[Festin]

I am preparing for a new MP game as Jomon, and I ran a few quick SP games with them to test my strategies. So, I would like to talk about Jomon a bit.

The point is: am I the only person who thinks that Jomon seems specifically designed to induce frustration?

*)Jomon infantry have no shields - ok, fine, completely thematic. But why is their armor so horribly heavy? I do not see any reason for this to be so extreme.

*)Some of their infantry have 9 hp instead of default human 10. Why? If it is thematic, why there is no mention of this in the flavor text(Ulm units have it mentioned)? Is it for balance reasons? No need to worry, really, they suck anyway due to heavy armor and lack of shields.

*)They have great death summons (Ghost General and Dai Oni), but absolutely no death access. Worse, Dai Oni is a F/D summon, costs a huge number of death gems (which you will not have), and needs it armor replaced.

*)Kenzoku is a cool new summon: sacred, ethereal, awe - realy nice. He is quite cheap, and your mages can actually summon him(big improvement for Jomon). But guess what? His goddamn armor ruins everything. An earth bless could fix him, but Jomon does not really benefit from earth bless.

*)Why? Because your mages are not sacred. Also, they have movement 1, and a path selection that is so depressing that I do not even want to speak about it. No boosters for you.

*)Jomon has impressive underwater recruitables, especially Ryujin. But how do you get underwater without using a SC amphibious pretender? Each time I tried to use water breathing items, it was already late.

So. You have a weak starting army, and your units cost a ton of resources, so you may want to take Production to have a decent expansion speed. But your mages are not sacred, so they have huge upkeep, so you want Order. So, no way to save points by taking a "less troops/more mages and summons" path.
You have great, cheap thugs - Kenzoku and Ghost General. Too bad that you have no way to use them as a basis for your strategy: Ghost General needs death, Kenzoku needs an earth bless(or an armor replacement, after which he will no longer be cheap), and a priest to bless him because he cannot self-bless.
You have good archers, but you can wait for a long, long time to have a 2F or 2A mage.

Basically, Jomon has a lot of interesting options, but most of them are either unpractical or mutually exclusive and not good enough by themselves.

Is it possible to do anything about it?