[Vote] (5-19) Japan Adjustment Proposals

pineappledan · Jul 3, 2023

Current bonuses on Japan:
Shogunate:
When a GGeneral or GAdmiral is born, gain 50% completion towards the next Great Artist/Writer/Musician in your capital
+1 :c5culture:

and

to all military training and defensive buildings

10 buildings are boosted by the UA:

Military training: Barracks, Armory, Military Academy
Mainline Defensive Buildings: Wall, Castle, Bastion, Arsenal, Military Base
Extra Defensive buildings: Minefield, SDF

Dojo
5

2 flat supply in city
25XP to all units trained in city
All Melee/Gun and naval melee units gain Bushido promotion (10HP on kill, fight better damaged, 1 of 8 randomly-picked extra bonus)
Gain :c5culture:

in this city when a unit built here gains a level (gains yields equal to 4 * (X-1)^2, where X is the new level gained)

Proposal 5-19
Author: Pineappledan

Spoiler :

1. Reduce the buildings boosted by the UA from 10 to only the 5 Mainline Defensive Buildings: Wall, Castle, Bastion, Arsenal, Military Base
2. Remove Bushido promotion from naval melee

Spoiler Reasoning :

According to both player and AI test feedback, Japan too strong right now.
- They have a flexible and powerful kit that gives well-rounded yields
- Their playstyle facilitates clean transition between domination, culture and science victory focuses late game, and they have a safe early game too.
They are too safe at founding.
- This is because
The +1on 10 buildings is too big
- they get an early 2 in all cities. This is enough to give a major leg up on the competition.
- This bonus continues to scale up to 10 in all cities, which is very substantial
- This is a really, REALLY boring bonus. Even if it were a policy it would be lame, but it's a UA. It takes up too much oxygen for how lame it is.
Bushido shouldn't be on boats
- Balance:
  - This bonus is contributing Japan's power at sea. The Bushido promotion bonuses are better on boats than they are on land units
  - Human players have reported making great use of it, especially in combination with Authority's 15 HP on kill. heal on kills is really good on boats, because they can't heal outside friendly lands normally.
  - Fight better damaged is another thing that works really well on ships that can't heal anyways. If you can't heal up, you may as well hit harder
- Update history: This is the most recent buff given to Japan. Last hired, first fired. They were doing well before this, they certainly don't need it.
- Design overlap:
  - This forces an overlap between Japan and Denmark. Denmark is the civ with bonuses to land/sea melee already.
  - Imperialism also gives melee boats fight better damaged, and the two bonuses don't overlap. Japan's bonus partially overwrites a policy bonus
- Historicity: Giving Japan a naval melee bonus is bad history flavor.
  - This was added because the Japanese did boarding actions as their main naval tactic during the Mongol invasions. Japan's boarding actions were extremely minor in that war. Not noteworthy, much less decisive. The first Mongol invasion died in a storm with no engagement whatsoever, and the second was turned back in a land battle, and then they lost their invasion again due to weather. The Mongols chained their boats together to counter possible Japanese boarding actions, but that mainly made the storms worse. The Japanese can't take credit for that.
  - Also cited was the Imjin War, and this is where the idea gets a bit silly. The Japanese were SLAUGHTERED because of their dependence on boarding actions in that war. They lost almost every naval engagement in that war against better-made Korean ships that emphasized cannons. In 1 engagement, the Japanese lost more than 200 vessels against 16 Korean Panokseon Frigates. The Koreans didn't lose a single ship. The Koreans created their own anti-boarding ship, which is a UU in the game already: The Turtle ship. These ships completely countered the Japanese. The Koreans never lost a single battle where a Turtle Ship was engaged, and they didn't lose a single one in the entire war. The Imjin war can be summed up as follows: Japan invades and quickly wins the land war and conquers all of Korea, but then fails to protect their ocean supply lines, causing their occupation to collapse against partisans and guerilla remnants. And we want to highlight this atrocious failure as a UB ability? How is a historic naval humiliation supposed to be the basis for a bonus?
  - The Japanese naval presence was not normally composed of warrior-poet bushido-following Samurai boat boys. They were a rabble; thieves and peasants with rowboats and guns. Oda Nobunaga's "Admiral" was a pirate. Japan only professionalized its navy with the Meiji reforms in the 19th century, and they won their greatest victories with long distance shelling. Ranged Naval. And after that they were at the forefront of the Aircraft Carrier revolution. Their preceding time spent depending on naval melee engagements were marked by Japan's amateurism, defeat, disgrace, and isolation.
  - Japanese shipbuilding was awful. Half the reason the Japanese were so dependent on boarding actions was because their ships were so flimsy they couldn't handle the weight or recoil of cannons. They build massive floating fortresses called Atakebune, and they weren't seaworthy at all. Then for the next 300 years, building large combat-worthy ships was outright banned by the Bakufu.

