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[Hyo]

UPDATE: Well, it seems that I'm supposed to get my own thread for this, now so here it is. I've copied previous posts to here to avoid any confusion and discrepancies in the future.


I've started a new Japan and have decided to make a proper AAR out of it, complete with screenshots and all. So, this is my new Japan, planning on WC by 1821, beginning at 1399 of course.

So, first of all, a few reasons why one should go Japan:
-It's in Asia, free from all the political battles and headaches from Europe
-It's religion, Shinto is unique to Japan, meaning that Unam Sanctum and early expansion can make killing anything a whole lot easier.
-It's an island country, at the same time, is fairly large; large England, meaning that it's rather a safe country to play with, since enemies will rarely succeed be able to land on your shores as long as your navy is strong.

Some problems I would face:
-Since it's an island countries, it can't do cultural shifts (As far as I know) without moving the capital
-It's religion, Shinto, gives a -20% tax modifier, which hurts; though better than Confucianism
-It's bordering Ming, which can be such a pain, and will have to deal with it sooner or later
-It starts in the eastern tech group, meaning that its units will grow to be useless at tech 38+, and that it needs to westernize three times before getting full research capabilities.

In any case, Japan is a safe country to play with, that is relatively minor in the beginning, but easy to grow into a powerhouse.


So.. let's begin.

10/1399- I've started the first day managements, and used my three diplomats to gain military access to Tibet, Manchu, and Korea. Well, Korea wasn't necessary but just to be safe I added it in there. The purpose of this was to prepare for my eventual war against Ming. I intend to extend my influence in SE Asia and in the seas, and expect to fight Ming within 50 years. And as everyone knows, fighting Ming straight on is never a smart move.

In the meantime, I really love my new advisors- a 4 star statesman and a 3 star treasurer; and I've got another 3 star statesman just waiting for me to trade Ashikaga out for him. As for the other stuff, a slider towards Centralization, kill off the annoying revolt, and a government change to Despotic Monarchy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

12/1399- It's december now, and I've finally got another diplomat. I declared war on Ryuku like I always do; and it always turns out that if I don't declare war on it first, it declares war on me, which can be pretry minor, but pretty annoying and/or fatal; especially if I'm fighting Ming or something. That and to juice some war taxes out of it.

10/1400- Ryuku siege completed; however, I'm going to milk some war taxes on it so going to wait till January

1/1401- January and time to make peace with Ryuku. However, I'm suddenly in conflict with myself- though I've annexed Ryuku many times, Okinawa now that I look at it isn't such a tempting province; I needs to spend a missionary on it, and it's base tax is 2; which is rather poor. I don't want to take any burdens on with me, because I need to get to westernization as fast as possible, and I'm afraid getting Okinawa will slow me down by a few months.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I have three choices:

A) Annex Ryuku and play it normally; not like it would hurt that much - besides, you'll need to conquer sooner or later for WC so might as well do it now.
B) Vassalize Ryuku; then you still get money off of it, and can conquer it later for a prestige hit.
C) Leave Ryuku for now, milk war taxes from it, and go kill a few other Muslim nations.

Any suggestions?

[Hyo]

TIME TO DECLARE WAR ON MING HAS COME....!!!!!!!!!~~~~

Or yeah. I'm just being suicidal and maniacal.

So this is the news:

1/1401 - I have decided to vassalize Ryuku; however, have stuck with leaving it as it is now, to milk war taxes from it as much as possible.

3/1401 - War on Brunei which is neither guaranteed nor allied to anyone. My forces quickly rip Brunei apart, however, the guerilla war that I'm forced to fight and the long siege pushes the battle for a year.

3/1402 - The siege of Brunei has been completed and finished taking care of those pests. Now that I think about it, I think I could've gotten enough war score by having had conquered the other provinces... Ah well. Not like I care all too much, so I give Brunei first place on my Happy Vassal's Club. Hooray!

5/1402 - And being the warmonger I am, I move straight onto Malacca. Now Malacca is a special case as I intend to finish it off in two wars; one to conquer three of its territories and one to annex it. Why is Malacca so special you may ask? No reason; except it's tasty, tasty CoT.

