Tokugawa - The Lost Samurai

[wylem]

Right now it may seem I'm getting my ass kicked and having a hell of a lot of bad luck, but I'm sure I can still pull an easy victory at the end of the tunnel....

Spoiler :

OMG - I wasn't going to check you spoiler but I figured just a peak at the first thing in it....

Spoiler :

And all I see is Tacitcal Nuke, Tacitcal Nuke, Tacitcal Nuke... and I quickly close the spoiler

This could be fun

 

[Gumbolt]

First try: Failed

I decided to try the worker steal (I'm unfamiliar with this, I almost never use it). Next I decided to choke willem with 4 AGG warriors (2 have woodsman I) on the wooden hilltop across the river.

Meanwhile I settled between the floodplains (between me and willem).

Next turn, somehow willem breaks the choke with +/- 9 archers. And suddenly he won't sign peace anymore. He now has 6 archers near my 2nd city, defended by 1 warrior...

Maybe the game can be saved, but since this is my first real immortal try, I'm not gonna bother.

Gonna try again with my normal, peaceful approach and be friends with my fellow dutchman

I did a worker steal of sorts.

Spoiler :

Settled in place guessing we would find a second food resource.

Teched agriculture, mining, ah, BW. Settled for the copper city. Rubbish city but got me copper.

Used a warrior to grab a worker. Lucked in and his second worker didn't move either when I attacked the first. 2 workers stolen and started building axes with 5-6 workers now. Lot of chopping!!!

Okay his second city had 6 archers so I bypassed and grabbed his capital. Axes with 25% against archers are sweet. Yeah i pillaged his horse.

Stacked reached his capital and his third city (ivory). Just took peace for alphabet. Then traded some techs with Spanish. got 9 workers now.

Need to restart war in 10 turns.

 

[obsolete]

OMG - I wasn't going to check you spoiler...

This is why continents can be a luck-fest for some people. If an AI decides to run away on another continent either through war or broken FRIEND-VASSALS, there is nothing a human player can possibly do to interveine.

Another bright idea that Failaxis did not think through.

And BTW:

Spoiler :

Can you believe I had just sunk some large naval stacks from Justinian just the turn before?

 

[obsolete]

I ended up dropping ~200 nukes this game, which is interesting how getting -200 diplo with someone still only results in a FURIOUS attitude. Seems like a cheat

Spoiler :

 

[Lewarks]

Obs, how did you flip Valencia ? Does your capital's culture pushed so far ?

Actually, I'm wandering what would be your game-play on a map without marble and stone
Oh and why didn't you chop these forests ?

 

[obsolete]

@ Lewarks

Spoiler :

Cultural Point-of-Attack with 2 cities can break the center pretty easy with marble surplus

I guess without building resources I may have just experimented with an old fashioned BC war.

 

[Jozo_NL]

Normally, immortal is a bit tricky for me, I have won some immortal games, but only with decent leaders.

Anyway, I'm now up to 1 AD and it is going rather well:

Spoiler :

Settled in place and went worker - warrior - warrior - worker - Settler.

Techwise: agriculture - mining- BW - hunting - archery - AH

Willem settled a city a holy city right on the flood plains close te me: result: no good city spots left. I settled two cities directly on his border (leaving me less tiles to work with) and one city between the clam/marble. I didn't settle next to the copper, that city wouldn't have any food resource, since Willem settled another city right next to it.

I researched IW very early (after AH-pottery-writing) and luckily got iron next to marble. All 4 cities built/chopped/whipped a barracks and after that only swordsman/axeman and an occasional spearman.
Declared war on Willem 1000 BC or so and totally destroyed him, only need to capture his last city now. Economy is totally wrecked, but I got some very good cities in return, so I'll be fine I guess. I even managed to complete the Great Library in 100 BC.

Next target is to conquer Willem's last city and quickly settle at least 3 more cities in the jungle. Strange thing: At 1 AD nobody has researched alphabet yet.

 

[Jozo_NL]

Up to 1000 AD:

Spoiler :

I signed peace with Willem before capturing his last city (since he was willing to give me mathematics, CoL, Monotheism and Monarchy for peace) and 10 turns later captured it anyway. Settled 3 more cities in the jungle as planned, but Washington beat me by 1 turn to capturing a barb city, leaving me with 13 cities, while Washington has 15 and Izzy 11.

I cottaged every piece of spare land I could find, with the idea to go Kremlin and buy cavalry. Due to the floodplains, farms weren't really necessary anyways.

Since my capital had build the GLibrary, and Amsterdam had an enormous amount of cottages I switched my capital to Amsterdam and ran Bureaucracy. Never done that before, but it works perfect.

