Imperial Japan Challenge

I want to win a domination victory as Japan on Emperor difficulty. I have attempted this twice now, but I can't seem to pull it off (although I blame an uber-China for one failure). My hope is that group think can help me reach this goal. Are y'all up for the challenge?

We've had one completed attempt, I'll keep a tally of who's done the best.

Population: 49.34% (Whitefire)
Land Area: 41.83%(Whitefire)

Whitefire's Strategy Guide For Japanese Domination

1. Civics and Techs
2. Expansion
3. Siberia
4. Wonders
5. World% Reference
6. General Timeline

Well my current game actually has the same purpose.. I'm on Monarch.

I got the advantage of a weak China; the barbs were hitting them pretty hard. As soon as I got sailing, I popped my two initial swordsmen into a boat and was able to take Hangzhou, the Taoist holy city, from the sea with no losses. Although I lost my city in Korea (hence no UHV! Daaaaaang), I eventually was able to subjugate all of China.. right after they built the Great Wall. I feel like the Wall is critical to your goals.

From there my big trick, once China was peacefully mine, settled, with some more infrastructure, was meeting India and trading from them for Ivory. It was expensive; I had to trade 3 resources for one. But it was worth it. I pumped out elephants and burned Hanoi and Pagan, and took Angkor, because Angkor HAS IVORY. Hence I didn't need India anymore. Now India has fallen to me and is becoming productive, it's about 1400, and I have a huge stack of elephants in the jungle waiting to destroy Persia as soon as the Black Death ends. (They had a MASSIVE military, even though they have hardly any land). We'll see what I can do. That's my big tip, though, is kill India with elephants ASAP.

I may have gone too slow to get Domination, but my economy was stable, at least before the plague. Once you get China, it doesn't seem too bad: just use the same strategies. The Mongols, however, are being pesky and have so far resisted conquest.. soon, though.

Good luck and keep us updated!

I think that it can be hard because of economy. I'm trying to do the same with Rome but with lowered maintenance costs

Ah, i'm doing this as Japan on Monarch. I own, in about 1550 AD, Japan, China, Manchuria, Korea, the Phillipines, SE Asia, a city in Northern Australia, outer Mongolia and a city around the Aral Sea (taken from Persia) with India and Russia as Vassals. I destroyed China and Mongolia (once China was down, I took Mongolia not long after they spawned with relative ease).

On Emperor? Hmm, that sounds like a challenge to me!

Tboy said:

Ah, i'm doing this as Japan on Monarch. I own, in about 1550 AD, Japan, China, Manchuria, Korea, the Phillipines, SE Asia, a city in Northern Australia, outer Mongolia and a city around the Aral Sea (taken from Persia) with India and Russia as Vassals. I destroyed China and Mongolia (once China was down, I took Mongolia not long after they spawned with relative ease).

On Emperor? Hmm, that sounds like a challenge to me!

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I think that expanding in that direction is dooming you to failure. We need cities with higher production than those islands and even Australia offer. Also, having the army produced on all those disparate islands makes it difficult to expand on the mainland.

What do you think if we beelined to Astronomy (or traded for it early on) and went after Inca, Aztec and the western coast of North America? Assuming we have one city in Central America that will facilitate travel, we can launch an invasion of Europe from there while pressing through Asia and India with the Chinese and Japanese cities.

I agree that the Aztec/Incan conquest is very easy, and a good option, I remember doing this strategy in one of the scenarios for the vanillaCIV... the 1000AD i believe...

Also, what do you guys think about settling only 2 cities in Japan? I usually do 3, but the northern most one really doesn't do much. The gold is usually picked up quickly since I always build the Colossus.

Speaking of which, should I build the Great Lighthouse? I always build the Colossus,, it's cheap and there's a Copper ready to go (plus forests to hack), but the GL takes quite a few turns.

What would be the "best" tech path? Currency, CoL then Samurais (Machinery+Civil Service) then Astronomy? Or should I go for Optics before Samurais and try to trade for Samurai techs?

(take all of the following with a grain of salt)

I always go for samurai tech, when i play. Your N. America invasion plan sounds like a smart idea though. Western America has some good city sites and Mexico can be put too good use. That, along with a India and Mongolia, (china is a given) invasion, you might be on your way.

is this a group thing btw?

I did just two cities in Japan, Kyoto at its normal spot and Tokyo north of the little river in the east, and have done very well with that. For what it's worth.

Mowque said:

is this a group thing btw?

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Sure thing. Thats what I meant by group think ;D.

Any comments on the tech path? I'll do the first turns tomorrow morning, since those are pretty much a no brainer (kill China).

I think you want to work all the resources in Japan except maybe the Dye, and no matter what should settle north of the river and 2S of Kyoto. I could maybe see skipping Kyoto and just having two good hybrid cities that crank out units.

If one can get the Lighthouse reliably enough I think I'd prioritize that plus Hangzhou and Korea, and leave the Colossus as an afterthought. And combine it with exploration to the middle east for trade routes, but you should do that anyway for tech trades. Then you can focus on cottages instead of water tiles. But if I did build the Colossus, I'd put 3 or 4 cities in Japan and try to work all the surrounding water tiles.

