least with what was revealed in the teaser image, I started reading and at least made in Japan they would be the following units:
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Ribauldoquin.- Curiously, it is made in Japan. It already seemed strange to me that I didnât hear of any Dutch or Portuguese shipments of this weapon in the Sengoku era. Itâs because they are from the âEdo eraâ. Its historical simile is the "20-shot salvo cannon** (äșćéŁçșæçșé/ Nijuu Renpatsu Hitoshi Hatsujuu). Ordered to be built by order of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu ([1617-1651], it was manufactured by Kanâemon ######### famous for his matchlock weapons.
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Ozutsu.- Japanese-made gun, modification of the musket, widened to fire bo-hiyas or cannon balls, like a mortar. A marvel for its long range and that it only required one man to carry it.
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Bombards.- The Japanese had cannons called Taiho. They were smaller than the European bombards, but hey, they were useful. Tokugawa Ieyasu bought several from the Dutch, and also made his own bombards, probably represents that. Here is a bronze cannon from the Tokugawa Shogunate:
Imported.- Culebrinas/Culverin could be imported, although as there is still no confirmation if they will have them, and there is no Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese civ, we could not compare, although yes, for now I assume that they will not be able to acquire Falconetes until those civs appears in the game.
T a # # # # # # # m a arquebus.- The one that would be missing would be the Tan3g1sh1ma arquebus , which was manufactured by reverse engineering from muskets that ########### (Tan3g1sh1ma) bought from the Portuguese when they arrived on their island in 1543. It was so sought after, that Later, more than 300,000 were manufactured in Japan during the Sengoku era, a truly unusual amount anywhere else in the world. They were important for Oda ######## to defeat the Takeda clan, used by the Japanese army in Hideyoshiâs invasions of Korea and China, and were a direct substitute for the bow and in competition with it during the Sengoku period. They even already have a similar one in Age of Empires 3, so they already have models of the weapon.
Iâm not saying that it has to be a unique unit or have any ability, just aesthetically that its handcannon must be an harquebus or musket, at least for historical fidelity; and even more so having a Landmark that also bears the name of the aforementioned weapon. In the last case, some unique technology equal to the Ottoman one, to be able to replace the handcannon with the aforementioned matchlook.
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Itâs just a visual thing. Although changing the name also would be ideal⊠no actuallyâŠ
Ok, to keep it simple the only thing ânecessaryâ is replacing the gun model, keeping everything else the same.
But to be truly precise that kind of weapon should give at least more range compared to an hand cannon. This though makes me think that there should just be a new Arquebusier general unit, available to most if not all Civs, with an upgrade to Musketeer for the more advanced ones. Iâm going off topic here.
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I was going to say that, maybe if they make Portuguese or some other civilization that used the Arquebus, then they can retroactively give the Arquebus to Japan. But, after about 2 seconds of thought; the Japanese are just that. They used the Arquebus. There is no actual reason to not have made the model for it. The unit itself is heavily suggested to be unique, so unless it is meant to be a unit of Chinese origin, it is highly questionable.
There is also the issue of retroactively changing anything. They donât particularly seem very keen on ever doing that with units or models unfortunately. Spears are a good example of exactly that.
Iâd be more radical and suggest ALL civs should receive the arquebusier as the gunpowder unit, or at least be able to upgrade the handcannoneer to it. I donât know why they are obsessed with handcannoneer being the ultimate gunpowder unit (maybe because AOE2).
Itâs not a good idea that the nations that accessed gunpowder earlier in real history are limited to handcannons, while others directly skip it and get the arquebus.
Handcannons were after all not very effective weapons. They werenât mass equipped. They didnât revolutionize warfare like the arquebus.
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I think this is more of a gameplay thing to have things stop at handcannon. Itâs not like there were only 2 kinds of melee infantry or 2 types of cavalry either. Arquebus having been the unit feels like it could have been an alternative, but I donât really think there is design space to have both.
Streltsy, janissary and musofadi gunner all (visually) use arquebuses.
There are techs that switch the weapon of units so it would not be an overlap.
Right, but those are replacement units. I just meant that there isnât much room for gameplay design for a single civ to have access to both types of units. Handcannons and their replacements are already super endgame for 1v1 scenarios
I think mainly itâs for consistency, since itâs a HC like all the others it has to wield a stick with a big metal cup at the end. Iâd change the model but it would be a first for a common HC.
I think the Handcannoneer could keep its role as a strong but expensive unit, with high HP and some armor, high-ish damage but low range, this to represent the need of being capable in melee. The Arquebusier could be a different one, that requires a Arquebus tech to unlock, being cheaper and squishier but with longer range than the HC and maybe a bonus against Heavy. The Musketeer could just an Arquebusier upgrade.
Most definitely for AoE2!
The Handcannoneer would need resizing, probably. Becoming something deployable in early Imperial, after that turning more into a meat shield for longer range gun units.
Itâs more just that imperial is already super late-gameplay wise in 1v1 format. Having something buildable (that you canât mass in earlier ages) that then gets obsoleted would be pretty much unusable.
At best I could see a custom mod for late game-gameplay that is intended to have an extended imperial age or an imperial-only game mode
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