[R&F] Civ of the Week: Japan

[Archon_Wing]

Eh, Japan's alright, but never really too much of a fan. They've gotten better since Rise and Fall since adjacency bonuses matter more, but I feel they're still too dependent on their map spawn, ie getting a combat bonus on the coast with no coastal bias but they're not good at low housing (or amenity starts) because you won't be able to take advantage of Meiji Restoration. And then the Samurai.... I think it's nice they get to guarantee use of Great Generals even if you should lack resources. And their harbors are very strong, so that makes them like England. Except actually useful. The simplest trick is probably to have triangles of theater and campus. And maybe commercial hubs if you need gold.

But yea, packing those districts together. Had to sacrifice some hills though. I actually have like no production here, but that's overrated anyways (plus getting it from the Golden Age/Trade Routes anyways.

EDIT: Fixed the last 10 turns or so. Same result, but it looks cooler. :S

The start

I took off the industrial adjacency cards in favor of tourism ones. I also would have put on the theater adjancency one but I always forget it exists. Guess it's kinda cool having so many high level campuses around though.

 

[Disgustipated]

Anyone try Japan with an island plates or archipelago map? I was thinking this might be a good set up for a Japan domination victory. It's actually something I would like to try, but probably not any time soon. But I do like Japan, so I'm likely to play them in the future and I'll go with this set up.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but it seems the ability Divine Wind giving you +5 combat strength adjacent to the coast depends on which tile you are attacking into, not your originating tile. I figured I'd check that since I played the game I mentioned in the post above. I didn't get the opportunity to check if you are attacking from an ocean square into a coast square, but I suspect you will get the +5 combat strength. So I noticed this when my frigates on the coast do not get the +5 when attacking 2 tiles inland, and that makes sense of course. But my Caravels did get the +5 when attacking into cities on the coast.

And I did play Japan on the archipelago map. I started on a grassland hills, but took 2 turns to move to plains hills. It was a slow start, and only my first conquest was challenging, and that was Gitjara/Indonesia. She had more cities and units.

Overall it was a pretty fun game, and more fun than going for culture victory. I didn't check every combat to see how much I was taking advantage of Divine Wind, but with so many coastal cities, it sure did come in handy. I forgot to build my UU this game, whoops. But with a naval map like this, the Samuraii just wouldn't have been that useful. I was more interested in fast units like knights.

Now I can't judge every civ just by the turn of victory. But this is my fastest Conquest victory while playing these civs of the week. But archipelago map is faster than the continents maps I won with Macedon and Chandra. So it would be foolish to say Japan is better than Macedon just because I won faster. The map surely played into my favor. I should have upped the difficulty level. Japan is certainly very strong on this map type is what I'm saying. Turn of victory is 264 (epic speed standard size) which is faster than my Macedon and India/Chandra games. I could have did it faster, but I go for total conquest, not this only capitals foolishness. It took a while to get enough land troops in place to capture all of Rome's cities. My ranking was #9, Lech ...

Spoiler :

 

[The Highwayman]

Yes those combat bonuses are determined by the tile of the defending unit.

I didn't post on Japan during its week of glory but they are low key very good. Meiji Restoration and Divine Wind are powerful, flexible bonuses that apply to all victory conditions and maps. The Samurai isn't the best, but still a very usable option for Medieval warfare with their tankiness. The E Factory is punished by the weakness of the IZ, and is really only usable for Science victories and era score. The 1 city with +4 culture simply isn't impactful late game. Nevertheless, one of my favorite civs in Rise and Fall by far. I feel powerful when using them, the way it should be.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I just finished a game with Japan and had the same impression as the game I posted in about earlier in this archived thread (only the adjacency bonuses were more potent due to Machu Picchu). I wouldn't normally post this sort of thing as the Japanese adjacencies are well known but am going to post anyway because the magnitude is surprising to me.

Early/Mid Game Japanese District Adjacency Summary Metrics:
+0 --- 0
+1 --- 2
+2 --- 9
+3 --- 14
+4 --- 19
+5 --- 17
+6 --- 7
+7 --- 1
Late Game Post Conquest "Slop" Japanese District Adjacency Summary Metrics:
+0 --- 1
+1 --- 4
+2 --- 11
+3 --- 3
+4 --- 9
+5 --- 6
+6 --- 0
+7 --- 0

***Includes Machu Picchu captured from Aztecs.

 

[Leathaface]

Japan are so fun to play as, those adjacency bonuses can be amazing. It's good that Military Tactics is no longer a leaf tech, you don't delay your progress down the tech tree to pick it up. I think Japan are one of the top 5 Civs that are fun to play with.

Right now the AI is still bad at naval warfare, but if Firaxis improve the AI a lot or if a Vox Populi like mod is eventually released for Civ VI, the combat strength bonus in shallow waters will be strong.

 

[Morningcalm]

Has Japan become stronger in GS?

 

[Sostratus]

Has Japan become stronger in GS?

The hurricane bonus is pretty irrelevant. However, the nicest boost they got was in the form of the coal plant.
Not only does Japan have a way to assure high IZ adjacency (just place districts next to it) they can pretty reliably run craftsmen and see 8-12 production from every coal plant. Further, the incentive to make coal plants and high yield IZs also increases the instances of their special factory, which means more instances of that +4 culture. The Electronics factory still only has +1 production over its base counterpart. Note that coal plants still grant a production effect if if they aren't producing any power/you have no coal.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Has Japan become stronger in GS?

I think they have as you can use Japan's production bonus to HS, TS, and encampments to build holy sites late game for rock bands. Machu Picchu makes the adjacencies ludicrous but that's situational of course. An even stronger cultural civ in GS than they were in R&F (and they were already really good).

 

[Boyan_Sun]

Has Japan become stronger in GS?

On the contrary, because of overflow fixed, Japan has been greatly nerfed in GS. You can read this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/is-chopping-overflow-overcorrected.642113/

 

[adajaga]

I wish one of their cheap districts was harbors, these are really key to Japan. With Meiji Restoration just putting one next to your city is already +3, managing another district or some fish is easy, so +4 or +5 harbors in every city are more or less a given.

With the double adjacency card that turns into +10 (and +20 with the right governor). With age if inquiry that is +10 science per city too, letting you get to mass production fast, so you can spend all that gold on shipyards to turn each harbor into +10 gold/science/production (plus a trade route).

 

[ezzlar]

The hurricane bonus is pretty irrelevant. However, the nicest boost they got was in the form of the coal plant.
Not only does Japan have a way to assure high IZ adjacency (just place districts next to it) they can pretty reliably run craftsmen and see 8-12 production from every coal plant. Further, the incentive to make coal plants and high yield IZs also increases the instances of their special factory, which means more instances of that +4 culture. The Electronics factory still only has +1 production over its base counterpart. Note that coal plants still grant a production effect if if they aren't producing any power/you have no coal.

As the laborers behold the magnificence of the Coal Plant located next to their factory they all increase their effort to be judged one day worthy of the divine power for their machines! Thus, the mere presence of an unpowered coal plant provides a huge boost in productivity compared to the benefit the actual power it produces. Later studies have shown that the mediocre presence of an unpowered Oil Plant only provide a sliver of productivity gains as the power it provides fails in inspiring the work force to reach new heights.