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Contents 1 A Modest Guide for Japan, Land of the Rising Sun 1.1 Getting Started 1.2 Your First National Idea and Opening Moves 1.3 Middle of the Game 1.4 The Late Game 1.5 Miscellaneous Information and FAQ 1.5.1 Why Do You Keep Harping On Production Income? 1.5.2 Why can’t I be Nice and Mean at the same time? 1.5.3 What about accepted cultures?

[edit] A Modest Guide for Japan, Land of the Rising Sun

So, you've gotten tired of boring European countries, with their petty religious squabbles and foolish Eurocentric, Post-Colonial outlook? Then you have made an excellent choice in attempting a game as Japan. Japan offers a different gameplay experience from Europe, the Middle East, or even Ming China. You are on an island, so no matter what you choose to do, you cannot hide behind endless swarms of ground troops, like Ming, nor can you easily absorb new territories without taking certain national ideas or changing your domestic policies, like the countries in India. Yet, the wealth of Asia is waiting for you to take it, and if you follow this guide, the Orient will be yours before those grubby, rude, round eyed devils from Europe show up with their missionaries and guns.

NOTE: This guide is written using Version 1.1 of EU3, with no add-ons. The game has not even been out for a month yet as this is being written, so bear this in mind if you are reading this two years into the future.

[edit] Getting Started

Before you sit down and start sending your samurai off to attack your neighbors, there are some things you need to consider. First, unlike other countries in other tech groups, Japan cannot westernize. Thus, you are stuck in the Chinese tech group for the entire game. This gives you a 100% penalty to tech advancement. Basically, Europe will be researching everything twice as fast as you are. Even if you build manufactories, keep inflation down, embrace an innovative policy, and take Scientific Revolution as a national idea, you will never catch up with the Europeans.

This does not mean that there is no hope for you. Technological advancement is not the end all and be all of EU3, contrary to what some may think. It does mean, however, that you have to plan accordingly. You may only get a total of 4 or 5 national ideas during an entire Grand Campaign. It also means that you cannot just go toe to toe with the Europeans in a slugfest; instead, guile and good strategy must be used to overcome them.

Because you cannot get as many national ideas, and you will get them slower than you are accustomed to in Europe, you have to plan what your goal is from Day 1. Essentially, you have to decide whether you want to be the Nice Japanese or the Mean Japanese. If you choose the Nice Japanese route, Quest for the New World should be taken as soon as possible. This will allow you to explore and eventually colonize. It also means fewer wars with neighbors. If you choose Mean Japan, you should take Deus Vult. Only one other country has your religion (Shinto), so Deus Vult means you may attack anyone on the entire planet without penalty. This national idea will never go out of style for you if you want to wage constant war.

With your goal in mind, the very first thing you should do (and indeed, almost the only thing you can do) is begin building up your military. You should make a cavalry only army as large as you can support, while you also build a galley based navy as large as you can support. Your navy should include enough transports to move at least 12 regiments at one time. This will keep you occupied until your first national idea shows up.

Your first change in Domestic Policy sliders will depend on whether you want to be Nice Japan or Mean Japan. Nice Japan will be exploring, colonizing, and trading with the world, while Mean Japan will be looking for smaller nations to push around or larger nations to challenge for the glory. Nice Japan should change domestic policies to gain colonists. There are several ways to do this based on Japan's starting set up. You could go towards free trade or narrow-minded.

Wait a minute, you are thinking to yourself, why would I want to be narrow-minded? Won't that make research even harder? Yes, it will; however, given the harsh penalties for the Chinese tech group, what is another 1% penalty? On the other hand, the extra missionaries and colonists, not to mention stability cost reduction, are quite helpful. The point is that Japan's starting domestic policies do not allow for any colonists at all. And if you are going the Nice Japan route, you need colonists... lots of colonists.

If you are going to be Mean Japan, you should prioritize Aristocracy and Centralized. Aristocracy will grant you all kinds of bonuses that will make your life easier, including cheaper cavalry and a production bonus increases. Remember that production income will always be your most important source of revenue, so doing whatever you can to improve it is a good thing. The extra diplomats are handy too, but not nearly as important. As for centralized, the benefits are obvious. Pick whichever one works for you.

Why not any of the military Domestic Policies as Mean Japan, you may ask? Because you are Shinto, that's why. Shinto provides a +50% morale boost to your armies and navies. That bonus gives your armies an iron will on the battlefield against your soon-to-be enemies. Toying with Domestic Policies to make it better is small potatoes, and the attention to Domestic Policy can be best used in other categories. Considering that in the future Ming will be your enemy, money is a more important consideration.

