Need some help with Japan

[Orbii]

Also I noticed trades from war don’t go towards modernization anymore in this newest version?

Trades from war only count to Modernization if the war is "major". Not sure how that's defined, but it prevents you from declaring phony wars just to get tech trades.

 

[GuitarDemon]

Hey bros. playing to best game I've played with Japan thanks to all the advice I got here. Got 3/8 global civs so far.

However I cant seem to shake off the unstable trigger no matter what I do. I've been stuck with -5 unhappiness and -6 outdated civics for the last 60 turns no matter what i do or switch to it wont go away. I thought it was possibly from whipping my cities too much but now most of the unhappiness from that is gone. So not sure what is going on but I'm afraid I'm going to collapse soon if I dont change course.

Attached the save if anybody wants to take a look at it.

Thinking about switching to all the Fascist civics since Im stuck in a world war but not sure if it would help my stabilty or not.

Really dont want to lose this game to a collapse

 

[FIRST FIRE]

I considered what the most important reason about hard to finish japan's 3rd uhv is that japan's research modifier are 120,but about America uk and germany, their fix are not more than 90.Which means you have to spent 30% and more to finish an tech when you compite with other tech leaders.After i make japan's research fix to 105,it become possible to win by uhv.

 

[JDPElGrillo]

I don’t see a good way to get UHV3 in an entirely peaceful setting, for that reason among others, like being stuck in a specialist-based economy forever due to lack of suitable cottage land, and difficulty getting good deals in tech trades due to the big diplomatic maluses from not being Protestant/Catholic/Muslim. I haven’t tried a game yet since returning from the holidays, but I think an approach based on releasing and peace vassaling Korea for a tech trading partner with better research modifiers could be helpful. I also haven’t thoroughly tested focused espionage combined with careful binary research to just barely be first to 8 global techs, but getting a game to that stage takes forever and other victory conditions start looking more appealing to me at that point.

 

[JDPElGrillo]

My last 3000BC Monarch/Standard Japan game ended in a bit of a trainwreck in the late game, so I decided to start a new one with a simple premise: what if we ignore the UHV entirely, specifically UHV1? UHV1 (high average culture without losing any cities by 1600 AD / t300) in particular requires such a constraint on the early game, with some advice I've seen suggesting founding no one than two or even one city. You then have to either generate a bunch of great Artist points, or build Himeji and then build a dozen or so high-leveled units with Conquest civic. Needless to say, these are not conducive to snowballing and personally just isn't that interesting.

What if we instead take Japan's incredibly rich, safe start and instead play to a Domination/Science victory?

Spoiler Screenshots from turn 300 :

The biggest difference is, of course, having 8 self-founded cities on turn 300. We can use all three starting Settlers, and after some tests I'm pretty happy with this opening, which settling Kyoto, Matsuyama, and Edo. Key points are:

1) Spend two turns revolting into Republic/Citizenship/Manorialism/Clergy.
2) The Matsuyama location allows one of the two starting work boats to improve Edo's fish several turns early, instead of having to move all the way to the north (typically Korea isn't willing to open borders immediately). This in turn allows both Kyoto and Edo to build several rounds of quick Manorialism-discounted workers, up to 8, before working on their forges.
3) Japan is long on food (and with Republic, therefore commerce), short on production. As a result, I've found much better performance by improving the silk/tea/incense tiles with mines and lumbermills instead of plantations. Health and happiness shortages are not an issue in the opening, since by hiring some artists you can get access to the whales/gold and later the silver/dyes (though admittedly the dyes tile takes forever to acquire due to the peak). I also found it possible and worthwhile to trade one copy of rice to China for one of its silks, which combined with cheap Citizenship markets is good for 2 happiness. Furthermore, since with Republic the plantation tiles aren't worth working, improving them as mines/lumbermills instead just gets you a +1 commerce mine or lumbermill, which is great.
4. You can trigger the conqueror events in America, take some cities, force capitulation, and then give them the cities back for the relations boost and stability boost. Normally the wording/implementation of UHV1 prevents you from doing this, as liberating a city counts as losing a city. Being able to liberate these cities back helps the Aztecs/Incans stay stable for longer, which means more commerce and stability from Tributaries. Keeping them at Pleased also allows you to buy slaves from them at 25g each, which is a great way to fund research by selling them back to the European civs at 100g+.
5. Not having to run all those artist specialists or spend all those hammers on Himeji troops means much faster research generally, especially early on when you'd otherwise be trying to set up those culture-generating engines. I was able to adopt Meritocracy very quickly, then beeline to caravels, before filling in the rest of the Medieval Era techs for Modernization to kick in. The next research target will of course be Sociology for Egalitarianism as another huge boost to research.

