I think people are being too conservative, if a civ is in the top civ contenders I think we can go a little harder.
I say toss the mechanic. It won’t even really change Japan’s gameplay that much. I’ll still go barracks with authority regardless, I’ll still want my dojos, I’ll still build walls when I need them.
Re: giving Japan more

,that Would make Japan a

faith civ, or more of one than he is already. Is that what people want? I feel like we have enough of those.
It’s not just about what would make Japan balanced; what roll do we want him to fulfill in the lineup of civs?
Japan had

faith for quite some time in the Dojo leveling mechanic. Before the experimentation with leveling in the UA, the Dojo would give



when a unit leveled up. Overall, the role that Japan kept distancing from was the economic/materialistic one, namely



. Even when they had the fishing boat + atoll bonus from BNW, it was a

culture version, instead of Polynesia's current

food one. The only time I remember them having an economic bonus was in very old patches, when the Dojo would give +2


to iron and horses tiles iirc, when they were still had the fishing boat bonus, and I think the Dojo didn't have yet the leveling mechanic. Most militaristic civs tend to focus on



instead, and use that to quickly raise a large army. Other ones with a similar yield leaning to Japan's are Sweden, who gain


from their UB, and Assyria, who is heavily focused on

science and doing so already from Ancient and early Classical eras. Japan trading

science for

faith means some differentiation from those two.
One thing about

faith is that this yield gives Japan one peacetime method of generating Great Generals and Admirals for their UA. Especially in human hands, who can plan either the policies, or the religion (To the Glory of God), to secure those purchases. While Japan doesn't have to focus on

faith, their UA can benefit a lot from it during peacetime.
One role that has been explicit was that Japan would not focus on conquest, so to differentiate them from France. Japan was often envisioned as a more defensive militaristic civ, and one that wouldn't have to rely on conquest to thrive. That, however, means Japan needs some form of generating generous amounts of yields outside of conquest, as avoiding conquest means giving up plenty of yields that normally allow warmongers to snowball. The


on military/defense buildings is a nod to how to play this intended design, favoring defense and setting up leveling for the Dojo's yields.
The other role Japan differentiates from others is the whole GWAM part, as militaristic civs normally don't focus on great people outside generals. Also one reason why France's current UA sticks so much when discussing Japan, even if we ignore that it's the exact same mechanic under a different trigger. The GWAM mechanic by itself gives Japan a clear focus on

culture, the question then is what other yield gets to mix with it. Assuming we don't want to make Japan so unidimensional towards

culture; very few civs get only one type of yield with their bonuses, and Japan's design has been shying away from



, so it's expected that their secondary yield focus would be either

science or

faith, or both in lower amounts.
I'm not against Japan having

science as a secondary focus, instead of

faith; in fact, if the UA's

faith was switched for

science, Japan would have an easier time pulling the Longswordman Rush that the civ leans to. But, for now, I want to make AI Japan stop winning scientific victories better than dedicated scientific civs, hence why I'm focusing on

faith.