Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

So KO asked me to hold off a guide so I decided to do a nation analysis instead. This may develop into a guide as it'll discuss a few potential strategies, tips, builds, etc. A little about myself, I played MP dom II for a good amount and won my share of MP's/blitzes. My abilities in dom III are most likely deteriorated but I still like to think I have a good enough eye for capabilities of nations as well as how to play the game.

Since I searched the strategy index to see if anything's written about Jomon beforehand, I'd like to direct something similarly written by st.Patrik who's guide I agreed with most parts in. However on other points, you will find my views differ.

Jomon's a nation of samurais and folk mages. It's not quite Nobunaga's conquest but has a nice Legend of Five Ring feel to it. (Save no blood - maho magic!)

With that said, let's move on the troops!

Ashigaru: You toss these on front of arrows. Your initial squad gives you ten decoys. You probably won't be building more but they do have movement 2 =)
Samurai Archer: What will compose the bulk of your army out of nationals. They're flexible as both melee and archer roles. If you just leave them in one big screen or block formation, they'll pepper your opponents with arrows and then have a swath of katanas to greet the troops that do make it to your line. Their downside? Like all other Jomon troops, they cost a ton of resources.
Samurai: They come in two varieties, katanas and naginatas. They both suck so you don't need to care anymore about them. For some reason, the first four troops of Jomon only have 9 hp instead of 10 like normal humans. No idea why since Jomoon troops are already pretty crappy even if they had 10 hp.
O-ban: I never build these, Go-Hatamato seems better for less resource and 2 more gold. Not saying much cause 1 mapmove and slow AP with no shields means their 11 hp won't save them.
Go-Hatamato: Better than the previous but they're not exactly great either. Check the later Aka-Oni's for alternative infantry.
Aka-Oni: These guys are pretty decent because of their 14 morale, 11 hp and decent movement means they actually get to the front line and do some damage. Still expensive on the resource side but usable if you want some diversities in your troop mix.
Samurai Cavalry: These guys are way better in cbm due to the extra hoof and cheaper cost. Unfortunately in base, they remain part of Jomon's crap troop line.
Sohei: These aren't terrible to splash into your army if you have the priests to bless them. I know it sounds kinda odd to hear that because Jomon is NOT a bless nation but the extra +3 morale boosts their already impressive morale to 18. Not shabby =) You'll take lots of losses but they can win you that key battle where lesser troops would've routed.
Yamabushi: They're soheis without anything that would make them not suck. In other words, they suck.

Commanders:

Ninjas: They're assassins. You can use them to throw shurikens against commanders and hopefully get some extra provinces that way. Usually I just use them as scouts that can hopefully gib a mage when I need it.
Various commanders: They suck, no standards and the most expensive one doesn't even have a lance. LoL
Kannushi: Your only priest, slow, old and crappy.
Shugenja: I see no reason to make these unless you take magic 3 (which you shouldn't) and want cheap researchers.
Master Shugenja: Feasible troop buffers. Crappy mapmovements leave them much to be desired.
Onmoyi-ji: Your workhorse mage. S2 with a variety of elemental/nature possibility is a double edged sword. You get great versatility but you end up being master of nothing. You'll often have random pathed onmoyi-ji's you have no idea what to do with. They have a minor fortune teller ability which is nice since you'll have a ton of them. They come with hawks in battle which are both eth and sacred. Not shabby for harrassment. Their most glaring flaw is obvious. Your army moves at 2 map and your mages move at 1. They are also not sacred so your upkeep will add up while you look for that mage pick you want. Get the ones you don't want up to the battle lines as communion slaves or stellar cascade spammers.

Jomon has a lot of throwback summons from previous ages in the form of Onis. You can't summon any of them without your pretender which is fine because you won't want to anyway save the Dai Oni. That one actually has some nice picks and when you get enough death income, you may consider using them as SC chassis.
Regarding the tengu tree, there are better uses for your air gems. You will want to splash into the Dai Tengu just for the increase to a3 if you don't have it on your pretender. your a2/s2 mages can form the tome of higher planes which will give you A4 for better boosters off your dai tengu.
Kappas are good of taking the waves but you have no commanders that can go underwater so meh. Ambush of tiger is lol spell.
The nature commanders are mostly nothing special save Mori-No-Kami which can give you n3 so you don't have to roll the dice for it.
Yama-no-kami's aren't a good use of earth gems. a2e3n2 gives you nothing special. Their only redeeming trait is they let you get into dai tengu's if you didn't take the path on your pretender (which you should cause earth and air are good buffs). You can give them earthboots + tome of gaia to get e5 for forge too but good luck getting to the spell first =).
The Gozu-Mezu's are great but a bit too high on the tree to make them worth your while. And you need death which none of your mages have.
Ujigami's are nice commanders due to standard and the bless they can give to your soheis so if you plan on soheis, I suggest one of these guys to command them for a ghetto berserker force. =)
Kenzoku's would be ok as thugs if their armor wasn't so frigging heavy. Weaksauce.