I'm not sure about Astronomy. I think after Civil Service it would be more valuable to go after Gunpowder and Nationalism (for Occupation). If winning Liberalism was impractical I might try Civil Service -> Guilds -> Gunpowder. Grocers would help with upkeep costs and the plague and Knights could help with the Mongols depending on the timing. Seems easier to take Europe by land and skip America until State Property.

I'm not sure about Astronomy. I think after Civil Service it would be more valuable to go after Gunpowder and Nationalism (for Occupation). If winning Liberalism was impractical I might try Civil Service -> Guilds -> Gunpowder. Grocers would help with upkeep costs and the plague and Knights could help with the Mongols depending on the timing. Seems easier to take Europe by land and skip America until State Property.

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Smart on Nationalism. Liberalism is out of the question if you're not France, England or The Vikings. And thats on Monarch. I think my initial tech path will be Sailing, Hunting, Mathematics, Iron Working, CoL, and Civil Service. I'll also send a Spearman that will hopefully survive the trek to Rome.

But if I did build the Colossus, I'd put 3 or 4 cities in Japan and try to work all the surrounding water tiles.

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doesnt the colossus only affect the city it was built in?

What do you think of settling Seoul 1NW of the empty grasslands? With Kyoto moved 2S, that new spot for Seoul can pick up the unclaimed fish.

From a Monarch/Japan game:
750 Code of Laws
840 Civil Service
1030 Paper
1120 Education
1180 Philosophy
1280 Liberalism (first)

The Colossus does affect all cities.

If you mean 1 NE, I think that's fine but personally I'd leave it in place in order to save the early settler and get the mine. But I don't enjoy whipping micromanagement. If anywhere, I'd move Seoul onto the Rice.

Oops, yeah I meant 1NE.

We have to give up on Colossus if we move Kyoto 2S. It takes too long to get Tokyo's borders to pop and claim the copper. It will likely get snatched up before then.

I was also thinking about trying for a GE. It's unlikely that I'll pick up any wonders from it, but it can lightbulb some useful techs (Engineering, Replaceable Parts).

If we did go for the Liberalism first route, we'd have to produce some Scientists. Korea would be a decent GP farm (Huangzhou more so, but I don't want an endless stream of Priests), but I'm loathe to diverting all that whipping population to GPs. Especially when we're going for a Domination victory.

Does WFYABTA apply in RFC? I usually have the top half of the score board pissed off before that ever comes into play.

I would like to mention that with the game I mentioned, I am currently being crippled by city maintenance and inflation, and I'm only running on 20% science, despite getting up a lot of courthouses and building the Summer Palace in Angkor.

are we thinking about (in the long term) moving the captial? just something to think about.

Also i think the N. america invasion should be put on a slighter faster track then state property.

Well, I haven't try this, but it seems funny, so I'm in. As soon as I finish my actual game with Persia (it's running quite well, so I'm reluctant to leave it), I'll make my own try. In Monarch, and on Vanilla.

I think go for Europe it's a waste. So much people there. It's a nest of crows. America it's cheesy, but need Astronomy makes things more hard. So I'm going for Africa! Here we have plenty of resources, and it's usually empty, specially on the southwest, (Madagascar's surroundings), where I'll start to settle. We can reach there with galleys, so we don't have to mind with Astronomy, and go for Gunpowder directly. Thinking we have China and India on our hands, it should be a good idea on some point to move the capital to Delhi. Choose one of the Indian religions and spread it onto our lands will be also helpful, as a side-objective, to consolide our culture. Building the two temples in Delhi, and putting two priests, should be enough to spawn one Prophet, to build the holy shrine. To rush it, we can try to build there the Pisa's Tower, or Angkor Wat (so we don't need the temples).

Relying a bit on luck, Persia should had fallen, and Arabia will be fading, so Middle East may be next step. Have a close eye on Russia and the Mongols, and wait for them to engage in war. This should be the moment to launch our army to conquer former Persia. If the Arabs are in the way, we have Muskets and Elephants, so there shouldn't be problems to manage it. Finally, we have two options from this point: make a Suez channel, and go for Europe (now we're ready), or put our effort in research and beeline for Biology to conquer Indonesia and all that resources. Whatever we do, if there are barb cities in sight, we can do some raids and collect some coin by razing them.

If we still need more lands (and we're not completely ruined yet), now's the moment to go for America. Probably Americans have spawned yet, but we can reach Wild West before. If the Aztecs are still alive (and even if not), conquer Mexico will be a neat idea. American will crush our poorly developed armies, so we should stay friendly to them. Incans should be our last campaign.

Suggested wonders to build along the way: the Colossus, the Lighthouse, Angkor Wat (in Delhi), the Forbidden Palace (for an African capital), the Kremlin (in north of Mexico, for an American capital), the Summer Palace (somewhere in the coast of China, for a capital near our oldest, and probably best developed cities), the Tower of Pisa (to rush a prophet and engineers).

This is my plan. What do you think?

ummm... I have never played as Japan... I guess I'll give it a try, cant be that different from england and as long I can manage to build both the great ligthhouse and the collossus, (gotta beat china) it should be relatively easy... does japan have copper?