Rework Idea: Add "Japan - Historical" civ (Current Japan becomes "Japan - Classic")

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
21

This thread and idea were born out of “I hate it when people glorify samurai prowess and ‘glorious Nippon steel’, how can I make a more historically accurate Japan while keeping it playable (or at least within balancing possibility via adjustments)?”

And I don’t think it’s possible to shift Blacksmith techs UP an Age, and more importantly wanted to reuse the foot samurai models…
…Hold on a damn second.
I think we’ve figured out how to do things without having to have alternative unit base stats, by shifting Blacksmith techs UP an Age (i.e. Scale Mail in Castle Age)

Pfft.
Do you have a clue what Japan did during the war while howling about “Bushido”? And what mark this put on the entire concept of samurai?

If you want to tell me that very few (historically literate) people in Eastern Europe have a hostile view of the Teutonic Order and their mission of “living space Southeast of the Baltic for Christendom” as a result of WWII, I got a bridge to Terebithia to sell you. China is quite good at average historical literacy, so…

“To hell with anything that glorifies samurai or their ideology” is an extremely popular opinion in East Asia. And that includes taking note of MATERIAL FACTS such as “Hold on a damn second, this fancy armor set on display is really short? WHY?” and then reading about what daimyos would eat… “Well, makes perfect sense they’ve had mainland ambitions for a long time, being half-starving all the time would make anyone desperate”.

Japanese artisans are still well-respected, because they did marvelous work with what they had (Tamahagane is SPONGE IRON!).
But 90+% of samurai, the lot who went around killing random peasants to “test their swords” and consider themselves subhuman with how easily they commit suicide? Demonspawn, and not even impressive demospawn at that.

Even the Japanese know of these, they are the origin story of Oni, twisted creatures who attack people during the night.
The respectable samurai are the ones who culled oni (i.e. other rampaging samurai) or fought dangerous beasts that are a threat to ordinary people.
The rest?
(Much cursing censored)

Anyhow, “dehumanizing”?
If someone whined that I shouldn’t “dehumanize” the Gestapo or Waffen SS, I’d tell them “Perhaps they should not have dehumanized themselves by their actions first!”
They reframed the entirety of Germanic expansion to the east against the Slavic peoples.
Similarly, the entire samurai concept has been reframed by the “Bushido” proclaimed during WWII. The same families continue to dominate Japan to this day.

So don’t you tell us not to “dehumanize” the samurai and their “Bushido”.

GO TO A MUSEUM!

OR crack open a Japanese history book and read how freakishly tall Oda Nobunaga was in contemporary views (he was about 1.73m tall, give or take five centimeters). Most of the Old World had enough nutrition to avoid this height issue. We know it’s not a genetic problem, because Japanese heights shot up in the post-WWII generations (MacArthur should be their greatest national hero), so it absolutely is due to too little protein (and general caloric) intake, and before the spread of Buddhism, Japanese heights were far more consistent with the mainland.

It is by far the most distinguishing characteristic of the Medieval to early Modern Japanese. Here, a colorized photo from 1900. European average heights went DOWN during the Industrial Revolution because of malnutrition and pollution, for example, London women had average menarche (first menstruation) at 20 during the late 1800s!

Post-Meiji Restoration Japanese heights did not go down due to pollution, but held relatively steady for a few decades. And this is how it looked. Japan during the samurai era was not much different from this. And in melee with commensurate equipment and even somewhat similar training? Mass/reach matter, a lot. The Japanese got first-hand experience of this when they basically got run over by Ming armored cavalry, when they had been defeating Koreans before that by bravely closing the range (Koreans were extremely oriented on archery-based combat) and causing the enemy to panic and rout.

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So like this civ kinda just falls off super hard if the only imp tech is bracer admittedly a good tech but cmon man!

There’s historical basis and then there’s even wondering if Imperial age is even worth the cost of admission

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Looks like a whole lot of asymmetrical changes to fit the historical accuracy. Since there’s been so many complaints about this historical correlation and timeline, maybe devs can considering adding a game mode called age of history. Only the civs that fit the medieval timeline exist in that, many reputed custom campaigns translated into the main game and filled with units which are fun, powerful and historically accurate but not necessarily balanced. No ranked play in this mode but lobbies, co-op campaigns and quickplay vs humans and AI available. This way all those who want substantial historical accuracy can get it while ranked players enjoy all the civs with probably even better civ balance.

