So, I finally managed a good game with Toku. I noted a couple of things and had some interesting things, so I thought I would share.

The game proceeded as follows and I would describe it as a "good fit" situation:

-I had Hannibal nearby and horses = chariot rush

-Hannibal had built me a nice empire and I lived off the spoils teching through currency/col

-I turned his capital into my gp farm with NE/GL

-Two barb cities, nicely placed, then turned up between me and Darius so I took them to add to the war booty and expanding empire

-Then I declared war on Darius to keep the momentum going

-Meanwhile, I had Hatty to my SE and she was friendly

-After Darius was gone I had teched through Samurai and added them to the growing army and attacked Hatty while building settlers to settle the large chunk of land to the SW (would have been for Hannibal)

-After Hatty was gone I had fully settled my very large continent

-At this point I focused on teching through what I needed to adopt: police state/nationhood/caste system/state property/theocracy

-I got a 200ep/turn espionage city developed based on GT/NP (Darius's capital) and turned Hatty's capital into an IW. My HE/WP city was pumping out 17xp units/turn.

-Then I workshop spammed most of my empire except for some excellent commerce cities and my gpfarm and espionage city. My production shot through the roof, especially once I teched through my UB (I shut research off after fascism)

-From there it was a matter of shuttling units over to capitulate China ftw

Interestingly, during this game I developed the following unit:

Infantry Warlord (promotions):

Combat 1
Combat 2
City Raider 1
City Raider 2
City Raider 3
Drill 1
Drill 2
Drill 3
Drill 4

He was a beast. He started off as an axeman, promoted to samurai, and then attached a warlord and upgraded to infantry. Fun times.

I think what allowed this game to go much better than other times I've tried Toku was my ability to hop from war to war, especially in the early going during his period of fragile economy. I didn't stay in perma war, which can lead to crippling WW, but I was able to proceed smoothly toward periods of warfare to help support my economy and expand my empire. After state property my economy stabilized very nicely and I never worried about it again, but before that point I was still the tech leader getting liberalism first ca. 1100AD.

I ended up with a domination win 1848AD with a bit over 100,000 pts, which is third on my hall of fame.

I think Toku would be well-suited for a pangaea map where you can have sustained periods of warfare. I usually play hemispheres maps and you can't always ensure warfare like that. Sometimes you have to expand peacefully and Toku is ill-suited for that imo.

When you say "Ill suited" you mean really $ucks. I play him a lot, and he is definately challenging. Especially since I am not much of a warmonger early on. It's the worst if you start heavily forested without seafood. At this point you may try my "settler first" approach while you tech things for a worker to do. If you have a nice cottagable capital, pottery is a decent first tech. You can have it when the first worker is complete and use the commerce boost to deal with mining->BW. If you have enough land for cottaging then hunting-> may take precedence over BW. But i know you're an SE/whippoholic at heart so you probably just vomited your lunch from just reading that.

lol, no i'm ok with cottaging since BtS because the AI plays a bit different now and outteching the AI is a stronger strategy now in many cases. i've had some starts with Toku where getting some cottages down in the capital helped a lot. but, yeah, i've had some heavy forest/production capitals with him and that is only trouble imo because you have the heavy production to expand your empire quickly, but you don't have the econ to support it.

instead, i would recommend a heavy wonder-oriented approach with those starts, including pyramids. in that case, with settled great people, you should be able to then move to horizontal expansion and still get currency/col in a timely manner. from there you have a production monster you can use for a medieval war.

My experince also with Toku, acquiring the empire from other Ais rather than building from scratch. Yes, that is the most effective way to work with him.

A question on how you played him post assembly line. Did you mine coal resources or destroyed them? Toku's UB grants power without coal (and it's pollution) which saves you up to 5 unhealthiness (2 from factory, 2 from coal plant, 1 from industrial park). Railroads work with oil. The only drawback is losing 50% production from the ironworks. Toke UB = NO COAL.

Congrats! glad you stuck it out with him.

When you say "Ill suited" you mean really $ucks. I play him a lot, and he is definately challenging. Especially since I am not much of a warmonger early on. It's the worst if you start heavily forested without seafood. At this point you may try my "settler first" approach while you tech things for a worker to do. If you have a nice cottagable capital, pottery is a decent first tech. You can have it when the first worker is complete and use the commerce boost to deal with mining->BW. If you have enough land for cottaging then hunting-> may take precedence over BW. But i know you're an SE/whippoholic at heart so you probably just vomited your lunch from just reading that.

I've tried settler first and it is a little slower than worker worker settler, assuming the worker has something to do when it comes out. I've also noticed that settler first then worker in each city can time out an axe rush nearly as quickly, which is quite nice because you can tech bronze working while making the settler (then workers are virtually guaranteed something to do, which is good because you'll want to be chopping from there most likely, but you do have time for other things while the workers are building). I replayed the Immortal Montezuma last night using settler first (monty has mysticism and hunting, neither of which I had use for initially), and successfully axe rushed the neighboring AI as if I'd started with mining (maybe a matter of 3-5 turns later than normal on epic speed? Not a big deal). It was cool. I had seafood, but went settler first then bronze working, then fishing, and was able to chop out the work boat. I bet similar approaches would be viable going AH early first then bronze or something also depending on civ/terrain.

