Guiding Jomon

[quantum_mechani]

JimMorrison said:


BUT, be that as it may, I agree that just making archers won't cut the mustard. While they are excellent missile troops, it still comes down to the fact that the strength of Jomon's conventional army is in their shock infantry.

Seems to me the flaw with this line of reasoning is that samurai archers are pretty near as good of shock infantry as your other troops, while providing the extremely key ranged support.

[JimMorrison]

Well, I would go so far as to call them "decent medium infantry", but not necessarily shock troops just because they have katana.

The Go-Hatamoto is one of the better recruitable human sized shock infantry available to anyone. The 16 prot is very respectable, and is 2 better than the archer. They get 2 more HP, 1 more str, 2 higher attack, and 1 higher defense. So with the No-Dashi they are hitting for 19, while the archer hits for 16 with the katana.

Granted, the beauty of the archers is that they are very decent infantry in their own right, I just don't see the melee shock value.

[dirtywick]

Shot in the dark here as I've never tried it: Casting Haste on your infantry and using the enemy as meat shields against their own archers?

You could have them hold and attack, fire two rounds of arrows as they get buffed/hasted, then move in for melee.

I don't know, be interesting to try.

[quantum_mechani]

JimMorrison said:
The 16 prot is very respectable, and is 2 better than the archer. They get 2 more HP, 1 more str, 2 higher attack, and 1 higher defense. So with the No-Dashi they are hitting for 19, while the archer hits for 16 with the katana.

I would argue 2 prot, 1 defense and a little more attack and damage barely offsets the map move 1, 2 higher gold and +1 enc, let alone the long bow.

[JimMorrison]

Well, 15 attack almost guarantees successful strikes. 19 damage essentially guarantees a 1 hit kill on lighter troops, and guarantees damage to heavily armored forces. 13 attack is still pretty good, but with 16 damage you will be far less efficient about making your kills. Plus the 2 prot jumps them from medium infantry, to heavy infantry, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the enemy, as well as the jump from 9 to 11 HP making them less likely to die. And a measly 1 encumbrance difference should not be a factor, because these guys kill other infantry so much more efficiently, they shorten battles when they get in close - as well as providing a very beefy line to screen your archers so that they can continue exercising those long bows.

Again, I think samurai archers are awesome, but I just can't agree that they are shock troops, and shock infantry is a very potent tool that many nations lack in their arsenal but that Jomon has in spades.

[quantum_mechani]

Well as far as being an archer supplement, being 1 mapmove kind of crimps that. And I just have a hard time imagining that +2 damage doing more to the enemy than a couple arrow volleys.

[JimMorrison]

They have 1 more str as well, so it's +3 damage, which pushes the math in favor of guaranteed kills on cheaper chaff, as well as much higher likelihood of being effective in melee against hard to damage foes.

[quantum_mechani]

Well, think we have covered all the points, I can see this is not something we are going to see eye to eye on.

[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.