Japanese units always fight at full strength?!??

[civ_king]

The French cavalry had barding at Agincourt, the arrows pierced them.



Is that before or after 50 kilos of armor?

At Agincourt they only had front barding, the horses got killed after the horses turned around (thus showing the exposed rear)

Much faster before, still faster after 50kg of barding and 125kg of knight and his armor

 

[Pragmatic]

I've been browsing over the special abilities, unique units, and unique buildings for the different civilizations. It looks like each civilization was given something game-breaking, just to give each their own chance to shine.

 

[gamesguy]

At Agincourt they only had front barding, the horses got killed after the horses turned around (thus showing the exposed rear)

And why would the horses turn around and expose their rear in a frontal charge?

By the time we see full barding on cavalry the Japanese had guns.

Much faster before, still faster after 50kg of barding and 125kg of knight and his armor

Proof?

 

[Hawkwood]

Samurai vs Knight.

Agincourt was battle were many factors influenced the English victory, it's very likely the English would have lost if Henry didn't send the Longbowmen into melee, and the English would have lost if they weren't defending a hill with sharpened stakes in front and forests on the flanks after a week-long rain. How much the arrows of the Longbowme contributed to the victory is controversial, and we could discuss it for 9 pages without reaching a conclusion.

Can we get back on topic?

I think it's says something about the balance of the game, when everyone thinks one of the civs is OP. People talk about how Japan will dominate, without considering that their UUs doesn't seem as good as others. People mention how Rome, Greece or the Ottomans are going to dominate, because they have strong UUs entering play at the same time, while not thinking that the Greek UA doesn't add much to early warfare, the Ottomans UA has been bashed as useless and the strength of Rome's depends on how many different buildings can be constructed in one city.

Can't we just say that the every bonuses different civs get are better than those of CIV, and wait until we get the game to determine which civ is strongest?

 

[civ_king]

And why would the horses turn around and expose their rear in a frontal charge?

By the time we see full barding on cavalry the Japanese had guns.



Proof?

They spent over 1000 years being bred for strength and speed, after all, a knight on a slow horse is going to get shot at more than a faster horse. The reason was palisades that the knights couldn't get through, plus Longbow>>>Yumi in terms of distance, accuracy and power

Badly accurate guns still get massacred by knights because Knights had their armor modified to defend against guns, ever heard of "proofing"?

 

[gamesguy]

They spent over 1000 years being bred for strength and speed, after all, a knight on a slow horse is going to get shot at more than a faster horse.

That's not proof. You think the Japanese didn't breed their warhorses for strength and speed?

The reason was palisades that the knights couldn't get through, plus Longbow>>>Yumi in terms of distance, accuracy and power

Wrong again, by the time the knights to the English lines they have long since been dismounted.

The real reason the barding could not deflect the arrows was that the barding's top portion was very weak and the longbows were fired in an arc, which easilly penetrated the weak top armor. But apparently you didn't know that.

Badly accurate guns still get massacred by knights because Knights had their armor modified to defend against guns, ever heard of "proofing"?

Wrong again. Proofed armor didn't work in Europe and it won't work in Japan. You cannot proof the whole armor and you can forget about armoring the horse against guns. Once his horse was shot down, a gendarmes was just a tin can on foot wearing 80 lbs of armor waiting to die. There is a reason everyone in Europe abandoned the full body plate of the early cuirassiers in favor of just a small chest plate and unarmored legs the later ones wore.

17th century Japan also had the best guns in the world at the time, and in their own wars guns easilly slaughted armored cavalry.

plus Longbow>>>Yumi in terms of distance, accuracy and power

Completely false. The longbow was actually a very primitive weapon. The laminated bows the Asian countries used were far superior and resembles modern composite bows. They had less draw weight for more power, you didn't need the arms of a gorilla to draw one.

Like I said earlier, if you're going to be anal retentive about historical accuracy in a game where Ghandi allied with Bismarck to fight in the blitzkrieg of 1320 against Washington, you should at least get your damn facts straight.

 

[Hawkwood]

Wrong again. Proofed armor didn't work in Europe and it won't work in Japan. You cannot proof the whole armor and you can forget about armoring the horse against guns. Once his horse was shot down, a gendarmes was just a tin can on foot wearing 80 lbs of armor waiting to die. There is a reason everyone in Europe abandoned the full body plate of the early cuirassiers in favor of just a small chest plate and unarmored legs the later ones wore.

