This is a guide intended to both familiarize players with the
mod nation of MA Jomon so they'll know what to expect when facing it in an MP game, as well as to assist players who are playing this nation for the first time. Please note that at the time of this writing MA Jomon is in
version 1.0 and still under development, so the contents herein may become increasingly outdated as changes both large and small are introduced based on feedback and playtesting.
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MA Jomon - Surf, Turf and Samurai
Alright, with that caveat out of the way, let's dive in and examine MA Jomon. We'll start with the official description:
During the time of the Oni, many humans fled the mountains and surrounding areas and traveled to the coast seeking protection. The Ryujin came upon these humans and offered them succor in exchange for treasure and allegiance. Although wary of exchanging one master for another, the Joman saw no other choice and agreed. With the fall of the Oni, a new empire was formed around the worship of the Dragon King and the lesser kami of the land. A strict hierarchy was formed with the Emperor on top and the peasant classes at the bottom. The Ryujin played the human clans against each other, trying to gain prestige and fortune at the expanse of other Ryujin. With the coming of the New God, the Ryujin have ceased their petty squabbling and united with the Jomonese to conquer new territory and find new riches for themselves.
Race:
Humans and Ryu Court
Military:
Light Infantry, Medium Infantry, Samurai Archers and Cavalry, Ninjas Assassins
Magic:
Average Earth, Nature, Water and Air, weak Fire and Astral, unique elemental priest magic
Priests:
Weak
On a macro scale, MA Jomon is characterized by several key elements:
1)
Very diverse elemental magic. Every mage and priest in the nation gets at least one random pick of Air, Earth, Fire, Water or Nature.
2)
High resource, shieldless infantry. None of Jomon's recruits carry shields and most of them cost a fair number of resources, though their equipment is better than average. This is a nation that dislikes sloth-scales and advancing under arrow fire.
3)
A land nation with a strong underwater presence. Jomon can build forts and recruit special troops and commanders underwater. The powerful Ryujin can be recruited underwater, freeing the capital to recruit other commanders, like the Saigu.
4)
Weak priests but strong Anti-Demon, Anti-Undead theme. MA Jomon's mightiest priest is the cap-only, H2 Saigu. All others are a paltry H1. However, all of MA Jomon's sacred humans (the Saigu, Miko and Onna Bushi) carry holy weapons which deal triple damage to demons and undead.
5)
Many national-only spells. Like LA Jomon, MA Jomon has access to five unique combat spells that their priests can cast (one for each of their random magical paths), as well as a dozen unique summons which are capable of producing a wide range of casters, sacred infantry, and thugs.
That's the high level view. Now let's look at each of the units in detail, starting with the commanders.
Non-Magical Commanders
Gokenin (25gp, 23 resources): this is your standard 40-leadership commander. He's a samurai with a high quality sword and a long bow. He's inexpensive but not massively superior to an indie commander so it is unlikely that you will choose to recruit many of these at your forts.
Mounted Gokenin (30gp, 20 resources): pretty much the same, plus a horse and minus the long bow. You can use him to lead squads of Samurai Cavalry around at map move-3.
Jito (25gp, 13 resources): this guy is much like the MA T'ien Ch'i Eunuch in that he's a cheap, 40-leadership commander with a nice patrol bonus. Good for managing unrest in overtaxed provinces as well as de-stealthing sneaking enemies like spies and glamoured troops. Unlike the Eunuch, he's not completely worthless in combat.
Shugo (40gp, 20 resources): better stats than the Mounted Gokenin and he can lead 80 troops around. A solid commander for leading large armies.
Ninja (40gp, 14 resources): the same as in LA Jomon, this is a nice and very stealthy assassin. He can throw two shuriken per round, each of which are poisoned, and his melee stats are pretty good. This is your only stealthy recruit and you will start with one in place of a scout. I like to script them with Firex2, Attack Closest when carrying out assassinations.
Crab General (30gp, 19 resources): they are slow, beefy commanders that you'll use to lead shrimp soldiers and shark warriors around underwater. They have surprisingly good protection and are amphibious so they can lead troops in and out of the water.
Magical, Non-Sacred Commanders
Wokou Captain (30gp, 8 resources) [.25xA + .25xW]: each of these have a 25% chance of getting A1 and/or W1, meaning an average of 7 out of every 16 will have one to two paths of magic. They can be recruited without a lab but the main reason you'd recruit one is because he can lead all the troops under his command across the water courtesy of his sailing ability. Sailing is situational but potentially very powerful, allowing you to surprise or simply out-maneuver your opponents when the fighting takes place next to a body of water. Furthermore, sailing can allow you to move troops across your empire faster than normal, bypassing slow terrain and multiple provinces; in the right situation its even faster than flying! Normally a Wokou Captain can only take 40 troops with him but if you need to you can give him command-boosting items (e.g. scepter of authority, crown of command) to fit more troops on the boat. For true sneakiness, you can give him a water breathing item, have him lead troops into one water province, and then on the next turn sail over another for a surprise, aquatic sailing assault. Normal troops will need a water breathing item but the amphibious shark warriors (which you can recruit underwater) are built ready to go.
Shugenja (90gp, 1 resource) [E1 + 1xFAWEN]: unchanged from LA Jomon, he is an inexpensive earth mage with a random pick. He is also your best source of E2 casters outside of the expensive Saigu and Ryujin. These are also your most powerful map move-2 casters until you start buying Ryujin, which helps distinguish the Shugenja from the otherwise more magically powerful Omnyo-ji. Those that get an Air random can cast Summon Konoha Tengus, which gets you five sacred, lightning immune, lightning-throwing, flying bird samurai for two air gems.
Omnyo-ji (160gp, 1 resource) [S2 + 2.1xFAWEN]: this will likely be your staple mage so you can anticipate recruiting LOTS of them. They each start with S2 and are the only source of astral magic your nation can recruit. They each prevent 6% of all bad events in their province (which is cumulative with multiple Omnyo-ji, allowing them to somewhat mitigate misfortune scales) and they start battle with an ethereal bird familiar. These familiars make excellent chaff, much like the dragonflies from the Swarm spell, and are excellent at confusing enemy scripts during battle as well as stalling assassins. One in five will have a 2 in an elemental path, including the much sought after E2S2 (for forging crystal items), and so are capable of casting remote site search spells. Their diverse paths make them efficient at searching for low-level magic sites (since most will search across 3 paths at once) as well as casting many of the various kami-summoning spells unique to Jomon. They'll also offer you considerable versatility when forging; over time you will likely accumulate just about every A,E,F,W,N,S path combination which opens up a lot of forging options. In battle they can form large communions, boosting their otherwise low paths up to dangerous levels, giving MA Jomon a very large bag of spells to choose from when committing to a major battle. Unfortunately, they are slow (map move-1) so until you begin recruiting them at, or teleporting them to, the front lines they will largely stay away from the action and hang out in their laboratories.
Magical, Sacred Commanders
Monk of the Five Folds (100gp, 1 resource) [H1 + 1xFAWEN]: these are your most cost-effective researchers and they can be recruited without a lab (though they do need a temple). Furthermore, each one can cast one of the five sign spells unique to Jomon (those will be reviewed later in the guide). These are your most efficient recruits if you need someone to follow your army around to bless your Mikos or Tengu and after that's done they can spam banishment or whatever sign spell their element affords them. Other than using them as blessers and researchers, I like to use one or two of these to go around and construct all the temples and labs I need built across my empire. They're cheap and map move-2 so I don't mind having them away from the lab.
Envoy of Ryu (150gp, 8 resources) [W1H1 + 1xFAWEN]: an amphibious water priest who can lead 10 size-2 troops underwater, these guys will often be the commander that conquers your first water province. Since each one can cast water power (and one-in-five can cast teaching sign for a further path boost), Envoys make acceptable combat casters underwater. They are also your best source of W2, without recruiting the substantially more expensive Ryujin. Also note that they can be recruited from land forts as well as water forts.
Ryujin (500gp, 11 resources) [W3 + 1xFF/AA/EE/NN + .1xFAWEN]: unchanged from LA Jomon, the Ryujin is an extremely expensive but magically powerful, amphibious, sacred dragon-mage that you can recruit at your capital as well as in every underwater fort. They are poison immune, fire and lightning resistant, can fly even during a storm and have incredible magic resistance. If they are killed in humanoid form they will revert to dragon form and continue fighting, giving them a combined effective total of 70hp. All of this makes them a very resilient mage, which is good considering their cost. They make excellent ritual site searchers (casting the excellent underwater spell Voice of Tiamat and having a guaranteed double path in fire, air, earth or nature), forgers and combat mages. Unlike the Omnyo-ji or the Saigu, this guy can MOVE! In humanoid form they can fly three provinces while retaining all the normal slots a human mage has (except for it's single misc. slot), or they can transform into dragon form for a staggering map move-4 (with only a single misc. slot). This allows them to fly from their lab directly over to the combat, keeping the number of mage-turns wasted to a minimum. Plus one-in-five can cast cloud trapeze (though not from underwater). Unfortunately, they are cold blooded so they will pass out very fast in a cold province. Additional reinvigoration (items, Earthpower) and owl quills (to reduce encumbrance) can help this, but you should always be careful sending these expensive casters into a cold province. You can use these to cast most of your major battlefield enchantments and the W3F2 ones can cast the wicked acid spells as well. Finally, they can put your water gems to good use allowing you to use the new water teleport spells (Ride the Currents and Traverse the Sea) to move them and the troops they are leading magically from water province to water province. If you have one lead a communion of Omnyo-ji (by equipping a crystal matrix) this goes from being a scary caster to a terrifying one.