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You’re right, I went back and checked Parthian, it’s +2 pierce armor. I buffed Elite Samurai Cavalry ranged mode to 2/2 base and now at full upgrades…

Elite Samurai Cavalry (ESC) wins easily against HCA without Parthian, but if the enemy has Parthian it will lose without extensive micro, despite first-strike advantage.
And we don’t talk about Turks with their +20 HP.

Considering the high price tag I put on ESC, I’m wondering if I should give them Parthian, since “circling while trading shots” ritual combat sounds like shooting back over the shoulder should be common. I could reduce their base armor back to 1/1 if I let them have Parthian Tactics.

I’m pretty sure I’ve already come within one damage point (on various units) and/or 0.1 reload time of being reasonably well balanced while respecting history vastly more than the current “glorious Nippon steel” Japanese (Japan-Classic by my terminology here).

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Unfortunately, bringing in these strongly nationalistic arguments irrelevant to the game seriously derails your topic and makes your proposes lose importance.

Relating the cool samurai image in the subculture with distorted and abused Bushido spirit during WWII is a huge flaw in the argument. They are two completely different things. People like cool skilled katana warriors, this doesn’t necessarily have something to do with Bushido. Besides, the Bushido promoted in propaganda during WWII was also a distorted one, not even the original moral spirit.

The argument that “To hell with anything that glorifies samurai or their ideology" is an extremely popular opinion in East Asia looks like just your personal opinion. Many samurai-related anime, manga, video games, files, literature and other entertainment works, like Gintama, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Nioh, Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, etc., have a huge market in not only other parts of world but also China and Korea. Most importantly, they have almost nothing to do with the distorted WWII version Bushido.

The AoE franchise are entertainment games. Cool samurai/ninja warriors can be a part of them, more historical samurai/ninja warriors can, but strong modern national sentiments should not.

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First of all, thanks for participating in this thread.

Alright, didn’t want to hit y’all with the hard facts but you’ve earned it!

Ever played Civ 5 and built Himeji Castle? Heard the quote they used for it?

“Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.”
– Yamamoto Tsunetomo

According to Wikipedia, “Yamamoto Tsunetomo (山本 常朝), Buddhist monastic name Yamamoto Jōchō (June 11, 1659 – November 30, 1719), was a samurai of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima Mitsushige. He became a Zen Buddhist priest and relayed his experiences, memories, lessons, ideas, and aphorisms to the samurai Tashiro Tsuramoto, who compiled them under the title Hagakure.”

Now, you could narrate that Tokugawa rule began in 1603 so this is 100 years later, so it’s already bent out of shape
BUT Hagakure, the Book of Five Rings, these are considered to be classical samurai scriptures! For example, Shogun 2: Total War even uses Hagakure quotes on loading screens!

So… this is what Imperial Age Japan should be!

THIS IS BUSHIDO!
IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!
IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT CASTE ARROGANCE AND THE POWER TO KILL RANDOM PEASANTS FOR AMUSEMENT (or “testing your sword”)!

How do you get money from the Chinese gaming market, revealed to be enormous by Black Myth: Wukong?
Tap into the growing hostility toward Japan in a plausibly deniable fashion, that’s how!

If the devs want to capitalize on the Chinese market, an Imjin War DLC with a more historically accurate Japan would be popular, because it would not glorify samurai mystique in the way that has occurred for a couple centuries by this point.

In other words, it’s market economics that will force game companies to stop glorifying samurai. You will cater to the audience, or someone else will go and earn the money.
Easy Red 2 learned that when their revenues and servers basically exploded after releasing their Shanghai-Nanjing DLC.

So, will AOE2 cash in on the Chinese market? You and I both know the answer to that with their first highly controversial attempt at doing so.
3K isn’t that well-received in China either, according to NGA forums. Some folks perceive it as promoting division, because the three late-Han factions weren’t notably divergent. Chinese players are complaining they’d rather have the Goguryeo-Sui or Goguryeo-Tang wars, or the Tubo (Tibetan) vs Tang wars. Even Northern and Southern dynasties make more sense for having major factional differences than Three Kingdoms, and wouldn’t be as triggering to the “purposefully dividing China” crowd because historical literacy is high enough they know the Northern Wei and descendant dynasties were very different from the south, so it’s not “making a mountain out of a molehill” to divide them.

