After a long hiatus and before I pickup Warlords, I refamiliarized myself with a pair of throwaway games before embarking Tokugawa II on the path of conquest. Things went poorly at first, good in the middle, and then suddenly disaster struck in the end game. So it's worth a bit of time for me to go back and look at the critical missteps along the way.

I'm playing on: Noble, Fractal, Huge World, Tropical Climate and High Seas (climate/sea level were random picks), Ancient Era, Marathon

Options: New Random Seed and Require Complete Kills

There are 11 other AI civilizations in the world. That gives me a multitude of targets as well as lots of possibilities for intrigue, allies, and pacts.

Tokugawa-II-BC-4000.zip (http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/Tokugawa-II-BC-4000.zip)

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/BC4000-01.jpg

Not much to see here at the start. I've got corn which is going to be quickly useful, an oasis, pigs and some other resources which are long-term. Other then doing a small amount of exploring, there's not much else that I can do.

I do wish I had started away from the coastline a bit as I prefer to expand towards the coast rather then push inland. OTOH, Tokugawa starts with Wheel+Fishing so I should make better use of those technologies then I normally do.

Tokugawa-II-BC-3865.zip (http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/Tokugawa-II-BC-3865.zip)

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/BC3865-01.jpg

I chose to settle 2 tiles east of the wheat fields on top of a small hill. In retrospect this may not have been the best choice because I think it did the following to me:

- Surrounded me by forests that I wasn't able to chop until the bronze age.

- Took me away from the source of fresh water.

- Took away a hill that could've been used for mining.

OTOH, any farther east and I wouldn't have been able to work the wheat tile with Kyoto. Farther west was a bit of a bust as well because of the lack of hills.

Might have been worth it to go up and settle on top of the Marble resource, which would've secured me a source of marble early on. OTOH, there's signs of a desert up there in the NNE and a touch of Jungle.

Tokugawa-II-AD-0250.zip (http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/Tokugawa-II-AD-0250.zip)

Fast foward a few years. I've got a bunch of cities, either settled to grab a resource or to block my neighbor from expanding in my direction and taking the land that lies between us. Copper was the key one that drove my fast push inland. As you'll see from these 2 screenshots:

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-01.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-02.jpg

Not getting those copper resources would basically consign me to the back pages of history. So it's worth a stretch to go after them.

Which leads to the following city placements. Not all are ideal, but they served the purpose at the time. And sometimes there was no good spot to settle while meeting overall needs.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-03.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-04.jpg

At this point, finances are a bit troublesome due to the rapid expansion and only so-so city placement. Remember that this is a "huge" world which means that I need to land-grab early to stay even with the AIs.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-05.jpg

City maintenance costs combined with unit upkeep costs are killing my scientific progress. I'm only able to afford 30% per turn.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-06.jpg

City listing. One big problem that I'm having is that I forgot to research any "soft" techs that allow me to grow my culture. This results in a bunch of cities that are still stuck at zero culture.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-07.jpg

Fortunately my large neighbor (Mansa) is pleased with me. Or this would get a lot uglier, a lot quicker.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-08.jpg

You'll notice that I have a *lot* of workers. That's because, due to not researching soft techs, there's nothing else for my cities to do! Unless I want to keep producing military units that drain the budget. (Once again, amateur mistakes.)

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-09.jpg

The overall score graph doesn't look terribly bad. I'm neck and neck with the middle of the pack, but Mansa is outpacing all of us on the overall score.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-10.jpg

Demographics. Other then GNP, I'm not too far behind Mansa. So that's mildly encouraging that I'm not out of the game yet. As long as I can keep him happy, things should come off moderately well.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0250-11.jpg

This should highlight the tech issue in another way. Look closely at the buildings that I've constructed. There's nothing there other then walls, graneries and bunkers. Once I build those 3 items in my cities, the only thing I can build is settlers (more costly cities), military (drain on the coffers), or workers (useless once I've built all of the roads that I need).

