King of the World #3: Tokugawa

Round 0: The Home Islands
Round 1: Race for Korea! (4000 B.C. - 2440 B.C.)
Round 2: Why Rush? (2440 B.C. - 1600 B.C.)
Round 3: Ready to Party (1600 B.C. - 850 B.C.)
Round 4: War at Last (850 B.C. - 100 B.C.)
Round 5: Exit China, Stage Left (100 B.C. - 580 A.D.)
Round 6: KHAAAAAN!!! (580 - 1020 A.D.)
Round 7: Pacifying the North (1020 A.D. - 1110 A.D.)
Round 8: Building the Victory Fleet! (1110 A.D. - 1370 A.D.)
Round 9: Currying Favor (1370 A.D. - 1540 A.D.)
Round 10: Victory Fleet, Take Two! (1540 A.D. - 1605 A.D.)
Round 11: Azteca and Empire (1605 A.D. - 1755 A.D.)
Round 12: Culling the Herd (1755 A.D. - 1822 A.D.)
Round 13: Laying Down the Hammer (1822 A.D. - 1858 A.D.)
Round 14: Endgame (1858 A.D. - 1862 A.D.)

The King of the World series uses the Earth 18 Civs map exclusively, highlighting the unique opportunities and challenges of the "Vanilla 18" in the real world. In this third installment, we will terrorize east Asia with everyone's favorite bitter old guy, Tokugawa!



Much like England, Japan has a starting position with bountiful resources but limited landmass isolated by a strip of ocean. Unlike Elizabeth, however, Tokugawa's conflict-oriented traits make him particularly ill-suited to turtling up and playing nice. An early foothold on the mainland, followed by some good old-fashioned bellicosity, is crucial.

Unlike the early stages of the Germany game, I'm not going to pretend that I don't know the layout of the home islands. In fact, I'm going to cheat a little, and lay things out plainly:



I would never do this for a random map, but since this is Earth, familiarity kind of comes with the territory. So let's get down to brass tacks. Tokugawa's not much good at anything except for turning things into dead things, so I think we're going to be making another run at one of the more violent victory conditions. Hopefully we won't end up as miserably bogged down as poor Freddy.

Our short term strategy should be to get a city down on the Korean peninsula (seen to the west of the Honshu/Hokkaido conglomerate) posthaste. This is easier said than done, though. I assume we settle in place (right?). Sailing should probably be our first tech, or second at the very latest. What should our build order be? I've messed around and had success with Work Boat-Galley-Settler, Worker-Galley-Settler, even Settler-Galley (though I hate to have the Settler just standing around like that). If we dally too long, the Chinese or Mongols will beat us to the site.

This all would lead to the obvious medium-term goal of grinding Qin Shi Huang under the heel of our padded slipper, and probably Temujin along with him. After that, we rebuild our economy, maybe wait for Samurai to come online, and proceed to head west, leaving the bodies of world leaders in our wake.

Then again, all of Oceania is our oyster. We could just build a Pacific empire and wait. Of course, this is an utter waste of Tokugawa's strengths, but it is technically an option, and could result in a more stable economy to support later wars. In addition, we wouldn't need to rush so much in getting that boat in the water, and could instead fill out our starting island a bit first.

So I will open the floor to discussion. Assuming there is general agreement that Korea should be objective 1, Round 1 will consist of claiming that. I'm especially interested in hearing opinions on the build order.

Yay!
I would say the "spoilers" should be well known for anyone who plays earth but I don't know how much you want known.

Hmm.. I would advise again a pacific Empire.

I would rush to secure a foothold in mainland asia to avoide trouble doing so later.


Then build up for war with China, a rush would be more effective, but imo not as fun. I would turn the island cities as reaserch centres, using resource based production to get the needed buildings then devote as much as possible to science and gold.

Good Luck!

I advise...building the great lighthouse. IMO settle 3 cities in Japan while going GLH. Then expand into the pacific islands and at the trade route income nonsense. Production can be handled via the whip if need be...or later drafting.

And yes, I'd absolutely settle everything down there peacefully. Maybe even eventually overtake all of australia (FP there if you do). Wall everyone else off with a city's culture and nobody else will have a chance at those islands pre-astro...plenty of time.

If you stay out of religious fights you can avoid a DoW for a long, long time. Maybe grab a foothold city on the mainland so that you can shuttle troops in - where doesn't matter a great deal though IMO as long as it's a halfway decent site.

