GOTM9 Index



The Japan Campaign
- Introduction
- Planning
- Military orders
- Initial engagements
- Far off landing
- Coastal thrust
- Main advance
- Inland sea
- Consolidate the opening
- Secure the horses
- Western port
- Moving inland
- Battle before Edo
- Kyoto’s fate
- Mopping up

List of updates to this article

Items below this point
are maintained seperately
from the Japan Campaign files
and may not always available.

Known Bugs and Glitches

- The Corona Bug
- The Scared2Death Bug

The amphibious landing on the horses northeast of Kyoto had now turned into a very important part of our attack plan with a critically important mission.

Denying the use of the Horses
Our revised mission for the this landing force was to make absolutely certain that Tokugawa could no longer gain access to the horses that could be used to build more horsemen to counterattack our advancing forces. I did not know how many chariots or horsemen that the Japanese might already have, but anything we could do to prevent more from being built would be to our advantage.

We only had four (4) units in the landing force and all of these units were unloaded right on top of the horses in the initial assault of 210AD. Because of the small size of the landing force, I felt that I had to keep it together in order for it to survive and be effective. In 230AD, all of the units could now move or fortify in place. The shape of the peninsula meant that we had to either stay on top of the horses or pillage the road connection in order to keep the horses separated from the Japanese. The War Chariots could pillage the road connecting the horses and then still be able to advance one more square. If we pillaged the road with a War Chariot we would not be able to even mount a weak attack against a nearby Japanese city during that turn. If we pillaged the road with the spearman or swordsman then we would be forced to stay on top of the horses for one more turn.

I chose to pillage the horse road with one war chariot and then advance the second war chariot forward by one square to recon toward the hidden Japanese city. This was a pivotal move because it revealed the Japanese city of Satsuma within one step reach for all the units and allowed me to keep all four units together while closing to within striking distance on the town.

250AD – Capturing Satsuma
Being in close proximity to Satsuma, our forces could observe units coming and going at the beginning of the year 250 AD. Amazingly, Tokugawa took an archer out of the city and moved it back to the west rather than attacking our small landing force from the safety of his city. Tokugawa also brought a horseman out of the other coastal city and headed this unit back to the west as well. I took this as a sign that Tokugawa (as programmed by Soren Johnson) felt that he could be more successful if he mustered a counter attack for against our western forces and that he felt the landing force was too weak to have any impact on his cities.

I would have used the archer and the horseman to attack the landing force knowing that if the force was weakened and wounded in our territory that it would never heal and probably could really never pose a threat to our cities. The unfortified attacking force out in open terrain was at its weakest in the beginning of 250 AD and could only get stronger if fortified where it stood or fortified in a captured city.

Instead of being wounded and near death, I was left with four full strength units facing a town that I felt was defended by perhaps two spearmen.

I first attacked with a War Chariot with the intent of weakening the first defender and relying on the War Chariots retreat ability to survive. The War chariot traded hits with the spearman but instead of retreating, it pressed on with the attack and won before withdrawing. I then used the swordsman to attack the second spearman, thinking this would be a fairly sure win against the last defender. The swordsman won easily, but revealed a warrior defender. I attacked with my final war chariot and captured the town.

It was then just a matter of moving our elite spearman into the town to provide a strong defense and also moving the wounded first war chariot into the town to provide garrison. Because we now had possession of the territory and use of the roads, I could fortify all three of the units defending the town and gain the maximum defensive power.

The next major sequence of moves was –

Capturing the port of Nagoya on the West Coast

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