Techwise I went Currency, Calendar (rarely ever had so many happiness resources!), Civil Service, Paper, Education and now researching Liberalism, which I might even get first. Both Izzy and Washington absolutely adore me, due to religion. They will be surprised when I roll over them in 1500 with 100+ cavalry.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm on pace to win quasi-diplomation, will do a full update soon but I'm taking a break for now.

Spoiler :

Settled in place and didn't go too crazy on expo. Got 8 cities closely packed, cottaged capitol for bureaucracy. Tech was slow for a long time on this backwards continent because wash/willem were jewish and izzy christian.

Willem ran out in front in tech while the other two fought. I neglected trades with wash/izzy as I neared rifling.

My solution to this map was to draft, draft, draft riflemen (even with globe every city had ~50 turns of draft anger) and hit izzy then washington because izzy was a bit more advanced. I hate to stop short of madrid due to her getting rifles but by that point she would capitulate easily (captured like 10 cities from her). Washtington had LOTS of units, jesus I must have killed 80 units or something but he never got near rifling so I marched all the way to washington.

Both of these went pretty fast because I used 3 different rifle stacks and toku rifles are nasty. The cities captured were pretty good.

Now it's mid 1700's and after the war I'd fallen pretty far behind in tech but with 30% land I quickly built some espionage buildings and stole my way to military parity with willem. Willem has a city at 45k culture that I am now putting into revolt every turn (I can afford 2 revolts/turn and then some lol). I'm just going to spank him using infantry/arty and then me + vassals + justinian (who likes me for theocracy + no state + fair trade) will clinch the map easily for UN.

I could copy obsolete after capping willem and put together a massed nuclear force and ruin anybody who gets close to winning's day but the UN ending is less effort.

 

[Gumbolt]

Up to 650bc.

Spoiler :

I restarted my war with Dutch. Took their final 2 cities. I have 7 cities and one captured holy city. Science is a bit off but I have built 3 libraries so should soon be able to crank up the science with alphabet and scientists. I still have 10 workers to improve the land.

Looking good for land so far.

Only thing I lack now is city builds.

 

[wylem]

Had a bit of a set back this round. Have quite a few pictures in this report.

Spoiler :

First off I was trying to decide what to do about religion. I really didn't want to get bogged down with an early war with Willem so I did switch to Taoism. Before I adopted the religion I checked to see what Isabella thought about Willem.

Finally met another AI on this continent...

So far, my small settler rush has me keeping up with the AI in terms of cities.

Now the fun begins... for quite a while now a barb archer has been pacing along the dutch borders southeast of Tokyo. I figured he would just enter Ducth lands and he would disappear forever. Well Willem had other ideas...

Now you see Tokyo

Now you don't

Obviously a few screw ups here as I should have had another warrior close enough to help. I also moved my warrior out of the city to the copper, hoping the archer might decide to enter Willem's lands before the GW was built as an alternative to coming at my warrior. When the GW was built I moved back into the city but only got the 5% fortified bonus. Odds were 30% for the archer so I can't get too mad about the RNG on that one.

So now instead of focusing on growth in my capital, building a library, and a blocking settler for the jungle, I now had to replace Tokyo rather quickly so Willem didn't take my copper.

So while all this is going on I'm running 0% science saving up for when my libraries are complete. With the delay I actually had a bit more cash than I am used to when switching to deficit research. Also have some dotmap ideas I decided to show here as well.

So I switch to 100% research but don't run any scientists as I want to be working as many tiles as I can in Kyoto to get out some more workers/settlers before I start building the Great Library. With having gold in my cap this still works out okay. I do some tile switching so Kyoto can work the cows since Osaka is at the happy cap and I want my cottages to keep growing.

Finally Willem has alphabet for me.

Moving along to Literature with Kyoto trying to push a settler out for the jungle block. Supporting cities are providing some axes for protection. I don't want to lose another city.

I was having issues with the dotmap in the jungle. A barb city is right in the middle. Spain is coming from the west and America from the southwest. I was originally looking at trying to get a blocking city somewhere around Chicago but losing Tokyo killed that idea.

So i'll see if I can get something south of the barb city.

Washington's settler is on its way from Chicago and will probably beat me. Both he and Isabella have now expanded to 7 cities while I was bulilding libraries and replacing my lost city.

Once Literature is in I see what I can get for Aesthetics.

Then I get started on the Great Library and once I am half way done I see what else I can get.

Isabella doesn't want to feel left out I guess.

So Isabella gets Literature for free.

The Great Library is build in Kyoto and Washington settles just west of Kagoshima. I actually thought I could beat Washington's settler and I missed by about a turn or two and actually had to pull my settler back.

The wonders of the world.

So at this point I realize I have enough gold left to get me through Meditation, and Drama or Code of Laws, so I can bulb Philospohy from my Great Library scientists.

