Japan worthless?

Babri said:

France have an awesome UI, Greeks companions can wipe the floor of most classical UUs + their UA is strong, Legions & Musketeers are good as they stay for far more longer than Samurais do (Muskets come very quickly after LS) & so on. On the other hand Japan has a meh UA & meh UUs which don't compensate for its weak UA. I agree that Samurai are not the worst UUs but they aren't certainly good enough to make up for a weak UA & 0.

Also what do you do with your GGs after you get 2-3? Most of the time they sit idle or rarely used for building citadels. Maybe I should start building more citadels but anyway I don't find GG promotion extra exciting.

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If you have a "slightly stronger" unit, you're obviously supposed to strike while the iron's hot and start rushing. But once that unit is obsolete, your advantage is gone and nothing promotes upwards. Nothing wrong with that. It's a design choice.

I do feel that Japan could use a little spicing up, since the UA is not as awesome as it once was, and the UU's are just serviceable. They're "terrible" in that they're not awesome, and they no longer have an awesome UA to back it up.

Babri said:

FYI Japan UA was nerfed in G&K. (don't remember the exact changes, someone posted it in great detail on these forums)

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FYI, I know that. The 'nerf' is that combats 'take' longer to actually get to lower life, and therefore the UA doesn't seem to actually do as much.

However, if you have a Japanese unit with 1 HP in BNW, he's going to do at least as much damage as a 1HP Japanese unit in Vanilla. The granularity of the G&K combat change hurts it... very minorly, in most cases.

And so the extra damage their injured units can do is not that much exciting. Also I generally keep my army fully healed. The unit under heavy attack is fortified while rest of the army beats the enemy.

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Sure. But that's not what the UA is for, and if that's how you wage war, it doesn't really matter what units you have, does it?

The real weakness to the Japanese UA is that ranged units suffer no counterattack, and so you're not getting multiple attacks per turn.

I really loved how Thalassicus overhauled Japan in his mod VEM & GEM. He replaced Zero with a dojo UB. The dojo UB basically adds culture on iron & horse resource and allows your garrisoned units slowly earn experience.

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IF you put a Dojo in as Japan's UB, it should replace the Armory, not the Barracks, if you care at all about historical accuracy.

Also, if there's a mod (particularly one as good as GEM) that has what you need, just play the mod? Dunno.

With some training they can come out to be incredibly useful. He also changed Samurai to start with blitz & have extra strength. This had a synergy with the UA as blitz => damaged units => benefit from UA.

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See above. And if you don't want to play the entire mod (as I certainly don't want to play with ALL of the mods of GEM, just extract the part of the mod you like as a separate mod and play that.

steveg700 said:

If you have a "slightly stronger" unit, you're obviously supposed to strike while the iron's hot and start rushing. But once that unit is obsolete, your advantage is gone and nothing promotes upwards. Nothing wrong with that. It's a design choice.

I do feel that Japan could use a little spicing up, since the UA is not as awesome as it once was, and the UU's are just serviceable. They're "terrible" in that they're not awesome, and they no longer have an awesome UA to back it up.

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No it is not gone, you retain the promotions. That is the reason why most of the time players delay getting their UUs getting obsolete a bit because creating few more UUs & then upgrading can be more meaningful. And as I said earlier longsword already have a short window time so that is an added disadvantage to Samurais. Why not just rush gunpowder immediately & get your iron back for selling than sticking to samurai, there is simply very little incentive to do that.

And I agree that it isn't just a problem of Samurai being terrible & bland. If their UA & other UU was useful enough I would not complain. Just like I don't complain about Slingers even though they are the one of the more bad UUs simply because Inca makes up for that with their UA & UI.

Babri said:

The problem is that Zeroes come so late that they would need to be uber powerful to make a meaningful impact on the game. Ever imagined going on conquering spree as Huns without those Horse Archers & Rams? Ever thought of quickly beelining rifling as Ottomans? The answer is no.....

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I have done both of those actually due to one reason: I hate ranged combat as is in the game (seriously now my trebuchet cant shoot above a forest?) and I usually start my wars when I have artillery. The UAs,UBs,UIs are not there to win the game for you or shape the game play by putting the CiV in a specific road. They are there as bonuses towards a certain path. If you decide to go down another road you dont need them but the game is such that you still have the same chances as the next civ (Babylon excluding )

And one more thing: Supposedly the era passes by and you fail to create you super Janissary army due to reason x and you have only advanced units and you are on Pangea (effectively the Ottomans have no UA,UU) so what do you do? Rage quit?

