MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight

[shatner]

Your proposed line-up seems fine, overall. However, I have a few critiques and counter-proposals:

Wokou Captain: this guy doesn't need to be a capital-only commander. LA Marignon, for example, can hire the Chartmaker or the Captain anywhere, and they're basically the same unit as the Wokou (the Chartmaker even has no starting magic plus 1xAS despite this being in the Late Era). If you feel uncomfortable making him recruit-anywhere as he is currently, go ahead and drop the magic paths. If this guy is forced to compete against the rest of your commanders for your capital recruitment slot, it's unlikely he'll ever get recruited... which would be a real pity.

Miko: the only on-bless effect I know of is Mictlan's Eagle Warriors gaining flight while blessed. I don't know if double damage to undead and demons is a viable on-bless effect; I'll leave that to be answered by one of the more veteran modders.

Shugenja and Onmyo-ji: I'm not a big fan of identical units having different stats between eras unless there is a compelling reason to do so. T'ien Ch'i is not made worse because it's Master of the Way is the same in all three ages, but it does make sense that the Mictlan Priest (same in EA and LA) was changed in the Middle Era because of them dropping blood magic. Making the Onmyo-ji younger or a better fortune-teller smacks of change for the sake of change. And if you are going to give the Shugenja a second AEFWN random, you may as well just keep the Master Shugenja instead, since they'll be almost identical.

Saigu: Having a cap-only healer priest is fine and I agree with your desire to keep MA Jomon from having strong priests. However, the Saigu is eclipsed as a mage by the Onmyo-ji. This makes it's claim to the role of "awesome communion master" rather dubious because the Onmyo-ji will be more numerous (and thus more likely to have whatever path combination you want, such as Fire + Astral for astral fire spam) and have higher/more paths than the Saigu. True the Saigu will be able to act as a communion-enhanced priest but the divine spells aren't impressive enough to justify this cap-only commander, in my opinion. And that includes all the various sign spells that only Jomon gets; they're nice but more of a novelty than a strategy changer, even after CBM beefed them up a bit. This unit will need to either distinguish itself from the Onmyo-ji path-wise OR gimmick-wise. The former can be accomplished by giving them doubled random paths (like the Ryujin). The latter can be accomplished by giving them two forms, one which automatically casts communion master at the start of a battle, and one which automatically casts communion slave at the start of a battle... that's pretty different and cool right there.

Ryujin: I think the Ryujin is a somewhat awkward commander who was originally added to the LA Jomon sundae as a little cherry on top; nice but more of a garnish for the nation. I mean, Ryujin are pretty neat in the Late Era where 5.1 mages are a big deal and getting a 3 in any one path is rare, but I think that in the middle era they are much too expensive for what they offer. For an MA nation, I think we should look at the Couatl for guidance balancing them because the two are very similar units (cold blooded, flying, sacred and very expensive). Shrangrila00 posits a similar thought over in the "Scales for Jomon" thread, which I wanted to reproduce below.

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

Come to think of it, how do you use Ryujin? There are so many contradictions. It has ridiculous mobility in dragon form, reasonable stats, and sacred, which says raiding thug, but they can't bless themselves and nothing else can and keep up. They can still thug even without a bless, but with only 1 slot in dragon form plus the cold blooded problem, it's really lackluster and easily killed for a 500 gold commander. Even the obvious buff for them, Breath of Winter, is useless since the same cold scales to empower it will kill the Ryujin. The only synergy I've been able to come up with is summoning a Dai Tengu and some additional tengu, giving it a crystal shield so it can cast divine bless and storm, and bring along Ryujin in dragon form so you have an entire flying army of storm immune casters, but even that sacrifices some of the Ryujin's mobility.

Now, if they have a priest level (their description says they spread their father's dominion which suggests some priestly power) and/or aren't cold blooded at least in dragon form, they'd be awesome, but as it is, my underwater forts tend to not recruit any commanders most turns.

[shatner]

Oh, and if this is meant to be a nation focused on/ruled by the Ryujin, it should probably have a heat preference of +1... what with their dragon overlords being cold blooded.

[legowarrior]

You bring up some great points. The Wokou captain should be available anywhere, and the Seigu isn't good enough.

About units changing over time, you do see it a lot, in the celestrial master, most of the Abysian units and the like. Same name, new spheres.

I'm not 100% convinced of the +1 heat yet.

What can we do with the Shugenjas and the Onmy-ji?

[shatner]

Well, the Shugenja is supposed to be a mountain hermit; he's even got mountain survival. That says to me earth and air. Furthermore, you mentioned earlier how important E2 and E1A1 is for the summons tied to those paths. As such, rather than have the Shugenja be E1 + 2xAEFWN (thus diminishing your chances of getting E2 and E1A1), we can change it to E1 + 1xAEFWN + 1xAE. That way you have a 100% chance of getting E2 or A1E1, and a 1-in-5 chance of getting either E3 or E1A2. That keeps them useful but still less magically powerful than the Master Shugenja. Since these guys are map move-2, they'll probably be your go-to mage for offensive battlefield casting (bladewind, legions of iron, destruction, lightning bolt, arrow fend, etc.).

For the Onmyo-ji... hmmm. You can make him younger if you'd like... it's a nice touch even though it has only the tiniest impact on their performance in-game. You could make them map move-2; that'd make a big difference between the MA and LA versions. Or you could give them recuperation and include some text about them recovering from non-fatal injuries quickly as a result of their near immortality. Other than Map Move-2, these are all minor changes but I'm not seeing a need to improve the Onmyo-ji in an important way, like giving them additional magic paths or flight. Having a recruit-anywhere 4.1 path mage (with a max path of 2) is about normal for the middle era.

As far as the Seigu, you'll have to map out the conceptual space you want that unit to fill before I can offer any further suggestions. If you want it to be a key player in communions, you'll need to make her a better version of the Onmyo-ji or do something neat like the auto-communion master/communion slave idea I had. If you want her to be something else... hmm, what are our options?
1) Mage++. Lots of nations' cap-only mage is just a better version of their run-of-the-mill mage. You can do something crazy like give her S2 + 1xAA/EE + 1xFF/NN/WW + 1.1xAEFNW. Boom! Instant, superior version of the Shugenja and Onmyo-ji. Make her old and/or map move-1 and you have yourself a reasonably balanced, high-caliber mage.
2) Super awesome researcher. Like LA Bogarus' Staret; lots of paths and a research bonus.
3) Super cheap. If you want to accept that MA Jomon is going to hire a huge pile of Shugenjas and/or Omnyo-jis then you can make the Seigu as good a caster as either but make her slightly cheaper AND sacred. Since you'll have Ryujin and summons to help reliably break into the higher tier spells, you can more easily get away with the cap-only mage being a magical light-weight but super-efficient researcher.
4) Thuggy. Give her good stats, helpful self-buff paths (air, nature, earth, astral), sacred + at least H1 and maybe stealth. Once your gem income and construction research comes online, hand her some gear and send her out raiding.
5) Special Spell Caster. Create some more of those five-sign spells but make them require H2 and A2/E2/F2/N2/W2 (and make her paths be H2 + 1xAA/EE/FF/NN/WW). Then when you want someone to cast the "wide scale air-shield, moral boost and lightning resistance sign", or the "remove fatigue and give reinvig-2 to a cluster of casters sign" you hire Siegus. Just make sure you make those new spells appropriately placed in the research tree.
6) Unit Spawn. Give her a summon allies ability that lets her spawn something worth spending a cap-only mage turn spawning.
7) Economy Boost. Give her abilities like fortune-telling, causes good events or lowers unrest. That way just having them around is passively boosting your economy.

There's more but that should be enough to get to brainstorming over.