I love Toku!

Toku is really an annoying neighbor, but this time it's me who played it (while it doesn't make him less annoying, for the AIs!).

Setting: Deity standard, Pangaea. I set Shaka and JC as two of my rivals, because Toku don't wanna live in a world of peacemongers The others are unknown.

Birth place is nice, while that usually means you'll have some bad neighbors. That's how it works.

Hey dingding,

We are still waiting for the finish in your previous thread! It was a very interesting thread, so it would be great if you could finish the writeup there...?

0-0- Wouter

Tech: Agriculture => AH => Hunting => Mining => BW => Archery => Mysticism => IW => Masonry => Pottery => Writing

I wasn't quite lucky. Shaka was just beside, he settled down his third city just 5 tiles from my cap. The other two neighbors are nicer: Hatty and Victoria. But they were close as well. I had to rush two settlers to grab land from Victoria. Luckily this woman had got Buddhism and she was quite a professional missionary - while for an Imperialistic, that means she doesn't have much space to expand so she spends her hammers on the missionary things - so to build cities on her border is not very dangerous.

The real dangers are Shaka and JC (he seemed to be not far as well). After BW I didn't see any copper, which was normal. Then I went for Archery and IW. These are crucial things: Archery prevents Dogpile Wars (the kind of war they don't say "we have enough on hands right now") and IW is needed to find iron in order to build Axemen and Spearmen. And there was a Bar city to the north, that was the only space I could grab, PEACEFULLY I mean.

As I was totally sandwiched by Zulu, England and Egypt, I didn't have much concerns on the city maintenance, and a gem in the cap allowed me to skip pottery before IW.

Masonry was prioticized as well: Wall is cheap for a Protective, and extremely powerful.

Only four cities were built. The fourth one was well positioned: it's the border city near Zulu and set on the hill. A high position allowed me to observe Shaka's war preparation. To know how many units he has on the border is very important.

Wrong screenshot?

vanatteveldt said:

Hey dingding,

We are still waiting for the finish in your previous thread! It was a very interesting thread, so it would be great if you could finish the writeup there...?

Click to expand...

Seconded

Shaka got busy at turn 71 and he dowed me at turn 73. The preparation was short. Too short. The first wave was 1 Swordman, 1 Axeman, 3 Chariots and 3 Impis. My defense force was 5 Protective archers, defending on a hill city and hiding behind wall

The result of the first battle: Zulu's main force died in vain and I lost only one archer.

The second wave wasn't better. They came at turn 82, 2 Swordmen, 1 Axeman, 1 Chariot and 2 Impis. And I'd got 1 axeman and 6 archers. After this battle I gained a GG and setteld him in the cap: I was aiming for an early military expansion and he allowed me to have level-3 catapults.

The third wave came with catapults. It wasn't that bad, but JC became busy at that time. I don't wanna be bitten by two maddogs at the same time. So I signed the peace treaty with Shaka at the cost of Aesthetics.

With Aesteltics, I'd traded for Alphabet and Maths. As JC was busy, I researched half a Sailing and begged it from him. At least that would give me 10 turns of time. Fortunately his target wasn't me: he dowed Victoria at turn 97. Good, pls continue.

Are you just outright ignoring their requests about your previous game? Or is this you saying that you gave up on the other game?

I was aiming for a no-sl play but I failed it here for a silly mistake.

As JC dowed Victor, Victor bribed Shaka to fight for her. I had suddenly so many targets (Shaka, Victor and Hatty) and I was lost somehow. At a matter of fact, if I prepared the war at this moment, I could launch it at least 20 turns latter. By then I would only give a good excuse for Shaka or Victor to stop their war against JC and turn to me. Finally my target was Hatty: the northern bar city seemed very fragile, and there seemed to have another city in the corner.

Another advantage to launch a war against Hatty, it was I'd got three techs to bride Ragnar, who considered Hatty as his worst enemy, into our war against Hatty.

I captured two cities:


I made a mistake here. I didn't predict Hatty could bribe Victoria to dow me: she was pleased with me and with Hatty, and that's exactly the condition of bribery; but Hatty could bribe her with only a Drama - God, things between women seem too easy.

Victoria dowed me at turn 119. This kind of Dogpile War is usually badly prepared. As some English units came to harass, I'd got my units in the position, including some powerful War Elephants.

I captured the second Egyptian City and made peace with her with a Construction. Then my main force was back! Helping me to capture an English city. This time was my enemy begged me for peace: Victoria gave me a Literature at turn 133 (450AD). BTW she'd already got Liber

JFleme said:

Are you just outright ignoring their requests about your previous game? Or is this you saying that you gave up on the other game?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I will reply to all the requests above. But pls just let me finish the Toku story.

It's a short one!

Let's talk about the Aesthetics line and Liber line for a warmonger.

The Aesthetics line is not very valuable for trading or bribery. But there are two wonders here for the professional warmongers: Shwedagon Paya and Hero Epic. The first one unlocks Theocracy and the second one double our best hammer city when building armies. I built Hero Epic immediately when I got Literature from Victoria.

