- Will be buffed
- Remain
- Will be nerfed
0 voters
Just make some fun. We have discussed too much. 21
5 Likes
Based on 12 years of expierience im gonna guess no changes. The chief developers father in law was a japanese shipping magnate and he has to stay on the good side to have a shot.
6 Likes
Japan is clearly the devs favorite civ, this is evident by seeing them nerf weaker civs than japan and leaving japan as is
Let’s look at civs that have been nerfed while being weaker than japan
France-50 food
Portugal-50 food
Aztec 10 slinger to 9 slinger, 9 slinger to 8 slinger 6 coyote to 5 coyote
Lakota -100 wood +100 gold
Inca chimu runner speed 6.5—>6.25 chief age up ( 1 tc wagon, 1 travois) changed to 1 tc wagon
4 Likes
I think the best way to address these arguments is to show the win rates on all score levels.
The reasoning behind buffs and nerfs seems inconsistent, and not persuasive.
For example, Aztecs is a civ that every pro player I watched considers as weak, but they keep getting nerfed because of high win rate on lower levels (at least they said so).
On the contrary, Japan and Sweden are complained by a lot of people (which intuitively should also come with on average high win rates), but some pro players think they are okay (only when you push them really hard in the early game), but rarely got major nerfs.
If Aztecs is a civ that low-level players cannot deal with, but pro players know how to defeat perfectly, then Japan and Sweden are an on average stronger versions of Aztecs because pro players at least put them at the A tier or above (in comparison, Aztecs usually come up on lower tiers), and should be nerfed as well.
1 Like
This is because the devs try not to do huge changes. They did nerf japan, but they nerfed the early game. And buffed the late game, both of which were not japan particularly good game periods.
They could distribute power from asigaru to other units in the mid game, but I think they will take their time to do it, which is fine. We don’t want another sweden nerf/revert fiasco. Changing mid game is harder because it has ramifications into late game. The early game nerf did delay the japan power spike a bit.
they nerfed aztec because as with lakota they are civs most normal or lower leveled players lose against, the devs don’t take into account as much how well civs do at the highest level because that’s 100 players out of 5000.
At lower elo rushes are way more effective, so rush style civs have higher win rates and get nerfed, plus japan have been nerfed recently and sweden have been nerfed in 3 or 4 patches continuously.
Japan are fine as they are, and sweden are very strong but can be beat by aging as fast as possible and sieging the torps/ sending 3 huss to sit on mines and find the vills they sent out to torp.
2 Likes
Since this is such a popular topic, I am not sure if posted before but here is a list of changes that happened to Japan since original AOE3. I also categorized them into “Buffs”, “Nerfs”, “Neutral”
Buffs:
- Great Buddha’s (all ages) “Informers” ability duration increased to 20 seconds (up from 10 seconds)
- Great Buddha (all ages) now also ships 1 Cherry Orchard Rickshaw in addition to the other benefits
- Torii Gates (all ages) now enables a 1.6x build bounty multiplier (up from 1.5x) in addition to the other benefits
- Samurai hand attack increased to 28 (from 25)
- Clan Offerings (II, Japanese consulate tech) cost reduced to 400 export (down from 500)
- Dutch Relations (Consulate): Added a Livestock Pen Wagon (IV, 900 Export) that can be used to create a Livestock Pen and obtain goats. These goats cannot be harvested by Japanese Villagers, but may be tasked to Shrines that have space for more animals.*good for Treaty
Nerfs
- TEAM Chonindo shipment no longer affects hunting or livestock gather-rates
- Naginata Rider Hitpoints shipment reduced to 25% (from 30%)
- Bakufu shipment Daimyo & Shogun work-rate bonus decreased to 50% (from 100%)
- In addition to its normal benefits, Bakufu now also slightly increases the training speed of Military Units trained from buildings
- Shogun Tokugawa aura decreased to +10% hit points (from 20%); cost increased to 750c (from 350c); bounties adjusted to 75xp (from 35xp)
- Golden Pavilion wonder ranged unit attack bonus decreased to 10% (from 15%)
- Japanese Allies (I, Passive) Land Unit Attack bonus reduced to +7% (from 10%)
- Bushido Principles (II, Japanese consulate tech) cost increased to 300 export (up from 250 export)
Neutral
- Starting crates fixed to 400f 300w 100g (from 500f, 300w) *might be a nerf, slows down age up
- Intervention (III, Card) now delivers the following units when allied with the:
- Spanish: 4 Garrochista (changed from 11 Tercio)
Please feel free to remind of any I missed 
. Also, it is good to keep in mind some buffs/nerfs have a more meaningful impact than others.
