[kianduatha]

It seems weird to make even the baseline samurai 11 str 10 hp. Moreover, I just don't see homogenizing Jomon's troops as actually helping to solve anything.

I can understand reverting the costs on Aka-Oni and Go-Hatamoto, but at the same time making Jomon's only useable troops even more expensive isn't really a solution to the actual problem. Instead, wouldn't it make more thematic sense(given the costs of human troops in previous eras) to just decrease the cost of Ashigaru and Samurai to 7 and 9 gold respectively?

As far as I can tell, the only actually useless recruit is the O-ban. Couldn't that be fixed simply by giving them a different niche? The O-ban's description says they are heavily armed...what about giving them a wakizashi too and just having them dual-wield?

I dunno...it seems like the best fixes for overall balance are cheapening Monks, increasing the scaling on Fear-Not-Sign from 1002 to 2002(so Dai Tengu/a Master Shugenja Prophet can blanket a fair area if you want to), and buffing Jomon's starting army. Even something simple like bumping it up to 15 Samurai Archers would make a big difference.