Imperial Japan Challenge

[Whitefire]

Turns 51-100

This set of turns should always have the same goals. Build an bootyload of Spearmen to fend off the barbarian Horsies on the mainland. Invade and conquer China. Prepare to crush Mongolia by having 6+ War Elephants next to their spawn.

I started with the whipping of 5 Spearmen (2 in Matsuyama and 3 in Tokyo). This tanked my research for a bit, but the granaries let the cities rebound quickly. Once the first two spearmen finished, we loaded up our cats and swordmen and went off to claim the mainland.

Spoiler :

Someone (we later found out it was Egypt) finally constructed the Great Wall. So I went shopping for Construction.

Spoiler :

Yeah, that Ivory trade is pretty raw, but I figured that was a better option than trying to settle and improve Angkor. Plus, it let us build War Elephants now. And trust me, they're much better at amphibious attacks than swordsmen.

Our little-trireme-that-could finally made his way to Europe. Unfortunately, we couldn't obtain an open borders agreement with Carthage. Oh bother. None of the civs had anything particularly useful to trade except for Rome. Too bad he didn't want to trade Machinery with us.

Spoiler :

Did I forget to mention Colossus? Well, once I took Huangzhou, I checked Tokyo and saw it would take a whole 8 turns to finish. Since we ended up with the GL, I figured it would be best to maximize it's potential my giving all of our coastal cities the commerce boost from Colossus.That with open borders from Rome and Greece led to 4-6 extra commerce in every city.

After Civil Service, I kept on the recommended path to Liberalism by going after Paper. Paper is far more useful in RFC than vanilla games. My world map is the best at this point in the game, so the AI is willing to pay through the nose for it. And with civs like France, Spain and Germany spawning flush with gold, you can sell your map for several hundred gold. If you keep a trireme or galley exploring Oceania, you can go back 3+ times for smaller quantities of gold. So far, I've acquired just over 800 gold from selling my map, which has let me stay extremely competitive in techs.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. All that trading was possible because of a war with Carthage.

Continued in next post...

 

[Whitefire]

Stupid image-per-post restriction.

Spoiler :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/declarehannibal.JPG

I hate declaring war just to make contact with other civs, but in this scenario it is a must. Thankfully Carthage collapsed in a few turns when she could no longer stave off the Barbs.

Check the dates on the capture of the Chinese cities. I deliberately waited until I had forces present to take all 3 cities in fairly short order to avoid China collapsing into instability. It's not that big of a deal, but I hate the negative diplomatic hit from declaring on Independents.

Also, we had our first GP born! I was crossing my fingers on this one since the GL had added enough point to make the spawn a 25% chance for a GM. I built the Dai Miao because it was in Huangzhou. I made the mistake of building the shrine in not-Huangzhou last game. My reasoning at the time was that I had more Taoism cities, so I could get more gold and build the shrine in Huangzhou next. What I forgot is that I had already whipped 2 temples in Huangzhou, letting me run a total of 5 priests. Not to mention that besides Keijo and Tokyo, Huangzhou is the only city that can support 5 priest specialists.

Last game it took me 60+ turns to get my next GProphet because I had a Scientist born in Keijo. This game I built the shrine in Huangzhou and was rewarded with my second GProphet in a short 14 turns.

Anyway, with China wrapped up, we started whipping Elephants and building Settlers to start colonizing Siberia. With our core pretty much on auto-pilot, I went to task trying to get Machinery. Unfortunately, I became the score leader after taking down China. I was hoping that Rome would let it go before I took Beijing but alas, it would not be so.

Spoiler :

I know it was a pretty steep price to pay, but it was actually the best option. All of the European civs that knew Machinery wanted Paper, Civil Service and Currency. In hind sight, I have no idea why I traded for Theology. I figured pretty much everyone had those techs already, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up another tech with CoL and Calendar. But Theology is a dead tech and only serves to drive us up in score, incurring more trading penalties. Not something we want =/.

Anyway, I took down Angkor and the rest of the 50 turns finished uneventfully.