 

[Sovietof17]

Uhv2 is impossible. I had it down for hundreds of years and in 1935AD my stability was neutral <->. Then bam, China and Indonesia both respawn, screwing me out of the UHV condition. Absolutely NOTHING I can do about it, even though I have a massive army I was using anytime any European claimed territory in my sphere of influence.

Really it should be changed to "control these area BY 1940AD". Anything else puts the victory up to the RNG. No strategy in the world can pierce through the shield that stops you from DOwing the emerging civs out of the territory,

Ive heard UHV3 is impossible too, but I have yet to even reach it. This makes Persia UHVs look kinda of easy in comparison.

 

[Hickman888]

Uhv2 is impossible. I had it down for hundreds of years and in 1935AD my stability was neutral <->. Then bam, China and Indonesia both respawn, screwing me out of the UHV condition. Absolutely NOTHING I can do about it, even though I have a massive army I was using anytime any European claimed territory in my sphere of influence.

Really it should be changed to "control these area BY 1940AD". Anything else puts the victory up to the RNG. No strategy in the world can pierce through the shield that stops you from DOwing the emerging civs out of the territory,

Ive heard UHV3 is impossible too, but I have yet to even reach it. This makes Persia UHVs look kinda of easy in comparison.

If you had a civilization respawn from under you while you had neutral (shaky) stability... That might be a bug to report. At least in the Civilopedia, it says that a civilization must be unstable for a respawn to occur from their cities.

As for how to deal with potential respawns, was it possible/feasible to release their cities circa 1920, and then immediately declare war in order to vassalize them?

 

[Hickman888]

So, Japan's third historical goal is titled "Flying Geese Paradigm". After a quick google search, it seems it's an idea that the eastern Asian countries would technologically catch up to the western countries, with Japan leading the way (they are the lead goose). So I was thinking that with Japan's second goal allowing for vassals to be taken in China/Korea/etc., is it a valid strategy to make all of these civilizations your vassals, instead of conquering them for yourself? This way, you can direct them to research technologies that you need, allowing you to focus on technologies that have yet to be unlocked by anyone. Has anybody tried this vassal strategy for teching? I'm going to give it a shot in my current marathon game, I'll let ya'll know.

Edit: Just realized that Japan's unique power (all technologies that at least 3 other civilizations are willing to trade costs 50% less ) plays right into this strategy as well. Now I'm excited to try it out.

 

[JDPElGrillo]

I tried this in my last UHV attempt on 3000bc monarch standard, with limited success for two main reasons. One, your vassals will eventually stop wanting to trade techs. I had peacefully vassalized them so I couldn’t make a demand backed by war, and the message was “we don’t want to start trading this tech away just yet”. Two, without actively sabotaging the west’s research rates via war, they were still out-teaching me and my vassals, with the English and Americans both separately beating me to 8 global techs.

I believe that was the game I retired because of buggy defensive pact interactions with the council, but the endgame for UHV3 probably involves fighting world wars to decapitate and collapse your main research rivals, rather than peacefully developing.

