I've just been looking at the save game.
We still seem in pretty good shape, but this is normally the stage of the
game where things start to go downhill for me.
I tend to play a peaceful game and now is normally the time I will be merrily
building Marketplaces , Libraries and Courthouses . Normally this ends up with me ending up with a very happy population who then end up deeply upset when I get attacked by the AI and don't have enough troops to defend adequately
I'm inclined to think that we should go to war with Japan at some stage in the next 15 or so turns.
I think we have a better military than them (as far as I am aware the military advisor's comment is meaningless since it includes workers in your military and we have 48 of those so we are bound to have more units than them ?).
They also have a lot of valuable grassland (all that bg around Tokyo + wheat + horses should make it an excellent city although maybe in the wrong position for a FP )
I think we should be able to take Izumo fairly quickly .We can get our 3MC straight there through the gap and then block the grassland tiles around Izumo which means that Jap units will have their movement impeded by the mountains. We should then be able to head for Tokyo to cut off their horses
so that even if we don't finish them off before they get to Chivalry we may still be able to prevent them from building any Samurai.
The main things I am not sure on are
a) The timing.
b) The units we will need to attack.
I nearly always only use cats / artillery at towns over the size of 6 and then send the rest of the troops in . However we have 26 swordsman, 16 spearman, 15 3MC, 10 warrior so I guess that should be enough ?
c) The balance between improvements and military in that time . I s it as simple as just pumping out military in towns with Barracks and improvements / workers in those without ?