Why We Hate Japan as a Civ

Japan is the most hated civ after Sweden (not including African civs). There is no downside to playing Japan, it’s easy to play and they have every type of unit and all their units are great. Their units cost more but their eco is great too so it doesn’t matter. Too many perks/mechanics.

Japan may be balanced for 1v1 (because small nerfs slowed them down) but over all they are not balance (on a design level) as a civ in the game. Other civs are great because they have strengths and weaknesses.

What to do about this is difficult because the Devs won’t remove mechanics or redesign the civ, I agree with them.

In my opinion the Yumi archer should get nerfed hard (it should feel like the longbow) and shrines should loose health when their cost is reduced with heavenly kami (75w shrines should have less health).

After these changes Japan would still have a great eco, spam shrines, have great musk, cav, melee, goon and artillery units and their many perks/mechanics.

This is a poll done after DE release asking which civ should be removed from the game. I don’t think they should remove any civ but it shows Japan is not well liked

19 Likes

Completely agree. If the devs don’t wanna do that, they could also experiment with reduce the Portuguese consulate bonus. I’m a Japanese play and even I that’s too strong. It’s 200 wood investment for 120 food and cheaper house. Not to mention a quicker age up witch is also even valuable

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The worst part is Japanese players love to shrine your side of the map - equivalent in my mind to sending villagers over to their side and killing all of their hunts. It’s a dirty play and I don’t get why they can get away with it.

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I find that Ottomans have a really hard time vs Japan and Sweden.

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Japan may be balanced now (in 1v1 supremacy) by significantly slowing them down. But it’s still a bad design that is meant to be lame, like Swedes.
I still think that since (1) Japan has the possibility to stack ridiculous bonuses on top of each other, such as daimyos, shogun, gold pavilion, free advanced arsenal, isolation, etc. and units with above-average base stats (and balancing has been focused on preventing getting all of them too easily) (2) you would not be able to make use of all of them in a standard 1v1 supremacy ANYWAY, why not simply limit the number of bonuses Japan can get then?

1 Like

Adjust the shrine.

  • HP: 1000 (from 1400)
  • Build time: 25s (from 15s)
  • Build limit: 5/10/15/20 in the age I/II/III/IV
  • Become countered by the hero units so it can be destroyed easily if monks try to build it beside opponents’ base.

By the way, I regard the Cherry Orchard and the Mango Grove should not be totally indestructible and should also able to be gathered by other players’ settlers.

6 Likes

My suggestion would be the following.

  • Damyos and shogun can no longer train units around the enemy first tc radius.
  • bushido principles. Units can now be trained in batches of 7(down from 10)
    -ashigaru speed speed reduced to 4.25 down from 4.5 , (note that the unit is still faster than most musks units, if anything researching disciplined or age 4 ashigaru could increase their speed back to 4.5).
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I would say Sweden is actually a good example of civ design (not talking about balance) they have the best musk but have no Skirm-goon. Dutch is also a good example since they have a great skirm-goon but no musk. Native civs have great early game but bad late game. African civs have great early game but struggle against cannons late game. There are many more examples of good civ design.

We don’t want a one trick pony but we also don’t want an every trick pony.

3 Likes

Breaking the unit countering system is not a good design, man.

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my suggestion is that the daymio should be very easily identified, it takes me like 20 seconds to find it in middle of all unit. It should have a golden spark or circle like some heros have, or it should be twice bigger taht the rest of cavalry. This is th emain reason why i hate japan.
The idea of the guy that says that daymios cannot create units near first town center is good too.
Japan has already nerfed, im not sure if still is powerful, on 4vs4 yes, it is very powerful.

2 Likes

All of Japan’s units are S tier. I’m saying make Yumi D tier so it’s used for support rather then a main unit. Then make heavenly Kami have a trade off by decreasing shrine health.

Well, portuguese have great musk, great skirm, great goon, great art, great mortar, not to mention great eco and navy, and i´m saying great but cassador it´s just OP, and portuguese musk is one of the best, sometimes even better than british one that supposed to be a british thing because they have not to many units, and jinetes are also the best goons by far, and that organ gun is one of the best cannons in the game, but the reality is that everyone just likes to get japanese nerf or even banned if they can :confused:

1 Like

You could make daymio like a mobile embassy and can only train embassy units using export, and only groups of five
That would make them useful but not too powerful

i can agree with this post to reduce shrine hp, that for me it´s ok, but their units while strong, they are not that OP, i mean, samurai in SUP is not really good, is decent but not that good, Flaming Arrows are not that good either, at best they are only good, not OP, yabusame are good also but OP either, and yumi, i know this not a popular opinion, but it´s not OP, i say it´s good, maaaaybe getting close to very good but not OP, they nerf it and it wasn´t OP, i mean, they have a little more atk but have less hp, less multipliers vs HI wich is more than half the point of skirms, and less upgrades, so they have like 40% more attack late game but skirms, (for example for cassador only has 25% more atk) have 20% more hp (cassador 25%), and 10% more speed (cassador 25%), and DOUBLE the multiplier vs HI, wich ands up in 40% more dmg to HI (cassador almost 60% more dmg) so they sometimes underperform a little vs HI and i´m not saying yumi are bad, i´m just saying they not OP, they are ok, fine, good, even, strong, and ashigaru and naginatas they do are very strong but not OP but maybe yes, S tier, but they are only 2 units, and are expensive, and japanese eco is great mid game but early game is a little slow and late game falls behind

What’s with these Japan hate speeches ?

5 Likes

European musks are not as good as they used to be since Ashi, Caroleans, Regulars and Ethiopian Musk. They are out ranged and slow (escpially after unique techs). British goons are the best goons, port goons just have more range (18) Yabo have 18 range without using cards and are better against arty. Japan also gets a card that increase mortar range. Organ guns are worse than leather cannons, flaming arrows and Gatling guns.

Also I say Jap troops are S tier (acceptable) not OP, good civ design should not let all your troops be S tier, have great eco and be easiest to play.

3 Likes

How long will u still complain about Japan after ALL THE NERFS that were done to that civ… Japan is completely and utterly dead and barely playable at this point. And seing someone saying they are S-tier makes them look like they lost a bunch of games to Japan and came to the forums to complain. I lose to Ottomans all the time - what should i do - create a thread on how ottomans are OP and they should be redesigned? This mentallity of “if u cant beat it” its OP really went too far. African civs - objectively OP. Japan - a dead civ with slow rush that can be rushed and decimated on the 10 min mark - thats how bad Japan is rn - and u peeps want more nerfs?? Jesus Christ, some people.

7 Likes

I’m advocating for an adjustment to civ design. I’m not talking about anything being Over Powered.

Samurai are not used a lot in supremacy because of their unit type, in its unit type it is S tier.

Flaming arrows are good against other cannons and infantry, they are cheaper, train faster, move faster and go into firing stance quickly. 5 flaming arrows can counter 5 falconets and still kill infantry. You need to train culverins, flaming arrows can take on culverins cost effectively or can run away before much damage is done. (This is mostly fine since they have no culverins)(not OP but S tier)

Japan has enough eco cards and perks to have an eco as good as a European civ or better and their eco is easy to get going and protect. (Mills and plantations only collect about 70% of the in-game UI amount because of walking time, rice paddies are 100% efficient no walking time. You can test this, there is a video on youtube)(the point is their eco and boom is great)

I have nothing against Yumi it’s just a suggestion. Ashi is too important for the civ to make D tier. Sams are not used enough. Yabusame are not used as much and make up for not having culverins and are worse than goons at anti cav but still effective.

All their units are S tier and in the context of the civ as a whole (eco ,perks ,ease of use and one of the best in every strategy). I just think they should have a weaknesses and maybe it can be their skirm unit similar to the British who have a longbow which can be used early game by itself or late game as support.

1 Like

I am curious Japan gets non-stop complaint since DE released and I am very surprised they are dead due to the last patch little nerf.

But I agree compared to African, Japan is nothing.

In a poll last December someone asked “what civ would you remove from the game?”. In first place was Japan with a third of the votes even more hated than Sweden. Where there is smoke there is fire. I think it is not because they are OP but because they can do everything, do it easily and have no weaknesses.

Japan is one of the most played civs, they win in tournaments and in noob games.

Otto do a Jan rush which is one of their better strats, they can also do other things like villie boom or water boom but they are just ok at those. You misunderstand, I can play Japs and I can beat Japs, I would like if they were not the most hated civ and if they had a weakness because of all the strats they can do well and with ease.

We just having polite discussions. Thank you for your input.

4 Likes