[edit] Your First National Idea and Opening Moves

So you've built a military and a navy for a few years, and your first national idea has come up. What should you take?

Nice Japan will want to take Quest for the New World right away. Hopefully, with the right advisers and changes to Domestic Policies, you are getting a trickle of colonists. It won't be much, but you just need a colonist every few years so you can create conquistadors and explorers. Don't worry about painting the map with colonies just yet. As your domestic policies improve, your rate of colonization will improve. Besides, you are already in Asia. The Europeans have to explore to get to you, but you are already here. This gives you considerable colonization leeway for the first 50-100 years. If you are really lucky as Nice Japan, Russia will never form or get access to Siberia, so you will be able to colonize central Asia as much as you damn well please. And don't worry about your neighbors exploring or colonizing. Manchu, Ming, Korea, and other countries that potentially will border terra incognita won't be taking Quest for the New World, so you are safe from competing neighbors. However, if they know about your colonies, they will seize them during wars, so make sure your military covers your colonies. Nice Japan doesn't mean wimpy Japan.

While doing this, you should build up your diplomatic position with royal marriages and alliances, while you should also be building up trade income. It will be slow going at first, but it can be rewarding as time goes by. Besides the occasional inheritance could come in handy.

Mean Japan will be taking Deus Vult. Upon taking Deus Vult, its time to Declare War. But who should be your first target? Ryuku. Wait, Ryuku has the same religion as you do, and same culture. How can you use Deus Vult to get a cost free (in terms of stability) war against them? Check their diplomatic status. You will notice they are vassals of Ming and probably allied to them. If they are, DOW Ming and annex Ryuku. It's not hard (they don't even have a fortress). Viola! You have annexed a province with your culture and religion, something that will not happen again for the entire game.

But what to do with Ming? First thing's first, micromanage your navy and sink Ming's navy. No navy = No Chinese hordes landing on your shores, not to mention some decent war score. Should you invade Ming? Unless you are really good or really lucky, I advise against it at this stage of the game. You simply won't have the manpower, military strength, or finances to do more than irritate the huge Ming empire. And trust me, even at -3 stability, Ming has limitless manpower and will not stop fighting your invading armies until they attrition you to death or you sack several provinces. You can win land battles against Ming countless times, but you will run out of manpower long before they will. My advice: take peace and move on to your next targets.

And what are your next targets? Korea, Manchu, Bali, Sulu, and Brunei all make good targets. As long as you pay attention to diplomatic status, you should be able to easily defeat each of these countries. You should force annex as many provinces as your Bad Boy allows. After that, force vassalize your targets and begin the long process of diploannexing.

[edit] Middle of the Game

Once the 1600s roll around, it is time to take stock of your situation.

If you are Mean Japan, every province in Southeast Asia, except for Ming, should be annexed by you or should be part of your growing empire of vassals. You should probably leave Ming alone until you have built a big empire for two reasons. First, you need the manpower and wealth before attacking Ming. Second, annexing or force vassalizing your neighbors denies Ming allies to help them or victims to enlarge their already large empire. When you have reached a sort of "imperial critical mass", you may pursue aggression against Ming.

When attacking Ming, do not think in terms of completely defeating them in one, two, or even three wars. Even at 99% war score, Ming will be resistant to harsh terms of peace. Also, many of the provinces you will want to annex have high war score values, so grabbing more than two or three provinces in a peace deal will be unlikely. As such, it does you no good to prosecute a war for 10 years against them, since they will probably never agree to harsh terms anyway. Instead, fight shorter wars for modest gains. Each time you take land from them, they get weaker and become easier prey.

During your first war with Ming, you should attempt to occupy the capital and the COT at Jiangsu, along with a few other provinces. This will drive the war score up and they will make you offers. Your armies have higher morale than theirs do, so winning battles for the first two years will not be hard. The hard part will be maintaining the strength of your regiments as your manpower bleeds away due to attrition and casualties. Generally speaking, the first two years of war against Ming are profitable, but after that, their advantage in manpower makes life more difficult. Also, always maintain naval superiority, as Ming will try to land smaller armies in your home islands.

I have said earlier that you should keep an all cavalry army. This still applies when fighting Ming; however, it is still beneficial to conduct assaults, especially if you can do so without using up your manpower. Thus, I found it useful to hire mercenary infantry at the beginning of the war, use them to assault during the first six months, and when their manpower is reduced to less than 250 men per regiment, disband them. Remember that mercenaries do not cost manpower when you recruit them, but they reinforce from your manpower, meaning that beaten up mercenaries will drain your manpower dry just as surely as your normal armies will.