Pretender suggestion:
IMO the Ghost King is your best bet. He gives you access to death and is also an extremely good SC chassis.

A dormant dom 9 you get a d3, f1, a2, e1 GK. lets you get Order 3, Prod 2, Cold 3, Misfortune 1, Magic 1. Alternatively you can try Turmoil 3, Prod 1, Luck 3, Magic 1 as well since your troops are cheap enough for it and the extra gems off luck might help out. I prefer Order for consistency .

Your first order of business should be getting alteration to 3 for ironskin, mistform, mirror image to be scripted for your GK to take those indie provinces that will give your sammie archers too much trouble. (aka heavy cavs)
Your army should be mostly sammie archers with your gold excess going towards merc screens. Build your second castle on a crossbow province ASAP. Crossbow/samurai archer armies are wonderful as your samurai archers protect archers against melee and can shoot up soft targets while your xbows blow up the heavier ones.
Your next order of business would be sending out a nice pack of mages to site search while researching up to construction 4. kitted with a rainwbow armor, firebrand (or frost), faithful, regen ammie, your GK becomes a real force of nature. Flying shoes make you truly golden. Use that time of reprieve to deter nations from coming after you.
From there on, I advise getting the site search spells and then concentrating on either evocation for stellar cascades or if you got some nice draws, alteration (Wind guide!!) for troop buffs. Construction would be a luxury since there are lots of nice tools in it to power your mages but Jomon is a bit weak so you'll want to have some firepower on your mages when your ghost king starts getting a bit manageable for your opponents to handle. If you're not playing with water nations I advise relegating him to indie water provinces at this point while your mages start to earn their keep. Summon earthpower communions are very strong so line those omoyi-ji's. Don't be tempted by all the national summons, most of them are not worth the effort. Samurai archers are feasible through the entire game if you just toss some luck/protection/etc their way. =) Good luck!

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Thanks, very entertaining analysis. :)

Kappas are commanders in CBM, which makes them pretty great IMO. You can also use them as fever fetish holders because they recuperate. Jomon has got both the paths to summon Kappas (for just 2W) and make hammers and fetishes.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I mostly agree with guide, though I wish I didn't. Jomon basic troops just don't seem with it for the cost and the lack of shields.

As to basic troops, the first summon, (1 Nature, level 3, I can't remember the name) is supposed to give a boost to whatever province he is in. What does that mean?

Also, I find that Jomon have a lack of Earth magic, yet get fire magic, which there seems to little use for, what is with that.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

It's possible to get a Master Shugenja with e3, and if you're really lucky e4...2 cross path fire spells - astral fires (real easy to get with omnyoji) and magma bolts (M. shugenja). And of course a fire pick on the M. Shugenja and you can start a fetish farm.

The thing I like about Jomon are their battle mages (M. Shugenja and Omnoyoji), each one is likely to be different but each can be useful.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

hmm interesting.. might try them again..

most interesting to me is why KO would not want a guide for Jomon (yet?)... why???

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

New Patch.
My issue is that you have no starting earth income.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Because the next update is going to add several more units to Jomon's roster. The summons added recently were supposed to be more or less thematic, the as yet unadded units are supposed to have a larger effect on Jomon's overall balance.

I am not 100% sure I agree with a few things. For example, longbows to me seem to do almost nothing in LA. Unless you have flaming arrows you're not going to do any kind of significant damage to shielded units. So if you're buying huge amounts of samurai archers, I would highly suggest setting them to fire at archers or they're pretty much wasting their time. Also, Aka-Oni samurai are very skilled fighters, and mixed with Go-Hatamoto are very effective at breaking up heavy infantry, which is something samurai archers are not nearly as good at. Crossbowmen might work instead, but you'll be inflicting more friendly fire casualties than enemy casualties once the enemy reaches your samurai archers, which they will do unless they don't have shields. The only thing you have going for you then is the katana attack skill bonus, putting your samurai archer's attack skill up to something like 13.

