China vs Japan

General Discussion about Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

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ZoRPrimE
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by ZoRPrimE »

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]Not all matchups are a free win at all for China.

Sioux, French, Japan, and especially Dutch are hard for China. Dutch are on par with China, first of all, and the other civs are both OP and have strong cavalry.

I'd be glad to help you, KK.[/quote]
Amazing how much time changed the perception of how wrongly OP China is instead of patch's. Granted they still need a patch...
[quote=""I_CHAOS_I""] do you people even look up and test units before claiming they do beat other stuff?[/quote]
lol Nav got 'You Peopled!' or was it everyone but Chaos in N3O got 'You Peopled!'??
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Navarone_Guy »

Actually, CHAOS, I am probably THE most unit stat-savvy person in this clan. I've played Japan and I've spammed ashigaru before. It's all shown in the stats of the unit.

Ashigaru:
170 hp, 20% hand resist, 26 base ranged attack, 10 base melee attack, x3.5 to cavalry, x2 to light infantry, cost: 80 food, 40 gold.

Not so amazing, eh? Add in a few cards, upgrades, and wonders.

Ashigaru attack: +5.2 ranged attack
Close combat: +5.2 ranged attack, +1x melee to cavalry
Veteran status: + 34 hp, +5.2 ranged attack
Wonder for ranged damage: + 9.36 ranged attack.

In age 3 with just 4 upgrades/cards/auras, our little ashigaru all of a sudden have 51.26 ranged attack. That's not including diamyos.

You honestly think disciples can beat that, Chaos?
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Sporting_Lisbon »

They cost 50% more? LOL obviously 12 discs won't kill the ashis, it's the arquebusiers and the changdaos backed by OP discs that convert and do all that stuff. About boosts, add in account the disc wonder and the monastery tech that gives a buggy aura to explorer that boosts all units by 10%.


Ashigaru attack: +5.2 ranged attack
Close combat: +5.2 ranged attack, +1x melee to cavalry
Veteran status: + 34 hp, +5.2 ranged attack
Wonder for ranged damage: + 9.36 ranged attack.


Arquebusiers and ckn CIR card: +50% atk vs OP ashis to them
Arques and changdao army upgrade: +15% atk and hp to both
Veteran status: all have them
Wonder: OP discs with 20 atk + critical hit + convert?


No one will go fulls discs, it's actually impossible. It's the whole army that can be easily thrown into. If you use all that cards into upgrades the chinese player can do it too.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by I__CHAOS__I »

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]Actually, CHAOS, I am probably THE most unit stat-savvy person in this clan. I've played Japan and I've spammed ashigaru before. It's all shown in the stats of the unit.

Ashigaru:
170 hp, 20% hand resist, 26 base ranged attack, 10 base melee attack, x3.5 to cavalry, x2 to light infantry, cost: 80 food, 40 gold.

Not so amazing, eh? Add in a few cards, upgrades, and wonders.

Ashigaru attack: +5.2 ranged attack
Close combat: +5.2 ranged attack, +1x melee to cavalry
Veteran status: + 34 hp, +5.2 ranged attack
Wonder for ranged damage: + 9.36 ranged attack.

In age 3 with just 4 upgrades/cards/auras, our little ashigaru all of a sudden have 51.26 ranged attack. That's not including diamyos.

You honestly think disciples can beat that, Chaos?[/quote]

LOL Nav, you are attacking the wrong guy here.
I never said anything close to that, and actually, I'm the one saying that Ashi's are too good and counter their own counters. So find somebody else to pick on, thx :D
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Cyclohexane »

[quote=""I__CHAOS__I""]do you people even look up and test units before claiming they do beat other stuff?[/quote]

Lol
I just posted an excellent spreadsheet that can do those calculations and much more very easily. There is nothing out on the web that even comes remotely close to the capabilities of that spreadsheet. I put a ton of work into it, including testing, to make sure it is accurate. I also posted it on N3O first so you guys can take advantage of my work.

Here are some stats that are available on MNBobs worksheet or in my Quick Reference Guide: China Disciple: Coyote Man, Hand Infantry, Light Infantry

They are not infantry but because they are classified as a Coyote Man / Light Infantry, Ashigaru (and ranged cavalry because they are coyotes) do get a bonus multiplier in melee mode. Since a Disciple only attacks in melee, then Disciples make a very weak meat shield for Chu-Ko-Nus.


[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]Actually, CHAOS, I am probably THE most unit stat-savvy person in this clan. [/quote]

Huh? I wasn’t going to get involved until I seen this comment. I’ll give you much better micro, but that title is mine. Download this and get back with me.