End of Turn Overview

Spoiler :

We're making fine progress. I have 3 settlers ready to go. They'll be claiming Karakorum and the rest of Manchuria. I'm going to be settling a city in SE China and I'm sorely tempted to settle another in central China. That's alot of prime land that's going unused.

I'm still atheist and quite happy with that.

A few things to note about this game over my last. First is that I'm 1 city lighter but claiming 1.5% more land area. Also, I already have units in position to hit Mongolia, where last game I was just getting the Elephants up there when Mongolia spawned. I'm also a bit further along in techs. Last game I was just starting Philosophy where here I'm well into Education.

 

[fearuin]

The only things you could have done better is razing Ulan-Ude and holding off on founding Hakodate and Nara. Better start grabbing up Siberia.

Oh! Nara is the FOURTH gold-producing city, after Tokyo, Kyoto, and Beijing, so I still think it was a good idea. In Hakodate, and Ulan-Ude you are right. And my former mongol cities are spamming settlers right to Siberia... I'm now thinking that, if I'm able as I plan, to get that Kremlin, I'll build it on Moscow, not for laugh, but for the useful purpouse of making my Siberian cities less expensive. That will mean to renounce to Africa, probably, unless Forbidden Palace (or should I call it Hidden Palace? ) it's somewhere near it (or in it).

I'm still atheist and quite happy with that.

That's a good idea I should have done since the beggining. I converted to Confucianism as soon as I got Beijing. Bad idea. Everybody hates me, and I can't trade techs with anybody. My gold it's stocking in my vaults, and just getting rusty... I'm thinking to get back to Paganism, in fact. That will give me EVEN more gold to spend, and remove those diplo penalties.

EDIT: but I still need those extra GPs... Are they really worth it? I'm doubtful!

 

[kairob]

Oh! Nara is the FOURTH gold-producing city, after Tokyo, Kyoto, and Beijing,

Is the an easy way to find things like this out? Like if I get a second great scientist and want to know which city needs the acadamy?

 

[Whitefire]

City Screen

Just click on the commerce icon and it will sort them for you. It's also handy for figuring out where to put Ironworks.

 

[kairob]

Thanks, I am happy now . Is that the domestic advisor?

 

[Whitefire]

Turns 101-151

I accidentally went one turn over this time. Anyway, these 50 turns pretty much set in stone the rest of the game for me. I solidified my friendship with Rome, to the detriment of my relations with Spain, France and England. I also traded several techs with Rome, making sure they stayed top dog in Europe. I figured Rome having my back will make any expansions into the Middle East, Africa or the Americas much easier. Hopefully he'll be a good little AI and race toward Military Tradition. Anyway, on the very first turn, Rome came a knocking.

Spoiler :

We decided to go to war with France. We had already declared once before, so no harm in infuriating Louis more. Greece was on the verge of collapse, so I went shopping for his techs. Sadly, he wouldn't give up the one I wanted (Drama for quick culture in newly captured cities) but we settled for Horseback riding so we could build Knights.

Speaking of Knights, after I discovered Education, I beelined to Guilds. I wanted to pick up Grocers, then Banks, to maximize the profit from my soon to be 4 shrines. Plus, I wanted to use Liberalism to pop Economics for a GM. I wasn't worried about losing the Liberalism race since half of the civs didn't even know paper, and none had Education yet.

Spoiler :

Not much went down between the first 3 turns and the next 20. We shipped plenty of Libraries, Academies, Courthouses, etc. in order to get our economy ready to absorb India, Iran, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Eurasia. We also started spreading our two religions in every city to keep research high.

We finished guilds and switched to Philosophy. Since we're playing this game light on cities (4 lighter than in my previous game but with roughly the same land area) we were pulling away in techs from everyone but Rome with England being the only unknown civ. I figured I could power through Philosophy and trade it to the AIs for something useful like Engineering or Drama before our tech penalties started racking up from expansion in India.

We were able to extort gold from France for peace. Shortly afterward, Mongolia spawned and was immediately trampled by my Elephants. Goodbye Genghis, we won't miss you. With Mongolia gone, I began to expand into Eastern Siberia. Meanwhile, we had the report I had been dreading since Mongolia spawned.

