u/No_Feature_1401

not a pro at all, but the more i play cav with Jin (unless they will buff their archers somehow) the more i feel there is no way to counter certain comps. You also don't get any passive gold but you have a lot of food and wood stuff that can allow flooding the opponent with food/wood units.

Iron Pagodas are expensive for what they do, they are a tankier knight that is meant to survive longer to allow a backline to do their job, but your archer backline is bad. They cost more than a knight, they have +1 melee armor, +10 hps but produce slower and cost more. But, you loose charge. This alone should make them cost less then a knight at this point

Horses tho are super goated. Aside how GOOD they look in imp, you can have 60 30/40 hps bonus just from unused pastures. I still won't spam them for the sole risk i'm forcing spears out, but later castle/imp their horses are busted (sure pagodas will be better but if map gold is done you have this). EDIT: i thought grassland gave 10 horses bonus because i kept going stable landmark, and it works as a grassland too, but every grassland gives 5 horses max, so you can have 15/20 in imperial depending on feudal landmark. This means you can have 30/40 bonus hps on horses and 15/20 on horse archers (who makes them?). You have Elite horses going from 180 to up to 220 hps, this is HUGE the moment gold expires. Oh and remember, biology is 25% so the bonus flat HP probably scales too, giving you an other 10 hps on top if pastures aren't added after the calculation

We all know the issue is that you cannot counter spears. You have an archer with 5 less hitpoints than normal ones, they do less damage then a vill (heck at this point i'd get English vills instead of their Mohe). They are listed as "cheap unit", the only cheap thing is the time spent to develop them. archers do 10 damage with no upgrades on spears, 5 of which are base damage. They do 2 4 base damage for 15 more resources? The bare minimum was giving +8 damage on spears and make them do the same job, or even +7 and do 1 less than archers. 6 damage is nothing, you will need a mass to kill a spear. You can mantain the 2 base for preventing mass Mohe into onetapping villagers and horses, but the bonus +4 is just cringe.

But then you see: spears with bonus +20 damage from range, hardened spears that basically only loose to xbows and anti cav handcannons with base 42 damage.

They feel like KT without the polish cav, spear maa crossbow may be their actual comp? We have NoBs and getting out a few to counter their xbows is probably the best solutioin. KT gets forts but Jin seems to have the need to keep some vills on stone all the time, while slowly crawling forward with defences. I'd rather just make a bunch of horsemen for side raiding/sniping siege.

The enemy is also forced to bring xbows spears into your defensives because you get knights for free. I'm questioning now if defenders get bonus hp from pastures too.

Sad Bad Crowssbows do not really work even with keep landmark, i would have liked going around with spears crossbows, counting how fast they can get too.

tl;dr sorry for the wall, but their infantry is so good it feels like horse units should just be a side to add for raiding. Infantry + NoBs with stables ready with pastures to produce knights/horses IF NEEDED is probably the way, if you don't need well you have +60 health on knight defenders. For now, Pagodas are definitely a premium unit, with a premium price to pay, and with a Temu expensive archers to cover up