Counterproposal 5-19a
Discussion Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/5-cp-counterproposal-japan-tweaks.684435/
Author: Legen

Spoiler :

Counterproposal 5-19b
Discussion Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/5-cp-counterproposal-japan-nerf.684566/
Author: Azum4roll

Spoiler :

Legen · Jul 5, 2023

There are many flaws in your reasoning:

pineappledan said:
According to both player and AI test feedback, Japan too strong right now.

The AI feedback pointed out that Japan's performance is volatile with AI difficulty. Between Emperor and Warlord, Japan had the largest rank variation (3rd and 36th, respectively) among the civs, indicating that AI Japan's performance has more to do with its interactions with handicaps than with its kit. And, as far as I'm aware, human feedback has been varied on how strong Japan is.

pineappledan said:
Their playstyle facilitates clean transition between domination, culture and science victory focuses late game,

Only for high difficulty AI. Human players and lower difficulty AIs are not going to get the strong scientific conversion you're stating. The Dojo's yields on leveling mechanic scales exponentially and has a prior case of letting Japan get 10 techs or more ahead of everyone in Deity, but not in human hands, when Japan's UA was undergoing experimentation with it. I think you're greatly underestimating the gap that this mechanic has between human, AI and difficulty settings.

pineappledan said:
Bushido shouldn't be on boats

Balance:

This bonus is contributing Japan's power at sea. The Bushido promotion bonuses are better on boats than they are on land units

Human players have reported making great use of it, especially in combination with Authority's 15 HP on kill. heal on kills is really good on boats, because they can't heal outside friendly lands normally.

Fight better damaged is another thing that works really well on ships that can't heal anyways. If you can't heal up, you may as well hit harder

Update history: This is the most recent buff given to Japan. Last hired, first fired. They were doing well before this, they certainly don't need it.

Design overlap:

This forces an overlap between Japan and Denmark. Denmark is the civ with bonuses to land/sea melee already.

Imperialism also gives melee boats fight better damaged, and the two bonuses don't overlap. Japan's bonus partially overwrites a policy bonus

Bushido was already on boats back in BNW, with ships fighting at full strength when wounded, and early VP versions had Japanese melee boats also being able to set fishing boat improvements. This civ already had a long history of playing as a hybrid land/naval melee focused civ, and there's nothing wrong with reviving that theme. Especially if doing so connects an otherwise isolated part of the civ's design.

Denmark doesn't have a monopoly on it; they originally didn't have a bonus to any naval units in the first place. It was purely to embarked units, and melee units not having a movement cost to pillage. The addition of naval melee was on VP and both civs gravitated towards the melee land/naval focus, with variations from time to time.

Also, the warring style of both civs have very different focuses and don't share any mechanic; the only thing they share is the melee land/naval theme. This is not like the France/Japan discussion of both using the same 50% GWAM progress mechanic alongside the same cultural/militaristic hybrid theme, Denmark and Japan actually have no common mechanic between their kits.

Of note about Imperialism was how that bonus was suggested to be named "Banzai", in reference to Japan, after the bonus got changed from "Ironsides to naval units" to its current effect. If the overlap is a major issue, why not revert the policy back to giving Ironsides?

pineappledan said:
The Mongols chained their boats together to counter possible Japanese boarding actions, but that mainly made the storms worse. The Japanese can't take credit for that.

