Japanese Conquest Comparison game

[MadDjinn]

As we're still waiting for the AU to drop a few new games to help work different styles, I thought a Conquest game would be interesting to do comparisons with.

game: (no mods, 1.61)

Japan, Monarch, small, highlands (random feature set)

Barbarians, City Flipping post Conquest, Pemanent Alliances, Tech Trading, Random seed regeneration, and locked data.

oh, and many enemies (I think I added 1-2 more than the standard amount)

starting wars pre-Samurai?

of key interest here is initial strategies related to getting CS, Iron & Machinery for Samurai.

and Vassalage/Theocracy for extra starting XP.

+ catapaults.

...

also, upgrading the Samurai.. when and to which unit?

personally I prefer hitting Riflemen first, and getting 3x City Raiding Riflemen. You can still create more Samurai at the same time, and will likely be far enough ahead in tech that the enemies wouldn't also have riflemen, so grenadiers are less needed right away.

[MadDjinn]

I've finally made a good attempt at this map.

Barbarians on Highlands are annoying
wave after wave really slows down the development.

It'll be interesting to see which direction people went for their first few colonies.

I'll save more details for later, just in case others are attempting it, but I managed to get the Pyramids built, and am working towards the Great Library.

there was 0 chance in getting the CS slingshot to work, since there was 3-4 other civs fighting over the religions.

mildly disconcerting point. I'm at 1AD with no religion. Only recently got trade routes to two close civs, and that's due to me making roads in someone else's territory.

[DaveV]

Just so you know someone else is playing this one...

It's been an interesting game for me:

Spoiler:

I was only able to fit four cities between the AIs during the expansion phase. I've had great luck with religion: Cathy, Izzy, and Lizzy are all Hindu, along with me (Izzy discovered it, I caught it from her, and I've carefully spread it to my cities). I've worked hard on keeping those allies happy, and haven't had to worry about the eastern front.
Freddy declared war on me early, but I hammered him with axes, took a city, and he was happy to go to the peace table. I later declared war on him, and took two more cities. Even though he's putting a lot of cutural pressure, I haven't attacked him because I'm trying to avoid "you declared war on our friend" messages from my allies.
So my main target has been the Mongols. I've taken five cities from him, and finally acquired iron, just in time for samurai. It's 830, and I'm gearing up for an assault on Alexander (since my friends don't like him, he's another safe target).

[MadDjinn]

I've actually been away for the last few weeks (and not near a computer).. so I'll be back into checking on this game soon.

your game seems similar to mine, with the exception of the religions...

the Pyramid-Great Library attempt works fairly well on this map.

and I agree with the expansion issues... I generally can lay down 5 cities total before switching to conquering. the 5th (1st city to place if fast enough, otherwise it doesn't happen) is in a sweet spot near Isabella.

I'll pop up a map when I get a chance.

freddy seems easy to knock back, and is good for a few cities. Cathy tends to want to attack me often (she cuts off a large area to prevent expansion, but doesn't use it).

and getting Iron is fairly difficult. war seems to be the only way.