Full armour was abandoned in the middle of the 17th century because the proof armour was too heavy. Full plate armour was proof against the guns of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

17th century Japan also had the best guns in the world at the time, and in their own wars guns easilly slaughted armored cavalry.

How can they be the best if they were imported from Europe?

Completely false. The longbow was actually a very primitive weapon. The laminated bows the Asian countries used were far superior and resembles modern composite bows. They had less draw weight for more power, you didn't need the arms of a gorilla to draw one.

So now we not only have katanaplonkers spewing bull**** about how the katanas were better than any other sword, we also have yumiplonkers spewing bull**** about how the yumis were better than any other bow?

Both sides are stating falsehoods and this discussion doesn't have anything to do with the topic.

 

[Auncien]

I just finished watching the live stream where they spent almost 2 and a half hour talking about Civ 5 and one thing that caught my attention was when they said that one of the Japanese special advantages was that Japanese army units always fight at full strength even when injured.

For example, if a unit with 6 men has a attack value of 6 while at full strength and only an attack value of 3 when at half strength then the Japanese unit would still retain its full level 6 strength even after having lost half its men and the only way to render it useless is destroying it completely.

This sounds horribly unbalanced to me and by the sound of it could give the Japanese huge advantages over other civs. There is a possibility that he was only talking about the Samurai unit I admit, but the way he phrased this ability did not directly indicate it, or did I miss something? This was a live feed after all so I could not watch that particular moment again to confirm this as a fact.

But if this is true, then is it really a wise design decision?

Discuss.

I'm sure that the falling shards of sky will hit a few of the japanese units and even the odds.

In all seriousness though, this ability just makes them a little better at aggression. You get them running due to low health and they'll die just like any other unit.

 

[gamesguy]

Full armour was abandoned in the middle of the 17th century because the proof armour was too heavy. Full plate armour was proof against the guns of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

Japan didn't adopt guns until the mid 17th century, and full plate certainly was not proof against them. For example the Imperial cavalry was utterly slaughtered at Leipzig by the Swedish musketeers.

How can they be the best if they were imported from Europe?

Japan adopted the gun extremely enthusiastically, they had made the guns with superior quality steel and made several improvements that allowed the matchlock guns to fire in the rain and to be used decently at night.

So now we not only have katanaplonkers spewing bull**** about how the katanas were better than any other sword, we also have yumiplonkers spewing bull**** about how the yumis were better than any other bow?

Both sides are stating falsehoods and this discussion doesn't have anything to do with the topic.

Katanas are not better than any other sword, I don't know where you get that from, Samurai rarely used it in an actual battle anyways.

Yumis are not better than any other bow, if I had to pick the "best" bow it'd probably be the Turkish bow, which had a record range of nearly a kilometer. Yumis were laminated bows, which was basically a variant of the composite bow, and much superior to simple wood bows like the longbow. They required much less force to draw, and consequently when drawn with the same force could deliver more power to the arrow.

 

[Iceciro]

And you guys are complaining about Samurai vs Knight in a game where you have one leader from the ancient times up until you launch a spaceship that reaches Alpha Centauri?

 

[Jonkenden]

Actually Japanese sword smithing was inferior because they took much longer to use steel because there is very little good iron in Japan.

From experience I can tell you that a reproduction European sword is clumsy, handles poorly and is heavier than the original, I have used a real European sword and they are exceptionally well balanced

That doesn't make their actual smithing ways inferior, that's an issue with their material.

I don't have simple wallhangers, I have proper blades in my collection that are well balanced. I don't contest the effectiveness of european blades so, ye.

 

[civ_king]

That's not proof. You think the Japanese didn't breed their warhorses for strength and speed?



Wrong again, by the time the knights to the English lines they have long since been dismounted.

The real reason the barding could not deflect the arrows was that the barding's top portion was very weak and the longbows were fired in an arc, which easilly penetrated the weak top armor. But apparently you didn't know that.



Wrong again. Proofed armor didn't work in Europe and it won't work in Japan. You cannot proof the whole armor and you can forget about armoring the horse against guns. Once his horse was shot down, a gendarmes was just a tin can on foot wearing 80 lbs of armor waiting to die. There is a reason everyone in Europe abandoned the full body plate of the early cuirassiers in favor of just a small chest plate and unarmored legs the later ones wore.

17th century Japan also had the best guns in the world at the time, and in their own wars guns easilly slaughted armored cavalry.



Completely false. The longbow was actually a very primitive weapon. The laminated bows the Asian countries used were far superior and resembles modern composite bows. They had less draw weight for more power, you didn't need the arms of a gorilla to draw one.

