Never fight a land war in Asia

[Chieftess]

Take a look at the civilopedia. You can find all of the game quotes there.

 

[AKauhanen]

Uh, no. Germany won that one in the east. When you invade Russia, restrict movement of its resources, cause it unrest and revolution, then force a peace treaty on the Tsar giving you Poland, the Baltics, the Ukraine and Belarus, you've won.

And "The Last Samurai", while a fun movie, is a terrific example of how Hollywood can distort history. The Americans did not introduce firearms to Japan. They did not introduce modern warfare to Japan. They did not contribute, apart from Perry's gunboat action, to the industrialization of Japan. The Japanese did all that.

Very true and also the Japanese did their industrialization faster than the Europeans or the Americans, but I want to add that the Japanese did copy the industrial technologies from the Europeans, but fast started to even improve the technologies by themselves. Also I want to add that the Japanese military organization, basic tactics and training was directly copied from the Preussians and not from the Americans.

 

[Hozchelaga]

Very true and also the Japanese did their industrialization faster than the Europeans or the Americans, but I want to add that the Japanese did copy the industrial technologies from the Europeans, but fast started to even improve the technologies by themselves. Also I want to add that the Japanese military organization, basic tactics and training was directly copied from the Preussians and not from the Americans.

Totally correct.

 

[Eyemaze]

I actually thought the quote in the movie was a reference to the game of risk, where a landwar in asia would usually just deplete all your armies before you got any where.

 

[magritte]

I don't believe anyone attacking Russia has ever actually gotten to Asia (except Japan in the Russo-Japanese war of course), since Asian Russia begins at the Urals. As far as non-Asians involved in land wars in Asia--yep, Alexander the Great would certainly have been the most successful. The Romans fought some successful wars there, but even they were never able to really get very far against Parthia. As to Afghanistan and Iraq--those wars ain't over yet. The First Gulf War was certainly a success, but was mostly an air war.

 

[garric]

I don't know why no one has mentioned this before, but it's 100% about Vietnam. It's 100% about USA's loss at Vietnam and the lashback it produced.

 

[KabeDerlin]

I don't know why no one has mentioned this before, but it's 100% about Vietnam. It's 100% about USA's loss at Vietnam and the lashback it produced.

I'm curious as to how you know that? You know of another origin of the quote than Princess Bride? Please continue, I'd like to see how you can back that up.

 

[AKauhanen]

I don't believe anyone attacking Russia has ever actually gotten to Asia (except Japan in the Russo-Japanese war of course), since Asian Russia begins at the Urals. As far as non-Asians involved in land wars in Asia--yep, Alexander the Great would certainly have been the most successful. The Romans fought some successful wars there, but even they were never able to really get very far against Parthia. As to Afghanistan and Iraq--those wars ain't over yet. The First Gulf War was certainly a success, but was mostly an air war.

The Russo-Japanese war was a greatly successful naval war for Japan, but as a land war in Russian Eastern Asia it was a huge disaster. After the initial successes in the land war in Eastern Siberia against the small Russian garrisons there the Japanese land war was a huge disaster when the main Russian battle groups arrived. The disastrous land war Japan had in the Russo-Japanese war was even so disastrous that it could be said half-jokingly that a new land war in Eastern Siberia scared the Japanese military commanders so much that they would rather attacked the World's leading Superpower than get into a new land war against even the smallest of garrisons in a land war in Eastern Siberia. [All Russian army groups were being devastated in Western Russia by the Germans]


Of course the real reason the Japanese attacked the American naval forces and not Eastern Russia was that the Americans had the forced naval trade embargo against Japan which was killing the Japanese economy and industry because Japan lacked natural resources and even oil.

 

[Deisler]

Well, The Russians won many land battles and conquered vast areas in Asia in the time of the Romanov dynasty. But I do have to agree that the Asian peoples have shown to offer a high level of very well organized resistance and a ability to self-sacrifice for the common good in a large scale in the times of crisis and this multiplied by their large populations [and the long distances from the European or American heartlands what makes supporting large armies in Asia extremely difficult] makes fighting a man per man land battle in Asia to be extremely costly even if the Asians couldn't win a European or USA army in open battle. The only way to win a long term campaign in Asia is from the air or from space, not by a large scale land army in Asia. All this said, I pray the only competition between Europeans and Asians in the future will be economic and intellectual and not military. No more wars. And if a Chinese military affairs minister is reading this: Let the people of Taiwan themselves decide what they want to do. Do not attack Taiwan.

nobody want to fight...but maybe infomation the westeners got is not so correct.who wanna attack taiwan?and who will happy to see China attacks Taiwan?Maybe not Chinese people but someother men?
wish u enjoy civ4^_^

 

[magritte]

Well, I guess I could say that I didn't say that Japan won a land war in Asia, just that they actually fought one, unlike Napoleon & Hitler who got bogged down in European Russia.

