HAN DYNASTY STRATEGY
Compared to the Kushan, the Han Empire is probably the greater challenge to get right. Both have great potential, but the Han tend to have more tricky twists and turns to navigate. But let's look at some approaches you can take to make the empire succeed.
Conquest
First of all, this empire is already large, and that means corruption, which means loss of agency and loss of income. So let's avoid that. The best way to do that is to make new conquests. So just as occurred in real life, you can start in Hami, even on turn one, should you have a general to hand. You don't start with a lot of forces, but allied horsemen from Wuhuan are available to help. Not only does this help with the Battle Track, it also becomes another one of the few places that you can recuit valuable horse units.
You may not want to continue on to Turfan right away as a loss could cause Hami to rebel. Plus, your friends in Wuhuan are not available to help. So you might instead consider Goguryeo, once you have sufficient forces. Recruiting some elephants and foot skirmishers as well as bow horse will be useful here. It will take two successes, but that's not too onerous. Conquering that Area is helped by having Foot Skirmishers, Light Horse (you can deploy Bow Horse as Light Horse) and Elephants.
After you die the first time, for Battle Track purposes you might want to return and make Turfan your next conquest. By the way, you don't have to funnel your troops through the slow Liang channel. You can move them through Wuhuan more quickly. (Unfortunately the provinces in the north already have constructions so it will be a while before you can build roads through the mountains).
You probably want to build forts there and in Hami to protect them from the nearby barbarians.
After taking this Area, you can move your horse units to garrison the capital against fire and the coastal locations against pirates and take the rest south to invade Minyue. Archers will be particularly useful in the south.
After Minyue you might even want to invade the Pyu States, but prepare well and use a good general as it's considerably more difficult. Historically, the Han never bothered to try it. Or you can try to depend on Barbarians to attack you.
Diplomacy
As for the Areas in the northwest desert - Dunhuang, Kucha, Kashgar, Khotan - they are valuable for trade route purposes, but can be quite difficult to conquer militarily. So instead, draft Diplomats and slowly add them to your empire this way, as in real life the Han actually did. The above order tends to be good, considering that an attack by barbarians may be useful for stamping out corruption. Ban Chao, who is actually a general, can act as a diplomat for this purpose, as he did in real life. You might like to keep a couple archers in Kucha to help protect it from barbarians.
If you do very well in this area, you might even look at Ferghana, to which Han forces did travel at one point. It has a low population so once conquered is not terribly expensive to improve economically.
After you have completed your conquests, move your army into the area where your diplomats are active. If you have at least ten units adjacent to a target Area, you can get a +1 towards Success.
Economics
In terms of economic activity, the southern half of your empire was mostly undeveloped and has low population levels. During these years many Chinese decided to emigrate to these areas, partly to get away from barbarians and civil wars and they became just as developed as the north. In the game you can help this process with economic activity. There are a couple of intermediate objectives to consider here. One is that in case of the emperor dying, any Province at the first level will go into unrest. The other is that once these Areas are raised sufficiently high, they can start providing income. Therefore, you probably want to start by governing each one once, just to get them beyond the first level. After that, continue to work on the same one until you get it to the maximum, starting with Yang, which has the most potential. To achieve all this, you will need to draft plenty of Governors, so be sure that you do.
You can also think about improving the two provinces at either end of the canal (historically, the Grand Canal). While it seems more expensive, remember that there is more than one Province card for each, and that the canal will add income, so it's actually a pretty good bargain.
In terms of your coastal Provinces, of which there are many, when any of them move beyond the first level, station a couple of units there against piracy. Similarly, station five units in your capital against fire. Just as the Han emperors did, it's wise to make these horse units in case of rebellion.
Building
In terms of building, the above programme is already costing a lot of money so don't try to be too ambitious right away. Mostly try to create low cost monuments in the south, but you could consider a second canal between, say, Yang and Jing. There is a monuments expert and a canal expert in your deck that can be of help. When funds are available, try to put in some temples as well, especially in Provinces that have no construction at all so that you can add monuments there later. Consider an aqueduct for one of the multi-provinces since they are so expensive to develop.
Recruiting
Eventually the Antonine Plague is going to strike. Try to keep a large army around before then because you're not going to be able to recruit for quite some time afterward. Having a small deck at this time is also useful, of course, so that you can get through the Plague as quickly as possible.
The Arts
You may feel Emperor Ling is something of a waste of time with all his Artists, but actually his reign can be quite useful in terms of racking up arts points and Popularity, which if you have Agents, means income. Definitely try to strike while the iron is hot under his aegis.
Financing
You'll tend to have plenty of money in the early game, but once plague and corruption start, times can be very lean. Make sure you have plenty of Agents so that when you have six or more Popularity chits you can use one of them to raise more funds. In this way you should be able to keep your emperor alive and in funds for quite some time. It won't last forever, but the more death you can avoid the better. Meanwhile, take loans, but pay them off as soon as you have at least fifteen talents in the bank so that you have at least a little to spend on endeavors before more income rolls in. If you've managed to hold on to horse units, consider sending your generals out on raids as another way of generating income.
Science
Science is always a very dicey proposition. But if the results look favorable and you have too much Popularity anyway, it can sometimes work out. When you have a great inventor like Zheng Hang it really makes a difference.
Events
In terms of barbarians, the Qiang are a difficult problem. They tend to erupt at least once a game. Stationing some horse units in Yong and neighboring Areas can be very helpful, but of course that comes at an expense. On the other hand, should they take Yong it can be very troublesome to root them out. You may prefer to try diplomacy in this regard. The northern barbarians are mostly stoppable by forts that their horses cannot penetrate so they became a raiding irritant, which you can endure.
The Wuhuan client kingdom is quite strong and probably best left a client that can stand up to its barbarian neighbors. But just before the end of the game you may wish to convert it to a Province and build something in it just to get those extra points as well.
Other players
When you have a Kushan neighbor, the fortified desert between you tends to tamp down conflict. It mostly takes the form of competing diplomacy. But if either player is determined, it can certainly become more than that. It will take some time, however, to get your forces there as there is not much ability to recruit in the desert areas. In addition the Kushan has the advantage of possibly having a military emperor to help whereas the Han emperor always stays close to the capital.
Speaking of the emperor, although he is usually not useful to the army, he can be helpful for the arts, diplomacy, the economy, subterfuge and even science in one instance. Keep this valuable feature in mind.
In the end
As should be apparent, playing the Han is a matter of managing a number of conflicting constraints - deck size, advisor types, money, popularity, armies - and it is often difficult to know just how much risk to incur. With careful planning and a little luck, however, it should be possible to take over the entire eastern map and desert territories, get most of the monuments and temples built and have reasonable economic levels in the southern empire, maybe losing a province here and there.
These are just some of the possible ideas. There are other, more detailed actions one can take and no doubt some that you will discover.
Created:
Wed Mar 17 05:28:42 UTC 2021
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