Like I said earlier, if you're going to be anal retentive about historical accuracy in a game where Ghandi allied with Bismarck to fight in the blitzkrieg of 1320 against Washington, you should at least get your damn facts straight.

1) There was vastly more breeding going on in Europe so logically they would get stronger/faster breeds faster
2) Agincourt was ugly

The field of battle was arguably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. The recently ploughed land hemmed in by dense woodland favoured the English, both because of its narrowness, and because of the thick mud which the French knights had to walk through.[20][21] An analysis by Battlefield Detectives has looked at the crowd dynamics of the battlefield.[22] The 1,000–1,500 English men-at-arms are described as shoulder to shoulder and four deep, which implies a tight line about 250–300 men long (perhaps split in two by a central group of archers). The remainder of the field would have been filled with the longbowmen behind their palings. The French first line contained men-at-arms who had no way to outflank the English line. The French, divided into the three battles, one behind the other at their initial starting position, could not bring all their forces to bear: the initial engagement was between the English army and the first battle line of the French. When the second French battle line started their advance, the soldiers were pushed closer together and their effectiveness was reduced. Casualties in the front line from longbow arrows would also have increased the congestion, as the following men would have to walk around the fallen. The Battlefield Detectives episode states that when the density reached four men per square metre, soldiers would not even be able to take full steps forward, lowering the speed of the advance by 70%.[22] Accounts of the battle describe the French engaging the English men-at-arms before being rushed from the sides by the longbowmen as the mêlée developed. The English account in the Gesta Henrici says: "For when some of them, killed when battle was first joined, fall at the front, so great was the undisciplined violence and pressure of the mass of men behind them that the living fell on top of the dead, and others falling on top of the living were killed as well". Although the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed that they are described as having trouble using their weapons properly. The French monk of St. Denis says: "Their vanguard, composed of about 5,000 men, found itself at first so tightly packed that those who were in the third rank could scarcely use their swords",[23] and the Burgundian sources have a similar passage. In practice there was not enough room for all these men to fight, and they were unable to respond effectively when the English longbowmen joined the hand-to-hand fighting. By the time the second French line arrived, for a total of about eight thousand men (depending on the source), the crush would have been even worse. The press of men arriving from behind actually hindered those fighting at the front.

3) Guns started being used in European warfare in the 15th century, plate armor started getting phased out in the 17th century. The term bulletproof comes from shooting plate armor and showing it didn't pierce the armor, the dent usually was decorated to show that, the particularly good armorers used a pistol at pointblank range range.

4) You're using Leipzig as a counterexample The French were outnumbered 2:1 in terms of soldiers and artillery! Napoleon had 38,000 casualties while the others had 54,000. Oh and you do realize that Leipzig was in the 19th century right?

5) And how many of those Japanese used (steel) plate armor? (besides, by then they were starting to phasing out full plate), lol, you said superior quality steel and Japanese in the same sentence!

6) Range of almost a kilometre? I need proof for that

PS 80lbs isn't that cumbersome with a good pack on and far less with good plate armor

And yes, we are arguing about Samurai vs. Knight

 

[Kordanor]

From the manual:

Effects of Damage
A damaged unit is less effective when attacking than a fully-healed unit. The more damaged
the unit, the less its attack – melee or ranged – will damage an opponent. The actual
formula is more complex than this, but as a general rule a unit’s damage output is reduced
by half the percentage of HPs that it has lost. In other words, a unit that has lost 5 HPs (50%)
has the amount of damage it does reduced by 25%, and the damage a unit that has lost 9
HPs (90%) inflicts, is reduced by 45%.

Therefore it's still a pretty huge bonus, but not as huge as it was assumend before.

 

[Naxle]

Yup, but thats the same for all modes of civ, the first mod I shall be making is my Super Marathon mod - name is a work in progress - which will extend the marathon length by about 20-40 times...

A bit over the top I know, but it's how I play civ 4! I like to have extended battles in each era and like to really appreciate each new tech before moving on to the next!

YEESS!
I always wanted a very very long game.

This ability sound interesting-though where would it be most useful? Bottlenecks and really drawn out battles I suppose. I keep forgetting that there aren't stacks anymore.

 

[Schuesseled]

lol 20 - 40 times, sire the granary will be constructed in 400 turns.

 

[gamesguy]

1) There was vastly more breeding going on in Europe so logically they would get stronger/faster breeds faster

Proof?