9/1403 - And unsurprisingly, Malacca falls in little less than a year. And it cost me quite a bit too. Malacca wasn't that powerful, but Aceh suddenly storming me with its 7,000 army surprised me a little. However, it performed atrociously against my 6,000 army... And because their general sucked, while mine was pretty awesome. Did I mention that Gokomatsu is a 4 shock general? Awesome~ (Especially considering his military's only 4, or so I remember)

11/1403 - Defended from a few more Aceh attacks and now war on Malakassar. I've had a rebel sprout up, and it was really annoying. Ugh, seriously. A 4k rebel army hurts this early on. In any case, I quickly go and strike Malacca again, for the remaining capital, so that I may now conquer it.

4/1404 - Ugh, I forgot why IN is so annoying; there are so many bad events. In any case, I got a choice between a -500 trade tech and -1stab/-1merchant. I toke the stab/merchant hit because I can recover stab within 3~4 years, and because the trade tech hit would be fatal towards westernization and annoying.

9/1404 - Malacca is now annexed. Finally, now to embark upon the long, long journey of conquering Aceh... (Which is made especially painful by the fact that most of Aceh is TI, meaning that it's going to take a long, long time.)

7/1405 - Vassalized Ryuku, since the 5 year limit was coming up soon.

1/1406 - Did I mention the game hates me? Other than having had two rebel armies popping up during the last month, I've also just had *another* bad event; apparently rebel uprising in Malacca. Sadly, I chose the negotiations which not only cost me 30 ducats but a negative tax modifier, which hurts. I simply couldn't afford to have a 6k rebel suddenly pop up while my army was too busy conquering Aceh. The WE from that would've been unbearable- and due to constant war taxes, it's now around 5.6. (My ruler, Gokomatsu, is only capable of -0.08/month, so it's a base of +0.02 per month plus battle WE and attrition)

1/1407 - Other than another rebel army that popped up (Geez, is it just me or are there an awful lot of rebels...) a special case (and a very *delightful* special case) has occurred- MING HAS ENTERED A TIME OF TROUBLES!!!~

As all of you know, that is *such* a pain in the ass event, and screws you up pretty badly. Well, no fear, because I intend to screw Ming up even more badly. In all seriousness though, this is a big bonus for me, because it means that Ming is going to go down that much faster. As soon as I finish this conquest of Aceh and I get my 1st NI (Which is coming up in 1411, thanks to the lucky statesman I had gotten myself) I plan on going to war with Ming right away. This, folks, will be facing war with Ming even before 1420 hits, everyone. And if I manage to screw Ming up using this, I'd be setting up a record.

However, this is all not goody fun, though. Ming currently has a larger navy than me, and even if I do build it up, it's only going to be even and there's a chance that Ming will break through and screw me over. My only hope is that my precious will come to my rescue with their fleets of ships, therefore turning the tide in my favour.

Spoiler:  Ming's Time of Troubles (click to show/hide)

2/1407- I never noticed this, but Brunei finally conquered Malkassar for me. Wow, that took a long time, and Malkassar's right beside them dammit. I annex Malkassar right away- the reason I am doing this is because Malkassar has a whooping base tax of 11. Now, the only problem here is its religion... which is Sunni. Did I ever mention I hate it? It's missionary chance reduction is painful and annoying. It's one of the reasons that I had never bothered to annex Malacca or Malkassar in my previous games.

3/1407 - And this years old conflict between Aceh and me is finally over... And I drained Aceh of its treasury, dammit! In any case, Aceh's been ravaged by 10+ WE, and been rather screwed up lately... I feel bad now. In any case, I've given Aceh an invitation to join my Happy Vassal's Club which it happily accepted... Well, hey, it didn't refuse at least~ Now to finally take care of all those rebels...

10/1407 - Wait, wut? Rebels in Ezochi... Oh shi- I forgot to send a missionary there at the beginning of the game. In any case, it's the bloody tax revolters. I wish it's be religious revolters so that I could've simply stopped it with much problem, but no, it just *had* to give me a tax reduction.

