Japanese like all asian civilizations use wonders to advance to the next age. They have a limit of 75 Villagers, which can not hunt and only gather food from berries and Cherry orchards. Depending on the map, Japanese have access to 7 to 12 thousand food in natural ressources without the need for herding.Their 2 Explorers can use the recall (“Poof”) ability to get quickly out of combat to your TC. Because of those two monk explorers, Japan has one of the best treasure collecting in the entire game. In addition to that the explorers can build shrines on the map, typically around animals. The japanese house equivalent, the “Shrines” provide population, produce resources, attract nearby hunts and Livestock and also give more resources, if animals are gathering at the shrine. Livestock give more resources than hunts. Shrines are worth up to 3 factories. For more Info check my seperate video

Japanese can send all of their unit and resource shipments twice. All teamcards and most upgrades can be only sent once (except saw mills, fish market and silversmith).
Now let's look at specific noteworthy cards:
Japanese can get a strong boom with their villager / Fishing boat cards (especially the 4 & 7 villager) which they can send twice and thus can get a massive eco spike really fast.

Dojo's produce units continuously and are worth roughly 0.75 factories (See Video talking about dojos). Generally Producing Yumis gives the highest value, while producing Yabusame gives the lowest value. Still the difference isnt too big, so training what you need is generally often a decent choice. The Dojos can be used in supremacy and are better in some circumstances than 7 villagers, because you are not exhausting natural resources and delay your transition to rice paddies. You also can achieve a higher total economy (once you reach 75 vills), but in most circumstances 7 villagers is more flexible, less "clunky" to use, and gives you a better immediate boost. In Treaty Dojos aren't used, because they take 2 deck slots and your units need to walk to the frontline.
Economic Upgrades: They have all the economic upgrades available and also additional rice paddy Gather rates upgrades. Because they can send fish markets twice, their fishing boats are also among the best fishing boats in the entire game. The only real downside to that is, that they can only have 75 maximum villagers, so the upgrades do not affect as many vills as for other civs, but their individual gather rates are among the highest in the entire game.
Peacetime fishing is also unique to japanese: This card increases the fishing rate of your funes by 125%. Bad card, since you can easily afford to have 20 extra population invested into fishing boats and just do a "normal fishboom"
They also have 2 powerful eco team cards with 3 fishing boats and with chonindo, which improves villager and fishing gather rate across the board. That makes chonindo the arguably the best economic team card in the entire game, since it can be used in many situations and will affect more units than most other economic team cards. Another good team card is the 3 fishing boats, which can give a nice economic boost to your team on water maps.

Infantry:
Ashigarus: Faster and stronger but more expensive musketeer. Population efficient but not cost efficient until can start stacking upgrade in mid to late game
Yumi: Good Archer with a great attack animation. Yumis can hit and run, which most archers effectively can't. This comes at the cost of the Rate of fire, but they still have great DPS and are among the best archers in the game
Samurai: Decent at killing buildings and cav, but still melee Infantry

Cavalry:
Naginata: Better against Light Infantry than hussar and has more ranged HP, but worse against everything else (Loose 1v1 in Hussar fights). “lancer light” is great against skirmishers/ archers and can take a lot of ranged fire, but worse against everything else. Block with musk, melee infantry or any sort of cav
Yabusame: low hp, high range resist, higher range and higher multiplier vs artillery. Better in Dragoon fights and vs art. Best ranged cav against art, since higher range and very high Damage vs arty. Worse in almost all other fights though and expensive to get.

Artillery:
Flaming arrows: mix of Culverines and falconets. Low HP, but does decent damage against art & infantry. Has +2 more range compared to falconettes, so in theory can snipe them. In practice it is very hard, because of the attack delay and the fact that you need 3 shots to kill falcs, but get killed by 2 falc hits. With imperial upgrades gets another +2 range, so then it is a real counter vs art.
Mortaru: Mortar which is used to clean up buildings and ships. It is one of the best mortars in the entire game because of the cheaper cost, higher mobility and higher range

Special Units:
Daimyo/Shogun: Accessible in the Homecity and in the wonder tokugawa shogunate. Can be used as a shipment point or to train units. Damyos can train Barracks and stable units and the shogun can train Yamabushis, Shinobis, Flaming arrows and mortarus. These units can turn enemy economy to a battlefield in no time, if not dealt with. They also have great aura buffs, which increase the hp or attack of nearby units. So often they will stand behind the push and retrain units or just support.
Yamabushi: Fast melee infantry with strong building attack and high damage vs cav. Basically a pikemen on steroids
Shinobi: Archers which are decent against infantry. Do more siege damage then normal archers and can also stealth. This means they can go raid and go into stealth once being chased - very annoying to deal with


Good Unit compositions:
Age 2: Ashigaru + Naginata, Ashigaru + Yumi, Ashigaru, Yumi/ Yamabushi. Samurais are generally not a unit you want to make in age 2. If you want to go for anticav/building attack, you should aim for a build order with yamabushis/ Ashigarus
Fortress Age / Lategame: Same as age 2. You can add Flaming Arrows to any of the army compositions in Age 2. You can also add in Yabusame, if you expect artillery. Another viable army composition at this point is Yumi/ Yabusame.