The Liber line is, on the other hand, important because of its trade value. Philosophy is expansive and little prioticized by AI, so we can trade it for Feudalism and Machinery. Education is so expansive that we can easily bride any mad dogs to fight for you with it.

How could a broken economy as mine reach Education, such an expansive tech, before the others? The answer is GS. I got my first GP at turn 148 and I accelerated Education: that's 1662 beakers and my research was only 120 bpt at the time.



With Education I got at turn 153 (and Philosophy), I bribed Shaka to fight against Victoria (and I joined him two turns later). Some techs were also obtained in the trade: with Engineering, my units move 50% faster. That's good, but Samurai never move too fast.



With the generous bombardment of Zulu, my Samurais captured two English cities: Warwick, I gifted it to JC; and London, which is full of wonders. England was capitulated at turn 175 after lost 4 cities. Here I wasted some time because I wanted to eliminate Victoria, but finally I gave up: it was too time-consuming, and it's not bad to have the most advanced civ as my vassal, although she'd got only one city at last.

JC is crazy. He got involved in a war against Ragnar, that made him extremely vulnerable. I bribed Shaka directly to DoW JC, with Nationalism and Music.

London's wonders helped a lot: my second GP is born here (turn 183), and I launched a GA. Four civics were changed: Hereditary => Representation, Slavery => CS, Free Market, Pacifism. I planned to spam out 3 GM during this GA but some GP were polluted. Finally I got 2 GM and 1 GS. Final civic: Pacifism => Theocracy. And I DoWed JC at the second last turn of GA, when I found Shaka had eliminated JC's SoD.

The tech was slow this game. I got Steel at turn 189, and when I fought against JC, his force was Longbow, Macemen or Knights something. So it was Samurai show: an experienced Samurai can obtain 80%+ odds against a Longbow in a 50% defense city.



I though I didn't need more help so I asked Shaka to stop this war (with Economy) and bite Hatty (with Liber and Constitution), I was afraid he capitalize JC. I underestimated JC: he got Rifle later and I had to sign a Cesse-Fire with him, upgraded my units, restarted the war, and capitalized him at turn 218.

Shaka's SoD was headed for Egypt. But after they passed by, I stopped the Open-Border with him. So they were eliminated little by little in Egypt. Then I DoWed Shaka and conquered him at turn 251. I wasted some time here. It's true that the late game was sloppy, because I was tired. And when we have already conquered half of the world ,and we can produce infantries with 5-6 upgrades, the game is not needed to be continued. Well, that's Toku show.

vanatteveldt said:

Hey dingding,

We are still waiting for the finish in your previous thread! It was a very interesting thread, so it would be great if you could finish the writeup there...?

0-0- Wouter

Click to expand...

CarlH said:

Seconded

Click to expand...

Sorry I thought I could finish the Toku story first and reply to your requests, but you guys were just too fast

Yes, you're right. I think I'll find some time to continue that thread this week. Anyway I promise it will be finished before CIV V

Shurdus said:

Wrong screenshot?

Click to expand...

Yes you were right. It was a mistake and I corrected it a few seconds later.

You were just too fast to observe it

Well played so far. Nice capital with some key resources Gem/Pig/Marble/Ivory.

Could you describe a bit more in detail of your military build up between turn 90 (625BC)-turn 115 (1AD)? seemed you went Anesth-Construction, and built nothing but Sword/Axe in capital. Did you whip any units from other cities? That looks like an impressive military force with in only 25 turns while maintaining a decent research rate to get to construction.

920AD, Liz needed some Longbows there on defense cool double team with Shaka.

Edit: what is the tech situation when you stopped playing?

ABigCivFan said:

Could you describe a bit more in detail of your military build up between turn 90 (625BC)-turn 115 (1AD)? seemed you went Anesth-Construction, and built nothing but Sword/Axe in capital. Did you whip any units from other cities? That looks like an impressive military force with in only 25 turns while maintaining a decent research rate to get to construction.

Click to expand...

In fact I went for Aesthetics (trade for Alphabet + Maths) => Compass (trade for Horse Riding + Currency + Calendar) => Construction. With Currency everything will be easier.

Cap's production was good (15h/turn) and I did a lot chopping, so the force could be built. Whipping is the fastest way to build up the force but I think we ruin our economy when doing this. If I have 6-7 cities, I can whip in 3-4 cities and leave 2-3 to develop; or if I can grab a shrine, GL or Mausoleum of Maussollos, I'll consider whipping with my 4 cities. But this time I didn't whip anything unless it's necessary.

ABigCivFan said:

Edit: what is the tech situation when you stopped playing?

Click to expand...

Turn 250, my team (me + Shaka + JC + Victor) has Assembly Line + Combustion + Railway, the only four techs needed are Fascism, Communism, Bio and Artillery, then I can change every tile to workshop.

The other rivals: Hatty doesn't have AL and she's the next target. Ragnar is out. Hammurabi has all I've got, except Astronomy, land and vassals.