A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: Japan

A guide on how to play Japan with the Vox Populi(Community Balance Patch) mod. Japan is a strong domination civ, with a solid culture base and the ability to leverage war into a culture victory if they wish to.

Introduction

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Japanese!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Brief Unique Summary

Start Bias

Japan has no start bias. None of their uniques interact with terrain at all, so that's no big deal

Unique Ability: Shogunate

+1& from defense and military training buildings

When a Great General or Admiral is born, gain Great Writer, Artist and Musician points in the capital

Unique Unit: Samurai(Replaces the Longswordsman)

A melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades From	Upgrades To	Resource Needed
Steel Medieval Era	Rifling Industrial Era	Swordsman (70 )	Tercio (150 )	1 Iron

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
25	N/A	2	N/A	2	None	+10% combat strength against all ranged attacks. +10 hp(Discipline) Gains Great Generals 100% faster (Great Generals II) Gain XP 50% faster (Quick Study) +25% combat strength against ranged attacks (Cover I)

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (25 instead of 22)
  
• Obsoletes at Rifling rather than Gunpowder

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Gains Great Generals 100% faster (Great Generals II)
  
• Gain XP 50% faster (Quick Study)

Unique Building: Dojo(Replaces the Armory)

Technology	Building required	Required to Build	Production Cost	City Restriction	Maintenance
Steel Medieval Era	None	Military Academy	300	None	2

Base Output	Citizen Yields	Specialist	Great Work Slots	Other Effects
3 * 5	None	None	None	Units trained in this city gain +25 xp Mounted melee, melee, armor and gun units trained in this city receive the Eight Virtues of Bushido promotion, which will randomly turn into 1 of 8 promotions after a unit enters its first combat When units are promoted, gain & based on the unit's current level Increases Military Supply Cap by 2 -1 from distress

*Due to the Japanese UA, the Dojo will actually yield 4 as well as 1

Positive Changes

• +3 & +5 (Up from 0 and 2 respectively)
  
• +25 xp to all units created in this city (up from 20)
  
• Increases Military Supply Cap by 2 (Up from 1)
  
• Mounted melee, melee, armor and gun units trained in this city receive the Eight Virtues of Bushido promotion, which will randomly turn into 1 of 8 promotions after a unit enters its first combat
  
• When units are promoted, gain & based on the unit's current level
  
• Does not require a barracks to build

Strategies & Victory Routes

Strategy Ranking

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Japanese uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking

Offense	Defense	Culture	Tourism	Science	/ Growth/Production	Gold	Diplomacy	Religion
8/10	8/10	6/10	6/10	5/10	4/10	4/10	4/10	2/5

Japan's best route is domination. Their UU is strong and their UB supports a strong army from the mid-game onwards.
Culture is a great secondary route for Japan. Their UA and UB provide decent Culture, and their UA can provide a bit of tourism through GWAMs
The Japanese UB can provide a bit of science, but Japan lacks anything to really capitalize on it for a Science victory.
Japan's UA does give a bit of faith, but it isn't enough to reliably found a religion nor enough to give a major advantage
Japan lacks any advantage towards gold or diplomacy

Unique Ability: Shogunate

Above: The Japanese UA stacks well with the Goddess of Protection

Military training buildings are useful, sometimes a necessity for a domination playthrough, but they don't usually give much outside of their military xp. Japan gives these buildings some decent yields. It isn't exceptional by any means, and late game won't be too important, but it means you can more easily afford to build barracks early without having to disregard culture.



Probably the more important part of the UA is that whenever you gain a Great General or Admiral you gain a large sum of GWAM points. It's going to give you about enough points that it just proccing two times will give you one of each GWAM, and the sum increases every time you gain a GWAM. Between this and however many Great Works you'll likely be taking from your conquests, you can actually get pretty strong conventional tourism. Note that if you choose a Great General/Admiral when you gain a free Great Person, you will still gain the GWAM points, so it kind of turns 1 Great Person into 2 and a half. While this may appear to turn Japan into a Domination-Culture hybrid, and it does, don't forget tourism has some effects on warfare. Mainly, the more cultural influence you have over someone, the fewer turns conquered cities are in anarchy. So even if you don't plan for a culture win it is still worth trying to build off of this advantage.

