Hi all,

I have great success with kublai khan on monarch, but really struggle with tokugawa, and it is mainly the opening I struggle with (getting mobbed by barbs and other fun difficulties...).

Here are the settings I play:

Custom continents (2 continents)
Standard map size with default # of AI
Time victory turned off, all others on
Marathon speed
All other settings are default

So, here's the thing...

With Kublai Khan I have a pretty sweet opening...1st build 2nd scout while researching archery then build archers to defend barbs while researching toward bronze. Then pop out some workers and get ready to settle copper. Once I found 3rd city start cranking axes and go to war. Since Kublai is creative I can avoid stonehenge and in fact I avoid wonders altogether and thus the mysticism track. I expand through war til I get a nice sized empire and then start building infrastructure to get my science back up and then decide my victory condition depending on how many years have gone by.

With Tokugawa, I dunno, I struggle a lot more. He's not creative, so I figure I gotta build stonehenge. But he doesn't have mysticism so there's one tech I gotta research. But with his starting combo of fish + the wheel I'm always so tempted to go with a worker-pottery opening cuz otherwise I feel like it's a waste of his starting techs. But what about barb patrol? Yeah, I could go hunting + arch early on, but gah, it just seems like such a waste of two techs very early on :( I try to avoid hunt-arch counting on settling copper and defending with axes. But usually by the time I get axes I've been mauled by archers + axemen since I'm defending with about a half-dozen wimpy warriors. But then in games where I decide to go hunt-arch I often end up losing out on the copper since the AI expands so fast...Bottom line: I feel like I need to beeline to bronze or else I lose copper and thus the ability to trim back the AI. But when I do this I get mobbed by masses of barbs (I'm talking sometimes like 4-6 archers and/or axes at a time in some cases). In addition, building stonehenge early really cramps anti-barb production...

I dunno what to do really, I'm just looking for some suggestions, maybe from people who play toku at monarch+. I can win with him no prob on prince and can win pretty much no prob with kublai on monarch, but toku on monarch i just can't seem to get the opening down. Once I get rolling with toku I'm in pretty good shape, but I just can't get rolling.

Oh yeah, one last thing, since Toku is organized, and since I'm building stonehenge anyways, I usually try to go oracle-->COL. however, again this is another wonder being built and more beakers being spent on non-aggressive techs and i just find i fall behind on the military end of things...

any tips much appreciated :goodjob:

How about if you built Obelisks, and just skipped on Stonehenge altogether? The Oracle cannot be duplicated, and provides a very strong boost for you. But, if you feel you can't build it, then don't. Grabbing a few extra cities (or not losing some) is far more powerful throughout the game than a single free tech (at any point in the game).

Sure, there's circumstances where, if you had grabbed that free tech, you might not have lost the game, but those tend to be specific instances (usually, your destruction was destined well before it occured.).

It's not as neat (and maybe not as fun for you), and it won't throw you into an early lead (which the AI will eat anyway, given the disadvantages you experience at higher difficulty levels), but who's to complain if it the difference between success and failure?

I also play Japan on Monarch/Marathon. Deal with the barbarians by researching BW immediately and founding a second city to get the bronze. It may not be the best placement, because you may well need the bronze immediately and not one chop and 30 turns later.

Axes deal with the barbs fine, using defensive terrain.

Once I have BW, if there is no copper, then the decision has to be made whether to pursue IW or Hunting/Archery. You may not live long enough to reach IW, mine it and get out the axes, so Archers are probably next.

From there, it will depend upon your starting position and how quickly the other civs close in. I don't research Pottery until after I have reasonable defensive units. Eventually, you are going to need axes to deal with the barbarian axes.

If you're building second city purely to access copper virtually regardless of location is it better to build it on top of copper (guaranteeing immediate access without a worker) or 1 tile away to get the production bonus with a mine?
Also in terms of culture expansion would you go for obelisk or hold out for a library? (assuming you don't build stonehenge and haven't got a religion)

In the long run it is better to settle one tile away, but then you have the delay of mining the copper and hooking it up (assuming there isn't a river route that automatically hooks it up for you). If you are already seeing barbarian axes then you might want to settle on the copper, but if you aren't then settling one tile away is probably best. The best way to slow the barbs while you're getting everything set up is to use fogbusters.

Usually, if the game is so close that you're having to consciously choose between settling on the copper or beside it, then you probably weren't using enough fogbusters to begin with. It is amazing how much of a difference a few fogbusters make in dealing with the barbs. They reduce the number of barbs by giving them fewer tiles to spawn in, give you advance warning (distant from your cities) of incoming nasties, and have a chance of attracting and killing the barbs before they get near your cities. That early in the game you don't need all your units in your capital to discourage an AI attack. It is not only safe to use some warriors for fogbusting, but it is actually safer than not doing so.

EDIT: If you feel that it has taken you too long to get BW (maybe you sidetracked for a worker tech first), then remember that at the same moment you first can see copper on the map you also get the ability to switch to slavery. If time is critical, whip that settler. If you have to think about it, wondering if you should or not, then just do it. If your capital has any decent food excess at all it will quickly replace the pop, and it is better to whip at low populations than at higher populations, anyway.

thanks everybody. so, basically, should i just start out going mining-bronze and worker-settler? then crank a few warriors to use as fog busters while researching appropriate worker techs?

thx!

If you are not playng raging barbarinas, you cand do well until turn 60-70 defending only with warriors (just 2 warriors). Just don't keep them in the city. let them out around your borders and meet the barbarians in the forested hills. I am plaing at monarch level for some time and I don't see barbarian axes earlier than turn 60-70.

I have plaied with Saladin. My research was Polytheism > Masonery > Monotheism > Mining and if I had time BW, if not, Priesthood, then BW. So I got BW an was possible to locate bronze only after turn 50-60, settling and hooking bronze could take another 10-15 turns so my first axe would popup about turn 80, but because of other priorities, very ofteh I find my self building first axe after turn 100. And never had problems with barbs if I was following this strategy

So, it is possible to deal with arcers barbs, only with warriors if you don't defend in the city. Promote your warriors to combat one and cover or woodsman I and II and defend in forested hills. If your warrior is defeted, don't worry, he has done some damage and slowed down the barbarian. Just replace him and meet the barb before he reach your border, or your cities.

It never happened to meed a barbarian axe with an warrior, but I guess 2 warriors in a forested hill can defet an axe.

I think keeping your warrior outside your borders, also limit the barbarian teritory.

I have to tell you that I also settle the second city very fast, 26 to 35 turns from the begining depending of the first city location and I build at least one warrior in before the settler.

This is for normal speed. I don't know how to translate in epic or marathon speed.

Tokugawa is an extremely powerful leader in my view, though I sure know it has taken me time to perfect my game with him.

I play on Emperor level and Tokugwa's strength is that of all aggressive civilizations, that 10% bonus to the melee units etc, the cheap barracks and thus you can be churning out warrior, axemen and swordsmen units with a +25% against archers pretty soon. Fight one combat successfully (from memory) and I think those units can have a city raider 1 promotion.

Even against the Malinese you can take out neighbouring civilizations easily with loads of these upgraded Swordsmen (I nurse them up to city raider 1 versus barbarians).

It is then with the organised trait you can afford all these cities you'll have taken, add to the inherent bonus the relative cheapness of courthouses for you and you'll soon reduce further maintainence and have a Forbidden Palace.


You'll have maybe taken the lands of a civ or two with your rush to swordsmen (if you don't have iron, do what you can with what you have to get it) and perhaps have the founding place of a religion (to make a Holy City in). If you've been lucky you may have picked up a Wonder or two. Now as Civilizations hit Feudalism and conquest with the old Swordsmen becomes less easy (even with catapult assistence) Japan comes into the age of the Maceman.

Now by way of a few conquests, or selling of tech, get money to upgrade those by now super-dooper swordsmen to Samurai. I find I'll have loads of City Raider III with +25% vs archery units around. The resulting Samurai will all you to chomp through cities and only require the catapults to remove the city defense bonus.


Japan is there to make a huge civilization by conquest before the age of gunpowder and from that strong position allow you to win the game. Where Tokugawa sucks and sucks hard is if you don't have much land and/or no-one to invade in the period up until gunpowder. If that happens Tokugawa will be far behind in techs and there won't be any easy way to catch up.



