Re: Guiding Jomon
Hmm,
While the guide is interesting and has given me a few ideas (I am in a mp game as Jomon) I think it misses two crucial points (especially for mp). Namely you need an awake SC and you want to exploit the power of the Commune.
The Jomon start army is very weak (10 Ashigari and 10 samurai LBs) and can't really take on even Indie 5s without taking big losses. And with resource intensive troops it is difficult to build up a critical mass quickly to take indies without much losses.
This means you can't expand fast. Unless you take an awake SC. And due to Jomon having no access to death and really wanting some magic diversity for summons on his pretender this is an issue.
I just can't see how you can afford to get even single useful minor bless and stay competitive early. Nor the paths to be able to build air or fire boosters. I think you need an SC or the Thug/Rainbow Ghost King.
Secondly Jomons big advantage is the plentiful Communable mages. They are cheap (but not sacred so their upkeep mounts quickly) and recruitable everywhere. From fairly early on you can boost all those 1A, 1F etc. mage paths up with the communes for Flaming arrows & wind guide (if you've gone archers) or mist etc if you haven't. Or simply mind burn/soul slay spam with them etc. There are few battle spells they can't cast. Just the death & blood ones.
As most sites are 1 or 2 simply site searching with a number of your mages should net a lot of gem income. I usually prefer to use the spells but with Jomon I do quite a lot of manual site searching due to their mages having so many paths, being fairly cheap and not having so high a research that the opportunity cost is too great.
The mages also allow good forging flexibility but as you struggle to get any Thugs/SCs early (no death or blood income) this is not that useful initially. But they can build things like Fetishes, Crystal Coins, Communion crystals etc. which many other powers don't find so easy to make due to the blend of paths. So there should be trade options.
Quantum mentioned that the best infantry is too slow. But the mages are move one also. So the army (if backed by a commune) is slow anyhow and you will need to send a steady stream of new mages with your new troops to the front lines anyhow. Having said that it is hard to justify buying troops that are not Samurai LBs IMHO.
So while one move armies is just another bad point to Jomon I don't see how you can be very competitive without mages backing your armies early. The fun (and hope) of Jomon is their flexible and somewhat disposable (cheap mages built everywhere) communions. So you may as well build your armies around them and their one move nature.
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