Spoiler :

Yeah, the plague spawned in Spain. At least it gave us time to whip down our populations.

You know, 4 updates ago, I would have been pissed at that message. 2 updates ago, I would have expected about half of my cities to catch the Black Death. Now, I'm starting to stop worrying at all. As long as you have 2 health bonus buildings (Granary, Aqueduct or Grocer) and a good deal of health resources, you can avoid the plague entirely. Which is exactly what happened. Rome was the only other civ to avoid catching the plague, which helped them shoot ahead in techs.

Plus we got a nice little bonus in Guiyang. That extra trade shaved a turn off of Banking and Liberalism.

Spoiler :

With the plague ravaging India, I made hasty preparations to declare war. But before then, I wanted to pick up any techs I could from a long-time trading partner. Since the only two civs India was in contact was furious with her, I figured it was safe to let Philosophy out of the bag.

Engineering would be helpful for us since we could now claim Grenadiers. And with a couple CR bonuses, those Grenadiers will tear through Janissaries quite easily. As an added bonus, the GE we were keeping around for either SoL or the Taj Mahal could now pop us an extremely valuable wonder.

continued in next post...

 

[Whitefire]

After the Plague had left the first two Indian cities we wanted to take, we declared war. We also picked up Pagan as a launch point for our ground units to enter India.

Spoiler :

Pitkapurum likewise fell quickly by a sea invasion, and a Combat III War Elephant ran through the jungles and took out the lone archer defending Hyperabdad. We razed the latter since we can claim those tiles with the rest of the cities in India.

With the fall of Hyperabdad, we were able to take out India's only Iron resource and left them stuck with Archers (We had already taken out the Ivory).

Spoiler :

We won the Liberalism race! No surprise there. We picked Economics (of course) and popped the GM for Printing Press. I wanted to load the GM onto a Caravel and sail it to Rome. The gold would be desperately needed to upgrade our Samurai to Grenadiers. Unfortunately, I don't know Optics, let alone Compass. With the peaceful side of research done for now, we started on Gunpowder for Chemistry and started trading for Optics.

In hindsight, I'm thinking I should have saved the GM to pop on Constitution instead of PP.

Oh yeah, sometime in the 6 turns from when I traded for Engineering to when I pillaged the Iron, Asoka was able to pick up both Civil Service and Feudalism. This frustrated me to no end since Delhi went from a pushover to an honestly defended city. The blitzkrieg stalled here until I could move a couple more siege engines in.

-----

End of Turn

Spoiler :

As you can see, I'm still building infrastructure in most of my cities. The war on India came a good 20-30 turns sooner than planned because of their particularly harsh plague and their lack of Feudalism or Civil Service.

The power graph is disconcerting. I wanted to help Rome cow the other Europeans, but at this rate Augustus will run them over. I might need to stop trading resources with them.

I'm finally repositioning my Palace. I feel like I should have done it much sooner than now. Perhaps right after taking Beijing.

 

[fearuin]

You're doing an awesome job, WhiteFire! I'm nearly to abandone my game, because I've find being the LAST in tech, my economy nearly to stall (only at 10% i have some benefits. It's nearly 1800 and I don't have Guilds... pitiful, ain't it? I'm just one step above barbs, that use the same units as I do, except for Samurai. I tried to continue expanding to Siberia, but a wall of Spanish cities has put and end to all my will. They are drawback, but I just can't do a thing against their Muskets! (OK, I can throw away about 10-15 cats, just to take down one unit!), so I'm out. Game Over.

I'm now thinking on a new challenge, but I'll try this one again, next time on Warlords.

 

[Whitefire]

I would say this strategy is much rougher on Vanilla than Warlords. Without the Great Wall, your empire is likely to collapse from the unending spawn of Barbs in Siberia.

May I ask what your research path was? In this game, I focused on getting Civil Service and Machinery, then Paper. See one of my precious posts. Even in my next set of 50 turns I was able to sell my map for an average of 40 gold to every civ (40*10=lots of gold). I was able to keep my research up in the 60% range by selling my map. This is why contact with Europe is so vital throughout the game. IIRC, you never sent a ship to Europe did you?