The essentials then:

1. Try to nick workers from enemy AI versus building them, usually a warrior going to near the AI borders will find one, declare war and nick. As distances are initially far you're relatively safe from counter-attack.

2. The barracks is important, that +25% against archers should with positioning of warriors in forest/hills hold off the early barbarian stream of archers and warriors.

3. Head pretty directly for iron working and get 4 of 5 swordsmen, upgrading warriors with hut cash if possible. Then go take out the most valuable cities of your neighbours. Ironworking comes with the added bonus that if you haven't got bronze in your area, you will very likely have iron and so can build spears and axemen now (axemen are the best for barbarian resistance).

An added tip, alphabet is a vital tech for keeping up in the tech, swapping ironworking you may pick up much. I'd advise not swapping Alphabet, holding onto it slows down the AI to music and literature, music for the GA and literature for that splendid wonder the Great Library.

It never happened to meed a barbarian axe with an warrior, but I guess 2 warriors in a forested hill can defet an axe.


no way!
even on a forested hill, with woodsman II, they lose!
warrior is strength 2
axe is strength 5, with +50% against melee
on a forested hill you have your warrior with woodsmanII
at 2 +(75% [terrain] + 50% [woodsman]-50% melee) = 3,5 vs 5 for the axe.
warriors will barely touch the axeman.
And the barbs heal very quickly AFAIK.

This is for normal speed. I don't know how to translate in epic or marathon speed.

With raging barbarians epic and marathon are tricky at higher difficulty. As the tech rate to barbarian poppage is net scaled particularly well (at all?) you can find it hard to get to archers before they start swamping in.

All the more reason to build units and barracks rather than waste hammers on workers and settlers. The workers you can steal, the new cities grap from your enemies.

:mischief:

no way!
even on a forested hill, with woodsman II, they lose!
warrior is strength 2
axe is strength 5, with +50% against melee
on a forested hill you have your warrior with woodsmanII
at 2 +(75% [terrain] + 50% [woodsman]-50% melee) = 3,5 vs 5 for the axe.
warriors will barely touch the axeman.
And the barbs heal very quickly AFAIK.

100% correct I'm afraid. Suicidal to put warriors against axemen.

Yeah, I forgot about free promotion. Toku warriors have free promotion so 2 succesfull fights with animals is enough to promote to cover.

no way!
even on a forested hill, with woodsman II, they lose!
warrior is strength 2
axe is strength 5, with +50% against melee
on a forested hill you have your warrior with woodsmanII
at 2 +(75% [terrain] + 50% [woodsman]-50% melee) = 3,5 vs 5 for the axe.
warriors will barely touch the axeman.
And the barbs heal very quickly AFAIK.

Ofcourse. First warrior loose but the second warrior wins. Barbs are stupid, they atack even with 0,1 strength. Depending of the situation, you can even charghe with the second warrior if the barbarian realy weak.

The ideea is to have 2 warriors staked on the hill and face only one axe. If you don't have time to stack them at least make sure you can move your warrior next to the woonded axe next turn.

Ofcourse. First warrior loose but the second warrior wins. Barbs are stupid, they atack even with 0,1 strength. Depending of the situation, you can even charghe with the second warrior if the barbarian realy weak.

The ideea is to have 2 warriors staked on the hill and face only one axe. If you don't have time to stack them at least make sure you can move your warrior next to the woonded axe next turn.

The point is that the axe won't be badly wounded most of the time.
and if you attack, you don't get the terrain bonus, so you can only hope he WILL be wounded bad (more than half strength) and still attacks.
That isn't a sure thing. You need something like 3 warriors for every barb axe.
and they won't be promoted (well, not all the way to woodsman II).
I forgot combat I and fortification, but it doesn't change much for the fate of your warriors.

I have been playing Napoleon (Agg/Ind) recently, and he is very similarly situated - aggressive, midgame UU. I also play on Monarch - epic or marathon speeds usually.

Maybe my opening game just isn't good, but I find even getting BW immediately and focusing exclusively on getting copper hooked up can be chancy. What happens to me way too often is that I'll find copper and move to hook it up only to get my civ destroyed by barbarians before I can actually get the axes out there. Unfortunately the warrior just isn't a good enough unit to protect from the early archers, you need your own archers to do it without a terrific casualty rate. One other problem is that too often if you get BW immediately, you don't have the map scouted well enough to be able to choose a second city site well.