I'd definitely consider settler first for those mysticism/hunting civs, or as you indicated, a toku non-coastal, it seems to mitigate the starting techs somewhat...especially because you can usually get a POWER city by going settler first as you'll get your choice of locations to place him.

Edit: Toku is a warmonger, and used for that early is decent, used for that post-gunpowder solid. Drill amphibious gunpowder city captures off of sailing ships? Yes, please! You only need 2 promos for it (and yes, IMO it's worth the amphibious promo if you can bombard the coastal D with frigates enough, the AI doesn't know how to garrison against this and you can take cities quickly. Better yet, with someone like toku you can promote a few garrison gunpowder guys to CG III, turning them into extremely efficient stack destroyers. The AI doesn't seem to be able to handle this after experimentation, check out my game for nintendotogepi or the LHC vikings game, where I used this tactic extensively). Toku would have the unique power of both amphibious raids AND CG III garrisons afterwards. The challenge is getting to gunpowder first ;). God help the AI in non-pangaea warfare if you can though.

I've tried settler first and it is a little slower than worker worker settler, assuming the worker has something to do when it comes out. .

The key is, "does my worker have something to do?". If the answer is "Yes" then build a worker. If the answer is no then build a settler. Now for some shameless self promotion
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=278186

I read this thread a few hours back and just had a GREAT game with toku playing on a hemispheres map.

My Khmer neighbor fell victim to a sword rush, he was wiped off the planet as I built The great wall, pyramids, hanging gardens and Taj Mahal.

Midway in the game I went for military action. I landed next to my closest buddy, Peter, with rifleman, and defeated his ARCHERS.


Keep in mind, this is on noble difficulty. Eventually I used Themeinteam's strategy to gain a diplo win :)

:lol:. I already said in that thread that I'd be keeping an eye on it. I wasn't lying ;).

I swear, Riflemen / Infantry with 3 promos without any barracks is terrifying. By the end of the game I could have gotten Drill IV Infantry right off the bat if I had used vassalage.

I learned a bit about drafting and slavery though..heh

Sometimes you have to expand peacefully and Toku is ill-suited for that imo.

Wow. This thread made me want to try another game as Toku, a leader which I have never had any success with. I played a large and small with islands mixed in map large size, noble, standard speed (I usually play epic, but guess I forgot to check it). Anyway, I started on an enormous continent with only Gilgamesh far far to the south. Being so far away, the only viable thing to do imo was to expand. <groan> Needless to say, I completely flubbed it. Around 500 AD I had an (overextended) empire with 8 cities, and as you can guess, my economy was in the tank (slider at 30% just to prevent a deficit, NO SPECIALISTS, only GW the GLH), which led me to abandon the game. Now I guess I should have done some things better/more efficient, maybe I should not have let the distance to Gilgamesh factor into my decision not to crush him immediatley. Even if I had done that, With The whole continent to myself, I'm thinking I still would have been in a bad situation by the time optics rolled around and I could contant/discover the other civs. (I did meet monty around 400AD via a vishing boat, he was pleased towards Gilgamesh and not that far in front of either of us score-wise). I'm thinking maybe I'll go back and try Toku again, this time on a Pangea. Or maybe I should load up one of the auto-saves for this game just for the learning experience?

Wow. This thread made me want to try another game as Toku, a leader which I have never had any success with. I played a large and small with islands mixed in map large size, noble, standard speed (I usually play epic, but guess I forgot to check it). Anyway, I started on an enormous continent with only Gilgamesh far far to the south. Being so far away, the only viable thing to do imo was to expand. <groan> Needless to say, I completely flubbed it. Around 500 AD I had an (overextended) empire with 8 cities, and as you can guess, my economy was in the tank (slider at 30% just to prevent a deficit, NO SPECIALISTS, only GW the GLH), which led me to abandon the game. Now I guess I should have done some things better/more efficient, maybe I should not have let the distance to Gilgamesh factor into my decision not to crush him immediatley. Even if I had done that, With The whole continent to myself, I'm thinking I still would have been in a bad situation by the time optics rolled around and I could contant/discover the other civs. (I did meet monty around 400AD via a vishing boat, he was pleased towards Gilgamesh and not that far in front of either of us score-wise). I'm thinking maybe I'll go back and try Toku again, this time on a Pangea. Or maybe I should load up one of the auto-saves for this game just for the learning experience?

A. Did you start cottaging early? With noone to trade bulbed techs with, SE loses a bit.
B. When rexing Currency becomes a big factor. You can have 1-2 cities building wealth. GLH is not that great if you have few foreign trade routes IMHO. Also how many of your 8 cities were coastal?