The old masters of anime and manga who grew up in the immediate post-war era tend to be very harsh on Japanese culture, willing to show the ugly parts instead of trying to hide them. This contributed to their popularity because it was a balanced, reasonable perspective.

More recent Japanese productions have been shrinking (proportionately speaking) in popularity because Japan is no longer viewed through the rose-tinted lenses of being “more advanced”.

They’ll still be popular in China though for actually having fanservice while the stodgy censors in China refuse to cater to the free market.

But other than that? Any messaging the Japanese attempt tends to get massive retaliation (see My Hero Academia). The Unit 731 memorial museum has drawn increasingly long lines these past few years for good reason, because the Japanese are openly taunting us over it.

Any talk of “reconciling” or negotiating with bullies, as is common in more recent works (who can’t escape the high school BS drama mold), tends to attract extreme hostility from us because we know from lived experience that the only way to stop a bully is to hurt him badly enough he stops trying to bully you. Only then can any form of diplomacy occur.

We know why Japan wants to advocate “reconciliation with bullies”. It’s because their upper classes know what they’ve done, and kept the lower classes ignorant by omission/denial in history textbooks and curricula. These upper-class Japanese are terrified, but can’t possibly cleanse the evil that has plagued them since the earliest days of Bushido and associated casteism.

Ahem, finished venting.

The point of this thread and idea is how to absolutely AVOID glorifying samurai culture, while accurately portray Japanese military organization (swordsmen line would be Bushi/Samurai, not separate from Champion line), living conditions (poor nutrition), and still give Medieval Japanese a fair shake with reasonable balance.

Motivation for making it? Hatred for “samurai mystique”.
So what? I still demanded of myself a balanced perspective (such as acknowledging the excellent composite bow tech and the genius of using an asymmetric bow on horseback), and I think I delivered relatively okay.
Give it a +1 attack here and there, or -0.1 reload, and I think I’ve come close enough to making something playable.

So, Did I achieve the following two points?

  1. Avoid all glorification of samurai culture.
  2. Give Japan-Historical something close to playable.

If I did, then task accomplished, I’ll polish this up (I think +1 base attack on Katana Samurai and melee Elite Samurai Cavalry, base armor in ranged mode back down to 1/1, but with Parthian cost gate, to make them more viable in general, with Katana Samurai only failing relative to Champions against high-armor units) and include it in the mid-Ming part of my planned China DLC chain ideas I’ll be outlining soon. That’s a fortunate thing, since I had Great Ming included in the previous one and Jianzhou/Manchu in the next one, but no new civ for the mid-Ming.

Thank you for helping me work this out enough that I can put this in for the mid-Ming DLC idea.
(Obviously, this chain of China-centric DLC ideas would be heavily campaign-rich, and would easily attract free publicity in China for “telling Chinese stories honestly” and gain massive revenues)

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This thread went from trying to weaken the japanese civ to blatant racism.

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Sooner or later someone always tries to use accusations to win an argument.

To my understanding, “Japanese people are short because they are Japanese” is racism.

“People grow to be shorter when malnourished”… is called REALITY.
“Meal portion sizes recorded for Medieval Japanese daimyos were small”… is READING AND UNDERSTANDING THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCES instead of forcing your own opinion on them.
“Armour sets passed down from Japanese daimyos were short”… is LIVED EXPERIENCE.
“Japanese average adult heights shot up after meat intake increased in the post-WWII period” is MORE RECENT LIVED EXPERIENCE.

If putting these together and getting “Medieval Japanese did not grow as tall as they could have because they were chronically underfed, and the cultural prohibitions on red meat didn’t help.” is racist to you, you should interview people who grew up hungry for their common-sense understanding of the effects.
However, don’t try to tell them you don’t believe eating more and better food could have let them grow up taller, it might go badly.

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I understand your japanese ça would be worse agaisnt other ranged units due to their lack of armor, but they still have similar dps (which is the most important metric for ranged units).
Also, as I said, magyars need to pay a thousand more rest than japaneses for these dps.They also need to pay for armor.
Honestly the bonus current japaneses have already give them very strong cav archer, but not op. If in the future they get a regional skin instead of the steppe looking cav archer, I think this aspect of the civ would be well represented.
Or, if you want them to have the best ca, at least the imperial age mounted samurai upgrade should be a lot more expensive than the heavy ca upgrade.