Thus I have taken to going hunting-archery very early, often first thing, because I can be pumping out archers a lot earlier than axemen - and I can pump out more of them. I then get BW next. More than establishing a second city, my opening goal is to establish the military capability to found that city and keep it.

So typically I go hunting->archery->bw... building a worker while hunting is being researched, then pumping out a scout, and by the time that is done I can either put up a cheap barracks, capitalizing on the production bonus as I pop rush it, or directly go for getting the archers out. Once I have 3-4 archers to command, then it is not so risky to try and establish - and hold! - that second city. BW arrives, I pop the barracks, chop until I have a few archers and a settler, and go off and colonize.

don't want to rain on your parade, but if you get so much barbs, it may be because you forgot the fogbusting?

PS :i mostly don't play raging barbs, and i don't like fogbusting (those are units outside your borders = expensive)

Fogbusting is important... however if your fogbusters are warriors, they can't hold their ground against archers. You don't always have a forested hill in the correct position to fortify lookouts. The early-archers strategy I outlined above helps fogbusting by providing competent lookout units as soon as possible.

Fogbusting is important... however if your fogbusters are warriors, they can't hold their ground against archers. You don't always have a forested hill in the correct position to fortify lookouts.

Err, What do you mean by "correct position"?

I never fortify on forested hills. Just move the warrior around and if I see a barbarian archer just try to get to the best position, if is not forested hill, then a simple forest will do. The simple forest have 50% bonus, with 10% free promotion, you have 3,2 stregnth against 3 of the archer, I say it is good. You will win 6-7 times of 10. But moreoften you get an aditional promotion, and that should be cover.

The ideea is not to defend inside the city. Your city probably have 20% or at the best case 40% defence bonus.
But this is not the point. If your warrior lose the battle in the forest, there is no problem. But if he lose while he is last defender of the city, than is bad.

What I noticed at the barbarians is that they tend to form stacks before invading your territory. Or they atack in groups. This is not happening if you meet them and kill them one by one outside of the borders.

Belive me, I live my cities undefended for 100 turns (normal speed) and fight the barbarian archers with warriors outside my borders. I kill them one by one and promote my units this way.

I think I understand the principle of fog-busting but how widely are your warriors/archers dispersed? That is do they bust fog in 1,2 or 3 tile radius?

pigswill, the key to fogbusting is using things other than the terrain to your advantage. Your cultural borders give you vision to a whole lot of squares, especially in your capitol, with its inherent cultural bonus. After that, look for things like coasts, and if you're playing a map like Oasis (one of my faves), the edge of the playing field is another ally. Placed on top of a hill, you can cover five, six spaces away from your cultural border-- and unless you're playing on a Huge or Large map (and maybe even then), there's going to be terrain already claimed by the AI. I haven't tried outright Barbarian farming yet, but with a couple Warriors, you can dictate which direction(s) they're going to come from, even if you can't keep them from spawning entirely. If you're lucky enough, even a Scout can do the job, say if all you need is a corner of the map highlighted.
If you want practice at fogbusting, in fact, I can highly recommend the Oasis map. There's always a lot of unclaimed ground in the center, and the heavy forests and jungles on the edges block LoS. Play a couple games on that map, and the next time you play Continents, blocking the Barbs will feel like child's play.

In my experience, monarch/marathon necessitates a military tech as soon as possible. I've so far found only 2 and 1/2 successful strategies:

1) Beeline for BW. By the time BW hits you need a settler and worker ready to go. If not in your capital radius, found a city next to (or on) the copper and start churning out axemen. This is still a farily tight timeline and if you get at all distracted you may be swamped before you have defenders in place. Also, if the copper is far from your capital, you may not be able to hook it up (and the road may be plundered if you do).

2) Beeline to Archery and churn out archers. The advantage is that you can immediately start production on them and you can focus on expanding where you want rather than having a settler on "standby" waiting to pounce on copper. As you need far less research, I've found that I can found 3 cities with better sites v 2 cities while beelining for BW because the increased upkeep from the 3rd city doesn't screw up my tech path.

