Japan reworking suggestion

[Wuddel]

So in the Polycast the devs mentioned that they wanted to rework Japan, emphasizing their spiritual heritage and resilience towards outwards influence.

I am proposing a unique tile improvement, called something like a shrine or dojo. In contrast to other UI, these are placed not by a worker but by a samurai, and it is a one time thing (you will receive a notification if there is a antiquity site under it, much like with settlers). It, might cost gold, but will yield quite a bit of culture and faith (+2 to both maybe), and maybe gold once something like flight is discovered. It will also increase in yield a bit over the eras/with techs.

In addition units on this tile will heal for double the rate and receive a +15% bonus to defence, building it will give the samurai 10 XP. It should be quite strong, but something rather limited. Maybe by actually having a samurai to earn experience in combat before building it. As maybe a level 4 or 5 promotion. But give samurai a "receives promotions faster" promotion which is lost on upgrade.

 

[steveg700]

I don't have a beef with this specific concept, but it seems like everyone's idea for "fixing" a civ like Japan or Germany is to convert a UU into a UB or UI, and make sure it grants culture, faith, gold, or science (in that order of popularity).

I think I'd rather see a reworking of the UA to simply be something interesting that doesn't necessarily just drop some bonus yields to a city. Something that involves pressing one's luck, foriming strategies, risk and reward.

 

[killmeplease]

maybe xN science from trade routes (meiji ishin)
where N is era post classical (N=1 in medieval, 2 in ren, 3 in ind)

with such a trait you can warmonger or you can play peacefully beelining deep into the tech tree and receiving TR bonus for techs your rivals have and you dont

 

[Wuddel]

@steveg700 I kinda like the UA of Japan. Its very fitting, but I can see that its not really changing your strategy. I just do not have an alternative. I hate Germany's UA though, but the devs and e.g. MaddJinn seem cool with it. It's too random and on higher levels the AI clears out barb camps with packs of early starting units while you struggle to build a library and get a archer out.

@killmeplease Everything with a science bonus ends up being overpowered, and Japan is not really striking me as an exceptionally scientifically advanced civ until very recent history.

 

[steveg700]

Maybe they can't have trade routes at all, but they receive some kind of conquest bonus to compensate? Essentially, what if they were the opposite of Venice?

Empire of the Sun. Cannot receive trade routes from other civilizations, and can only create them internally or with city-states. Captured cities experience only one turn of anarchy, and fewer buildings are destroyed. Occupied cities do not incur a science penalty, and generate +10% : gold and production.

 

[killmeplease]

Everything with a science bonus ends up being overpowered, and Japan is not really striking me as an exceptionally scientifically advanced civ until very recent history.

in the game caravans give you science when you are not exceptionally advanced, prescicely, when there are techs your trade partner knows and you dont. and the meiji UA could increase that bonus science. so its about learning from other nations not overwhelming them technologically.

 

[Wuddel]

in the game caravans give you science when you are not exceptionally advanced, prescicely, when there are techs your trade partner knows and you dont. and the meiji UA could increase that bonus science. so its about learning from other nations not overwhelming them technologically.

But it gives science based on techs you do not know, mitigating the effect of completely one sided research.

 

[steveg700]

in the game caravans give you science when you are not exceptionally advanced, prescicely, when there are techs your trade partner knows and you dont. and the meiji UA could increase that bonus science. so its about learning from other nations not overwhelming them technologically.

But it gives science based on techs you do not know, mitigating the effect of completely one sided research.

It's a good idea for a UA in general, but does it really fit Japan? During the dev interview at the Polycast, they made a point of talking about how closed Japan was to the ways of other cultures, and were even considering that being the basis of a revised UA. Hence, the Empire of the Sun UA I proposed.

