Livestock Pen Wagon for Japan doesn't solve 1v1 treaty problem

Age of Empires III: DE III - Report a Bug
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THE PROBLEM:

Patch #20322 introduced Livestock Pen Wagon (via consulate) for Japan to address their lack of access to livestock in late game for Japan. One problem is that the livestock pen doesn’t solve the problem with playing Japan in 1v1 treaty games because 30 livestock animals are not enough (Japan needs 88 animals in total).

In team treaty, Japan players still have to ask for livestock (or ask teammates to hold some for them to overpop) because 30 is not enough. Japan needs 88 animals to task to shrines (including the Toshogu Shrine wonder).

In treaty 1v1, they will need at least another 30 livestock in addition to the 30 currently available to them, assuming they get enough hunts within their base to have 28 of them tasked to shrines (which is rarely possible without getting in the way of walls).

IMPACT OF THE PROBLEM:

Japan is the one civ where very few play it in 1v1 treaty compared to the much more that play it in team treaty, and it comes down to having only half shrine economy in 1v1 unlike in team treaty.

Granted, there are civs that are far less popular in treaty than others, like Aztec, but the case of Japan is different because they are at least more popular than those kind of civs in team treaty. So, it’s a very specific shrine problem, not a general lack of popularity.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

I think the capable devs will likely have a better solution than anything I would suggest here. Here are a few possible solutions, and I think any one of them considerably alleviates the problem:

  • Give Japan 30 sheep in addition to the 30 goats they currently have
  • Give Japan 20 cows in addition to the 30 goats they currently have
  • Give Japan both sheep and cow to make them strong in 1v1 as they are in team treaty games (which may be arguably a bit too strong).

None of these will impact their current standing in supremacy rush.

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They dont need more buffs, they were strong on legacy and they are stronger now. They get tons of stackable bonus and they have more pop than others, if you give them more eco, they will become more OP than they are now

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Not in treaty though, eco is weaker than most euro civs (Shrines even with livestock are only worth a bit better than facts) and they do have only 75 vills

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Not in 1v1 treaty. Any change to livestock will not impact their current standing in supremacy rush in any way.

In fact, change to livestock access changes nothing for Japan except in 1v1 treaty, because what it gives them is what they already get in team games (both treaty and rush). I just repeated things I already stated in the main post above.

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on a similar note i think the livestock pen costs way too much export. I dont know why it costs more than church or arsenal, since you also need to invest into the goats to get any value out of it (so it already will never be used in supremacy until 35 mins or something)

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Don’t expect to get many educated answers to this thread, people have an innate hate towards Japan even though they hardly understand how it works (which is a key things before attempting to counter them).

I think the better solution would be to simply add an upgrade for shrines in imperial age to make it so they have full gather rate of 4 livestock tasked on it regardless of how many and what kind of animals are currently tasked on it. Adding it to imperial age will make japan late game in treaty viable, and will also not depend on their allies investing large amounts of food into their shrines, while leaving the early game stages (particularly commerce and industrial age where Japan has macro weaknesses) unaffected.

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