3) If you have animal resources in your city radius and/or in good nearby city sites, go for Animal Husbandry and hope you have horses. Use chariots to fogbust and to patrol. If you don't have horses, you probably still have time to fall back to Archery before being swamped but, obviously, if you don't have good resources this is definitely not worth the risk. The dependence on resources and the "fallback" position of going for Archery is why I only count this as half a strategy.

Obviously, this makes Hunting (for both Archery and Husbandry) and Mining very valuable starting techs.

100% correct I'm afraid. Suicidal to put warriors against axemen.

Ironically, I've seen unpromoted (though certainly fully foritfied and on a Hill, if not a Forested Hill) Warriors defeat Barbarian Axemen on more than one occassion.

Ironically, I've seen unpromoted (though certainly fully foritfied and on a Hill, if not a Forested Hill) Warriors defeat Barbarian Axemen on more than one occassion.
Thats not ironic.

Besides there is the additional bonus you gain, which depends on the difficulty, against barbarians. Even against barbarian axes though, usually that warrior will be gutted.

Still I only lost one or two battleships to militia in Civ I. But it still haunts me to this day. :lol:.

Ok I did a test today. Tried him on a single contenent standard map, monarch level. Had am ammazing kick start. Went and blasted the hell out of my neibhours. Then it all went to hell when I was stuck at 0% science and 0 income for many, many turns. By the time I got out of it, I was so far behind in tech I never had a chance to catch up.

so it seems like a mixed bag of suggestions i've got so far...

some people are saying i can hold out with limited military for awhile using a few fogbusters (I definitely DO use fogbusters by the way and i dunno that i have an easy time of it as others seem to using warriors...)...

and some people are saying i need military units asap and going for bworking might be too long to wait :(

i definitely agree that hunting (agg civs don't get mining) is a great starting tech since you can go for chariots or archers, not to mention 2 scouts early to pop more goody huts [this can be HUGE early on]. however, toku obviously doesn't get hunting, which is sort of the problem i mentioned in my op. i also mentioned that when i go hunt-arch start i often find that by the time i go mining-bronze that i've lost the copper spots to the ai :( depends on the map of course, but i've definitely had it happen.

in my next couple games i'll try going mining-bronze to start and see how that goes cuz i haven't really tried that yet (i usually include a worker tech in there). i'll also try starting with hunt-arch again to see how that goes and i'll report back on how things go.

one thing people haven't really touched on so far is getting cultural borders to expand. should i go for stonehenge? if so, when? and how do i ensure that i get stonehenge while still having enough barb-killers? if not stonehenge, then what should i use for culture production?

also, what about going oracle->COL? same thing, if so, what timing?

thx in advance.

so it seems like a mixed bag of suggestions i've got so far...

some people are saying i can hold out with limited military for awhile using a few fogbusters (I definitely DO use fogbusters by the way and i dunno that i have an easy time of it as others seem to using warriors...)...

and some people are saying i need military units asap and going for bworking might be too long to wait :(

i definitely agree that hunting (agg civs don't get mining) is a great starting tech since you can go for chariots or archers, not to mention 2 scouts early to pop more goody huts [this can be HUGE early on]. however, toku obviously doesn't get hunting, which is sort of the problem i mentioned in my op. i also mentioned that when i go hunt-arch start i often find that by the time i go mining-bronze that i've lost the copper spots to the ai :( depends on the map of course, but i've definitely had it happen.

in my next couple games i'll try going mining-bronze to start and see how that goes cuz i haven't really tried that yet (i usually include a worker tech in there). i'll also try starting with hunt-arch again to see how that goes and i'll report back on how things go.

one thing people haven't really touched on so far is getting cultural borders to expand. should i go for stonehenge? if so, when? and how do i ensure that i get stonehenge while still having enough barb-killers? if not stonehenge, then what should i use for culture production?

also, what about going oracle->COL? same thing, if so, what timing?

thx in advance.


I think the best start you can have with Tokugawa is a nice coastal city with some sea resources, but with a great hinterland as well(forest&hills). If you have any forests, don't chop them off because they might be your only serious hammer resource until much later.

