How to fight Korea as Japan

[merkava808]

Hi,
I've notcied that Korea always allies Ming and Haixi, it's 1470's 80's and I want to expand into the mainland, Korea is obviously the option. Yet, I can't possibly fight all three of them, how do you do it?

[Reverend Belial]

In my experience, you don't. Just today I got incredibly lucky and Korea had no allies. Literally at all. "This'll be a picnic" I thought. Their navy is three times my size, they're ahead of me in tech because their leaders apparently are annointed in some elixir of the gods at birth while mine are lucky to not be punted accross the room during infancy, their troops cut through mine like butter. If there's an experience I've learned during my many attempts at playing Japan, it's this:

Don't bother with Korea. Colonize Malaysia, take on the Jurchen, bide your time until you can westernize and hope that nobody else does, but don't even consider following history. It's not gonna work.

[merkava808]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

In my experience, you don't. Just today I got incredibly lucky and Korea had no allies. Literally at all. "This'll be a picnic" I thought. Their navy is three times my size, they're ahead of me in tech because their leaders apparently are annointed in some elixir of the gods at birth while mine are lucky to not be punted accross the room during infancy, their troops cut through mine like butter. If there's an experience I've learned during my many attempts at playing Japan, it's this:

Don't bother with Korea. Colonize Malaysia, take on the Jurchen, bide your time until you can westernize and hope that nobody else does, but don't even consider following history. It's not gonna work.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sorry I don't play Asia that often, who is Jurchen?

[Reverend Belial]

Haixi, Yeren, and the yellow one whose name I forget. The people who form Manchu and then Qing. The three tribes east of Ming, directly north of Korea. They're usually locked in infighting so you can usually manage to grab some land while they're occupied.

Edit: Jianzhou is the name I was looking for

[Reverend Belial]

I don't play Asia often either, but when I do it's usually to try and make a Japanese Empire without wanting to tear my eyes out in fury. It never works...

[Kagemin]

I landed in Manchuria first, and waited till Ming got into a war with Oirat before declaring war on them and Korea.
Ming is a paper tiger, and 1:1 Japan should be able to defeat Korea.

After that try to get some provinces from Ming to release vassals from, easy to expand that way.

[merkava808]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

Haixi, Yeren, and the yellow one whose name I forget. The people who form Manchu and then Qing. The three tribes east of Ming, directly north of Korea. They're usually locked in infighting so you can usually manage to grab some land while they're occupied.

Edit: Jianzhou is the name I was looking for

The issue currently for me in Manchu is that Haixi basically inherited all that is Yeren, took a huge bite of out Jiangzhou, and ther is an alliance between Ming, Korea, and Haixi, therefore there is no way for me to expand into Manchuria without declaring war on all three of them at once, so I have began colonizing Manila and will probably end up with a foothold in SE Asia.
Unless you see some other way out of my predicament of course.

[Reverend Belial]

Originally posted by Kageryuu:

Ming is a paper tiger, and 1:1 Japan should be able to defeat Korea.

They can't. Korea's navy is much larger than anything Japan can field on it's own. Maybe down the line they can because Korea isn't one for expansion, but on a purist footing (no holdings off of their historical borders) Korea stomps Japan with ease.

Originally posted by Harpopzy:

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

Haixi, Yeren, and the yellow one whose name I forget. The people who form Manchu and then Qing. The three tribes east of Ming, directly north of Korea. They're usually locked in infighting so you can usually manage to grab some land while they're occupied.

Edit: Jianzhou is the name I was looking for

The issue currently for me in Manchu is that Haixi basically inherited all that is Yeren, took a huge bite of out Jiangzhou, and ther is an alliance between Ming, Korea, and Haixi, therefore there is no way for me to expand into Manchuria without declaring war on all three of them at once, so I have began colonizing Manila and will probably end up with a foothold in SE Asia.
Unless you see some other way out of my predicament of course.

Does Haixi have the island off of Yeren's coast, right above Ainu? If they don't and it still belongs to someone without a superpower ally then you can block off the straight with your navy and ferry troops over and take it easily. From there it makes an excellent staging ground for forays into Manchuria.

[merkava808]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

Originally posted by Kageryuu:

Ming is a paper tiger, and 1:1 Japan should be able to defeat Korea.

They can't. Korea's navy is much larger than anything Japan can field on it's own. Maybe down the line they can because Korea isn't one for expansion, but on a purist footing (no holdings off of their historical borders) Korea stomps Japan with ease.

Originally posted by Harpopzy:

The issue currently for me in Manchu is that Haixi basically inherited all that is Yeren, took a huge bite of out Jiangzhou, and ther is an alliance between Ming, Korea, and Haixi, therefore there is no way for me to expand into Manchuria without declaring war on all three of them at once, so I have began colonizing Manila and will probably end up with a foothold in SE Asia.
Unless you see some other way out of my predicament of course.

Does Haixi have the island off of Yeren's coast, right above Ainu? If they don't and it still belongs to someone without a superpower ally then you can block off the straight with your navy and ferry troops over and take it easily. From there it makes an excellent staging ground for forays into Manchuria.

I took it from the Ainu :P

[Reverend Belial]

No, no I don't mean the actual Ainu island. There's an island to the north of that, directly off the coast of Yeren seperated by a straight. It also has Ainu culture but it's not owned by them.

[merkava808]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

No, no I don't mean the actual Ainu island. There's an island to the north of that, directly off the coast of Yeren seperated by a straight. It also has Ainu culture but it's not owned by them.

Yes, its is mine.

[Reverend Belial]

Ok, well like I said that place is an excellent staging ground. All you have to do it ferry your troops to it right before the war, and then march right over the straight. More likely than not the Manchu won't be able to take you on, although once Ming shows up you may be in trouble. You'll probably have to take it slow and only take one or two provinces at a time each war.

[Kagemin]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

Originally posted by Kageryuu:

Ming is a paper tiger, and 1:1 Japan should be able to defeat Korea.

They can't. Korea's navy is much larger than anything Japan can field on it's own. Maybe down the line they can because Korea isn't one for expansion, but on a purist footing (no holdings off of their historical borders) Korea stomps Japan with ease.

Well, either you build up your navy some more then, or do what I suggested and expand into Manchuria first.
Japanese army is stronger than Korean army, and all Korea gets for their navies are 5% ship durability after a while. Which is nice, but fairly easy to overcome.
Japan also has more than twice the Korean tax base, with most of their provinces being coastal, so you should easily have much higher naval forcelimits and the money for a bigger fleet as well.

[King_0_Hell]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

In my experience, you don't. Just today I got incredibly lucky and Korea had no allies. Literally at all. "This'll be a picnic" I thought. Their navy is three times my size, they're ahead of me in tech because their leaders apparently are annointed in some elixir of the gods at birth while mine are lucky to not be punted accross the room during infancy

Is it wrong I laughed at the mental image this provided of some child being drop kicked over a rugby goal :D

But yeah, fighting Korea early is a nightmare, and generally not worth it as you tend to have Ming breathing down your neck either as allies, or to take advantage of the weakened state you'll like be in after peacing out.

[the_panther]

Ignore Korea until Ming crashes and burns. The AI simply cannot play the Ming Mandate of Heaven properly and it will collapse 9 times out of 10. It is even hard to hold Ming together as a human player, I might add...

As Japan, you can easily take all of Manchuria, which allows you to eventually invade Korea by land and not by sea. Your goal is to vassalize Korea, not necessarily conquer them. They make a killer powerful vassal for taking China next.