My thoughts: Currently in AOE3 DE, Japan is a strong civ (used to be even stronger in TAD), so it is possible some minor nerfs can happen in the future (e.g. 4.25 speed for ashigarus and 1400-1500 HP to shrines)
9 Likes
Now that is what I’m confused about.
Aztecs are strong in lower level players, but people rarely complain about them. Japan and Sweden are complained about everywhere by a lot of people, and most are lower level players. Intuitively, they should generally perform even better than Aztecs in the lower level (unless someone shows the win rates, that’s the only conclusion).
Now the situation is:
Aztecs: strong in low level gameplay, very weak in high level gameplay, still nerfed.
Japan/Sweden: maybe stronger than Aztecs in low level gameplay, strong in high level gameplay. No major nerfs.
Not to mention Aztecs in lower level gameplay are strong in rushes so their rushes (i.e. unit cards) got nerfed.
Japan/Sweden in lower level gameplay are complained because they can spam very effective units with safe economy. The nerfs rarely touch these, and all are still on the much stronger side. Their nerfs are mainly on pacing and timing, etc. which seem to actually respond to higher level players.
4 Likes
It’s because aztec may be stronger at lower elo, but there are far more japan and especially sweden players than there are aztec. A lot of people don’t like aztec because of its all infantry army and at lower level they don’t understand the units, which is why inca remains fairly unpopular despite being a new civ unlike sweden.
Sweden is also extremely forgiving in regard to villager production, you can finish a 20 min game with just 25 vills and still have out gathered your opponent just because of the torps. So for low level players this can allow them to win when normally they would lose, sweden is even easier because they just spam 1 unit which costs food and gold, exactly what the torps produce. There is very little macro needed at all and even less micro with pure caroleans.
Japan I think seem stronger than they are due to the current greed meta with people leaving them alone to boom and not applying much pressure with the standard semi-ff.
3 Likes
Unlike Spain as example, although they are strong in 1v1, they are weak in team.
Japan are already strong in 1v1, but are incredible OP in team. This is also the reason I consider. The method to deal with Japan in 1v1 is not always working in team game.
They removed Unctioned skirmishes and the Argentinian revolution of the game?
1 Like
U think at Spain is better than Japan in EQ? Spain now is better with logist and spanish gold but I feel is more weak than Japan in EQ
1 Like
I didn’t say any about Spain is stronger than Japan in 1v1.
Just an example, same as Otto
The question is for ToroidalLeaf69, sorry for the confusion
1 Like
Yeah, Spain wasn’t such a monster of a civilization on ER like they are now, and Japan got some nerfs on the DE.
I do think that Japan was a little bit better than Spain, but I would say that both civilizations were “A” or top “B” tier on ER. The civilizations that were really good on ER were Germany, France and Iroquois to a minor extent.
1 Like
I notice in the 1v1 matching that I’m getting very few civs now that aren’t inheritently advantaged. Translate that as op. My rating has gone from 1300 to 1150. All swedes japan and Spanish with the occasional native civ. Occasionally a Russian thrown in so they can get a jump on them. The game has totally jumped on the shark. I find myself playing less and less
1 Like
Spanish are more popular because of logistician, not surprising when all the big streamers are doing the same strat.
I too am seeing less of the traditional civs, like germany and france. Seen a ton of dutch though I see way more dutch than swedes or japan atm and dutch are quite an annoying civ to play against since they were buffed, I prefer to play swedes or japan than dutch with 5 banks at 6.30.
Dutch are strong but I find then very vulnerable to early cav raiding.
We need data to support this. On the same skill level, the problem of “lower level players tend to pick that civ more so win rate drops” does not exist. And as long as no counter evidence is present, more players = overall stronger civ.
1 Like
Japan and Sweden are way more popular than aztec, not necessarily because they are stronger(although they are yes) but people in general don’t like the all infantry military of the aztec it’s very different to regular civs.
The win rate of those civs doesn’t drop because more players are using them it’s probably average, the reason aztec has a high win rate in comparison is because it’s an aggressive civ that typically always rushes and at lower elo people just get overwhelmed by early aggression, not sure what elo you play at, but just make a smurf and see how it is at low elo, from 800-1200 ish most players just sit back and boom and go full greed, turtling, walls, outposts, forts all super common in that elo range. When aztec are in their base at 4 minutes, many of them aren’t in age 2 or don’t have a barracks. Same happens with otto which is considered weak at high lvl but has a high win rate, same with lakota etc.
4 Likes