New Japan tips

This is a sequel of sorts to my New Germany tips.

Japan was the other civ that had significant changes made with the fall patch (but not nearly as much as Germany)

To the pre existing unique ability of units fight at full strength no matter how damaged they are the now also get +1 culture from fishing boats & +2 culture from Atolls.

Their first UU (Samurai) is back to vanilla CD release upgrade to Rifles and still buildable with the Musket tech.
In addition the UU can build fishing boats which does NOT use up the unit.

The UA changes basically gives it a mild bonus toward culture victory. (Via Hotels / Aiports turning tiles with culture into tourism). However it should be noted that it's not a good enough source to give them a reason to push towards Piety tree. (I've never seen an Atoll appear close enough to a capital to be worked and it doesn't start working on fish until fishing boats are present)

But they are still quite capable of using their UA towards a domination victory.

They also have a (very minor) indirect bonus towards science victory. That above extra culture should shave a few turns off of completing the rationalism tree.

And an almost negligible advantage towards diplomatic victory : Slightly easier to complete city state culture quests

For all victory types:
Japan has a little bit more protection against your citizens following false ideologies.

On the Samurai changes:
If you have Iron, I wouldn't build any fishing boats for fish and would instead wait for a Samurai to build them. Of course if you have a sea luxury, you may very well need the resource hooked up sooner than that.

The delayed upgrade to Rifles gives you a bit more time to find Iron if you don't start any. And the UU is almost as good as Muskets anyway so it doesn't have much downside. Also, the fishing boat ability doesn't carry over when promoted to Rifles; so you may want to delay upgrading your last one until you've seen the Oil resources.

Edit: If you want to use both aspects of your UA at the same time: Try to win via a conquest-assisted Culture victory (Autocratic culture victory); highest priority conquests: Whoever has the most culture; since they probably have the most Great Works and/or World Wonders with theming bonuses.

Further Edit: There is either a bug or an undocumented feature regarding Japan's Atolls and Hotels/Airports.
While your hotels/airports provide the expected tourism from fishing boats, these buildings don't count culture from Atolls.

I'd think the most beneficial change would be that protection against ideological pressure. If you focus on getting some tourism and culture out early enough you should be able to pick Autocracy and roll with it without too much trouble - especially if you kill the biggest cultural player!

I think to get the most out of it, you go 1-3 city tall until Samurai and then ruthlessly conquer all the good fishing spots. This will give you a comparative culture boost in Renaissance and a powerful Maritime trade network.

i use Samurai to help instantly offset the -happy for one or two coastal caps they conquer. but for my own cities i dont wait if i cant help it. i need the happiness and the food pretty much every time ASAP.

(also, i think you mean Whoever rather than However at the very end of your post. just fyi.)

Yeah, the Samurai for Boats thing is somewhat situational, but it helps with conquests, and whenever your own stuff gets pillaged during wars. Generally speaking, it does mean that you don't NEED to spend hammers into fishing boats early on (Except for luxuries), but do you want a 4 or 5 food tile with a lighthouse?

Hammer Rabbi said:

i use Samurai to help instantly offset the -happy for one or two coastal caps they conquer. but for my own cities i dont wait if i cant help it. i need the happiness and the food pretty much every time ASAP.

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What happiness bonuses from Samurai are you talking about?

Not all coastal capitals have sea luxaries; some don't even have fish.

joncnunn said:

What happiness bonuses from Samurai are you talking about?

Not all coastal capitals have sea luxaries; some don't even have fish.

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i was talking about whether to delay improving tiles with work boats. i only said one or two caps because it was on average. difficulty and map type usually let me know what i can expect, coast wise. the samurai ability is only a 'sometimes it's good' ability. i tend not to plan my founded city growth/happiness around it.

joncnunn said:

so you may want to delay upgrading your last one until you've seen the Oil resources.

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Last time I rolled Japan, I tried using a samurai to make an oil well. It would not do it. It would upgrade fish, whales, pearls, and crab though. I'm not sure if that's intentional or if "fishing boats" and "oil platforms" are not considered the same thing by the AI.

Catalytic said:

Last time I rolled Japan, I tried using a samurai to make an oil well. It would not do it. It would upgrade fish, whales, pearls, and crab though. I'm not sure if that's intentional or if "fishing boats" and "oil platforms" are not considered the same thing by the AI.

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Probably because you don't have the tech yet?

The new Samurai are cool.

