All Leaders Challenge Pre-Game Show:
Game #12 - Japan/Tokugawa

http://www.civfanatics.net/~civrules/Article/Leaders/TokugawaSM.jpg

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Tokugawa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_Ieyasu), leader of Japan. This thread is to discuss, before the game, how to best exploit that particular leader's characteristics, which is the main feature and purpose of the ALC series. Just so we're clear, I'm playing with the Warlords expansion pack and the difficulty level will be Monarch. I've also decided to make two changes to the standard ALC settings.

First off, I will be changing from Normal to Epic speed. This is in response to ALC 11 (Carthage/Hannibal), where the UU got short shrift. I'm hoping that by using a slower game speed I'll get more of an opportunity to highlight the unique unit. I usually play on Epic speed in my off-line games anyway, so I'm actually more used to its pace. In addition, my informal poll a while back showed that the vast majority of players prefer one of the two slower speeds.

Second, I'm going to change the map type to Fractal from Continents. Like several people, I'm getting a little bored of the Continent maps, with their standard 2BBs (two big blobs). Fractal maps are much more interesting and varied and I usually select them for my off-line games. I still tend to get large continents, but with other smaller continents and islands thrown in, which makes for a mad settling dash once you have Astronomy--always fun. There also tends to be more chokepoints. We also run the risk of an isolated start, but I think it would be interesting to see how we have to adjust our game play if that happens.

Fractal maps are still similar enough to Continents, though, to allow for the comparison between the leaders that we're aiming for in the ALC series. I know some of you like the archipelago maps, but I've found playing those maps that they require an extreme adjustment to game play. And I don't like them. So there, nyah. :p I generated several dozen different maps on the weekend of various types, and the fractals were always the most interesting and appealing to me.

So with that out of the way, let's focus on Tokugawa. Here's the fact sheet:

Traits: Aggressive (Free Combat I promotion of melee and gunpowder units. Double production speed of Barracks and Drydock) and Protective (Archery and Gunpowder units receive Drill I and City Garrison I automatically; Double production speed of Walls and Castle)
Starting Techs: Fishing and the Wheel
Unique Unit: Samurai (Replaces Maceman; Strength: 8, Movement: 1, Cost: 70; Unique Characteristics: 2 first strikes; +50% versus melee units)
Unique Building: Shale Plant (Replaces Coal Plant; Cost: 150; Requires: Assembly Line and a Factory; Unique Charasteristics: +10% production, provides power (+50% production) with coal, +2 unhealthiness)

At first glance, then, Tokugawa strikes me as possibly the foremost warmonger in the game. His traits mean several of his units will be getting "free" promotions out of the gate; gunpowder units in particular will get no less than three promotions (Combat I, Drill I, City Garrison I), and one more from those cheap barracks. While his UU is not overpowered, it's an upgrade of one of the game's best units and has a long lifespan.

Tokugawa's unique characteristics are also spread out through the game, unlike several leaders whose heyday occurs in one particular era. Protective kicks in as soon as you get Archery and is in effect until the very end of the game (though you might be building Mechanized Artillery rather than Marines at that point). Aggressive is effective immediately (Warriors are melee units, after all) and also in effect until the end. His UU shows up in the medieval era, but his traits mean that he'll have powerful gunpowder units through the renaissance and industrial eras and all the way into the modern age. His UB comes late, offering a potential late-game production boost.

In spite of all this, Tokugawa also presents a variety of challenges. Protective is widely regarded as one of the weakest of the traits, primarily because it is so defensive. Human players usually disdain the Archery tech and archery units, preferring units that can attack effectively. Similarly, humans rarely build defensive improvements like walls or castles, preferring to venture out to deal with pillagers rather than quaking within cities. His UB, the Shale Plant, has a high price: +2 unhealthiness. Hydro plants or, better yet, the Three Gorges Dam are definitely preferable. And of course, Tokugawa has no distinct economic advantages; his characteristics almost all point to military uses. I can't see him being a favourite leader for builders!

But the ALC series is all about learning how to milk those unique characteristics. So let's talk about how to do that.

Starting with the Wheel means that Workers always have something to do early on, so look for me to build Workers early and get them going. Since my Warriors have Combat I out of the gate and I anticipate warring anyway, I'll be looking for an opportunity to steal a Worker or two. I may also be building Fishing Boats; I'll be hoping for a coastal start near seafood, or looking for it, to take advantage of the other starting tech, Fishing. Beyond that, I think it makes sense to research Mining -> Bronze Working out of the gate to find and claim copper for Axemen. It would be nice to get Archery early, but we saw in the Carthage game that going that route is often a distraction from more worthwhile techs, so it may have to wait unless I get incredibly lucky with goody huts.

I expect this will be a game with a lot of warmongering, seeing how Toku has all these advantages for it, and I'd be a fool not to play to his main strength. I'm half-expecting to win by domination, but we'll see how it plays out. I'll be trying to get Civil Service and Machinery early in order to obtain the UU. Building/chopping/whipping the Oracle for Metal Casting could be very helpful in this regard. Then again, with all that conquering I'm expecting to do, Code of Laws for courthouses may be crucial. Either CoL or MC would be helpful for obtaining the UU, so it's a toss-up which one I'd want if I build the Oracle.

Samurai sound like a pretty good unit. There's certainly no denying the utility of Macemen, who excel at city capturing and territory defense and have a very long lifespan. They effectively have a free Drill 2 promotion thanks to the 2 free 1st strikes, increasing their chances of winning and surviving their battles, and the free Combat I from Aggressive is nice as well. Their only downside is that Toku's traits make gunpowder very attractive, which will shorten the Samurai's useful lifespan. Hopefully prioritizing CS and Machinery, and playing on Epic speed, with mitigate this.

As for the cheap buildings--well, if I'm warmongering, I'll be glad for those inexpensive barracks and drydocks (the latter increasing the attractiveness of Steel). Protective's cheap buildings are less attractive. However, while I just mentioned that Toku has no economic advantages, Castles now give +1 trade route. So I'm thinking of prioritizing obtaining a source of stone and then building walls and castles early to help the economy along. Maybe I should try to build the Great Lighthouse and possibly even the Temple of Artemis for some trade route economic synergy there? The latter would require marble--well, it would be beneficial to have both wonder-enabling resources, and if they're in someone else's territory, it makes for a dandy excuse to go conquer them.

Finally, on the unique building, the Shale Plant. One good thing to come out of the Carthage game was that I'm a lot more relaxed about cities being unhealthy. Unlike unhappiness, which reduces a city's productivity, unhealthiness has a lower impact--it just slows the city's growth. And many cities have more than enough health overhead to accommodate the Shale Plant's +2 unhealthiness cost. SPs are available earlier than healthier alternatives and offer a handy production boost at a crucial time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you later build healthier power sources or the TGD, aren't the Coal/Shale Plants disabled and their health hit no longer in effect? At any rate, Assembly Line, which enables the UU, will likely be another tech I aim for in this game, since if I'm warmongering I'll want Infantry ASAP and I'll also want to build the Pentagon.

So what are your thoughts on playing as Tokugawa?

try doing what he did- Isolation.

My first pre-game ALC :D Sadly can't play this with you (i'm not good enough and don't have warlords!)

You want to show Tog's characteristics. The way I think you could help show walls is by ignoring archers/longbowmen and once you have Macemen get Construction.

Between Macemen with there first strikes and bonus against melee and Pikemens bonus against mounted units you should be able to cover both your stacks and cities.

Walls would then give your offensive upgraded units the defensive bonus so can concentrate on building offensive units. This will provide you lots of upgraded macemen, so when you get to gunpowder you will have lots of city raider units to upgrade, you can then create defensive units if wanted and move all those upgraded units to the next conflict. Even if the Samari's lifespan is short with gunpowder bonus you want the city raider upgrade which you can't give to gunpowered units (i thinks?).

Off top of my head I can't remember if Feudalism is required for those two units, I think its Machinery and Civil Service so will save you some researching time.

Just an idea, like I said I haven't played warlords or the level your on so no idea if its realistic or possible.

Big warmongering! I think that MechInf are gunpowder and therefore get the Protective Drill/CG I say try going for the bottom of the tech tree after getting CS. Go Machinery for Samurai, then guilds to gunpowder for the free promos.

Playing on epic = warfare. Aggressive leader plays to this. So does great uu. Imo you want to get as many cr-promotion units as you can come gunpowder. Fun, fun.

Big warmongering! I think that MechInf are gunpowder and therefore get the Protective Drill/CG I say try going for the bottom of the tech tree after getting CS. Go Machinery for Samurai, then guilds to gunpowder for the free promos.

yes, mechs are gunpowder units :)

hubby's first warlords game, he wanted to try tokugama, i was cyrus. i was the mounties, he was the foot soldiers, in coop mode we had way too much fun beating the AI. never even got to mechs, not even close. i've never tried playing toku myself tho, i have too much builder in me.