EDIT: Although, I must admit I've been particularly lucky with my GP spawns. I got 2 GProphets even with the Great Lighthouse adding in a decent chance for a GM. Then my next two GEs were Engineers, on in Tokyo (70% for GE) and one in Huangzhou (12% for GS, 8% for GM, 44 % for GProphet and 36% for GE). Those let me pop the Hagia Sophia and in the next set of turns the Taj Mahal. Rome would have gotten both of those wonders without my GEs, letting them run even further away in the tech game.

 

[Edungeon]

I'm now thinking on a new challenge, but I'll try this one again, next time on Warlords.

Babylon OCC?

 

[Whitefire]

Babylon OCC?

Actually, for Babylon I wanted to try a practical domination win (Practical being 30% Land Area and 51% population). Babylon's problem is everyone spawns and flips their "natural" territory. So any kind of expansion goal would be the hardest.

I think my next challenge will be more builder oriented. Like a cultural win with Inca.

 

[fearuin]

May I ask what your research path was?

Of course you can ask . I started researching Sailing, to attack China ASAP. If you can remember, in my first game, I attacked China later, but on my second game it has been proved that my first decision is wiser. With no C.Wall, China it's allways highly pressed by barbs, so if you plan it well, you can use those barbs as your first line of your army.

Later on, I went for Iron working (for swords to attack India), Construction (for the same reason) and Calendar, to get all those luxuries around, that will allow me to whip my population in Japan. I got Construction during the attack of barb cities formerly Chinese.

On this point a wise decision would have been send a galley to Europe, to contact them, and sell some of my new resources, as well to use some of the pillaged gold in China to buy some techs (I got Currency, Meditation, and Horse Riding to China, 1 turn before they collapsed, in the most laughy peace agreement I've ever done! My troops were heading to the lasts Chinese cities (Nanchang ond that one in the Tibet, whatever it was called), just one tile to their border, when they pop up with the agreement, and the next turn they collapsed! Historians now agree that some japanese-hostile courtiers did a coup-de-etat against
the Emperor, for signing the peace against the Evil Shogun of Japan... resulting on their end! ).

Having entire China under my rule, and after getting Calendar, I headed to Civil Service, as you, and then to Engineering. The reason was that Mongols were about to spawn, and I decided to send a combo of elephants, pikes and cats to beat their army. I needed those pikes also to beat Persia, that conquered India some turns ago.

After that, supporting costs made me draught a lot my research, but I followed the same path as you, Machinery and Paper. In some middle point, I was able to trade Code of Laws and Literature from Europeans. I think that was my peak of development. I started to research Nationalism, when I got Drama and huge amounts of gold for peace with Persia, after conquering India, and Phrada (the city owning the ONLY horses Persia often owns, not in my case, thanks they expanded to Constantinopolis). I used Drama and Paper to buy Music to Incans, I think. I gave up when I see them coming with Cavalries, after taking that city. I hoped to continue expanded peacefully, after finding Spanish on my way to Siberia! And that was the end of the story.

The thing I've learned is that playing a domination game, you need:
a) Trade, trade, trade. Whatever you can sell, whatever the price they give you to buy. It doesn't care. You have so much of everything, and you need desperately all those GPT and techs.

b) As WhiteFire started doing in your last game, make a friend in Europe. Forget Germany and England, they are natural enemies. If you plan to conquer Russia, you can give a chance to Bismarck, but I don't recommend it, unless you are able to reach them BEFORE they get Military Tradition.

c)Spread your religions. Getting FOUR holy cities means a lot of gold, but you have to actively spread, because you will probably want to use those GPs in techs, or settling them in your capital. The best idea is to spread all religions into a secondary city, build monastries, and use that city as Missionary spammer. A missionary each 5-6 turns should be enough, if you do this continuely.

d)Cities surrounded by woods should be converted into money-builders. Chop wisely those woods to hurry courthouses, grocers, markets, banks and harbors (if able). A good idea is to create a workshop, and use those hammers to buidl the improvements needed, to fianlly replace it for a village when it's done. After the money improvements are built, set that city to make wealth.

e)You will probably need those cities with more production to make soldiers, but, if able, set them to wealth or Research from time to time.

f)In my case, I captured lots of workers, but you'll need hordes of them, specially if you go to Siberia.

g)If you can, try to get the GA from filling 2/3 of the UHV. Time it properly, and it can be hugely profitable!

