Guiding Jomon

[Tichy]

It's always nice, and in MP perhaps essential, to be able to make air boosters and storm staves (not to mention all the nice air armors). I have a hard time not taking at least A4 on my pretender if I don't have an easy way to get it otherwise.

[Ming]

Tichy,

Thank you for your comment.

I agree that A4 is nice, maybe even essential. It is just that I am not sure at this stage (not having played this nation) if it is. I may come around to thinking that A4 is essential after I have tried playing Jomon.

The point is that E4S4 on your pretender will get you to A4 eventually through your A3 national summon. So the real question is how soon would you need the capability that A4 provides and if you need an SC chasis for your Pretender. I simply do not know the answer at this stage, but wished to point out that using indie inf with shields does allow you to go without A4 for a while.

[Hoplosternum]

Hmm,

While the guide is interesting and has given me a few ideas (I am in a mp game as Jomon) I think it misses two crucial points (especially for mp). Namely you need an awake SC and you want to exploit the power of the Commune.

The Jomon start army is very weak (10 Ashigari and 10 samurai LBs) and can't really take on even Indie 5s without taking big losses. And with resource intensive troops it is difficult to build up a critical mass quickly to take indies without much losses.

This means you can't expand fast. Unless you take an awake SC. And due to Jomon having no access to death and really wanting some magic diversity for summons on his pretender this is an issue.

I just can't see how you can afford to get even single useful minor bless and stay competitive early. Nor the paths to be able to build air or fire boosters. I think you need an SC or the Thug/Rainbow Ghost King.

Secondly Jomons big advantage is the plentiful Communable mages. They are cheap (but not sacred so their upkeep mounts quickly) and recruitable everywhere. From fairly early on you can boost all those 1A, 1F etc. mage paths up with the communes for Flaming arrows & wind guide (if you've gone archers) or mist etc if you haven't. Or simply mind burn/soul slay spam with them etc. There are few battle spells they can't cast. Just the death & blood ones.

As most sites are 1 or 2 simply site searching with a number of your mages should net a lot of gem income. I usually prefer to use the spells but with Jomon I do quite a lot of manual site searching due to their mages having so many paths, being fairly cheap and not having so high a research that the opportunity cost is too great.

The mages also allow good forging flexibility but as you struggle to get any Thugs/SCs early (no death or blood income) this is not that useful initially. But they can build things like Fetishes, Crystal Coins, Communion crystals etc. which many other powers don't find so easy to make due to the blend of paths. So there should be trade options.

Quantum mentioned that the best infantry is too slow. But the mages are move one also. So the army (if backed by a commune) is slow anyhow and you will need to send a steady stream of new mages with your new troops to the front lines anyhow. Having said that it is hard to justify buying troops that are not Samurai LBs IMHO.

So while one move armies is just another bad point to Jomon I don't see how you can be very competitive without mages backing your armies early. The fun (and hope) of Jomon is their flexible and somewhat disposable (cheap mages built everywhere) communions. So you may as well build your armies around them and their one move nature.

[Mind Elemental]

Having just won an MP game as Jomon with an A4E4 imprisoned Celestial General (very similar to the recommended build), I thought I'd bump this and add two things that were vital for me:

1: Rain of Stones. This is huge. The OP mentioned its use by the pretender - but this is where Jomon's magical diversity comes in useful. It's only E3A1. Slightly more than one in every four master shugenja will have E1A1. A pair of earth boots takes that to E2A1. Summon Earthpower then gives E3A1 - and if you have gems to burn, the shugenja can boost himself to E4A1 for repeat casts. With this, one in four of your cheap, buildable-anywhere mages can slaughter dozens of enemy mages and rout an entire army by himself. An A2 shugenja can mistform himself or Cloud Trapeze, and if by some chance you can cast Fog Warriors, you can now use this in conjunction with armies.

2: Indy crossbowmen. In the LA, indy crossbow provinces are abundant. If you went with good Order/Production scales, or place your other fortresses carefully, you can recruit huge forces of crossbowmen to supplement or replace samurai archers. If you have a F2 mage cast flaming arrows, you can now rival Marignon in a shoot-out.

[chrispedersen]

It seems to me that Gift of Flight might be the critical short term goal for Jomon. Support your infantry with mages, and have them attack rear quickly...