How to beat
Japaneseas Chinese
Matchup tips
Against Japanese mounted samurai, wall off your exposed areas to funnel them towards the Barbican. Even though they can dive the Barbican, if you only have a few villagers, you can garrison them all, and with walls you'll always see where they are coming from.
The mounted samurai build is very heavily built on early damage and securing relics because your economy is weak. Chinese can go up to Castle Age and try to match those mounted samurai, using their own lancers to snipe enemy monks, while being in Song Dynasty on a huge food deposit, getting the villager production boost and a steady food source.
The initial charge of lancers is much weaker against Japanese cavalry because of their deflective armor.
Against the Japanese mounted samurai build, you want to deny relics; a split of three to two is not ideal for the Japanese player — you want a four-to-one or five-to-zero advantage.
Palace Guards plus crossbows would work so well against Yumi and mounted samurai.
What makes Onna-bugeisha so scary is their extra range on the melee attack. When you have a big cluster, they can fight over one another, making the effective DPS of a huge army of Onna-bugeisha much better than an army of men-at-arms.
I don't remember the last pro game that people have aged up with the astronomical clock tower as China for their first landmark into Castle. This is absolutely great for him because he's going to be able to make those Nest of Bees that he needs to deal with the Yumi mass
With China being in the Song Dynasty, they're getting villagers faster and faster, and this is just not something Japan on their one TC is going to be able to handle
When fighting Japanese, ignore banner men; there's no point. Killing a banner man just drops its banner for 30 seconds, and they have double health and armor, taking too long to kill. Focus on stripping DPS value instead.
He understands that Japan wins this matchup by getting the Yumi count too high, because then they'll always overkill but saturate with damage. So he's hugely focused on keeping that element as small as possible, even if it means losing a few archers.
He just ignores the samurai because if the Yumi count gets too low, the opponent has to retreat, and then they will lose the samurai because they're not that tanky.
It would be rare to see Zhuge Nu from the Chinese against Japanese because this is a classic Castle Age rush matchup. You want to pro scout castle age and Japanese on the other side want to also castle age and get mounted samurai out on the field, so it would be surprising to see Zhuge Nu in there.
Once you get the Imperial Palace up, the extra vision will make it so much harder for those mounted samurai to really find any significant damage. You're going to be able to see them coming from literally half a map away.
It takes so much investment for the Yumi to really come online: not only do you need the daimyo, but then you need the bannerman to be alive in that fight, obviously steel arrow on the mass. You need all of these to actually beat out regular archers.
You cannot just play archer on archer against Yumi if your archers are just regular, even with Chinese economy; it's not a viable option.
In mass, Japanese mounted samurai are a lot better. You can get those knights up to plus seven damage in Castle Age from the Bannerman, while China can only get them to plus two.
Do you really want to try to rush Lancers against Mounted Samurai? Probably not.
Against mass Yumi, Imperial Palace is valuable for vision. If you can get Song Dynasty and two relics behind that, you'll be in a great spot.
Be careful against Japanese Onna-Musha; avoid getting caught outside your base.
The Great Wall Gate House devastates most of the Japanese army that comes near it.
Palace Guard are great against Onna-bugeisha. They have bonus health, move faster in Yuan dynasty, and are still tanky despite lower armor. This forces the Japanese into a slower composition.
Samurai with katana upgrade deal +4 damage against Palace Guard, but Palace Guard have 30 more HP and 1.58 move speed, making it a trade-off.
Even though Samurai are favored against Palace Guard, the Palace Guard's mobility makes it hard for Japanese to force a fight, enabling raiding.
Japanese can max out Onna-bugeisha faster than Chinese can get Palace Guard going, but in late game, China's composition feels superior.
Palace Guard are 5 gold cheaper than Samurai and have more health, allowing them to survive more handcannon shots, making them a better frontline.
Japanese can get arrowslits pretty much for free with their stone, however China can build Outpost much quicker, and putting a few villagers on it makes a world of difference.
Japanese Unique Units
Japanese Landmarks
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