I do see them quite often (casual games) but everytime its quite underwhelming where they are at most eh, since the only real problem are their hatamoto which is a mix of a nazi tank concept and a ■■■■■■■ railgun since they delete anything near them but other than that, its just eh since they dont have skirms or anything else insane
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Japan is good in supremacy, in the top even. Its just not the case in treaty, more eco, means you can make more troops and thus can still defeat Japanese. In treaty every civ will have maxed out their units and in treaty there are a lot of counters to Japan, arty is one of them.
I dont say they are not good, but they are just not as good as in supremacy and are decent in treaty.
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I’m not sure if I agree with Japan being one of the weaker treaty players, but I don’t think Japan is OP as well. I think they are strong, but mainly annoying.
I can agree that Japan’s eco isn’t OP. When you look at endgame stats to see how much resources everyone’s collected, they do just fine among other civs, taking in consideration that their units cost more. People have already managed to get herdables from their teammates long before the recent update, and I also don’t really see Japan struggling to boom in treaty games. No concerns there.
Face-to-face on maps such as the river of Orinoco, they perform extremely well due to the crazy durability of their units and their extra military pop advantage. If you had 50 maxed out musketeers against 50 maxed out ashi, you’re statistically at a disadvantage against Japan. Not only that, they get 25 extra units on the side, which means they can always freely flank 12 naginata rider on the side. You can try to split your pop between skirms and goons, but it causes your mass to have less gunpowder strength (since goons take up 2 pop each), and you also have to APM more, as your gunpowder units will target the naginata riders. If you try to do the same thing and send hussars back to counter the nagi, you’re still at a pop disadvantage because now you had to commit more pop space to the nagi, instead of the stand-up gunpowder fight. Artillery. If you really take care of your artillery and micro them well, you’ll be alright. But it’s still difficult, as it simply requires more APM on your part to do so. This leads to making it easier for the Japan player to run around with his daimyo, in which you already have so much APM and population committed to the fight. Hence, why I think Japan is annoying as hell. I played Portugal versus Japan on a NR55 Orinoco game. We were equally skilled and did well against each other, but that extra 25 pop was painful. Extra painful with nats on top of it.
When Japan’s 125 pop advantage is used optimally against 100 military pop civs, it is very difficult to maintain the edge. You literally have 25 extra units to deal with the artillery somehow. Japan can decently negate artillery with the freedom of flanking nagi, yabusame (?), and sprinkling exalted flaming arrows here and there.
On open maps, I don’t think they’re OP either. Just extra, extra annoying, even coming from an aggressive, map-controlling Russian player like myself. Daimyos are too convenient. They don’t have to risk low-HP, slow settlers to build FBs that take time to build. Then to train units on top of that.
Many average players just use the daimyo to run, and don’t even think about building FBs. Luckily, this is easily punishable by split-popping and building your own FB near their base, since average players are always so 1-dimensional with Daimyo running tactics that they neglect defense. And 4+ layers of walls negates the threat of those tactics, cause it takes awhile to wear them down.
Hatamoto, like any other mercenary push, is usually a 1-dimensional tactic, and requires you to devote an enormous amount of pop space and resources to counter it. But it’s not game-breaking. I usually just devote as few resources as necessary as possible to overcome it, but focus on taking advantage of the situation to repair walls, build FBs, sneak some other flanking siege unit, destroy their FBs, etc. on the side. Most people ■■■■ themselves seeing hatamoto and dedicate their lives in that moment to counter them. But the real threat is after it’s done, they find that the Japan player has taken map control while they were in a panic.
Difficult, annoying, and hard to beat, yes
But OP? No. But I would like something to be done to discourage lame play-styles. they nerfed cav boxes for Russia and Lakota (which I didn’t think was “OP” either). Why not daimyo running?
They do not quite get 25 more units. Do not forget daimyo and the shogun take up quite a few pop each (4 I think). So using 3 total which I see most commonly you are only up 13 pop and not 25. Japan’s eco is not hard to wear down though, yes their muskets are some of the best but they are more expensive. Also if you start using samurai or Yasabume too much as Japan you will run out of resources quite fast. They are okay at best in treaty, a little better in team games though. Yes daimyo are annoying but they can be managed.
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Damn! thats Creative ! lol would be so annoying to be japan then to some extent!
BTW transfer some of Japan powers to India late game so that ignored civ can have some light in treaty/late game too
With most Europeans civs, I can say confidently that you can delete a part of your villagers to make up for it.
100 vs 125 = they have 25% more units
110 vs 125 = they have 14% more
Yeah, but it would band-aid the situation and it wouldn’t be an ideal thing to do for an extended period of time. Having to support a bigger military would cost more to maintain, especially with less settlers working. It would be like the Dutch pre-patch, where although you’ve got 150 military pop to play with, the limiting factor was the eco to support it. I have also seen players do this tactic against me, and it was a bitch to deal with all those extra units. But give it 15-20 minutes later, he’s struggling to keep max pop again and gets very punishable.
I didn’t even remember that detail. But thanks for that. I too think that Japan can be managed, but it’s still pretty annoying to deal with.
They are more on the side of annoying but if you counter pick their first army well they are essentially screwed. 1v1 they are probably near the end of bottom tier, team games are a little better than that.
From team game tier list I have seen, 99% people will put Japan in S tier.
Most tier lists I have seen place Japan bottom of mid tier at best, there is no way they are better than that. Japan is not good in treaty, they are slightly better than they used to be but are not that good. They have little to no staying power after a few fights. Their units are good but very very expensive and if you even start building samurai you will lose the game.
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I won every game I had mass samurai in 
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Then the people you were playing against had no clue how to counter pick. I love seeing Japanese players build samurais because I know their resources will not last long after they start doing it.
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I would like to see which forum you were viewing.
You know this is only about Treaty right?
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You are replying this, right?
I joined almost all Japan balance post and this post I said nothing until I saw this.
Hmm. I was thinking about it more. If I were a European civ playing against a Warchief civ, that’s straight bullying. I could probably just run on 70 villagers with all my eco cards sent, and still have an equivalent eco and a big military pop advantage lol
I’m not sure. Japan’s got a lot of options with such good units. And they have flexible strategies that they are good at (fighting face-to-face, daimyo running, samurai/hatamoto siege, etc.). Their musk/skirm comp is tough as hell to deal with too
Japan power spike is in the fortress age, when they finished all shrines. Even in supremacy, if you survive to industrial your eco will snowball past theirs and you will win through macro alone.
Japan just closes out games in Colonial and Fortress, in Supremacy 1v1. Ashigaru + Yumi or Yabusame will just win any Colonial to Fortress fight, specially once Japan drops the Golden Pavilion.
Join the treaty Discord, people talk about lists all the time and it has some of the highest ranked treaty players around. I have learned a lot since being part of it and I thought I knew a lot since I was a player from way back in OG game days.
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I think I misunderstood something.
I understand now, sorry for that.
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