Because I hate LA longbows, and honestly crossbows so much due to the amount of friendly fire you'll take, what I like to do is use a small screen of Go-Hatamoto for groups of Aka-Oni Samurai. The hatamoto are unshielded, but they do have high hp and decent prot, so they can deal with anything that's not a crossbow reasonably well, and in a small group most crossbow bolts will miss them. You have to work hard at killing enemy archers like this though. Which means either longbow samurai set to fire archers or using something to run up the flanks. If only samurai cavalry was worth the cost.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

But you do...:confused:

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Oops your right.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

e4 is not realistic. even e3, or n3, will likely not appear until it is not especially important - in my game, it's turn 55, I have a ton of mages, and I haven't seen an n3 and only one e3. to really count on getting an E4, w/ around 90% probability, you'ld have to hire 4000 shugenjas.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Beware! Onmoyi's cannot get s3 and thus can't get non cbm'd Astral fires! xD

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Unless Jomon troops get changed and their starting army is buffed to at least double the troops they get now, I'm not holding my breath on any huge improvements.

I've never had the trouble with samurai archers as you have. They're pretty accurate. like I said, the only troops I have trouble with are heavy cavalries. But if you find something that works for you then by all means. =)

The way I see it is you have two types of armies. The first one is your samurai archers which deals with with most non heavy troops of LA. They can handle everything except heavy cavalry provinces and national heavy troops. Then you have another army of aka-oni's, sohei's (and go hatamato's if you need it) for those troops. The secondary army often takes a lot more casualties so they're not exactly the most ideal expansion force.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

[quote=KissBlade;663171]Make an astral booster or communion or PotS....it's not that hard. What is hard is deciding the right balance of combat mages and researchers.

As for the e3 yes it's rare, e2 is more common throw on some boots and you have e3 cast summon earth power and you have e4 in battle.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Honestly, as I've been playing Jomon quite a bit, I have to agree that I do not find their archers to be particularly effective, against much of what you face in LA. By the same token, I don't find enemy archers to be particularly effective against Jomon's armor, even though it is not the highest for the age.

I think a lot of it comes down to playstyle, but I've got some very divergent ideas about Jomon, almost "Baalzy" in the "no, Jomon actually doesn't suck" kind of way. Perhaps once my 2 MP Jomon games get deeper in, I will write up a competing, but complementary guide for Jomon as well - from the 2 of them, there ought to be something for everyone.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Excellent. Until then, I look forward to being killed by you in humanwar so you can show me how to play them :)

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Totally contingent on my concepts translating well into MP. ;) It's all stuff that isn't very applicable, or very interesting in SP tests..... so I know how to expand well enough, and I know what I want to do after that, I just don't know if it will kill you or not. :D

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

It probably will, my strategy for that game is bordering on insanity :D

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Jomon is not as bad as everyone thinks.

Consider, there are a few pillars the game really rests on.

Pretender Chassis.
Troops.
Mages.
SC Chassis


Jomon has fine pretender chassis, good mages, good SC Chassis.
Only its troops suck.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

How does Jomon have better SC chassis than any other random LA nation? How is their pretender chassis any different to other nations (other than a bless being basically useless)?

I'm also not really seeing how the mages are 'good'. 'Acceptable' for LA maybe. But mapmove 1 combat mages? No standout researcher? Unreliable paths?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I think that's Dai Oni. It's a national SC chassis, not necessarily better, but at least available (for a certain amount of available depending on your pretender).

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Hmm. Dai Oni aren't the easiest things to cast. I would think considering the effort required to get them, you could go for a generic SC like a tart.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

it's not really available, due to paths, and isn't that great a buy at any rate - certainly not better than the normal generic options. Perhaps chrispedersen is thinking of another nation?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I'd have to chime on that sentiment. Jomon has limited pretender choices (the main standouts being the Wyrm, the cyclops and the Ghost King which are standard) No Prince of Death! =(
Magic isn't as great as the manual claims either. I've pretty much highlighted what archae terms the "RNG" weakness of nonsacred mages. And the fact that they're only move 1 really is fail.
SC chassis? Well one can argue that Dai Oni's are safer than Tartarians in that they require no GoR's, have handy paths (nothing like cyclop tarts though! =( )and no shattered souls. The extra cost makes it suspect if they're worth as much as tarts but I wouldn't say it really puts them over the top since Jomon has no innate death magic access. (And since you need your pretender to do some heavy lifting, him being limited to site searching really kicks you in the pants.)

