COTW - Japanese

[Gramphos]

https://www.civ3.com

[Gramphos]

The Samurai look really powerful. The power of a Night with no need for horses and extra good defense.

[Boris Godunov]

Hmmm...the WWII history seems to skip from Pearl Harbor to the U.S. "bloody" invasion of Okinawa and the A-bombs. No mention of Japanese imperialism or atrocities in Korea, China and the Philippines. One would think they were the victims!



I can see their German WWII history now being like the Tom Lehrer song MLF Lullaby:

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918,
And they've hardly bothered us since then...

[Gangerolf]

In civ2 their capital was Kyoto, now it's Tokyo.
Why?

[Mahdimael]

I noticed the history had been glossed over a bit too...I guess they just wanted to focus on the positive.

As for the samurai, I agree that they will be a very powerful unit. The extra defense and the lack of a need for horses will mean that they should be readily available.

I may have to play with the Japanese first

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Mahdimael
I noticed the history had been glossed over a bit too...I guess they just wanted to focus on the positive.

As for the samurai, I agree that they will be a very powerful unit. The extra defense and the lack of a need for horses will mean that they should be readily available.

I may have to play with the Japanese first

I hate white-washed history. If students were given the facts so they could make a critical evaluation, it would be a much more valuable and interesting learning experience. Instead we dieify or villify historical figures, gloss over the "bad parts" and turn history into national propaganda. At least, that's how U.S. high school history courses are. It's the only subject where the more classes you take, the stupider you get.

*Ahem*

Will get off the soapbox...

[knott]

The rider is a much better unit, that you do not need horses dose not compensate the extra movment point.

[Taylost]

The Samurai is a very good unit ... almost too good. After all, why would you play the Chinese when theit UU has the same stats but needs horses? I suppose you might want the Chinese for their civ specific abilities, but I don't think that creates that big of an advantage.

[Taylost]

Oops, typo.

"Theit" should be "their."

[Frito]

The stats are not the same, the rider has a movement of 3, the samurai's movement is 2.

[Lonestar]

Yeah, that hacked me off too....

[ruckus9]

Um I thought samurais used horses. Guess I've been playing too much Total War. Ah it's not that big of a deal; the samurai as it stands (notice the stupid pun) is pretty good.

As for the history, I didn't really read it but I didn't really expect them to bring up the whole atrocities thing. It's a pretty short summary of a history so I find it somewhat understandable.

[Ribannah]

Yes, Samurai had horses. In Civ3 these appear out of nowhere: they still have a movement of 2!

All in all, a very disappointing description. Too many details in early history (yet skipping Chinese invasion attempts) and racing through more recent events: what their relationship with the Dutch (Decima), their conquests, and their industrial and scientific accomplishments in the last decades?

[Mars]

They're not all that powerful. they are still pretty cool though. Defense and movement don't really correlate so it works to get rid of the horses. I mean while you are defending you can't move and when you're moving defense doesn't matter much when you can go fast

[23 Skidoo]

History? What history?

I just don't get the wheel as an early tech for the Japanese. Yeah, they had it, but the only people legally allowed to use it were the Imperial Nobility! Pretty much only the Emperor and his immediate family. The first public use of wheeled vehicles didn't show up in Japan until after 1854 (Admiral Perry brought a miniature locomotive)!

As for horses, only samurai were allowed to ride them. Everyone else walked. A commoner could be arbitrarily beheaded for riding a horse (why it's a big deal in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai).They should have roads early on; it's what made the Tokaido Highway so famous.

Samurai as special units is not very insightful. It should really be Ashigaru Arquebusiers. Japanese were the first in history (that we presently know of) to use the battlefield tactic of coordinated, massed, ranked gunfire; they did this in the 16th century (Oda Nobunaga). Europe first did it in the 17th century: Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War.

Oh well. Game play, that's the thing.