[Festin]

The tread is actually about CBM, so I will try to be brief, so that we can concentrate on discussing possible mod suggestions

If you hire mages at all your castles every turn, and continue castling aggressively, you should get most variations you need.

This does not really solve the problem. Sure, if I hire a huge number of mages, eventually I will get all the needed combinations - and end up with scores of nearly-useless high-upkeep mages.

First, your god doesn't *need* to do anything for you except provide good scales.

IMO, Jomon absolutely needs death on their pretender. Without death, they will miss one of the best thugs in the whole game, and their late game will be completely unimpressive. Nushi is _not_ an option for death access, because it is difficult to summon, and, far more importantly, comes far too late. Ghost General is Conj 4, and as Jomon I would want to mass summon them ASAP. Not to mention the amount of death gems Jomon will have available using this approach. Forget Dai Oni, I am not sure Jomon will even have enough for some generic late game summons.

You have summonable thugs capable of raiding, you have good battle magic especially in earth and astral, and you have solid troops. You even have mages capable of casting Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows (F2 + Phoenix Power + 3f gems - so keep an eye out for good indie archers).

Sure, Jomon has all these options. In addition, it has good national SCs, powerful amphibious troops, great flying shapeshifting water mages, etc, etc. Too bad most of these options are best described as "hypothetical". I mentioned communions because this is one of the precious few things Jomon can _reliably_ access.

So, to keep this constructive
Jomon as it is, in my opinion, is flawed in several ways. It has access to very, very intersting things that can make this nation unique, competitive and just fun to play. But Jomon practically cannot use most of them. I would accept the mage-frustration thing by itself without any problems - lots of nations have problems with their mages, and they should compensate for it somehow, it is part of a game. But in Jomon's case it is a part of a greater picture. Heavy armor, bad randoms, no death, weak starting army, no underwater access, etc - all these things combine in a way that cripples the nation and ruins its great potential. Remove a few of these, and then players will be able to either compensate for the nation weaknesses, or accept them and boost the strong sides instead. This is the usual approach with most nations.