The Mongols had already felt how catastrophic a typhoon could be for their fleet in the first invasion, yet, they still opted to chain their fleet in the second invasion. They knew it could magnify their casualties in case of another typhoon. If they preferred to take risks with a typhoon over being boarded by the Japanese, then we have an indication that the latter was actually a major deal.

pineappledan said:
Also cited was the Imjin War, and this is where the idea gets a bit silly. The Japanese were SLAUGHTERED because of their dependence on boarding actions in that war. They lost almost every naval engagement in that war against better-made Korean ships that emphasized cannons. In 1 engagement, the Japanese lost more than 200 vessels against 16 Korean Panokseon Frigates. The Koreans didn't lose a single ship. The Koreans created their own anti-boarding ship, which is a UU in the game already: The Turtle ship. These ships completely countered the Japanese. The Koreans never lost a single battle where a Turtle Ship was engaged, and they didn't lose a single one in the entire war. The Imjin war can be summed up as follows: Japan invades and quickly wins the land war and conquers all of Korea, but then fails to protect their ocean supply lines, causing their occupation to collapse against partisans and guerilla remnants. And we want to highlight this atrocious failure as a UB ability? How is a historic naval humiliation supposed to be the basis for a bonus?

The Japanese naval presence was not normally composed of warrior-poet bushido-following Samurai boat boys. They were a rabble; thieves and peasants with rowboats and guns. Oda Nobunaga's "Admiral" was a pirate. Japan only professionalized its navy with the Meiji reforms in the 19th century, and they won their greatest victories with long distance shelling. Ranged Naval. And after that they were at the forefront of the Aircraft Carrier revolution. Their preceding time spent depending on naval melee engagements were marked by Japan's amateurism, defeat, disgrace, and isolation.

Japanese shipbuilding was awful. Half the reason the Japanese were so dependent on boarding actions was because their ships were so flimsy they couldn't handle the weight or recoil of cannons. They build massive floating fortresses called Atakebune, and they weren't seaworthy at all. Then for the next 300 years, building large combat-worthy ships was outright banned by the Bakufu.

You're greatly downplaying the importance of Yi Sun-sin in the war.

The most notable counter to your argument is the Battle of Chilcheollyang. At the time, the Korean king was of the same opinion as you that the Japanese fleet was more of a rabble and became distraught when Yi refused to obey the king's orders to attack. Yi's refusal was based on tactical concerns, but his insubordination nonetheless led to the king ordering Yi to be imprisoned, tortured and almost executed. Meanwhile, the whole Korean fleet was to be commanded by Won Gyun, who obeyed the order. Despite having the same ships and personnel as Yi had, commanding the fleet at the height of its strength and already having fought alongside Yi in this war, he suffered a crushing defeat; from up to 200 ships, only 12 or 13 survived due to them fleeing just before the battle began. The rest of the Korean fleet was quickly approached, boarded and slaughtered by the Japanese fleet, with the Koreans not getting a chance to fire their cannons. Meanwhile, the Japanese suffered minimal losses. There, the Koreans lost proportionally far more of their fleet (near total annihilation) in a single battle than what the Japanese lost over the entire war.

This defeat served as a reality check for the Korean court, and later historians, of the strength of the two fleets. The naval technology the Koreans possessed proved to be neither decisive nor dominant, and the Japanese fleet proved to be a formidable threat on its own right, and actually advantaged over the Korean fleet. In the end, the core factor behind the Korean victories is attributed entirely to Yi's genius; the king recognized that and quickly reinstated Yi back after hearing news of the defeat, despite just nearly executing him.

Also, unlike what you stated, the Korean lost all their Turtle Ships in this battle, with those being unable to inflict any serious casualty to the Japanese ships. Without Yi's command, even the ship that specialized at countering the Japanese tactics was sunk without accomplishing anything in this battle.

Of note is that Yi would only allow melee confrontations against a Japanese ship if it was severely damaged. He understood well that the successes of the samurai at land were reflective of how dangerous they can be in a melee confrontation at sea, and tailored his tactics specifically to prevent that. This insight is what the bonus on melee ships is based on.

pineappledan · Jul 6, 2023

Legen said:
Of note about Imperialism was how that bonus was suggested to be named "Banzai", in reference to Japan, after the bonus got changed from "Ironsides to naval units" to its current effect. If the overlap is a major issue, why not revert the policy back to giving Ironsides?