Here's another UA idea, leeching off one that I proposed for the another civ (but works a lot better for Japan):

Obedience to the Shogunate. City-states offer 50% more gold as tribute. Researching certain technologies expands tribute options to include demanding local treasures (gain an artifact), expertise (an available specialist slot in the nearest city is filled by a citizen from the CS), territory (acquire tiles from a bordering CS), knowledge (gain a science boost), or political hostages (the CS cannot declare war for 30 turns even if an ally does). Each unique demand costs -30 influence and can be made only once per city-state.

Of course, you can only demand tribute from a CS once in a while, so this doesn't get out-of-hand. Also, it puts them in contention with all the other civ's that offer protection pledges, not to mention the likes of CS conquerors like Austria, Venice, and the Mongols.

 

[Wuddel]

Hum, thats actually a good idea! This should be different depending on the type of city state.

But CS bonuses are usually given to civs with very heterogeneous cultural backgrounds (Austria-Hungary) or which killed a bunch of small independent realms (Mongols). While there where different factions and clans in Japan (from the outside) they do not look very different, sharing the same culture and language. So I am unsure.

 

[Phalanx300]

There is also a tread in the general section discussing this. Having a UA focussed on internal trade giving culture and gold and increased food and production seemed to be well received. As well as having a Dojo which gives culture and exp when you have a unit garrrisoned in a city with a dojo. While giving the Samurai the bushido upgrade. Essentially keeping them with a strong military while also allowing them to go a different route.

 

[steveg700]

So the dojo's a barracks or armory whatever, but it yields some culture. Seems like a bunt. Sure, a no-strings-attached culture bonus lets you do other things. It lets you do everything. Or nothing.

 

[Phrozen]

I would like to see some nod to Japan's pre-feudal history. Maybe some sort of culture bonus for having more then one religion? Since Shinto and Buddhism shared equal space in Japan since Buddhism's introduction from China.

 

[phaethon16]

I sort of liked Japan's original UA, but I totally agree with steveg that it should more influence their strategy, so here's my take on it.

UA: Land of the Rising Sun. Units being attacked have a 50% chance of dealing double damage. Whenever a melee unit launches an attack that would otherwise kill it, there's a 25% chance that the attacked unit is killed instead and your unit survives with 1 hp.
UU: Samurai. Receives the Bushido and shock promotion.
UI: Dojo. May only be built by a samurai with 30 xp. Upon completion, the samurai becomes immovable. If the samurai is attacked and killed, a new one is re-spawned 5 turns later, with the same amount of exp and upgrade level as the previous one, and it's also immovable. The Dojo yields +2.

Ok, so I've borrowed some of the ideas from other people here, such as the name of the UA and some of the mechanics of the UB. The idea of the UA is to encourage a sort of valiant warfare, where you might be tempted to leave a unit as a lone defender, because even if a stronger opponent attacks it, it might still put up a devastating defense. Likewise, you might be attempted to attack another, stronger unit, because there's a chance that attacked unit will die, no matter how tough it is, even if that chance isn't terribly large. I don't know, this strategy deals with taking chances. The Dojo essentially creates an immovable fortress, because a unit will always re spawn their, and the unit will always be gaining more and more exp. The only way to get rid of it is to pillage the tile, and fast to, because whether or not there's an enemy unit on top of the Dojo, the replacement unit will respawn and attack whomever is there. Thoughts?

 

[Holmium]

I sort of liked Japan's original UA, but I totally agree with steveg that it should more influence their strategy, so here's my take on it.

UA: Land of the Rising Sun. Units being attacked have a 50% chance of dealing double damage. Whenever a melee unit launches an attack that would otherwise kill it, there's a 25% chance that the attacked unit is killed instead and your unit survives with 1 hp.
UU: Samurai. Receives the Bushido and shock promotion.
UI: Dojo. May only be built by a samurai with 30 xp. Upon completion, the samurai becomes immovable. If the samurai is attacked and killed, a new one is re-spawned 5 turns later, with the same amount of exp and upgrade level as the previous one, and it's also immovable. The Dojo yields +2.

