Been playing the game for months as Japanese, and think they are one of the worse nations out there, i remember months ago they used to be one of the most popular nations i guess because players back then used infantry in their army mixed and the shooting TC was good to boost your defences
the samurai unit is nearly useless past medieval age, they are weak to pretty much any type of defence there is, they die extremely quickly to mortals and redoubts, even at medieval age I would send a army of like something like 40 heavy samurais, 15 archers and by the end of any given match I would have more surviving non-upgraded arches then the heavy samurais, and when the army was wiped the archers would always be the last units to die, so really there is no point in using infantry over archers, apart from lower cost training time and cost
they are just awful units, when they stick together they get destroyed in a fraction of a second by redoubts, when they spread out they still get their ass kicked by defenders, towers, or anything on the map, the only good strategy I thought that maybe would work would be to rally the enemy TC and use sabotage on near by defences, that way you can score cheap 1-2 star victories, it takes no so long to rebuild such a army so you could just keep doing it, but you wont get much supplies on each raid, and even if this tactic works you better off with germans since they have the same unit + better rally, and +15% damage for winning
other stuff that japanese have
+25% peace treaty, this sounds ok if you not very active and just sometimes want sit back while your farm/caravens slowly build resources for you, but its rather boring that you can't raid, and i think the korean +10% refund bonus is a much better deal for defensive players because that works regardless of your raiding or not
shooting TC is crap, the damage is lower then a non-upgraded tower, they should do the same damage as a tower at least, in later ages it really doesnt matter if you have a shooting TC or not, it wont keep your from losing if the enemy has the edge on battle
the japanese really needs a buff, the TC should have a higher DPS then a regular tower
I like the japanese for their building design, but im going to revolt soon or later for either Britain or Korea, Britain has a really good unit + loot bonus that could be beneficial for me, or I will just keep playing for now as japanese and wait until there is a new nation, i hope they make russians soon
the samurai unit is nearly useless past medieval age, they are weak to pretty much any type of defence there is, they die extremely quickly to mortals and redoubts, even at medieval age I would send a army of like something like 40 heavy samurais, 15 archers and by the end of any given match I would have more surviving non-upgraded arches then the heavy samurais, and when the army was wiped the archers would always be the last units to die, so really there is no point in using infantry over archers, apart from lower cost training time and cost
they are just awful units, when they stick together they get destroyed in a fraction of a second by redoubts, when they spread out they still get their ass kicked by defenders, towers, or anything on the map, the only good strategy I thought that maybe would work would be to rally the enemy TC and use sabotage on near by defences, that way you can score cheap 1-2 star victories, it takes no so long to rebuild such a army so you could just keep doing it, but you wont get much supplies on each raid, and even if this tactic works you better off with germans since they have the same unit + better rally, and +15% damage for winning
other stuff that japanese have
+25% peace treaty, this sounds ok if you not very active and just sometimes want sit back while your farm/caravens slowly build resources for you, but its rather boring that you can't raid, and i think the korean +10% refund bonus is a much better deal for defensive players because that works regardless of your raiding or not
shooting TC is crap, the damage is lower then a non-upgraded tower, they should do the same damage as a tower at least, in later ages it really doesnt matter if you have a shooting TC or not, it wont keep your from losing if the enemy has the edge on battle
the japanese really needs a buff, the TC should have a higher DPS then a regular tower
I like the japanese for their building design, but im going to revolt soon or later for either Britain or Korea, Britain has a really good unit + loot bonus that could be beneficial for me, or I will just keep playing for now as japanese and wait until there is a new nation, i hope they make russians soon
what alliance 