2) Agincourt was ugly

Does not change the fact that arrows pierced the weak top barding on horses and killed them.

3) Guns started being used in European warfare in the 15th century, plate armor started getting phased out in the 17th century. The term bulletproof comes from shooting plate armor and showing it didn't pierce the armor, the dent usually was decorated to show that, the particularly good armorers used a pistol at pointblank range range.

Muskets have more power than pistols, and generally only the chest plate was bullet proof. The horse also does not have that luxury. A bullet proof suit of armor is a huge hinderance once you are de-horsed.

4) You're using Leipzig as a counterexample The French were outnumbered 2:1 in terms of soldiers and artillery! Napoleon had 38,000 casualties while the others had 54,000. Oh and you do realize that Leipzig was in the 19th century right?

Seriously? You didn't see the part I said about the Swedish musketeers?

There is more than one battle of Leipzig.

5) And how many of those Japanese used (steel) plate armor? (besides, by then they were starting to phasing out full plate), lol, you said superior quality steel and Japanese in the same sentence!

The main advantage of the musket was always their ability to kill the horse. A guy on foot wearing 80 lbs of armor isn't going to be doing much.

And yes Japan used superior steel in their guns.

6) Range of almost a kilometre? I need proof for that

For many years their efficiency and excellency could be seen from historical records, where in the Ottoman Era the record distance for an arrow shot was 845.5m.

http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/Turkish_bow

The long bow was very backward, it relied on simple brute strength. Composite and laminated bows like the Turkish and Asian bows are simply technologically superior.

PS 80lbs isn't that cumbersome with a good pack on and far less with good plate armor

And yes, we are arguing about Samurai vs. Knight

80 lbs is far too much to be slogging around on foot engaging in melee combat.

 

[ClasuSiosa]

On topic: I think the military prowess of Japan will have to used early to make a significant difference, the hit and run of cammel archers for one will decimate them, and they will fall behind in tech/$$$/culture even before they have Samurai

Off Topic: 80lbs is less than what the marines carried on the shores of Normandy and you cant say they didnt fight well.

The Samurai have never been accuratly portraid in civ, they are always the Katana carrying footmen in the high style Bushido, the actually effective "Samurai" would cut off your head if you called them Samurai, Samurai means "One who serves" which were "men at arms" of the early/pre-Senguku period.
The real "Samurai" were mostly mounted archers. Their horses were smaller and slower than european horses. Their bows were less powerfull but more accurate and could be fired from hose-back. The horses had a very smooth gait allowing for more accuracy, but slower speeds. The temperment of the Japanese horses aswell as their size precluded them being shock troops, nor could they support (comparitively) much armor. Japanese armor was made out of laqured leather or paper, due to the lack of metal and the wet climate metal armor was ineffective. The Japanese are famous for their elegent weapons, but their other weapons are forgoten, such as 7ft long swords, clubs, axes, 20+ft spears (youd think they were trying to make up for something ), guns, flails, etc.
Note: Nunchucku are a Hollywood manufacture, not a real Japanese weapon!

Samurai vs. Knights: I would bet on the knights, because, 1. Better Armor, 2. Faster horses, 3. Larger men, 4. Larger Horses(fighting platforms), 5. Sheilds, 6. Shock combat v. archery skirmishing; swords are not a factor, they are just different; Knight sword + Shield v. Katana? Draw.

Back on topic: I think it all balences out in the end, and different civs apeal to diffenent playing styles, Civilization as usual...

 

[Rathelon]

I've played Japan, and their unique ability is good, but not game breaking. They die just as easily as any other equivalent unit (no extra health), you just will take more casualties against them. Pretty much like WWII - they fight to the last man and we paid a lot of blood island hopping in the Pacific.

 

[Brawndo]

Samurai vs. Knights: I would bet on the knights, because, 1. Better Armor, 2. Faster horses, 3. Larger men, 4. Larger Horses(fighting platforms), 5. Sheilds, 6. Shock combat v. archery skirmishing; swords are not a factor, they are just different; Knight sword + Shield v. Katana? Draw.

Uh no, sorry. Hollywood and the internet taught me that katanas can cut an inferior European broadsword in half, they wouldn't lie. Katanas can also deflect bullets if you spin them fast enough

 

[ClasuSiosa]

Uh no, sorry. Hollywood and the internet taught me that katanas can cut an inferior European broadsword in half, they wouldn't lie. Katanas can also deflect bullets if you spin them fast enough

LOL!!!!

Id prefer an Oh-Song-Do from Korea to either actually.