Toku is aggressive and therefore all melee and gunpowder have access to amphibious with vassalage or theocracy and a barracks. Once you get state property/chemistry/astro you can probably wring EVERY SINGLE AI COASTAL CITY IN THE WORLD using amphibious attacks. Lots of capitulations.

woot, nice to see the game starting

I don't really know the scenario but I'd probabely settle 1-3 cities (depending on how many you manage) on the mainland while you build the GLH when regrowing from the . After these cities are built, chop out the rest of the GLH, build some troops on the mainland either for defence or attack, whichever you prefer while you settle some more islands and watch your economy booming with the GLH.

Why are you considering only Korea in terms of settilng a city in the mainland? Chinese start very close to Manchuria and there is all the area of Central/Southern China to settle.... There are some really good spots in the shore of China and with GLH it would pay nicely.

Make the Korean city your priority, you can settle it around turn 60 (epic) should be no problem at levels up to emperor.
I would put it on the northern silk, riverside (Korean land bridge to China) where it gets 4! food ressources and 4 hills.
Your capital has also tons of food and both copper and iron, combined with some you have all the production you need to take out China before it becomes too big.
With China's prime estates you are on your way.

Here is what you should do:

Go workboat - worker - galley (Grow to size 3) - settler then send settler over to Korean area and start building axes.

Why size 3? I'd probabely part build rax if going for a rush until I hit size 4 to 2pop whip the settler.

I'm thinking an early war against the Chinese is essential.. they are one of the strongest on this map and waiting till Samurai means fighting Chu-Ko-Nu. Waiting until Gunpowder means they may already be close to Rifling and with ~20 cities. I thinking severely weakening or destroying China early is a must. After that, I would peacefully settle Siam, East Indies, and Australia. Meanwhile, beeline Astronomy and vassalize any of Monty, Roosevelt, or Huayna in the Americas. Going straight for domination across the whole Eurasia will mess up your economy fast .. maybe if you raze a lot of cities, you can pull domination, but I don't see it with any civ on this map except maybe Persia.

I'd settle in place, near the korean iron, NW of the gold to your south and N of the dye to your north. But those other two cities can wait till later. Iron is priority, research iron working, and (try to) kill the Chinese. Do they have their own metals?

I wouldn't mind settler - galley.


Great to see this series back in action by the way.

China has metal, horses, and time to get them hooked up and get units in the field. We won't be able to rush China, per se. It'll be a proper drag-out early war. One which can be won, mind you, but not without cost. I'm seeing some support for getting footholds established and then expanding into Oceania. Maybe wait until Construction, get some Catapults in the field?

The last time I played this, I waited until Samurai, which is admittedly a bit late for a first war, spending my early years teching and expanding peacably to Australia. After that first declaration, though, I did proceed to march pretty much to the Atlantic before stopping. On the other hand, this was in Vanilla, when Tokugawa was still Organized, and before the introduction of the colonial surcharge.

The Great Lighthouse is definitely a priority Wonder in this game, making Masonry another early goal. How does Sailing (our crucial galley) - Agriculture (to get some of that Rice online) - Mysticism (prereq, plus Monuments) - Masonry sound? Seems a bit much to put Bronze Working off that long...

Hi neal. I play this map a lot, particularly with China. I have some thoughts here.

Rush option: First of all, Qin can be had early with just Iron Working and Sailing. He will tend to build archers and settlers and wonders rather than going for iron working (even though he has iron in Beijing's BFC). Perfect for a swordsman strike. Yes, even though he's protective. Just promote your swords with Cover and keep making replacements. If you can knock Qin out early, Ghengis is a pushover with pretty crappy land overall. Then you have a huge area to settle, with only Cathy, Asoka, and Cyrus to really worry about long-term.

REX option: Yes, the Great Lighthouse is great. But even better is getting to some of the key asian city sites before Qin and Asoka. In particular, the Thai, Korea, and south China areas are quite lucrative. Try to nab them before going for the Phillipenes and the little islands. Frankly, the little islands aren't that great until you have Calendar, anyway.

Your Australia strategy can still work if you save the forbidden palace for that purpose. Just accept the fact that you're going to have some colonial maintenance for Australia and your mainland Asia cities. You can avoid additional maintenance by only settling one city per island. This is pretty easy to do in most of Oceania.