Usually: Infantry core (ashigaru/yumi) + cav/art, depending on enemy

Wonders
Like all asian civilisations, the Japanese have access to 5 wonders and 4 consulate allies, which I will now cover in detail.
Wonders
Toshugu Shrine: Improves Gather rates of all shrines and provides 20 population space. Gives Export upon completion. Usually best used as age 2 age up, since there you benefit most from the 20 population space and eco bonus.

Buddha Statue: Has the ability to reveal the enemy player. Also spawns naginata riders & cherry orchard wagons after age up. Niche, hard to put value on a temporary map hack and also the cherry orchard can be pretty useful.

Golden Pavilion improves your military units with one of the 4 options, which can be switched at any time. These Options are ranged attack, melee attack, HP and speed. They all are useful in certain situations.Typically you want to use ranged attack, when you have a yumi heavy composition like yumi/ashi or Yumi/yabusame. When having a lot of Nagis, Flaming arrows or melee units in general then using the HP option is best. HP is also the Go-To option in late game and treaty, since all units benefit from it. Speed is a good option if you are active on the map during raids for example. The melee attack mode is very niche and “for the memes”. The Golden Pavillion also has advanced arsenal upgrades & spawns yumis when completed. In most builds you use the golden Pavilion to age up to fortress age.

Tokugawa Shogunate: Reduces train time and cost of your military and gives you the option to retrain daymos & Shoguns. Gives an XP bonus and also in later ages a daymo. Usually used as age up to Industrial or imperial age, but can be also used in an aggressive FF build.
Torii Gates: Gives an XP trickle and improves almost all ways of getting XP (Combat, construcion, training). Spawns a military rickshaw and also samurais. Often used in aggressive builds to advance to age 2, because of the military wagon.

In Late Game you usually want to get all wonders except the buddha. Also japanese Wonders are even more important than factories, so keep them safe.

Consulate:
Japan can choose between portuguese, japanese isolation, dutch or spain. Each ally gives you a passive bonus and allows you to spend your export on upgrades or units.

The Portuguese reduce the cost of your buildings, including the food cost of your wonders. You can also train Crossbows and have the option to go for 3 fishing boats, a caravel and a mortar ship. Allying with portuguese is good for booming, since you get shrines for 107 wood and combined with heavenly kami for only 75 wood. In addition the Crossbows are good in the early game and help defend against early pressure. On Water maps the 3 fishing boats can give a nice early boost to your boom.

Japanese Isolation improves the attack of all your units passively. You can also train yamabushi clubmen, shinobis, ninjas and hatamoto samurais. Notable upgrades are the 1 military rickshaw and bushido principles, which enables you to train 10 units with each batch.
Japanese Isolation is good, when you want to be aggressive early, since you can get clubman/ shinobis or get a military rickshaw. If you are maxed out and want to attack, it often makes sense to switch to Japanese isolation before the attack, for the extra attack buff on all your units. Also Ninjas can be devastating, if someone uses mercenaries (like mamelukes). Hatamoto Samurai is the strongest melee infantry in the game, which destroys anything it reaches, but also slow and expensive

Dutch gives you a small coin trickle. Dutch have Musketeers, Ruyter and mortars and gives you access to the European buildings Church, bank, arsenal and a livestock pen.
Often you switch to dutch in mid/late game for the upgrades in the european buildings and to train livestock, which gather additional resources at your shrines.

Spain gives a passive XP trickle and gives you upgrades relating to your shipments. You can train pikes, rodeleros, falcs and lancers. In Supremacy they are rather niche, but in late game their lancers and Falconetts can be a good addition to your army.