The ability gave fight better damaged when it was called Ironsides. The Banzai name was only changed last session when it was copied onto planes. So changing it back to ironsides wouldn't resolve the overlap.

Legen · Jul 9, 2023

Ironsides used to be a :c5strength:

CS bonus when defending (20% iirc), it changed at some point to give Tenacity (fight with additional strength when wounded) to ships instead. I was referring to change back to that promotion.

pineappledan · Jul 9, 2023

Ironsides gave tenacity for longer than bushido has been on boats. To avoid this overlap, the change to bushido could have involved a change to Ironsides. Imperialism is not the one under scrutiny here, and it’s just one among many other reasons the bushido on boats should be removed.

Irrespective of who led the Korean navy in the Imjin War, Japan still lost badly. Their pitiful performance in that war remains weak as a reason for Japan to have a bonus to naval warfare. If anything, it would serve as justification for some sort of naval penalty. It’s comparable to giving America a war weariness bonus in light of the Vietnam War.

Legen · Jul 9, 2023

pineappledan said:
Ironsides gave tenacity for longer than bushido has been on boats. To avoid this overlap, the change to bushido could have involved a change to Ironsides. Imperialism is not the one under scrutiny here, and it’s just one among many other reasons the bushido on boats should be removed.

Bushido has existed longer than the current Imperialism finisher, and Japanese boats being tough even when wounded has been a thing since Vanilla (not even BNW).

pineappledan said:
Irrespective of who led the Korean navy in the Imjin War, Japan still lost badly.

Actually, Japan is the victor of that war. There are two points of consideration for Japan to be the victor: the peace treaty and the aftermath for the involved factions.

The peace treaty was actually favorable to Japan, and humiliating for Korea. Thing is, the war didn't automatically end in 1598, when Hideyoshi died and the fighting forces were recalled back by the new administration. Both sides remained in a state of war at least until 1608, and the final peace treaty was signed on 1615. There's a western description from 1874 of that treaty by a French missionary:

Spoiler Excerpt from the original text :

En 1592, ce prince, aussi grand guerrier qu’habile politique, envoya une armée de deux cent mille hommes en Corée. Son plan était de frayer une voie à l’envahissement de la Chine. En vain les Chinois accoururent au secours des Coréens contre l’ennemi commun, ils furent battus en plusieurs rencontres ; et les trois quarts de la Corée tombèrent au pouvoir des Japonais qui, probablement, seraient demeurés maîtres de tout le pays, si la mort de Taïko-Sama, en 1598, n’avait forcé ses troupes h retourner au Japon en abandonnant leur conquête. En 1615, à la chute de la famille de Taïko-Sama, le chef de la dynastie actuelle du Japon signa définitivement la paix avec les Coréens. Les conditions en étaient très-dures et très-humiliantes pour ces derniers, car ils devaient payer chaque année un tribut de trente peaux humaines. Après quelques années, cet impôt barbare fut changé en une redevance annuelle d’argent, de riz, de toiles, de gen-seng, etc., etc. En outre, les Japonais gardèrent la propriété du port de Fousan-kaï, sur la côte sud-est de la Corée, et ils en sont encore aujourd’hui les maîtres. Ce point important est occupé par une colonie de trois ou quatre cents soldats et ouvriers, qui n’ont aucune relation avec l’intérieur du pays, et ne peuvent faire de commerce avec les Coréens qu'une ou deux lois par mois, pendant quelques heures. Fousan-kaï est sous l’autorité du prince de Tsou-tsima (1). Jusqu’en \ 790, le roi de Corée était obligé d’envoyer une ambassade extraordinaire au Japon pour notifier son avènement, et une autre tous les dix ans pour payer le tribut. Depuis cette époque, les ambassades ne vont qu’à Tsou-tsima, ce qui demande beaucoup moins de pompe et de dépenses.

(1) La possession de Fousan-kaï par les Japonais est un témoignage permanent de la défaite des Coréens, et leur orgueil national en est vivement blessé. Aussi, leurs histoires ont-elles grand soin de passer sous silence les faits dont nous venons de parler et de les remplacer par des légendes ridicules. Voici, par exemple, comment les notes explicatives d'une carte coréenne rendent compte de la présence des étrangers sur le sol de la Corée.

