Where did this Samurai fishing boat idea come from?

kamex

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I honestly can't find any relationship between Samurai and fishing anywhere. In fact the word 'fish' isn't mentioned once in the lengthy Samurai Wikipedia article. Even if its improves Japan a little (and it really is a little) its horribly a-historical. Why not just give them half price work boat, or give this ability to workers instead. The Legion improvement building and Conquistador settling has a historical basis, so why give us this rubbish? Its like giving Panzers the ability to roll around building plantations. There was so many good ideas for a new Japan UA such as buffing domestic trade routes, and instead we get this. Feels lazy and poorly thought out to me. I'm sure many of you agree. Its a real shame as I'm quite happy with the rest of the patch, this is such a disappointment. :confused:
 
Japan is very much about fish and fishing.

Spoiler From Wiki :
Japan[edit source]
Tenkara fishing is a type of recreational fly-fishing that originated in Japan at least as long as 430 years ago, when anglers discovered they could dress their flies with pieces of fabric and use those to fool the fish. The art became more refined as the samurai, who were forbidden to practice martial arts and sword fighting in the Edo period, found this type of fishing to be a good substitute for their training: the rod being a substitute to the sword, and walking on the rocks of a small stream good leg and balance training. "Only the samurai were permitted to do it [fish]. So, the samurai who enjoyed ayu fishing would take sewing needles and bend them themselves, and make their own flies by hand.". Nowadays, these rods along with fishing flies, are considered to be a traditional local craft of the Kaga region. The Meboso family in Kanazawa has been making these flies for as long as 400 years themselves, and are currently a 20-generation fly-tiers.[citation needed]
 
Japan is very much about fish and fishing.

Spoiler From Wiki :
Japan[edit source]
Tenkara fishing is a type of recreational fly-fishing that originated in Japan at least as long as 430 years ago, when anglers discovered they could dress their flies with pieces of fabric and use those to fool the fish. The art became more refined as the samurai, who were forbidden to practice martial arts and sword fighting in the Edo period, found this type of fishing to be a good substitute for their training: the rod being a substitute to the sword, and walking on the rocks of a small stream good leg and balance training. "Only the samurai were permitted to do it [fish]. So, the samurai who enjoyed ayu fishing would take sewing needles and bend them themselves, and make their own flies by hand.". Nowadays, these rods along with fishing flies, are considered to be a traditional local craft of the Kaga region. The Meboso family in Kanazawa has been making these flies for as long as 400 years themselves, and are currently a 20-generation fly-tiers.[citation needed]

That's interesting. Thanks. Where did you source that from? It's still not representative of deep sea fishing though is it, which is what the work boat represents...
 
So far I'm not enamored with the idea. While I may occasionally ignore workboat tech, if there is one path I don't go down quickly, its the one to Samurais. Even then, I anticipate you've got to have Optics to embark the Samurai, so you'll have the ability to build workboats.

I can see it being useful in some situations, but not nearly as useful as Legions building roads and forts.

If Legion road building is a 10, I'd put Samurai sea working at a 3.
 
So far I'm not enamored with the idea. While I may occasionally ignore workboat tech, if there is one path I don't go down quickly, its the one to Samurais. Even then, I anticipate you've got to have Optics to embark the Samurai, so you'll have the ability to build workboats.

I can see it being useful in some situations, but not nearly as useful as Legions building roads and forts.

If Legion road building is a 10, I'd put Samurai sea working at a 3.

Agreed. You'll want to prioritise work boats to get the bonus culture too.
 
That's interesting. Thanks. Where did you source that from? It's still not representative of deep sea fishing though is it, which is what the work boat represents...

Since I know (and I thought everyone know) that fish is very big in Japan. I did a simple search about fishing history and Japan came up in it (not so surprising). I was surprised about the Samarai connection though.

And also there are tons of Samarai movies taken place in a picturesque fishing village and a Samurai defending his village against a Ronin.
 
There was also a picture shown about a samurai fishing legend, so yeah.
Still, it's a slight extra bonus to the Samurai. It isn't their main attraction, it's just a small extra to an already solid unit. Helps if you conquer a few coastal towns and need to put a few work boats in place stat.
The real attraction to the upgrades Japan got is simply the culture from fishing boats. It can stack up pretty well, if you got a few sea resources laying about.
 
It's mainly a reference to Miyamoto Musashi and his duel against Sasaki Kojirou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasaki_Kojirō).

Also
800px-Musashi_on_the_back_of_a_whale.jpg
 
so far, culturally the Samurai/Fishing Boats thing makes historical sense, + they changed JP's start bias to coastal so you're virutally guaranteed to have to deal with Fishing Boats anyway.

but what's alarming is the very fact that you're now assured to have to deal with a coastal start in itself. it's the main reason i don't like dealing with a game as Korea. and as others have noted, it makes you have to deal with two separate tech tree paths if you wanted to use Samarai to this end.
 
I think it's pretty cool from the historical perspective...it's the gameplay that seems odd to me. If workboats provide culture, it doesn't seem like waiting till Steel + Optics to build them would be a good idea. Maybe it would help for a midgame 2nd wave, but that impact wouldn't likely be too big.
 
I think it's pretty cool from the historical perspective...it's the gameplay that seems odd to me. If workboats provide culture, it doesn't seem like waiting till Steel + Optics to build them would be a good idea. Maybe it would help for a midgame 2nd wave, but that impact wouldn't likely be too big.

Ya it won't be for the capital, but for your first couple of coastal puppets/annexed cities, or perhaps for the last built city if for some weird reason you find yourself at peace.
 
Samurai was already a good unit (Free promotion gives access to the best promotions quicker and passes it on to upgrades), so this adds a little flavor with maybe some saved hammers from 1 or 2 workboats. It's nice.
 
Thinking of a more elegant way/game mechanic to reflect the idea the devs ended up with I came up with this:

-Japan can always (with Steel tech) buy Samurais with Faith.
-Expending a fishing boat gives Japan xx faith
(thinking of maybe 50 here).
-Ocean start bias.
-Zero no longer requires Oil.
-+1 culture from fishing boats.
-+2 culture from atolls.

Advantages:
-Samurais embarking and doing deep sea fishing seemed quite awkward.
-Don't need 2 techs from different paths to actually get something done (see below).
-You are way more flexible as you could always chose not to faith buy Samurais but instead use your faith for other stuff.
-Or you could go faith heavy and buy even more Samurais (and without having to chose Holy Warriors belief).
-How much Iron do you think Japan is going to get with an Ocean bias now? I don't know exactly, but the chances to get it surely will be much lower with less land tiles in city range; so the ability depending on getting out fishing boats rather than on getting out Samurais seems a bit less vulnerable.
 
IMO, the whole "samurais building boats" thing is meant for fish resources. These don't need boats right away because with just a lighthouse they are 4 food 1 hammer tiles anyways. It makes Japan good at settling small islands with 3+ fish resources and/or atolls in the mid-game. You don't have to waste hammers/gold on the boats and can instead work on the lighthouse and other buildings to get these cities up faster.

To sum up, boats early for sea luxuries, samurai boats later for fishies.
 
An even more elegant way would have been if workers could build fishing boats to begin with. Just embark, move to the fish and build a fishing boat, problem solved! Instead we get this one use nonsense which makes costal starts even worse. 50 hammers for 1 food/turn is a bad rate of return. It is only worth it on luxuries for happiness/trade unless you have god of the sea or Japans' bonus. Not to mention that they are really easy to plunder with the high movement of ships and the difficulty in creating bottlenecks at sea after astronomy.
 
Instead we get this one use nonsense which makes costal starts even worse.

Coastal starts even worse? When has anyone ever complained about coastal starts being bad? It's a bonus to coastal starts, which are already strong.
 
Its like giving Panzers the ability to roll around building plantations. There was so many good ideas for a new Japan UA such as buffing domestic trade routes, and instead we get this. Feels lazy and poorly thought out to me. I'm sure many of you agree. Its a real shame as I'm quite happy with the rest of the patch, this is such a disappointment. :confused:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503275
A. Thanks!
B. I agree, and I'm hoping that enough community pressure causes them to redo Japan's UA, which is disproportionately uninteresting, especially considering the how historically unique Japan's culture has been.
 
IMO, the whole "samurais building boats" thing is meant for fish resources. These don't need boats right away because with just a lighthouse they are 4 food 1 hammer tiles anyways. It makes Japan good at settling small islands with 3+ fish resources and/or atolls in the mid-game. You don't have to waste hammers/gold on the boats and can instead work on the lighthouse and other buildings to get these cities up faster.

To sum up, boats early for sea luxuries, samurai boats later for fishies.

Except no, because Japanese Fishing Boats now give +1 culture. You want them ASAP in the early game, not waiting for Samurai.
 
hmmm, am I the only one here thinking about sushi? I know it isn't directly connected to Samurai directly, but it is one the things Japan is most famous for. sooo...... are we going to get a tea bonus for Samurai now? :mischief:

(Samurai where quite big on tea drinking, and often their tea pot was one of their most prized possessions. I do believe you could use them as trophies to prove how many kills you had... after their heads!! :eek:)
 
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