7/1409 - King died admist of combat, stability drop. However, I'm satisfied, since my new one has an ADM skill of 7 (!), MIL of 5. The DIP is rather low, at 3; but like I care. I rolled for a general 2 Maneuver, 2 Fire, 2 Shock, no siege sadly. Hooray for this lucky roll, I'm so happy! *sniff*

In any case, sorry I couldn't get a screenshot of at least this, because I'm not used to this whole AAR and LP thing. I really need to remember to press F11 everytime something major comes up.

9/1409 - It's been a few years of rebel stomping. In the mean time, Aceh is now my vassal, and Malacca is now also Aceh's. I've given away those annoying pieces of land to Aceh, because I'm too lazy to deal with the revolts myself.

Now then... it's a new future opening up for me and I am currently going to do wait a few more years to burn off some WE, BB, build a larger navy and wait for Unam Sanctum in 1411.

The problem is... What will I do once I hit 1411? I have a few choices right now

A) Kill MING
B) Declare war on Indochina
C) Do nothing

Spoiler: Ming slight overview (click to show/hide)

First of all for A), Ming has a larger navy than me (for now) since I haven't been building ships lately. Also, it's still suffering quite a bit, and it's getting practically zero income in its provinces- for tax at least, due to Times of Troubles. It's army is still fairly large, at 88k, is nothing to underestimate. However, as we all know oh so well, Malacca WC AAR, courtesy of Rastar - Ming AI is a pushover and overly easy to slaughter through attrition. A few more problems in that - can I support a long-term war with Ming? If I'm not careful, WE will kill *me* instead.

B) This is a much safer way. I can declare on Pegu to get me in a bunch of wars and vassalize them. This will potentially give me more money to work with both through the treasury and prolonged war taxes. At a first glance, this is much better than directly confronting Ming. However, the downside to this is that I do not know when Times of Troubles will end and that I need to strike at it as fast as possible or else I'm going to lose the huge advantage I will need to take on Ming.

C) I *hate* this option. I really, really hate it. However a few good things come off of this - it burns of WE and BB, WE especially since I'm not thinking that it's not going to hit 0 by 5/1411 (Currently, 6, which is fairly high).  And I can turn off army modifiers which will help me save up gold without getting WE through gold taxes like A) or B). However, very little can be achieved here and my warmongering spirit tells me to not take this unless I'm desperate for something.

[Heron TSG]

I vote for you to strike while the Time Of Troubles reigns supreme in Ming.

[Hyo]

I've currently gone with A), simply because that was the sole vote. The greatness of democracy, woohoo!

In any case, here's something I wrote while I was bored if you want to read it instead. I'm rather horrible at writing narratives so don't expect that I'll be doing this regularly though.

Spoiler: Boring Stuff (click to show/hide)

The Eternal Emperor

October 14, 1399

"All hail the emperor!"

 The crowd cheered, excited voices could be head all throughout the streets. The drums rolled, filling the city was a thunderous shake. The ground itself seemed to tremble, the sky itself seemed to bowed down, and even the sun seemed to fear to peek any further from its hiding place. At that point, there seemed no worries; no hatred or fear, no enemies or vengeance, as they fought over no differences, no squabbles made as they hugged their fellow brothers and sisters.

 Above it all stood the emperor, his shadow covering the city streets by the sunlight. He seemed to appear as a giant, greater than any man as his royal grace filled the people with awe and joy at their ruler. His arm slowly rose admist the noise and quickly drew the blade and slashed at the air. The sight only excited the crowd even more, cheering, screaming, shouting until their lungs would burst, at which they would cheer even more, for a long, long time.

And that night, Emperor Gokomatsu, the child of heaven, the emperor and sovereign ruler of Japan died, in a luxurious and royal chamer filled with the finest goods, and surround by food prepared by only the greatuest of chefs in the company of the most seductive and prettiest of all woman; in a chamber of locked doors, armed guards poised to kill at any moment, and surrounded by one of the darkest nights seen to man. The moon did not appear, the stars did not shine; only the bright lights from the chamber of pleasures filled the dark night; lonely but extragavant, as if another world, as if a dyinjg star was trying its best to shine brightly one last time before facing its last moment.