Yeah I’m sure chiefs benefited the most from these campaigns, but I also think soldiers were allowed to pillage defeated cities. And although mongols relied on defeated peoples as slaves, their own men (or other steppe people) were somewhat free, lived of pastoralism between campaigns, and had to carry their own equipements.
Even if they were poor combattants in melee compared to european cavalry or samurais, they mostly relied on cavalry archers, and those don’t need very extensives armors, just a good composite bow.

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Looks like I really hit a nerve when I suggested that viewing people as monkeys and dogs is dehumanising. That’s me out of this thread, and very much regretting participating in it.

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Well, I reran the numbers after moving ESC back down to 1/1 base armor, and giving them Parthian Tactics (i.e. costs more money to fully upgrade now), and got…

Both sides with Parthian Tactics (Magyars get 1 extra range and faster training, but are otherwise the same as generic):
Magyar Heavy Cav Archer: 40W/60G/24 seconds (including their team bonus) 80 HP, 11 pierce +4 spearman, 2 reload, 8 range, 4/6 armor, 1.4 speed.
Elite Samurai Cavalry (ranged): 60F/64G/30 seconds, 105 HP (due to Imperial UT), 12 pierce, 2.5 reload, 8 range, 4/5 armor, 1.35 speed.

HCA needs 18 hits or 34 seconds to kill, Samurai needs 14 hits or 32.5 seconds (13 reloads) to kill, and wins by 1 shot, but at higher cost.
We don’t talk about Turks who have +20 HP from their unique tech compared to Magyars.

Shouldn’t be too OP considering expense (though Magyars need to shell out for Ring Archer Armor). Samurai Cavalry remain an opportunistic unit.

But you’re right, I’ll increase the upgrade cost in my documents. How does 1300F/750G sound to you, same as Paladin?

Well it was nice having you over, and you put in a good effort to try to make me less pointed in my contempt of samurai portrayals in media.
When media says “Samurai were well trained and equipped elite soldiers”, Chinese generally go “Well trained professionals, yes, and equipped as far as their metallurgy allowed, that’s correct”
When media says “Glorious Nippon steel, folded over 1000 times”, well, backlash happens.

See you around in some other forum threads!

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Agreed. Obvious racism is on display here, and it’s disappointing.

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This wouldn’t be exclusive to the Japanese. I don’t see why the Japanese would get a bonus about that while in other countries (such as in South East Asia) men weren’t taller, if even shorter, on average.

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It’s modern figures but average height didn’t change that much over time, sure it got a bit taller with modern agriculture (taking european numbers as they are more documented) but surprisingly little, what caused some damage were the dreadful standards of living during the modern period (colder climate) then early industrial age. Between the High Middles Ages and the 1980s, Brits only gained around 1 inch (2.5 cm).
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So we’re not talking about Pygmees here. Sure, poor nutrition will decrease the numbers severely (case in point, the Koreas) but Japan was developped enough to show a fairly reliable supply chain.

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No, you are wrong. Starting from how you say hideyoshi was called a monkey. He was called a rat by oda nobunaga. The nickname “monkey” started as a joke in noh threater plays. Later, it was used to mock and lower the presige of the samurai during the modernization of japan. Why? because hideyoshi is one of the three unifiers of japan together with oda nobunaga and tokugawa ieyasu.

Your other points are just stereotypes popularized in china after the WW2 as slurs and insults towards japanese officials and soldiers. Especially “monkeys riding dogs” which was coined by russians during the russo-japanese war and later taken by the chinese and koreans after WW2.

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How exactly would you propose portraying samurai and ashigaru from 1000–1600 accurately?

Should we pretend history is whatever sounds coolest to modern audiences?

Or should we look at the evidence—museum collections, battlefield archaeology, historical documents, and academic or enthusiast reconstructions—and actually respect what we find?

Because I did the legwork and found:
– Chronic food scarcity, especially protein, which stunted physical growth.
– Lightweight, speed-optimized weapons for fighting lightly armored opponents.
– A layered, status-based military structure where far from all “samurai” were elite.
– And yes, preserved armor and skeletal remains showing soldiers significantly shorter than the mainland norm.

That’s not racism. That’s material evidence.

Fabricating a fantasy version of the past and calling it “respectful” is an insult to the dead. If anything, what I’m doing is the opposite of dehumanizing—acknowledging real hardship and adapting game balance to match.

If you want to talk representation, start with truthful representation. Otherwise you’re just selling propaganda under the guise of inclusion.