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Hmmm? Shouldn't he summon a revenant to do his site-searching for him? Death is really easy to bootstrap if you can just find some gem income.

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Having three pretender choices is sufficient. Who cares how many bad choices there are?

Look, I'm not saying that Jomon *isn't* weak. In fact, the perception of weakness is the *biggest* disadvantage Jomon has. People would rather eat them, than ally with them.

However, I stand on what I said previously. Jomon has adequate pretenders, adequate mages, good SCs (both in access to generics and in Dai Onis).

In Zeldors great team preponderance game - Jomon rated a 1 pt.
Niefle rated an 8. Niefle is not 8 times more likely to win a game than jomon - nor 8 times more powerful.

Sure, perhaps they're 10-15% weak - or underaverage.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I've never played Jomon, and they sure don't excite me, but Chris is persuasive. Looking at Jomon, I do note that (like Arco) they have relatively cheap mages who all have elemental access and are communion-capable, which to me says "Versatile, instantly-reconfigurable battlemages who rain fire, ice, magma, or lightning as appropriate, and also Stellar Cascades spam your SCs."

And generic SCs aren't weak, they're just more boring. (Although my favorite generic SC (Wraith Lord) isn't available to Jomon.)

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

In Zeldors great team preponderance game - Jomon rated a 1 pt.
Niefle rated an 8. Niefle is not 8 times more likely to win a game than jomon - nor 8 times more powerful.


I think the rating shouldn't be interpreted like that BUT while I agree 1 niefel nation can't beat 8x jomon at once I DO think that Niefel is 8 times more likely to win a game.. maybe even more :D

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

of course Jomon has access to many paths. How, pray tell, are you getting these expensive communions to battle, w/ a map move of one? they have to dawdle along, ripe for harrassment and counter-attack.

It is also rather disingenuous to say a nation has good SC's when what it has is the same SCs as anyone else. Well, ok, it has worse access to these due to Jomon's weakness in death magic.

Anyone claiming that Jomon has good access to SCs must concommitantly agree that everyone does, which makes the valuation "good" rather meaningless.

Jomon does have access to death 1, however, through the Nushi.

say what?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Except that's not what you said. I understand your post is a whole page back, so you shouldn't be expected to be able to find it. Here, let me help Jomon's base game pretender chassis selection is mediocre. It has a handful of adequate choices; fewer than most. And its general access to the normal death SCs is as poor as any nation's, due to Jomon's weakness in death.

Its Mages are versatile, but slow, fairly expensive (as non-sacred), paths are low level, and you cannot depend on getting the paths you need. They are poor for battle magic due to the difficulties getting them around anywhere. Their mages are not bad, but certainly do not make up for their other deficiencies.

They have no SC chassis that stands out. Kenoku are a good thug chassis in some situations. Dai Oni are not normally available, and not a very good deal anyways. Fire and Death? How are you casting that?

Jomon has three clear issues:
1. Its troops are mediocre, especially base game.
2. Its mages are a bit pricey in the long term, rather random and micro-managey, and, most importantly, extremely slow.
3. It has nothing to give it a leg up for the mid or late game. Most nations have a strong recruitable mage, or thug, or SC, or Summons that fill in those niches. Jomon just doesn't really (its summons mostly have a slight use, even though they are cool).

In CBM it is more competitive, and I don't think Jomon deserves QM's 1 rating. But in the normal game it probably does.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Your quibbling over the difference in words between fine and adequate? I think Jomons SC chassis are perfectly fine AND adequeate- and if you read my other posts - I do exactly mean that they are about as good as every one else that is run of the mill.

Look, I agree that they are weak. However, I am of the opinion (as are many people) that many other factors are HIGHly relevent in the game. Troops and mages et. al aren't that determinative -if they were, you would see MP victories much more tightly clustered by race.

Diplomatic ability.
Player Knowledge of the game.
Random Events - such as starting position or magic sites.

Shrug.. I'm not interesting in starting a flame war. Yes, Jomon is weak. I just don't think any nation out there rates a 1.

