Nobles' Club 315: Tokugawa of Japan

[konata_LS]

From T275 to T318

Spoiler :

Settings as below. No tribal village.

Started a GAge to build factories + shale plants in the main production cities (too bad, MoM was still under Vicky's control ). Adopted Rep during the GAge to get Vicky to pleased. On T282, Industrialism finished. All the high cities stopped building and started building Marines, to counter Asoka's arty. As shown in the bottom right corner, my vassal Darius would finish Combustion next turn. After trading for Combustion with Darius, I would be able to spam tanks.

Begged 1 from Vicky. Attacked Asoka with tanks, arty, marines, and inf. Judging from the VC screen and tech trading screen, Asoka might turn off research and went for culture victory . But even Asoka turned off research, he was still more advanced than me .

Asoka was trying to take back the city he lost. Except a few luck shots, his counter-attack all became free exp to the Combat I CG 1 Drill 1 gunpowder units. No AI's gunpowder units can be nastier than Tokugawa's AGG PRO ones .

Asoka capitulated on T308. Only 3 techs ahead of me, because he was going for culture, not because I managed to catch up .

Even my vassal Darius became more advanced than me . The only hope to catch-up in techs is the Internet. Cancelled all the deals which gave away the Copper to the AIs. Trying to get the rest of coppers from my vassals. Directed all my vassals' research away from Computer. After getting Computer, a high city immediately started building the Internet. I even saved some forests for the internet - pathetic and hopeless, isn't it?

As shown in the screenshot above, I turned on slider to see Vicky's research. My main army was consisted of tanks and arty. I needed to know if Vicky was going for Advanced Flight. If yes, I would need to put some SAM infantries in my stacks, otherwise tanks + arty would die ugly under gunships. Luckily showed she wasted some time on Refrigeration, so it would be possible to capture her capital before she got gunships.

When the peace treaty with Vicky expired, DoW Vicky. With enough sieges, samurais could kill infantry and cavalry .

Vicky's land was less rich than Asoka's. But she managed to build an insanely strong capital

Vicky capitulated after she lost her capital. She was at least 7 or 8 techs ahead of me (I was so backward that some techs she had couldn't be seen in the trade table ). If Asoka hadn't gone for culture, he would also have been many techs ahead of me

Next turn, Tokugawa's ambition came true :
(note: the pun of "Tokugawa's ambition" comes from another strategy game series "Nobunaga's ambition", in which Tokugawa appears as a character. In real history Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga lived in the same era.)

Upgraded some CR3 samurais to infantries. AGG PRO gunpowder units made defending the newly captured cities easier.

Asoka had double gem and two shrines which generated 50+ per turn. If Asoka hadn't gone for culture, he would probably have got mechanized infantries when my tanks attacked him. AIs' SAM infantries are not a threat at all, because I don't have Flight throughout the game .

The game was won, although falling hopelessly behind in tech and spamming outdated units looked a little embarrassing . As I said in other NC threads about "the final exam", if I can win as Toku, Saladin or Charly on Monarch without reloading, without others' help, I'd definitively move up to Emperor. Both Charly and Saladin game were won with reloading, but this map was won without reloading, without others' help. So I finally passed the final exam and "graduated" from Monarch level. From now I'll only play at Emperor level and won't return to Monarch anymore. When I can win Toku, Saladin, and Charly on Emp without others' help, without reloading, I'll be thinking about moving to Immortal.

Both the leader and the map are probably not the best choice for someone moving up to a new difficulty level or a high score attempt. OTOH, this map provides great opportunities to practise the empire management and naval warfare at a difficulty level people are used to. The human player also get the chance to leverage Japanese UBs, as there is no Coal on the starting island. On higher levels this map may be very tough, because some competent techers' rich starts make the tech pace out of control. This map is still more generous than Lain's Toku isolation, as the human player can find a few backward AIs to attack or trade with in this game. It's totally understandable, as a brutal isolation map would be too tough for a NC game.

AH is a little painful for Toku's starting techs, but thankfully corn + wheat are enough for growing the capital. Plus, the cow can be farmed, and the hill pig can be mined. Under semi-isolation, AH is among the few techs that our neighbour is willing to trade. The wheat enables ramen while the pig unlocks pork bones. After improving the wheat and pig, tonkotsu ramen (ramen made with pork bones broth) will be soon on the dining table.

Thanks for this tonkotsu ramen map

Spoiler :

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

LOL these type of questions are... demoralising.

Yeah, I’d hoped to be playing the Sury map by now… I think this is the thing I like least about deity. I play the game less than I did when I played immortal because almost all my games go to at least infantry and can take hours even after it’s clear I’ve won.

Sorry, I mean all my wins take me weeks to complete. Give me twenty minutes and I can often show you a loss.

Pretty sure this game is won but it’ll take several hours to get there. It’ll be interesting to compare once we’re both done.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Why are we all struggling with this map? It doesn’t look hard. Are we all doing it wrong?

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Not sure why you attacked Darius. Need too many galleons. If I had a choice, which I didn’t, I would have landed units onto Asoka’s lands and walked to attack everyone else on the same continent - - Victoria, Brennus, Isabella.

For your hypothetical scenario, if Isabella were Victoria’s vassal, then I would attack Asoka. I didn’t because I was worried that Asoka will die to Brennus.

Deity, no tribal villages, no events, normal speed, turn 278 (1816 AD)

Spoiler :

The Celts approached Cordoba with large stacks of highly promoted units. There is no way I am defending against those armies.

And then next turn they did this instead. OK cool thanks for committing suicide.

My plan was to cleanly take over Celtic lands. Then the United Nations appeared. The English, Indians, and Persians together had a lot more than 50% of the population and all the resolutions would pass. I can't let UN resolutions fly around.

Change of plan. Capitulate the Celts and give back most of their cities. I can use a trading partner for the rest of the game. A deity-level AI with half your cities will usually surpass your own research power. Everyone else will hate me but everyone else is too advanced so I can’t trade techs with them anyway.

Airbourne fighters, bombers, and guided missiles. I tell the conscripted teenage Japanese boys to wait for the Indians to close in Verlamion. Glorious banzai charge against WW2-era weapons.

I was wondering why the Indians had combat-II units. Nice city but it housed the United Nations. Burn it.

By the way. I forgot to mention that, when I declared war on India, they had a defensive pact with Persia. No fear.

Managed to take five cities with my ragtag army. The unit maintenance was killing me and I was going to disband those outdated units anyway.

Too late to reach the internet, I was too far behind. Since I weakened India, Persia will probably get the internet. Persia is the tech leader and will gain nothing from it.

About stopping a spaceship.

Spoiler :

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

1892 domination.

Having now finished it, I’m not sure it was that hard. I think there’s a distinction between maps that you are likely to lose and maps that are likely to produce a long drawn out game. I think this is more the latter than the former for a few reasons and if I had more experience of deity I’d probably have realised it was all under control. It just never feels like that for me.

Thoughts about map difficulty:

Spoiler :

• Joao has no metal so the risk of an early DOW is gone.
• Little land means barbs are not a problem.
• Joao seems likely to build the great lighthouse. That, combined with a land shape that makes it easy to block off land, means you’ve a good chance to get enough land - even with J man as your neighbour - and it’s good land too. Definitely glad I didn’t go for the plains hill settle because long term SIP is so much better.
• No especially strong AI on the other continent. The good techers don’t build enough units and Brennus is a poor techer.
• Apart from Brennus none of the AI are likely to get too big and he’s likely to remain relatively backward.
• Darius’s capital is only two tiles from the coast so it’s quite easy to land and raze his capital to stop a spaceship launch.

But:

• Bella and Brennus are likely to fight because they’ll both get different religions and this means that the AI to the west are free to expand and tech. Bella is also likely to do poorly because her cities will be split over two landmasses which the AI does really badly with - losing all their cities on one landmass while their cities on the other remain unnecessarily well defended. Brennus getting big is therefore likely.
• Brennus and Bella aside, they’re good techers who like each other. The tech pace is likely to be fast.
• The island you start on and particularly Joao’s part lacks land tiles. Bella’s island - the easiest land to conquer post-astro - is the same. The longer the game goes on the more the number of land tiles matters and the number of cities - if they don’t have land - matters less. Production becomes harder with this land by the industrial era.
• No oil on your island is awkward once you’re fighting in the industrial era.
• Late games mean the UN which I despise much more than the AP.

I don’t think these factors necessarily make it likely you’ll lose - and the first lot of factors make it easy to avoid dying early which is the main thing on deity - but they make rolling over the main continent difficult to do in one era.

Also, you have uranium on your island if it comes to that.

 

[konata_LS]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

I attacked Darius because he was the weakest independent AI. Everyone else was too strong. In 1550AD Darius didn't have Gunpowder nor RP while Asoka already had Rifling, Cavalry, and Grens. Victoria also had replaceable parts. If I attacked Asoka, next turn he would give MT or Rifling to bribe Victoria in a war against me.
There was no risk that Asoka dies to Brennus in my game, because they both had 12 or 13 cities. Brennus had a larger stack of knights and maces while Asoka had better units (rifles + cavs), so the war between Asoka and Brennus/Izzy became a stalemate that none of them made significant progress.

Galleons are not a problem, as all the galleons I built to attack Darius will be useful for invading Asoka's continent later. After reading Lain's opinion about invasion army build up under isolation (many things on isolation can be appied to semi-iso as well), I started building/whipping galleons on the turn I got astronomy. By the time I got Steel, 14 or 15 galleons with a few frigates were ready to sail towards Darius.

Your questions are welcome, though I wonder if my answer would be of any use for you . Deity is a completely different game from the rest of the levels. Since your game already reached 1816AD, you may check Mt. Trotsky's write-up and mine: in my game Darius has no Gunpowder, no RP in 1585AD, because an isolated Monarch AI is usually still in recovery phase before 1600AD. In Trotsky's deity game Darius had infantry and artillery in 1450AD - a FIN Deity AI, even isolated, can catch-up quickly once he gets astronomy. As a result, the window of attack Darius is very narrow, sometimes can be inexistent on Deity. Some Deity players like @ sampsa would give you much more useful info about the warfare under semi-isolation than I can.

@Mr_Trotsky
You summarized well the main challenges and opportunities in this map. About oil, though,

Spoiler :

Our island has Oil, but it's an ocean oil in Joao's land. Sadly this oil needs border pop and plastics

In my game I solved the oil issue by capturing a Persian city Tarsus.

@sampsa
If you still remember an old game you played two years ago,

Spoiler :

would you mind giving @ sylvanllewelyn some info/suggestions about the window of attack on Deity semi-isolation and how to seize it, please?
NC218 is also semi-isolation: you seized an great opportunity to attack the backward isolated Joao in 1000AD and everything went well after that. I've never had Deity experience, so I don't know before which turn Deity players need to invade Darius if they choose Darius as the first target. Judging from the Deity write-up at #27, rifles + cannon attacking Darius in 1500AD is probably too late: Darius already has infantry and arty.
Asoka's traits and UU helped getting early Optics much more than Toku's traits and UU do. In terms of opponents, AI Darius' self-teching ability in this NC is better than AI Joao in your Asoka game. So the window of attacking Darius might be even narrower here.
(PS: after seeing your screenshots of NC218, I realize in this game I built too many unnecessary roads again )

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity, no tribal villages, no events, normal speed, 1890 domination.

Nasty (epic) game. A lot of micromanagement.

Spoiler :

The unit mix has to be precise. Which cities produce what items have to be calculated. Distances from the city to the gathering point have to be measured. Use the binomial distribution to calculate the number of nukes required for x% chance of success through the SDI at each attack route. Remember that larger clusters of cities require proportionately fewer tactical nukes because more trials reduce variance. Small cities need 2 tactical nukes to hit and the big ones need 3. Only aggressive or charismatic leaders can use nukes because you need the commando promotion to reach the non-coastal cities. Marines are needed to attack the strong defenders before infantry suffer from a large amphibious penalty and cultural defense.

What happened

Spoiler :

Persia launched their spaceship at 1842.

Persia had a large and more advanced army, navy, air force, and missile force. I had to take all their cities immediately after declaring to avoid fighting their forces on the field.

I did not have the time to sit back and absorb my new territories. England was close to launching the spaceship. Since I depend on tactical nukes, I had to pre-emptively attack England before India capitulates to England. I can only fight England if I deal as much damage to them as possible before they can retaliate. There is some land-based action. Spread units around, do not gather them all into one big stack. The enemy will nuke you back.

1898 England launches their spaceship. I kept Indian cities and turned up the cultural slider to end the game.

A lot of tactical nukes are needed. Once you decide to use them, diplomacy becomes meaningless, the game becomes always war, and the only victory conditions are domination or conquest. I use SAM infantry for commandoes because they can hold off against gunships.

@Mr_Trotsky
I would like a brief description of how you won your game. Thanks.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@Mr_Trotsky
I would like a brief description of how you won your game. Thanks.

Will do when I’ve got some time. I’ve been enjoying some relative relaxation with the Sury map after that mammoth game.

Nice win!

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

That’s true about the oil but I got nowhere near plastics and never do really. Offshore oil doesn’t really count in my eyes!

It’s also only really an issue for attacking the first civ on the big continent, which had to be done pre-plastics. I got oil when I capped Ashoka but I could have coped with just shipping units over pre-war with England.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

1892 Domination

Spoiler :

The war between Ashoka and Brennus went on for ages. Brennus threw all his trebs at Lahore and then all his rifles and took it. But he then had no siege left and his stack of rifles and, later, cavalry seemed to wander from city to city in Ashoka’s territory getting to a city before deciding that throwing rifles at infantry behind eighty percent culture was a bad idea and going looking for another city only to find exactly the same problem.

Meanwhile I teched to communism. I triggered a golden age to switch into state property, caste, universal suffrage - I had a lot of towns so the extra hammer was nice, especially during the golden age - and OR. I got two great people during the golden age while building levees, finishing all my pre-built workshops and watermills and teching to AL and artillery. I did some trading with my tech piggy bank (Joao) to get there (constitution, economics, physics, theology and sci meth). This is when I learnt I was oil-less. Not ideal given everyone who mattered had combustion by this point.

Built infantry and artillery as well as upgrading some CR3 cannons. Built galleons. Ashoka made peace with Brennus in exchange for Calcutta about three turns before I was ready to join the fray. I was worried he’d peace vassal given he only had six cities left but bravely he hung in there.

I declared and landed ten galleons of infantry and artillery outside Delhi. I deleted all my galleons because they were just going to get sunk by his oil powered neighbour and give him war success. I took Delhi next turn, losing at most one artillery - CR3 makes a huge difference, as does luck - and he capped immediately.

I then went for Vicky because she was on the same continent and more advanced than Brennus. I felt confident he would never get too far ahead techwise and I could take him even if he had eighteen cities.

I ground her down with artillery while working my way towards tanks. At this point I bulldozed all my towns and felt sad.

The plan was then to go for Darius to wipe out some of his units before they could all upgrade but Brennus started plotting mid way through transporting my units westwards.

Back again and, the former Indian city of Lahore that could be hit first turn or the war, was an inviting target. I declared and wiped out Brennus’s monster stack for the loss of about five artillery. I let him reinforce and wiped out what he had left in terms of a stack. I took six cities from him and a couple from Izzy on her little island.

Meanwhile Darius was working on his spaceship so I took peace in exchange for one of Brennus’s cities. Then I began the laborious task of building transports for a hundred odd units and moving them to the Persian coast. Izzy broke free so I declared on her and took the rest of her island. Annoyingly she took the Celtic city I’d taken in the peace deal because I didn’t have open borders with Brennus and couldn’t move any units into it to defend. Brennus was also going culture by this point so his culture quickly swamped the city.

I waited for launch and then landed forty artillery, fiftyish tanks and some marines (for defensive bonus on hills and to “deal with” mobile artillery and a few SAMs to discourage stealth bombers, which didn’t work. I landed on the hills north west of Persepolis - got hit. Moved along the hill chain next to Persepolis - got hit - but was still doing fine. Attacked Persepolis and learnt that anybody who tells you that artillery fare poorly against mech infantry, didn’t bring enough artillery. Raised Persepolis with fairly minor losses. Space race victory averted.

Tried to make peace but Darius wasn’t talking and instead hit me again. This continued for a few more turns with me burning Tarsus and Parsagradea down before finally getting peace. My transports and fairly notional defence didn’t have a fun time returning home. Not getting circumnavigation was definitely unhelpful here.

While all this was going on I was being forced one by one into unwelcome civics - universal suffrage, emancipation, free religion. The only one I defied was environmentalism which Joao also defied meaning I didn’t need to. Annoyingly this was the last vote before an election so I wasn’t eligible - which was doubly frustrating as I had the votes to become sec gen. Nobody banned nukes but nobody built the Manhattan project either. Darius didn’t have uranium so not a huge deal but helpful nonetheless.

After getting peace with Darius, I sent everybody (or the seventy odd of the hundred plus still alive) back to the main continent to fight Brennus and Izzy. My earlier experience of a naval invasion of a civ that was an era ahead put me off the idea of conquest so I wiped Brennus and Izzy out. Given Brennus was going culture - meaning huge cultural defence - and I had no commerce for spy points (see bulldozing towns above) or experience of using them, it was a one mover artillery grind until I could risk throwing lots of tanks at a city knowing I could take the losses. This wasn’t helped by most of my tanks being city raider one after the loss of theology because of the UN. I could have gone vassalage but I assumed that this would mean two turns of anarchy before being forced into free speech by the UN so I never bothered.

Wiped Brennus and Izzy out, founded some filler cities and waited for enough cities to come out of revolt to get to domination.

It didn't really take me 63 hours although I do play very slowly.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Bigger stacks than deity AIs as always @Mr_Trotsky

Technical question about vassals

Spoiler :

You said: "The only one I defied was environmentalism which Joao also defied meaning I didn’t need to."

Does this always work? If you have a capitulated vassal and you defy a civic, are they forced to also defy? If they also defy, does it mean "I didn't need to"? Does this always work? If so, then I will always keep a vassal. Does this also work for peace-vassals?

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@sylvanllewelyn

Spoiler :

Not an expert but my experience is that vassals vote for you to win diplomatic victory or to be appointed as resident - both for UN and AP. On other votes they do their own thing.

That’s why it was annoying that Joao defied because I think he would have done so even if I hadn’t. The fact he defied as well didn’t help me because we both became ineligible for election as Sec Gen and got the defy anger. I think it must have been his own decision because I think Vicky would have been my vassal by that point and she didn’t follow my lead in defying. Although not 100% on that because I finished the game a while ago now.