Ulthwithian said:

FYI, I know that. The 'nerf' is that combats 'take' longer to actually get to lower life, and therefore the UA doesn't seem to actually do as much.

However, if you have a Japanese unit with 1 HP in BNW, he's going to do at least as much damage as a 1HP Japanese unit in Vanilla. The granularity of the G&K combat change hurts it... very minorly, in most cases.

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IIRC G&K onwards damaged units receive less penalty so this indirectly nerfed Japan. Previously penalty was more severe so you had to retreat as non-Japan as they wouldn't do enough damage.

Ulthwithian said:

IF you put a Dojo in as Japan's UB, it should replace the Armory, not the Barracks, if you care at all about historical accuracy.

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I won't mind that change except that it would nerf Japan slightly.

Ulthwithian said:

Also, if there's a mod (particularly one as good as GEM) that has what you need, just play the mod? Dunno.

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Since BNW is released recently I will need to wait a bit for the mod to adapt to the new changes.

Ulthwithian said:

See above. And if you don't want to play the entire mod (as I certainly don't want to play with ALL of the mods of GEM, just extract the part of the mod you like as a separate mod and play that.

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I will definitely completely switch to the mod again once the major issues are sorted out (performance, big bugs). I still participate there on discussion forums though. If you have ideas regarding things you might want changed in GEM/BEM you can post there as well.

Babri said:

No it is not gone, you retain the promotions.

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The point is, if the UU's only benefit is bonus strength or movement, that's all lost on promotion.

Yes, longswords are marginalized by how quickly they're obsolesced.

Then again, I don't know what the heck a "longwordsman" unit is supposed to be. In both east and west, feudal era combat had foot infantry with some kind of pole arm (i.e. pikemen) and cavalry for anyone who had the luxury of fighting form a horse (i.e. knights). I'm sure there was occasionally some guy clomping around on foot in heavy armor with a two-handed sword, but there sure weren't enough to comprise an official unit.

The benefit of iron should really that it improves units in some way, rather than give rise to an iron-specific unit.

pilot00 said:

I have done both of those actually due to one reason: I hate ranged combat as is in the game (seriously now my trebuchet cant shoot above a forest?) and I usually start my wars when I have artillery. The UAs,UBs,UIs are not there to win the game for you or shape the game play by putting the CiV in a specific road. They are there as bonuses towards a certain path. If you decide to go down another road you dont need them but the game is such that you still have the same chances as the next civ (Babylon excluding )

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Yeah siege units without indirect fire is certainly annoying.

Rams are not ranged, and you are missing a great deal if you aren't building enough horse archers as Huns.

If you like to go down another path, why not choose a civ out of those 43 that are suitable for that path. And even if your plan 1 fails, you can still use most UUs for a bit different purpose. (Eg: Mongols K+K combo can also be used in a defensive war, rams can be useful in taking your city back, Baby's bows can be used both on offense & defense etc etc)

pilot00 said:

And one more thing: Supposedly the era passes by and you fail to create you super Janissary army due to reason x and you have only advanced units and you are on Pangea (effectively the Ottomans have no UA,UU) so what do you do? Rage quit?

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Then that is your fault in not planning your game accordingly or perhaps a very unlucky role (eg: No iron as Rome on your continent). Still an unlucky game once in a while is fun, that is not the case with Japan as tech tree is the same & Samurais would quickly get useless in every game as there is no point to delay gunpowder). Same holds true for Beserks which suck even more than Samurai in their current state.

steveg700 said:

The point is, if the UU's only benefit is bonus strength or movement, that's all lost on promotion.

Yes, longswords are marginalized by how quickly they're obsolesced.

Then again, I don't know what the heck a "longwordsman" unit is supposed to be. In both east and west, feudal era combat had foot infantry with some kind of pole arm (i.e. pikemen) and cavalry for anyone who had the luxury of fighting form a horse (i.e. knights).

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Here is the problem. Most UUs which have mainly strength/movement bonus stick for a while. The only exception that comes to my mind is Berserks. Look at Companions, Legions, Carthage Elephants... Before anyone points out bowmen also get obsolete quickly but they are very strong because they are very early & almost as strong as composites.