Look, except for the amount of time involved, I would be perfectly happy playing v. niefle 10 times. And I would expect to win more than once against a reasonably competent player (which is what I expect my skill level is). Against a newb, I would probably break even.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I understand that for some the meaning of words is to be used or abused as they see fit.

"good" to "adequate" to "run of the mill"

so we agree. Jomon has poor access to "run of the mill" SC chassis.

on what basis? the rating system QM developed for a specific nation choice game mechanic for a specific experimental game. It has nothing to do w/ some absolute rating like "niefl is 9 times as strong as jomon". To think it does is a bit crazy. It has to do with setting up an allocation of 10 nation choice points. That is all.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Look, buddy, your rudeness is uncalled for.

on what basis?[/quote]

On any basis you care to name. I don't think it accurately reflects relative power, likelihood to win the game, enjoyment in playing.

I have consistently said that I believe jomon to be about 10-15% weak. If the 'average' dominions nation is a 50.. I believe jomon might be 35-40.

I'd probably put Niefle at 75, Lanka at 65 or so, Hinnom at 70 bogarus at 40,

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

how about the actual basis, which is that it was part of an artificial mechanic for the distribution of nation choices, through the allocation of 10 nation choice points. And the right place for disagreeing with these initial point ratings would have been the relevant game thread, as it has nothing to do with any proper analysis of Jomon.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

They're recruitable-anywhere, and mapmove doesn't matter when moving through enemy territory anyway. Mapmove 2 would be a convenience of course, but usually in a situation like this (mapmove 1 recruitable-anywhere mages, like LA Agartha's Ktonian necromancers) you just produce them near the front lines. Unlike Agartha, Jomon has the ability to forge a few pairs of winged boots and use them for ferrying mages around; I've tried that with Agartha when I manage to snag Obscuro, but in practice it's less hassle to just build mages where you need them.

Recall that I've never played Jomon, I'm just looking at their unit list. The mages look serviceable but you're right that strategic mobility appears limited, which it always is anyway when you're planning on communions. (Teleporting a 10-man communion around is not generally cost-effective.)

I.e. I didn't know about the Nushi. (What does it have, D2?) Also, on second thought, I can't think of that many good SCs that come out of the elemental trees except for the uniques, so maybe Jomon doesn't have "good" generic SC access either. Troll King is probably the best one available.

I don't think a nation has to have *national* SCs in order to have *good* SCs. The paths a nation can access are a major part of its national character.

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

This is a thread for analysing Jomon. In the course of that discussion Jomon was presented as very weak. As evidence of that I presented the fact that Jomon was rated a one on a scale of 1-10, in a recent game mechanic.

Throughout the discussion I have maintained that I believe that jomon is weak. I do not believe under any reasonable analysis of jomon that the nation should rank as a 1 on a scale of 1 - 10.
Jomon is simply not that bad.

In the last few threads you've attacked my word choice, and now belatedly, the rating example I gave. Neither of which really are relevent to the topic either. It seems as if you are more interested in starting and winning a flame war.

From my perspective, any nation that has 3 or so viable pretenders from which to choose is 'fine' and playable.

Any race which has reasonable access to thug/sc chassis is fine, good playable. And I do think Dai Onis are fine SC chassis -although too high up the research tree.

I think we agree that Jomon's troops are mediocre.

I *would* put jomon in the bottom three or four races. I dont' however view that national mechanics are 100% deterministic of game outcome. Hence my argument that I would rate them 10-15% weaker than an average race.

I might rate victory as being about

35% diplomacy
30% luck (starting location, dropped turns, actions of other players)
20% Knowledge of the game, tactical skill
15% National mechanics.

So, while you've attacked various posts, you haven't really said anything about my contention. On a relative power index, normalized to 100... where would *you* put jomon. And comparing to other nations would be useful.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

I'll admit, the mapmove 1 is bad. However, I don't think that's their weakness, the mages' weakness is their ENTIRE RNG factor. You can luck out and get something like an e4 or n4 shuggies, a2's etc or be stuck all day with w1n1s2 onmoyi's till you feel like quitting the game. Magic versatility comes in a few varieties. There's the mages that have a good amount of spread a la Master of Five Elements, or nations that just have different types such as Serpent cult's "recruit the path you want". Lastly you get Jomon's, roll a die and hope you get lucky. The last scenario is BY FAR the weakest one because you're essentially relying on a factor you have no control over. A game where you're able to get a2,e2,n2,w2,f2 right off the bat will play out much better than a game where you're stuck with singles the whole time.