Spoiler Machine translation by DeepL :

(If a French national can check the translation's accuracy, regardless of the result, I'd be thankful)

An important reason for such treaty comes from how devastating it was to keep a Ming contingent in Korean lands. For the Koreans, they found that the Ming army behaved no better than an invading force; the supplies sent by the Ming empire were not enough to sustain that force and Korea was expected to contribute to its maintenance, which was beyond the capabilities of the Korean infrastructure. As such, many locals had to be displaced and ended impoverished. Moreover, both the Ming and the Joseon armies would turn against the local population at times under suspicion that collaborators with the Japanese were among the locals. As such, the Korean king was under great stress to end the state of war as soon as possible, which the Tokugawa administration would accept only under favorable terms for Japan and was in no hurry to sign.

The other point of consideration, the aftermath, is about how Japan prospered from the war, while both the Ming and Korea were crippled by it. For Japan, they annexed a port region, turned Korea into a tributary state and benefitted from the skilled workforce they brought from Korea, which aided their cultural development in the next decades. For the Ming, having to maintain an army abroad for over 20 years left them bankrupt and prevented them from keeping the Manchurian tribes in check. This paved the way for them to be conquered by the Manchus and replaced by the Qing dynasty. For Korea, their land was devastated by the presence of foreign armies over a bit more than 20 years, with both the state and the population greatly impoverished, many of their skilled labor force taken to Japan and, consequently, a great regression of their cultural and scientific development. Moreover, as a consequence of the Ming's fall, Korea was also attacked later by the Manchus, who went to impose Korea to be a tributary state of the newly formed Qing dynasty.

The interpretation that the Imjin War is a Korean victory is very recent and considers only Hideyoshi's original goal as the criteria for a Japanese victory. By conventional standards, and Tokugawa's goals, Japan was the recognized victor by the involved and observing parties, and in terms of the outcome that derived from it.

Anarcomu · Jul 9, 2023

I can confirm, translation is good.

pineappledan · Jul 9, 2023

As an invasion the Imjin War was a failure for Japan and a Pyhrric victory for Korea, in that they managed to survive. Japan came out of the ordeal the least worse off of all parties involved, but they did fail in all of their objectives, and their greatest failures were specifically at sea, which is what is at issue here.

Legen · Jul 9, 2023

pineappledan said:
As an invasion the Imjin War was a failure for Japan and a Pyhrric victory for Korea, in that they managed to survive. Japan came out of the ordeal the least worse off of all parties involved, but they did fail in all of their objectives

Was it? Remember that, in 1598, the war was at a stalemate, with part of Korea occupied and the Japanese advance being halted mainly due to compromised supply lines preventing them from consolidating their conquests. Japan wasn't losing the war at that point.

Hideyoshi's death changed Japan's objectives, as neither the Council of Five, nor the following Tokugawa's Shogunate, shared Hideyoshi's desire of conquering China. The recall of Japanese forces out of Korea was not due to them thinking they couldn't maintain it, but due to lack of interest. If the following administration wasn't interested in conquest in the first place, then saying Japan failed its objectives because they didn't conquer Korea doesn't make sense.

pineappledan said:
and their greatest failures were specifically at sea, which is what is at issue here.

And it was at sea where Japan got one of its most one-sided victories in the war. Even with Yi's genius, Korea was nonetheless far from achieving anything close to near total annihilation of the enemy fleet.

Arguing Japan should lose its naval bonuses due to them losing battles to Yi is like arguing Spain should lose its naval bonuses due to them losing battles to Nelson.

pineappledan · Jul 9, 2023

Legen said:
Remember that, in 1598, the war was at a stalemate, with part of Korea occupied and the Japanese advance being halted mainly due to compromised supply lines preventing them from consolidating their conquests.

Yes, that's literally what I said in my OP:

pineappledan said:
The Imjin war can be summed up as follows: Japan invades and quickly wins the land war and conquers all of Korea, but then fails to protect their ocean supply lines, causing their occupation to collapse against partisans and guerilla remnants.

