Lol i was convinced they costed 65F! Brain fart
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Or even +1 Attack maybe like the woads got. For sure i would not touch their armor as 9 PA would be huskarl territory.
Or maybe add a new niche for them like bonus vs something.
But yeah -10/15 res is the simplest thing, but they would remain a tankier Champions with less Attack basically, which i don’t know what would serve for sicilians as they don’t have good missiles to profit for a meatshield and siege is better paired with halbs
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It’s just a weird direction to go in, both gameplay-wise and historically. They could have made the Samurai better vs the UUs it currently struggles to counter, and more aligned with its historical role as a knight-like elite warrior. Instead they just made it more generic and in line with the unit that already mostly makes it redundant. A buff is still a buff, and it will probably be “seen” more often, it just seems like a huge wasted opportunity to make it more interesting.
Probably, but they were buffed enough for one patch, with more HP and better synergy with the Donjon, and with First Crusade being more accessible (weaker, but more bang for the buck). Keep in mind that the last big infantry buff (including UUs) was a year and a half ago, where they mostly just increased the attack of Castle Age infantry UUs, and they only recently got buffs to their Elite forms. If (Elite) Serjeants need more buffs after this, I imagine they’ll get them in due course. Although it seems to take them quite a long time to get around to some things.
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Solved, I had the PUP activated.
Most changes are good.
What Samurais need is far from reducing costs but allowing them to properly display their niche. An archer mode, or having more armor bonus against (especially ranged) UUs would be good options.
Kataparuto’s problem isn’t just cost. Even with a lower cost, it still may not become a key technology. The bigger problem is that as a UT that has to reflect history and culture to a certain extent, its name is almost 0% historically based, which is a problem that devs are still evading. Either find a decent name (although I don’t think it’s easy) or just get a new UT.
By the way, Yasama should better have a new name too, because it’s just literally arrowslits in Japanese.
The Koreans are definitely a civ that needs a bigger buff but is ignored this time. Improvements to wood discounts to increase their strengths, and/or improvements to cavalry to mitigate their weaknesses could be welcome.
The Vietnamese are decent at the moment, but can still get better changes too. Besides Rattan Archers and Imperial Skimishers highly overlapping, the civ probably deserves a better economy.
The new bonus of the Incas are a little embarrassing. It’s basically just free and better Kshatriyas.
It would be nice if Stronghold’s healing range could simply be equal to range instead of an another square. Having a building with two ranges is a bit messy visually, to me.
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When I was a teenager I thought kataparuto was such a cool name! Years later I realised where it came from, and it didn’t seem so cool anymore. I like the effect, and I think it’s meant to represent the Japanese using artillery towards the end of the Sengoku era.
So I guess it could be named after a type of Japanese cannon, e.g. ōzutsu (sometimes spelt ōdzutsu). It’s not ideal, but arguably no weirder than Shinkichon or Rocketry.
I don’t agree. Recently they’ve had some of the worst win rates, and I don’t think the change to Paper Money is going to change that.
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We don’t have fire arrow launchers or Nest of Bees in AoE2, so Shinkichon and Rocketry can be interpreted as a kind of representation. Bombard Cannons are there, so this is a different problem. It will be a pity if “Ozutsu” only affect Trebuchets and not affect Bombard Cannons, and the Japanese haven’t even gotten Bombard Cannons yet.
I used to think that renaming it to “Sengoku” might be a way to symbolize the frequent siege warfare in Japan during that period. But then felt that emphasizing the Sengoku period while leaving them without Bombard Cannons is embarrassing, but on the other hand if they have Bombard Cannons, it seemed unnecessary to give the tech that improved Trebuchets.
If Samurais can’t get the archer mode or the armor bonus against ranged UUs by default, the Imperial UT can be changed to “Bushido” after giving the Japanese Bombard Cannons, granting the samurai these improvements. At the time, the fast Trebuchets can become a civ bonus if acceptable.
