State of the Nation, 1399 to 1499
I'm slowly feeling my way around this AAR business. I started off in a very gameplay-orientated style, but seem to have slipped into more of a history-book format. Nothing wrong with that, but I thought I'd take some time out to see how far Japan's come in the first 100 years of the game and maybe get some feedback on my choices as a player.
As you'll have noticed by now I've taken the first century pretty slowly, but it seems to have paid off. I was lucky in the extreme that Ming decided to fall apart when it did and although I funded a few rebellions it was no more than two or three.
Had that not worked the plan had been to swallow Korea and probably all of Manchu, whose capital province Hinggan is base tax 10. Then it would have been a case of using scorched earth tactics to wear Ming down. I would probably needed a bigger navy too and to wait until they had declared war on someone else.
The plan now is to keep taking chunks out of Wu, but I'm not going to get a casus belli as we only share a border across straits and I'm not sure that's good enough for a boundary dispute (which makes sense, but is no help). I'm currently allied with Ming, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but makes it tricky to pursue my claim on Liaodong.
Economy
Number of provinces: 31 (19 in 1399)
Annual Census Tax: 146.86 (69.69 in 1399)
I'm obviously making a lot more money now than I was in 1399, but crucially the take from each province has gone up to. Of course, some of that's due to being at +3 stability and more centralised, but it all helps. This is what has let me sustain a larger army - I had something like 22,000 troops at the time I invaded Korea and that's now up to 32,000.
My real reason for paying close attention to the per province income is I'm still deathly afraid of falling too far behind in the tech race.
Technology
Monthly investment: 40.00 (20.6 in 1399)
Well this isn't looking good. I've pushed up the per province income, but these numbers are dire. Just approaching Land tech 6, which the wiki informs me is a 1430 technology. We're already 70 years off the pace! I think I should be devoting more to Production and Trade as these have a compound effect on research, but I wanted to get an edge in case a big war with Ming broke out. Don't ask me why I pushed for Gov 6 and then left it at that.
Military
Army size: 32/45 (6/28 in 1399)
Manpower: 33,498 (15,274 in 1399)
This is looking much better. I'm not at my force limit yet, but manpower has doubled over the century which means that if I get into a serious war I can at least last a bit longer.
Navy size: 45/52 (37/44 in 1399)
Navy size hasn't changed all that much. I added nine extra carracks and now have 18 big ships, 17 galleys and 10 cogs. Ming has a 57 galley fleet and although I'm told that my carracks should have the edge a naval defeat would leave my forces stranded and my island provinces (including Japan) vulnerable.
Armed forces comparison: 1399
Armed forces comparison: 1499
As the comparison shows the disintegration of Ming has really closed the gap. I have complete confidence that if a war came with either of the two Chinese powers I'd be able to win. My only concern is that I don't want to go to war with one just to weaken it and have the other state come in and make huge gains. This is a particular concern with my strategy to attack Wu as Ming has cores on all their provinces.
Home affairs
Japan is still a feudal monarchy and not likely to change out of that for some time. I can't even switch to empire as that's not an option for the Chinese tech group. Wu and Ming are now seen as natural rivals as well as threats, so that's progress. I'm still getting these godawful 'Colonise the Islands to the North' missions, but I keep ignoring them as I hardly need more dirt-poor provinces dragging my research rate down.
Note the high relations with our ally Ming. At present I feel pretty secure and will be happy as long as I get a chance to beat up on Wu.
The Court
Emperor Itoku II has been kicking around since the mid-15th century and even his heir is getting on. The 8* diplomacy rating and 6* admin is pretty nice and he's been a very successful ruler all told. His son looks less stellar, but not the worst leader I've seen. As one of my goals is to keep the Yamato line going the presence of an heir is always a good thing, whoever they are.
At present I'm trying to rebuild my advisers after deaths. I don't need Keitai Imagawa at the moment, but since Oogimachi's claim is only average and Itoku is very old I'm keeping him around. My cultural tradition isn't high enough to guarantee a five-star adviser right now, so I'm waiting for it to rebuild to 100% before I hire anyone else.
Japan is now as Free Subject-y as it can get without annoying people, so the next moves will be towards Innovative, which will have the nice effect of cutting tech costs, but will eventually cause the missionary pool to dry up. I'll try and convert as much as I can before that point. This is looking a lot more acceptable than 1399, but the -4 Mercantilism means that I still only send merchants to Settsu, my CoT.
Here's how Japan looks internally. Mostly cored, mostly Japanese, mostly Shinto. Another product of my softly-softly approach is that I'm not going to have problems with overextension any time soon.
World affairs
Japan in 1499
World in 1499
Nothing too remarkable here. France the UK and Castille all doing well. Portugal's gone, so that's one nation with historic links to Japan that we just won't be seeing. I'm in no desperate rush to westernise (well I am, but want it to feel natural when it happens).
Bohemia doing very well in central Europe, Russia's already formed and India's looking a lot more tidy.
Well that's it for the current state of play. In my next update Japan will push deeper into China in a bid to sieze the Mandate of Heaven from the current corrupt rulers and realise the Yamato destiny!