How good are japanese? I ll take a look at the 3 categories early game, booming and late game

Japanese are pretty weak early game and vulnerable to rushes (russia and aztec). This is mainly because your villagers can't hunt and you subsequently do have less resources than normal civs. Shrines usually don't make up that difference early in the game, especially since you also lack the 3 vill shipment. Your units are also more expensive and at the start of the game not that cost efficient. You also do not have access to powerful age two shipments (700 ress, 5 vill/3 Settler wagon, 5 cossacks/2 leather canon). There are some Build orders, where you can also play aggressive mainly involving torii gates, but this is not traditionally the strong point of japanese. Their only real saving grace in this category is their 2 explorers, which save some villagerseconds by building shrines and also minimize the economic gap by allowing you to get more treasures.

Their booming potential though is really strong. With portuguese consulate allies and Heavenly Kami they can plant down shrines for 75 wood and get to a decent economy really fast. On Land you can achieve 20 shrines usually in under 10 minutes and if untouched this boom has around the same strength as british/ dutch boom. They also have access to 2x4 and 2x7 vills and on water 2x3, 2x5 and 2x8 fishing boats. So if untouched, they will have a really strong economy and powerful units. They practically also never run out of Age 1, Age 2 or Age 3 cards, because they can send most Shipments twice.

Late Game: Their late game economy is very cost efficient, powered by their shrines and by their abundance of economy cards. Their total gathering potential is average though, because they only have 75 villagers and no factories. This gets balanced out with Wonders & Shrines, but overall an average european civilisation with 99 villagers has a higher income overall. Another advantage japan has is that their upgrades are cheaper, so they don't need to gather as many resources as most civilisations. Combined with their higher army capacity (125 population space for army) and their overall Population efficient units (Ashigarus, Yumis, Yabusame, Mortars) means that they should overwhelm the enemy in late game and trade more cost efficient, balancing the fact that they have a slightly worse eco. Also their daymos and shogun can easily be used to run around and delete enemy trading posts or even snipe enemy economy, if there are holes in the wall or the enemy is distracted. People who played the asian dynasties have probably experienced it at least once, when a shogun pops 10 mortarus near your factories and your economy just vanishes in a matter of minutes.

Final Thoughts:
Japan excel at booming and are strongest in midgame and late game (10-25 minutes). They are most vulnerable in the early game, where the expensive units, no access to hunts and the lack of powerful shipments puts them behind other civs. This means you are often forced into a defensive playstyle. Luckily though, Japanese don't need to herd, which means they are hard to raid and easy to play.
For Japan there are some strategies to play aggressively, mainly involving torii gate build orders or using the japanese Isolation consulate option. But typically their game plan is to get a boom going so you can rely on the powerful ashi/yumi/naginata army composition to finish off opponents. If the boom is not disturbed enough in the early game they are almost unstoppable in the mid game. All in all Japanese are a Powerful competitive civilization in all game modes with a unique playstyle and a lot of options to choose from.

Build Order
Greedy / Boom - Really strong in Teamgame
Game Start:
Age 1:
(optional) Scout with your cherryblossom wagon (keep it alive!)
1) Gather all starting crates (except coin)
2) Build consulate ASAP (2 vills) and get port allies
3) gather 7 wood (1 vill) and then send the rest to food
4) after you allied: build first shrine at hunts where one of your explorers is
5) Treasureranking: wood, food, gold
6) train vills and age up with around 14 vills, depending on treasures. Age up with ports only costs 680 food! Use 4 on wonder
7) continue vills production during AgeUp, keep 6 vills on food, the rest on wood
8) Once you have 170 wood. Retask vills to coin (from wood usually). You need 4 for ashigaru production
9) retask your shrines to wood (until you built all shrines)

Age 2:
1) Build Barracks and produce ashigarus. (Risky Variation: Delay this, if you opponents is passive)
2) with first wood shipment: get market (and food & gold upgrades) and shrines. Sometimes it also makes sense to get a second military building, like a stable. Personally i often delay it more, because i often cant afford to train from 2 buildings until around 8 min.
2.1) On Shrineplacement: Build Shrines on the edges on the map. in TG: DONT shrine your allys hunts, build them on the sides/mid
3) continue to produce shrines
4) with the crossbow shipment of the consulate you can move out and contest the map.
5) At 10 mins you usually have all shrines. Switch your shrines according to your needs (food/gold)
6) you can switch your consulate to japanese isolation/dutch here or after starting the AgeUp
7) Ageup to fortress age with pavillion


Card Progression:
Boom: Heavenly Kami, 600w, 4 vills, 4 vills, achigaru attack, 2 cherry
under pressure (1v1): Heavenly Kami, 600w, units / TC attack/ 600 coin, 4 vills/units. Avoid sending 4 vills if under a lot of pressure, since they will only end up in your tc anyway. Try to get out a mass to avoid getting idled in your tc.

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Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition© Microsoft Corporation. This Video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" ( https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules ) using assets from Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft.