Skyward Collapse 1.900 Beta "Release Candidate 1" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/08/skyward-collapse-1900-beta-release.html

If you've not yet read about the general changes in the 1.4 beta line, now is a good time to do so. It's expected that we'll stay in beta for the new features until we release the 2.0 version of the game in late August, alongside the new Nihon no Mura expansion.  A lot is different in the base game since 1.4, so we want to make sure and give this time to mature before we put this out to everyone.

This one is pretty substantial, and completes the list of implemented features so far for the new expansion.  Thus this release is the first "release candidate," which basically means we're into fine-tuning-only mode until this launches next Wednesday the 21st.

So what's new here?

Woes
There are nine new woes, all specific to things in the expansion.

People have been wanting bandit gods for a while, and one of these provides that.  The bandit gods don't use powers or their creatures, as I think that would be overkill, but it's still cool to see those running around.

Another woe lets you have six gods between your two factions, rather than the usual four, so that's pretty cool.

There are also two new catastrophic woes, which is particularly good because that helps to dilute the relatively small pool of the ones that were there before.

God-Related Creatures
So as Misery has pointed out, some of the Japanese god-related mythos are not things you would really want to inflict on yourself.  We designed those before we really had a good sense of how strong the Japanese faction would be: originally they were going to be kind of weaker, and so you'd need to use these creatures to make up the difference.  As the design evolved, the Japanese became super strong, and thus the designs of these creatures -- which fun and varied -- started falling into "why would I do that to myself" territory.

The solution to this was to go back to one of the earlier design ideas that we started with for the Japanese gods in the first place: having them produce these creatures directly, in addition to you being able to place them at well.  This is only so interesting if the god is producing them out of himself/herself, though, because it gets semi-predictable.  That's one reason why the idea was previously scrapped.

In the new implementation in this version, the creatures from the gods come out of the town centers of the Japanese.  This has important strategic ramifications, because it makes Large Towns a lot more important to the Japanese faction if they don't want to trample their opponents.

Hamlet Stuff
There were a lot of changes made here based again on feedback from Misery (definitely the allstar of feedback for this expansion, followed by nas1m).

Overall the changes in this version have you playing from the entire hamlet-building-queue now, and sometimes having to take some negative points temporarily in order to get a better position later. This is a big improvement in how strategic the Idyll mode plays out.

Also, slums are really becoming more and more of an interesting problem (in a good way, as that is supposed to be their role).  They are a powerful positive force in terms of running out civilians that are blocking you, but then they are really negative in terms of points on some placements later.  Those are tricky, and also encourage playing low in the queue on a combo to place a slums and then replace the slums.

I don't know that the Hamlets mechanic is 100% to where it needs to be, and I imagine it may evolve somewhat over months or years (as with many of the best AI War mechanics, sometimes these things just take time).  But I'm really pleased with where it is now, and think it's really fun.


Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game.  When you  launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.

[Misery]

Oh geez, even more stuff already...!  And my name on too many things.   I do hope I havent broken anything or caused stuff to randomly burst into flames.

The new woes sound pretty awesome.  And it's good to see that the god units are still usable by the player directly, as despite their wonkyness they can still have uses, even if they're super-situational.  And some are just good all around.  Various ones could still use their costs lowered.


As for the auto-spawn bit, that's an interesting solution to it....  and it fits with the theme.  though I'm thinking it might be a better idea to not have them be EVERY turn, maybe put them on some sort of timer, like every 3 or 4 turns (maybe like how Demonaica's castle timer worked, where it was displayed?  Maybe even point out WHICH unit is coming from which town so the player can prepare if need be).   Every single turn works for the bandits because both factions attack them, and because their bases arent all that hard to pop (and there's not exactly any trouble to the player if you pop ALL of them, aside from that there'll be more red VS blue suddenly).   And even then some of those bandit myth units can be really nasty.    The god units though can be pretty darn hard to kill, depending on which one it is.  And of course some of them do things like corrupt the landscape, like that guy that leaves lakes everywhere.   And the Japanese seem to need more towns in general than the others.... I ended up with about 12 towns on each side in my current game, because in order for the Japanese to have the resources necessary to use all of their various options and myth units to combat bandits and woes they need lots of stuffs.   Even 6 towns though could be too much if they're making giant walking nightmares every turn.    Also the normal myth units may go unused if there's already tons of these big guys running around as it is.     All in all it might be a bit too much chaos in this current implementation.

It also occurs to me that it'd force alot of culture use.

Some units may also be best off having less chance of spawning than others.  Something like a Ho-oh or however it's spelled appearing too often could blow up the world mostly regardless of the player's actions, unless they used some sort of total annihilation type effect.  Not that they shouldnt appear at all though, that wouldnt be too interesting, heh. 

That's initial thoughts on that.   I dont have time to give it a try right now though;  I'll have a full go at it later tonight and see what happens!

Also the changes to the Hamlet stuffs sound pretty great!  Do you guys intend on adding more bits to this mechanic in later expansions as well?  It's a very interesting mechanic with lots of depth, I think it's one of the best additions to the game thus far.


....and release candidate already?    Bah, somehow it's the middle of August already, isnt it....

Whole thing is coming along great so far though, one way or another.

[x4000]

Oh geez, even more stuff already...!  And my name on too many things.   I do hope I havent broken anything or caused stuff to randomly burst into flames.

All of those things have my and often Josh's names on them implicitly, too.  None of that stuff was done blindly, so it's all stuff we approved of and thought was a good idea, too.  You shouldn't worry!

The new woes sound pretty awesome.  And it's good to see that the god units are still usable by the player directly, as despite their wonkyness they can still have uses, even if they're super-situational.  And some are just good all around.  Various ones could still use their costs lowered.

Great!  And yeah, we're still adjusting the costs there, no worries.

As for the auto-spawn bit, that's an interesting solution to it....  and it fits with the theme.  though I'm thinking it might be a better idea to not have them be EVERY turn, maybe put them on some sort of timer, like every 3 or 4 turns (maybe like how Demonaica's castle timer worked, where it was displayed?  Maybe even point out WHICH unit is coming from which town so the player can prepare if need be).   Every single turn works for the bandits because both factions attack them, and because their bases arent all that hard to pop (and there's not exactly any trouble to the player if you pop ALL of them, aside from that there'll be more red VS blue suddenly).   And even then some of those bandit myth units can be really nasty.    The god units though can be pretty darn hard to kill, depending on which one it is.  And of course some of them do things like corrupt the landscape, like that guy that leaves lakes everywhere.   And the Japanese seem to need more towns in general than the others.... I ended up with about 12 towns on each side in my current game, because in order for the Japanese to have the resources necessary to use all of their various options and myth units to combat bandits and woes they need lots of stuffs.   Even 6 towns though could be too much if they're making giant walking nightmares every turn.    Also the normal myth units may go unused if there's already tons of these big guys running around as it is.     All in all it might be a bit too much chaos in this current implementation.

We'll see, I suppose.  A timer can certainly be added if that seems like the case, although I'm not keen on showing which unit is coming next (not much room for that, and I'd rather not precalculate it as the current gods on the map affect this, etc).  At the moment this does indeed work in favor of the bandits, however it also really works in favor of the Japanese as well, which is a problem -- so the Japanese kind of take the place of the bandits as the chief aggressors!  It's very interesting actually, from what I've played of it.  But if the feedback is that it's too much once folks are playing with it in their games, I can certainly tone that down.

Some units may also be best off having less chance of spawning than others.  Something like a Ho-oh or however it's spelled appearing too often could blow up the world mostly regardless of the player's actions, unless they used some sort of total annihilation type effect.  Not that they shouldnt appear at all though, that wouldnt be too interesting, heh.

Well, making sure you can clear those fast would be good, heh.  I might need to adjust their ability, not sure.  But they actually could be useful because they can cut off a Japanese town from its enemies, which if you think about it would solve a lot of the aggression problems!

Also the changes to the Hamlet stuffs sound pretty great!  Do you guys intend on adding more bits to this mechanic in later expansions as well?  It's a very interesting mechanic with lots of depth, I think it's one of the best additions to the game thus far.

Thank you, glad to hear it.   In terms of the hamlets mechanic being extended... it's certainly a possibility, though I don't know what that would be exactly.  At this point.  Right now we've basically made it as complete as possible.  But the way this is set up, we certainly could extend that in future expansions.  You'd have to have this expansion for the hamlet-related goodies from any future expansion to work, though.  Normally I try to avoid cross-requirements like that in expansions, but in that case the hamlet stuff just wouldn't activate if you had expansion 2 but not expansion 1 or whatever.

....and release candidate already?    Bah, somehow it's the middle of August already, isnt it....

Whole thing is coming along great so far though, one way or another.