Forward a bit to A.D. 490 and we find an empire in near-stasis. My borders aren't expanding and I'm starting to strain even a bit more under the weight of moribund finances and the military needs to keep my neighbors off of my lawn.

Tokugawa-II-AD-0490.zip (http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/Tokugawa-II-AD-0490.zip)

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-01.jpg

The resource picture is still the same as it was, with not much expansion on my part.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-02.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-03.jpg

I'm not ready to give up yet on this game. I've got a sizeable area of terrain carved out, but none of it is outstanding. But I do have multiple sources of Iron and Copper, so I should be able to do a bit of warmongering without any trouble.

Those northern 5 cities are still stuck in the stone-age in terms of culture though and they're going to cause me trouble if I don't fix that. I really only have 1 city that is doing well and that's my capital.

I've been splitting my time between building farms or cottages. But I'm not a good city manager yet. I can do war (somewhat), but I haven't gotten smart enough yet to eek out that extra 10% of performance from my cities.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-04.jpg

There's a lot of things on this city screen that I need to understand better. It's a status screen that I haven't added to my repetoire except when I'm looking for trouble spots and need to sort by a stat.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-05.jpg

Research is now down to 10%. The cash crunch is starting to become critical and it's not getting better anytime soon.

So what all is that doing to me?

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-06.jpg

Well, not much on the international front as Mansa and Montezuma are still pleased towards me while the other 2 are merely cautious. Because of my tech status, there's not a lot that can be done on the diplomatic front yet.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-07.jpg

I have 2 trading partners (Mansa and Montezuma). Anything to keep Mansa happy as he could probably scarf me up fairly easily.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-08.jpg

All of my old warriors are long gone (in an early attempt to balance my budget). Still a bunch of workers that I probably don't need. But I pack them together in groups of 3-4 workers with a swordsman as their guard. That keeps the barbarians off of them and keeps my neighbors from thinking that they are tendle vittles.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-09.jpg

This should explain my tech research folly even clearer. No soft techs at all (religion).

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-10.jpg

Only 2 of my cities have religion. Another early failing which is causing me trouble on the culture war front.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-11.jpg

Game conditions.

Graphs for 490 A.D. that show things are not quite as bad as they seem, although it's still pretty ugly. I'm matching Mansa's output of production and military might, but I'm dead last in the culture race.

Also notice that my GNP recently hit zero as a result of the financial crunch.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-12.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-13.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-14.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-15.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-16.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD0490-17.jpg

1135 A.D. - Shortly after I corrected for my budget shortfall, I beelined towards any techs that would give me money, money and more money. I'd already been creating a zillion cottages, now I just needed to put them to work.

In addition, c800 A.D., Mansa decided that it was time to wipe out Montezuma and asked for my assistance. Since I had lots of swordsmen at the time, it was an easy choice to go to war. It also gained me access to additional raw materials (none of which I didn't already have) as well as new territory.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-01.jpg

Montezuma has a single city left which I'm going to destroy the next time that he ticks me off.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-02.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-03.jpg

In the second screen, you can see where Montezuma landed on the western coastline and attempted to expand. While I attempted to take the city, I somehow razed it instead. Otherwise it would've been a new city location.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-04.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-05.jpg

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-06.jpg

All of my cities are now producing culture. But things are not all rosey.

http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/CivilizationIV/TokugawaII/thumbs/AD1135-07.jpg

Finances are still in a bit of a pinch. I'm stretched very thin with Kyoto still being my capital.

Isn't anyone else digging this yarn? Awesome piece of literature!:high5:

I am enjoying it, two things i have to say, firstly u need surrency, then u can set cities to build gold, which is what i do when times are hard, secondly get courthouses to try and lower natinence, topped with a forbiden palace in the city futherest from your capital.
And thirdly, the malinnesse can NEVER be trusted, be extremly cautious when dealing with them, is my advice at least, keep it going its great!