Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[rdonj]

I think the resource cost of a katana is a thematic thing. Making a katana is a lot of work, and requires very special skills and materials due to the way they're made. That said, I thought the no-dashi was basically an oversized katana. I'm having trouble finding non-game references to no-dashi on the internet so it's hard to say for sure. But from the look I would have expected them to be made the same way. I would say there's a good argument for them requiring more resources than a katana.

Making sohei not cap-only wouldn't be bad. There aren't really that many LA bless nations, and I think jomon would make a lot of sense thematically as a bless nation. I'm not sure that they need this, but I wouldn't object to it either.

4gp ashigaru is just wrong though, that would be less even than mictlan. They could maybe be justified in dropping a little, but they are pretty good for chaff, making them much less expensive would almost be too good.

I'm also not sure I like the idea of giving them linked randoms. They are one of a very few nations in the game that can have mages with such diverse paths. Sure, they can be really annoying and make site searching frustrating, but they also give you access to path combinations that are very rare, plus with communions you can power the onmyoji up sufficiently in their side paths to be fairly useful. Now, MAYBE if just the master shugenja had their paths linked that would be fine because you wouldn't really be losing out on anything. But that smacks of being too convenient and useful. And you couldn't link paths on onmyoji but not master shugenja or no one would ever buy them. I would almost rather just make Jomon's mages all less expensive. Say 120 gold for the mages and 70 for a monk.

It would be nice if there was ever a reason to recruit normal samurai units and o-ban.

And it would be nice if Kappa spell provided some regular Kappas in addition to commander, so that it could be used to enter water. Currently, the spell is useless.

I think kappa summoning would be fine if you could just summon more of them at a time. One is almost useless. 5 might get you somewhere.

[vfb]

Kappas bleed awesome from their eyeballs. And they rip your guts out through your anus. What more could you want! What do they cost anyway, 2W?! This monkey PD discussion should be moved to its own Jomon thread.

[Festin]

Eh, who cares? 9 vs. 10 hp is pretty negligible. And most of the units anyone uses at present don't have 9hp - go-hatamoto, aka-oni, and yamabushi have 11hp.

Well, it's not like it is important - currently, nobody uses generic samurai anyway. It is just annoying and illogical.

And it does not matter how much Kappas cost. Even if they were 1W, they would still suck in their current state.

[Squirrelloid]

katanas do not require special materials. Its hard and soft steel, which is effected by how much carbon is in the steel, which is purely a result of differences in the processing of iron into steel. So it requires an understanding of metallurgy (its LA, we have that). But all it requires is iron, flux, and heat - nothing rare or unusual.

A katana can be time consuming. But not every single one is a 1000h piece of artwork. You simply couldn't produce them in militarily useful quantities at that rate. I realize we're romanticizing Japan, but most katanas are going to have to be made cheaply enough to make something approaching mass production feasible.

A no-dashi is just a 'big katana', however, which is why i think the katana costs too many resources.

Ashigaru at their current price are rather unusual to buy because they cost almost as much gold as a samurai. That's kind of ridiculous. So the price is definitely too high relative to Jomon's other options - 1.5 ashigaru or 1 aki-oni is a no-brainer choice most of the time. And Jomon's other options are the only thing that matters. Who cares what Mictlan pays? I refer you to Black Templars, who are vastly overpriced for what they do. Cost of units is a within-nation balance thing, and only the whole has to balance against another nation.

(Further, the 9 resource cost is the limiting factor in production, slashing the gold cost mostly reduces the upkeep - which is completely justified because historically the only 'pay' they would have gotten was food. I'd propose a 1 gold cost, but that probably is a little crazy).

[Trumanator]

The 9 hp thing isn't so much a balance thing as just a dumb "feature". That gives samurai less HPs than indy militia, which is just stupid.

[rdonj]

Yes they do :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamahagane

I could maybe see 6 gp ashigaru, but much lower just won't happen. And yeah, resources will always be the limiting factor with jomon's high resource to gold ratio units, but 4gp militia just doesn't exist.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Yes they do :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamahagane

I could maybe see 6 gp ashigaru, but much lower just won't happen. And yeah, resources will always be the limiting factor with jomon's high resource to gold ratio units, but 4gp militia just doesn't exist.

That it doesn't currently exist is no reason for it not to exist.

On Tamahagane: yes, the japanese had to get their steel from iron sands because that was how it was readily available. So they developed a special process for extracting it. It sounds similar in complexity to many pre-15th century steel-making processes, and thus not overly 'special'. The only reason its hard to get today is because modern steel-making techniques are more efficient and guarantee a more uniform quality, so the demand for steel made the old-fashion way is mostly for sword-making enthusiasts - its continuing use is an anachronism.

Only "damascus steel" might qualify as a special material, and even then i'm dubious.

[rdonj]

I went and looked at a few other methods of steelmaking on wikipedia, and Tamahagane has the dubious honor of being by far the least efficient steel to make, both in terms of labor required and materials required per ton. Excessively complex? Maybe not. But I think resources is basically a measure of labor and materials required.

That it doesn't currently exist is an argument QM will use to not make it exist

[kianduatha]

Now, I don't know whether I quite agree with the necessity of a low-resource expansion recruit, but its implementation would work out just about perfectly. Just give them a Gladiator-esque Ronin unit. Since Jomon was never gold-limited anyways, it would give them a kickstart for early expansion. It'd also help a bunch vs. rushes.

[Squirrelloid]

How many ashigaru do you think Jomon should be able to maintain relative to 'samurai' (by which i mean aka-oni, since that's the functionally useful one). I'd say at least 10:1, which is a hard point to reach when the aka-oni costs <20 gold.