Yasama, on the other hand, can be renamed “Yagura” or “Oyumi”. I prefer the former.
By the way, “Ozutsu” is a good fit to be the new name for Morutaru in AoE3. Morutaru is also a naming scheme that seriously lacks historical reference. If you google “モルタル”, you won’t see any artillery units or historical pictures.
I mean, they’re not one of the top, but they’re not one of the bottom either.
A while ago I still saw them used a lots, for example in Nomad.
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Exactly.
Maybe, but this type of convention is pretty common in AoE2, and I think is acceptable (Konnik, Ratha, Howdah, Hul’che, Mahouts, Counterweights, Recurve Bow, Stirrups, Crenellations, etc). I don’t think “Yagura” is any better since it seems more than roughly equivalent to existing building names (Tower/Keep). “Oyumi” looks distinct enough to be a possible candidate for a rename though. Maybe something that conveys the idea of fortified or garrisoned towers, but I don’t know what the expression would be.
I think it’s ~fine, but a bit too strong; should probably cap out at 20 or 25% instead of 30. Gurjaras arguably get a little more mileage out of their UT once it’s in, as they have a lot of food-heavy ele/stable units, but Incas getting theirs for free and having FU halb/champ/skirm tilts the comparison in their favor. The biggest effect for Incas is on Kamayuks, which I don’t think needed a buff at all, much less a 14 food discount.
Seems reasonable.
Too lazy to check rn, but last I looked I think they were the bottom WR overall. Definitely bottom 5. Which some civ has to be, but where they don’t really excel anywhere, you’re hard-pressed to argue that they couldn’t use a buff.
I’m still hoping they come to their senses regarding Samurai, but apart from that I think “The Forgotten” in this patch are Vietnamese, Koreans, and Persians, with possible but not assured follow-ups to Sicilians and Bengalis. Magyars, Bohemians, and Italians might need a little sugar at some point, but they still have some cushion before they hit rock bottom. The Inca food discount and Royal Heirs (3 → 2), may be candidates for nerfs, but it remains to be seen.
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My point is that Arrowslits are already at Universities. In Japanese translation, it’s called “Sama”.
Introducing “Yasama” is as embarrassing as introducing a new unit named “Scout Cavalryman” at Stables.
This is different from the so-called convention.
In English, Yagura is often translated as Tower. But in Japanese, it’s definition still has some differences from “Tou” (the most literal usage of the “towers” we knowing) especailly in some specific situations. For example, the defensive structures commonly found on ramparts in Japanese castle compounds (like the following picture) are called Yagura instead of Tou. The tower line in the game is called Tou instead of Yagura in the Japanese translation.
“Oyumi” (literally “big bow”) is a crossbow-like weapon developed by the Japanese after introducing crossbows from China. A quote from a seventh-century source seems to suggest that the Oyumi may have able to fire multiple arrows at once. Due to the Yumi (Japanese longbow)'s mature development and cultural significance, crossbow-like weapons were rarely favored by samurais and seemed to have no longer used after 1189.
It is worth mentioning that it is one of the few records in Japan using crossbow-like weapons. After it was dropped from use, the crossbow-like weapon didn’t make it back to Japan until it was introduced by the Europeans.
The two are highly similar while the free one is actually the stronger one, which is embarrassing in my opinion. It would be nice if the Inca one could be brought down to -10%. At least the free one is no longer the stronger one.
Or a whimsical idea to replace the civ bonus, refering to the Inca in AoE3, the house can generate 0.6/1.2/1.8/2.4 food per minute in Age I/II/III/IV, up to 12/24/36/48 food per minute (based on 20 Inca houses can reach a population cap of 200). For reference, 8 sheep can provide the Gurjaras with 24.1 food per minute.
I did state the civ probably deserves a better economy. Don’t get me wrong please.
Persians need very little, mostly just to make them more interesting. Maybe allow them to research Parthian tactics in Castle Age to make CAs a mid-game power and serve as a homage to the history of Parthian tactics.