Thanks again for the kind words, and yeah time is flying!

[nas1m]

Wow. A honorable mention *in the blogpost*...
I feel like a very special person now. Thanks !

I will definitely dig into the release candidate sometime this weekend - and keep it focused on the hamlets.
Misery has the myth units and cost stuff covered just fine I think .

Cheers for another successful expansion!

[x4000]

Wow. A honorable mention *in the blogpost*...
I feel like a very special person now. Thanks !

You guys have been really my prime source of feedback, so you definitely deserve it!

I will definitely dig into the release candidate sometime this weekend - and keep it focused on the hamlets.
Misery has the myth units and cost stuff covered just fine I think .

Cheers for another successful expansion!

Cheers, I appreciate it!

[nas1m]

A question that just occurred to me (being the addict I am):
Will there be fresh achievements in the expansion (you have listed none in the other thread) ?

[x4000]

Not at this time, but we probably will go back and add them later.  To be honest, we're really scrambling to get ready for PAX prime, where we're supposed to be showing Bionic, which isn't ready for that quite yet.

[nas1m]

Not at this time, but we probably will go back and add them later.  To be honest, we're really scrambling to get ready for PAX prime, where we're supposed to be showing Bionic, which isn't ready for that quite yet.

Now this definitely does have priority over some petty achievements .
Get it on!

[Misery]

Okay, more feedback for this most recent update!


Firstly, large towns, these are pretty useful!  Almost too useful.  One thing I ran into with the Japanese in partiuclar:  massive resource bloating.  I have TWO active towns with them, one being a big one, after letting two others fall, and I didn't have more than 3 active at once at any point.   I've been using Komainus, which cost diamond, and a couple of the tokens that cost jewelery.   AND I used the Greek god token that gives 1/3rd of the stash to them.   I still have 187 diamonds.  .....that's alot of diamonds.  Not to mention that the large town is spitting out huge amounts of currency for no apparent reason.   Have lots of incense and clay as well (lots of space + artist).

On top of that, there hasnt been a whole lot of reason at all to use much in the way of military units for these guys.  Granted, they've sorta been that way from the start, where you dont use nearly as many production buildings lest they become overwhelming, but still, it does lead to loads of excess resources.  The stream of myth units from the cities furthers this.   Some of those are difficult indeed to get rid of, like the Tanuki, who pretty much requires myth units summoned JUST to fight it.   Ended up using Super Smite to stomp those things a few times already, and I'm not that far into the second age yet.  The Japanese often also do not have to dedicate any space to moon/sun buildings, depending on which gods appeared for them and how useful or not those units are.... and even then, if there are useful ones, they're bound to pop outta the cities sooner rather than later, so there's not much reason to use them.    The only other reason is to drop one of those gong guys, which are useful but pretty situational. 

Oh, also:  Komainus can be placed on top of town centers to stop things spawning there.   Wether that's intentional or not, I'm not sure.

That reminds me also:  Levelling up production buildings, there seems to be quite a large boost from level 1 to 2, yet very minimal boosts for the next two levels.  If I'm looking at the numbers correctly, that is.   Kept meaning to mention this one.


Hamlets, the changes to these are good.  The only remaining problem is that it can be much, much too easy to keep replacing the same tile over and over for huge amounts of culture, since a citizen will never generate there, only on the adjacent ones.   This also makes slums pretty easy to deal with because you never have to leave them in place.   Those have also become rare?  I get the feeling that's not supposed to be the case, but I"ve hardly seen any, and I've been placing plenty of hamlet buildings all over the place.   If it wasnt for the ease of replacing a tile over and over though, the increased citizen count would be upping the challenge properly, I think that particular change was a good idea.   Also, arent slums supposed to auto-generate somehow?   I'm not too clear on that bit whatsoever, but Iv'e never seen it happen.


That's all for now!

[x4000]

In terms of replacing a tile in hamlets, you are not referring to the same tile type, right? Hmm. Maybe what I need to introduce there is a new "worker" citizen type that goes on top of all new tiles placed for something like 3 turns. That could have lots of interesting ramifications.

Regarding large towns, possibly those need to become one-per-faction, I dunno. Thoughts?

Regarding resource building upgrades, I wonder if that's not too much in the first place. Hmm.  Removing those and making town specialization always be on might be good. Or maybe just removing town specialization, since it really seems to confuse people, infant that exciting, and really gets negated by large cities anyhow. So, final thought is to remove town specialization but keep upgrades. Thoughts?

