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I believe that I am a good Japanese player thanks.. but I dont beleive that you can get your score up too 1700 in 40 min treaty "unless you are fishing" with getting spies.. I just dont think you can.. I usually end up with 1400 to 1500 right before treaty ends with spies and units and buildings upgraded..

spies isn't a good idea with japan, ur eco allready isn't that good, and u wanna make it worse with spies? Just try to constantly push forward and give them no chance to go on offence.

It is ver possible to get a 1700 score without spies.  With spies about 1650.  1400-1500 score with japanese is not good.  That means bad eco and slow boom.  You must use ur consulates wisely and micro your vills well.

japan will always loose to china. there was this extremly good chinese player and he owned me. i am best with China but still I was out ecoed and non of my units worked

 samurai = being defeated by flamethrowers

ashigaru= loose against changdao and arquebusier.

yumi = meteor and iron flail

naigita = Keshik and Qiang pikes

yabusame= will loose to chu ko nu

 flaming arrows -= owned by hand mortars

mortaru = the chinese dude just MICROED them out lol

 thats my expierience

Lol Japan can beat China easily without much skill. Samurai own most of the things China have with muskets and flamming arrows shooting china army from behind. China have hand mortors but japan range cav counter them easily.

I agree.. I cant remember ever losing to china with japan.. You must not know how to counter or something...

War_Ensemble:

their eco isn't all that great u are right. Allthough it isn't that bad either, it shouldnt be a problem to have 40k food and 35k gold at 40 mins including (most important) upgrades.

And about their military, yes they have great military. Cannons are no problem whatsoever for their cav archers who have huge bonus vs them. Furthermore their musks are very powerfull, but most important is to allways also have archers behind the musks. Actually the way to play japs is to make archers and protect the archers with musks/cav archers. And off course flaming arrows behind ur army is a must..

I do believe the japs are not really OP, i say china is better in a 1 vs 1. Simply because those darn hand mortars  take out ur artillery quick, as well as their eco advantage is too big for japs too handle. Also hand mortars can be often good use to kill of daimyos

Allthough cav archers are good vs artilllery the hand mortar en mass still is a problem
 

thnx lol i never knew that n thats were my problems are

small techs of japan

* i'm not english speaker so if u guys have difficulty to read it, i am sorry about it. 

1. the strongest "spi" by japan.
use one of cherry ricksaws to build cherry bushes near enemy places. unless they gather foods from the cherry bushes, they cannot destroy it. it is good to see how they come to attack you. anyways, u have one way that u can see (if enemy is clever enough they use another way to come to attack you.) if u include a "cherry orchard rickshaws" card, whichever i mean 1x2 or 2x2, in maximum, u can put five of them around the ways of enemy's marching. japan needs to be concentrated in economy to considerable extent. if u can predict enemy's attack somewhat, u can protect urself better and contribute ur concentrations to your economy more. again, the point is the "cherry orchard" cannot be destroyed unlike shrines.

2. against enemy's cannons.
maybe many would know but yabusame archers are so fxxxing strong when u order them to hand attack against cannons... even in third age without any enhancement for its power, 9 hand attack by 8 times against cannons. that means 72 damages against cannons by one archer. moreover the yabusame has 0.40 duration against range attack. this is one of the ways to wipe out enemy's cannons. or my favorite way is to use shogun to kill cannons... he is awesome to beat cannons with its hand attack and high hitpoint. even not so, u can just use him as a sacrifice to attract enemy to attack him (then u use ur cannons or whatever to beat enemies cannons and archers or skirmishers.)

3. if some one would say OP, this is it (hatamoto samurai).
although it is not said to be a tech, when u attack enemy's base, it is so effective to include just 5 of hatamoto samurais. whatsoever u use them, they are jsut extremely good to do anything like just leave them in enemy's town. with over 300 of siege attack, they can ruin enemy's base quickly while u concentrate on controlling enemy's army. or like u control them, and kill whatever u feel annoying like cannons. their hand attack in 5th age with full enhancement is like 160 with two area damages... by the way i have an experience to be beaten by one hatamoto samurai...i used germany but enemy used japan. i dun really remember the situation but when i beat japanese soldiers with whole economy... i couldnt eliminate only one hatamoto... fortunately that samurai was just staying in my base and breaking houses or market... my villagers were not attacked coz i guess the opponent had to concentrate on his base too (i sent soldiers when i could see they are attacking.) BUT,,, when i try to kill a hatamoto samurai, i didnt have enough money so i just made 5 skirmishers to kill him. but only one shot from each skirmishers and one hand attack and my skirmishers died all. so i built 10 of skirmishers to kill him but the result was like that hatamoto samurai still had like 600 something of hitpoint and destroying my skirmishers and then houses. and the next moment, enemy brought one daimyo and 10 musketeers plus 2 flaming arrows. and i was done. coz i wasted 15 of skirmishers...
ofcoz it depends on situations, but i would say, hatamoto samurai is the most dangerous mercenaries to be free in your base. (in reverse, u can do that too applying the method like order them to attack from back or killing villagers so they follow villagers and they can quickly break enemy walls like a moment... and they might do their jobs well anyway. psychologically if u are attacked by two sides, one is full scale of military but the other side is just 5 samurais, which u WANT to deal with first? or u can do? should be the enemy infront of u first otherwise u will be damaged so bad. so just 5 hatamoto samurai sneaking attack is worthy i guess.)