Ok, so I've borrowed some of the ideas from other people here, such as the name of the UA and some of the mechanics of the UB. The idea of the UA is to encourage a sort of valiant warfare, where you might be tempted to leave a unit as a lone defender, because even if a stronger opponent attacks it, it might still put up a devastating defense. Likewise, you might be attempted to attack another, stronger unit, because there's a chance that attacked unit will die, no matter how tough it is, even if that chance isn't terribly large. I don't know, this strategy deals with taking chances. The Dojo essentially creates an immovable fortress, because a unit will always re spawn their, and the unit will always be gaining more and more exp. The only way to get rid of it is to pillage the tile, and fast to, because whether or not there's an enemy unit on top of the Dojo, the replacement unit will respawn and attack whomever is there. Thoughts?

First of all I want to give you a score for creativity, secondly I want to say that this is a terrible idea. Sorry Cathrine/phaethon but I have to be onest. What I see in your idea for Japan is to convert a aggressive militaristic civ to a sort of luck-based kind of defensive tourism civ.

The strategy I think this Japan would encurage would be: step 1, found some cities and secure Iron. You will want to have a handful of places for building Dojos and make sure you can grab as much iron as you can, also make sure to build barracks in your cities.
Step 2, Samurai spamming. When Japan gets to Steel you will have to build first Armories and then as many Samurais in your Armory-cities as your iron supply allows you to. To make sure you can masproduce Samurais you will have to make sure you have either got alot off iron from diplomacy (trading with civs and allying CS) or conquered/founded cities with iron. With the many samurais you have (hopefully) created you build as many Dojos as you can.
Step 3, stay defensive and get tourism. Your Dojo-Samurais and ability will only be useful when it comes to hold off melee-units, sure the Japanese units (both those in or outside Dojos) would be deadly to melee units if they would be stupid enuff to attack them. The enemy of Japan would simply have to use alot of crossbowmen/range units if they would want to conquer its lands. The Dojos would only be an annoyance for the enemy and a time-saver for Japan, in multiplayer games. But you Dojos would be quite effective in wars with the AI casue the AI will be so extremly stupid that it will attack the Dojos and not bothering not pillage them and then once you get hotels and airports you could get alot of tourism from the Dojos although it might be hard for you to get into the tourism world after that you have invested so much in getting iron and getting production for Samurais.

In short words Japan is only good for defensive wars with the AI, tourism game IF you've had enuff iron and more than usual luck.
Interesting ideas for a civ thou, especially the large need of Iron the civ would have I find very interesting.

And btw, I have misspelled certain words on purpose.
(Dear chocolate sauce! This comment took more than 1 hour to write!)

 

[Holmium]

I think that Japan should not get so drastic changes as France did, I think Japan should stay a aggressive militaristic civilization (even thou the devs apparently think different). And to be onest I don't think Japan should get a UI. Why?, because I think there are already enuff Unique Improvements in the game. About one sixth of all the civs in the game has a UI and I think it has gotten to the point where UI aren't as impressive as they once were because they are not as unique anymore with so many of them in the game.

My suggestions to change Japan:

UA: The same + something new (perhaps bonuses in foreign lands or something about lower upgrade cost for units or perhaps something else to reflex their fast adaptation to western culture.)

UU: Samurais stays the same but with a buff in power or something. I've heard there are several peoples who actually likes them.

UU: Zero? I dig the fact that Japan gets a unique late game unit, because there are so few of them. But the Zero is today almost useless. I have no ideas how to improve the Zero but the fact that it's a modern unique unite makes me like it.

Although the fact that Japan is a lesser good civ is because the way the Civ 5 looks like do not benefit them. If the damage wounded units inflicted was lower their UA would be better, if Longswordsmen were more useful the Samurai would be considered better and if Fighters actually were nesacery the Zeros would be quite good. So I think if they changed the way the game worked Japan would receive a well needed buff, (If adopting the game Civ 5 to benefit the civilization of Japan is a good idea I don't know. Just saying.)

