Yeah but good stats in the lategame doesn’t really do much for you if they dont do any damage cause they get shreded before they reach their targets and by the time you remass them the enemy has already beat you. I would put them the same as hatamato samurai, good but niche. They also still cost a resource that is very hard to generate, even in the late game and also have slow train time so you cant just remass after a loss easily either.
I dont think that card is good, it trades it for less influence then food, which is doubly bad now with the nerf to the influence calculation. Their food eco is also not that great, the cards only boost gather rates by 10% each, not to mention like they have the same bumping animation that euro civs get so their actual rates are lower. Its pretty bad once you realised that most of their units are like pretty heavy food wise. I forgot the last time i tried testing it but their max food rate is like 1.05 food per/sec on a field (cow gather at .25). That is garbage considering the bumping as well (that is with the granary aura as well). So yeah their eco is fairly balanced all things considered.
for comparison, otto vils (which I am using for the full upgrades to lategame farm upgrades) gather 1.75 food per second with bumping (so the actual rates is less). A native vil which gather without bumping can gather at like 1.35 and fully upgraded china gathers at like edit:1.25 without bumping.