Just saving the cost of one barracks doesn’t seem to be enough for the Sicilians so far. But I’m not sure if it would be acceptable to allow Donjons to train not only Spearmen but all Barrack, Stable and Archery Range units. In theory, the stone cost would decently limit the number of Donjons so that such ability wouldn’t be too powerful.
The Bengalis I think is ok. The Dravidians is the one deserve more conserned.
That is a little on the nose, and makes a better case for a change. But it seems like it could just be solved by using an alternate, synonymous translation in Japanese. Speaking of “Scout Cavalryman” though that’s essentially the same convention used in naming the “Konnik,” which literally just means “horseman,” and AFAIK is somewhat interchangeable with “Knight/Cavalier.” Similar case with Hul’che, which is just the K’iche’ word for Atlatl. Either way, this is a minor enough issue that I don’t really care about it apart from the words not being confusingly similar or redundant when playing the game in a given language. Feel free to argue for more precise terms in the languages that you may play in, but If a tech/unit is (1) in the native language and (2) refers to a real thing that was iconic (iKonnik?) in the culture, that’s quite good enough as far as I’m concerned.
I’m assuming you mean “by” and not “to” 10%? The most extreme nerf I might be in favor of would be something like 5/10/15/20, or 10/10/20/20, but they may not even bring it below 25%
I imagine there’s some kind of cap on this in AoE3 to prevent exploits, and there would have to be in AoE2 otherwise the Inca Food-toria spam would be highly abusable. Either way, the current discount may be overtuned, but it’s still a more elegant and suitable mechanic for AoE2 than food from houses.
Probably so, although the power creep created by all the new buffs will surely make them weaker. And needing to be more interesting is enough reason for a change, and IMO was likely half or more of the reason that Incas were buffed in such ways as they were.
Serjeants are also stronger when it matters most (Feudal/Castle), have a cheaper upgrade, and the farm/First Crusade buffs will surely help Sicilians. Hoardings for Donjons comes late, but it is something. They’re definitely not going to be instant A or S tier, but they got enough net buffs that I suspect their overall performance will surprise people who are currently writing off their changes as insignificant. Whether it’s enough, too early to say.
Possibly, but I wouldn’t sleep on the siege bonus. They save more res on mangos/scorps than Slavs, and I’ve found the cheaper Trebs/BBCs pretty useful already, on top of being one of the civs most able to benefit from early Gambesons. I still think the civ design is kind of wacky, and I wish they’d done something else with Urumis and stable units, but I can see situations where this buff can make them pretty oppressive.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with the patch. If they’d done something more interesting with Samurai, and buffed a couple more of the bottom-tier civs, I’d have been thrilled, but the changes are overwhelmingly positive. Will be interesting to see how the meta and civ rankings shift.
At least that’s how I’ve seen the several Sicilian games so far after the update.
Even the victorious games still seem to rely on spawning Knights and have little to do with the changes.
Donjons still make the Sicilians fear the tower rush. Even if the Sicilian goes to “Donjon” rush, the opponent can easily block them by the towers. Serjeants don’t seem to get any more advantage about building Donjons, which means, they can only act a stronger but more expensive M@A in the Feudal age. And Donjons cannot be built in the Dark Age, which means that players are likely to be more reluctant to use Serjeants to perform M@A rush as they cannot be trained ealier like Militias.
I’m looking forward to how these changes will surprise me, but I’ve always thought that Serjeants should have an advantage over villagers when building Donjons especially in the Feudal Age. If Donjons can also train other Barracks/Stables/Archery Range units, there can only need one Donjon in the Feudal Age, making it more valuable to replace the first Barrack, rather than just save the cost of 2.5 farms.
Good point, in that case I retract what I said: it is weirder than Shinkichon or Rocketry.