Dawn approached and there was no music. There were no lights. The world seemed empty only surrounded by guards encased in shining armor standing as still as statues. And within the once lively chamber, only the emperor lied dead, having lived through his final moments only a few hours ago.


There was no funeral.

UPDATE: Ming bashing is currently in progress. Here are a few status reports.

6/1411 - No particular events so far... Unam Sanctum, CHECK! Ming still in ToT, CHECK! In other words, it's prime time be Ming bashing. 4 thousand calvary land on the coasts of Macau and starts the siege process.

Currently, the tactic I am going for is quite a bit different yet similar at the same to Rastar's. Before I begin, let's do a few comparisons with each other:

             Year              Military          Ming                                                          Allies/Vassals         Territory
Rastar     Late-1440s     Around 30k    10 WE, War with GH, 150k troops                    All of Indochina      Aceh, Malacca, Parts of Indochina
Me          1411             Around 10k     8 WE, Peace, 50k troops, Time of Troubles       Brunei and Aceh     Japan, Malacca(Province), Malkassar
   
            Tactics                                                                        Technology                Avg. RR             Version
Rastar    Quick sieges, attrition-based warfare                                 Rastar 3, MNG 5         ~5%/Core          IN3.1
Me         Naval-Oriented warfare, lots of dancing around, High RR        JAP 3, MNG 3/4         ~20%/Core         IN3.2


That should give you a bit of an idea of our differences. The largest difference that I must say would be that he had all of Indochina at his back, I'm fighting this one more or less solo; though I do have a Time of Troubles advantage. My warfare will be calvary-based sieges where I go around sieging quickly and efficiently, using the fact that the Ming AI seems to love to stack troops together.

I will be forced to do a lot of micromanaging, especially regarding army movement, because I do not have the forces to fight up against Ming, even they're only 1/3 of the huge 150k army. Then again, my army numbers only 10k, so it's still a 5:1 odds.



11/1411 - 5 months have passed since my declaration and... nothing much happened. The Ming army is still busy chasing around the rebel armies in its turf and it's been diligent at it, which is a plus for me; since it gets rid of local competitors as well as giving me more time. Out of war-related news, our good and hard-working statesman Kunitada Suwa has fallen from stress due to the recent war. He was quickly replaced with a discipline-advisor, but only because there wasn't anything else worth getting and discipline is always nice.

12/1411 - The end of the year, and my first siege has come to a success. Jiangwen is now my territory. I've had minimal Ming contact so far, but I'm expecting to have all hell set loose upon me as soon as the next year begins.

In an interesting side note, my Ming occupation only has a RR of 4~5%, while Ming has a RR of 20~30% in their own provinces... I wonder what that means.. *cackle* *cackle*



1/1412 - The epic battle of the Yellow Sea ends with my victory. Hooray. Now the battle's been decisive and I have gained absolute sea superiority over the Ming, they're doomed now. XD

2/1412 - Just as a refresher to show you the current state of things. Europe and the rest of the world is still the same as usual; Tirmuids didn't seem to have a succession crisis yet, GH is huge, and Ming is even huger.  It's army dropped by 2k, but it's manpower is just... plain scary. This is going to be a long war...



3/1412 - Apparently Ming has a thing for the sea so it made a Galley at Shandong. My 10 cogs instantly ambush and sent it to the depth of the ocean. Bye, bye, galley~

4/1412 - On an unexpected sidenote, Malacca has now rebelled against me. Those bastards, I shall teach a lesson that they shall never forget and will engrave into their hearts.... as soon I'm finished with this war with Ming.... Which might take a long time. Ah well, hope Aceh get it's butt over here...



8/1412 - Update just to show a bit of what's going on. Something disappointing is that even with its ridiculous WE and high RR, it only has a handful of rebels.



1/1413 - And this, gentlemen, is why Ming is useless. Troop count has been severely lowered, thanks to the rebels. And I'm doing pretty fine in this campaign




4/1403 - And there goes a chunk of the Ming Empire. Oirat Horde declares itself independent. All the provinces there are rather dirt poor anyways so not that I care much but it means more income cut off from Ming which is always good.