 

[Whitefire]

c)Spread your religions. Getting FOUR holy cities means a lot of gold, but you have to actively spread, because you will probably want to use those GPs in techs, or settling them in your capital. The best idea is to spread all religions into a secondary city, build monastries, and use that city as Missionary spammer. A missionary each 5-6 turns should be enough, if you do this continuely.

In my current game, I have 6 holy cities with 5 shrines.

Oh yeah, I played, got on a roll with Arabia, then Turkey, and now invading Egypt. I'm about to finish Assembly Line in 1770 AD. Once I have access to the UB, it's all over for Germany. I'm hoping to win the game by tomorrow.

 

[Whitefire]

I had it. It was 1953, and I had taken everything from Japan to Portugal. Africa was quickly being overrun with my infantry, their pointy sticks no match for my guns. Then, it all came unglued. From Angkor to Rome, 1/2 of my EMpire declared it's independence. So I'm all, "WTH?!" Then I check the stability ratings. 1 star in expansion. Huh? I check my civics, I had forgotten to switch to Occupation.

So yeah, It's doable, and I'll post up to where my empire collapsed. I'll replay from right before my massive colonization (Ressetlement then Occupation). But it won't really count. /me sighs

 

[Edungeon]

I had it. It was 1953, and I had taken everything from Japan to Portugal. Africa was quickly being overrun with my infantry, their pointy sticks no match for my guns. Then, it all came unglued. From Angkor to Rome, 1/2 of my EMpire declared it's independence. So I'm all, "WTH?!" Then I check the stability ratings. 1 star in expansion. Huh? I check my civics, I had forgotten to switch to Occupation.

So yeah, It's doable, and I'll post up to where my empire collapsed. I'll replay from right before my massive colonization (Ressetlement then Occupation). But it won't really count. /me sighs

HOW COULD YOU!?

XD I finally thought that someone would make a Domination Victory...

I hope you can conquer everything well again... =)

Good luck... =p

 

[fearuin]

I had it. It was 1953, and I had taken everything from Japan to Portugal. Africa was quickly being overrun with my infantry, their pointy sticks no match for my guns. Then, it all came unglued. From Angkor to Rome, 1/2 of my EMpire declared it's independence. So I'm all, "WTH?!" Then I check the stability ratings. 1 star in expansion. Huh? I check my civics, I had forgotten to switch to Occupation.

So yeah, It's doable, and I'll post up to where my empire collapsed. I'll replay from right before my massive colonization (Ressetlement then Occupation). But it won't really count. /me sighs

What part claimed independence? The east or the west? The north or the south? Please post a screenshot! I just can't believe an European Japanese Empire! Good luck on your re-conquest!

 

[Whitefire]

Sorry, I'm busy with another project. I'll try and post screenshots over the next couple days.

 

[wolfigor]

I had it. It was 1953, and I had taken everything from Japan to Portugal. Africa was quickly being overrun with my infantry, their pointy sticks no match for my guns. Then, it all came unglued. From Angkor to Rome, 1/2 of my EMpire declared it's independence. So I'm all, "WTH?!" Then I check the stability ratings. 1 star in expansion. Huh? I check my civics, I had forgotten to switch to Occupation.

So yeah, It's doable, and I'll post up to where my empire collapsed. I'll replay from right before my massive colonization (Ressetlement then Occupation). But it won't really count. /me sighs

something similar happened to me but earlier...
My empire extended from american west coast to the Balkans (inclusive) and former Persian towns declared independence: Persia was born again.

(I accept peacefully to let them go, and they became vassals of Russia.
Russia declared war on me.
Persia was submitted again to my fair rule)