Unique Building: The Dojo

Here in the Dojo
Despite low HP, I still
Fight with full CS

When you build a Dojo in a city, all mounted melee, melee, gun and armor units units built in that city, past or future, gain the 8 Virtues of Bushido promotion, which gives all those units a new promotion once they engage in their first combat. Each of these promotions gives 2 standard bonuses, and 1 bonus unique to it. The 2 standard bonuses are

• Increases combat strength based on unit damage
  
• +10hp when you destroy an enemy unit

The former imitates the base game Japanese UA in that your units are effectively fighting at full strength regardless of their current HP. Notable is that the latter bonus stacks with Authority's Dominance policy, so assuming you went Authority, Japanese units with one of these promotions heal 25 hp upon killing a unit, healing only seen on a select few UUs

Promotion Name	Promotion Effect
Benevolence	Adjacent units heal for +5hp when healing
Courage	+15% when attacking
Honor	+15% outside of friendly lands
Loyalty	+15% in friendly lands
Respect	+15% vs melee and gun units
Righteousness	+20% vs wounded units
Self Control	+15% while defending
Sincerity	+50% xp gained from combat

The promotion you get is completely random, and as all of these hold similar uses and strengths in combat, I wouldn't worry too much about keeping track of what unit has what promotion, especially as your army gets bigger, with perhaps the exception of Benevolence. Treat these units like you would any unit with medic, in fact putting medic on a Benevolence unit is a good idea.


Units get stronger
All fall to mighty Japan
Science and Culture

Dojos will also give science and culture whenever a unit levels up, scaling with the unit's level. The amount you get isn't immense, even at higher levels, but with a large army, you'll be getting these small amounts a lot, and can add up to a good amount overtime. While I wouldn't say this gives Japan a massive lead on science or culture, it allows them to neglect traditional scientific and cultural infrastructure in favor of troops and not fall too behind.

Unique Unit: The Samurai

The Samurai stands
Fighting for the Shogunate
It's snowing on Mt.Fuji

The Samurai does not have any exceptional combat bonuses on it's own. As a unique unit it doesn't increase your armies effectiveness in combat by a large amount. What it does do, however, is build upon the other Japanese uniques seemingly situational bonuses.

Building upon the Japanese UA, the Samurai has Great Generals II, which allows it to generate Great Generals twice as fast. As explained in the UA section, Great Generals give a very large amount of GWAM points, so the more you can get the better.

Building on the Japanese UB, Samurais have Quick Study, which causes the Samurai to gain an extra 50% xp from combat. Each individual promotion may not be worth a lot of yields, but they do go better as units get stronger, and it will add up across enough units. The Samurai makes that much more efficient, especially if you get a Samurai with Sincerity.

One last thing to note about Samurais, and Japan in general. Japan is one of only 2 civs to get both their uniques on the same tech (the other one being Portugal, who also gets both uniques in the medieval era interestingly). Japan is the most militaristic then them though, and can probably do the most in the short term with it, although both uniques also hold lots of long term benefits too.

Promotions Kept on Upgrade

• Gain Great Generals 100% faster (Great Generals II)
  
• Earn +50% xp from combat (Quick Study)

All of the Japanese units are worth holding onto and upgrading for as long as possible, and the Samurai are no exception.

Policies

Japan should start with Authority to maximize the effectiveness of their medieval warfare. Fealty is tempting, mainly due to the faster building armories, or for you, Dojos. However, Artistry is probably the better choice so you can get better yields and use out of your great works. Finally, Japan should end with Imperialism.

Authority

Opener: Little bit of production to help early unit and building construction, plus easier barbarians and some culture out of them and any other units you kill to boot

Dominance: Get some science out of your kills too. The healing will stack with your Bushido promotions to make sure even after killing a unit your unit is no easy target.

Tribute: The extra yields on occasion, whether from border growth or bullying city states, are nice

Imperium: You're bound to be conquering a lot of cities, so this will probably add up to several techs and a few policies

Discipline: Japan lacks strengths in two of the most important things for a warmonger, gold and happiness. This policy helps patch up both problems.

Honor: Should help add some units from time to time, usually melee units which is nice.

Finisher: Free Companies, Foreign Legions and Mercenaries all benefit from the Dojo, and so are very good for Japan.

Artistry

Opener: Guilds normally take a lot of production, and now they don't!

Humanism: The big reason you are taking Artistry, this will actually be a good chunk of yields early on.