 

[Hickman888]

I tried this in my last UHV attempt on 3000bc monarch standard, with limited success for two main reasons. One, your vassals will eventually stop wanting to trade techs. I had peacefully vassalized them so I couldn’t make a demand backed by war, and the message was “we don’t want to start trading this tech away just yet”. Two, without actively sabotaging the west’s research rates via war, they were still out-teaching me and my vassals, with the English and Americans both separately beating me to 8 global techs.

I believe that was the game I retired because of buggy defensive pact interactions with the council, but the endgame for UHV3 probably involves fighting world wars to decapitate and collapse your main research rivals, rather than peacefully developing.

I'm finding this to be true as well (the need to go to war with the west in order to hurt their tech rate). I'm no stranger to starting a war in order to be the first to a technology (Rome needs to collapse Greece before they research any of their historic techs, for example), but it's a very tall order for the Japanese to go to war with nearly the entire world, and at the same time maintain top-notch tech rate. Maybe, though, that is the key to achieving their historic victory, as I read this earlier post:

Trades from war only count to Modernization if the war is "major". Not sure how that's defined, but it prevents you from declaring phony wars just to get tech trades.

The Civilopedia, under the Concepts and Congresses tabs, defines a "major war" as "half of the military power of the world is at war with each other." If both of these things are true... Then Japan declaring war on half of Asia and Europe might actually turn out to be beneficial (and to some extent, historical).

 

[Leoreth]

That's a different kind of major. It's basically any war that has substantial war success (unit or city losses inflicted) on any side. This is just to avoid counting phony wars.

 

[Hickman888]

That's a different kind of major. It's basically any war that has substantial war success (unit or city losses inflicted) on any side. This is just to avoid counting phony wars.

Okay, thank you for clearing that up.

 

[Sovietof17]

I tried playing on 1700 AD which gives you a pretty much guaranteed UHV2

However, UHV3 is still miles and miles away from Japan, even on heir difficulty.. its just not doable without starting WW3 with US & Britain both.

 

[Visard]

I managed to do UHV on regent, marathon.
My plan was to rush for Korea and use Republic.

Found Edo and Hiroshima and change civics to Despotism, Citizenship, Slavery, Deification and Conquest.
Whip a galley in Hiroshima and buy a catapult, set science to 0% in case you need to buy more troops
Send your troops to hill near Pyongyang to capture workers(3), bombard and conquer the city (may sacrifice archers but no swordsmen) then make truce.
After your veteran swordsmen have healed, re-attack and raze Seoul.

In Japan, focus first on production and food with improvements and buildings, you only need one per luxury resource for you cities.
Whip a lot and when you have library in Edo change science to 100%.
When Tibet spawns conquer Lhasa to be the fourth city, for more workers, happiness resources and you can build Stupa in Edo.
I was able sent my extra settler to to trade with Byzantines through massive Turkish empire.
I was lucky to get some techs from them and from Indian civs, which survived for long.
Tech for the Himeji castle and train infinite militias in Pyongyang with barracks.
When China start losing cities, raze them to get cash and experience, the barbarian cites doesn't give any unstability.
Get contact with Europeans, I manage to trade stone from Germans after they conquered Italy, which helped building castles.

When you have enough militias and infrastructure revolt to Republic, Meritocracy, Regulated Trade and Tributaries, maybe in two phases don't remember anymore.
With manufactory, academy and a lot of specialist in Edo combined with these civics you get huge amount of science, and can become the tech leader later on.
If a Chinese religion spreads to your cities (Pyongyang) you can spread it and convert to build some good wonders, like Porcelain Tower and Forbidden Palace.

Later eras you can start founding more cities, when you get free buildings and have bigger core.
Manchuria is safe place to expand and in late game you build there National Park.
After Mongolia collapses you can grap China to grow your economy, but try to raze some cities if stability allows it so you don't get overexpansion.
You can have good stability by growing slowly and having good relationships with other civs by accepting their demands and selling techs slow prize (except to British).

 

[Hickman888]

Hey all,

So I took another shot at a Japanese game, and had my best game with them yet, being the first to research 4 global technologies (Social Services, Globalism, Power Projection, Rocketry). Unfortunately, I still lost out in the tech race to America.