[img'http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/871/eu318w.png[/img]http://5/1403 - My first strike on Ming forces good and proper! That's 20 regiments out of the way, though as you can see here, it was rather pretty weakened before I got to it.



9/1403 - I can get 13% off the diplomatic table.

I feel here is a turning point of some sort- Ming's rebels are now mostly down, cannot consider their help any longer. Ming's forces are weak, but it's manpower is still insanely high. Each of their forces are much larger than my army combined and can crush me. And I'm afraid that killing any more will invite rivals to join in on the dead carcass, limiting my ability to conquer and get a good treaty. Also, I'm currently at one of the best states, and I think my land situation will only get worse as time passes.

Therefore, I have decided to consider sueing for peace with Ming. I can currently get a value of 26% in a deal with them, and they won't refuse. The provinces I've chosen are a bit inland, but I can get more later. And I can always invade Korea if it comes to it; Korea would be dead meat when it comes to me. And it can't attack me either, and it's guaranteed by Ming. The other choices, Indochina; the keg of alliances and guarantees are a bit early to blow and Manchu's already at war with me. Should I continue at the risk of losing what I have or continue for a gamble of a better deal>

[Hyo]

And I forgot to mention that I slaughtered the rest of Ming's navy in an epic battle that lasted for almost a year. The result was 4 of my ships down, all of Ming's. A rather depressing result if you ask me.

[PenguinOverlord]

You're fast. My Japan-Giant couldn't beat the Ming in a naval battle until the 1500's, but I had to unite it and I was playing Takeda, which is entirely land. Blockading them is a really good tactic, though, in my experience, as it was in your game.

Yay for the Great Britain of Asia!
Why'd you take a province in the middle of China?

[Hyo]

Takeda? There's no Takeda in the game, no? I don't think Sengoku Jidai exists in IN... Unless you're talking about a modded HttT, of course.

In any case, yes, I'm fast, since I don't think I've seen anyone face Ming so early on in the game myself, and as for the navy.... it cost me quite the pretty ducats. Navy wasn't too hard when I could create like 10 ships at a time while Ming doesn't seem to bother- though the upkeep still is pretty harsh.

And I have *not* yet taken anything, I'm awaiting replies on what I should do: Continue the war or end it or end it then attack Korea to kill them again.

Finally, that was just a screen to give an example of how much I can get in a deal. And it'd also be a deal I'm satisfied with- You see, Hendan is beside Jiangsu. And I reeeeaaallly want Jiangsu rather badly. XD

P.S. Can countries with -3 stab reply to calls for aid?

[PenguinOverlord]

If I remember correctly, yes, but I haven't played in a while.
Takeda was in a modded game, yes. It was in a Sengoku Jidai mod.

[Hyo]

 Ming is now officially dead meat, carcass for the crows to feed. The Great Battle of China now consists of me.... and those filthy rebels who are popping up *everywhere*! Ugh! I need more provinces for Jinan, dammit!

Or not. I really need to remember how to *properly* do AARs and actually bother to take notes and make screenshots. Last update was much, much better.

So, a general overview of things:

Malacca: These people *hate* me with a passion. They've been rebelling every time I check on them and it's probably already been 5 rebellions already. Thankfully, Aceh is keeping them at bay but it's annoying.

Ming: I am slaughtering Ming. Attrition and dancing around you say? Pshh, that's for wimps. The last of the Ming army has been dead long ago, and now it's a competition between the rebels and me to see who care kill each other faster. Speaking of Ming's large army, here's a screenshot to commemorate its doom.



In any case, Ming's war was a lot easier now that the rebels had started popping and doing its work- that and Ming was out of gold. I'm not sure if it had been taking loans; I don't think it's at a deficit when their armies are dead, but they've had 0 ducats for a while now. I've had another naval battle with them just so that I could wipe the 6 cogs they had for the heck of it.