They won the land war and lost the sea war. That was my entire point. You keep bringing up more and more extraneous facts, but the fact remains that the Japanese were incompetent at shipbuilding and naval combat in general until the Meiji Era.

I only brought up the Imjin war in the first place because it was specifically cited as a reason for them to have the bushido promotion ADDED a few months ago. I found the bonus unnecessary back then, and I find it only more so after the last round of discussions and test game results.

Legen · Jul 9, 2023

pineappledan said:
They won the land war and lost the sea war.

Yi won impressive battles against the Japanese fleet, but he was far from actually winning the sea war. It remained that Japan still had a massive fleet in 1598 and that Korea was actually the closest to losing the sea war after the Battle of Chilcheollyang. There, the king even considered disbanding the fleet and have the survivors just be part of the Korean infantry instead; it was Yi's determination that kept the navy of then 13 ships from being disbanded.

pineappledan said:
but the fact remains that the Japanese were incompetent at shipbuilding and naval combat in general until the Meiji Era.

Except that they weren't. Their ships were built with speed in mind, which is favored for boarding actions and required a lightweight build. And this design proved to be able to deliver a decisive blow when Yi was not present to command the fleet.

The focus on boarding actions isn't an exception of the Japanese either, it was the dominant tactic at the time not only in Asia, but in most of the world. The bonus on ships is meant to represent that they excelled at it due to their warriors' general performance in melee combat, not that they had some revolutionary ship design or naval doctrine.

pineappledan said:
I only brought up the Imjin war in the first place because it was specifically cited as a reason for them to have the bushido promotion ADDED a few months ago.

The justification was that Yi went to adopt the Turtle Ship design, which has a notable anti-boarding feature. This is indicative of the danger of Japanese boarding actions due to how prohibitively expensive this ship is estimated to have been at the time, at least as it is described to have been plated. If the threat of boarding actions wasn't out of ordinary, then it would have made a lot more sense to simply have ordered the construction of more of the regular ships instead, like the Panokseon. That he considered its anti-boarding feature a specially valuable asset for this war suggests that those boarding actions were, in fact, worth of note.

pineappledan · Jul 19, 2023

I can sponsor

BaldSamson · Jul 24, 2023

Please vote no to all of these. There are other ways to de-tune without fundamentally changing what is an interesting and fun civ to play. How the hell did we get here??

pineappledan · Jul 24, 2023

???

The only one of these that changes any mechanics is 24a. You described your own changes to Japan in the discussion thread, and they are far more ‘fundamental’ changes than what is proposed in 24 or 24b.

Anarcomu · Jul 24, 2023

And I would answer the same thing to anyone who ask others to vote no : it is not yours to decide alone, don't try to impose your vision of things to others

Zakuzelo · Jul 24, 2023

BaldSamson said:
Please vote no to all of these. There are other ways to de-tune without fundamentally changing what is an interesting and fun civ to play. How the hell did we get here??

Please don't. I don't want any of these passing either, changes to the defensive/military building bonus and bushido boat removal are both unnecessary and ineffective for what this proposal wants to accomplish, but just directly asking people to vote no is a terrible idea and more likely to get them to vote yes than anything else.

BaldSamson · Jul 24, 2023

pineappledan said:
???

The only one of these that changes any mechanics is 24a. You described your own changes to Japan in the discussion thread, and they are far more ‘fundamental’ changes than what is proposed in 24 or 24b.

On reflection, it was a lazy comment on my part as I was in a rush. I used the word fundamental, because I assumed changing the yields from leveling require changes to the DLL for 24a and 24b. I tried changing these years ago and wasn't able to, perhaps that has changed?

The second reason that I'm against these proposals is that I haven't reached a conclusion on bushido on naval units.
24 and 24b both remove these changes that are fairly recent. I'm not familiar with exactly when that change was made or the discussion that took place that brought that change into the game. However, I'm trying to give it a fair shake and rebalance with the assumption these changes were discussed and voted on by "the process".

In terms of my own balance changes, I realized after my last comment on the Japan thread that I don't have any way of turning off the yields for scouts, since I don't make changes to the DLL. So, I'm back to the drawing board. We at least seem to agree that defensive building bonuses are boring and overpowered. I believe that removing science from Dojo will normalize the higher level AI results, and having it available earlier is fun, which is an element we should be considering more often.