Cities on Japan's Home Islands: You can go with 3 or 4 cities, but I think 3 is best. If you settle in place, and want less overlap, settle city 2 on the northern dye and city 3 on the forested plains hill next to the gold. This gets all of the resource tiles and minimizes overlap.

However, if you can get Sailing early enough, city 3 should really be in Korea, in the obvious open grassland location.

Hello everyone. I just finished reading through the first two of these and am ready to get a-rolling.

Settling in Korea should definitely be high priority. If China's start is too good, perhaps rushing Mongolia would be a better strategy? I'm not sure how close they are compared to China, but I've heard their location is pretty poor and that should make them an easier target... plus their territories would give you a better foothold to use against China once you got catapults.

A lot of micromanagement and unenlightened production methods in this round. I think I did pretty well, though I am, as always, willing to hear what you all have to say about it.



As you can see, I settled in place and started off with a Work Boat, working that three food rice plot to grow my population. Obviously, once the border popped, I reallocated him to the riverside rice for the free commerce. I sent my warrior south to check out that hut on the gold hill, and found 32 gold. The northern hut gave him 5 XP. Not great, but not terrible, either.

Once I reached pop 2, I made a drastic change, and reallocated to get that workboat online as quickly as possible:



I spent the two turns between the completion of the Boat and the advent of Sailing putting hammers toward a Settler. I then shifted to a Galley and started on Mining. I underused the whip in my Montezuma game. I'm not going to make that mistake again, especially not with all the food that Kyoto has access to.

I continued to emphasize growth. Here's a final screenshot of Kyoto, showing my worker allocation and all that good stuff:



Once the Galley was completed, Settler production resumed. It was only a few more turns before Bronze Working was completed, Tokugawa learned to stop worrying and love the whip, and the Settler was completed at the expense of two fifths of Kyoto's population. A few turns later, Osaka was founded in Korea and a worker was whipped for another population point in Kyoto:



As you can see, I'm currently studying Mysticism to get a Monument online and get some border pops going. Kyoto's working on a Lighthouse (in the interests of regrowth and getting the Great Lighthouse). And Osaka's working on a Work Boat until a Monument can get started.

So, now we come to the decision point. Do we research Agriculture (to finally improve those Rice tiles) or Masonry (to get started on the GLH) next? Do we continue to expand peacefully or start cranking out units?

Oh, and the save:

Bold move. I like it. I probably would have built a worker before the galley+settler, but whatever works.

I would get Agriculture, Masonry, Hunting, Archery, Animal Husbandry, and Iron Working, in that order.

In Kyoto, the Lighthouse build is premature, as you are not presently working the crab tile in its BFC. I would build a workboat, grab the crabs, chop/whip out the Lighthouse then the Great Lighthouse.

In Osaka, I'd do a worker right after the workboat. Chop and whip out some settlers and use your Galley to settle the gold city site south of Osaka and the northern city to get the silver. Those two tiles, along with your seafood, will boost your research and give you two , helping you grow vertically.

I think he's doing the Work Boat in Osaka to nab the crabs, freeing up Kyoto to focus on the lighthouse so that they both complete at roughly the same time.

The bear's recommended tech order seems sound; maybe you can slip out another Worker / Settler from Kyoto before beginning the GLH?

Well Played. Important to establish a presence on the mainland. I think Masonry followed by IW is good after Mysticism is done. Rushing Qin with swordsmen is also a good idea.

Nice display of MM

I would research Agri ->Masonry and would put city #3 somewhere in central China. GLH should be #1 priority though.... it will pay your Samurai.

Wow. The turn after this round ended, I got the Shock Axemen event. Should this change our strategy? Given that our primary opponents will probably be Archers, it seems kind of superfluous. In fact, it seems like Swordsmen will be a bigger part of our initial early war. It's cool, though. Thoughts?

Nice round neal

Neal said:

Wow. The turn after this round ended, I got the Shock Axemen event. Should this change our strategy? Given that our primary opponents will probably be Archers, it seems kind of superfluous. In fact, it seems like Swordsmen will be a bigger part of our initial early war. It's cool, though. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Definitely consider that when you build you army of samurai and upgrade these bastards to rifles later

I'd say agriculture first as your workers should do something to make that land useful. You can never have too much food. Food is early game. Then I'd research masonry followed by the wheel (you don't have that already, right?) to get that Copper online.

Please, also consider using 1-2 workboats for scouting. No need to hurry there though.