[LP] Communist Tokugawa – all roads lead to Tokyo!

[Bibor]

Well, that escalated quickly!



My strategy so far is this:

- Dedicate two cities that can grow tallest as internal trade route destinations. Usually Tokyo and Nagoya.
- These cities should have the maximum number of speciality districts possible (in my case, Tokyo has 7). Great Engineer Bi Sheng (+1 district) with possibly Mausoleum can help you push this to the max.
- Magnus in the first city, with Surplus logistics as first upgrade. First trade route goes from Nagoya to Tokyo, for the extra 2 food.
- Commercial district is priority district, over the campus and others. So are harbors w/Lighthouse. If Heroes mode is on, Hercules can really speed things up.
- Great merchants are a priority. You can easily get +4 more trade routes this way till T150. Zhang Qian (classical), Ibn Fadlan and Marco Polo (Medieval) are the three to aim for, as well as getting The Colossus. Raja Todar Mal mandates special mention, as 0.5 gold per district at destination really scales up.

Policies of note:
- Collectivization (Communism government exclusive): +2 production +4 food from domestic routes
- Triangular trade: +4 gold +1 faith from all trade routes
- Ecommerce: +2 production +5 gold from all trade routes

The realistic number of trade routes is N+5, where N is the number of your cities.

Trade route order/logic:
First free trade route from City 2 to Magnus City.
Get Market/Lighthouse in City 2. This trade route goes from City 3 to Magnus City.
Get Market/Lighthouse in City 3. This trade route goes from Magnus City to City 2.
Get Market/Lighthouse in Magnus City. This trade route goes From City 4 to Magnus City.
Each further city N provides a trade route for city N+1.
Bonus trade routes either go from Pingala or Magnus City, depending which city needs them more.
Sometimes, if really needed, I spare 1 trade route for a city-state quest.

EDITS : Note on settling extra trade routes in Pingala vs. Magnus cities. Pingala doubles culture and science yields from each trade route, but... with 10 cities, another district in Magnus city might grant over 50 extra yields across your empire. So it's not as clear cut. If I can get Magnus City up to 7 speciality districts with Bi Sheng (i.e. I don't need the food), I usually send the rest of the trade routes from Pingala City.

Note on Hercules - best use of charge so far has been: (hard build govt. plaza), campus in capital (eureka from govt plaza adjacency), commercial hub in second city (eureka from adjacency), commercial hub in third city. This gives "quick" 4 trade routes, and capital has least 2 speciality districts (campus + government plaza) and can quickly hammer out the third (commercial hub). This yields +12 science +12 culture from *very early on*. You can basically skip monuments, granaries and workers, and start working on marketplaces in most, if not all new cites.

 

[spaghetti cat]

Hey thank you for this Bibor.

I'm finding internal trade routes a great way to generate early growth, even when not playing Tokugawa. I tend to play random civs.

I'm having trouble prioritizing, which is normal I guess. I generally use my capital building settlers and now I want districts too. I need to shift settler duty to city3, but city3 takes twice as many turns to make a settler. Plus city3 needs to make a commercial hub.

 

[Bibor]

Hey thank you for this Bibor.

I'm finding internal trade routes a great way to generate early growth, even when not playing Tokugawa. I tend to play random civs.

I'm having trouble prioritizing, which is normal I guess. I generally use my capital building settlers and now I want districts too. I need to shift settler duty to city3, but city3 takes twice as many turns to make a settler. Plus city3 needs to make a commercial hub.

I'd say, at least with Tokugawa, trade routes and districts are usually priority over building settlers, as additional yields gained sooner are more important than what a new city can provide.