I attached my save file of the game the turn before I fail the 3rd UHV, and I would really appreciate it if someone who has completed this victory could give me a few pointers.

Here is a brief outline of how I played this game:

1. Despotism + Citizenship in the beginning, to build up my infrastructure
2. Built the Himeji Castle, staffed Kyoto with a large military, settled one great artist, and ran a very high culture slider to finish the culture goal around 1550.
3. Proceeded to conquer the Korean peninsula, Manchuria, and slowly take over China, as stability permitted. Running Monasticism/Regulated Trade/Isolationism. Vassalized Indochina.
4. Conquered Philippines + Indonesia in late 19th/early 20th century. Adopted Democracy/Constitution/Egalitarianism, and later adopted Secularism/Public Welfare. Built Forbidden Palace and the majority of my universities/observatories with Secularism.
5. British Empire collapsed around 1800, leaving America as my sole tech rival, who also, for whatever reason was slower than usual to research technologies. I used espionage to keep changing his civics until he built the Cristo Redentor, and after that used espionage to steal a tech (maybe two?).
6. Used great people to start two additional golden ages on top of my historical golden age, and sent a few great merchants on trade missions. I never made war on the west, except for the Netherlands, to take their Indonesia colonies.

With all that being said, here are some things I think I could have done differently:

1. I think it might be worth it to briefly convert to Confucianism, in order to build the Forbidden Palace as soon as possible. The amount of gold it saves you is ridiculous, and I don't think I should've waited until Secularism to build it.
2. Although I settled Hawaii before America could, I never outright attacked them. I think I should've invaded San Francisco and Vancouver after I completed my territory goals, to take a couple of cities away from America. Especially because Canada collapsed and America assimilated all their cities.
3. I underestimated just how long I could pull off a 100% rate. Between Great Merchants going on trade missions, and selling my technologies to the rest of the world, I definitely could've ran a 100% rate for much longer than I did.
4. It might be worth it to put more of an emphasis on , and stealing technologies that you need.

Any other ideas is greatly appreciated!

 

[Temüjin VIII]

I'd like to pin the blame on the civ modifiers, can I? Especially since the UP only applies to techs already researched by other civs, not to techs that aren't researched yet by anybody. Japan is clocked at 120, while America is clocked at 75. This means that for equal commerce outputs, America can get techs faster than Japan. Conversely, Japan will need 37.5% more beakers to research the same tech in the same amount of turns as America. I think Japan (and Korea, a bit) should get a lower research rate modifier upon entering the Industrial Era, perhaps?

 

[Hickman888]

I'd like to pin the blame on the civ modifiers, can I? Especially since the UP only applies to techs already researched by other civs, not to techs that aren't researched yet by anybody. Japan is clocked at 120, while America is clocked at 75. This means that for equal commerce outputs, America can get techs faster than Japan. Conversely, Japan will need 37.5% more beakers to research the same tech in the same amount of turns as America. I think Japan (and Korea, a bit) should get a lower research rate modifier upon entering the Industrial Era, perhaps?

Those are indeed some hard modifiers to beat. In fact, going into the worldbuilder of my save above, you can see that Roosevelt and I only differ by 5 (albeit I'm at 100% research and he's at 80%), but his 37% faster tech modifier simply means that he won out in the tech race. A faster tech modifier for Japan upon entering the Industrial era would be very helpful because, in my experience, Japan's unique ability is only relevant for the Renaissance and maybe a couple of Industrial techs, and their current modifiers make it very hard to push past the west to take that tech lead.

 

[GuitarDemon]

I haven’t had a chance to check out that save yet but I’m convinced that the only path to victory is outright destroy America. I tried the peaceful route too many times.

I was close to doing so with my last save but I was could tell I was about to collapse and/or lose territories to China respawn due to the crazy amount of negative relations hits I was getting. Maybe I can have a better chance now that I notice it’s been rolled back some.