Refinement: This should give quite a bit of happiness, which should help offset any conquering you may or may not be doing

National Treasure: Choose a Great General (or Admiral if naval warfare has really been an issue this early) and you'll practically get 3 great people on top of it

Heritage: Some Golden Age points, although you'll probably be conquering more wonders then you're building

Cultural Exchange: Even more culture from golden ages never hurt.

Finisher: If you plan to go for the Culture Victory, then this will give another leg up if you can get those extra archaeological sites.

Imperialism

Opener: Your Great Generals now have a lot more mobility. Plus if you need to conquer someone overseas, faster navies can help with that.

Colonialism: You'll have lots of monopolies by now, get some more use out of them.

Regimental Tradition: Faster Great General and Admiral generation, as well as making them stronger, good to have on the land or on the sea.

Martial Law: You'll definitely have plenty of puppet cities, and conquered ones too. Both of them will be less of a burden now.

Exploitation: Some extra yields on almost every tile of the empire, and the expanded upgrade positions has some niche use

Civilizing Mission: Gold from conquering cities, and production in said conquered cities, everything you need to push the front line.

Finisher: A stronger navy, and a new way to use air units to help manage unhappiness.

Ideology

Whether they go Domination or Culture, Japan is right at home with Autocracy

Level 1 Policies

Elite Forces: New units start better, old units get better quicker, all you could want for a world-conquering horde, plus it'll get you a lot more dojo yields

Military-Industrial Complex: Japan usually has many highly upgraded units that they would like to keep. This makes sure you can afford to.

New World Order: Warmongers need every bonus they can get to reduce unhappiness, and Japan is no exception

Futurism(Culture): Keep conquering cities and you'll keep building tourism, simple as that

Level 2 Policies

Lightning Warfare: Japan has bonuses towards both armor and gun units, so they'll likely have a mix of both, so they can get both benefits from this policy.

Syndicalism(Culture): Make sure you aren't building too many corporate franchises in your territory, and this can bump up your tourism a good bit.

Martial Spirit: An amazing bonus to clean up your last conquest or two, but it is a temporary boost. If you still have more then two civs to conquer, it might be better to postpone this, but it is always worth getting when the moment is right.

Level 3 Policies

Cult of Personality(Culture): Keep a war going for as long as possible, preferably forever, and this will add a ton of tourism.

Air Supremacy: Free Airports in every city means that you almost don't need a navy as long as you have a city on every continent. Also makes air units quicker to build if you need to.

Wonders

Ancient Era

Pyramids: You're bound to get a fair few Great People, more then most warmongers, might as well get some golden age points when you do. The settler is nice too.

Statue of Zeus: You're probably going to want to conquer cities, this should speed it up.

Classical Era

Great Wall: Not only is this a Great General, and therefore lots of GWAM points, but it also denies any enemy from having it and making an invasion much harder

Medieval Era

Alhambra(Authority Only): You already have one promotion no other civ can get, might as well get another

Renaissance Era

Leaning Tower of Pisa: Why get 1 great person, choose a General or Admiral and get about 2.5 great people instead

Uffizi(Culture): One that might be better to capture then build, but nonetheless gives great theming bonuses

Industrial Era

Brandenburg Gate: Free Great General, plus a bit of extra XP, which should actually net your units an extra promotion.

Louvre(Artistry Only): Even if you don't bother to go artifact hunting, you'll need to put all your great works somewhere.

Modern Era

Cristo Redentor(Culture): Tons of Tourism, what more do you need? Tourism on buildings you are already building for tourism? Screw it why not?

Empire State Building: Another Great General/Admiral, plus a good bit of gold to go with it.

Prora(Autocracy Only): Kiss your Happiness problems goodbye, with a social policy parting gift.

Atomic Era

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): If you needed some air units, have some air units. If you need more in the future, you'll get them out faster.

Information Era

CERN: Two free techs, can't go wrong with that now can you?

CN Tower(Culture): Extra Tourism from basically every conventional source of Tourism.

Hubble Space Telescope: Similar benefit to CERN, two Great Scientists is basically two free techs.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Japan is a very synergistic civ, all of their uniques work together. That does mean that to use Japan effectively, you need to use all of their uniques. Mistakes can arise because of that.

Declaring a major war before Dojos/Samurai

Japan has some advantage to conquest of course, but the biggest reason they go to war is from the bonuses they can gain from it due to their UA and UB. While you can get a bit out of your UA early, you are missing the potential from Dojos, as well as lacking Samurais, who increase how efficiently you gain yields from both. Even when you are going for a domination victory, it is a waste to take out an opponent early.

Feeling Like You Have to Only Make Melee Units

Melee units are a great choice for Japan that benefit from the Dojo. However, mounted melee units benefit the exact same way. It isn't a wrong decision to stick solely with melee units, especially when Samurai are in their prime, but you can switch it up and still work effectively.

Neglecting Domination or Tourism

Japan is a textbook Cultural Autocracy civ. To do culture effectively, Japan needs to be at war, fighting units, and getting generals. However, beyond that Japan needs almost no investment besides war to get solid tourism going, and investing just a bit into cultural infrastructure can make Japan have really strong culture, which will help their conquest. Japan is one of the few civs where you never really need to make a huge choice towards what victory type you are going for, stay flexible.

Rearranging Kyoto into Tokyo: Counter Strategies

Japan is going to have some of the highest promoted units in the game, along with strong culture and solid science. Japan however is quite vulnerable to the normal warmonger counters, and has a notable weak period in the game.

Emperor over Shogun

There isn't really much you can do to counter the UA. There isn't much you can do to stop them building their military training buildings, and there isn't much you can do to stop Great Generals, short of not fighting them, in which case they'll probably conquer you which isn't exactly ideal. To further complicate things, Japan is likely to try and get a very high amount of Great Generals, which either means pretty much the entire army is covered with the Great General bonus no matter how spread out, or they are claiming lots of territory with citadels. Japan's incentive to build military training buildings early does means they will have a very weak early economy, even for a warmonger.

Deconstructing the Dojo

More so then any other warmonger, you need to make sure to finish off Japanese units if at all possible. Low health units can still be a threat to your own, even if it will still likely kill the Japanese unit to attack, but if at all possible Japan wants to keep their units alive to upgrade them. Don't let them do this. Also try not to let your units die, as Japan can heal a lot from it. Mounted units, melee or ranged, are probably the best way to fight Japan, as they can retreat much easier, as well as give chase.

Silencing Samurai

Samurai aren't a much bigger threat then any other Japanese unit, however they are a big target, especially when Japan gets Fusiliers and can't build them any more. The Samurai promotions make the other Japanese Uniques better, so while the strategy to deal with them is no different then other Japanese units, it is more important to deal with them first.

Strategy by Style

Early-Game Warmongers: This is the best time to attack Japan as pretty much none of their uniques have come into play yet. Japan may have units with an extra upgrade then most due to likely building barracks, but they still are unlikely to have that many units.

Mid-Game Warmongers: This is probably Japan's height but they are by no means unbeatable. Most strong Medieval UUs should beat the Samurai and Dojo bonuses. Just make sure to fully cripple Japan, even if they take a minor loss they will have gained a lot of science, culture, and GWAMs, so give them a major loss.

Late-Game Warmongers: Similar to the mid game, you need to make sure you crush Japan in a war, not just hand them a minor loss. Japanese troops are probably going to be heavily upgraded, focus firing with air units is a good idea, especially if you can spot upgraded Samurai.

Cultural Players: Japan shouldn't be much competition on wonder building, however you will likely be a juicy target for Japan. Conversely however, Japan should actually make a good target for you as they will have a lot of great works. Beating them is easier said then done, but temporarily committing to the warpath to beat Japan might be a good idea.

Scientific Players: Use your tech lead to your advantage, and make sure to get ahead on unit techs. Japan does have decent science, but they might struggle to upgrade all their units for a while, so at least keeping on par if not being slightly ahead should give you a major edge.

Diplomatic Players: Embargoing Japan hurts both their military and cultural aims. Global Peace Accords is another great thing to pass, as it is with any warmonger.

Other Guides

Meta Guides

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

Civ Specific Guides: Alphabetized

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)
  

[RelicLord]

Your guides make it much less daunting to try new civs and higher difficulties. Thanks for making all of these; they're worth their weight in gold.

[lifeordeath2077]

Looking back I find it funny the Japan guide was delayed by me playing a JRPG.

[Bomber Rex]

All these guides are really helpful for people like me who just started playing vox populi. Thanks for the great work!

[HolyCheese]

great work keep going.

[lifeordeath2077]

Sorry this one took a bit longer then usual, I've been getting really into the FF7 remake. Hopefully things will get more consistent again, at least for a bit.