Also to my knowledge, archae is the only player who's able to do something with Jomon. (currently leading a MP game)

Jomon Pretenders:
 

Jomon has access to
FOB, Oracle, Cyclops, Wyrm, Ghost King, both Litches, and all the rainbow chassis such as crone, archmage, great sage etc.

Aggregately, these have to be responsible for more than 90% of all pretender designs.

How can this *not* be considered perfectly playable?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Concur. Later nations like Hinnom and Ashdod with *linked* randoms are much more usable IMO than totally scattered randoms. One way to boost Jomon would be to link the randoms on the Onmoyis and Shuggies, while keeping the small 10% random as cross-path.

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

*To Chris, Well keep in mind some nations benefit from certain chassis significantly more than other nations. For example, a nation with no natural earth access or can make use out of earth bless would greatly benefit from a cyclops. similarly a strong magic nation like Ryleh would love a Wyrm magic less wyrm. Oracles are great for nations that don't require a strong pretender early but benefits from the s9 magi c dump. Fountain of blood I don't see too often used. Nations with a lot of extra points would love a GK. However, Jomon suffers from being both point hungry and having a weak start. Thus it's pretender options IMO are subpar. Jomon would definitely be up a scale or two on the feasible area if it was able to start with a Prince of Darkness.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Always nice to see discussions on Jomon :) It is one of my favourites although a poor 'power' pick in mp.

I think that Jomon has poor SC access. It has no blood or death access via its national mages. Nor much flexibility on its pretender to get around this. While you can boot strap in to either this is hardly what anyone would call good access, every other nation can do this. It has some reasonable death thug summons before the Dai Onis (summon 8). But you are unlikely, as you are boot strapping, to get these early in numbers and death has plenty of such summons in any case. Dai Onis are all but impossible for Jomon to cast and are pricey both in Death gems (45!) and in that they have a price (500gps but sacred) so cost a fair whack each turn in upkeep. Unlike most summons.

Jomon is a slow starter and this is its real problem, regardless of whether you think its troops are poor or merely average. It's starting army is miserable. Probably the worst in the game. It can't even take on a LA strength 5 indie. It's troops are very resource hungry so you can't mass them early. Even with Production 3 (and few of us like to spend points on Production) you can't mass troops quickly early on. You can struggle to produce enough to cover losses in the initial turns. And without neighbours adding their resources even waiting a turn or two won't give you that critical mass to take indies with few/no losses. For this reason I think Jomon needs an awake Pretender to help with expansion in mp.

While Jomon has access to the Wrym and Cyclops for that fear/awe awake SC combo neither give the initial boost in to death that you want to make boot strapping in to that easier. Therefore what you want, more than any other nation I can think of, is the Prince of Death. But you can't have him. So I agree with Kissblade that your best choice is usually the Ghost king. But because I think you need him awake you need to sacrifice his magic (or your scales) to get the high Dom for awe.

You can of course give him lower dom and keep reasonable scales and give him some extra magic (paths just 20 so this is efficent). This makes him merely a thug. But that works quite well if you combine him with your initial army. Your samauri LBs can shoot through him as he is etherial. You will at least be able to take one province a turn that way :p Not a great return for an awake pretender but better than what you will do without.

If you do go Ghost King I would definitely add one blood to him. Even if you are not going to try and boot strap in to blood. This enables him to get in on a communion later via Sabbaths without the risk of having low astral. It also gives him something to do when he no longer cuts the mustard as an SC. Blood magic isn't all that great on the battlefield but your Ghost King can be a fine addition to a Jomon Communion. It will give you communion boosted death and blood on the battlefield including that nifty fatigue reducing blood spell. You could produce a few surprise moves with it. Your opponent may not expect you to throw down darkness (and mist / storm) followed soul slay/mind hunt rather than the usual wind guide/flame arrows on your masses of Samauri archers. Could work well against another archer heavy nation as your Samauri LBs will stand up in melee.

There are a few other niggles with Jomon making them weaker than they appear. A cap of 2 on astral means you can't reach the rings without empowering. A big annoyance. Although giving 3 astral to your Ghost King (nice early buffs then retire him to be a forger when low astral is too dangerous) could be worth it.