Saigu (350gp, 3 resources, Capital Only) [A1E1N1H2 + 1xFF/AA/WW/EE/NN + .1xFAWEN]: this is your heavy-weight, capital-only caster. Since she gets double paths in her random pick, she is capable of reliably getting A3, E3 or N3, as well as being your best source for F2. She's also your only H2 priest and she reduces unrest in her province by 4/turn. This unrest reduction will mitigate the effects of enemy spies, unrest raising events and overtaxation, plus the effects stack when multiple are Saigu present. All that is wrapped up in an expensive, slow and fragile package. She has a holy dagger (which you hope she will never use) and an omamori. An omamori is a protective amulet which grants the Saigu mild fire and cold resistance (25% to each), parries like a typical shield but only offers very minor protection (4 versus a normal shield's 15). It's main contribution is that it will make this crucial mage harder to shoot with arrows. In the early game, you'll really want to have a few Saigu out manually site searching (since they cover four to five paths at once) and later they'll be your top forgers, ritual casters and battle mages. However, they are not cost efficient researchers despite being sacred, which means you may need to refrain from recruiting them early in the first year until your income improves. Once you have the money, however, you'll want to recruit one each and every turn. These mages are slow (map move-1) and only one-in-five can cast cloud trapeze so you might want to forge winged boots for the any that need to follow a map move-2 army around. Each will have access to three or more of the sign spells unique to Jomon, including the oh-so-useful Teaching Sign. Combine Teaching Sign with a path boost spell (Earthpower, Strength of Gaia, etc.) to get a Saigu up into the A/E/N5 or F4 range. If you have one lead a communion of Omnyo-ji (by equipping a crystal matrix) this goes from being a scary caster to a terrifying one.
Those are the commanders, but what are they going to lead? Troops, of course. Specifically, these troops.
Non-Sacred Units
Ashigaru (8gp, 9 resources): your basic chaff unit, his stats are straight 10s, he carries a yari (like a spear but +1dmg, +1atk, +1length) and he's armored reasonably well for a bottom rung recruit. Like much of Jomon, he has slightly better than average equipment, lacks a shield and costs more resources than the chaff of most other nations.
Ashigaru Bowman (10gp, 13 resources): carries a short bow and a wakazashi (superior short sword). These are your most easily massable archers and while you don't want them in melee, they hold up better than most chaff archers thanks to their ashigaru armor and wakazashi. They make good (i.e. expendable) archer decoys and really become dangerous with Wind Guide and/or Flaming Arrows cast.
Wokou (9gp, 8 resources): this is your massable shock troop. They move faster than all your non-cavalry because of a higher base AP and lighter armor. They carry a wakazashi and a harpoon (one-shot javelin that entangles whatever it hits) and have better than average attack and moral to compensate for their abysmal protection. If scripted to "Fire Closest" they will run up, entangle a group of foes at a distance and close in and start hacking at them in melee. Because of their speed and blitz potential, they can serve as a poor-man's cavalry and cause casualties along the enemy's flanks. They also have the lowest resource cost of all your troops so you can recruit them in large numbers if needed.
Bushi [Naginata] (10gp, 14 resources): same stats as an ashigaru but better armor and a naginata, which is good for hacking up high-protection and/or high-hp enemies. Bushi of one sort or another should be the mainstay filler of your army since they perform well without costing too much gold or resources.
Bushi [No-Dashi] (10gp, 16 resources): same as the naginata bushi but he carries a two handed sword (slightly less damage than a naginata but much better attack and defense). The defense bonus will help keep them alive in longer in melee so I recommend recruiting these instead of the naginata troops when facing typical foes. However, when you're facing facing giants or Ulm, switch to naginatas since you really need the higher damage output.
Samurai Archer (14gp, 23 resources): this is an elite samurai warrior with higher stats (and cost) than the samurai arhcers of LA Jomon. They are very versitile units since they have a superior bow with better-than-average precision but also wield a superior sword and have excellent melee stats. Except for resisting arrow fire, these guys can do it all. You can place them towards the front of your formation, scripted to "hold and attack" so they'll fire two volleys into the enemy before advancing into katana range. If you are going to use them as archers, try placing them slightly in front of your Ashigaru Bowman and Miko so that any enemy units that make it to your archers will face elite katana samurai instead of maidens and peasants.