Here, from a research paper, and bear in mind that living standards were on the rise since 1870, but were about steady during the 1600-1870 span:

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The problem is that AI on a search for average knight height gives:
" The average height of knights in the 1100s in England was around 5’7.5" (173 cm). This was an increase from the average height of 5’6" (168 cm) in the early medieval period, and they were edging closer to the heights achieved at the start of the 20th century. The average height of men in London in the 1500s was around 5’7.5" (171.5 cm)."

So 160-ish cm vs 170-ish cm is… still a significant gap when it comes to melee combat, but far from insurmountable. As you can see I only deducted 10 out of 70 HP from Samurai compared to Champions, the main problem was their metallurgy.

Oh, that’s interesting, thanks for the information. It still doesn’t defeat the height graph above, or the recognition from numerous sources that samurai averaged 160-165cm, instead of the stereotypical European knights who claimed 6 feet (realistically closer to 175-ish cm).

Fighting someone who ate more meat than you, is even 10cm taller and about as well trained is… an extreme challenge. Compound that with worse metallurgy for armor and weapons and, well…

Had to find the playability from SOMEWHERE, so food discounts it was!

This is enlightening, thank you for improving my understanding of the historical animosities and origins of insults.

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It’s a game, not a documentary. We don’t want to include every unsavory historical detail, because that will likely unsettle players (unless your goal is to unsettle players, of course). It’s easier to use a pop culture perception as a basis in order to actually sell the game, and then make adjustments for history when needed. I appreciate the effort to be historically accurate, but it’s important to pick your battles as well, and going into too much detail on negative things will leave the impression of racism to players.

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Alright lads, I’ve adjusted the Swordsmen a bit in my working document, so that they are good (well, cost-effective) against unarmoured or low-armored targets (such as other infantry), unless the enemy’s weapon is just too powerful in its blows (Champions: hi there!).

FEUDAL AGE (fully upgraded) matchup looks like so:
Men-At-Arms: 45 HP, 7 melee, 2 reload, 1/2 armor
Wa Kenshi: 45 HP, 6 melee, 1.8 reload, 1/1 armor

MAA kills Kenshi in 8 hits or 14 seconds
Kenshi kills MAA in 9 hits or 8x1.8 = 14.4 seconds (EDITED due to math fail, sorry)
MAA survives on 1 hit left , Kenshi are cost-effective enough as they are 10% food cheaper.

CASTLE AGE Fully upgraded (not including speed)
Long Swordsmen: 60HP, 11 melee, 2 reload, 3/4 armor
Tachi Bushi: 50 HP, 10 melee, 1.7 reload, 3/3 armor

Bushi kills Longsword in 9 hits, or 8x1.7 = 13.6 seconds.
Longsword kills Bushi in 7 hits, or 12 seconds.

Longsword therefore wins by 1 hit, a very good showing for the Bushi when the Tachi Bushi costs 20% less food and 10% less gold.

IMPERIAL AGE:
Fully upgraded 2HS is 65HP, 16 melee, 2 reload, 4/6 armor.
Fully upgraded Champion is 70 HP, 18 melee, 2 reload, 4/6 armor.
Fully upgraded samurai is 60HP, 12 melee, 1.2 reload, 3/3 armor (no Plate Mail or Blast Furnace).

Samurai kills either 2HS or champion in 9 hits, or 8x1.2 = 9.6 seconds.
2HS kills samurai in 5 hits, or 4x2 = 8 seconds.
2HS survives by 9 HP, which is reasonable since the samurai only cost 80% as much. By lost resources, samurai are cost-effective vs 2HS.

Champion kills samurai in 4 hits, or 6 seconds, and are cost-effective against samurai.

As the Samurai in question put it in an interview after his spars with the two default Imperial Age swordsmen: “Oi, look, I can take a two-handed swordsman cost-effectively because he’s not as good at moving that damn sword of his. I can get in on the weakspots well enough to make it worth our equipment costs. But what the hell is this champion swinging? I can’t block or dodge that nearly well enough to survive!”

@Apocalypso4826 Thank you for being so well-reasoned.
Well, that’s something we don’t agree on, I guess.

I wanted to represent the goods and bads (as age ratings permit) while maintaining playability. For Japanese, that means very good quick swordsmanship, unfortunate quality in swords and armor, excellent longbows that took a unique spin on the idea, including good cavalry archer usage, dubious melee cavalry due to equipment and shortage of horse pastures (no Bloodlines), and tragic hardships in quality of living.