Your mages not only have 1 map move but just 8 hps also. Meaning they are especially vulnerable to Earthquake and such like. Most communionable mages are vulnerable to such things but Jomon especially so. Makes using large communions especially risky.

Your mages are great forgers with their path options. But you lack the thugs/SCs to kit out without a lot of work. But they do struggle to build boosters as they have variety rather than the high Astral, Air or Fire needed for those boosters.

Re the mages I think the Master Shugengas are underrated. I have had more luck than Archaeolept in getting an E3 on Master Shugenga although I haven't worked out the probabilities. I like to recruit a few early in the hope of getting one early to build hammers. Hammers are construction 2, while earth boots are Con 4. There is plenty of stuff at Con 2 that can be built cheaply and enhance combat mages and your Ghost King without investing in the research for Con 4. E3 and N3 MSs fit very neatly with an easy to forge communion crystal into the Jomon Communions later. Making high level nature and earth battle spells easier to cast.

I do like Jomon a lot but I definitely think it is weak in mp. IMHO it has poor troops, lacks the one pretender chassis it really needs (so poor picks for the nation), poor SC options (as poor as any other nation - everyone could boot strap in to Death or Blood - and Jomon can do neither naturally or afford a pretender that can cast summon any elemental royalty or Tarts or bloods easily). It has good mages which are recruitable everywhere. But they do have weaknesses. Plenty in fact.

But its main weakness is at the beginning of the game. If you are alive and in decent shape by the mid game you can mass your troops via multiple forts (even with sloth scales), you have easy access to communions and hopefully should have been able to boot strap in to death or blood. The mass buff spells work well with Jomon and are easy via even small communions to cast. You lack thugs/SCs but this is hardly unique to Jomon. And there are even more summons available now to Jomon, some she can even cast ;)

In sp Jomon can be a blast to play as there are a lot of options with its range of summons and magic variety. But I think Jomons very weak early game makes them poor in mp. Diplomacy and luck (in neighbours and surrounding provinces) are often more important than nation strength. But so what, Jomon is still weak. And by being weak the early game can be a mindfield diplomatically.

It would be easy to fix, there is no need to radically change the feel of Jomon by adding death or blood to its mages. Or boosting its troop stats. Although I do like that the devs are looking at and adding options to some existing nations rather than just adding new ones. The more of that the better :)

For example why do you get such a small starting army? Why not at least 15 of each? Or even better swap the Ashigaru for Samauri and give them 15 of those with 15 Sam LBs. Then Jomon could use its initial army to expand as most other nations can and an awake SC would then be an option rather than a necessity.

Even simply giving the Prince of Death as a pretender option would be a huge boon. PoD is 45 cheaper than the GK and thanks to higher base dom gets awe for 49 (I think!) less. Thats two scale shifts or extra magic. Plus it has more base death magic (3 v 1). You give up etherial for flying and decent fear. Its a cheaper and in most cases better SC chassis. Apart from Jomon who even uses the Ghost King as an SC?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Hammers are Const-4, at least in vanilla.

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

No, they're definitely Const2. In the manual and everything.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

always and everywhere const 2

but it's a common misconception - it always seems that they should be const 4 :)

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Sometimes it is effectively 4, if all you've got are E2's and you need boots before you can make one.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

The bad part is, I get egg on my face. The good part is, I can now start forging hammers much earlier. I've believed them to be Const-4 ever since I started playing the game; it's the first thing I forge when I hit Const-4.

-Max

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

For a while, I started thinking Starshine caps needed S3's to forge. I've no idea why I thought that!

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

And I often thought Fire Brand was F2. Bad mistake.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

This is why I like Master Shugengas with their chance of getting E3s. Early hammers :). Jomon wants Enchantment 4 (Flame Arrows) and Alteration 4 (Wind Guide) as well as a small amount of other paths for remote site searching (although you may simply manually site search) and some battlefield spells before you start sending mages out to back up your armies with communions. And when you send them out you may want a few trinkets (that N1 encumberance 0 shield etc.) to help the important ones to survive. Or even to start selling stuff for death gems.

You don't really need (without Thugs of your own) to spend the research on Con 4 early and Jomon has plenty of early research it needs that will boost its armies greatly.

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

Does anyone know what the flavor text in the descriptions about how the shrimp, sharks, and crabs have "simple dreams" means. It seems to imply that they're somehow resistant to the insanity?

Re: Jomon Analysis: 3.21
 

It does indeed.