Samurai Cavalry (35gp, 20 resources): elite samurai on horseback with lances AND katanas. These are your only map move-3 units so you can have a squad of them led by a Mounted Gokenin or Shugo as a rapid response force or raiding party. Their attack and defense are further boosted by their superior swords so they can tough it out in melee quite well but they are very susceptible to archer fire. Use them to flank enemy formations or cause low moral squads to flee from their three attack alpha-strike (lance, katana and hoof).
Shark Warrior (45gp, 21 resources): recruitable from your capital as well as your underwater forts, these are giant, amphibious shark samurai who have a yari and a nasty bite attack. For the most part you will only use these to get a foothold under the water (and after that you'll likely switch to using the more economical Shrimp Soldiers), however they have their niche uses in the mid game and can come out swinging in the late game. In the mid game they can be used as amphibious shock troops, attacking in and out of the water. Despite being size-4, they fight about as well as two size-2 troops since they have a very high strength and two attacks. The fact that they're map move-1 doesn't matter if they're being taken sailing by a Wokou Captain, allowing you to pack more oomph into his 40-leadership. If you give the Wokou Captain a ring of water breathing he can travel underwater, pick up the shark warriors and then sail out of the water, over another water province and onto land. Most players don't anticipate that sort of thing and you can do that at construction-0. In the late game, these guys scale up real nice with high-end combat buffs. Arrow Fend, quickness, luck, body ethereal, weapons of sharpness... all of those things will turn these guys into resilient sharky death. They have stats like a decent summoned soldier so they can be treated like on, but they cost you gold instead of gems and resources instead of mage turns to recruit. Something to keep in mind.
Shrimp Soldier (10gp, 13 resources): imagine a naginata bushi with slightly better stats that can't leave the sea. That's the Shrimp Soldier. He's great at what he does which is swarm stuff underwater and hack it apart. If you drop quickness and/or water shield on them their defense enters the upper teens to lower twenties, which makes them frustratingly hard for their opponents to take them down in melee... which is just about the only form of combat underwater.
Sacred Units
Onna Bushi (15gp, 16 resources): the Onna Bushi is a very unique unit that is powerful on the defensive but of very limited use on the offensive. This is a recruit-anywhere sacred that is armed like a naginata bushi but has elite moral, elite defense, a patrol bonus, a castle defense bonus, recuperation and an omamori (like the Saigu and the Miko; 25% CR, 25% FR, shield parry 4, protection 4). That makes them about as hard to shoot with arrows as a normal, shield carrying unit, which means they are much harder to shoot than your average Jomon unit. Furthermore, they carry sacred naginatas which hit ethereal/mistformed opponents and deal triple damage to demons and undead, making Onna Bushi a threat even to Arch Devils and Tartarans. The downsides to this unit are two-fold: they have map move-1 and homesick-50. That second one means that they'll lose 50% of their hp each turn they are away from their home province (guaranteeing that they'll be dead if they spend two consecutive turns away from home) and the homesick damage will often cause afflictions to the unit. Note that they take their homesick damage after any battles they participate in, not before. The purpose of the Onna Bushi is to protect the province in which she was recruited in and all the provinces adjacent, especially from undead and demons. Against normal, living opponents she won't hit any harder or more frequently than a regular naginata bushi and her primary contribution is likely just being very difficult to hit in melee. Try and protect your Onna Bushi from concentrated arrow fire, evocations and paralyzing effects (earth meld, bonds of fire and so on drop their defense to virtually nothing, ensuring they meet a swift end in melee). Note that homesick prevents a nature bless from bestowing regeneration outside the unit's home province.
Miko (20gp, 14 resources, Capital Only): your capital-only sacred unit, the Miko is an elite archer with an Omamori (25% CR, 25% FR, shield parry 4, protection 4) which makes them somewhat resilient to enemy arrows. They carry a sacred dagger, like the Saigu, which deals triple damage to undead and demons but that isn't likely to matter because they're wearing a robe so they aren't likely to survive in melee very long regardless (remember the Omamori offers almost no protection in melee and even a militia is a close-combat threat to a Miko). However, they also carry a sacred bow which hits ethereal/mistformed enemies, does triple damage to undead and demons and has superior accuracy... also magic arrows are harder for shields to block. Against normal, living foes, the Miko is merely an exceptional archer who is surprisingly resistant to return volleys. Against undead and demon foes they are death from above in a bath robe. Despite being sacred, relatively few blesses work well for ranged sacreds. A fire bless DOES NOT give them fire arrows, nor does the attack bonus help their ranged accuracy at all. The only offensive blesses for a Miko are a death bless (because their arrows will have an increased chance of causing afflictions) and a water bless (because it will allow them to fire three times over two rounds... though a water bless tends to cause them to run towards the enemy in between shots so use it at your own peril).
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