Anarcomu said:
And I would answer the same thing to anyone who ask others to vote no : it is not yours to decide alone, don't try to impose your vision of things to others

Who sounds like the autocrat here...? Silencing dissent.

Zakuzelo said:
Please don't. I don't want any of these passing either, changes to the defensive/military building bonus and bushido boat removal are both unnecessary and ineffective for what this proposal wants to accomplish, but just directly asking people to vote no is a terrible idea and more likely to get them to vote yes than anything else.

I've mentioned above that it was a lazy effort on my part, but I still don't understand the spirit of this comment. I did provide some rationale for why I thought it was a bad idea.

As far as I can tell this all spawned from Japan winning a few too many science victories?

pineappledan · Jul 24, 2023

BaldSamson said:
As far as I can tell this all spawned from Japan winning a few too many science victories?

It's more that Japan just wins a lot:

Spoiler AI test game results :

Japan closed out 350 AI test matches on the standard balancing settings with a 26% win rate. Games are played with 8 civs, so win rates should ideally be around 12.5% (green line).

There are 6 civs in S tier right now, with a big 5% gap in win rates separating them from everyone else. The other 6 civs in that grouping have all come under varying amounts of scrutiny. Austria has 5 different proposals for how to nerf her this congress as well. There has been at least some discussion on the forums and on discord about what to do with the other 4. It's not that Japan is being singled out, it's just that people really like Japan's kit, and are really worried about him being made less fun in the name of balance.

The science wins aren't a big deal. It's his 3rd-most common win type, and he has 2 different :c5science:

bonuses in his kit. Seems right to me. Brazil won almost as many games with SV as Japan did with even fewer SV bonuses, after all.

BaldSamson said:
I assumed changing the yields from leveling require changes to the DLL for 24a and 24b. I tried changing these years ago and wasn't able to, perhaps that has changed?

It does. The proposed change in 24b involves changing how the instant yields on levelling is calculated. Azum posted a comparison of the yields, and they are a modest downgrade compared to what they are now. It is a complex change that requires going 'under the hood', but the end result is just a number tweak.

BaldSamson said:
The second reason that I'm against these proposals is that I haven't reached a conclusion on bushido on naval units.

You can see it here. It didn't generate much discussion.
The Bushido promotions are much stronger on boats than they are on land, because boats don't have many ways to heal themselves outside friendly lands. So any ability that gives healing on boats has a large impact.

BaldSamson · Jul 24, 2023

pineappledan said:
It's not that Japan is being singled out, it's just that people really like Japan's kit, and are really worried about him being made less fun in the name of balance.

Yeah, fun matters!

pineappledan said:
The science wins aren't a big deal. It's his 3rd-most common win type, and he has 2 different bonuses in his kit. Seems right to me. Brazil won almost as many games with SV as Japan did with even fewer SV bonuses, after all.

If you remove the 4 SVs then the win rate might only be a little above the average. A nerf to science should also affect the other victory types as well.

Also, do you know if the proposed changes require changes to the DLL? A big part of my reaction is that I don't want to have to go through the trouble of setting up the environment for changing the DLL (which was hellish the last time I did it.. multiple versions of old MS .NET installers that required mysterious incantations). If I can make SQL changes to continue playing Japan the way it's been for years, then I'm less inclined to make a fuss.

pineappledan · Jul 24, 2023

BaldSamson said:
Maybe it's more clear when you are looking at the raw numbers, but from the graph you've provided : if you remove the SVs then the win rate might only be a little above the average. A nerf to science should also affect the other victory types.

Japan won 4 of its 58 games via SV (7% out of 26% win rate). If you deleted all their SVs they would be at 11 wins out of 54 games, or 20%, which would still put them in 7th place, ahead of Poland. That is a helpful demonstration of how big the gap is between this S tier and the rest.

But of course deleting all of Japan’s science bonuses wouldn’t just remove his SVs. It’s not that clean. Even Polynesia won an SV with no science bonuses. Also the yields on levelling is the thing I like the most about the civ, so I would much rather look for other things to remove. That’s why I’m mainly opposed to 24a, because it removes a fun and rewarding mechanic and replaces it by doubling down on the GG/GA birth ability. It deletes an entire mechanic and just piles more yields onto existing ones.