For example, in the above swordsmen matchup, the Japanese lack of shields offers them an advantage in handling their swords with both hands much earlier, offering a shorter interval between damaging strikes, mostly making up for metallurgy and physical brawn. However, this is a problem when facing arrows in Feudal Age, and they will still lose the fights (in brutal melee, at similar discipline, training, and calm, mass matters a lot, which is why it’s relatively common to hear about humans beating leopards to death with their bare hands), but the lower costs of fielding them ensure they remain cost-effective until Champions show up.

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The infantry rof is fine but your version of Japanese is awful on open maps, nearly as weak as Dravidians. The maa alternative is weak and pointless with -1 p.armor and attack, -5 food doesn’t compensate for it. Also no gambesons or +4 armor in imp, so the whole militia line alternatives are almost useless.
You’re removing bloodlines so castle age light cav play is also weak.
For Samurai cavalry, I like your idea of giving huge archer and CA class armor in melee mode, but the base p.armor of 1, much lower hp and 1.35 speed is very weak. Overall its nearly unusable because they’re vulnerable against all ranged units. Coming to the ranged version, the switch delay is huge and even otherwise 1.35 speed and 2.5 rof are too bad to use for hit and run. Unlike war wagons they don’t have a very high hp or p.armor either. Plus they cost food and gold, so ranged can’t be their primary mode.

To sum up the civ is fully dependent on its broken unique unit with 7 attack, thumb ring and 7 base range. But the civ is likely to die before it can get there in open maps. This makes it too niche for limited mobility and Nomadic maps in 1v1 and closed map tgs but nearly unusable on other settings or in other words poorly balanced.

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Wow, a detailed review and recommendations! Thanks!

I could give their 1 base pierce armor back, but the poor metallurgy and efforts to compensate by skill (higher rate of attack) should stay, unless we want to make them appear malnourished this early instead (i.e. Unit has -5 base HP relative to Men-At-Arms but a bit higher attack rate, barely loses head-to-head)

I can certainly give them gambesons, because padding under armor is not a sophisticated concept, and the climate isn’t too hot to allow it.

No, they are very strong against other light cav in Castle Age, unless the enemy brings onager-line units or has bonuses.

-20% food discount means you can bring 25% more units.

Let’s run the calculations:

Base Light Cav: 60 HP, 7 melee, 2 reload, 0/2 armor, 1.5 speed
Upgraded Light Cav: 80 HP, 9 melee, 2 reload, 2/4 armor
Japanese Light Cav: 60 HP, 9 melee, 2 reload, 2/4 armor.

Both do 7 effective damage, so Upgraded dies in 12 hits, and Japanese dies in 9 hits.
4v5 fight Upgraded vs Japanese
First to die is the Upgraded that got doubled, let’s call this #4 at the end of the line, it died in 6 hits, leaving the Japanese #4 opposite it at 3 hits (assuming no micro involved and the Upgraded got final hit off) and one full-HP Japanese light cav (#5). At this point the three other Japanese light cav are at 3 hits, and their opponents are at 6 hits.
Second death is Upgraded #3, which–accounting for movement time, traded 2 hits with Japanese #3, but got hit twice from the side by Japanese #4 and #5 coming in (just after it got its second hit off).

At this point, Japanese #1-3 are at 1 hit each, #4 is at 3 hits, and #5 is full HP. Upgraded #1 and #2 are at 4 hits each.
Then Japanese light cav #1 and #2 die. This leaves Upgraded 1 and 2 at 3 hits each, against Japanese #3 at 1 hit, 4 at 3 hits, and 5 full HP. Japanese #3 trades with Upgraded #2 and Upgraded 1 gets in a free hit on 4, then Upgraded 1 and 4 die at the same time while Japanese #5 survives unscathed, in theory.

In practice the outcome probably depends on Player number for hit priority, and wouldn’t be this clean.