Once you've defeated Ming a few times, you will probably annex enough of them to render them harmless to your national interests. At that point, force vassalize them. If you just love Bad Boy wars, feel free to forcefully annex all of China over the course of a few decades, but don't complain to me if you aren't ready to fight in a never ending cycle of Bad Boy wars.

Nice Japan should have explored Siberia, the entire Pacific, India, the Spice Islands, and parts of Africa by now. Depending on what kind of colonization you have in mind, you may have either colonized the Spice Islands (for their high production values) or Siberia (for slightly lower production values, but the ego value of painting Siberia with Japanese flags should not be understated). There is little reason to colonize towards Africa, as Africa is not as valuable to colonize as things closer to home. Also, as of 1.1, the value of Slaves is bugged. Thus, you gain no trade or production income from Slave provinces. Considering the number of provinces in Africa that produce Slaves, colonization is a waste of your precious time.

As Nice Japan, the question will arise as to whether or not you should pursue colonial ventures in the Americas. This is a tricky question, because the lure of Aztec and Inca gold cannot be denied. On the other hand, your naval tech makes sailing from Japan to Mexico a difficult proposition. You could colonize naval bases, and then colonize parts of the west coast of America to give you a sufficient supply chain to support military operations across the Pacific. You could then annex the Aztecs and Incas, but this will place you into direct contact with Europeans much earlier than letting them come to Asia. While they are at a disadvantage should they try to make war on you in Asia (sailing around the world to fight in tropical provinces with high attrition values makes their advantage in technology worthless), fighting a war in the Americas will be much harder. On the other hand, the Europeans seem incapable of annexing the Aztecs and Incas before 1700 in version 1.1 anyway, so you have time to decide and plan how to execute it. Should you choose to leave America alone, don't sweat it. You will get plenty of income from all those spice and chinaware provinces in Asia and India. The fur from Siberia is not bad either. (Note: Siberia also has a few gold provinces to colonize, but they produce less gold than the Incas and Aztecs.)

What national ideas should you focus on? At this point in the game, you will be lucky if you have managed to get to your third national idea, so do not get carried away with national idea planning. Mean Japan will get plenty of mileage out of Smithian Economics (+10% to production incomes) and Viceroys (+30% tax income in overseas provinces). Nice Japan also gets plenty of mileage from these ideas, but you also need colonists. You might take Colonial Ventures (+1 colonist a year). If you think trade income is worth it, try Shrewd Commerce Practices (+10% compete chance) and couple it with National Trade Policy (+10% Trade Income). There is plenty of trade income to be had in Asia, and if you colonize, there will be more. It's your choice, and your personal playing style will dictate how you approach this.

In terms of Domestic Policies, Mean Japan should be fully centralized and fully aristocratic at this point. Nice Japan should probably be fully narrow-minded, and be almost fully free trade. The question is what other policies should you pursue? Mean Japan can choose to either go towards Free Subjects (better morale, better production income), Naval (cheaper ships, better overseas income, better naval morale), or Offensive (better shock value, better morale). Nice Japan will want to look into Plutocracy (better trade income, cheaper ships) and Free Subjects (better morale, better production income). You have a lot of options by this point in the game, so feel free to explore your opportunities.

In terms of your form of government, remember that your government tech will be researching as slowly as everything else. You won't have a plethora of government forms like you would in Europe. Mean Japan will probably want to remain a feudal monarchy until Administrative Monarchy becomes available (bonus to production income). Nice Japan could get some mileage out of Merchant Republic or Administrative Republic, but not much. In all honesty, your form of government will not be crucial to your game.

[edit] The Late Game

Assuming you are not bored with your vast empire by 1700, you will find there are still things you can accomplish.

If you have not done so already, Mean Japan should be attacking India at this point. In all likelihood, they will have a small tech advantage over you, but once you have annexed most of Ming, you will have all the force limits and manpower you need to thrash whomever has taken power in India (as of 1.1, Vijayangar seems to dominate India in every game). The difficulties you will encounter in fighting in India are that the provinces have the same kind of bad attrition values as Southeast Asian provinces, but they will have fortresses with good technology protecting them. Thus, warfare in India will be as bloody and costly as it was in your first few wars with Ming. The difference is that your enemies in India are not as wealthy as Ming, nor do they have quite as much manpower. My advice is to seize Ceylon first as a base of operations. Then, begin annexing India from south to north.

