The power of Ashigaru

Well, very late game, yep, they are not as strong.
I do agree that mid game they are indeed op, and I know most euro civs won’t get to that point vs japan if they just let the Japanese player boom.
I think that all japan needs is a change to their crate start and then they will be fine as it will make their early game a lot weaker and other civs will have a larger window to hurt them