Warmongering is a definite must, For the Oracle Slignshot, i'd go for COL, because you'd want to keep the war effort going for as long as possible before the maintainance cost slows you down.

The Starting Techs Wheel and Fishing, opens up pottery, if your capital stating location is mostly flood Plains going for Early Pottery is the better option compared to Mining > BW in my opinion.

Using the Sumarai just like a normal Macemen, the only difference is they have a higher survival rate and Crossbows that counter them have a lower chance at suceeding compared to a CB vs Mace, BEWARE of UU counters eg- China & Spain.

I believe the Shale Plant doesn't require coal to be built unlike the normal coal plant, but that's quite irrelevant due to the fact that you'll be warmongering ALOT you should be able to conquer enough terratory to have at least one source of coal.

As for the traits there isn't much to add to what you already have... although I'd ignore building Walls and Castles... Your increase in Terratory from war will make up from your lack of economic traits in your economy and also the fact that castles obsolete with economics so they have a short lifespan.

Maybe you could play Tokugawa just like the AI plays him?

Be rude to every civ you meet.

Get to Mercantilism as fast as you can.

Close your borders.

Refuse to trade tech with anyone.

Refuse to trade resources with anyone.

:lol:

Protective archers are nice, aggressive axes are better..
Archery is fairly cheap tech as the AIs start with it (all other civs have it so you get maximum discount) unlike HBR. Still no particular reason to go for it if you have copper - the only civ that has a real case for early Archery is Mali. I find drill-crossbows more appealing way to leverage protective on archery units, and of course having CG3 longbow with the stack to handle defense of the newly captured city is nice. By the time of Machinery and Feudalism, Archery is cheap enough to research in one turn if you haven't needed it before - you need hunting for spears anyway so might have gone for archery for some reason already (archers are cheap MPs in your backyard when you pull axes to the front).

I'm happy with the move to Epic speed. This should give you time to rampage with Samurai for a good while. Just remember that when you upgrade them to grens they don't get the free CG1+Drill1 proms, and will thus stay strictly in their CR-role, being in a way obsoleted by cannons.

I'm also moving from continents to fractal, and have found that to be most often more interesting. Continents is a very standard map type, but lacks creativity - fractal produces more variety.

Considering there's nothing in the leader or civ traits that would give you financial or expansion advantage of any kind, you need more land than you would with any Financial or Organized (lower expenses is a financial advantage) leader. You can't try to rex early either (again nothing to help the economy) unless you hit gold, so there won't be much land to settle when you finally have the economy you need for expansion. Fractal might provide suitable chokepoints to keep a good backyard for filling though. So many reasons to go to war rather than peaceful expansion :)

I have a few suggestions....
1)Maybe try and start peacefully until the middle ages? Usually, you get straight off to war from the start, and given where Toku's UU is, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to wait on war. It'll also allow you to pursue all those shiny early wonders and go to war with a firm economic base. Of course, things may not work out so nicely, but it's a nice idea.

2)Walls and Castles also boost your power-rating, something that's often overlooked. Also, in all seriousness, unless the GM is still up for grabs, a protective leader w/ stone needn't be in any hurry to pick up Economics and can go off on a different tech path for a little while without experiencing many ill effects, a potentially helpful and oft-overlooked advantage.

3)Samurai are wrongly derided as being weak by some. IMO, it is because they don't offer too much more over regular macemen, but considering how powerful macemen are....their first strikes are sufficient to distinguish them. But where does Protective come on? Samurai hate and fear one thing....Crossbows. However, your options for dealing with them are limited until you have knights...a bit of a lengthy wait if your prioritize getting Samurai. So, in the meantime, let me recommend Cover Longbows. They can cover(haha) your stack from crossbows until knights come along, and are cheaper than crossbows(who are less important due to the Samurai's first strikes....they rip maces apart.) Their drill promotions also provide excellent protection from collateral damage and make them natural finishers. Really, IMHO, any protective leader should consider having at least two of them around(one cover, one drill.) And, once you hit gunpowder, you have a couple of crack drill IV grenadiers to grind their drill-less brethren to dust...

4)If the natural pursuit of domination runs into some sort of unexpected hitch, those Shale Plants offer a wonderful contigency plan, giving you a distinct advantage in the Space Race with their helpful production boost.

I disagree with any strat other than early and near constant warmongering :D

cheaper barracks come up in a flash, followed quickly by a nasty promoted army.

BULLY people into giving you techs. mark a target out (based on proximity) then steal a worker, 10 turns peace, worker, 10 turns peace, take a city, 10turns peace, take a city & capitol +all your techs for 10 turns peace (once you hit alpha you make this critical strike) then finish them off :D

right about then you can entrench and tech towards your samurai. either mass some axes then use the cash to upgrade :D :D :D or just build them.. whatever. You'll immediately be able to make use of beurocracy, and can make a nasty stack of prot xbows, samurai, cats.. whoever was next won't be there for long ;)

protective archers behind a wall are nearly impregnable.. and you can easily fight off barbs with them. if you happen to get horses then chariots plus archers can keep your cities safe at an extremely cheap cost while you mount your army. also means they can be upgraded to lbows later or xbows.. depending on if you need them defensively or offensively

honestly protective is highly underrated.. it has the potential for abuse.. drafting 3 riflemen with drill, cg, combat 1 +starting exp per turn gets really nasty in a hurry.

same thing with rush buying masses of well promoted infantry..

so IMO toku is well set up for worker stealing/ancient skirmish, wipe someone out before medieval, wipe someone out IN medieval, attack again in rennaisance, then again in industrial. each time you can make up for the dip in research by bullying techs out of your victim.

should be fun to watch ;)

NaZ

I agree you need to warmonger early and often. As the game develops, you can then figure out which victory is the best path.

The best way to show off the Protective trait is to get Crossbowmen. You should stick with the old rule of thumb to trade for Archery, then go for Machinery to get both Samurai and Crossbowmen. If you build your Crossbowen in cities with Barracks, you can have the option of promoting them to Combat I to give you a unit that can attack pretty well against melee units (Spearmen, if you catch the AI still defending with them, and they come in handy against Axemen as well) as well as defend your cities.

The Protective trait will really shine when you get to Gunpowder units... a Combat I plus a City Garrison promotion means those units can either attack or defend well... you can be flexible with your options for such units.

Too bad if you build Barracks, you aren't likely to build a Warrior... get the Combat I promotion, and you can make the Warrior a Medic right away, and then you're guaranteed he'll never defend if your stacks are attacked! Unless, of course, you really want to be devious and build a Barracks in a city that isn't connected to resources, then build that Warrior to become a Medic.

Your initial research path will likely be dictated by your starting territory. Mining/Bronze Working will be high on your list for warmongering, but going for Pottery early has possibilities if you get good river territory that can be cottaged up.

during Classical, you should make a HUGE army of samurais and Drill 2 Xbows, you will be unstoppable

Random ideas, in no particular order:

1) I don't know if you'd consider this cheating, but if you're looking to avoid an isolated fractal start, you could give a selection of starts to a trusted source. That source (Deep Civ? :>) could then open those starts in the Worldbuilder and pick the first that doesn't have an isolated start. This way, you don't know your opponents or the world, but you know you're not isolated.

2) Does CG1 work with forts now? I seem to recall that it does (don't quote me, though). Coupled with the choke points in a fractals map, this might be a game where you could use the often-useless forts!

3) Drill is super fun to work with. Keep in mind that promoting up the Drill chain cancels units with first strikes. For example, Longbows (1 first strike) will have that cancelled by Drill 1 50% of the time (roughly) and Drill 2 100% of the time. Overall survivability increases. This will be useful for some of your deep-in-the-stack, finish-em-off units.

4) Watch out for Knights, as they are immune to your Drill magic. On the other hand, spears are only two promotions (with Barracks, only two fights away) from formation. Formation-promoted spearmen will win about 50% of the time vs unpromoted knights. Formation-promoted pikemen will eat them for breakfast.

I'm for playing somewhat peacefully until the medieval era. One war of expansion would probably be necessary by the classical era, but going all out only after getting courthouses and Samurai is probably the most optimal strategy for playing Japan. After all, the zenith of your military power will be imminent then, at the advent of gunpowder.

I'm happy with the move to Epic speed. This should give you time to rampage with Samurai for a good while. Just remember that when you upgrade them to grens they don't get the free CG1+Drill1 proms, and will thus stay strictly in their CR-role, being in a way obsoleted by cannons.
Are you sure about that? In my experience upgraded units retain their promotions, however they were obtained. For example, when I upgraded Carthage's Numidian Cavalry in the previous game, they retained their free Flanking I promotion.

