Japan needs a nerf.

[Eazy_V]

I'm tired of getting samurai spammed. People just spam samurai, spread them out so mangonels rarely do something and attack move onto you slaughtering EVERYTHING. Super unfun super unskilled. The way their armor works just negates any meaningful ranged unit to a point where it's just unplayable vs them.

[Ragnarr Loðbrók]

Heresy!

[HomeAlone]

I agree

[Playerguy11]

I'm sure they will nerf it once expansion pack sales bottom out.

[Thunraz]

They're so easy to counter.

[$]

Originally posted by Playerguy11:

I'm sure they will nerf it once expansion pack sales bottom out.

yea)

[YouMoMCallME]

Originally posted by V_99:

I'm tired of getting samurai spammed. People just spam samurai, spread them out so mangonels rarely do something and attack move onto you slaughtering EVERYTHING. Super unfun super unskilled. The way their armor works just negates any meaningful ranged unit to a point where it's just unplayable vs them.

+++

[Gundalf]

Their Otzuzu and infinite Pseudo Relics need a nerf not the Samurai.
They get to block 1 attack and get 1 extra ranged armor for 10 extra gold. Otherwise they are identical to MaA. Also each Civ has one or two units that are simply a bit stronger like French Royal Knights or Longbowman.

[Eazy_V]

Originally posted by Thunraz:

They're so easy to counter.

How? Explain it please I need to know I lose every time to them whatever I do.

[Wolfy]

Originally posted by Playerguy11:

I'm sure they will nerf it once expansion pack sales bottom out.

stop think ppl buy dlc for 1 broken unit lol

[Quang Hung]

Originally posted by V_99:

Originally posted by Thunraz:

They're so easy to counter.

How? Explain it please I need to know I lose every time to them whatever I do.

Knight and Crossbow

[rbdoallo]

You are

Originally posted by Gundalf:

Their Otzuzu and infinite Pseudo Relics need a nerf not the Samurai.
They get to block 1 attack and get 1 extra ranged armor for 10 extra gold. Otherwise they are identical to MaA. Also each Civ has one or two units that are simply a bit stronger like French Royal Knights or Longbowman.

Exactly.

[76561199569197429]

they are in desperate need for a nerf there is no doubt. every ape rn is playin japan and thinks hes good, while in reality his winrate is skyrocketing solely because of how busted the civ is

did it myself. switched to another one bcuz its just low

[Soccer]

People play japan (and the other civs) because they are new, and people want to try it out.

Japan has 50.1 % win rate, perfectly balanced. jean d´arc, and ayubidds have the hightest win rates.

[Eazy_V]

Originally posted by Quang Hung:

Originally posted by V_99:

How? Explain it please I need to know I lose every time to them whatever I do.

Knight and Crossbow

Yeah that's the issue I barely manage to get into castle without dying because I have to spam units just to keep the little samurai blob away from my ECO. By the time I get to castle and start pumping out crossbows or knights I'm already in the process of dying. The number of them I can make is usually insignificant.

The only way I find myself actually doing well against the samurai blob is just to play really agressive and harass so much to a point where they just don't produce them in the first place.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Alright.
I've come back to AOE4 after the expansion; I first tried Zhu-Xi as a main civ but I then transitioned to fully being a Japanese main on Ranked and I've just now got myself to Diamond 3.

My AOE4 account is the same name as here, profile pic is Onna-bugheisha and I'm lvl 130, you can check everything I say to be born from first hand experience now.

Japan is strong, some aspects of it being 100% deserving of a nerf:

1)Floating Gate and Yoroshiros need to be rebalanced/expanded:
-gold generation needs to be cut to 50, maybe 40 from the current 75 gold per minute
-yoroshiro production boost needs to inversely scale with the cost of the production building,meaning that you should not get 600 free wood by putting one in a siege workshop. Scaling Yoroshiro to be 175% production speed for barracks/ranges, 125% for stables and 100% for siege workshops would be a step in the right direction
-there should be more yoroshiro bonuses on other structures to expand gameplay possibilities, I'll let you imagine what putting Yoroshiros in monasteries, keeps, universities and whatnot would do

2)Tanegashima Gunsmith needs a rebalance
-I would make Osutzu cost 2 tickets instead of one,possibly even make them more expensive with some slight buffs that would in turn make them vulnerable to their supposed counters, maybe same HP, more damage but no melee armor? I am spit balling right now

With that in mind, the civ itself feels rather rough around the edges:

1) Koka township is quite underwhelming, as it's only really viable on hybdrid maps (and not always) and only against some civs. It would be interesting if Japanese as a whole got the ability to train Shinobi even without the landmark, but the landmark itself would actually allow for some unique techs aswell as a production building. You would of course have to rebalance the Shinobi skills at that point.
I do not really think it's healthy for the meta to only need 2 Shinobi to permanently disable any production building, which also includes Abbasid/Ayyubid House OF wisdom by the way

2)There aren't nearly enough bannermen types for the unit you can have in your army. You could even go as far as relegating the damage bonus to the only same units of the bannerman, example:
-Katana Bannerman only buffs heavy infantry
-Onnabugheisha bannerman only buffs the other crazy ladies
-Spear Bannerman only buffs spears
-Light Cavalry Bannerman only buffs Horsemen
-Heavy Cavalry bannerman only buffs Mounted Samurai
-Yumi Bannerman only buffing YumiAshigaru
-Onna-Musha bannerman only buffing other crazy ladies on a horse
-Gunpowder bannerman only buffing ranged gunpowder infantry

You would no longer need to,for example, babysit an Uma bannerman toprevent it from killing itself when it's grouped togheder with Onnamushas, which can only get+15% damage from the MELEE Bannerman.

You could also go as far as introducing asiege engine bannerman,for example, or even allowing for TOGGLES on various bannermen giving units different buffs, altough I would make the bannerman bonus for the singular unit type GLOBAL and with a 60 second cooldown between switches to prevent abuse.

You could also have this toggle mechanic be a technology you'd have to research, possibly behind a landmark choice (*wink* Temple Of Equality *wink*),maybe even along other techs improving bannerman synergies?

Needless to say that the entire bannerman system would have to get tweaked, altough I think that giving one free bannerman slot at the start of the game would fix things.








AAAANYWAY.
The complaints about Japan OP are there. Some are warranted, others require better understanding of the counter system. I've been practicing as of late and I'm on a rather significant win streak.

The main reason why I won those games were:
1)Opponent did not wall,allowing for raids, despite me abusing the all army hotkey. This is especially the case against opponents going Fast Castle and just getting abused by Feudal Onnabugheishas doing massive eco damage
2)early 2TC not getting pressured/punished
3)Opponent getting fixated on countering Samurai,allowing for some Yoroshiro-powered army comp switches like mass Onnabugheisha (Ottomans hate this), mass Onnamusha (works great vs HRE) or mass Siege (English literally in tears right now)
4)Opponent not contesting water at all, despite the ease Japan has when sustaining fishing ship production


Fix those wrongdoings and Japan is beatable well before Yoroshiros stacktoan absurd degree and there are 30 Osutzu on the field.

I hope this was useful to you all. Have a good one.