It is not uncommon to have sea resources within one of your city's ranges that simply cannot be improved by a normal Work Boat. Access to that tile could be blocked by land which the work boat can't get past, or blocked via the sea with ice. But a Samurai can disembark and then embark in order to reach that space.

As obvious as it may be I think your little guide here fails to point out the main change to Japan: That they have much more incentive to settle coastal areas and islands. Rather than go into detail about what this change means for the victory conditions etc I think this is the main thing to point out - Japan has become a semi-seafaring civ.

Again, the main thing about the culture bonus arguably isn't so much what it does in the broader perspective (the culture amount isn't significant enough for that) but simply the fact that it lets their borders expand faster, making for more efficient cities, sooner - even the most outcast Japanese island hole with no great works or any other culture will expand borders significantly faster that similar cities from other civilizations.

The new Samurai is truly sweet, if situational - it requires that you're in an area requiring lots of fishing boats, but then it will save you quite a lot of hammers and speed city development!

I was one of the people saying Japan didn't really need a buff - not even the Zero - but I think what Firaxis finally went ahead and did to them was really nice with how it creates a unique and appropriate theme for them.

as for resembling more of a real Japanese feel I'm glad they merged island/water based benefits into it. their culture is iconic for way too many things to be captured in what amounts to 3 traits you can choose (UA/UU/UB/UI), but I'm glad they went with a coastal benefit to encourage that kind of play.

this is fun stuff for the role-play/builder kind of player.

The only issue for me is that atolls are quite rare on a continent coastal city.

Also, I don't like the way long swords are on the tech tree but that's another completly different issue.

What maps are ideal to play on for Japan to benefit from?

Continents (small or large) or Large Islands or Archipelago if you want water to be semi-necessary factor for their coastal traits.

Bushido is very helpful. If you use bushido as you're attacking civilizations, nuclear weapons or other traps adversaries try to put will not work that effectively since artilleries can attack at full damage even when damaged. Mobile ships can also benefit from this as well since the ships can attack at full strength. This is helpful when time is limited and someone else threatens to take the cultural victory on time.

Pangaea remains excellent Japan. Even with the culture bonus, they're a die-hard warmongering civ, and landmasses is where one primarily fights (Japan also does well to avoid a fair fight against powerful naval empires like England). The more the Japanese player can turn the game into a wargame rather than a science-, money- or -culture game, the better the chance of winning becomes. Don't be fooled into thinking Japanese strategy has majorly changed from before; warfare is where it's at for them (the combat bonus is significant - especially against an opponent you aren't just rolling over due to poor tactical unit usage, ie. multiplayer). Bushido isn't properly recognized for just how powerful it is due to V's highly unfortunate tactical AI. The real change imposed by the fall patch is that Japan is now much better off settling coastal areas.

MarauderCH said:

What maps are ideal to play on for Japan to benefit from?

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ZipWorld

Any pure warmonger civilization without a naval UU (such as England) is at a disadvantage when playing anything other than Pangaea really. Its quite hard to tech to Astronomy before considering attacks and then having time and a "base" to launch invasions from. Domination victory always seems so much easier for me on Pangaea.

That said - I always play on Large or Huge maps - with more Civs than average.

I tried some starts with Japan but never really get to play them as a unique civ but just like any other civ. Reason for it was of course lack of sea resources but also a lack of iron. That the samurai is on the low end of the tech tree does not really help either since with their coastal bias you would want to tech the upper tree instead, and also get education.

It is great that they prolonged the life time of the samurai so that it now upgrades to rifleman but that is not enough to make it a fun civ to play.

I will probably give it one more try. Perhaps aiming for a cultural victory with some mid game warmongering to get some extra work of arts. If you could start up with 3-4 cities with plenty of sea resources, perhaps need to reroll until I find a good enough starting location then stay as much on the upper tech tree as possible to develop those coastal cities and get the science buildings in place then tech for the samurai. Mix it up between Aesthetics and Exploration after finishing Tradition. Aim for the Louvre (and the other culture buildings) and hope that you manage to get enough sea resources and find enough of digging places that once you get hotels and airports up and running you are in the game for a cultural victory. Merchant navies +4 culture for the East India company should come in handy then as well.

Problem is that most of the good coastal locations are often taken by city states and if you incorporate those in to your empire you will not get to ally any other and every one will hate you and close their borders.

I guess Japan could be a fun civ to play but a very tricky one, more so then Brazil or Indonesia. That is unless you just decide to win by domination.