BaldSamson said:
Also, do you know if the proposed changes require changes to the DLL? A big part of my reaction is that I don't want to have to go through the trouble of setting up the environment for changing the DLL (which was hellish the last time I did it.. multiple versions of old MS .NET installers that required mysterious incantations). If I can make SQL changes to continue playing Japan the way it's been for years, then I'm less inclined to make a fuss

24 involves no dll at all.
24a is a big change that has entire new abilities that will require DLL coding
24b is basically the same as 24, but also includes a change to how Dojo’s levelling yields are calculated. It will work the exact same, and scale similarly, but the yield amounts will be lower overall.

Difficulty Setting	What does it do?	Settler	Chieftain	Warlord	Prince	King	Emperor	Immortal	Deity
AIStartingDefenseUnits	Extra Warriors (or era equivalent unit) at game start	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1
StartingMinorDefenseUnits	Extra Warriors (or era equivalent unit) at game start for City-States	0	0	1	1	2	2	3	3
AIWorkRateModifier	Workers complete improvements x% faster	+0%	+0%	+0%	+25%	+35%	+50%	+60%	+70%
AIUnhappinessPercent	% modifier to Unhappiness from Needs	+10%	+5%	-0%	-0%	-0%	-0%	-0%	-0%
AIUnitCostPercent	Discount on unit maintenance	100%	100%	100%	90%	85%	80%	75%	70%
AIBuildingCostPercent	Discount on building maintenance	100%	100%	100%	90%	85%	80%	75%	70%
AIUnitUpgradePercent	Discount on unit upgrade cost	100%	100%	100%	90%	80%	70%	60%	50%
AITrainPercent	Modifier to combat unit production cost	110%	105%	100%	90%	85%	80%	75%	70%
AIConstructPercent	Modifier to building production cost	110%	105%	100%	90%	85%	80%	75%	70%
AIPerEraModifier	Additional reduction to building and combat unit production costs (multiplicative) for each game era that passes	-0%	-0%	-0%	-4%	-6%	-8%	-9%	-10%
AICivilianPercent (new)	Modifier to production cost for non-combat units	110%	105%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
AICreatePercent AIWorldCreatePercent AIWorldConstructPercent	Modifiers to production cost for Projects, World Wonders and World Congress Projects	110%	105%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
AIFreeXP	Free XP given to units (except starting pathfinder), scaling with game speed	0	0	0	10	15	20	25	30
AIFreeXPPercent	% increase to XP gain from combat	+0%	+0%	+0%	+20%	+40%	+60%	+80%	+100%
VisionBonus	Extra sight for AI units (except scouting and trade units) in # of tiles	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
AIResistanceCap (new)	Maximum anti-warmonger fervor AGAINST the AI	64%	48%	32%	40%	50%	50%	50%	50%
AIBarbarianBonus	AI Bonus VS Barbarians	0%	10%	20%	20%	25%	25%	30%	30%
DifficultyBonusBase	See AI Periodic Yield Bonuses, below	0	0	0	4	7	10	12	14
DifficultyBonusA	See below	0	0	0	320	335	350	360	375
DifficultyBonusB	See below	0	0	0	190	210	230	240	260
DifficultyBonusC	See below	0	0	0	100	123	145	160	180

Level/XP	Current Dojo Total Yields	Proposed Dojo Total Yields = XP Gained
3/30	5	N/A
4/60	21	20
5/100	57	60
6/150	121	110
7/210	221	170

Level/XP	Current Dojo Total Yields	Proposed Dojo Total Yields = XP Gained
3/30	N/A	N/A
4/60	21	0
5/100	57	40
6/150	121	90
7/210	221	150

[Vote] (5-19) Japan Adjustment Proposals

Approval Vote for Proposal #19

Yea to (5-19)

Yea to (5-19a)

Yea to (5-19b)

Nay

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

King

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Chieftain

Deity

King

Warlord

Chieftain

Deity

Chieftain

Deity

Similar threads