I've now bashed Ming so far into pieces that I'm currently able to get this deal out of them: Basically, all the provinces surrounding Jiangsu except Jinan... WHICH IS A BLOODY 22$ @#*&*!

In any case, I'm rather happy because I've always wanted Jiangsu (doesn't everyone)- being the single most valuable CoT in East Asia, and Japan's mercantilism will mean that I'll be making a lot of money off of it very nicely. If I push a bit more, I'll be able to settle for Jiangsu in my next war with Ming. That is- *if* I push more.


Manchu - Special notice goes to Manchu who had the guts to attack me while fighting off Ming. They quickly attempted an amphibious invasion against me, but I quickly went and demolished their puny fleet to pieces. I then held off war against them for a while, looking to vassalize and get Liaodong/Haixi off of them once I was done with Ming, but that never happened. Due to my occupation reaching the borders of Manchu, Manchu had decided that it was fit to send 10k of its armies against me. Not exactly the largest, but that would make my life so much harder.

Aceh/Brunei - They *finally* decided to join in on the war in 1418. I mean join as in actually have ships and troops in battle, not just sitting there and racking up the war taxes while I go and get my troops killed. Well, kudos goes to Aceh who had kept Malacca safe for me all those years while I was overly busy with Ming.

Rebels - I said that Ming was a joke, right? Well, the rebels are a completely different story. They're scaring me- they now have 10k armies coming up against me at all sides, and it isn't pretty. They've already dominated most of China, and the only remaining lands are *mine*, meaning my war score's going dooooooooown. Deeeeeeeeeeep dooooown. At this rate, it's either eat or be eaten and I have a bad feeling that I'm going to be eaten if I dare fight against them.

On a good news, I haven't had a any rebels pop in *my* occupied territory of Ming! Take that, Ming!



Top to bottom rebel info: 7k, 8k, 4k, 6k, 4k (20 regiments), 5k. In other words- BRUTAL.
Top to bottom Japan info: 1k, 1k, 3k, 7k


So currently, I am thinking of whether to cut the deal off here or fight the rebels for more potential war score. Some points that discourage me are the sheer number of rebels, and my MP, which as you can see, has been rather stable throughout the war but have gotten rather low recently.

Some points that urge me on is the possibility of getting Jinan this war, opening up the possibility of me getting Jiangsu the next war. Which is nothing but pure awesome.

P.S.

[mainiac]

Why don't you consolidate and keep the rebels out of what you've got, but let the rebels take over the remaining territories for a while?  The war will potentially be a death blow to Ming that way.  There can only be one kingdom of the entire world and you can't let those upstarts keep the title just because they've had it for a couple thousand years.

[Heron TSG]

Aye, I'm sure that you can get some infighting to go on between those rebels.

[The Transcendent Tyrant]

Retreat out of China with as many troops as possible and start encouraging nationalist revolts. Hopefully everything will collapse into a bunch of warring city-states which you can sweep up afterwards. If not, you've at least got a heavily weakened Ming.

[Hyo]

Sadly, I've already gotten further and made a peace deal with the provinces I offered above. I noticed the rebel bit and thought that I'd point a few things out.

-Most of the rebels are pretenders, which means that while waiting out is good and all (if possible, anyways) when the pretender takes the throne, Ming will send all those huge rebels (and more upcoming) at me. And while Japan still can't be attacked, Ming will have enough of a force to push me right out of the mainland.

-Nationalist rebels, as far as I have seen, seem to be useless. They defect from Ming to Ming. Yeah.... Also, different groups of rebels apparently don't fight each other, which means that I can't get a huge Cantonese revolt to take out those pretenders either.

-As for Ming as a death blow, they've got 2 provinces left which the rebels will occupy shortly. They have almost no gold, no army, and -3 stab. That's a rather brutal deathblow if anyone asks me. Oh, and when the pretender *do* take the throne, it's going to go bankrupt within 3 months. xD

[mainiac]

Bankruptsy does rather painful things to an armies ability to fight.  You could consider slogging it out just a little longer and taking the whole darn country.

[Hyo]

But Ming doesn't have anything that would cost upkeep; and pretenders can't take the throne or be broken during a war I believe.