Also, aren't Grenadiers considered gunpowder units? So won't new Grens also get the free CG/Drill I promotions?

dazman92 and Torvoni: :lol: I don't know if I'll exactly do that, but rest assured that I will imitate Tokugawa in at least one general respect: I'm going to be a complete a**hole. :D :spank: :hammer: :ar15:

The Samurai first strikes aren't promotions. He's right. When you upgrade Samurai you lose the first strikes and don't get the DrillI/CGI. So yeah, upgrade the good veterans, but assuming you have a handful of those, I think once you can build new Grenadiers you're probably better off just building those. Poor, obsolete Samurai, even if they can slice up machine gun barrels.

People poop on walls, but I like them for the "free" power boost (I don't know how much the boost is.)

For strategy, unless you're on an island I'd suggest a by-the-numbers axe rush followed by a by-the-numbers mace rush. Nothing wrong with that, and you have to be on your toes to keep your economy strong.

One good, and sometimes overlooked, thing about castles is the combo of defense + culture. While I tend not to keep a city unless I know I can take/raze another city to fend off culture pressure, sometimes I do end up snatching a border city with no plans of further expansion (i.e. if the AI declared war). Since the AI throws everything it has at you to try to take back the city, the quick defensive bonus of whipping up walls, then a castle, can be useful, and then there's less rush to build a theater or library to start fighting the culture.

I think that you should emphasize a medieval war with lots of samaurai and crossbows. That'll be an unstoppable army 'til Grenadiers rear their faces, at which point yours are far superior to the enemy's. (Unless they also be protective)

Starting with the Wheel means that Workers always have something to do early on, so look for me to build Workers early and get them going.

Are you kidding me? Sacrificing growth for an early worker that will build roads to your unimproved tiles? Or maybe to your fish? Sis-Daddy wants the world to know that he's a "glass half full" kind of dude.

I'm trying to think of a tech that's harder to leverage in the opening, cause roads in the opening don't improve your lot very much. The modern War Techs, perhaps, that unlock uber units that you can't build because you can't see the resources.

I'd love to see a clever gambit for Japan - something with more color than "do the standard agressive rush badly until Samurai are available", but I can't tease it out of the opening. Awful synergies in the ancient era: everything pulls in conflicting directions.

Are the online docs correct? It says that Maces can be built with Copper, but Samurai require Iron? As do crossbows. More problems - you really need to score Iron during the opening expansion, which means researching Ironworking earlier, which in my games I've found to be a real distraction from research.

Since we don't know where to rush, I'd almost be tempted to suggest Pottery first, to cut the time to ironworking. Maybe even writing 2nd, before seeking out the metals. I can't quite see the timing of a library, so perhaps writing doesn't work. Mining slots in earlier if there's a luxury metal at hand, but otherwise cottageston cottageston cottageston pie.

If you do get the coastal start, substitute Sailing for Pottery? Work the water, max commerce, beeline Ironworking, settle.

Are you sure about that? In my experience upgraded units retain their promotions, however they were obtained. For example, when I upgraded Carthage's Numidian Cavalry in the previous game, they retained their free Flanking I promotion.
They do retain their existing promotions of course. Probably this will be C1 CR2-3, maybe even C2 CR3 for some as their first strikes allow them to beat the odds quite well. Just that they won't get the free protective promotions you get for gunpowder units you build.
And Samurai's first strikes are a unit ability, not promotion, so that's not retained in the upgrade.

Also, aren't Grenadiers considered gunpowder units? So won't new Grens also get the free CG/Drill I promotions?
Yes, grens are of course gunpowder units and will thus get C1 CG1 Drill1 when built.

What I was trying to say is that when you upgrade C1 CR3 Samurai to Grenadier, you get a C1 CR3 gren. When you train a new gren, it'll have C1 CG1 Drill1. Also with the cannon reference I mean that when you get cannons, the old CR-footsloggers are pretty much obsoleted. CR-cannons are better in attacking city than CR-grens. This will change again when you can upgrade the CR-grens to CR-infantry, which again will be obsoleted by artillery then tanks (I seem to be left with a super-SoD of old veterans with a new SoD of tanks for pincer-attacks when industrialism comes around).

I don't understand how samurai are not considered to be among the strongest UU. With their combat 1 you get that 8,8 str unit with a free drill 2 promotion build in. Now all you have to do to make them city busters is upgrade the CR promotions and the enemy drops like flies. I for one love the samurai for this. Your stack is so strong with only these already. Who needs crossbows when samurai do a better job? Ok crossbows do get 2 promotions and cost 10 less but even with the drill 1 promotion samurai still outshines them. Too bad the civil service slingshot is not really available anymore in warlords otherwise that would have been the road to go.

If I had to list my three favourite UUs, they would be Samurai, Berserker, and Cho-Ko-Nu. This is due to a few reasons:
- they have long lifespan
- they're available when I'm most likely to be in the thickest of my warring
- they all have synergy with leader traits (both mace-based UUs are for agg leaders, ckn for prot leader)

Out of the three, Samurai is often the strongest. Two first strikes (which is better than Drill2 - that'd be 1-2 FS) is truly fearsome, especially as the base unit is strong. Berserker's +10% city attack is also excellent, as that's what maces most of the time end up doing.. Amphibious promotion is more situational, at times being a complete non-issue while at other times extremely beneficial. And as I do use crossbows a lot in any case, CKN's collateral damage makes it a very poweful unit.

Definitelly with Samurai available, they will be the main attackers of the army. Obviously cats / trebs are still needed, as are pikes / 'phants (anti-mounted) and crossbows (anti-melee). Samurai can be promoted to shock for anti-melee duty, but I'd rather use crossbow in that saving the samurai for the CR-duty.

Hi all, and firstly thanks Sisiutil and Sis' little helpers for these incredibly helpful and interesting threads.
Also: hooray, I've got insights! :)



The best way to show off the Protective trait is to get Crossbowmen. You should stick with the old rule of thumb to trade for Archery, then go for Machinery to get both Samurai and Crossbowmen. If you build your Crossbowen in cities with Barracks, you can have the option of promoting them to Combat I to give you a unit that can attack pretty well against melee units (Spearmen, if you catch the AI still defending with them, and they come in handy against Axemen as well) as well as defend your cities.



Even better, one of the Protective promotions (I'm guessing Drill1) unlocks the first tier of counter promotions right away! (This continues to work. Drill2 opens up the Formation promotion). Sadly, Medic is not one of the opened up promotions. That calls for some seriously kick-ass medival archery units. As someone said before, I would rather choose Longbowmen over xbows, since Samurai already take care of every melee unit there is, and lbows cost less. That's just my unenlightened opinion, though. And if the AI has mainly melee units to attack cities, xbows may be at advantage when defending.


Too bad if you build Barracks, you aren't likely to build a Warrior... get the Combat I promotion, and you can make the Warrior a Medic right away, and then you're guaranteed he'll never defend if your stacks are attacked! Unless, of course, you really want to be devious and build a Barracks in a city that isn't connected to resources, then build that Warrior to become a Medic.

Are Warriors locked as soon as you get Bronze? I never noticed. Otherwise, what is to stop Sisiutil from simply building a worrior for those puny two or three turns, at most?

Toku is one of my fav I don't know if somebody said this already bu why Toku is warmonger. The extra promotions are just perfect for peace-monger, you have no many cities thus production is low and units therefore the extra promotions are more than nice especially if you are in tech lead and attack when necessary with better units than AI.

Have you thought to try play as Toku AI. Don't go crazy with warmongering play peacefully and quietly and attack when you have to. It's all about a map if it's favorable it's doable. Just something to think.

It all depends on the map but if you're looking at playing both traits why not go for early (peaceful) rex featuring archers and walls; maybe look for your archers to get drill promotions then upgrade via crossbows to grenadiers. Chariots are good axe bashers; drill archers should cope with barb warriors and archers.
Beeline CS obviously; maybe go for CoL via Oracle. Could go for founding and spreading confucianism using oracle prophet for shrine. Then medieval warfare featuring samurai then either turtle up in a medium size empire (?diplomatic win with Tok, that might be different) or straightforward domination.

If your warring in the Res and Ind Eras, Why not Draft most of your Units in that Era.... It' quick, only cost 1 pop and +3 Unhappy Citizen Unless you draft from your Globe-threatre City and combined with Theology & Barracks, you'd get 4 Promotions Fresh from the City and you can get three of these Units every turn (on standard sized maps).

Personally I Think this is quite overpowered if not... then broadering overpowered.

For me Toku's traits scream for a drafting strategy in the mid game. Drafted gunpowder units (muskets, rifles and infantry) will get the free combat 1, drill and CG1. You should run Theocracy to get drafted units with at least 2 xp (drafting halves xp for the unit) and early on that means 3 musketman per turn with pinch as well as the other free promotions... Later drafted riflemen with C1, drill, CG1 and pinch (or CG2 for defenders) are going to run over anything and massacre the counter attacks the AI throws at you after you take the first city.

So I would plan and develop a drafting economy right from the start. You need to prepare to get the best out of it and you need to research Nationhood quickly. So I'd recommend the usual drive towards Liberalism, take Nationhood as the free tech and then research Gunpowder. Then mass an army of musketmen as you research Engineering (for trebs and faster movement).

You could draft samurai (while researching Gunpowder) but they don't get the protective promotions and only cost 70 hammers anyway, whereas musketmen cost 80 and rifles 110 hammers and paying one pop (worth 37 hammers with slavery) for 70 hammers isn't quite as good a deal for me ;).

The power of drafting is in the free hammers it injects into your war economy and the +2 happiness from barracks is good in all your cities anyway when you're at war. You don't have to draft in all your cities. It is better to prepare special cities that pump out most of your units. These cities don't have to be very big as the minimum size for drafting is 6. If your universal happiness cap is say 12 they get 2 drafts before they need any special attention (see later ideas :) ). Obviously they need a good food supply so farms are favoured over cottages.

How to maintain happiness while drafting? There is the old trick of using the Globe Theatre in high food city and draft one unit per turn (and with a good food supply also grow 1 replacement pop). That is a great long term drafting strategy but has 2 problems:
a) it is only in one city
b) it takes a lot of investment (6 theatres and building The Globe) that takes time to build.

Another trick is to use HR to maintain happiness in the city as you draft units. The unhappiness from drafting 5 units is -15 and can be countered temporarilly by keeping the drafted units in a stack and moving other military units needed for war there as well. When you go to war just move the stack out and use slavery to reduce the very unhappy city to size 2 where is doesn't cost much in maintenance. After the war just bring your big stack back and the unhappiness from slavery and drafting will have worn off enough for the city to regrow. This is a very good way to raise a powerful army by sacrificing one or preferably 2 small cities. Obviously they should not be on prime commercial sites but only need work a few farms. If the war goes well, and it should with 10 drafted units plus the extra ones built with slavery as the cities are whipped down to size 2, you will have traded 2 second rate cities for a huge army and probably conquered one or two enemy empires. Meanwhile the big cities in your empire get the +2 happiness from Nationhood to resist war weariness.

That is what I recommend Sisiutil tries in this game to fully exploit the power of Toku's traits.

Can someone confirm that castles now give +1 trade route?

Because, if true, this makes them pretty useful -- especially if, as here, they're half price.

By the classical period, if you're in touch with three or four other civs and, trade routes in your larger cities are usually +2 or +3. Nothing to sneeze at, especially if you're in a coastal city and running a harbor for 50% more. Remember, while Tokugawa is a great warmonger, you have no economic benefits at all. So every bit helps.

Further: is it true that walls and castles help your power rating? If true, this will make other civs less likely to surprise you with an attack, and a bit more likely to pay tribute.

Finally, note that castles give +1 culture. Pretty teensy, but it's something.

Walls are normally 50 hammers, and castles 100. So for you, they're just 25 and 50 (or 17 and 33 if you have Stone). The wall-castle combo is thus less than a temple or harbor.

You'll probably never use the defense bonus. But 75 hammers to get one extra trade route, a boost in your power rating, and +1 culture? That's not too bad. It makes castles, if not a priority, then at least worth doing.

Final thought: walls need Masonry, and castles require Engineering. So you wouldn't build them until the midgame anyhow.


Waldo

Osaka Castle
And all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream.

-- Attributed to Ieyasu Tokugawa

I wouldn't want Sisiutil to Neglect his UU because he beelined to Liberalism, Nationhood and Gunpowder for the drafting benefits of Toku's traits.

I'd prefer that he benefits as much as possible from his UU and tech normally, Once He reaches the Res Age or close to either Liberlism, or Gunpowder then switch to a drafting strategy.

I still say Castles are weak even cheap with the Protective trait and stone... The AI isn't far from Banking and will Switch to Mercantilism suddenly decreasing the economic benefit significantly, I'd say use those Hammers to build units instead of castles, You'll make up for the Land you conquered for the lack of an economic trait.

The problem with Castles is that normally there's no need to build walls or castles for defensive purposes, thus you have to count the hammers of wall + castle for the benefit of +1 trade route. If Engineering is researched early, this may be a good choice (for protective with stone at least), but most of the time Engineering comes close to guilds and banking (and the AI often goes for those) and thus mercantilism. Even then, assuming Liberalism beeline, Economics is then close by, obsoleting the castles.
Additionally, when Engineering comes around, you're more likely to be building units not infrastructure, and for infrastructure builds there are usually many options that end up priorized over walls+castles..

Castle is one of the weakest buildings in the game in the end. The AI does benefit from them more than the human, as most often it's the AI cities that are under attack, not human player cities - and in that case the bombard resistance requires the attacker to bring some more sieges with the stack.

Further: is it true that walls and castles help your power rating? If true, this will make other civs less likely to surprise you with an attack, and a bit more likely to pay tribute.

Waldo

Walls do indeed boost your power rating but not by much and castles don't add anything in Warlords although they do in vanilla. With a power rating of 2000 soldiers walls are equivalent to a single archer. See all the factors affecting power in this excellent article; The inner workings of the Demo screen explained (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163098)


I wouldn't want Sisiutil to Neglect his UU because he beelined to Liberalism, Nationhood and Gunpowder for the drafting benefits of Toku's traits.


I wasn't advocating a dedicated beeline for Nationalism and hence avoiding researching samurai although I do believe that is the best way to use Toku. The samurai is a fun unit but is rather a dead end since the upgrade to grenadier loses the free strikes, it just becomes like the standard upgraded CR3 maceman and macemen are rather redundant in the age of trebuchets as CR3 grenadiers are in the age of cannons. As I said above you could draft some samurai before Gunpowder is researched especially if we need Astronomy before a major conflict can take place ... but would you? Are they good enough at that stage of the game?

I am sure Sisiutil will steer a course that benefits both and we'll see samurai as well as the superb drafted musketmen and later rifles. The drafting cities I advocate can whip out a few samuarai for a mid game war while we research to Nationhood. I don't think Sisiutil has mastered the art of drafting yet and it is time for him to try a new approach. In this case I'm sure we can have our cake and eat it :)

I wouldn't want Sisiutil to Neglect his UU because he beelined to Liberalism, Nationhood and Gunpowder for the drafting benefits of Toku's traits.

Samurai are draftable. My advice - skip gunpowder until you need it for Cavas, Grens, or Rifles.

About the shale plant:
- it does not require coal to give the power
- if you later build a hydro/nuclear plant or three gorges, you get no unhealthines from the power.. and still get the +10% production bonus

Uncle JJ, thanks for the info! So, walls help power, but not by much, and castles don't help at all. Okay.

Trade routes: while it's true that the AI civs tend to like Mercantilism, it's also true that it tends to be a passing fad. Most switch to Mercantilism when they get Banking, but about a quarter of them will move on to Free Market once they get Economics (especially Mansa and Elizabeth, for whom it's a favorite civic), and almost all of them will go to State Property once they get Communism.

This leads to a strange conclusion: castles may be most cost-effective in the late game. Build them when almost everyone has emerged from Mercantilism and trade routes are paying +10 or more. By that time most of your cities will be able to build them in two or three turns. In your larger cities, the extra trade route will be like having two or three free specialists. That's surely worth a couple of turns of production.

Don't think of them as defensive fortifications. Think of them, rather, as micro-Wonder tourist attractions! Buckingham Palace, or the castle of Mad King Ludwig in Bavaria. Or Cinderella's Castle in Disneyworld.

Final thought: he's playing a Protective leader. So, castles!


Waldo

Because Castles are obsoleted by Economics, that requires avoiding the tech. It's certainly not impossible for a while, but eventually Economics will be needed - and if there's a free GM waiting to be snatched (depends heavily on tech paths taken and the AIs in the game), Economics may well be too juicy to pass.

Now, if the AI does grab Economics and it gets 'round, and the AIs switch to Free Market.. Then Castles provide the benefits of the civic without needing to run it. What you save there is the upkeep difference between Decentralization (Low) and Free Market (Medium). However, Assembly Line (infantry, factory, shale plant, pentagon) requires Corporation which requires Economics. Corporation also provides an added trade route, negating the loss from obsoleted castles. Jump from Economics to Corporation takes a while though, as Constitution is needed in between.

So when are Castles worth it? A few conditions:
- lifespan needs to be extended, either by researching Engineering early or delaying Economics
- enough AI cities are within trade range (on the same continent and with open borders - I'm assuming Nationalism sling with Liberalism therefore delaying Astronomy somewhat) that an extra traderoute will be foreign, not domestic (not always necessary, but not doing the math)
- there's a time when you don't have higher priority builds - a long peace when you aren't building units for the next war and have built high priority infrastructure already (this I doubt will happen)

Lifespan extension by early engineering is unlikely as machinery + CS gives us Samurai, and thus war. Engineering is probably a good idea as soon as the samurai-buildup has started, but not before.

Extension by delaying Economics is more likely to happen. It's fairly common for AI to go for guilds + banking and then Economics while the human player beelines liberalism, backfilling guilds + banking later on (these aren't needed before Replaceable Parts, and grens + cannons, maybe with cavs mixed in, are most often good enough, rifles being thus delayed a bit). If the free GM isn't hanging from the Economics tree anymore, the only benefit available will be Free Market civic. If Castles have been built, there's no gain from getting Economics and switching to Free Market - there's a small loss in higher civic upkeep instead.


With all that said, I still don't expect Castles to be built... Yes, if there's a big good coastal city that is pulling good trade income and has some free hammertime. But that's too good to be true.

Can someone confirm that castles now give +1 trade route?

Consult the book of Armaments

Castle.iTradeRoutes = 1.

You may as well just leave Economics if there isn't much chance of getting it first, until civs are getting Corporation and willing to trade it. Then you can trade for Economics, and next turn trade for Corporation and +1 trade routes for ALL cities, so the Castle effects are restored.

Early Engineering also opens up those sexy Trebuchets, don't forget.

A trade route strategy is not inconsistent with early to medieval warmongering. Depending upon the map, it may require a move to Optics to find an isolated or tech backwards civ with whom you can establish some nice trade routes. Even if the AI gets banking and makes the civ change, not all of them will do so at once. Protective may not be a strong trait, but it's certainly not useless.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the initial position and what the map looks like early.

Castles (plural) are rarely of any real use unless you need them for defence. A castle, on the other hand, if placed in your most powerful trade city (especially with ToA), can be very nice indeed.

The key to making loads of :gold: from trade routes is to concentrate the best routes in the best cities; but anything that gives more routes to your top city will take those routes away from lesser cities. If all of the best routes are going to your capital/ToA city, then extra routes elsewhere aren't going to be worth that much.

The castle gives you so little benefit other than the trade route (and that doesn't last), that it's usually not worth the effort to build it anywhere except the main trade-hub.

I vote for conquest!
kill'em all!

One thing, don't know if it has been mentioned already, Samurai need IRON, not copper.

damn uncleJJ, I thought drafting was powerful but I've never abused it quite in the way you explained. I hope sisuitil follows your suggestion, it would be great to watch :D

NaZ

Is there a thread or article around that explains trade routes? After ALC 11 I played as Carthage on an archipelago map and cruised into space (I'm playing at warlord level right now). Fortunately my awesome teching overcame my poor production. I built Artemis and GL and many Cothons (harbors) and probably had a ton of trade route income but really don't understand how that all works. Thanks.

I vote for conquest!
kill'em all!

Don't be silly....

First off, I will be changing from Normal to Epic speed. This is in response to ALC 11 (Carthage/Hannibal), where the UU got short shrift. I'm hoping that by using a slower game speed I'll get more of an opportunity to highlight the unique unit.

We're going for a Time victory, with the subplot of trying to ensure that the Samurai are still king of the hill when the buzzer sounds in 2050.

If you reduce every AI to one tundra or ice city with axes (and keep them to one city from that on), will they get to gunpowder before 2050? Now THAT would be a challenge :)

One thing to keep in mind here is that this will be a fractal map, which I understand is essentially vanilla's original continents map script.

That means we could end up on a smaller continent with one neighbour to conquer early. That would then lead to Astronomy being a higher priority than Nationalism. On the other hand, we could end up on a virtual Pangaea, which is what I've had in my last two off-line games: all the civs (including me) on one large continent while two others are off on a smaller one. That would lend itself to the Nationalism/drafting strategy being proposed. Or we could have an isolated start, again prioritizing Astronomy.

Don't get me wrong, these are all good ideas, keep them coming! We'll just have to see what the map looks like and then pick and choose from the various strategies we're throwing around--more so than on a continents map.

I did use drafting in the Carthage game, but not as ruthlessly as UncleJJ has outlined. I'd like to try that in this game, especially leveraging the Globe Theatre in a high-food city.

Castles we'll just wait and see on. I tend to find that only one or two cities really get good trade routes anyway, the capital often being one. It's too bad Castles aren't available earlier; Economics tends to follow fairly close on the heels of Engineering. If they were available with Monarchy, say, they'd have a longer lifespan.

One thing, don't know if it has been mentioned already, Samurai need IRON, not copper.

Ironically, the Japanese developed their amazing sword-forging techniques because iron was scarce and valued.

If you reduce every AI to one tundra or ice city with axes (and keep them to one city from that on), will they get to gunpowder before 2050? Now THAT would be a challenge :)


On deity they will, with speed of ~20 turns for gunpowder era techs.

I did use drafting in the Carthage game, but not as ruthlessly as UncleJJ has outlined. I'd like to try that in this game, especially leveraging the Globe Theatre in a high-food city.

What's the general sense of balance on drafting at the Globe Theatre?

Having experimented some with Heroic Theatre, and decided that it exploits a poorly implemented Globe Theatre concept, I've been assuming that using the draft in that city is similarly broken. But it isn't something I've actually looked into to a significant degree (I don't draft enough anyway to have a solid baseline of comparison).

If you reduce every AI to one tundra or ice city with axes (and keep them to one city from that on), will they get to gunpowder before 2050? Now THAT would be a challenge :)

You probably need to reduce every AI city to two tundra cities, well separated, so that they get killed by the maintenance costs.

If the main restriction on expansion is going to be economic, it seems to me that a high priority will be finding a good commerce city site, and getting a Market or three going in the top three cities. Courthouses are good, but I'm finding, as in the earlier Civ games, that Markets are an often overlooked key to expansion. A good commerce city Market can help defray two, sometimes three captured cities, while a Market in a heavily cottaged AI capitol can have the city paying for itself almost immediately. Currency is hardly a neglected tech, sure, but IMO it's going to be the cornerstone of any Samurai powered expansion era, should one be possible--without a map to work with, general thoughts are all we can argue.

Does anyone else play with the Toroidal map option on a regular basis? I like the options they provide (the "other side of the world" is a lot closer if you can use the Y axis, for one), though the choice does seem to change the land masses dramatically. It might be too big of a change for the first ALC to use a Fractal map, but might be worth keeping in mind for a later one.

If circumstances dictate, it's worth pointing out that Grenadiers upgrade to Machine Guns-- with the Protective bonuses, you can create some really fearsome city defenders for the era if you have the $$$. (MGs upgrade to SAM Infantry, so you can get their offense back later.) A CG3 MG can mow down waves of counter-attackers while your troops heal. This may be old hat for some of you, but I only recently started warring heavily in the later game (I really like Space wins) and discovered this little trick.

So does the first installment go up tonight, Sisiutil? Given all the discussion the first couple turns generate, it seems these first couple entries in each ALC are the least time consuming, though I could be wrong.

Hi, long time lurker, first time poster. Sisuitil, you and Aelf have tought me alot about this game, the ALC and EMC have turned me from a warlord player into a Monarch player. Anyway, I look forward to shadowing this game with you, and learning more about how to compensate for my biggest weakness, a fear of warmongering.

Anyways....I play toku rarely and I have never built a samurai, but I would recomend avoiding going to coast heavy. Coastal cities generally have less potential to become mid-late game military powerhouses and that is where toku's traits really shine.

Is there a thread or article around that explains trade routes?


This discussion gets into the mechanics of trade routes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159047

Also, EMC3 featured a trade strategy on Warlords, and included some discussion on the subject (including a few not-entirely-accurate contributions from me):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187982

aelf's typically brilliant use of diplomacy is especially worthy of your attention, though it'll take alot of reading if you want to fully understand his approach.

No one has mentioned one of the big advantages of playing as Tokugawa: you won't have Tokugawa as a neighbor.:D

How do fractal maps compare to shuffle? That's what I've been playing lately. I find them highly unpredictable.

peace,
lilnev

I dont think there much I can add, I think Toku is a rael lame duck, good for the AI, but bad for the Human. (good for an ALC game)

The only way I can see this game being different from the rest is if maybe you make an attempt to warmonger for more than the majority of the game.

Maybe turn on the 'no peace' button :P

If the main restriction on expansion is going to be economic, it seems to me that a high priority will be finding a good commerce city site, and getting a Market or three going in the top three cities. Courthouses are good, but I'm finding, as in the earlier Civ games, that Markets are an often overlooked key to expansion. A good commerce city Market can help defray two, sometimes three captured cities, while a Market in a heavily cottaged AI capitol can have the city paying for itself almost immediately. Currency is hardly a neglected tech, sure, but IMO it's going to be the cornerstone of any Samurai powered expansion era, should one be possible--without a map to work with, general thoughts are all we can argue.

Does anyone else play with the Toroidal map option on a regular basis? I like the options they provide (the "other side of the world" is a lot closer if you can use the Y axis, for one), though the choice does seem to change the land masses dramatically. It might be too big of a change for the first ALC to use a Fractal map, but might be worth keeping in mind for a later one.

If circumstances dictate, it's worth pointing out that Grenadiers upgrade to Machine Guns-- with the Protective bonuses, you can create some really fearsome city defenders for the era if you have the $$$. (MGs upgrade to SAM Infantry, so you can get their offense back later.) A CG3 MG can mow down waves of counter-attackers while your troops heal. This may be old hat for some of you, but I only recently started warring heavily in the later game (I really like Space wins) and discovered this little trick.

So does the first installment go up tonight, Sisiutil? Given all the discussion the first couple turns generate, it seems these first couple entries in each ALC are the least time consuming, though I could be wrong.
I'm fond of CoL slingshots because courthouses are more valuable the earlier you get them. Early cities with young cottages have little commerce for a market to multiply. And, of course, courthouses save a few GPT in a non-commerce city. And if you get them in place early enough you can build the cost-reducing Forbidden Palace, too. But you're right, markets are very valuable in any commerce city, and I often leave them too late. With Toku's lack of economic advantages, I'll have to prioritize them. I think careful city specialization is the key to success here, along with a little :whipped:

Refresh my memory--is the Toroidal map the one with the poles on the ends instead of the top? I'll have to try one in an off-line game first to see what that's like and if my brain can handle the change in perspective. :crazyeye:

The first couple of rounds are indeed very quick for me to start and post, so the effort is indeed inversely proportional to the amount of discussion that ensues. I'll see about getting the start posted tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Toroidal wraps around in all directions... think donut, for which toroid is but a fancy word :)

Instead of the poles being barred by ice, you can move directly from north pole to south pole just as if you were moving from west to east.

Toroidal wraps around in all directions... think donut, for which toroid is but a fancy word :)

Instead of the poles being barred by ice, you can move directly from north pole to south pole just as if you were moving from west to east.

poor guy, getting schooled on 3-D geometries..who's the teacher now, Sisiutil?!?! not that i can talk, being 29 and still in school myslef, but c'mon, spatial relations here! be the donut..ne-ne-ne-ne-ne..weren't you an english major or something?

never played on Epic speed before, looking forward to the new thread. try not to obsolete the Samurai too quickly.

*edit* on that line of thinking: will you intentionally put off gunpowder units just to keep the Samurai around for longer? please say no..

from elandal: "If you reduce every AI to one tundra or ice city with axes (and keep them to one city from that on), will they get to gunpowder before 2050? Now THAT would be a challenge"

from VoiceOfUnreason"You probably need to reduce every AI city to two tundra cities, well separated, so that they get killed by the maintenance costs."

that is beautiful. that made me laugh so hard it scared my dogs. the plans you two come up with! ps don't forget to build versailles yourself to keep it away from their filthy hands :crazyeye: .

from lilnev: "No one has mentioned one of the big advantages of playing as Tokugawa: you won't have Tokugawa as a neighbor"

i sometimes do pick who to play next based on who ticked me off lately. yesterday hubby called from work RIGHT after something bad had happened. he said 'hi honey how are you?' my answer was 'mehmed just pissed me the m&therf*&( off!!!'. he could barely stop laughing enough to mention that to his boss, who plays civ sometimes too. but he'd asked how i was, that was the answer. well and truly pissed!!!!!! ps i got my revenge.

I'd like to throw my support behind a beeline to samurai and then much wailing and smashing of enemies.

It plays right into your civ's strengths; an excellent military. Samurai are incredibly effective from the instant you get them up through musketmen. (str 9 vs str 8.8 and 2 first strikes...and the samurai is 10 :hammers: cheaper) The archery units (longbows and crossbows) you'll be using to defend your ill-gotten gains are also more effective. All of this means that your military will either be smaller than a typical military in the middle ages or significantly more effective. That saves you :gold: in unit upkeep. Furthermore, the first strikes means your mainline offensive units take less damage, so waste less time healing. If you're doing a lot of fighting, you'll likely have a couple of GG's. Using the first one or two on medic 3 units means you might have a turn, two tops healing after each enemy city before you move on. The extras can go towards MIs, which will make your eventual gunpowder armies simply unfair. Six promotions out of the gate on a rifleman? That's a touch obscene, and easy to get - barracks, MI, vassalage/theocracy. Yeah, yeah, I know running both vassalage and theocracy is lame...but it's so much fun! CG 3, Drill 1, Pinch, Combat 1 riflemen are also almost impossible to displace from cities, and give even artillery and infantry a run for their money. This means you can hang onto your conquered cities for a long time to come.

As far as medieval offenses goes, I'd smash at least one civ, preferably one and a half or two. One and a half means finishing somebody with gunpowder units. Maybe you could kill one with samurai and then build up your cats to move onto the second; if you move quickly enough off your beeline, you might not need cats/trebs to take out one AI, although I don't know how that'll go at Monarch.

By the time you finish your medieval offenses, you should be big and bad, and poised to transition to a building period, defending your territories with ridiculously over-promoted units; both vets and newly built riflemen/grenadiers.

Another option is to take out one civ early in the middle ages; either starting with axemen moving to samurai ASAP, or just samurai, (I'd say samurai) then wounding another civ and vassalizing it. If you vassalize a nice techy AI; Mansa, Liz, Washington, though Gandhi would be best, you can extort techs from them for a long time to come. That can help you get out of the tech deficit such a large military effort can get you in.

On second thought, take out the peaceful civ first, and vasselize them. If you take the feudalism route to civil service, that gives you very nice options for putting together your army. Since you won’t have taken over too many of their cities, you won't need courthouses as badly. Plus, you can backfill CoL while smashing faces. Then get the vassal civ in on your second offensive; against another nearby neighbor, to get some shared military struggle bonuses going with your vassal. I find happy vassals are much more productive than angry vassals, and the keys to that are sharing a religion and sharing wars. Unfortunately, I can't think of any civs who have really high shared religion modifiers and are also relatively tech/trade emphasized. Brennus I know has an amazingly high shared religion modifier, (he was friendly with me while I was crushing his empire; +7 shared religion, which was really nice post-vassalization) but I don't recall how crazy he is about techs and trading.

This strategy also has the bonus that you can probably extort construction from the peaceful civ you vasselize, giving you the tools for your second offensive, and the lack of catapults wont hurt as much since a more peace-mongering opponent will be easier to knock over in the early game (Gandhi builds a big army in the modern age, sure...but early? not so much).

Relatively early offenses also have the benefit that they'll help you deal with the whims of the map generator. You'll want to do some serious exploring to find prime victims and determine what kind of map you're on, and then the war gives you a chance to grab weird sites fractal has set up which can be advantageous.

A couple of key concerns.
First, make absolutely sure you get iron. Samurai are incredible and you want them. If you only have copper, find someone with iron and destroy them. Salt their land. Crush their homes. Level their temples. Et cetera.

Second, don't worry too much if your economy looks like it will tank. Remember back on ALC 10 when everyone was wailing over the GNP graph? GNP only gives commerce. It doesn't pay any attention to beakers brought in from, say, specialists. Which are really nice. An SE, for instance, might make a lot of sense (more on that later).

Third, don't get distracted. ALC 11 you got a bit distracted about war what with the NCs sucking and all. Samurai are amazing. You want them. Don't forget it. As tasty as the great library is, or other cool things on that tech tree, I think you've gotten a little dependent on them. Try something new! When was the last time you went for CS via feudalism? Or, really, saw anyone else do that? Remember; things like the GL, or even liberalism, are not necessary for victory. They're sure nice, but you can get by without them. If you want them, make sure the opportunity cost is worth it.

So, my last comment is about the idea of a SE. You may not be philosophical, but SE can still be really cool. It also means you can run a lower science slider and still get techs decently, (bulb and trade; higher diff means more AI techs for trading) which supports your warmongery ways. I think you should go for an SE for a couple of reasons. It gets more effective at higher difficulties, primarily because of AI trading, so as you move up, I'd try to get used to it. (I shouldn't talk too much about that, though, as I primarily play noble & prince) Second, SE means you don't have to fuss as much about your lack of economic civ traits. Third, it's more flexible with regards to whipping, which also dovetails with a military offense. Fourth, it means you can grab one or two good GP farms, then focus the rest of your empire on other (military) concerns, which also has synergy with warmongeryness.

The only thing I'd watch out for with the SE is the tendency to go the upper tech path for philosophy for pacifism. I'm not worried about running pacifism; I'm worried about getting distracted from samurai. GET SAMURAI FIRST. At the same time, though, I don't think pacifism will hurt you as much as it normally would. The big cost is a large military. Sure, you're going to want a big military, but it'll be okay. Two reasons. First, you'll have a smaller military than most for it's strength (not power, as promos don't count there) since your units get so many promotions and are so nice and smashy. Second, conquest earns you cash as you conquer cities. This can be used in the short run to pay off the city maintenance and the pacifism upkeep. Pacifism's strength is short-ish bursts to grab a couple of quick GPs, and this again has synergy with the quick bursts of war cash. (also if you extort peace from the civ, that can be sweet)

An interesting diplomatic trick could be multiple peace settlements with your second opponent. It'll get you more cash in peace settlements, and more shared military struggle bonuses. If you're planning on exterminating the civ, then the diplo penalties won't be too bad so long as you aren't planning on being friends with any of the victim's friends.

Anyways, that's the long, really rambly way that I say, "Crush, maim, destroy!"

C'mon! You know you want another conquest victory, right? And if you're feeling pansy-enough to go for a space race victory, you can use shale plants to get some extra boosts in that direction. All your traits point towards early warmongering and later building. Sure you have those tasty gunpowder units, but they can just be used for a second or third batch of warmongeryness. As if that's a bad thing!

Yeah, Sisiutil, I realized a couple minutes after posting that it might sound as if I was advocating skipping Courthouses altogether. (As always, the fault is mine.) The discussion about the allocation of Hammers, though, for the Globe and Castles started me thinking about the relative values of Markets vs Courthouses. (Checks Civ manual, notices Courthouses were left off the list.) At 120 Hammers for a Courthouse against 150 for the Market, circumstances would seem to dictate which building goes up first. I would note two things: you'll be going to war just about the time your cottages really start maturing, and also that the AI loves to cottage its first 2-3 cities (cottaged Hills? Really?) By the time your Samurai show up, those cities should be ripe for a Market.

Toroidal maps are easy to get used to, though having to go north-south as well as east-west for the circumnavigation bonus takes a couple times through to feel "right". I don't play Fractal maps, but did note that on Hub maps going Toroidal seemed to stretch things east-west quite a bit. It's really handy on Oasis and Lakes maps, though, because leaders like Monty or Gandhi can't just sit on the other side of the map and use distance as protection. But I digress . . .

poor guy, getting schooled on 3-D geometries..who's the teacher now, Sisiutil?!?! not that i can talk, being 29 and still in school myslef, but c'mon, spatial relations here! be the donut..ne-ne-ne-ne-ne..weren't you an english major or something?
Yes. And we didn't talk much about spatial relations in my English classes.

But I can parse those messy sentences for you, if you'd like... ;)

The first couple of rounds are indeed very quick for me to start and post, so the effort is indeed inversely proportional to the amount of discussion that ensues. I'll see about getting the start posted tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Sounds like a plan.

I just started a game using Tok on same map kind (not warlords though) and i'm on a quite large island by myself, not played it much but size of it should give 8-10 cities so will be hard to make use of UU, I hope your map is kinder. Keeping up in tech without trading could be hard, so caravel is early on my tech list to get, its something to consider.

Without knowing its a "continents/balanced" map its hard to really plan anything beyond general ideas/aims when the map could give anything.

Sounds like a plan.

I just started a game using Tok on same map kind (not warlords though) and i'm on a quite large island by myself, not played it much but size of it should give 8-10 cities so will be hard to make use of UU, I hope your map is kinder. Keeping up in tech without trading could be hard, so caravel is early on my tech list to get, its something to consider.

Without knowing its a "continents/balanced" map its hard to really plan anything beyond general ideas/aims when the map could give anything.
In that circumstance, I agree the UU would likely go to waste unless you get another continent within pre-astronomy reach like I did in the Incan game. But in those circumstances I would probably try to bee-line to Astronomy (maybe through Liberalism if I thought I stood a chance), then build Galleons and gunpowder units to take someone on.

@Melon Head, feudalism route to Civil Service is kind of a Breaker waste because AIs reseach that tech relatively early and it is quite an expensive tech... probably as expensive as Civil Service. Beelining to Civil Service through a cheaper Route would generally be the better choice, Sisiutil wants those Sumarai ASAP

Here's a Idea to Lightbulb CS... but it requires at least 2 Great Prophets, Use the Oracle to Either Theology or COLs and Lightbulb your 1st Great Prophet on watever tech you've missed eg-(COLs or Theo) Once you have Maths, Lighbulb CS. Rememeber to Ignore Monarchy or you'll go down the Divine Right Route.


A SE introduced by Melon Head is actually a good Idea... I've Heard that this economy is MUCH MORE Synergetic to Mass Drafting for the war Effort, I Don't have much detail about it because I havn't tried this out. Maybe Someone else on this thread will have more information on the synergy of SE & Drafting

Well, at least at first glance it clearly has more synergy. For a SE to work well you need big cities (to work food tiles + specialists instead of cottages) so when you start drafting you'll have where to draft from. Plus you can grow back to size faster with the high food tiles. And you don't lose "cottage growth" time, whenever you grow back to size you have the full advantage of the tile/specialist you've been working, nothing more nothing less.

If circumstances dictate, it's worth pointing out that Grenadiers upgrade to Machine Guns-- with the Protective bonuses, you can create some really fearsome city defenders for the era if you have the $$$. (MGs upgrade to SAM Infantry, so you can get their offense back later.) A CG3 MG can mow down waves of counter-attackers while your troops heal. This may be old hat for some of you, but I only recently started warring heavily in the later game (I really like Space wins) and discovered this little trick.

The main reason for not upgrading grens to mgs is that the veteran grens are most likely CR-promoted (with maybe some Drill-grens from crossbow line mixed in). CR is useless for mg, and they can get Drill so the extra value of inaccessible promotion is lost with xbow -> gren -> mg promotion line.

MGs are good in some cases - eg. Drill-mg is good stack defender (and CG MGs are good city defenders). But little additional value can be gathered from upgrading gren to drill. In case of Tokugawa, it might be worth training some grens and upgrading them to MGs though, as grens get the full agg/prot free promotion set which MGs don't get. This applies to grens trained, not veteran samurai-come-grens though.

On fractal maps again: I did roll some starts with Tokugawa on fractal map, but yet again the RNG clearly interpreted my wishes and avoided giving me that.. I got total isolation, I got pangaea, but I didn't get a single "continents with islands" maps which is what I most would like to see. Same RNG-luck was apparent earlier when I had decided to play Qin and spent an hour rolling for stone in capitol before giving up - I definitelly got good starts, marbelous starts, and so on, but not a single stone. Of course I did get stone for half of my Tokugawa rolls when that wasn't what I was looking for from the map..

No one has mentioned one of the big advantages of playing as Tokugawa: you won't have Tokugawa as a neighbor.:D
Could be worse...could be Isabella!!

I don't have much to suggest, since I'm a builder/peacemonger and therefore rarely play any civ that doesn't have Ind, Fin, or Phi as a trait...however, I have been experimenting with Aggressive civs played with a peaceful/build strategy, and with Tokugawa, you pretty much have to go to war. (He's actually quite good for early commerce, thanks to quick pottery access, but as a builder he sucks.)

In other words, you might want to quiet your Wonder-building side...Oracle is always good, and maybe the Great Lighthouse if you start on the coast, but forget the rest. Great Library? Pshaw...take it from whoever builds it. :lol:

On a historical note...I checked Wikipedia, and learned that Shōgun was loosely based on the life of the real Ieyasu Tokugawa (he was Lord Toranaga in the novel/miniseries.) I never knew that before!

P.S. Forgot to add...Macemen/Samurai don't obsolete until Rifling.

Maces (as well as Berserkers and Samurai - had to check XML as I had already made a mistake with Praetorians) upgrade to rifles and grens. A unit is obseleted (in the sense that you can't build one) when you can build all units it upgrades to. Therefore, Samurai are obsoleted (can't be built) when you can build both grens and rifles. Generally this means rifles indeed - chemistry is often a better deal to go for first, especially as it opens steel (and thus cannons).

Wonders.. Oracle benefits only the one who builds it (free tech - unless you count the 2GPP that you can get by capturing as well), so often it's a good one to go for. Great Library is best in a city that can run more scientists, so it's often good to build it yourself as you never know which city the AI builds it in. But for most parts it doesn't really matter which city a wonder is in, so capturing is just as good as building.
Just remember that nobody can guarantee that a neighbour of yours is going to build GL. If it's built on another continent in the far reaches of the world, it's going to be obsolete before you capture it. Of course same holds for other wonders as well - if you really want it, you have to build it, having it conveniently built by your neighbour is lucky.

Oh for crying out loud, can we get the show on the road :p :p :p I want to see the start for some major philosophing on what to do. I like the starts the best and everybodies thoughts on it.

Well, at least at first glance it clearly has more synergy. For a SE to work well you need big cities (to work food tiles + specialists instead of cottages) so when you start drafting you'll have where to draft from. Plus you can grow back to size faster with the high food tiles. And you don't lose "cottage growth" time, whenever you grow back to size you have the full advantage of the tile/specialist you've been working, nothing more nothing less.You can draft fine with cottages, especially since the optimal size to draft at is around 6-8. Ideally you want your city to grow back the 2-pop lost every draft cycle in time to be hit again (and smaller cities well under your happy cap can be drafted more regularly without worrying about unhappiness).

Cottage enough squares that the city can work them all when not drafting for a bit of a commerce boost, with farms/high food everywhere else. When you draft you'll lose some commerce, but the gain in hammers and military might offset that nicely. These cities don't need any production to speak of since you can build any necessary infrastructure with the whip thanks to the food available. Since you shouldn't be drafting your best, biggest cities unless you really need to (pre biology they'll likely grow back slower costing your economy more in the meantime) any overall hit to your research is fairly well absorbed.

^^drafting cost only one pop up to rifles
This excepted, i agree that the best city size to draft from is 6 :)

Of course same holds for other wonders as well - if you really want it, you have to build it, having it conveniently built by your neighbour is lucky.

Stone Thrower's gambit: send him Alphabet, send him Literature, send him Marble, send him Maces, War Elephants, and Catapults.

Possible, but it's a gambit. Better chance if the neighbour is wonderhappy one (eg. not Monty).

[QUOTE=Winston Hughes;5017631]This discussion gets into the mechanics of trade routes:

Thanks for the info, Mr. Hughes. Slow day here at work so some more light reading is appreciated.

@Melon Head, feudalism route to Civil Service is kind of a Breaker waste because AIs reseach that tech relatively early and it is quite an expensive tech... probably as expensive as Civil Service. Beelining to Civil Service through a cheaper Route would generally be the better choice, Sisiutil wants those Sumarai ASAP

Darn, I hadn't really taken tech costs into account, as I simply have so rarely researched feudalism myself that it hasn't really sunk in yet. Oh well. I stand by the rest of my advice, and I for one would love to see some skilled vassal use, as I haven't really been able to get the system to work to my advantage.

Protective crossbowmen are fairly potent with that extra free strike. Since you'll need machinery for your UU, it might not be a bad idea to research machiery early and start building some crossbowmen. You can wage a pretty effective war with just crossbowmen and siege weapons...your only threat would be mounted units which will probably come a little later due to all the tech and resource requirements. I like to build a couple crossbowmen with nothing but free strike promotions. Then by the time you get all the tech done for samuri you'll have an effective crossbowmen army and you wont have to "lose" any of your more expensive UU to deal with macemen because the crossbowmen will chew them up.

Protective crossbowmen are underrated but very effective...and basically the only archery unit worth a darn in offensive combat. I think its a waste if you are Protective and only build a couple longbowmen for defense. Why wait till gunpowder for buffed offensive units when you dont have to?

Elandal, it's admittedly a niche option. Usually that's a down time for warring, with Infantry so close and Tanks not far behind them. But as the last ALC showed, sometimes wars last a lot longer than expected, and those extra six points of strength are worth sacrificing the offensive option of a few Grenadiers. I often have a few defensive Grenadiers wandering around, mainly because it's very annoying to work up to a CR3 Gren only to have it wiped out while recovering from taking a city :mad:

If the game plan is war, war, and maybe a little war after that, then the chances Sisiutil might actually use this option seemed higher than normal, especially with the change to Epic speed. Whether or not there will be Gold enough to afford the upgrade remains to be seen.

I want to see the start for some major philosophing on what to do. I like the starts the best and everybodies thoughts on it. You mean posting the initial screenshot, followed by ten pages of discussion of where to move the warrior, followed by another screenshot, then ten more pages of where to settle? Umm...I guess that okay, if you're into that sort of thing. :crazyeye:

Myself, 95% of the time, I just settle in place and get going...(the other 5% I move one tile over to start on the coast.)

You mean posting the initial screenshot, followed by ten pages of discussion of where to move the warrior, followed by another screenshot, then ten more pages of where to settle? Umm...I guess that okay, if you're into that sort of thing. :crazyeye:
Given the amount of discussion that ensues from the start, I'd say most people here are indeed into that sort of thing. I think part of it is the unknown versus the known. As the game progresses, choices start to get more obvious and less discussion results. At the opening, so much is unknown that all choices are possible.

Hi all,

Great threads Sistuil and everyone that contributes! I’ve come to look for the regulars’ posts as much as Sistuil’s (okay, well, maybe I’m a little more interested in the screen shots).

[QUOTE=VoiceOfUnreason;5015664]
I'd love to see a clever gambit for Japan - something with more color than "do the standard agressive rush badly until Samurai are available", but I can't tease it out of the opening. Awful synergies in the ancient era: everything pulls in conflicting directions.
[END QUOTE]

Here’s a rope-a-dope strategy that might make the most of your protective trait in a warmongering effort:

Step1a – Build Solo City
• Identify an aggressive opponent on a nearby island you want to expand to
• Build one city (Solo City) on a mountain on this island’s coast
• Chop any adjacent forest/jungle
• Throw in “x” amount of long-bowmen with city garrison promotions
• Build walls and other building that provide city defence (i.e., chichen itza)

Step1b – Prepare Naval Counterattack
While doing the above in this city, do the following on your mainland:
• Build an army of Samurai and catapults and whatever else may be needed (dependent on other civ’s weaknesses and strengths)
• Have a navy ready to transport them

Step2a – Rope-in Opponent
Once steps 1a and 1b are complete:
• Declare war on opponent
• Wait for your opponent to dwindle his/her army by attacking Solo City
• Once your opponent is weakened or before your city is captured, unload your samurai and catapults onto your opponent’s island. If it is the case that you opponent is weakened, it would be preferable to unload units next to a city that is more than two enemy-movement turns from Solo City

Step 2b – Carry out Counterattack
• With your opponent’s main army fighting an uphill battle (literally) you should be able to capture a few cities with minimal military losses, which will allow a swift attack due to minimal delay in waiting for health to recoup (preferably you have a medic three horse archer with your main stack)
• Your opponent will likely pull back his main army and allow you to unload new units from your mainland into your initial city

Step 3
Post to this message board just how amazingly great this strategy was. Or, conversely, what an amazingly great waste of time it was.

Yeah, I know there are a lot of “ifs” that would need to happen (i.e., an aggressive opponent on a nearby island) or “what ifs” that could happen (i.e., opponent kicks your solo city’s a$$, earns plenty of promotions and a GG, and comes to your mainland to kick more a$$), but, on the flipside, there are a lot of qualified people to figure out how to get around those “ifs” or come up with “plan B’s”. And if anyone could pull it off…

yes but when will we see the start already!!! I want to see the citizens of your empire whipped and trained into the devoted armies whose goal it is to crush everyone in sight.

warmonger till the end!

NaZ

Start the thread already! Five pages is long enough for a pre-game show, let's see some Samurai action!

I would also like to request the kitchen be opened, and the slicing and dicing begin.

I will open the game thread tonight and will post here when it's up.

Seipheroth, a very interesting strat (though I think you meant to build the city on a hill, not a mountain). And relevant, since the fractal map may make such an invasion a necessity. The only potential complication could be the opponent. I could see such a strat failing against Montezuma, for example, simply because he builds so many units and would just keep throwing them at solo city until it finally buckled. Against almost anyone else, however, it might just work.

The game thread is now underway HERE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5023034#post5023034).

I will open the game thread tonight and will post here when it's up.

Seipheroth, a very interesting strat (though I think you meant to build the city on a hill, not a mountain). And relevant, since the fractal map may make such an invasion a necessity. The only potential complication could be the opponent. I could see such a strat failing against Montezuma, for example, simply because he builds so many units and would just keep throwing them at solo city until it finally buckled. Against almost anyone else, however, it might just work.

I must say I disagree. Against Monte especially such a strat is a total winner. Just bring your samurais to solo city as defenders.