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]
Ashigaru:
170 hp, 20% hand resist, 26 base ranged attack, 10 base melee attack, x3.5 to cavalry, x2 to light infantry, cost: 80 food, 40 gold.

Not so amazing, eh? Add in a few cards, upgrades, and wonders.

Ashigaru attack: +5.2 ranged attack
Close combat: +5.2 ranged attack, +1x melee to cavalry
Veteran status: + 34 hp, +5.2 ranged attack
Wonder for ranged damage: + 9.36 ranged attack.

In age 3 with just 4 upgrades/cards/auras, our little ashigaru all of a sudden have 51.26 ranged attack. That's not including diamyos.

You honestly think disciples can beat that, Chaos?[/quote]

A Disciplined Ashigaru with both 20% upgrades, Golden Pavilion Configured to Ranged attack, and the consulate set to Japan (10% attack) will be doing 50 ranged damage. If you include a Diamyo, they will do 55. With the upgrades you mentioned, 47 is the damage output. Check out my spreadsheet above, those calculations can be done in seconds (and much more) and I have verified them with in-game testing.

I agree that Disciples cannot beat Ashigaru but if China sends just 1 Age 3 Shipment (since we are comparing Fortress), those little Chu Ko Nu’s will be doing 68 damage to Heavy Infantry each and have plenty of OP shipments available for military / resources / economy. The card is called “Repelling Volley” and grants Chu Ko Nu and Arquebusier 10% attack and x1 multiplier to light cavalry and heavy infantry damage (x3 total). Remember to multiply the base damage by 3 since they fire 3 volleys per shot (which is then multiplier by the unit multiplier). Their HP is not that great but they have higher range, ranged resists, and are very cheap. In Age 4, Qiang pikes can be upgraded with “Old Han Reforms“ to make a very useful anti-cav unit (and make those Chu Ko Nu godly).

On the other hand, Japan must heavily invest into one unit to make them OP. That means a very slow start and a rush may be the key to always defeating them. Just do not rush with primarily Disciples. Of course, I have never beat a well executed China FF as Japan against an equally skilled player yet either. I disagree than China < = Japan, I think China still has all the advantages in this match up against all civs except Dutch, Sioux, and Spanish, of which they are equal.

Also, Mongolian Scourge with Kesiks are not bad as anti cavalry combined with a Qiang pike meat shield / Chu Ko Nu backup. Not to mention those little hand mortars which make you come out of your shell and can also fire on infantry…

I’m not to sure about the China / Japan matchup, I have had loads of trouble and just prefer not to play rated games against China, but I can say this from experience: Ashigaru do not counter light infantry. They just do a better job than all the other HI versus their direct counter (except tomahawks with infantry upgrades, Lacrosse ranged bonus, WC aura, and 25 dancers on the fire pit). If all the Jap does is spam 1 unit, he will lose. The Jap must also make Nag Riders. They cannot do a Janissary type rush fast enough, more than 1 unit is required against an equally skilled opponent.

Japan takes a long time to get all those upgrades and enough resources to spam this unit with enough backup of Nag Riders.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by kingchrisII »

sporting nailed it on the head

also u forget that while ur getting rid of the lame discs, 30 + hand mortars are firing at u!!

and they can spam army at u very fast

AND before u get all these boosts they could just ckn/pike rush you to death and completely out spam u

dont fight the fact that they are op
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by KingKaramazov »

Yea, that's all very realistic KingChris. I regularly make 30+ hand mortars when I do a disciple FF. :P Truth is it's not that likely that a Chinese player will get to make very many hand mortars besides the 7 he gets in a shipment before a little bit later in the game when he has time to get a castle up (builds slowly) and starts spamming them (produced slowly). Plus, Naginatas own them very quickly once they get to them and Chinese anti-cav, of course, sucks.

It's not really Ashigaru that are the problem for China here guys, and I never said they were.

The fact is with a mixed block of decently upgraded / boosted Ashigaru and Yumis for support, a contingent of Naginata Riders will own a Chinese army, no sweat. Sure, they'll probably die in the process but they'll be replaced -- the Japanese eco isn't that bad -- and their units produce fairly quickly. And it's damn sure that the Chinese army will be gone, and Chinese armies don't get replaced all that quickly.

As for dealing with disciples, the typical group of 10-15 Ashigaru and 5-10 Yumis that most Japanese players have (at the least) by the time the Chinese player hits Fortress Age should be enough to at least take out all of the age-up Disciples, even if there aren't many of them left over afterwards.