I would turn barbarians off and go pottery->Writing->Alphabet, then trade bronzeworking without giving out Alphabet yourself. In the meantime, I will build 2 boats for sea resources and get ready for some whipping on Granary(for increased whipping). Once Alphabet ready, you can whip practically every 30 turns(+1 unhappiness disappears in 30 turns on marathon) which is usually much faster than a regular slow build with mines. Build a 2nd settler to settle near copper or iron and start getting axeman&swordsman out.

Don't expand more than 6-7 cities before your cottages start bringing in good commerce. You might whip the Stonehedge as well, but most likely you will need 3 or more sea resources to grow large size.

in my next couple games i'll try going mining-bronze to start and see how that goes cuz i haven't really tried that yet (i usually include a worker tech in there). i'll also try starting with hunt-arch again to see how that goes and i'll report back on how things go.

one thing people haven't really touched on so far is getting cultural borders to expand. should i go for stonehenge? if so, when? and how do i ensure that i get stonehenge while still having enough barb-killers? if not stonehenge, then what should i use for culture production?


don't worry about culture for a start
go for BW, build axes, capture huyna capac's shrine, and you'll get all the culture you want
if it's not enough, you'll chop libraries everywhere

edit : don't forget that you can not count on culture expansion, build the city next to/on the copper

Still I only lost one or two battleships to militia in Civ I. But it still haunts me to this day. :lol:.

I lost a bomber to a phalanx in Civ I.

The Civ series really has come a long way for dodgy battles!

well, i won't turn barbs off because then i think i would find things a bit too easy. i like the challenge (normal) barbs give...

i guess i will forgo culture expansion early on, skip stonehenge, and just concentrate on being aggressive.

i'll keep you posted...

If I'm not playing a creative civ then I almost always go for Stonehenge. Instead of spending all those hammers to build obelisks everywhere, you invest a fewer number of hammers in one city to provide obelisks everywhere. More bang for the buck. Not only that, but it gives a great cultural bonus to the city that builds it, and Great Prophet points as well. Add the oracle in the same city and you're guaranteed some early Great Prophets, which can be used for shrines or burned for tech (which can often give you another religion or a very useful civic). I usually go for both Stonehenge and Oracle->CoL in my games. On Monarch I can usually get both without stone or marble hooked up. The culture bonus, getting CoL (and Confuciansim) first, the Great Prophets -- I just can't pass that up.

you can also try to found some early religions. The CoL slingshot can give you Confuchianism.
Judaism is easy to get if you neglect BW for a while.
CoL slingshot could have many advantages:
1. It founds a religion
2. Unlock caste sistem and the posibility to hire artist (runing 3 turns at normal speed with a specialist in the city you just built and you got the border expansion)
3. + culture in the city you have built the oracle.
4. Unlock the cheap courhouses early
5. Get an expensive tech that you can trade later as soon as you get the alphabet

I think at higher levels like monarch is better tu skip the stonehenge and go directly to the oracle.

last night i was playing a game where i got both stonehenge and a oracle-COL slingshot. then i messed it up cuz i was playing when i was too tired, lol! so, i see that it is possible.

plus, i'm finding i'm having less problems with barbs now as i'm going with a mining-bronze and worker-settler opening. thanks for this tip, it helps a lot!

I like to play Tokugawa on Archipelago maps. The starting location is frequently a small island for 2-4 cities, plenty of seafood, and almost no barbs. Good for CS slingshot even on Monarch, if you skip all techs that can wait, such as BW, and build only 1 (max 2) additional cities.

The best starting location is the one with two seafood resources (workboat -> worker -> workboat -> warrior -> settler) and 2 or 3 mines. Ivory would do, too.

If the CS slingshot succeeds, you are almost all set. Develop Sailing, BW, Math, Alphabet, Literature. Build the GL by chopping down the remaining forests around your capital, with bureaucracy and Math the chopping is quite effective, you can finish it with a couple of chops.

While researching, send a couple of workboats to explore nearby islands (you badly need iron for samurais), circumnavigate the globe, and meet the other civs. Build a few more cities on islands.

Tech trade for everything you missed, and head for Metal Casting -> Machinery (I usually do that while building the GL). Then swich to Theocracy, and start building invasion army. I typically win by conquest in 1700-s (Epic speed).