I looked at the Sengoku total conversion to look for names of unrepresented Japanese siege weapons. The only one I could find was Kaidateushi (which actually seems similar to a Hussite Wagon in the mod). However, I can’t find any information about it online and Google translate tells me it means “sea cow”…
This seems weird to me because it’s like giving Britons a unique tech called “Wars of the Roses”. On the other hand, we do have Garland Wars already, which is probably kind of similar.
I wondered about “Yagura”, but it feels like moving the problem elsewhere.
To match the situation in English, give one of them the Japanese name (i.e. Yasama) and for the other, transliterate the English word “arrowslits” into Japanese. (Not really a serious suggestion, since I don’t know what a Japanese-speaker would make of that.)
On the one hand, you may be right that the new changes are not enough to tempt the player into Serjeant/Donjon use over more standard cavalry play. OTOH, winrates are not going to improve if players don’t at least try to shake up the standard builds to take advantage of the new buffs. I think the play may be to use Donjons defensively at first, for map control/barracks substitutes later on, and even if you go cav in Castle Age, to pick up First Crusade as soon as you have the Castle/TCs to justify it. I haven’t tried new Sicilians yet, but the new buffs look interesting enough to experiment around with them.
The training of other units (especially cav) seems strange to me, although militia line would be fine. I do think it would be interesting to have Donjons be available in Dark Age (but not be able to attack/train Serjeants until Feudal), as that would make it a more complete barracks substitute and would still allow for a drush into more expanded options in Feudal.
I await the epic confrontation between the Sea Cow and the Turtle Ship.
“Garland Wars” referred less to a variety of conflicts so-named after the fact, and more to an intentional practice for the purposes of combat readiness/captive acquisition. So it’s better understood as a practice of brutal wargames or lethal military training exercises than as a standard historical war.
Yeah, IDK what the ideal solution would be, but it seems more of a local than a global translation issue. If nothing else I was thinking something could be added to show that one is for towers and the other is for castles. I still like “Oyumi”, because it fits the effect of firing more arrows, even if it fell out of use. But this is not the kind of thing I’m overly concerned about in a game where “Man-at-Arms” is a weak infantryman, and the upgrade for “Knight” in English is just based on the Italian word for knight (and the upgrade for that is based on the 12 semi-legendary knights of Charlemagne).
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I was thinking the same. The construction time should be higher by 50% to prevent Donjon rush though.
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I think you are referring to “掻盾牛(かいだてうし)”.
Well it roughly refers mantlets, including something like the big shields with wheels and the conjoined thing of them. In the late 16th century, many similar applications appeared, in addition to Kaidateushi, there were also “木慢 (もくまん)” (“Mokuman”), “転盾 (まくりたて)” ("Makuritate) and so on.
To go detailer, “Kaidate” refers to the form of shield/mantlet placed on the ground, as opposed to the traditional form of shield that is hand-held. “Ushi” means cattle. Kaidateushi likely means that it’s a Kaidate with material consists of cattlehide, and/or it is a wagon-like conjoined mobile shields assembled from Kaidate mantlets and likened to a cattle.
We still have the First Crusade! In comparison, it may already be more respectable to use a period as a name than a war as a name.
“Yagura (櫓, or 矢倉)” here is the formal term when referring specifically to the typical Japanese defensive structures surrounding the center of Japanese castle, “Tenshu (天守)”. Any other Japanese words that might also be translated as “tower” in English such as “Tou (塔)”, “Dai (台)”, “Rou (楼)”, “Tawā (タワー)” cannot be used to refer to those structures.
Anyway, it solves the true problem of Yasama well — using a same term already used by the other tech in even the same language. The Tower line in Japanese translation uses Dai and Tou rather than Yagura (because the Towers in the game are not limited to those structures called Yagura) so Yagura would not moving the problem, and Yagura being a typical Japanese defensive structure is also a good fit for a tower-related technology.
“Arōsuritto (アロースリット)”. This has the impression of specifically referring the arrowslits in the West and is not a common usage since “Yasama (矢狭間)” and “Sama (狭間)” are already the standard and correct corresponding terms. (“Ya” means arrow, so the former emphasizes the “arrow” of “arrowslit”.) That still doesn’t improve the fact that the words are basically 100% same, so still looking forward to a better way.
