ALC Game 12 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Tokugawa

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Tokugawa, 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. 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 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.

Galileo44 said:

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.

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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.

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

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

right about then you can entrench and tech towards your samurai. either mass some axes then use the cash to upgrade 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.

Elandal said:

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.

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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: 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.

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)

Sisiutil said:

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.

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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.