Next turn, an elite horseman that came rushing over retakes Kiev all by itself.

By 990 AD, it's become clear that I will indeed have a narrow window of time to blitz Japan with cavalry before they get riflemen. Physics (and Democracy) are around, but nobody has Gravity or Magnetism yet. I researched Navigation myself because I wanted Magellan, and traded it around to recoup some of the gold. Actually, I delay Military Tradition one extra turn to get enough gold to upgrade all the horsemen.

1010: Will discover Military Tradition at the end of this turn. Have 9 horsemen in Sayville ready to do the pre-turn-scroll-to-city-and-upgrade trick.

1020: Land 9 cavalry next to Izumo.

1030: Complete Magellan's in Bohemia for a Golden Age!! I had been expecting the GA at Adam Smith's (Bach's is religious). Forgot to check Magellan's traits. I do prefer the GA later, to build Factories, but using it to obliterate Japan is cool too. :) Oh, and Izumo is captured.

Glorious Indian Cavalry, about 20 in all, sweep down the Japanese continent. The details are irrelevant, except that promotions are nearly impossible to come by, and both of the first two elites lose their next battles. Izumo flips back once and gets recaptured immediately.

Here's a great example of AI stupidity. Japan is a war with Cavalry. They're rapidly losing all their cities and resources. So what do they do with their second instance of horses and saltpeter? Hook them up immediately, right?

An amusing little aside: culture that isn't attached to a city! We must have found Atlantis under there!

1080: I receive notices that Shakespeare's is being built. Crap, I forgot about that. Buy Democracy and Free Artistry (both are very cheap), and swap to Hamlet's House in my capital. Due in 11.

Commack builds Adam Smith's, which was started in 500 AD or so. Ah, long term planning :)

1140: Buy Magnetism. Industrial Age! Research to max on Steam Power.

1170: Capture yet two more Japanese cities, but war weariness is starting to get big (33%). Ugh... I can either swap to Monarchy, boost luxuries, or make peace with Japan. Let's go lux for a couple turns at least.

AAAUGH! China got Shakespeare's one turn ahead of me! NOOOOO! Must have cascaded to it from Adam Smith's. MAN, that hurts. I get Newton's instead as a poor consolation prize.

1200: Research Steam Power. I'll trade it around, since not doing so will slow the AIs by maybe 3 turns, and I can get a WAD of cash. Total 193 gpt from everyone.

1240: We've almost taken Kyoto for about the last four turns. There's riflemen in there now, so some cannons came in to help. I had stacked a few cavalry in Kiev waiting to send against Russia; they've now been shipped by boat to the Japanese continent to help out. Still no GLs though. During this whole war, Japan keeps landing a boat with two or three units on my territory every three turns or so. The scariest was three cavalry landing right next to Sayville (on a mountain, even) before I had much of the rail net up, but enough cavalry and a couple drafted riflemen do kill them.

1250: Kyoto finally taken. I could stop, but I'm HELL-BENT on keeping this war going FOREVER if necessary to get a Great Leader. For a little while in here, war weariness was actually going DOWN; from 57% back to around 50%.

1265: Research Industrialization, trade it around for 110 gpt, Medicine, and Communism. Kyoto flips back, but there was only one cavalry in there. Retaken.

1285:

FINAL-EFFING-LY, a Great Leader! He'll rush a new Palace to turn Japan into a nicely productive second core. The question is where... Izumo is a decent city already and would help cover my original core cities, but leave most of Japan pretty corrupt. Osaka is most central in Japan. Nagasaki will split the difference, but isn't a very good city, still only size 4 and with few shields. After a LONG debate, I decide on Nagoya. It's got decent terrain, a fair bit of existing infrastructure (aqueduct, marketplace, harbor), already at size 7, and it's still got four resisters (meaning it's currently a culture flip risk; capitals can't flip of course.)

1290: I take Tokyo. For peace, Toku will give me Matsuyama on the eastern island, which happens to have his coal. That's enough; that's all the cities that'll be productive for me. The Four Hundred Fifty Years War comes to an end. I'm not yet in control of all Japan's landmass, but will take it at the end of the game.

What about Russia? They'll be dug in with riflemen by now. We'll wait until Tanks for them, and revolt to Democracy for now. Everyone's now a Democracy.