I b-lined the tech for tanks and was rolling over the US in my last save, I’m going to try to finish that this weekend and see how it goes.

 

[Hickman888]

I haven’t had a chance to check out that save yet but I’m convinced that the only path to victory is outright destroy America. I tried the peaceful route too many times.

I was close to doing so with my last save but I was could tell I was about to collapse and/or lose territories to China respawn due to the crazy amount of negative relations hits I was getting. Maybe I can have a better chance now that I notice it’s been rolled back some.

I b-lined the tech for tanks and was rolling over the US in my last save, I’m going to try to finish that this weekend and see how it goes.

Good luck! From my several games as Japan, I agree that knocking out America is your only surefire way to completing the third UHV. I don't think I could manage to pull it off, but I hope you're able to!

 

[GuitarDemon]

So i had to abandon that old save. I get an auto collapse no matter what I did.

Started a new game and it’s the best one I’ve had so far! Taking all the advice given in this thread helped. I have gotten 8 of the global civs, but now the US is pulling away only taking 1 turn per tech that takes me 7 turns.

I have an army ready for conquest but I fear I waited too long trying to get some key military techs. The year is 1975 a little late for ww3 to start but if my stability can handle it (cannot afford to lose China if I collapse) I think I can reverse HIROSHIMA the US. It seems leoroth left is no choice I have my zeros and army ready for invasion.








For anybody who’s still interested here’s what I did that made a difference in this game.

1. Early game, only one city to get to the first UHV as quickly as possible. Switched to citizenship and cranked out all necessary culture buildings in capital and got two great artists, one settled and one culture pop (could have done two culture pops here not sure which was best). Himeji castle straight away and walls+castle add a 100% culture boost, tributaries ASAP to use japans food for military
building. Got first UHV done by 1245AD, built my other cities right away.

Tech traded everything and used spy points to see what Indonesia and Korea were researching to set my self up for key tech trades, getting out of the medieval era early is crucial to get japans Unique ability.

Japan is 100% a specialist economy. Never went for this startegy in civ4 so did not know how important it was. Metroicracy was crucial to run this in the early stage. Focused on all specialist buildings I could in core cities Korea

Conquered Korea straight away, sent out cravels to maintain contact with other civs. Tried to get good relations with other civs.

That’s it for early game.

2. Mid game, so here’s a technique I used to get me quickly caught up with the rest of the world, I’d research a tech up till one turn left and switch techs, I’d do this with multiple techs until they hit modernization boost, then I’d finish it and get a HUGE beaker boost from this, if I timed it right I could do this with 3 techs I already preloaded with beakers and then use all those beakers for any key tech I needed, machine tools for example, engines was another as I needed to get all my cities powered on ASAP

Conquerored China right away razing two of their cities.

Also another key thing for Japan is growing Kyoto and Tokyo, building national theater for +6 happiness was a huge help. Getting them as big as possible as quickly as possible.

Vassalized Thai and gave them cities and a gifted a couple workers to get their resources connected and making them give them for tribute (not all of them didn’t want them to collapse).

Went for Philippines and Indonesia respawned after Spain collapsed in the year 1924, could not declare war on them. I was sweating here. Built as many tanks as possible and preparad for invasion, only had 2 turns to vassalize them but barely pulled it off.

3. Late game switched to egalitarianism straight away, very crucial for my specialist economy, was able to run 8 or so scientist or at a time in my food rich cities or merchants if needed.

Focused on all finance buildings in shrine cities. Spread religions around with tolerance (didn’t notice a huge boost but anything helps).

By late game tech trading slowed down considerably and nobody wanted to trade any more. But by this time I could crank out most techs in 3-4 turns running slider at 100%. Golden ages helped. Didn’t settle that many great people holding them for more golden ages, just used great engineers for key great wonders


Well get a save attached when I get home if anybody wants to see what they can do to help me beat the US. Hoping I can get this UHV done once and for all



Edit: I just realized this the first time I’ve made it this far so I’m in uncharted territory. Have no clue how to increase my beakers
now