The Manchurian Invasion of Japan is going very well after several waves. The first wave was almost a failure due to Divine Wind, with Japan unexpectedly upsetting my much larger navy with their (admittedly slightly more advanced) fleet. But, after buying out Minamoto, the remaining daimyos were weak and susceptible to invasion. I'm pretty sure Minamoto regretted selling out when they did, even if it did weaken their rivals in the short term. My only concern is how to conquer the last provinces of each of the daimyos - only Minamoto now has more than one province.
The navy is now in the process of expanding to 100 Caravels, which will exceed the British Empire in quantity (though certainly not quality) of capital ships. The army is a third of a million troops, the largest standing army in the world, though occasionally rivaled by heavy shorter-term recruitment elsewhere. Land technology is equal with the Eastern Europeans, government tech is equal with the large Western Europeans (though not the small trading behemoths), and other technological levels are pitiful. I'm glad I stuck with the Chinese tech group. Plans are to finish conquering Japan, and hopefully inheriting Taungu, thus forming Eastasia as a pretty-much-unified empire.
Close to the end of my current game, so I'm in the process of choosing what my next onew will be. The current ideas I have are Crete from 1399, Athens from 1428 (a start I randomly pickede a while ago and still haven't done) or Bihar from 1399. Which of those sounds the most interesting?
I did an Athens start in the first year you can. It was a good challenge, even though the Ottomans didn't decide to try to conquer me - despite being a pretty successful Ottoman Empire. Obviously, assuming you can get a couple more provinces so that you aren't in danger from your immediate neighbors, an ongoing saga is going to be trying to avoid being squashed like a bug by them. It's not impossible, but takes a solid plan, good intelligence about when to act, and a certain degree of luck.
Crete sounds really hard. Unlike Athens, you have to have a navy to transport your armies at the start. Unless you plan on going trade-centric. I never did westernize as Athens, and eventually became just as advanced as the western powers. I guess the advantage is that others are less likely to pick on you as Crete than as Athens, but I'm not sure it would be as interesting.
Of the three I'd probably choose Bihar, although in part because I've done Athens. It's not exactly a cakewalk, but you do have a center of trade, at least. And it could be interesting being in India. It's not so hopeless as a New World country technologically, and there's no Colonial Conquest casus belli against you, but it's still a fair disadvantage against even the Muslim tech group, and of course Vijaynagar, Rajputana, Delhi, and Orissa are all likely favorites over you. I suspect you'd have more challenges from Europe than I have in my game as the Manchu, which could actually be good, as I've been actually slightly disappointed that I haven't had any serious wars with the Europeans. Although in part that was due to successful diplomacy. I might have to start a war with the British Empire in that game just so I can have a nice big naval battle and possible Chinese invasion of England.