I misspell on purpose.

 

[steveg700]

Rather than crib my Khmer idea, I recommend co-opting the Hittites.

Can't send or receive trade routes from other civ's (only city-states), and instead receives a boost to gold and production in occupied cities, and anarchy duration is halved.

Like I said over in the Germany thread, an ability like this is really a glaring omission. We have all these civ's, and none of them strongly reward capturing and occupying cities? Really??? The closest we have is Songhai, and it's just an instant capture (they could raze the city afterwards and be just fine).

One upshot is this would make the AI version of the civ very warlike, as their would be no trade-based peace modifiers.

 

[Viregel]

It's a good idea for a UA in general, but does it really fit Japan? During the dev interview at the Polycast, they made a point of talking about how closed Japan was to the ways of other cultures, and were even considering that being the basis of a revised UA. Hence, the Empire of the Sun UA I proposed.

Here's another UA idea, leeching off one that I proposed for the another civ (but works a lot better for Japan):

Obedience to the Shogunate. City-states offer 50% more gold as tribute. Researching certain technologies expands tribute options to include demanding local treasures (gain an artifact), expertise (an available specialist slot in the nearest city is filled by a citizen from the CS), territory (acquire tiles from a bordering CS), knowledge (gain a science boost), or political hostages (the CS cannot declare war for 30 turns even if an ally does). Each unique demand costs -30 influence and can be made only once per city-state.

Of course, you can only demand tribute from a CS once in a while, so this doesn't get out-of-hand. Also, it puts them in contention with all the other civ's that offer protection pledges, not to mention the likes of CS conquerors like Austria, Venice, and the Mongols.

I really like the UA idea. It's very original (not counting a certain idea of yours) and really gives Japan an edge. I would take away the one time use per city state, though. Building on your idea, I'd suggest this:

Obedience to the Shogunate. City-states offer 50% more gold as tribute. Researching certain technologies expands tribute options to include demanding local treasures, expertise, territory, knowledge, or political hostages. Each unique demand costs -45 influence. (Shortened down version. The actual effects would show in tool tips)

Samari. Replaces Longswordsman. Same as in game because I cannot be bothered thinking up another version.

Dojo. Replaces Barracks. As barracks, but with +2 , and gives all newly trained units in the city a free "Bushido" promotion.

 

[steveg700]

I really like the UA idea. It's very original (not counting a certain idea of yours) and really gives Japan an edge. I would take away the one time use per city state, though. Building on your idea, I'd suggest this:

Obedience to the Shogunate. City-states offer 50% more gold as tribute. Researching certain technologies expands tribute options to include demanding local treasures, expertise, territory, knowledge, or political hostages. Each unique demand costs -45 influence. (Shortened down version. The actual effects would show in tool tips)

Samari. Replaces Longswordsman. Same as in game because I cannot be bothered thinking up another version.

Dojo. Replaces Barracks. As barracks, but with +2 , and gives all newly trained units in the city a free "Bushido" promotion.

Glad you liked the idea. While I still think it's decent, I no longer like it for Japan specifically, since I don't think they really had tributary relationship with foreign powers. They were isolationist until they went into imperial mode and started taking them over utterly and ruthlessly. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a civ left over for whom it does work. It was derived from an Indonesia idea, but that's over now.

The Empire of the Sun UA is probably closer to the mark.

 

[Galgus]

Perhaps the UA could give them culture for internal trade routes, encouraging them to not connect with other civilizations.

Island of the Rising Sun +3 and +4% empire wide for each internal trade route.

Samurai: (As-is.)

Dojo: Grants +2 and the Bushido promotion to newly trained units in the city as well as units that garrison it for three turns.

 

[steveg700]

The dojo should replace the armory, but other than that it looks fine. Maybe instead of +2 culture, receive a culture boost when a soldier is built.