[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by archaeolept

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.

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.