So let me summarize:-

Units with bonus lost on upgrading:-

Generally strong, don't get obsolete quickly (legions, companions). Those that get obsolete quickly make that up with being extra powerful (bowmen). Exception:- Berserks

Units with sticky promotions:-
Powerful/modest promotions that give you an overall advantage throughout the game even if the unit is unappealing itself. Exception :- Samurai, as those promotions are not very flavoured or powerful, nor has Samurai any strength/move bonuses. And they get obsolete quickly. Another exception is Maori warriors.

And I liked the original idea in ciV that LS & muskets were 2 different units. LS stronger but resource, muskets weaker & no resource. That actually made Samurais strong as they would be around for longer.

The Samurai is a very good UU, they get two promotions that they retain which is both good in game and also represents the Japanese history professional armies in that with the two free promotions you are more likely upgrade them into the next tiers of units on their trees, compare that with the Greek companions, Byzantine Cataphract, Roman Legion, ect. that don't receive bonus promotions and hence are not nearly as useful to upgrade.

I think people just want certain Civs to either have high powered buzz saw UUs and or UB and UA that are super productive and always active, and while that's fine if every Civ had that, but the game and most civs were not designed that way, outside of some UUs like Impi, Janissaries, Keshiks, Siege towers, or battering rams most UUs are not absolute killing machines but slightly buffed normal units. And the UA and UB are normally pretty modest and if they are better then modest the UU they have is generally not that good to make up it.

So my reminder would be balance .

leadtothehead said:

The Samurai is a very good UU, they get two promotions that they retain which is both good in game and also represents the Japanese history professional armies in that with the two free promotions you are more likely upgrade them into the next tiers of units on their trees, compare that with the Greek companions, Byzantine Cataphract, Roman Legion, ect. that don't receive bonus promotions and hence are not nearly as useful to upgrade.

I think people just want certain Civs to either have high powered buzz saw UUs and or UB and UA that are super productive and always active, and while that's fine if every Civ had that, but the game and most civs were not designed that way, outside of some UUs like Impi, Janissaries, Keshiks, Siege towers, or battering rams most UUs are not absolute killing machines but slightly buffed normal units. And the UA and UB are normally pretty modest and if they are better then modest the UU they have is generally not that good to make up it.

So my reminder would be balance .

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Check my above posts.
a) Samurai get obsoleted quickly.
b) Promotions are kind of meh when compared to good UUs.
c) The rest of the civ is weak as well. If the rest was strong we would not be here complaining about Samurais.
d) Legions, CC etc don't carry over but they last longer, come earlier & thus play more important role in the game.
e) Rome & Greece UA > Japan nerfed UA.

I agree with the bolded part but as I said earlier Japan is also as a whole on the weak side. Look at 0 for example. People don't complain about slingers because rest of the civ uniques are strong, that is not the case with Japan. Samurai has to be strong to make up for it or other option is Zero being replaced by something like dojo or UA overhauled to make Japan overall likeable.

Babri said:

Check my above posts.
a) Samurai get obsoleted quickly.

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Sure they do but that goes for the other longsword replacement the Danes Berserker, the difference is while the Berserker is a better unit due to the added movement and synergy with the Danish UA it loses the movement on upgrade retaining only the amphibious promotion, the Samurai while weaker then the Berserker get two promotions which are retained.

b) Promotions are kind of meh when compared to good UUs.

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True only the great general is even abit unique given a few other civs have very similar traits or promotions, however just because shock is a base promotion it still builds towards that units progression towards blitz and march two very good late promotions.

c) The rest of the civ is weak as well. If the rest was strong we would not be here complaining about Samurais.

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Maybe a slight buff is in order but I think its more a case of the certain top civs being overpowered more then the Japanese are underpowered.

d) Legions, CC etc don't carry over but they last longer, come earlier & thus play more important role in the game.

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I understand the point but maybe its more a function of the tech tree then it is of the UUs themselves.

e) Rome & Greece UA > Japan nerfed UA.

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I agree both Roman and Greek UAs are better then Japans, however there are other Civs with weak UAs.

I agree with the bolded part but as I said earlier Japan is also as a whole on the weak side. Look at 0 for example. People don't complain about slingers because rest of the civ uniques are strong, that is not the case with Japan. Samurai has to be strong to make up for it or other option is Zero being replaced by something like dojo or UA overhauled to make Japan overall likeable.

