Daiteikoku:Guides

Early Game
With a little bit of luck, you can end up with 6 territories in about as many turns. Here's what you do:

A) Send everything in to attack the first Chinese territory. Doesn't matter what you build here.  If any ships are damage send them back to Japan.

With the money you get buy the tech level 1 laser battleship and equip it to random people (except takeda, he doesn't use them that well).

B) Send everything that can still fight to the second Chinese territory. Build a harbor.

C) Optimize your ships to the point where they won't take damage in the first defense.

D) Storm the last Chinese territory. You can grab the pandas pretty easily too.

Now its turn 4. In the meantime the Americans have been bombarding you with ideas. Say no to everything and send your undamaged ships to where the first Chinese territory was and the rest to the harbor. Get the Inugami/Wolf guy event as soon as you can. When America declares war on you, you should have 4 undamaged fleets. Send Inugami + the weaker one to Manila 2000 and the other two fleets to Midway. You should be able to do math to figure out how to best optimize the battle situation, but the early laser battleships, while it'll hurt you later, give you a lot of firepower.

It is now turn 6ish and you have 6 territories. Follow up by grabbing the commander from Manila, then researching the missile battleships and equipping them to take the island south of Hawaii as well as Malay Tiger as soon as you get Japanification (so as to grab the commander there). Build a harbor in both locations, and then swamp Australia around turn 10ish. This sets you up into a great position to strike at Gamerica, the Soviets, or Aeris.

Don't forget that because you bumrushed China, Togo isn't invulernable in the last territory, but he has invulnerability for later. If you really want to, you can abuse this and take Hawaii around turn 14/15 by having Togo solo the carrier fleet and laugh while they do nothing to him.

Mid Game
Now you should be thinking about the route you want to go into. The most friendly route is the turtle Empress route, where you first clear all of Doenitz's events (and then Izumi's) while slowly pushing torwards Arabia. Get as many cash and ship specials as you can-with lots of missile battleships this gives you a strong enough force to push very hard, especially against the barriers that the Aeris tend to have. Once Arabia is taken, be prepared to deal with Rance. After dealing with Rance (or alternatively, letting him batter your walls while the rest of your fleet hides in Africa), do not attack Suez (as that would take you into Dokutsu route, which can be very bad if you have no income or admirals) but instead South. You need to wait for the Aeris Empire to take North Africa before you can take Kenya. Be sure not to attack the Kenyan fleet when doing so, despite the 30000 cash bonus you get by doing so. Then you can save Andromeda (the battle station there isn't too hard because you bumrushed through the other territories) and then grab Rommel. Don't forget to say Yes to Doenitz's request to leave because we want Retia. Once Dokutsu falls, take the fleets that you used to defend against Rance and finish him off fast because the Russians will be coming. With your forces in Africa, move them to Paris but do not go into London until you trigger the warp event because we want to save Sarah and co. You should have captured her sister in the meantime-as a general rule if you see an enemy commander that you want (with the exception of Kenya) destroy their fleet entirely.