Regarding the specific upgrade amounts, I'll have to take a look at the multipliers and see.

Regarding the military from the Japanese, I see what you mean and that is unfortunate. I wonder if perhaps the town centers of the OTHER faction should generate those creatures based on the Japanese god. Though those would mess with balance. So maybe it's special monster caves that pop up that have bandits of these popping out. I like that last one better. That way these guys are in play, and strengthen the bandits so that the Japanese have more to deal with threat-wise to them... but so does the other faction. That might unbalance things even more, in a good way.

Thoughts? Lots of rumination a here, at this point.

[Misery]

In terms of replacing a tile in hamlets, you are not referring to the same tile type, right? Hmm. Maybe what I need to introduce there is a new "worker" citizen type that goes on top of all new tiles placed for something like 3 turns. That could have lots of interesting ramifications.

That sounds like a good idea;  particularly if you then have other tiles that can then clear those guys off.  The player could still "combo" like that then, but it'd take more work and more use of surrounding tiles to use that big-scoring tile again.

Regarding large towns, possibly those need to become one-per-faction, I dunno. Thoughts?

Not sure on this one;  with the current system even just one of them produces these effects.  If you undo the specialization though that at least would drop things a good bit, or at least I'm guessing it would.  However, without the specialization the benefit of large towns becomes unclear.  They might be riskier at that point instead of helpful, being easier to destroy since it's 2 cities worth of buildings but all in very close proximity and harder to defend.

Regarding resource building upgrades, I wonder if that's not too much in the first place. Hmm.  Removing those and making town specialization always be on might be good. Or maybe just removing town specialization, since it really seems to confuse people, infant that exciting, and really gets negated by large cities anyhow. So, final thought is to remove town specialization but keep upgrades. Thoughts?

That does make more sense to me.   It is a little odd that putting a new resource producer of some type makes all of the others of that type in the same town better;  and when you're doing this with multiple things in one town it's not really "specializing" anyway, heh.   The currency usage is definitely more interesting, or at least I think so anyway, others might disagree.  The only problem of course will be the piles of necessary tweaks that might have to go with this since things seem balanced towards the current system, and that bit with the large towns.

Regarding the military from the Japanese, I see what you mean and that is unfortunate. I wonder if perhaps the town centers of the OTHER faction should generate those creatures based on the Japanese god. Though those would mess with balance. So maybe it's special monster caves that pop up that have bandits of these popping out. I like that last one better. That way these guys are in play, and strengthen the bandits so that the Japanese have more to deal with threat-wise to them... but so does the other faction. That might unbalance things even more, in a good way.

Thoughts? Lots of rumination a here, at this point.

That one doesnt make sense to me, and I'm guessing that it wouldnt make too much sense to most players.  One of the basics that players learn right away is that you've got these gods that appear, and while their powers and passives have the potential to screw you up pretty bad, they are still strong effects with a variety of uses and you'll be wanting them to deal with the later game threats, as well as to get points.  So there's risk, but much power and potential as well, and difficult but rewarding/satisfying choices to be made.   But if the Japanese gods are putting out strong things elsewhere other than in their own faction areas randomly, these concepts kinda fall apart.  Suddenly you've got this god that may as well just be some bandit god (and also may as well just be killed off ASAP) since it's just actively helping the other groups (and that goes against some concepts as well), and you've got this faction that is then missing this key basic element, and choices/options, that the others have. Particularly if the player decides to bypass the threat by trying to kill off the related god.   On top of that, with these units being what they are, having them pop out of somewhat random spots might be a bit much;  the bandit units arent quite as strong, but they can still be a huge threat just based on that small fact, and are quite strong.  At the very least having the god units come out of cities for the Japanese means that the player knows where they're coming from, even if that often doesnt help as much.   The other way also just sounds rather frustrating.

I dunno what to suggest on this one.   The nature of the units themselves makes it hard to think of a good solution that also provides that usefulness (and set of options) and risk to the player while not seeming strange and arbitrary.

[Fluffiest]

Regarding the military from the Japanese, I see what you mean and that is unfortunate. I wonder if perhaps the town centers of the OTHER faction should generate those creatures based on the Japanese god. Though those would mess with balance. So maybe it's special monster caves that pop up that have bandits of these popping out. I like that last one better. That way these guys are in play, and strengthen the bandits so that the Japanese have more to deal with threat-wise to them... but so does the other faction. That might unbalance things even more, in a good way.

