How to beat
Chineseas Japanese
Matchup tips
Japanese often go for a dark age play, but against China, it doesn't feel as worth it. You'll shut down the gold, but they might already have enough to get that first Imperial Official out and get all the taxes they need, so the early investment doesn't pay off as much.
Mounted samurai don't mind a Barbican, especially when numbers increase. They can get under that Barbican and have a field day with villagers trying to gather food.
Chinese's villager lead can be offset by Japanese Yorishiro in the town center.
Japan does have quite a few units that can handle the Great Wall Gatehouse. You also have very cheap ones and you know they are quite fast especially when you start investing into Onna-Bugeisha
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
If you just get Yumi before you get pushed off of stone by the Chinese archers, then the investment into archers from the Chinese kind of feels wasted because the Yumi are just going to win out.
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.
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.
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.
A TC drop makes sense against China because you need to build a lead, especially if they might go Song Dynasty.
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.
Trying to beat China in a gun battle is difficult because of Pyrotechnics; Japanese handcannoneers with Yumi buff hit harder but have less range.
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 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.
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.
Chinese Unique Units
Chinese Landmarks
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