The Chinese FF is definitely strong but once they've run out of unit shipments and it's just straight up chang + arque spam vs naginatas, ashigaru, and yumi, the Japanese player has the decided edge.

It's certainly a close match, but I think it's much easier for the Chinese player to make a micro mistake and lose all of their melee units and all of a sudden their mass of chu ko nus / arquebusiers is gone too.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Navarone_Guy »

Cyclo, by that I meant that I could give you the stats of any unit in the entire game off the top of my head. I don't deny that you have made your spreadsheets, etc., but I have a disturbingly precise memory for AOE3 stats.

And yes, KK, I'd have to say China requires more micro than Japan. You absolutely need to have your units fighting the guys they counter. Japan, on the other hand, can just set their guys loose and shred everything you have.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Sporting_Lisbon »

And yes, KK, I'd have to say China requires more micro than Japan. You absolutely need to have your units fighting the guys they counter. Japan, on the other hand, can just set their guys loose and shred everything you have.

Not true, at all. Have you noticed how expensive japanese units are? And how jap eco suffers to support it? What means? They die and they won't come back so soon! You have to micro it too because they have a huge attack, you're saying that you don't need to micro abus because they kill everything by themselves. There's not much micro in china tbh. You can also have, actually vs china you must have - ashis, yumis, nagis, daymio and consulate clubmen for discs.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by NEO_CrAz3n »

I looked at Cyc's unit comparrison yesterday and saw that disciples are basically like light cav (Coyote Man). Now I know why my HI countered them so well. If they were classified as light infantry they should have torn me to pieces.

I will say this and I've said it before. Japan gives me much more trouble than China when playing a player close to my skill level. I've beaten China players that were better than me (skill-wise) using Sioux but Japan players give me loads of trouble. Once Japan is in Fortress I'm usually toast and because Asian civs are hard to raid, that's not too difficult.

Just be sure to keep this friendly. These discussions get heated sometimes. Think before you post.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Sporting_Lisbon »

Heh, it's just a balance discussion, I see no reason for one to be offended ^^
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Cyclohexane »

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]Cyclo, by that I meant that I could give you the stats of any unit in the entire game off the top of my head. I don't deny that you have made your spreadsheets, etc., but I have a disturbingly precise memory for AOE3 stats.

[/quote]

I know man,
I'm just saying that the titile of the biggest AOE3 nerd belongs to me :)

That FFA we played the other day when it ended up with me and you in Industrial. I had fully upgraded Ags / Nags and our scores were about equal. Your Indian army walked over mine (about 40 Ags, 15 Rattan Shields, and 10 Nags). I know you had a few Howdas, Mahouts, and Sepoy / Gurkha mix but they did very well. What did I do wrong there?

Micro was extremely important and the only thing I can think I did wrong. Granted it is not so important to focus fire with Ags because of the overkill but if the supporting units die, so will the Ags. Your micro was better so despite superior units in about equal numbers, you won.

The Age 4 Japan economy is decent (with Shrine wonder and shrine upgrade), but replacing those units is tough. China gets a bonus to training time from training in batches. If you look at the proto file (or in the worksheet Unit Train Times), you can see that the base unit would typically take ~5 seconds longer to make than in a batch army. They also have 2 very nice reduction in training time cards. Japan can only reduce train time through the Dutch church in industrial or with Daimyo / Shoguns.

I do not think that overall Japan is OP and that they are a very well balanced civilization able to win and be defeated. If they change the Ag upgrades cards to something different, like HP or train time or cost reduction, I think the problem will get worse. I’m not sure how they will fix it…

I would like to see the Sword Saint card increased. I mean Dopps have a similar church tech (cost 1 card), that grants 20% speed for a 10% increase in cost (and they have 2 area damage opposed to 1). Their base speed is the same except the Dopp actually costs less (in VS secs) and has 10% less hand armor (same amount of ranged HP). A samurai is basically an inferior Dopple. Another example is the Sioux 10% speed for all of their infantry shipment (which is boosted from total, not base with the WC aura).
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Navarone_Guy »

Actually, Cyclo, doppels cost more villager seconds. Samurai cost 100 food and 100 gold, while doppels cost 75 food and 125 gold. Gold takes longer to gather and is more scarce on the map. The sword saint card needs a boost, though. What I'd like to see for Japan is a reduction on the ashigaru upgade cards and making it so that none of the auras stack. That's what makes them OP. Other than that... I don't see anything wrong with the civ. I would also give them 2.5x to light infantry instead of 2, and have the close combat card increase that to 3x.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by KingKaramazov »

You both know your stuff, happy?

I think practical, applied knowledge is more important when it comes to actually playing the game anyway.
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Re: China vs Japan

Post by Cyclohexane »

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]Actually, Cyclo, doppels cost more villager seconds. Samurai cost 100 food and 100 gold, while doppels cost 75 food and 125 gold. Gold takes longer to gather and is more scarce on the map. The sword saint card needs a boost, though. What I'd like to see for Japan is a reduction on the ashigaru upgade cards and making it so that none of the auras stack. That's what makes them OP. Other than that... I don't see anything wrong with the civ. I would also give them 2.5x to light infantry instead of 2, and have the close combat card increase that to 3x.[/quote]

If you use berries as the food source for both (0.67 res/sec) and gold mining (0.6), then:
Dopples (75F 125G) = 320VS
Samurai (100F 100G) = 316VS

However, Germans can hunt whereas Japanese cannot. So if you use hunting, Doppls are 298VS. When you take out walking from hunting, they are roughly about the same in cost, with Dopples only being slightly cheaper.

The only auras that stack with Japan is the Daimyo (10%) and the Golden Pavilion Wonder (15%). The consulate bonus and all of the HC shipments and arsenal technologies only affect the base stats. The Shogun aura affects different statistics (HP) so that is not the problem (but does stack with HP aura in Golden Pavilion). The stacked effect is not that large either 1.1 * 1.15 = 1.265. So instead of 25% increase, it is 26.5% increase. What makes it so effective is that it affects the total damage after all upgrades have been included. If you mean that these upgrades should affect base statistics, then a fully upgraded Fortress Ag musket (Daimyo, wonder on range, Japan consulate, 2 20% upgrade cards, and 1 15% upgrade tech at wonder) would do 52 damage (opposed to 57). Not such a big change and I imagine a lot of programming would be required to change this, not an easy task because all the auras in the game would need to be changed.

I’m ok with nerfing Ags if they boosted samurai. Samurai are fun to play and decent upgrade cards, but not enough speed (even with Wonder set to speed and the sword saint card played, they only run at 5.2. Dopps with the church tech move at 5.4 (and are way more effective with 2 area damage). If they removed Paper Cartridge (15% damage to gun powder units) and added military drummers instead, samurai would get a boost and muskets damage nerfed (although they would be fast HI). They could then change the 20% + added melee multiplier to a 10% + added melee multiplier and leave the 20% damage card in colonial alone. That would remove 25% of the total upgrades available while simultaneously boosting samurai. The sword saint should just be a 10% speed boost without the cost penalty or a 20% boost with 10% cost penalty (same as Dopps).

I do not think making samurai fast (20% speed plus a 5% aura from wonder) will make Japan OP like Dutch Halbs were with Military reforms. The reason being is it is very tough for Japan to spam artillery and the flaming arrow is not nearly as effective as a falconet. It would need to be balance tested first though.

My point is, stacking auras does not make them OP. It is the huge amount of upgrades available (20% card, 20% and multiplier card, 15% damage tech, 10% HP tech, 10% damage at consulate, 10% damage aura, 20% HP aura, 15% damage wonder aura) combined with high base damage. The extra 1.5% damage bonus from stacking auras is insignificant compared to everything else. They can decrease their cost and decrease their base damage, but that would nerf their early game which is not so great as it is. If you just removed any type of stackable aura and gave them those multipliers you mentioned, they would only be slightly weaker but counter their counters even more. The net effect is more powerful Ags, not weaker ones.

As a side note, the fire pit dances affect the total statistics as well. So 25 dancers on the fire pit and you get a 30% damage increase from the total amount after all upgrades are included. If you look at it like that, a 15% damage increase is equivalent to 13 dancers on the fire pit. Of course only select units are affected with the wonder, but it is still the best wonder in the game. A Daimyo is worth about 9 villagers on the fire pit (10% damage increase). Both combined is ~ equivalent to 22 dancers on the fire pit (26% damage). If you look at it like that, thier 75 vill economy dont seem so bad.

I'm ok with nerfing Ags, I do not totally dependent on them, just the backbone of the army. I just do not want to see an over nerf (like longbows were, now they are useful again with the nerf removed). Ags are countered by light infantry upgraded with CIR (or even the China version), you cannot deny this. I'll give you they require less micro since actually microing them will create overkill and make them less useful, but I cannot agree that Japan has an advantage over China, or is even equal to them.

I can post some examples if interested in how it is calculated. It took me awhile to figure it out and then replicate it but I have tested in-game.
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