Thoughts? Lots of rumination a here, at this point.

That one doesnt make sense to me, and I'm guessing that it wouldnt make too much sense to most players.  One of the basics that players learn right away is that you've got these gods that appear, and while their powers and passives have the potential to screw you up pretty bad, they are still strong effects with a variety of uses and you'll be wanting them to deal with the later game threats, as well as to get points.  So there's risk, but much power and potential as well, and difficult but rewarding/satisfying choices to be made.   But if the Japanese gods are putting out strong things elsewhere other than in their own faction areas randomly, these concepts kinda fall apart.  Suddenly you've got this god that may as well just be some bandit god (and also may as well just be killed off ASAP) since it's just actively helping the other groups (and that goes against some concepts as well), and you've got this faction that is then missing this key basic element, and choices/options, that the others have. Particularly if the player decides to bypass the threat by trying to kill off the related god.   On top of that, with these units being what they are, having them pop out of somewhat random spots might be a bit much;  the bandit units arent quite as strong, but they can still be a huge threat just based on that small fact, and are quite strong.  At the very least having the god units come out of cities for the Japanese means that the player knows where they're coming from, even if that often doesnt help as much.   The other way also just sounds rather frustrating.

I dunno what to suggest on this one.   The nature of the units themselves makes it hard to think of a good solution that also provides that usefulness (and set of options) and risk to the player while not seeming strange and arbitrary.

Ok, so how about having the Japanese town centres generate mythological beasts, but spend resources to do so? I think the cost for generating Myths in this way should be a fraction (1/2?) of the cost for placing them normally, possibly minus the soul imprint.

This fixes the problem of the Japanese amassing vast piles of incense and diamonds (because those are being spent whether you want it or not), while also giving the Japanese a unique drawback (you can't necessarily place the Myths you want when and where you want them, because Kagu-tsuchi has already spent all of your incense on producing fire-breathing killer chickens) and a unique advantage (discount mythical beasts).

[nas1m]

Time to earn my spurs .

In terms of replacing a tile in hamlets, you are not referring to the same tile type, right? Hmm. Maybe what I need to introduce there is a new "worker" citizen type that goes on top of all new tiles placed for something like 3 turns. That could have lots of interesting ramifications.

This sounds like a good addition. See below for more initial feedback on Hamlet Idyll Mode.

Regarding large towns, possibly those need to become one-per-faction, I dunno. Thoughts?

If removing town specializations (see below), I would be okay with not limiting them. If need be the baseline culture cost could simply raised or e.g. be doubled with every additional large town after the first.

Regarding resource building upgrades, I wonder if that's not too much in the first place. Hmm.  Removing those and making town specialization always be on might be good. Or maybe just removing town specialization, since it really seems to confuse people, infant that exciting, and really gets negated by large cities anyhow. So, final thought is to remove town specialization but keep upgrades. Thoughts?

I vote for removing town specializations now that large towns are available as this will likely also reign in exponential resource generation by large towns described by Misery earlier (which would definitely be a problem - I did not yet try large towns myself).

I see one problem with removing specializations, however : It will either make the higher difficulties of basegame only games significantly easier (if compensating for the lost ability by removing the respective cost increase) or harder (if not doing so) as large towns will not be available in such games. Either way it will take something away from the experience, which I would regret for those not getting the expansion.

Regarding the military from the Japanese, I see what you mean and that is unfortunate. I wonder if perhaps the town centers of the OTHER faction should generate those creatures based on the Japanese god. Though those would mess with balance. So maybe it's special monster caves that pop up that have bandits of these popping out. I like that last one better. That way these guys are in play, and strengthen the bandits so that the Japanese have more to deal with threat-wise to them... but so does the other faction. That might unbalance things even more, in a good way.

Letting them spawn at enemy town centers sounds like a really bad idea to me. Solving the problem by adding a new kind of (indestructible?) Monster Cave spawning them every (other?) turn, however, is a really elegant solution for a number of problems imho:
- It will threaten the Japanese faction as well, thus encouraging the player to build military units which will further counter the reported resource bloat of the Japanese faction
- It will encourage the manual placement of such creatures by the Japanese faction to counter their bandit siblings, something that went overboard with their free spawing in 1.900 apparently, again providing some use for those Japanese resources.
- It makes the Japanese struggle with their own pantheon which seems to be in line with what I heard about it so far lorewise (in terms of them being unpredictable, free roaming, etc.)
   