I'm slowly feeling my way around this AAR business. I started off in a very gameplay-orientated style, but seem to have slipped into more of a history-book format. Nothing wrong with that, but I thought I'd take some time out to see how far Japan's come in the first 100 years of the game and maybe get some feedback on my choices as a player.
As you'll have noticed by now I've taken the first century pretty slowly, but it seems to have paid off. I was lucky in the extreme that Ming decided to fall apart when it did and although I funded a few rebellions it was no more than two or three.
Had that not worked the plan had been to swallow Korea and probably all of Manchu, whose capital province Hinggan is base tax 10. Then it would have been a case of using scorched earth tactics to wear Ming down. I would probably needed a bigger navy too and to wait until they had declared war on someone else.
The plan now is to keep taking chunks out of Wu, but I'm not going to get a casus belli as we only share a border across straits and I'm not sure that's good enough for a boundary dispute (which makes sense, but is no help). I'm currently allied with Ming, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but makes it tricky to pursue my claim on Liaodong.
Economy
Number of provinces: 31 (19 in 1399)
Annual Census Tax: 146.86 (69.69 in 1399)
Per province: 4.74 (3.67 in 1399)
I'm obviously making a lot more money now than I was in 1399, but crucially the take from each province has gone up to. Of course, some of that's due to being at +3 stability and more centralised, but it all helps. This is what has let me sustain a larger army - I had something like 22,000 troops at the time I invaded Korea and that's now up to 32,000.
My real reason for paying close attention to the per province income is I'm still deathly afraid of falling too far behind in the tech race.
Technology
Monthly investment: 40.00 (20.6 in 1399)
Per province: 1.29 (1.08 in 1399)
Well this isn't looking good. I've pushed up the per province income, but these numbers are dire. Just approaching Land tech 6, which the wiki informs me is a 1430 technology. We're already 70 years off the pace! I think I should be devoting more to Production and Trade as these have a compound effect on research, but I wanted to get an edge in case a big war with Ming broke out. Don't ask me why I pushed for Gov 6 and then left it at that.
Military
Army size: 32/45 (6/28 in 1399)
Army upkeep: 9.1 ducats/month (1.3 ducats/month in 1399)
Manpower: 33,498 (15,274 in 1399)
This is looking much better. I'm not at my force limit yet, but manpower has doubled over the century which means that if I get into a serious war I can at least last a bit longer.
Navy size: 45/52 (37/44 in 1399)
Navy upkeep: 2.4 ducats/month (1.5 ducats/month in 1399)
Navy size hasn't changed all that much. I added nine extra carracks and now have 18 big ships, 17 galleys and 10 cogs. Ming has a 57 galley fleet and although I'm told that my carracks should have the edge a naval defeat would leave my forces stranded and my island provinces (including Japan) vulnerable.
Armed forces comparison: 1399
Armed forces comparison: 1499
As the comparison shows the disintegration of Ming has really closed the gap. I have complete confidence that if a war came with either of the two Chinese powers I'd be able to win. My only concern is that I don't want to go to war with one just to weaken it and have the other state come in and make huge gains. This is a particular concern with my strategy to attack Wu as Ming has cores on all their provinces.
Home affairs
Japan is still a feudal monarchy and not likely to change out of that for some time. I can't even switch to empire as that's not an option for the Chinese tech group. Wu and Ming are now seen as natural rivals as well as threats, so that's progress. I'm still getting these godawful 'Colonise the Islands to the North' missions, but I keep ignoring them as I hardly need more dirt-poor provinces dragging my research rate down.
Note the high relations with our ally Ming. At present I feel pretty secure and will be happy as long as I get a chance to beat up on Wu.
The Court
Emperor Itoku II has been kicking around since the mid-15th century and even his heir is getting on. The 8* diplomacy rating and 6* admin is pretty nice and he's been a very successful ruler all told. His son looks less stellar, but not the worst leader I've seen. As one of my goals is to keep the Yamato line going the presence of an heir is always a good thing, whoever they are.
At present I'm trying to rebuild my advisers after deaths. I don't need Keitai Imagawa at the moment, but since Oogimachi's claim is only average and Itoku is very old I'm keeping him around. My cultural tradition isn't high enough to guarantee a five-star adviser right now, so I'm waiting for it to rebuild to 100% before I hire anyone else.
Japan is now as Free Subject-y as it can get without annoying people, so the next moves will be towards Innovative, which will have the nice effect of cutting tech costs, but will eventually cause the missionary pool to dry up. I'll try and convert as much as I can before that point. This is looking a lot more acceptable than 1399, but the -4 Mercantilism means that I still only send merchants to Settsu, my CoT.
Here's how Japan looks internally. Mostly cored, mostly Japanese, mostly Shinto. Another product of my softly-softly approach is that I'm not going to have problems with overextension any time soon.
World affairs
Japan in 1499
World in 1499
Nothing too remarkable here. France the UK and Castille all doing well. Portugal's gone, so that's one nation with historic links to Japan that we just won't be seeing. I'm in no desperate rush to westernise (well I am, but want it to feel natural when it happens).
Bohemia doing very well in central Europe, Russia's already formed and India's looking a lot more tidy.
Well that's it for the current state of play. In my next update Japan will push deeper into China in a bid to sieze the Mandate of Heaven from the current corrupt rulers and realise the Yamato destiny!
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