4. simple idea
japan can be the strongest musketeers empire by full enhancement for ashigarus. its gonna be 85 range attack and 35 of hand attack with 4.5 times stronger damage against horses. physically, as long as crushing men and men, he can even beat skirmishers by range attack coz its damage is 85 in the 5th age...with full enhance (but do enemy wanna build so many skirmishers coz ashigarus is flexible that they are also good for close combat). hitpoint is just blow 500 so, quite good as an one pop soldiers amongst other musketeers except swedish musketeers although they cost two pop... so basically what u need to do is to control daimyos and shogun by setting them as standing so that they dun move around, and just creating ashigaru forward to enemy base and waiting for shipments. two monks staying with them is necessary coz they can cure them and good for stopping small enemy troop against daimyo and shogun with its specialities. my way to protect shogun and daimyo, if possible to prepare, bring three to 5 of hatamoto samurai... they will beat any small troops as i mentioned their dominant hand attack skills. even enemy can kill hatamoto, daimyos and shogun can escape or spread some ways.  to get back to main point, ashigaru's siege attack is also 70 something. its not bad for sure. so what u need is to create ashigaru by three or two daimyo and making some frame arrow by shogun. getting shoheis from shipment while u are attacking enemy base is quite critical too. anyway to be able to handle enemy cannons is just needed in this method (using some ahigaru to hand attack to cannons, use some samurai while enemy attacking ur ashigaru to break enemy buildings, or using shinobinomono to search for places of artielly founders. or as i said, use shogun to beat cannons; even enemy aim at ur shogun, u can shut enemy cannons fire to ur musketeers so beat them while they aim at ur shogun.)

5. the great use of shinobino-mono. the use of this archer is the key in some situations depending on enemy's type. if enemy use so much skirmishers, shinobino-mono is so effective. coz their category is just infantry. shinobino-mono's physical range damage is like 50 in 5th age by daimyo and consulate, and with golden pavilion. so this soldiers are almost same as yumi archers in just physical damage. but coz of its sort, they can be good for some sort of enemy (if u have good sense, u already noticed what i mean.) this archers are so effective at chinese and indian horses. so if u just depend on yumi, u will be beaten quickly as long as ur samurai and ashigaru died... but shinobino-mono can be good solutions to earn time or stop their anti-heavy inf attack so ur cannons can beat urumis of indian. as many ppl say, to keep archers infront of cannons is very important. but sometimes, depending on enemy, it is difficult. to use shinobino-mono can be good method depending on situation anyways.

although i bullshit here, i hope some body can get some sense to apply those information of japan :) 

man, u cant be good at macroing. i have played with japs over 30 times on treaty, and have a 80% win, which is more than any other civ im playing on treaty.

they ARE OP. of course they are.

their most OP unit however, is not the ashigarus, nor the yumis, they are after my opinion the flaming arrows, as you have the less cost and training card plus the card which makes daimyos create units twice as fast. they are very good artillery that can be trained fast, and they dont even have to switch between walking mode and firing mode.  

when it comes to eco, i think its good enough. i almost never play 1vs1 on treaty, so i always have a teammate that gives me sheep or w/e to boost shrines. that is a must of course.  i dont use  the spanish consulate, i get my XP from shrines instead, so i have all the cards done at the end of treaty, plus 6 naginatas or samurais infinite times that will spawn from a daimyo.. 

its important to make consulate armies. remember that they are free. 

as for me, when i play with japs, i mostly make ashis, naginatas and flaming arrows from daimyos and it works fine. if i want to, i switch to yumis, yabusames or morutaru, but i rarely make samurais.. 

i dont see why u think their eco is so bad. why? lack of vills? they got shrines ffs. at most, those shrines gives about 30/s in resource trickle. the dutch banks gives 2.75 each, and u can have 10 of the at max. so, in other words, FU bank and shrine trickle gives almost the same, but with japs u can choose whichever resource u want, even XP, and they have 25 more vills. i know dutch is not a good comparison since they have way to bad eco on treaty though.. but my point is anyways that the japanese have good enough economy for their OP military. thats my opinion. and yes i know what u said about hate messages or w/e

my advise on eco though, would be this 

1. DONT get spies, why not get the buddha statue instead if its so important?  

 2. play on maps with an ally, its better than 1vs1 because your ally can give you herdables

3. get the shrine upgrades from the HC. the one which makes them cheaper and increases rates is a must, and i think the one which gives them XP trickle is good. keep the consulate at portuguese until 10-5min before treaty ends, then switch to dutch, THEN switch to jap iso..

and of course macroing vills is important.. just a practice thing..

 

just dont get it. i never run out of eco and ive never played japs with fishing boats.

Ashigarus are OP, their ranged attack is just too high. it's hard to counter them, even with LI because of their speed.  

The Jap players can shrine boom while spamming ashigarus mixed with naginatas or yumi.
I played about 7-8 ,matches against a guy, i lost all the matches. In the next match i decided to use the japs. I barely had to do anything. I went to fortress and with bushido tacticts i spammed ashis, nothing could take the ashis down with their insanely op ranged attack.