As for Nice Japan, there is no reason that you cannot have turned every square inch of Siberia into cities by this point in the game, along with the Spice Islands.

Either route you take, you will be the wealthiest country in the world. If you don't believe me, check the ledger. You may not have as much technology as the Europeans, but they can't afford to build seven manufactories of each type like you can. Yes, you can really do this. You will have enough income to finance seven manufactories before the first one is completed. (I only had around 30% inflation from building seven manufactories of each type, which isn't bad for a country that far behind in technology.) However, don't get too carried away with manufactories. After all, even with 35 points of investment in each technology coming from manufactories, you still won't catch up to Europe (but you might catch up to the Muslim tech group).

It is in the late game that the world will be your oyster, and you can pursue ahistorical or bizarre goals.

[edit] Miscellaneous Information and FAQ

[edit] Why Do You Keep Harping On Production Income?

Because production income is the entire point of building an empire in Asia. You don’t believe me? Check out the province information for provinces in Asia that produce chinaware and spices. Now compare the production income in these provinces to the production income of provinces in Europe or provinces that do not produce these valuable goods. Even at lousy production efficiency, you can tell that production income outstrips tax income. If you follow my advice on trying to get the best production efficiency possible with your level of technology, you will see even greater incomes from your provinces.

Also, production income, unlike tax income, is never modified by being overseas, culture, religion, or province structures that improve tax income. Thus, no matter what else is going on in provinces, you can count on production income. Remember that Japan is overseas from her entire empire, and most of her empire will not share culture or religion (unless you are Nice Japan). This cuts tax revenue down to 10% or less, while production income is left alone.

Production income is more consistent than trade income. For Mean Japan, this is a godsend because a high Bad Boy score will prevent you from building any real income from trade.

[edit] Why can’t I be Nice and Mean at the same time?

Go ahead and be Mean and Nice at the same time. I’m not going to try and stop you. However, you should be aware of some things before you try to be a massive colonial power AND a massive, warmongering juggernaut.

First, you have limited national ideas and it takes a long time before you even get national idea #2. Thus, you are stuck either exploring, colonizing, or making war. Yes, I’m aware that you can change your national idea, but this becomes harder as you get bigger. As stability costs get higher, it takes longer and longer to recover from swapping national ideas. Besides, what’s the point of taking Deus Vult for free DOWs against other religions if you are going to lose stability for swapping national ideas?

Furthermore, while other countries are not exploring, they may learn about your colonies. That means that during wars, they may grab them, forcing you to spend effort in protecting them, particularly when it comes to colonies in Siberia. Warfare is expensive, and so is colonization in Asia. You can try and do both, but you will not make as much progress with either one in the same way as you would if you concentrated on one or the other.

That being said, Mean Japan should still colonize Taiwan and other unclaimed provinces that she can see at the start. It may take some effort to line up the right policies and advisors, but it can be worth it (Taiwan has chinaware and plenty of natives to join the colony).

As for Nice Japan, I never said not to fight wars. Your progress will be slower because of a lack of CBs. You could declare war without CBs, but the stability loss is not without consequence. And because Japan is not connected to anything by land, you will have to colonize places that have a land connection in order to get border disputes so as to gain claims on provinces.

[edit] What about accepted cultures?

If you are Mean Japan, you can reasonably expect to gain Chihan and/or Korean as accepted cultures. Yes, they are also a part of your culture group, but various random events treat accepted cultures and cultures in your culture group as different, thus it is good to have them as both.

In all likelihood, Korean will eventually be lost as an accepted culture because your conquests will marginalize the percentage of your population that is Korean. When it falls below 10% of your core provinces, you'll lose it. Before this happens, try to convert as much of Korea to your religion as possible.

As for Chihan, you will probably keep it as a culture once you gain it. There are so many provinces that you will conquer that have this culture, that it is unlikely, though not impossible, to lose it. Conquering India, Southeast Asia, Korea, Brunei, and Atjeh did not result in a loss of Chihan. If you annex the Manchu, Chagatai, and the other hordes, along with the Asian provinces, you might lose it.

If you can keep Chihan as a culture, you can expect even more income from China. That 30% penalty for wrong culture really hurts when provinces produce 15-20 ducats in taxes, so gaining that culture can be a real boon.

Nice Japan will have a much harder time gaining other cultures because of all those provinces that will be Japanese; however, this won't be as big of a deal as you might think. You will miss out on the tax revenue from conquered provinces, but you will have 50 provinces that share your culture and religion, more than making up for it. Most nations with huge colonial empires have this problem anyway, so it's nothing to worry about.