But in actual fact, up until your post, I could sum up the entirety of my knowledge of the Russo-Japanese war in a single sentence. It happened in 1904-05 and Japan won.

 

[Ephor]

Historically, virtually no one save maybe the Qin dynasty and other Chinese rulers have been able to make a land-grab in asia and keep it for more than a couple generations. Campaigns to conquer part of asia ending in failure:

Polynesian War, greek navy land-locked and destroyed in Egypt
Alexander's Empire: dissolved shortly after his death
Kublai Kahn's Empire: dissolved shortly after his death.
Japan: Lots of villiage ravaging, no successful conquest
Germany: 'nuff said
Soviet Union: again, all conquest undone in under a century
U.S.: ? Well, we'd certainly be one of the first to have a lasting success in Asia

The cool thing is this is somewhat translatable to the game mechanics. Cities with few resources (most of asia) have trouble generating new culture. Without putting your own new culture in a captured city, it eventually goes back to the other side, no matter how many military units are toasted trying to quell the insurrection. Quite realistic.

 

[magritte]

Well, the Seleucids controlled a large empire in Asia for a couple hundred years after Alexander's death.

I wouldn't say the mongol land grab was unsuccessful, it just broke into several large pieces. Similar to Alexander's Empire, Mongol successor states controlled most of Asia for more than a century afterward.

As I stated apove, to my knowledge no German troops ever set foot on Asian soil.

I don't know what the "Polynesian War" you're referring to is. I know of the Peloponnesian War, but I didn't know there were any engagements as far away from Peninsular Greece as Egypt, which is in Africa, anyway.

 

[Garand]

Uh, no. Germany won that one in the east. When you invade Russia, restrict movement of its resources, cause it unrest and revolution, then force a peace treaty on the Tsar giving you Poland, the Baltics, the Ukraine and Belarus, you've won.

Uh, no. You're wrong. The Tsar did not sign a peace treaty because he had been deposed by the Bolsheviks. Lenin and Trotsky saw the necessity to get Russia out of the war, therefore their first initiative after seizing power was to negotiate a separate peace with the Germans - The treaty of Brest Litovsk. In fact they wanted peace so bad, they happily gave up many of the old Russian Empire's holdings. Why? So they could seize power and concentrate on consolidating it, rather than fighting a war they didn't want.

The Russian civil war was fought between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites (Loyalists). The Whites were loyal to the Tsar and sought to continue the war against Germany. The provisional government that was set up in place of the deposed Tsar headed by Kerensky also sought to continue the war against the Germany, but they were in effect powerless and it was the Soviets who ran the show.

So before you try to throw a trump card, learn history. Russia was hurting but did not have peace forced upon it by a triumphant Germany.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

The source of the quote is a speach by Montgomery to the British House of Lords in the 1960's.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Garand,
Not all losses have to be total defeats. Britain "lost" the American Revolution and signed the Treaty of (Paris?). We got what we wanted, but by no means did we have Britain helpless unto our will. The Germans may not have been parading through Moscow singing the Horst Wessel song, but they definitely won. I think it can definitely be argued that were it not for the Russian Empire's failures in the war, Lenin would have had a much harder time with his revolution. Beating a country so soundly that it collapses within itself and born again with such a radical difference is a victory in my book.

I thought Japanese first westernization was Portuguese? Was Prussia just more signifcant?

 

[Tacit_Exit]

. . . for instance build armies navies and air farces.

Hehe, air farce

 

[Willem]

Alexander of Macedon did pretty well in Asia.

Right, which is why his entire empire crumbled after his death. I wouldn't exactly call that a success.

 

[Willem]

You never want to do it in a game of Risk

It's bonus if you can pull it off though.

 

[KabeDerlin]

It's bonus if you can pull it off though.

Yeah but your gonna be getting hit from all sides afterwords. I always went for North America...

 

[Willem]

Garand,
Beating a country so soundly that it collapses within itself and born again with such a radical difference is a victory in my book.

That can't be credited to a German victory though. There were all sorts of internal conditions that were leading towards the revolution. Tensions had been building for quite some time, and the revolution probably would have happened regardless of whether Russia was involved in a war or not. The fact that it was, and not doing well, was just the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak.