Lonely Lad Tokugawa Wants Off This Planet

[crullerdonut]

It's time for another AdvCiv game report! This time, I decided to play as Tokugawa for a bit of an extra challenge. The other settings are: Monarch difficulty, Continents, Choose Religions, Huts and Random Events both on.
Tokugawa is famously isolationist, so I decided to name him Lonely Lad.

I'm sorry to say that I neglected to make a copy of the initial save, and the automatic save was overwritten. So, the first save is already at turn 117, at which point I have settled 8 cities. Here we can see the general lay of the land:

To the east, past a natural border of mountain Peaks, is De Gaulle of France. Although he only has 4 cities by this point, De Gaulle already went on a Wonder spree, building Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and the Temple of Artemis in Paris by this time. He also founded both Buddhism and Confucianism. Obviously, France must be destroyed.
In general, the native Japanese territory is very rich in Resources, with more Food Resources than I'm used to. (There is an additional Fish available to Tokyo, not visible in the screenshot. Tokyo would become my National Epic city.) Also visible is the rare Silver resource west of Osaka: this Silver provided key early Commerce and Happiness .
Due to Tokugawa's Aggressive and Protective traits, he really doesn't get much economic help. Therefore, in the early game, I decided to really focus on early Cottages. You can see, between the capital Kyoto and Kagoshima to the south, a large number of developed Cottages which would form the core of my economy. Nagoya also couldn't do much due to French cultural pressure, so it mainly just became a Cottage commerce city.

I decided to go for a Horse Archer "rush" and attack France, starting at Orleans. At the time, De Gaulle was just about to research Engineering, so I had to attack fast, lest my attack be stopped by plentiful Pikemen. An unfortunate thing is that I noticed a Great Prophet unit in Orleans which may have built a Buddhist shrine in Orleans if I had waited, but De Gaulle evacuated the unit upon my invasion.


There's not much to mention about the attack, other than it went rather smoothly, despite there being many Pikemen after awhile. I did build some of the Japanese unique unit, the Samurai, which were pretty useful against the Pikemen.

At some point, I bulbed Philosophy and founded Taoism.

Now, in K-Mod and AdvCiv, tile Culture is pretty important. With De Gaulle pumping out with his many Wonders, it would've been annoying to keep suppressing uprisings. I noticed that Music was available, so I spent a few turns researching it and ended up with a Great Artist, Homer. After conquering Paris, I had Homer create a Great Work there, which immediately ended its Resistance and lessened the number of troops needed to quell uprisings in Orleans, Lyons, and Tours as well.
You could say that the French population immediately became Oui-a-boos upon learning of the superiority of Japanese culture.


Conquest complete, we are able to see the extent of the new Japanese Empire, which occupied a vaguely Japan-like peninsula:

Due to De Gaulle's industriousness, we ended up with several Great Wonders in our new empire: Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Temple of Artemis, the Great Lighthouse, and, fittingly, Notre Dame. At the time, I was trying for the Shwedagon Paya in order to go Free Religion and gain some extra Happiness due to my many religions, Beakers , and diplomatic favor with my State-Jewish neighbors to the north, Stalin and Willem van Oranje. I failed to build the Paya, which gave me nice fail-gold and nudged me toward adopting State Taoism.


To be continued!

 

[crullerdonut]

Taking a look at the northern lands, we can see that there are only two remaining threats on our continent: a weak Stalin of Russia, and a relatively strong Willem van Oranje of the Dutch. Due to proximity, Stalin is the next target. Additionally, Stalin built the Mausoleum of Maussollos in Moscow, which made it a priority for capture to future Golden Ages.

While it probably would've been easy to attack Stalin immediately after conquering France with my Horse Archer-and-Catapult army, I decided that over-expanding at this stage may have been a mistake. So, I began one of those periods of consolidation and growth.

While not very consequential, here we can see one of those interesting choices. With a new city, I could grab either the Fish or the Crab, but not both. My first instinct was to opt for the Fish due to its superior tile yield. However, I decided to opt for the Clam for a few reasons: 1. this would not spoil the Grassland tile, which I would irrigate and turn into a Farm; 2. it would allow me to share the Gold tile and work it, in case Lyons is busy doing something else; and 3. I already had several copies of Fish, but no copies of Clam, so the extra Clam may be more useful for trading. So... Clam time!


In the next picture, we can see how the attachment of the Japanese peninsula to the rest of the continent came down to a single-tile-width isthmus. In this Panama-like area, I wanted to build Workshops to help the -poor area be of use. I could've built a Fort on the tile 1E or 1SE of Nagasaki to form a canal, but opted for Workshops instead. Due to its otherwise worthlessness, I thought that the best Fort tile would be on the green marked one with the Horse Archer; however, the significant Russian cultural pressure made that dream impossible and even stole away all tiles north of the Gems. As we shall eventually see, it may have been mistake not to sacrifice a Workshop and build a Panama canal somewhere.


In general, I try to make the most out of any leader or civilizational advantages which are available. With Tokugawa, that meant using Slavery in Barracks cities to produce fairly well-promoted melee units early on. So in perhaps a questionable move, after the discovery of Engineering, I decided to build a few Walls and Castles, purely for Castles' +1 Trade Route bonus. After all, with both the Protective bonus and access to Stone, getting both of these buildings built only took a total of about 2 to 4 turns in cities with decent . Additionally, Willem was rapidly teching toward Liberalism, so I thought it would take a very long time for Economics to roll along, so those Castles would not be obsoleted for a long time. So, I ended up building 7 Castles in total. However, even in this situation, this might've been a waste of because, with access to the Pyramids->Representation, and with only 2 civilizations to trade with, I ended up running Mercantilism for a long time. This meant that the extra Castle were not very profitable, since they were entirely domestic for a long time.


Fast-forwarding a little, we can see the benefits which -rich cities bring. I purchased Marble from Willem for some turns, and used it to build the National Epic in Tokyo, the Heroic Epic in Osaka, and the Taj Mahal in Tokyo as well. (Alternatively, I may have used a Great Engineer to help along the Taj Mahal production, I can't remember exactly.) Upon entering the Taj Golden Age, I switched into Mercantilism/Caste System/Pacifism and shifted into maximum Specialist mode, which allowed for the production of a huge amount of Great Person Points , which were essential for gaining more Great People down the road. Also visible in the first screenshot is Orleans which, with its Pig and Clam, would soon become my Globe Theatre city and, therefore, Rifleman powerhouse.


By this time, I had used Optics to discover the other continent. On it was, in order of score, Hannibal of Carthage, Lincoln of America, Ramesses II of Egypt, and Isabella of Spain.


I acquired Astronomy somehow (from a trade with Hannibal, if I remember correctly), and this was a huge boon to my economy. While most of those new civilizations didn't want to Open Borders with me, making Mercantilism remain pretty strong, they were certainly open to trading Resources. With my Resource-rich lands and access to the +2 Notre Dame, I was able to make a killing on selling Resources: I sold 16 resources for a total of 112 gold-per-turn , making up about 40% of my gold economy.
In my opinion, the F4 Foreign Advisor Resource screen in AdvCiv is extremely helpful in this aspect, as it allows the player to easily maximize the amount of trade resource . Never underestimate this!



At the conclusion of the Taj Golden Age, I switched into Nationalism/Theocracy, while remaining in Caste System/Mercantilism as well. With the magic of Drafting, I was able to pump out a huge Rifleman-based army, augmented with Cannons. These forces will clash with Stalin... in the next episode!

 

[crullerdonut]

We left off with our Lonely Lad characteristically running Mercantilism, cutting Japan off from the rest of the world while she focuses on military. Japan is also enforcing a strict Theocratic Taoism (I imagined it to be Shintoism), with both Confucianism and Buddhism operating in the background. Russia looms off to the north. Hey, I thought it was funny, at least.

Keen eyes may have noticed a rather large number of Merchant specialists during the Golden Age in the previous post. The purpose of this was to get out a Great Merchant, sail to the other continent, perform a Trade Mission, and upgrade as many of my old Horse Archers to Cavalry as possible. Meanwhile, I had been steadily Drafting as many Riflemen as happiness would allow, as well as producing as many high-tech Cannons as possible. The puny medieval civilization of Russia would stand no chance!

One thing that needs to be said about Japan in Civ 4 is that, although it's generally regarded as one of the weakest civilizations due to Tokugawa's traits, you do end up with highly-promoted units. Each Drafted Rifleman pops out with Combat I, City Garrison I, and Drill I; with a Barracks and Theology, slow-produced Riflemen can be Combat II as well, or whatever you want. So, one could make the argument that Tokugawa's Riflemen are a sort of second Unique Unit.

Keen eyes also may have noticed: at the last moment, Stalin peace-vassaled to Willem! Well, no matter... I'll fight 'em both if need be!

I have to wonder, though: did Stalin specifically notice my forces amassing near his border?
One can also notice that Willem is researching Steel, and so is well on his way to making Cannons of his own. Additionally, my Scouts told me that Willem had built copious amounts of Grenadiers. Did he notice my Riflemen and react appropriately?

Well, time was of the essence, so the Russo-Japanese war began, with the Dutch coming to the Russians' aid. My first target was St. Petersburg. Shortly after taking the city, I noticed that Willem had sent down a stack of Grenadiers and Cannons to counter-attack my lightly-defended Nagasaki. I was actually rather out-numbered, but because my reinforcements were funneled into the Panamanian isthmus, I very quickly had a decent amount of Cavalry and Cannons to help out. We met in battle just north of the Nagasaki Gems, and Willem's stack was quickly neutralized.

Readers may remember my remark about my tardiness in building a Panama Canal near Nagasaki. This would become problematic, as Stalin immediately sent a fleet of 3 to 4 Frigates to attack my numerous seafood resources on the northwest side of the Japanese peninsula. My own Frigates were outnumbered, so it was not long before my cities were starving. This was especially annoying for Orleans, whose Globe-Theatre Drafting was especially important for the war effort. If I had a functioning Canal, then I could've sent reinforcements from the east side of the peninsula. Instead, I was forced to produce some Ironclads.


I next captured Moscow, with its precious Mausoleum of Maussollos. This would later allow me to start my first Great Person-generated Golden Age with 12 turns, which was very nice. I then took Novgorod to the east: by this point, Stalin was no threat at all, being reduced to a 2-city nub. Rather than continue attacking Russia, I pushed northward into the Netherlands, leaving my Riflemen garrisons to defend against whatever random medieval units that Stalin decided to send out. You'd think that Willem would have given Stalin some nice Technologies to help out, but oh well.

Although Willem's Grenadiers and Cannons were pretty annoying, having a balanced army of Cavalry/Riflemen/Cannons made short work of them. At some point, Russia broke free of Willem. After a final onslaught of Grenadiers and Cannons near Amsterdam, Willem was spent and he capitulated to me.


All I needed to do was send a few ships to Bombard Rostov and move some of my Cavalry army into Russian territory, and Stalin quickly capitulated as well. The entire continent was under Japanese control! I guess it was some kind of great big sphere of shared prosperity, if that's what you're into.

I liberated Amsterdam back to Willem, which meant that I only took Utrecht and Maastricht from him. With Willem being a Financial leader and generally competent with researching Technologies, I didn't want to leave him too weak. Additionally, I had (perhaps prematurely) built the Forbidden Palace down in Lyons, so these northern Cities were rather costly in Maintenance, even with Courthouses. I was therefore strongly considering going for Communism->State Property. However, I had previously taken care to produce both a Great Engineer and a Great Merchant for use in a Corporation-based economy, with the classic Mining Inc. + Sid's Sushi combo.
So, the question presented itself: should I go with a State Property -based economy and attempt world Domination, or should I go with Corporations and either go with Domination or Space Race? I thought: well, the rest of the world really doesn't really like Lonely Lad very much and, frankly, he doesn't like them much either. Rather than go with the tedious process of world domination across continents, it'd probably be easier at this point just to say "to hell with them all" and get off this godforsaken planet. So, to Space, powered on Sushi! After all, we do have a large number of seafood resources, so why not use them?

The next question became: where should Wall Street be built? I normally opt for the city with the best religious Shrine, which in this case was Kagoshima with the 22 gold-per-turn Dai Miao.

In addition, Utrecht in the north had the 14 gold-per-turn Temple of Solomon. I decided to build the Corporations in Utrecht because of its much-higher capabilities (so that the corporation infrastructure could be produced in a timely manner) as well as its generous amount of Towns.

First to be built was Mining Inc, with Sid's Sushi on the way, pending Refrigeration. One can also see that a Great Artist is ready to go, as well. I was faced with a decision: should I found Civilized Jewelers, or should I keep the Great Artist for use with another Mausoleum-enhanced Golden Age, sacrificing 2 Great People? Should I wait to see if I got a dud of a Great Person and then burn the Great Artist along with it? Well, I don't remember what caused me to do it, but I ended up founding Civilized Jewelers.

After all, why not found Civilized Jewelers? In AdvCiv 0.98, Civilized Jewelers is available starting at the Corporation technology, as in K-mod. Additionally, in contrast to vanilla BTS, Civilized Jewelers does not compete with Mining Inc. I didn't need the Culture , but Civilized Jewelers does turn a profit of , provided that each city has a Courthouse and provided that the Wall Street city is fully built-up. So... it was time for the Corporation Trifecta! And it's time for Lonely Lad to finally abandon Sakoku (Mercantilism) and open Japan to the Free Market. Across the mists of time, a faint whisper could be heard on the winds: "Open the country. Stop having it be closed."

The following was my Corporation situation after 30 turns of building everything up. Even without fully spreading the Corporations, Utrecht was still raking in (40+98+28)*3=498 gold-per-turn from Corporations alone. This came at the expense of 380 gold-per-turn Corporation Payments. Additionally, Civilized Jewelers was producing at least 21 gold-per-turn, before Banks etc. This is not to mention the tremendous and benefits as well.

In short, having all three Corporations was extremely powerful and rocketed Japan to greatness. I'd like to take a moment to mention how temporarily enabling the option "Missionaries Start Automated" was very convenient, and drastically reduced the tedium of this process. Just set a few high- cities to auto-produce Execs, and away they go! You just need to take care that you don't over-produce the Execs, or else they'll run off to some other country, which may not be desirable. (If you want the benefits of domestic Corporations, then you don't want them to spread beyond your border, or else your allies might stop selling you resources, or you might not be able to sell other ones.) I had to Delete 3 of these rogue Execs, which was a waste of .

One could also ask the question: with all the Hammers that go into Corporate Execs, is this Corporation strategy really worth it? After all, while I was doing this Corporation build-up, Lincoln on the other continent somehow had become ascendant and conquered most of Carthage, while my military was stagnant.

I'd say that with a Continents Space Race like this, these Corporations are absolutely worth it: you're not really using many anyway while researching the requisite techs, so you might as well use the Hammers to improve your capability. But in a Domination strategy, the time needed to spread the Corporations competes with the need to produce more military units. I'd say that with a Domination goal, it's probably best to spread Corporations only where they need to go, while with Space Race, it's okay to spread them everywhere so long as they're profitable. But I'd be interested in other opinions as well.

By the time every city had Sid's Sushi, Mining, and Civilized Jewelers, Utrecht was raking in 834 gold-per-turn from Corporation HQs, Civilized Jewelers was producing 66 gold-per-turn before Banks etc., and the Corporation Payments with Free Market were 593 gold-per-turn. That's a tidy profit.

Willem was very helpful: I directed him to research some necessary tech like Artillery or Rocketry, while I focused on another. Then we'd just trade! It's good to have a Financial Vassal. While I was steadily making my way to a Space Race victory, Lincoln continued to build up his military, and also completed the Manhattan Project. Foolishly, I continued on with Caste System/Representation, despite the significant Unhappiness penalty. In hindsight, it would've been profitable to waste a turn and Emancipate, freeing up the slider and improving . If I had been smarter, I would've switched to Lincoln's favorite Civic, Emancipation, and he would've been Pleased and unable to attack. However, as it was, he was only Cautious with me. Would Lincoln pull a Nagasaki? Find out... in the next episode!

 

[f1rpo]

Keen eyes also may have noticed: at the last moment, Stalin peace-vassaled to Willem! Well, no matter... I'll fight 'em both if need be!

Spoken like the lion in the forest of Oz.

I have to wonder, though: did Stalin specifically notice my forces amassing near his border?

No, the AI doesn't play that game. This complete indifference is a bit jarring, but I think having to conceal their intentions would be more tedious than interesting for human players. Your high power rating, however, may well have contributed to Stalin's decision to become a vassal.

One can also notice that Willem is researching Steel, and so is well on his way to making Cannons of his own. Additionally, my Scouts told me that Willem had built copious amounts of Grenadiers. Did he notice my Riflemen and react appropriately?

When choosing its city production, the AI does take into account the known units of war enemies and of civs against whom the AI has a war plan. This seems to be largely as in BtS, and I don't know if it has a big impact. It's unlikely to have mattered in Willem's case as you were probably too powerful for a war plan on his end, and the AI doesn't attempt to anticipate rival war plans in this context. Come to think of it, this means that there can indeed be a benefit in hiding an invasion stack rather than keeping it right at the border.
Edit: Looks like enemy unit data also factors into AI tech decicions, to some rather small extent.

I'd say that with a Domination goal, it's probably best to spread Corporations only where they need to go, while with Space Race, it's okay to spread them everywhere so long as they're profitable. But I'd be interested in other opinions as well.

Sounds reasonable, and, with automation, probably less tedious than targeted spread.

Would Lincoln pull a Nagasaki? Find out... in the next episode!

A bit strange that your military production has totally plateaued. i usually keep producing military units in my Heroic Epic city (which tends to also have a Military Instructor or two) just because it's a pity to let the military production bonus go to waste. Anyway, given your enormous production advantage, I have a hard time imagining a DoW from Lincoln. Does he even have nearly enough transports? He's not going to just drop a nuke to slow you down (though that might not be a bad idea).

I have the impression that Monarch isn't challenging enough for you in general. Or maybe this game just went really well. Your Lonely Lad is getting lonely at the top by AD 1500. I see that you're taking the race to a quick space victory seriously, so it'll still be interesting to see how early you can make it.

 

[crullerdonut]

In Civ4, it's my general policy that, if I have a particular advantage, I should probably try using it. When it comes to Lonely Lad, I've already discussed trying to leverage:
* plentiful Resources, by selling them for as much /turn as possible
* Aggressive trait, by using Slavery to whip some early melee units in otherwise -poor cities; cheap Barracks were nice here too
* Protective trait and Stone, by building some Castles for the (though it ended up not being that great, due to running Mercantilism most of the time)
* Samurai during the Franco-Japanese war, to help counter Pikemen
* Aggressive/Protective Riflemen, by Drafting liberally
Pretty much the only thing that remains about Tokugawa of Japan is his unique building, the Shale Plant, which gives an extra +10% . In this game, I had access to Coal, so the Shale Plant's special ability to operate without Coal was mostly irrelevant. I say mostly because there was one exception: Satsuma in the Tundra. Satsuma, with its Fish, Deer, and Forests, ended up being a rather nice city. After gaining access to Stone, I could build the Moai Statues there fairly easily. I could then improve the Forests with Lumbermills to help build the National Park, and then converted those Lumbermills to Forest Preserves. Since the Shale Plant uses no Coal, it could operate despite the National Park removing access to Coal. In combination with the Industrial Park (which works great in National Park cities since they can absorb their ), this cold city could produce quite a nice amount of Hammers and whatever or I wanted from free specialists. The ability to hire mass Scientists or Merchants, especially in this city, was what kept me in Caste System until the end of the game, even though, in hindsight, I would've benefited overall by going to Emancipation and turning off the slider.
So in general, the Shale Plants were pretty nice in this late game, but definitely not game-changing by any measure.


In the previous post, I left off with the somewhat ominous notion of an ascendant Lincoln, who had somehow risen from 6 cities to conquer much of the other continent. (I guess that Communism really goes a long way!) I had stopped military production, opting to build out my empire with a Corporation trifecta and going max . With so many Corporations, I was eventually making so much that I maxed out the slider (except for some for happiness to counter Emancipation anger). I used this surplus to gradually upgrade my armies, which prevented me from lagging behind Lincoln in power by too much.


Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but despite the cliffhanger, I never suffered any military attacks for the rest of the game!
Lonely Lad was free to build the Space Ship as fast as possible and, with relatively painless and quick turns of basically just pressing the Enter key, the Space Ship was on its way! (In this game, I opted not to build the Space Elevator even though it's better in AdvCiv, mainly because I didn't have any spare Great Engineers, and because I didn't need to go towards Robotics. It may have been a good idea in AdvCiv anyway, I'm not sure.) 12 turns later, the Space Ship arrived at Alpha Centauri in the year 1945... which was yet another interesting coincidence.

There are only a few more things are worth consideration in this game. During the end-game Research and Spaceship-building, Global Warming began rearing its head. Since Global Warming can be a pretty serious issue in AdvCiv in the modern era, I planned ahead and tried to be a good global citizen. Since I wasn't focusing on , I didn't need to build Shale Plants in many cities; these unpowered cities were then electrified by building the Three Gorges Dam in St. Petersburg, which helped out with Global Warming in the long run (although Global Warming actually slightly increased initially due to so many unpowered cities receiving power, even if it was clean power). I also built Public Transportations everywhere, as well as Recycling Centers. Since I wasn't producing any Tanks or anything which required it, I opted to remove access to Oil. Unfortunately, Matsuyama ended up being founded on Oil, so I couldn't just destroy an Improvement. Instead, I just gave Mr. 2-city Stalin the Combustion technology, and then sold him the Oil. Well, that solved that issue!


The only other ways to lower my Global Warming impact were to adopt Environmentalism or to get rid of Coal. I didn't do the latter until after the Space Ship had launched, because I wanted the Ironworks city of St. Petersburg to produce the big Space Ship parts as fast as possible; I also liked the 3 base from Mining Inc. that my 3 Coals provided. Getting rid of Coal would have had the effect of reducing Pollution output by 480 units/turn, but reducing total Production in St. Petersburg by 39 /turn. So maybe I should've done it, if I was truly to be a global citizen.
Adopting Environmentalism also would've been painful due to having 3 Corporations in 22 cities. At the sizeable cost of 330 /turn, Environmentalism would have saved 920 Pollution units/turn. I switched to Environmentalism only after launching my Space Ship, at which point it was basically a moot point. To his credit, though, Lincoln adopted Environmentalism earlier on and so, along with my general efforts, Global Warming was somewhat mitigated. Global Warming ended up in Medium severity with about 6 events happening per turn, which was much better than the situation in the Rabbi Hamm game. Still, it did cause some desertification, and it seems that the Global Warming alert sound can still stack and make a rather loud sound in-game, so it's a bit scary.
Edit: The first image is with Free Market, and the second is with Environmentalism.


For curiosity's sake, I looked at World Builder and saw that Lincoln did indeed build an ICBM, as well as a sizeable military. His victory strategy was predominantly Space Race with a side of Domination, so I guess he wasn't interested in bombing Hiroshima after all. Pressing Enter a bunch of times, it turns out that Lincoln would've launched his Space Ship in the year 1967. Finally, in this hypothetical future, the UN was built and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty only barely passed, and my vassals Stalin and Willem actually disobeyed my vote and tried to vote it down! How dare they defy me? Oh well, it didn't matter in this game anyway.


And that's pretty much it! I think these Space Race games are pretty fun, even though at the end, you pretty much just mash the Enter button. By that point of the game, though, I know that I've basically already won, so I oftentimes just want to do whatever possible to win the game in as short a period of time as possible. At the same time, I find it enjoyable to employ strategies and build buildings that I don't often have a chance to, and I enjoy the Global Warming management aspect of AdvCiv too. I hope that you, dear reader, had a good time reading this report, too.

 

[crullerdonut]

No, the AI doesn't play that game.

When choosing its city production, the AI does take into account the known units of war enemies and of civs against whom the AI has a war plan.

Good to know! I hope that they can do it in a defensive capacity, too. On the other hand, maybe it's best for me not to know how it works too deeply, so that I don't try to take advantage of it too much, and also so that I can imagine that the AI is cleverer than it really is!

A bit strange that your military production has totally plateaued.

I know, it's definitely a shame to have a Heroic Epic city with a Military Instructor just pump out corporate Execs and Research. I felt pretty secure on my private continent, though, and I just wasn't afraid of Lincoln or Ramesses II enough to worry about it. I knew that, with the giant Corporate situation, I'd be producing an insane amount of to do upgrades, and enough so that I could ramp up production at any moment. I was also thinking that, in that situation, I'd switch immediately to Universal Suffrage and just buy my troops. I felt that the risk was small enough that I could afford to go max Space Race, in order to end the game as quickly as possible (while also keeping my conscience clean by being a relatively good global citizen in-game ).

Does he even have nearly enough transports?

Using World Builder, it looks like Lincoln had 11 Transports ready to go, along with a decent navy ... (even though his cities were mostly 1 tile away from the coast and so, couldn't produce any naval units. ) And we know that in AdvCiv, the AI is fairly competent in naval invasions, so maybe he could've done something crazy! On the other hand, it seems like his army was mostly based on SAM Infantry, for some reason. I actually wouldn't have minded if he had just dropped the bomb and invaded, since it'd certainly be exciting. I still think I could've gotten off the Space Ship anyway, unless he somehow had hordes of Spies come over on Submarines or something crazy like that.

I have the impression that Monarch isn't challenging enough for you in general. Or maybe this game just went really well.

With the beautifully-bountiful Resources, and starting right next to the Wonder-crazy De Gaulle, I think that it was a relatively easy map. Definitely easier than the Isle of Isabella!
Part of the motivation for playing as Tokugawa was from this quote from the classic GameFaqs strategy guide by gmims44: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/919352-sid-meiers-civilization-iv/faqs/59870

Spoiler :

Tokugawa (Aggressive, Protective)- There’s certainly nothing subtle about Tokugawa’s trait combination, but unfortunately there’s nothing too good about it either. His only real strength is promotions on his units, so war is the only thing he can do remotely well, and whenever you’re not at war it’s basically like playing without traits. Toku gets much better once you reach Gunpowder, as his gunpowder units will get three free promotions, but the challenge is reaching that point and still being in a competitive position since he gives you zero economic help (other than the tiny bonus of cheap Castles once you get Engineering). You should definitely go to war before the gunpowder era, though, especially since you have samurai, because basically your only hope is to conquer enough good land to overcome your weak traits. If you can win peacefully with Tokugawa, you’re playing at a level below your ability. Actually, if you can win at all with him, it may be a sign that you’re ready to move up in difficulty.

I went on a hiatus from Civ4 for a few months, so when I came back, I played a round on Prince to get back in the swing of things, and then on Monarch. But since I sent Tokugawa to space, maybe I'll have to give Emperor a try!

 

[f1rpo]

Adopting Environmentalism also would've been painful due to having 3 Corporations in 22 cities. At the sizeable cost of 330 /turn, Environmentalism would have saved 920 Pollution units/turn.

Thanks for posting some concrete numbers. Did the GW anger even hurt you with all those resources you had? Did you need the health effects from Environmentalism?

Global Warming ended up in Medium severity with about 6 events happening per turn, which was much better than the situation in the Rabbi Hamm game. Still, it did cause some desertification, and it seems that the Global Warming alert sound can still stack and make a rather loud sound in-game, so it's a bit scary.

I'll look into the sound. 6 per turn seems a bit much, all things considered. Generally, I get the impression that the best thing I could do for GW with little effort (and without really coming to own the problem) is to just dial it down/ delay it.

Pressing Enter a bunch of times, it turns out that Lincoln would've launched his Space Ship in the year 1967.

Closer than I would've expected, and pretty early overall. How does he even do that with the pitiful GNP rate in your 1890 screenshot? Maybe the Mall is a greatly underestimated building. Or maybe 22 turns isn't really that few in the late game, and your fast research rate probably helped him through direct or brokered tech trades.

Finally, in this hypothetical future, the UN was built and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty only barely passed, and my vassals Stalin and Willem actually disobeyed my vote and tried to vote it down! How dare they defy me? Oh well, it didn't matter in this game anyway.

If you proposed the resolution, then I think they should've voted in favor. The votes are cast more or less simultaneously and secretly, so the AI won't take the vote of a human master into account; only the proposal.

I know, it's definitely a shame to have a Heroic Epic city with a Military Instructor just pump out corporate Execs and Research. [...] I felt that the risk was small enough that I could afford to go max Space Race [...].

Seems like the right call. You sounded concerned about Lincoln, but I guess that was mainly for dramatic effect.

Using World Builder, it looks like Lincoln had 11 Transports ready to go, along with a decent navy ... (even though his cities were mostly 1 tile away from the coast and so, couldn't produce any naval units. )

I guess he must've had a war plan against you then at some point, or rather for some extended period of time - given that Chicago alone had to produce all those ships. Or maybe closed borders were blocking continental ambitions of his (against Spain) in pre-Modern times.

[...] it seems like his army was mostly based on SAM Infantry, for some reason.

Infantry upgrades only to SAM and Mech. Infantry, but the AI normally doesn't make those upgrades indiscriminately. Maybe there were some special conditions. For example, I see in the code that an estimate of rival air power (indirectly) affects this decision. (Actually, the BBAI code in question simply counts the air units of all potential rivals regardless of visibility, so it's not really an "estimate".)

I went on a hiatus from Civ4 for a few months, so when I came back, I played a round on Prince to get back in the swing of things, and then on Monarch. But since I sent Tokugawa to space, maybe I'll have to give Emperor a try!

Tokugawa (Aggressive, Protective) [...] Actually, if you can win at all with him, it may be a sign that you’re ready to move up in difficulty.

OK, I see you're on top of this problem (of finding the right difficulty level).

 

[crullerdonut]

Did the GW anger even hurt you with all those resources you had? Did you need the health effects from Environmentalism?

Since I had been focusing on Public Transportations, built the Three Gorges Dam (at great expense, that thing's a monster), and cut off Oil, I was already doing quite well in terms of Global Warming mitigation. As a result, I only had +1 from Save the Planet!, even while in Free Market in 1937.

6 per turn seems a bit much, all things considered. Generally, I get the impression that the best thing I could do for GW with little effort (and without really coming to own the problem) is to just dial it down/ delay it.

Personally I didn't see it as being too bad at all. Global Warming generally seemed to hit sea Ice more than anything; the only noticeable impact I suffered was from the formation of a desert Farm near Kyoto, and a Forest got knocked down in Lyons. I actually enjoyed having a looming threat, since I knew that with a late-game military buildup like in the Rabbi Hamm game, the and terrain destruction from GW could be considerable. I also don't really want Environmentalism to be worse than it already is. But that's just my opinion.

Closer than I would've expected, and pretty early overall. How does he even do that with the pitiful GNP rate in your 1890 screenshot?

I thought it was remarkable, too. In 1890, Lincoln actually was tied with me in completing the Apollo Program: we both had 3 turns to go.
But what I found even more remarkable was that Lincoln still had only 6 cities as late as 1795, before conquering most of Carthage (which had previously conquered Spain) and then pivoting towards Space. I provided all the save files, in case you want to poke around and see how things went, why the AI did certain things, etc.

If you proposed the resolution, then I think they should've voted in favor.

Ohhh, I didn't know that's how it worked. I had thought that Vassals always voted along with you. In this case, I believe that Ramesses II had built the UN, so that explains why my Vassals voted for their own benefit. After all, Ukraine learned that it's probably best not to give up your right to nukes.

You sounded concerned about Lincoln, but I guess that was mainly for dramatic effect.

You caught me!

 

[crullerdonut]

In terms of strategy, there are several parts of this game where I wasn't sure I made the right move. In particular, if anyone has any opinion/input on the following or on any other strategy issue, I'd be very much interested:
* Did I expand too much in the beginning, and not focus enough on pumping out Horse Archers earlier?
* Should I have waited to see if De Gaulle would build a Shrine in Orleans with the Great Prophet that was heading there, or is it important to attack early?
* Was the Homer culture-bomb in Paris a waste of time, or should I have saved it for a future Golden Age, or maybe for a later culture-bomb while attacking Russia or the Netherlands?
* Was it a dumb idea to go for the 7 Castles for Trade Routes even with Stone+Protective, considering that I had the Pyramids->Representation and would be using Mercantilism a lot?
* Are you on team Clam or team Fish?
* Did I sell too many Resources for /turn? Or, did this empower my opponents too much?
* Was it dangerous to go all-in with the Corporation trifecta, putting all those into corporate Execs instead of military and such?
* Should I have built the Space Elevator without Great Engineers, considering that in AdvCiv it's way better than in vanilla?
* Is the Three Gorges Dam worth the in these kinds of games?
* Should I have spread Civilized Jewelers or any other Corporations to other civilizations on purpose for the HQ , such as to the other continent?
* Readers may have noticed that I generally left 2 Forests per city, especially when they were shared between 2 Cities. Is that alright, or should I chop even more?

 

[f1rpo]

Since I had been focusing on Public Transportations, built the Three Gorges Dam (at great expense, that thing's a monster), and cut off Oil, I was already doing quite well in terms of Global Warming mitigation. As a result, I only had +1 from Save the Planet!, even while in Free Market in 1937.

Personally I didn't see it as being too bad at all. Global Warming generally seemed to hit sea Ice more than anything; the only noticeable impact I suffered was from the formation of a desert Farm near Kyoto, and a Forest got knocked down in Lyons. [...]

5.7 events per turn seems like a lot. Half of those probably hit Ice (so long as there is still a lot of Ice) and you own only 38% of the land, so, on average, you probably saw about 1 event per turn. For a start, I've made the announcements more detailed (screenshot attached), so that one can get a better impression of how quickly the map is changing. Maybe the victory date is really more decisive for the overall amount of GW encountered than any anti-GW measures taken by the players. Your victory came quite early in this game. (GW doesn't really concern me wrt. to game balance as it does little to determine the winner of a game; more a matter of making it feel appropriate - and not too annoying.)

[...] Lincoln still had only 6 cities as late as 1795, before conquering most of Carthage (which had previously conquered Spain) and then pivoting towards Space. I provided all the save files, in case you want to poke around and see how things went, why the AI did certain things, etc.

Thanks. Looks like Lincoln's conquests paid off quickly. He never had plans for any naval war; his Transports seem to be the result of misc. build-up in his two coastal cities throughout the ages.

Did I expand too much in the beginning, and not focus enough on pumping out Horse Archers earlier?

I don't see a problem with expanding while building up military units for a (late) Classical war – provided that the key military techs are already known and that workers aren't fully employed.

So I don't think founding Satsuma was necessarily wrong, but I'd say you founded it too early (already as your 4th city according to the replay; and, I guess, according to the Japanese city name list). You didn't necessarily know by that time that you'd go to war with De Gaulle by the end of the Classical era, so perhaps there was a reasonable concern about getting stuck at 5 or 6 cities until Renaissance or so.

Before Satsuma, you founded Osaka and Tokyo, and, after Satsuma, Kagoshima. With those cities in place, I don't think Nagoya and Izumo should've been founded at all; screenshot attached. (Even if you were already firmly counting on conquering the Great Lighthouse.) Few non-shared tiles aren't necessarily a problem, but those cities just don't have any good tiles to work, so I think they're bad both in the short term and long term. Edit: By the way, in that screenshot, the Forge, Granary and two Libraries in production are imo delaying your war preparations too much.

Should I have waited to see if De Gaulle would build a Shrine in Orleans with the Great Prophet that was heading there, or is it important to attack early?

Looks like Buddhism hadn't really spread, and I suppose retreating far enough to un-spook the French Prophet would've delayed your initial attack by 5(?) turns when De Gaulle was already getting close to Feudalism ...

Was the Homer culture-bomb in Paris a waste of time, or should I have saved it for a future Golden Age, or maybe for a later culture-bomb while attacking Russia or the Netherlands?

Looks like you had enough Horse Archers left over (and without much of a future use) to deal with the French culture. I think I would've used it for a Golden Age as soon as opportune (civics change, something more worthwhile to produce than Wealth); wouldn't have waited for the Mausoleum. [This assumes that you hadn't had any Golden Age at that point.]

Was it a dumb idea to go for the 7 Castles for Trade Routes even with Stone+Protective, considering that I had the Pyramids->Representation and would be using Mercantilism a lot?

They (effectively) cost 33 production if I'm not mistaken. If a domestic trade route is 2 commerce per turn (but maybe it's only 1 ...), then that sounds more worthwhile than building Wealth. There's also the +25% espionage.

Are you on team Clam or team Fish? [...]

The Clam spot immediately put the Plains Hill into your borders. That should've been helpful for getting a Workboat out quickly. (For reference: your screenshot) Edit: I guess working the Corn and using Slavery may have been even faster than Mining the Hill.