Could it be fate?

Ok, so I decided to run through last week's scenario once agian playing as the Japanese Empire once again in the Earth scenario, but this time I was planning on continuously changing my government whenever the opportunity would arise and I was also planning on adopting certain practices that I don't believe in such as Communism and Facism to see if they would help boost my production. They did but here is what I noticed, although my Empire remained the wealthiest and most developed 3/4 of the game, Germany once again took the lead around the 1600s with ease. I began to ask my allies to declare war on Germany to hinder its progress, giving me the advantage once again. This was a REALLY BAD IDEA, I ended up aiding the other countries in surpassing me in my development. Yet somehow I was still the wealthiest country in the game. Once there were14 turns left I decided to declare war on everybody because I really wasn't going anywhere and I figured to Hell with it, if I can't win I'll at least piss off ALOT of countries. I succeeded in doing so and noticed that my infastructure was absolutely decimated by the assault launched by the other countries. Things that would take me one turnt o produce now took me 45. Structures, railroads, cities, people, and a bunch of other things that had taken forever to produce, they were completely obliterated within seconds.

So the two things I took away from this is that war is bad if you can't defend yourself and it will make it even more difficult to recover from the damage done. But the thing that struck me as odd is that I did everything right in expanding my empire but where I inherently failed was expansion, something that the island of Japan is not suited for, leaving my Japanese empire with an inherent handicap that unless you waste alot of time and resources on, cannot be overcome.

So next time I plan on playing as another civilization and repeating everything else I did in hopes of finally getting a victory in the game.

Today's adventure

well I pretty much had the same setup as last week. Japanese Culture on the Earth map, quick game blah blah etc. So what was the difference? Well, this week I decided to start early and not waste turns and develop as many wonders as I could, develop as many resources as I could and mainly KEEP GROWTH within the small island of Japan. I was ahead of every culture in the game by 400 years for 3/4 of the game. I was really proud of myself then decided to expand towards the Americas and develop settlements there. This is where I stretched myself beyond my means because aparently I just HAD to land on the part of the continent that was inhabited by angry villagers that continuously attacked my city. They didn't stand a chance, BUT it kept me from truly developing that city. In the meantime the mainland was continuing to develop technology and wonders but what I DIDN'T KNOW was that Germany was building alliances with the other countries on Eurasia. So I then see an odd German vessel heading towards my colonies and I decide to declare was on Germany and destroy it's ship just because it was heading towards my colonies. BIG mistake, because of this Germany got the upperhand from here on out in the game. I ended up losing one of my two colonies by the end but I wasted alot of time. Because I started war with Germany I lost one of my cities on the mainland to India, one of Germany's allies. I got pissed and decided to reclaim my city. Another distraction in the game was that I started the UN and Germany was getting very close to getting enough votes for a diplomatic victory, so I wasted alot of time on giving gifts to the other countries to make sure that they would give me enough votes to stop Germany from winning with a diplomatic victory. My next strategy was to win by getting to space first. So by the time I was beginning to develop my space program, Germany won with a space race victory. needless to say I was pissed, BUT I learned to NOT expand into continents with hostile inhabitants. So in a nutshell, expansion is tough, especially for Japan who doesn't have alot of land to expand.

2/11/2007

This time around I played as the Japanese culture and attempted to have a trade based economy. This worked throughout the entire game until the very end when I attempted to expand north on the main continent and pour resources into establishing those two cities. This was a big mistake because this led my resources to be tied up to those cities while the other cultures continued to expand without water barriers being a hassel. My main export was then shifted form textile goods to entertainment and I made a pretty good relationship with other cultures, enough to send them into war with other cultures solely because I was providing them with Rock'n'Roll, kind of trivial, but it made me reflect on how wars generally start over stupid things. The lesson I took from this is that no matter how strong a civilization's trade and economy may be, natural barriers and physical distance hinder the strength of the expanding empire.