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Perhaps the solution is simply a rework of the Bushido UA, my issue is i really like the idea of the Japanese having resistance to ideological pressure but i also like the idea of a UA increasing the Japanese combat effectiveness, something like.

+10% attack bonus and -25% Tourism from other civilizations.

But that with Samurai and the Zero seems too much to me balance purposes.

steveg700 said:

Then again, I don't know what the heck a "longwordsman" unit is supposed to be. In both east and west, feudal era combat had foot infantry with some kind of pole arm (i.e. pikemen) and cavalry for anyone who had the luxury of fighting form a horse (i.e. knights). I'm sure there was occasionally some guy clomping around on foot in heavy armor with a two-handed sword, but there sure weren't enough to comprise an official unit.

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Probably medieval heavy infantry, aka knights (as in, the social class that could afford better stuff) on foot.

They should really come around similar timing as pikes as pikes represent progression in formation and drills, with longswords representing technological. Maybe they should come out with Metal Casting but at weakened state (like -20% debuff) that gets removed with research of Steel.

My thoughts on Japan.

Bushido- I honestly see nothing wrong here. This is in my opinion one of the best warmongering unique abilities in the game. I would argue any day that bushido as an ability is better than any of the art of war, furor teutonicus or mongol terror. I really don't see the need to change this ability.

However, there are changes that need to be made in order to allow this ability to be fully taken advantage of, for right now I feel it is very hard to use to its full potential.

Samurai- This is an absolute icon of Japan, the first thing that will come to many's minds when thinking about Japan. The unique unit should remain the samurai, but I do not like the samurai how it is. Longswordsmen are kind of dubious in my opinion, considering gunpowder is attainable SO quickly after you discover steel. Every game I have played, I more or less beeline steel, yet by the time I have a decent army of samurais, all of the AIs have musketmen and castles in their cities, completely eliminating the chance of a samurai army doing any good. One change that I think could be very beneficial is changing the samurai to a unique swordsman replacement. Iron working rushes are incredibly effective and ferocious strategies for civs like Rome, the Iroquois and the Danes because they have unique swordsmen replacements that will dominate the battlefield for an entire era, not get shoved on the backburner by musketmen in a matter of turns.. Now granted, there are A LOT of swordsman improvements and hardly any other longswordsman improvements, but there are probably just as many musketman improvements too. I'm sure they could find someway to make the samurai a unique replacement for the swordsman. Moving the samurai to the swordsman would allow Japan to get a formidable army out much earlier and let their samurais dominate the battlefield for plenty long to destroy your neighbors. If they can't do this, then at the very least I think the samurai as a longswordsman should cost a good deal less to build because you would need a ton of them.


Zeros- I won't really be upset if we see these go. As much as I want Japan to remain a military oriented civ, I am open to a different unique unit or even a building or such. I would actually be quite pleased to see even those unique fort replacements that Japan gets in the Samurai Invasion of Korea scenario (of course not AS powerful as those ones are, like no troops magically appearing at them).


In conclusion, bushido is a very unique and very strong ability. If they want to keep that and add on to it, I would be fine with that, although I don't think that is necessary. I have seen many people who want the cultural and religious side of Japan to be expressed in their uniques, but I for one believe that if you want to play culture based Asian civs, you can go to the Siamese or Korea. I want Japan to remain a war oriented civ- just not the way they are right now. Whatever happens, I support the fantastic work the designers have done and will continue to do, I just hope they do decide to look at changing Japan as well as Germany, two countries that I love only a tad bit less than my own.

Whatever the changes to Japan - lots of good ideas here - I hope they can become a civ the AI can use offensively. There are so few of those and Japan would be a good one.

I don't get why the Samurai is bad. The promos carrying over essentially means that at that point in time, Japanese have two UUs: LSM and Musket, and they can choose how to build the Muskets (with hammers or by defraying hammer cost with gold). The Japanese promo is absolutely not bland. It allows you to create an army mix containing Cover2, Siege, and Medic2 melee units, which is only matched by America's Minutemen. This is a unique army composition advantage that cannot be matched by any other civ. What's bland about it?

moving the discovery of iron makes planning for samurai easier but not enough to declare them 'just fine' imo. the game's iterations have changed some perceptions enough that theyd need a buff if they are to compete for game enjoyment vs other civs and their abilities.

and i dont think the samurai is bad at all. it's just the place of longswords in the tech tree and the relative time to use them in a standard pace game. any tech that is one of the 'last' ones to tech is it's own problem, so having your UU in there is just an unfortunate handicap. this goes to conventional game wisdom and 'optimal' strategies--that isnt to say its useless, just sub-optimal. i cant speak enough to BNW yet to know how much those changed from GnK but Japan didnt seem to really benefit aside from discovering Iron earlier.

