Yes, you CAN beat Japan!!!

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

Hello everyone! I thought I would start this topic from the German perspective and I welcome all strats that you guys use to beat those detested Jappos. I actually have several German ones, but here is my favorite. It is especially appropriate when you spot a Portuguese consulate, which is a sure sign he is going for a massive, early shrine boom. It also works if you see no consulate, but you see the toshugu wonder going up.

As everyone knows, you need to keep immediate and remorseless pressure on Japan to win. He will beat you in a boomfest, so you need to get cracking on him right away.

I do a standard German colonial 17-vil age-up. On hitting the Age button (Quartermaster, of course), I put 3 SWs and 3 vils on wood, rest on food. I queue 2 vils during the interim and put the rally flag on wood, which you will need for xbows/pikes. Before you age to 2, you should have built a market and a house. Get gangsaw, hunting dogs and Great Coat (you never know! and for 75 food it gives you 405 HP SWs... a good buy imo). Send 1 SW forward for a FB. As soon as you hit Age 2, send 1 wood SW to the crates and use the forward SW to build a barracks. At the same time, send 9 Xbow. Build houses up to pop 50 and queue 5 xbow. They should be coming out as soon as your 9 xbows are marching forward, so you will have 14 xbow by around 5:30. Advance on his base and pick off as many vils as you can. Force his vils inside. Meanwhile, train 5 pikes and send them against his big shrine or a barracks (if he has one). After that, spam xbows and ruthlessly circle his base, shooting any vils who dare show themselves. Don't be afraid to take some TC fire; you should have a constant stream of xbows supplementing you. Build houses as needed. Every moment you keep his vils indoors you get closer to victory. Your next card will be 3 doppels. Join them with your 5 pikes to get a good siege going. Before long his shrine will be down. Use your free uhlans to circle his base and act as meatshields if need be. Naturally, you'll be spamming vils the whole time... at some point you will send more onto food once you have the wood stream you need for troop production.

The idea is to strangle him from his cherry orchards and mines, but if he gets sassy and somehow manages to muster some nagis, use your doppels and pikes to slice 'em up.

This strat requires constant spamming and quick pressure. I wouldn't recommend it if he goes Torii gates, which usually indicates an immediate musket rush. This strat is intended to kill Jap shrine boomers. I like it because it is relatively straightforward and requires a simple, 2-resource econ. The only gold you will need is for hunting dogs! And this is one of my only German strats that does not involve my beloved uhlans as major player. I learned my lesson... uhlans lose to ashi/nagi

[Nighthawk22]

Wow Kaiser this is great!

This guy's a genious i say.. A GENIOUS!!!

[Tatltael]

lately when playing japan as sioux ive been doing a straight FF w/ two defensive warhuts. i tried it against starsky's* japan and i didnt die outright, by any means :twisted: i lost mainly due to micro, but still :]!

whats really nice about age3 is you can lay down a firepit, and ship 9 clubs coupled with siege dance to run around burning shrines, and wakina mass is so easy to do, especially when you already have two warhuts wakina / RR / AR = sweet

[Soccerman771]

Yes, this should work very well. I usually use the bonus uhlans to find those pesky monks and take them out.

For a quicker rush would you advise going with 16 or even (gasp) 15 vil-pop age up?

[BenS64]

nice start i think this will work!

[Palehorse]

I started doing a 15 vil with Spain, greatly improving my win percent and ability to contain a Japanese boom.

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

Thank you for the comments, guys! You are too kind, Nighthawk

Soccer, I generally don't age with 16 vils as Germany unless I'm in a 2v2. The German 17-vil economy-with the 2 extra vils queued-is a strong basis for a colonial spam, and this strat needs an immediate strong spam. 15 or 16 might not cut it, although I haven't tried. However, if going for 17 pushes you past 4:40 age-time, it might be worth shaving it to 16. Time is of the essence here. You need to get up in his face sometime before 6:00.

I forgot to mention that you should also have 3 SW and 2 SW in your deck on this one. You might also want to send 5 uhlans to keep up the pressure, although I am not really a fan of that card in anything other than team games where I want maximum uhlans fast.

[dragonshinobi]

lol man if they shirne boom im hard pressed to stop it.....but to me with the ottomans japan isnt that hard, i have trouble with the Aztec and sometimes India and Iro. any tips?