Let’s try with both sides showing perfect micro. Upgraded dies in 12 hits, and Japanese dies in 9, assuming the lines curl around each other Yin-Yang style, and all units are perfectly efficient at doing damage, and each gets in a hit before dropping.
4 Upgraded, 5 Japanese.
On third strike, both sides lose one unit, with Japan 1 and Upgraded 1 both dying. Japan 2 takes 3 hits of damage, Upgraded 2 takes 3 hits of damage.
There are now 3 Upgraded and 4 Japanese
Fifth attack, Japan 2 dies, no spillover, Upgraded 2 has 1 hit HP left.
Sixth attack, Japan 3 took 3 damage (6 hits of HP left), Upgraded 2 dies with 2 hits spillover.
Now there are 3 Japanese (one at 6/9 hits) and 2 Upgraded (one at 10/12 hits).
Ninth attack, Japan 3 dies with no spillover, Upgraded 3 has 1 hit left
Tenth attack, Upgraded 3 dies with 1 hit spillover. It’s now 2 Japanese (one at 7/9 hits) versus 1 Upgraded at 11/12 hits.

Japanese win, again.

We know that their available metallurgy was noticeably weaker than European or Continental. So what would you recommend? I could let them have gambesons and let that apply to their cavalry (even light cav would have to be nobility in Japanese society so could afford padding under armor) if that would resolve the problem.

We know Japanese armor was not as good as a well-made suit for a knight, due to metallurgy issues.
The much lower HP is so that it doesn’t vastly outstrip everyone else when in cav archer mode. Obviously, I miscalculated a bit since Turks exist, hence I gave Japan-Historical Parthian back so they could at least compete with Magyars for second-best (depending on resource valuation).

I do not recommend HP conversion according to ratio, otherwise a 1 HP melee mode pulling out its bow will instantly drop dead, as Spirit of the Law covered in his video, mentioning how 1HP Loom villagers being converted and then switching jobs in a loom-less player’s hands instantly die because HP went below 1.

The 1.35 speed is exactly the same as knight line, and they do get Husbandry so can keep pace. The reason I didn’t give them 1.4 is because that’s the cav archer speed, and I didn’t want them to be too good at range-edging against (AI or un-microed) cav archers who don’t know to ride closer before starting to shoot.

Considering the firing delay in ranged mode though, it should be alright to give 1.4 speed.

Why not?
Food and gold is how I fit them in under the umbrella of “dubious nutrition + plenty of armor scales replaced by lacquered leather (which is about as good as iron weight-wise but…)”.
I could always reduce their base cost a bit.

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This is all completely theoretical. And here’s why:

  1. Light cav aren’t produced to fight other light cav all the time. They are used for sniping monks, siege in the presence of ranged units, killing smaller groups of ranged units and for raiding. Bloodlines, husbandry and +2 armor are all very important for this. Multiple units will survive with <10 hp and can get healed back to full hp.
  2. Until late imperial age, most of such fights happen with mixed units - Light cav + CA vs light cav + skirms/xbows on most maps. Sometimes there are some siege units in the mix as well. In all these situations 20 hp matters A LOT.
  3. In late imperial age pop efficiency becomes an issue. If one player does 100 hussar, you can’t do 125 light cav. All the vills won’t be just collecting food. So its better to have stronger but more expensive units than weaker but cheaper units at that stage.

Overall the cheaper light cav are decent for mid game but its a nerf overall to remove bloodlines and give a discount.

About Samurai cavalry - Think about which of the 2 modes need to be the primary mode and more effective and which should be just a support mode usable only in some situations. Lets say you choose the melee mode to be the primary, -40 hp, +7 seconds slower training time, -1 p.armor is a huge downside compared to the 0.5 range and -3 gold. If melee is primary, ranged stats can be weaker than CA but melee stats should be balanced well wrt knights. Like -40 hp, -1 p.armor for +0.05 speed and -2 damage from archer line could be a nice tradeoff. Or +0.1 speed, -20 food cost, -25 gold cost, -7s training time . You can also give a substantial delay in switching modes such that monks are still effective. But definitely the stats from your version doesn’t justify melee as primary.

Now coming to ranged as primary, costing food and gold means its not easy to mass in earlier castle age. Slower rof implies its harder to kite or snipe vill and run. Lower speed also implies its more vulnerable to larger groups of CA, camels. Just +1 attack isn’t good enough to justify all the downsides. Unit should cost wood and gold, have a substantial advantage over CA in some way and the melee stats can be weak in this case.

Wood + gold are easier to collect during earlier stages where base is compact and range is more effective. While food + gold is better suited for mid game where base expansion begins and scattered military can stop expansion and fetch a lot of value. You should set the cost according to your choice of primary mode.

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