Nobles' Club 367: Tokugawa of Japan

[chinemol]

4th time was the charm, hate toku

Spoiler :

settled turn 2. best run so far, grabbing cows and wheat.
got DoWed by Bismarck and Mao early on, agg, pro did the charm (pre constr.) Sule is crossing the map towards me, pleased and with a peace treaty, but will smash anyway (construction army might add couple maces).
no chance I'll beat hanni to lib if goes that route, wich he tends to do.
still, got enough land to allow for victory somewhere in the future.

 

[soundjata]

I'm at 1AD, great fun!

Spoiler :

Beeline Civil Service (wonder what for?)
Farewell uninspiring capitol (nice though)
First GS made an Academy in Satsuma. Next one probably golden age...

A couple of guys missing

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Based on the starting techs and peering into the fog (1 hill, 1 forest discernible), warrior 1 NE instead of 1 SE sounds ideal for maximizing the area around the capital.

 

[aitkensam]

I've also played this through to 25AD on Immortal. Forgot to save at 1AD!

Spoiler :

I wasn't expecting to be particularly enamoured by this map after the first dozen or so turns, but it's ended up being a lot of fun.

SIP. Got 9 cities. Close to Civil Service and scientist probably for Philosophy. High happy cap. Diplo and tech going okay (at least Monty is far away!) so expecting a smooth game from here on out.

Not at all sure about my second city placement next to the gold but it certainly felt like it helped get all the cheap techs pretty quickly.

 

[pmarc]

Looking for advice (Immortal, T22)

Spoiler :

Following some of the suggestions posted above, I checked NE with the warrior and didn't find extra food, so I settled 1W with the goal of sharing the cows and luckily found wheat. With wheat and 2 plain cows in capital, maybe we can delay Bronze Working in favor of Pottery next? In that case should we go all the way to Alphabet and trade for BW? Only met Hannibal so far, his scout was around "city 4" marker. He just settled his 2nd city last turn.

I would like putting the next city SE to share a cow and cottages with capital, the spot marked there loses a forest and the silk in exchange for working the horse right away, it is worth it?

City 4 could be city 3 to claim more territory, but it seems far and the gold won't be workable for a long time. What do others think?

 

[a pen-dragon]

@pmarc

Spoiler :

About sharing food, the point is that if one city is not growing another can pick up the resource to get the food. Plains-cows are only 3 , that is a bit low for useful sharing, thus I would rarely center a city on sharing such a tile. Basically the only time kyoto would not be working it is after whipping down to two population. City 3 and 4 are better early cities due to having a strong food resource in the first ring and actually claiming land. City 2 can be backfilled whenever you want and while being a good city, it is nothing to get excited about.

Maybe your city 2 could also be placed 1W, losing the horses in the first ring is no big thing as you want a border pop ASAP for the fish, and allowing to work the silk, as well as more overlap with the capital for growing cottages. I would grow the city on the cow, or if it is worked by the capital, a grassland farm, whip a monument at size two and go from there. Also the horse could not be worked right away, as you have to improve it first, reducing its impact.

With the current scouting information I would settle 3-4-2, possibly delaying 2 to claim even more land, if the land is very good.

About tech choices, due to having few forests BW can be delayed a bit, after pottery seems reasonable. The reasoning behind this is that whipping really profits from having granaries set up and granaries really help with growth in general. Having earlier granaries allows for earlier heavy whipping, which is good. Pottery will also give workers something useful to do besides improving resources and roading, namely building cottages. In this case I think both paths (Pottery->BW or BW->Pottery) are possible.

Going for early alphabet to trade for BW will definietely get you later BW than teching it yourself, loosing your biggest source of production. I think it is at best a dubious move.

 

[sampsa]

@pmarc

Spoiler :

I kind of like your idea for 2+3, not because those cities are somehow great but because it's the best you have. The area around 4 is very interesting, but it's far, you'll probably need some safety (chariot or 2) to get there and so on. Unfortunately both fish are 2nd ring but nothing you can do, barring a religion spread you need a monument for both.

Not madly in love with alpha-beeline, it's a line that I experimented a lot at some point on immortal, but it's value depends quite a lot on meeting many AIs and not having an AI in the game that likes to beeline alpha (Joao for example) and having Mansa in the game would be great.

You are correct that BW is not of huge value here, not many chops and low so no whips. It seems early for pottery. How about sailing? Point is to try to open trade routes via coast, and it saves a lot of workerT since you don't need to road either. Then maybe pot-writing and reconsider alpha (though unlikely a good play still IMO). A religion spread to city 2 or 3 would be huge.

 

[Whisker]

Another first for me, a human player style betrayal by AI.

Spoiler :

Bismark was pleased with me, but had been plotting for some time. When he proposed defensive pact with me, I thought he had some another target in mind. Suddenly a big stack of cavarly, rifleman and grenadier rolled over garrison of my border city. Border city I had taken from him some thousand years earlier. Lulled by our defensive pact I had just removed half of the units from the city toward planned military action in North. Of course I can't really complain as I had planned on doing exactly same thing as soon as he would have declared on that 'other' target.

 

[pmarc]

Played to turn 57

Spoiler :

In the end, I decided to pick mining and bronze working first, despite the low potential for whipping, since I couldn't think of another way to get to the fish in reasonable time (so mysticism after bronze). 2nd city (Osaka) was built NW of eastern wheat to share a cow and eventually become a good production city when the capital moves to cottage duty. Then got 2 quick settlers from Kyoto and Osaka with the help of chops. Osaka is slow building another settler, probably for 1NE of horses (horse/fish city). Tokyo is popping borders in 6 turns and a forest will be chopped so the workboat is ready.

Now I just finished pottery and am starting to place cottages along the river. I am thinking of researching writing next, and not sure towards what, though monarchy seems really good here. Met two more AIs, they are already on 4-5 cities. Also, should I revolt to slavery now at it will be needed to build granaries and libraries in some of these cities?

 

[sampsa]

@pmarc

Spoiler :

I'm cool with Tokyo and Osaka spots, settling on forest always hurts my soul a bit. I'm a bit worried about Satsuma with no chariots though, I mean even just getting your cow/corn pillaged would hurt quite a bit. Can't see properly but I guess there is a worker improving Satsuma cow. Without improved tiles that city is a big drain.

I'd certainly work 12 in Tokyo and 112 in Kyoto rather than 21. Satsuma should start with a monument, you need that from gold asap.

Not sure about monarchy, that and alpha are the techs you always can get via trade (every AI trades them even if it's monopoly). I think I'd go writing and build a cap library being at 0% slider while building it, then decide where to go hopefully with some more info.

 

[pmarc]

Thank you @sampsa !

turn 77 - 950 BC

Spoiler :

I was able to repel the few (2-3) barb archers up north with enough warriors, some of which were cover-promoted.

Gold improved and 2nd library (Tokyo) done next turn, Satsuma library soon with chops, 5th city pops borders for fish in 5 turns. No one I know has Alphabet yet.

Worried about Bismarck with 7 cities and swordsmen already... should I grab Archery for safety here?

 

[soundjata]

Taking the barb city at this point is a very high priority @pmarc. Build chariots

 

[jorissimo]

Thank you @sampsa !

turn 77 - 950 BC

Spoiler :

I was able to repel the few (2-3) barb archers up north with enough warriors, some of which were cover-promoted.

Gold improved and 2nd library (Tokyo) done next turn, Satsuma library soon with chops, 5th city pops borders for fish in 5 turns. No one I know has Alphabet yet.

Worried about Bismarck with 7 cities and swordsmen already... should I grab Archery for safety here?


View attachment 709800

Spoiler :

A barb city with a border pop on immortal in 950 BC is something I did not expect to see

 

[rdbeni0]

I'm going to join the club. I'm currently playing alone on Noble as Frence and De Gaulle and losing, but I sometimes win on Warlord and lower difficulty levels. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The AI opponents always have more of resources/army/terrain/etc and I lose due to various snowball effects. However, I think that playing together on predefined maps can be quite interesting and maybe I will improve my skills.

First question - is Civ4 BtS + BAT Mod version 4.1 enough to start?
Second question - what does SIP mean in your discussion?

 

[a pen-dragon]

First question - is Civ4 BtS + BAT Mod version 4.1 enough to start?

Any mod that does not alter mechanics (much) is fine, so is yours.

Second question - what does SIP mean in your discussion?

SIP = settle in place, i.e. build the city where the settler started.

 

[valergrad]

I'm going to join the club. I'm currently playing alone on Noble as Frence and De Gaulle and losing, but I sometimes win on Warlord and lower difficulty levels. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The AI opponents always have more of resources/army/terrain/etc and I lose due to various snowball effects.

I believe everybody makes it's own mistakes that are not allowing him to win on higher levels.
For example my mistake was ( and partly still is ) not using slavery whipping and forest chopping often enough.
These are two gamechanger mechanics that allow you to get tons of in a couple moves. This hammers you can spend on new workers - allowing chop even more, new settlers - allowing produce even more workers - etc. etc. and now snowball effect is on your side!

 

[sampsa]

First question - is Civ4 BtS + BAT Mod version 4.1 enough to start?

I would recommend BUFFY. http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php I think most players have it installed and can thus open a save that you send to the forums. Not everyone likes BAT due to graphics and unit naming changes.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Taking the barb city at this point is a very high priority @pmarc. Build chariots

I always raze barb cities with border pops: you can't get rid of the "we want to join our motherland" unhappiness when it's barb culture.
But that's my OCD at work.

 

[sampsa]

But that's my OCD at work.

Yes, should be a relatively minor inconvenience.

Agree with soundjata, it'd be awesome if you can grab that city. Otherwise it's not easy to expand. I wouldn't tech archery, but certainly a thing you need to consider. I'd rather try to set up a city gift even.

 

[skarpa]

well, that's the sort of map that has me reaching for the regen button. Not because of plains cows but just the lack of grass and forests to chop. But I've not played Toku before and it's been suggested that if you think you are ready to go up a level play one of the worse leaders and civs. Nothing wrong with aggr and pro except that they are at the expense of better traits. The samurai is a mace and I rarely ever build those as mach is not generally on my tech path as it prevents bulbing Lib. Peeps do seem to like em, though. The shale plant is a bit meh as I'd hope to have won before needing them. OK here goes

Turn 25 (Mon, no huts/events)

Spoiler :

No blue circle for me, never mind. Would seem a long way to go for a fish anyway. Warr goes SE and I SIP. Next prob techs. If I need to tech hunting and then AH to work the cows properly then I'll have a mismatch between when worker is ready and techs are ready. Decided to stop worker at -1 and switch to warr until AH is -1 too.

Warrior scouts along the coast and it's apparent I'm on a wee peninsular. Nice for barb defence. 1st worker goes to improve cows and I decide to complete warrior for FB north. Both warrs have now been injured by lions so aren't in the best location to FB. At size 2 I decide a third warr which is now at 1 turn away but what next. Do I grow or get a settler out. I don't think another worker will help much. I think the fish city spots to the S and E are good but can wait so can the dry wheat to the W. The gold beckons. It's a bit far out but will help seal off my land. Should I go for it? No other civs yet. Is this ISO?

Worker has finished cows and as per suggestion above I'll farm the wine. Tech was H, AH (horsies YAY!) and then Ag. What next? Pottery for cottages I think rather than Mining but i'll need myst for border pops. If I do settle Gold the best spots put it in the outer ring I think so there's time for that after settling. Since Samurai want CS maybe trying for an Oracle slingshot is the way to go? CoL is a big boost to CS, even if I daren't wait to tech CoL to be able to grab CS. MC is a big leg up towards Mach. I'll need both CS and Mach for Samurai if I go that route. If...