Nobles' Club 367: Tokugawa of Japan

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Tokugawa of Japan, whom we last played in NC 315. The Japanese start with Fishing and The Wheel.

• Traits: Tokugawa is Aggressive and Protective. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Protective gives all Archery and Gunpowder units a free City Garrison I (+20% City Defence) and Drill I (+1 First Strike chance) promotion, as well as a +100% bonus to Walls and Castles.
• The UB: The Shale Plant, a Coal Plant that produces power without access to Coal as well as a +10% bonus. This building will be a lifesaver when you enter the industrial era without coal to power your factories, and a nice bonus in situations where you can trade away your coal for a ton of GPT and/or resources while enjoying power without the -2 that having Coal in your cities gives you.
• The UU: The Samurai, a Maceman with +2 First Strikes and the Drill I promotion, for a total of 2-3 First Strikes at base, as well as access to the entire Drill promotion line that Melee units normally can't get for even more First Strike shenanigans. But unlike regular Maces they can only be build with Iron. A very solid unit when combined with siege engines, unfortunately getting these units early enough to make a real difference in their era is difficult because Japan starts with Fishing, and that ruins all of the good bulbs that a Great Scientist could otherwise pull off.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Shuffle, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel. Shuffle basically picks randomly between an Archipelago, Fractal or Pangaea-style landmass.

Spoiler edits :

Strategic resource swap, unworkable fish moved, the usual.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 367 Tokugawa Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

EDIT: Fixed an error that caused some people's game to crash (accidentally deleted one leader's entry for which religious civic they started with, so instead of Paganism they started the game with a blank civic), please redownload the worldbuilder files if you're experiencing that.

 

[AcaMetis]

Well, the power of Plains be with this start, but beyond that...awkward. Can't settle the riverside Wine for 2 without giving up a cow, can't settle the plains hill wine without giving up both cows, and there's no other resources in sight. The Warrior is also out of position bar to check if that blue circle indicates seafood, but even if it did I wouldn't spend 1-2 turns moving a settler just to settle the coast even if we do start with Fishing.

Not sure what to do in this case. I'd probably SIP, seeing as that doesn't look like it would ruin any seafood (at least to the east), and start pumping settlers out early to grab some better land? Double plains cow is awkward without hunting/agriculture to start with, but there's no guarantees there's anything better in any given direction...

 

[sampsa]

I guess warrior SW and likely SIP. If no grains, go to AH via hunting working the wine? It's slow, but not sure what else.

 

[Nick723]

I agree on SIP, but I don’t think it is worth working the wine. You miss more food / hammers than you gain?

Another debate could be around worker or warrior first.

 

[sampsa]

I agree on SIP, but I don’t think it is worth working the wine. You miss more food / hammers than you gain?

Another debate could be around worker or warrior first.

Yeah but if you go for T15 worker what will it do, roads?

 

[Nick723]

Indeed - do you value the exploration / fog busting of a warrior more than some roads?

Probably for me, yes, but would be interested in others’ views.

 

[sampsa]

For me the highest priority is working two plains cows, hence the idea of working the wine sacrificing some .

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Would it be worth blind settle 1W of the starting position? In case I want to share the two cows with other cities.

 

[sampsa]

Would it be worth blind settle 1W of the starting position? In case I want to share the two cows with other cities.

I think no. Much more likely the original BFC has an extra -res than moving? Sharing plains cows is not likely to be very useful anyway.

edit: and delays cows 1T.

 

[elmurcis]

Weird. Am I only one "crashing" to desktop once hitting enter on T0? (just checking if it is my end or something else)

 

[AcaMetis]

Not on your end, looks like there's an error in the worldbuilder files. One moment...

EDIT:

Weird. Am I only one "crashing" to desktop once hitting enter on T0? (just checking if it is my end or something else)

Threw fixed worldbuilder files in the OP. For the record this error is something that doesn't cause my own game to crash, so I don't notice it easily. Thankfully I do at least know what the problem is (unless there's something else I missed ).

 

[Condorski]

I also had the crashing to desktop hitting enter on T0. I play with BAT mod. If I recall I was able to play T0 without the mod. On turn one I saved the game in world builder and loaded BAT mod and then loaded the game from world builder. Then it worked fine from there on.

 

[elmurcis]

All good now! You are very welcome

 

[chinemol]

at first sight it doesn't look enticing. I'm tempted to skip BW with this start. however the land favors killing someone unless there's something we're not seeing. hope for horses and charriot rush?

 

[a pen-dragon]

Would it be worth blind settle 1W of the starting position? In case I want to share the two cows with other cities.

I think the only motivation for that is hoping for better resources. In this specific case that would be any food/production resource that can be improved by a tech that is researchable now. Going to the coast takes too much time, so only grains are what we want in such a scenario. Adding that the north seems to be mostly plains, I think that IF moving the settler it should be moved 1SW, unless that would ruin seafood. (Warrior moves first 1SW ofc.) Doing that we have the pastures up one turn later, due to the worker moving. (23 turns for a worker if going warrior first. Either 8T warrior and then 15T worker at size one, or growing to size two in 11T and then 12T worker. Option two is way better.)

Calculating with 10 /turn at size one, deity, and not knowing anybody who knows these techs. Hunting will take 7 turns, AH 13, so they will finish by turn 20, so that will finish before 23 turns are up. going worker first would win at least 3 turns on improving the cows, since there are two cows that is effectively 6 and 12 . We should grow on turn 25, due to the first cow begin available on turn 23, thus shaving off one turn on growth. Both cows can be worked immediately when improved. That is 14 turns later growth than warrrior first, effectively 14 and 14 . Since 6 went into a warrior we might not need and the missing 6 will delay growth by about 1.5 turns to each following size, I prefer worker first.

Adding that this is just a slow capital, not a terrible one, I am in team SIP.

 

[konata_LS]

Settle 1E is definitely the best choice Plains cow under the capital city centre, best resource, always wins <-- just joking

These cows are 3 3 tiles after pastures, plus 1 from river, quite nice. It also unlocks the famous wagyu beef . Unfortunately Toku's starting techs are quite far from AH. Fishing is not useful for inland start, but TW ensures that workers always have something to do. TW also leads to pottery, an important tech, especially for the starts without gold or gem. Some days ago I tried a deity map then ended up on strike before getting TW, even with map knowledge .

Currently don't have much time to play the games. In the past few months I only completed 4 games in BTS . I also need some practice before taking the "final exam" of emperor level with such a Toku plains cow start. So I will save this map for playing later, maybe during New Year's holidays or next spring.

 

[Snowbird]

Obviously warrior needs to check the coast - blue circle, starting with fishing. Any plans should be run only after that.

 

[sampsa]

Yeah warrior 1SE is best since blue circle implies seafood. The circle spot itself is pretty bad even with seafood but maybe 1N/1W of that becomes attractive.

 

[danjuno]

Yep, Warrior 1SE was my instinctual reaction on first seeing the screenshot.

 

[Whisker]

Would it be worth blind settle 1W of the starting position? In case I want to share the two cows with other cities.

I like your plan. Move warrior SE to check the coast and settler to PH to see if there's any grain. If there is nothing worthwhile, move back to 1W from starting position on turn 1. As we already have wheel , worker can make route to cows while we wait AH.