All games I’ve seen so far are building a Donjon near the gold mines as an alternative to the first Barrack and protecting the miners at the same time. I think the player had taken new advantage that the update has brought, but leaving aside control, the Knights with resistance still seems to determine more than 90% of the factors. In the Feudal Age, the player still has to face struggles.
It totally crossed that line in my mind when it can train units other than UU, so making it train cavalry or archer isn’t a big deal to me. 
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Something like that. And maybe the changes won’t prove impactful enough, but I’d wait for a larger sample size than a few games within a couple days of the patch release. If needed, there’s always the opportunity to make Donjons more appealing in other ways, e.g. by providing housing space, or to build faster each Age.
To each his own. I just think making knights trainable from Donjons is particularly silly and undercuts the efforts to make infantry/Serjeants more viable. As you’ve alluded to, going knights as Sicilians is probably over-incentivized already, so I wouldn’t give them any more reason or opportunity to do that over infantry or archers.
Thanks! My Japanese is pretty terrible, so I hadn’t even attempted to search Japanese-language websites.
It seems way too unlike a trebuchet to be a suitable name for Kataparuto. On the other hand, on the Japanese Wikipedia page for “カタパルト (投石機)” it says “The use of stone-throwing machines called ‘Hatsusekiboku’ (発石木) and ‘Hiho’ (飛砲) during the Onin War is recorded in Unsen Taikyoku’s Hekizan Nichiroku.” (I think I copied the right parts for the names – the English is from Google translate.)
True! I find that a bit weird too.
At the time of the Onin War, European gunpowder was not yet common in Japan, so they could indeed be someing “catapult-like”. Hatsusekiboku, for example, can literally be interpreted as wood/woodwork (‘boku’ 木) that launches (‘hatsu’ 発) stone (‘seki’ 石).
Before the arrival of gunpowder, Japanese siege warfare rarely used mechanical weapons that people in other regions of the world are more familiar with. The fighting style of samurais and the design of Japanese castles made the use of siege weapons unnecessary; the duration of their siege warfare was much shorter and invested manpower was less than those in other regions of the world; the social and cultural significance of Japanese castles also encouraged the samurais to occupy them rather than destroy them into ruins.
Therefore, the existence of those things like Hatsusekiboku is very uncommon and rare. They were the fortuitous product of a group of carpenters who were conscripted and ordered to make siege weapons. They don’t seem to have any records outside of Hekizan Nichiroku, and no possible objects or images have survived to this day. All their images on the internet are based on the imagination of Chinese trebuchets or European catapults. We don’t know how many they were used at the time (probably very very few due to lack of records) and what kind of results they achieved in the battle (probably very very less due to lack of records), nor do we know their size, shape, scale and even how they workd in physic. That is why when people talking about Japanese military history, they often reasonably ignore them and conclude that the Japanese did not use catapults and trebuchets since we can’t sure they were the catapults or trebuchets we are familiar with and can’t even certain that they ever actually existed.
My inference is that Hatsusekiboku is likely to be simpler, cruder, smaller and more primitive catapult-like stone launchers with short range and unimpressive damage. The Japanese don’t seem to have an understanding of this type of siege weapon before then, so it hard to believe that they could make and use something like the Chinese trebuchet or the European catapult without experience. This might just be one of their few forays into catapult-like weapons.
The conclusion is that “Hatsuusekiboku” is indeed a better name than Kataparuto, but using this specific name looks like emphasizing the Japanese were good at making and using such kind of siege weapon. “Sengoku” is still better to me because it’s an abstract interpretation of the effect — just symbolizing frequent sieges. If possible, I personally still want to give them Bombard Cannons and no longer use the trebuchet improvement as a UT that symbolizes the history of civ.
Yes, perhaps only allowing Donjons to also train Militias, Scout Cavalry, Archers and Skirmishers.
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