EDIT:
Ah dammit. I just occurred to me that this would lead to really weird situations, e.g. a given Japanese god killing of its own spawn/minions turned Bandit. This just doesn't feel right...

What about this:
Define a nemesis for each Japanese god out of the implemented Japanese pantheon and let the nemesis' minions spawn in the monster caves, i.e. each God available to the player would lorewise be locked in some kind of petty feud with its nemesis - If doable I think this would be very interesting !   


On Hamlet Idyll Mode:
I just finished (won) my first game on Hard roughly 30 turns early. I would really like this if I had pulled off some ingenious strategy, but the pity is - I have not  . Don't get me wrong: I had fun along the way, but I feel a little cheap. All I did was hovering over the items of my queue, hunting for the biggest available culture increase proposed by the overlay (or a neutral location that would not cost me culture in the worst case) and placing the respective tile. That was all.

Maybe I was just lucky, but I fear that the overlay indicating the change in culture is a little too helpful to be fun in the long run, but instead trivializes the process of building a hamlet somewhat. If I had been "encouraged" to learn the properties of the various hamlet tiles to be able to place them reasonably - that would have  been another story. The way my game played out the tiles could as well have been all of the same type - it did not matter, the overlay told me where to place the tile via the culture change. There was no reason for me to check what I was actually placing...

Removing the overlay in regular games might be over the top, though, as here the placing of hamlet buildings is only a side quest. For Hamlet Idyll Mode, though, removing it would drastically improve the game imho.

EDIT2:
It just occured to me that the issues I describe above might turn to be non-existent if the playing area had been smaller and/or the amount of culture I had to accumulate higher. I am not sure, though. Maybe tweak the size and numbers and disable the overlay in higher difficulties only?


PS:
I totally forgot to mention:
The new woes (especially the catastrophic ones) sound awesome!

[nas1m]

Regarding the military from the Japanese, I see what you mean and that is unfortunate. I wonder if perhaps the town centers of the OTHER faction should generate those creatures based on the Japanese god. Though those would mess with balance. So maybe it's special monster caves that pop up that have bandits of these popping out. I like that last one better. That way these guys are in play, and strengthen the bandits so that the Japanese have more to deal with threat-wise to them... but so does the other faction. That might unbalance things even more, in a good way.

Thoughts? Lots of rumination a here, at this point.

That one doesnt make sense to me, and I'm guessing that it wouldnt make too much sense to most players.  One of the basics that players learn right away is that you've got these gods that appear, and while their powers and passives have the potential to screw you up pretty bad, they are still strong effects with a variety of uses and you'll be wanting them to deal with the later game threats, as well as to get points.  So there's risk, but much power and potential as well, and difficult but rewarding/satisfying choices to be made.   But if the Japanese gods are putting out strong things elsewhere other than in their own faction areas randomly, these concepts kinda fall apart.  Suddenly you've got this god that may as well just be some bandit god (and also may as well just be killed off ASAP) since it's just actively helping the other groups (and that goes against some concepts as well), and you've got this faction that is then missing this key basic element, and choices/options, that the others have. Particularly if the player decides to bypass the threat by trying to kill off the related god.   On top of that, with these units being what they are, having them pop out of somewhat random spots might be a bit much;  the bandit units arent quite as strong, but they can still be a huge threat just based on that small fact, and are quite strong.  At the very least having the god units come out of cities for the Japanese means that the player knows where they're coming from, even if that often doesnt help as much.   The other way also just sounds rather frustrating.

I dunno what to suggest on this one.   The nature of the units themselves makes it hard to think of a good solution that also provides that usefulness (and set of options) and risk to the player while not seeming strange and arbitrary.

Ok, so how about having the Japanese town centres generate mythological beasts, but spend resources to do so? I think the cost for generating Myths in this way should be a fraction (1/2?) of the cost for placing them normally, possibly minus the soul imprint.

This fixes the problem of the Japanese amassing vast piles of incense and diamonds (because those are being spent whether you want it or not), while also giving the Japanese a unique drawback (you can't necessarily place the Myths you want when and where you want them, because Kagu-tsuchi has already spent all of your incense on producing fire-breathing killer chickens) and a unique advantage (discount mythical beasts).

I like this idea as well - in case my proposal turns out to be over the top .

[Fluffiest]

Downloading the Nihon No Mura expansion now, looking forward to trying out Hamlets and seeing what the Japanese faction is like.