A. Did you start cottaging early? With noone to trade bulbed techs with, SE loses a bit.
B. When rexing Currency becomes a big factor. You can have 1-2 cities building wealth. GLH is not that great if you have few foreign trade routes IMHO. Also how many of your 8 cities were coastal?

I started cottagging fairly early, pottery was my second tech (researched AH poped AGRI, had no seafood in my first BFC). 5 coastal cities.

I started cottagging fairly early, pottery was my second tech (researched AH poped AGRI, had no seafood in my first BFC). 5 coastal cities.

CoL? Currency? Are your citizens actually working the cottages? or did the city manager put them elsewhere?

I manage my citizens myself. Working cottages where I can. (My map has like NO happy resources, am running HR to keep the buggers in line, but went through and extended period of stagnatism (?) as most of my cottage were in floodplains and a few on grasslands, I had to juggle many tiles to break even and prevent more unhappiness.) I just discovered CoL the last turn I played, so if I went back my first priority would no doubt be courthouses, and I would shoot for currency. I know I made many mistakes on this game, but I guess it is still salvagable. If I did go back, I guess I would courthouse all cities, avoid any more expansion right now, build a HUGE stack and crush Gilgamesh. The settle the rest of the continent and see what comes . . .

You know, instead of building a settler first you could grow to size 2. That usually gives you enough time to get a useful worker tech.

You know, instead of building a settler first you could grow to size 2. That usually gives you enough time to get a useful worker tech.

It also causes you to work unimproved tiles for longer, which is inefficient. Actually this is true for any non-worker first build, including settler first, but if the worker would have nothing to do then there's no point in making one (that's the least efficient of all in such a scenario).

However, CivCorpse called my attention to some logic in going settler first in such a scenario: You get a potentially contested choice city quickly (occasionally this isn't important, sometimes it's vital), but you also get SOME benefit as you get the free 2f 1h 1c city tile at a minimum in addition to being able to work 2 tiles. If both of these cities build a worker next you're still behind where you'd be if you had the worker techs to go worker first, but it seems to me at least that you're not THAT far behind, and in my experience anyway seems to do better than letting the capitol grow working unimproved tiles!

The thing is that, with just a +4 production tile (pig, irrigated corn, copper...), you get a settler out in 25 turns by building settler first, and in 31 turns by building worker/settler. I won't even count the possibility of chopping if you can tech BW.

Unless I pop a map on turn 1 and see that the situation desperately call for settler first (being almost blocked by Monty/Toku and playing deity?), I'll always prefer worker first, even if it has to idle a little bit.

;6936007']I swear, Riflemen / Infantry with 3 promos without any barracks is terrifying. By the end of the game I could have gotten Drill IV Infantry right off the bat if I had used vassalage.
When your HE city starts to produce level 5 units, you don't need the numbers anymore.
Gunpowder units with 8 or 9 (mechs) promotions are almost invincible.
It was a good game with him, thanks to Ragnar and Stalin. :D

You know, instead of building a settler first you could grow to size 2. That usually gives you enough time to get a useful worker tech.

Vica, my "settler first" strategy is something of a misnomer. It basically calls for settling on a plains hill with a 3food tile in the first circle. grassland cows, corn, grass pigs, grass rice, flood plains, oasis. So it isn't super demanding. You actuallu build a warrior first. It will be finished on exactly the same turn as you grow to size 2.

I too am managing my first good game with Toku, though it took me til the industrial age before getting an excellent economy going, and the modern age before heading off the AI in tech and winning on the scoreboard. Playing on a huge map, snaky big & small low sea, raging barbs with 9 rivals which has now changed to 13 rivals with the AI colonising like crazy, and I have taken out 2 rivals during the game.
I was interested in reading the Coal strategy playing as the Japs, but in this game I haven't needed to worry, I had so many health benefits, I haven't had to build a single Aquaduct til the modern age! I have 6 coal sources (rare for me) which I'll prefer to keep for pumping more hammers through Mining Inc, hopefully due from a long awaited GE in my IW city soon, since my NE city kept giving me Great Spies & Scientists. Looks like a space victory in this game.

Vica, my "settler first" strategy is something of a misnomer. It basically calls for settling on a plains hill with a 3food tile in the first circle. grassland cows, corn, grass pigs, grass rice, flood plains, oasis. So it isn't super demanding. You actuallu build a warrior first. It will be finished on exactly the same turn as you grow to size 2.

If you settle on plains/hill, it's often faster to not grow.

If you settle on plains/hill, it's often faster to not grow.

Witha 3:food: tile in the first circle you gorw at the same rate that you build a warrior. This provides you an escort for your settler. Otherwise it would be "bear food first" rather than "settler first"
Secondly by growing first you can whip your first worker to get him to work faster to make up for lost time.