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

[quote=""[N30"]dragonshinobi"]lol man if they shirne boom im hard pressed to stop it.....but to me with the ottomans japan isnt that hard, i have trouble with the Aztec and sometimes India and Iro. any tips?[/quote]

Wish I could help you here; I don't play these civs at all, but there are lots of people in the clan who do.

Just to guess, though, and to reason by analogy, I suppose you could use 10 maces, 5 trained and march on his base, then ship 6 pumas to siege his barracks or shrine. Coyotes won't do you much good against an ashi defense, of course; maces and pumas seem like the best thing to use for this strat.

With Russians you can't really do it because all you have siege-wise are those horrible muskets. India would be tricky because you don't have a gurkha shipment. The key to this strat is early massed LI, followed by a big siege batch. India doesn't have that option. Perhaps steady, constant sepoy pressure could work, but again, I am not the person to ask...maybe Soccer could help here.

[Soccerman771]

I found out the hard way that you don't want to 10/10 against Japan as India. However I do believe the at equal ranks, India > Japan simply due to the ability to have all types of units and counters in age II. Factor in that India's anti-cav > Japan's anti-cav is one kicker, and the other being that you can match his eco. Age with the karni-mata + the french consulate (or otto) and you can out-boom the Japanese player (I've seen it done before).

The real problem in the lower ranks is that they typically don't mix units, you usually only see a 1-unit spam: Ashi or Yumi and sometimes both but 1 usually dominates. As always use your elephants with their speedy scouting ability and scout the map. Go kill hunts with 1-2 vils and his shrine boom is hurt. I honestly think that Aztec and Otto can consistently beat Japan if played right. The key to beating Japan is keeping them in their base. They are still some-what of a slow-starting civ so if you keep them at their TC their ability to mass is hurt. You can't let them get past the 12-13 minute mark; if you are at a dis-advantage at that point you should just resign though, it's pretty much a waste of your time then.

[dragonshinobi_old]

[quote=""[N30"]dragonshinobi"]lol man if they shirne boom im hard pressed to stop it.....but to me with the ottomans japan isnt that hard, i have trouble with the Aztec and sometimes India and Iro. any tips?[/quote]

with that match up against ottomans just pray that they are noobs

[TheRam]

To be honest I've said it before and so has Harley14 if I recall, if you rush a Japanese player THEN YOU WILL WIN.
This isn't a poxy rush of course, but with teams like Iro and China it's really pretty hard to go wrong.
vs Chocosantas aztec to simply not get owned outright I have to build a stable right away and spam some nags otherwise there's nothing you can do.

[Tatltael]

[quote=""Cammel""]To be honest I've said it before and so has Harley14 if I recall, if you rush a Japanese player THEN YOU WILL WIN.
This isn't a poxy rush of course, but with teams like Iro and China it's really pretty hard to go wrong.
vs Chocosantas aztec to simply not get owned outright I have to build a stable right away and spam some nags otherwise there's nothing you can do.[/quote]


are we playing the same japan? japan can rush, and hard. THATS the kind of japan that you really cant do anything about. ashi / club spam can happen alot quicker than you think, and once it ruins your eco japan will shrine boom all over you! :evil:

[TheRam]

I said Japan is easy when you rush, and from my experience as China and Iroquois I can honestly say that in quick search they were an easy foe civs like India however building their Agra by your foward base with insta 2x sepoy and easy spam after caused problems.
I remember Nav saying that he considered Japan one of the "free win" civs as China, cus they counter them well.
Taken down plenty of PR32-35 Japan players I don't see what the hype is about, seriously.
Japan do age fast, that's a given, but if you age with the Shrine (for export/20 pop) AND send the 300 export you can still only get like... 10 or so clubmen, and 2 less if you intend to use your consulate for a barracks/stable + this means you're sacrificing 5 ashi or yumi.
THIS is why it's not that hard to rush them, if you see this happening then counter it. Also, if they go to age with the Torii Gates then you know they wont be having clubmen and will likely have Ashi fast, so build some LI.
Pretty simple forumla, problem with Japan really is that if you don't directly counter them you will lose, but if you rush fast enough this can be avoided.

[huGGy]

A TP FF with germans worked well for me vs Japan.