Xichael said:

Bushido isn't only a military philosophy, much like Chivalry it applied to social situations as well. Perhaps keep the combat bonus in the UA but give them some sort of culture/production buff as well.

Drop the Zero, give them a damn UB. There is a current Japanese mod that changes the Zero to a UB called the Dojo which replaces the Barracks, provides more XP to land units and gives 2 culture. I thought that was kind of neat. What Japan really needs though is a workshop unique, since Japan was still a nation of artificers when Westerners were already working with replaceable parts. Perhaps give it a bonus to Great Engineer points?



No, kill the Zero with fire. It's an insult to Japanese history and nobody uses fighters anyways.

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This +1

If you think Japan is underpowered use the Japan Enhanced mod. The Dojo is useful for most of the entire game and is especially powerful in the Classical era because newly trained units get 2 upgrades right off the bat. This is worth using even if you don't play as Japan. If you play against Japan at least they will be a bit more of a challenge.

Historical NOTE: The British Spitfire, American P51 Mustang, and Russian Mig-3 were arguably superior to the Zero so justifying it as Japan's UU was really a stretch on Firaxis' part.

Just give them a ninja or geisha unit.

Bushido and Samurai are indispensable. They go hand in hand with Japan. In fact the word itself carries the connotation of Samurai.

Ninjas can be like another type of spy except you can use it to kill civilians or something.
Geishas idk.

Hammer Rabbi said:

moving the discovery of iron makes planning for samurai easier but not enough to declare them 'just fine' imo. the game's iterations have changed some perceptions enough that theyd need a buff if they are to compete for game enjoyment vs other civs and their abilities.

and i dont think the samurai is bad at all. it's just the place of longswords in the tech tree and the relative time to use them in a standard pace game. any tech that is one of the 'last' ones to tech is it's own problem, so having your UU in there is just an unfortunate handicap. this goes to conventional game wisdom and 'optimal' strategies--that isnt to say its useless, just sub-optimal. i cant speak enough to BNW yet to know how much those changed from GnK but Japan didnt seem to really benefit aside from discovering Iron earlier.

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I find it often difficult to accept the "conventional game wisdom" around here because so much of it is only applicable at high difficulty or Pangaea settings, each of which warps the game in its own way. For starters, the luxury sale issue really only starts becoming an issue Emperor up. The change in BNW doesn't affect lower diff settings much at all.

So "optimal" is often short for "optimal at high difficulty settings with particular assumptions," most of which I don't accept because I don't like playing the game that way. Too game-y.

Often, too, "optimal" strategists and groupies refuse to accept any other supposition or even try to make something workable other than pursuing the same strat and tech path over and over and over again. How that's fun I can't understand, but once again, it wouldn't apply to how I play.

In this instance, I have to question the general disparagement of the Samurai as it actually takes a fairly long time to obsolete. It doesn't obsolete at Gunpowder, you see. It obsoletes at Metallurgy, which is a ways off. Having Samurai as a UU and the way its properties work means that both your LSM and your Musketmen are upgraded. That's a significant advantage for the Samurai, not shared by UUs in general, and definitely not by the Berserker, whose main traits are not carried over. There's a very strong incentive to keep making Samurai even when you have Gunpowder. In fact, I can't imagine why a Japan player would ever want to hard-build a Musketman at all.

I cannot see why this is such a disadvantage such that Samurai are at all suboptimal. I mean, looking at the tech situation, Steel is directly available once you get Physics for Trebuchets and Notre Dame. I actually sometimes tech Crossbows after LSM (I want Armories), and I find that they're generally superfluous for taking cities once I have LSM+Trebuchet combination, and the latter composition advances better into later wars as Riflemen and Artillery.

Chiatroll said:

Personally I hope whatever change they make doesn't change them from being combat orientated. Maybe a they could replace the zero with something cool.

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Why do that when they could just make Zeros better?

edit: For the rest of you Saying Samauris 'suck', the same thing applies. Don't replace the Samauri with something else, just give it more of a boost.