I kind of wanted Calendar here but decided that I can research it after Philosophy or maybe trade Currency for it if possible.

Since I already missed out on wine and I am doing okay on happiness I decide to hold out on this offer. I just need to keep an eye on the AI tech for a bit to try not to miss out on trading currency.

I start the National Epic in Kyoto. Starting to think about running Pacifism for a bit to try and get me some scientists to help with Education and maybe a few other thigns like an Academy.

So finally at 1 AD and Nara is settled.

Tech situation.

The Jungle situation.

Going to try and jam two more cities north of Kyoto and try a small raid on the barb cities as well. That should get me atleast 9 cities, 11 if I am lucky. Drama should help with the culture pressure and if I can get Globe Theatre up quickly, before Nationalism, that would be nice. Just trying to avoid war until rifles if possible. I've never tried drafting Samurai, that could be fun, but probably not as effective.

Calendar will likely be after Philosophy. I'm hoping I can trade for it to start working on Civil Service to be able to farm the jungle.

Normally I go through Code of Laws to get to Philosophy. Maintenance isn't killing me yet but I will probably go through CoL for CS anyways. Isabella has feudalism already with help from her Oracle-Monarchy slingshot. I imagine she might be going for the AP as well.

I'll probably post again before rifles as I might need some help picking a war target by then. Optimcs/Astronomy from the AI may not be that far away and it could change things as well.

I haven't used the whip very much here and I need to get more vertical growth in my cities. Focus is getting the happy cap into the double digits and fast. So calendar, resource trading, theatres, monarchy, should help...

I often wonder when to make the run on metal casting. I may need to self tech that at some point as well to set up possible trades for Machinery. More happy and hammers helps too.

A note on the save. I screwed up and didn't save at 1 AD and quit civ. Had to reload from 75 BC and play 3 turns again. I guess I was more concerned about this post than my save game.

 

[wylem]

@Jozo_NL

Spoiler :

Nice job. It really shows the value in going for food/production cities with Osaka and Tokyo and not overreacting on the location of the copper. Bringing the 4th city in for food obviously paid off as well.

With me cottaging Osaka it meant I couldn't do much else with it but spit out the odd warrior or axe while growing. Tokyo was crap on the copper and I just used it for workers/warriors/axes at pop 2. Even with CS that city is going to be terrible, maybe a lighthouse will help too after CS farms kick in. So I was pretty much depending on Kyoto to cover most of my early game needs in terms of production.

Nice to see that Gumbolt did some pre-catapult damage to the Dutch as well.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1902 UN Victory

Spoiler :

The basic economy setup was cottage bur capitol, and farms/whip infra elsewhere. Globe figured heavily as I drafted much. I only settled 7 cities.

Religious strife meant I couldn't run one, so I went for aesthetics line with marble and picked up paya also with gold boosting it, opting to run free religion until the draft (using theo for that).

I actually got beaten to lib by willem ~800 AD by a few turns grr, then he beat me to rifles. I didn't touch him until very late as a result but the other two neighbors spammed into jungle early and were backwards, opening up the draft window. Despite the late start toku's gunpowder troops are VERY powerful, and that made all the difference.

Willem went culture and justinian space. Willem was 7 turns from culture as I stole to assembly line/arty, so I just perma-revolted utrecht until I was ready. I then declared on his small empire that didn't have mechinf yet with a 3 stack split of infantry/arty and pasted him in about 10-12 turns.

I used theocracy to make justinian like me. He wasn't pissy over worst enemy trades and so with NSR theo + fair trade + open borders the -3 from DoW friend + vassals wasn't enough to drop him below voting for me and I won. I had to gift utrecht back to willem so that justinian wasn't my UN opponent, if I simply killed Willem I'd have gone up against justinian for UN vic and that would make it impractical.

I *did* have a backup plan in place for taking him down should he launch the ship, since when the game ended he had every tech in the game. You can see the droves of cities manufacturing tactical nukes. I had subs and paras on the way also. Even if he were to launch on the following turn, I'd have had probably 40+ tac nukes ready along with a lot of infantry cover + paras before he landed it. However, this one was already full of some long and fruitful wars and he treated me nicely enough so I let him simply vote me winner .

Don't have other screens, but you can actually see all of the cities I settled myself in this picture.

 

[Grashopa]

900 BC - Is this a good start?

Spoiler :

Ag - mining - myst-masonry - BW - med - priest - writing - oracle alphabet - monarchy

Worker stole then 3 warrior choked the dutch. AIs are way behind, but I wanted to build research as we have good hammers. Monarchy just in and now the capital will grow into those hills while spamming axemen for Wilhelm. He has 9 or 10 archers but hopefully they can be lured out. I'm about to settle into the Americans which may be stupid so let me know what you think.

 

[obsolete]

@ Grass

Spoiler :

He has 9 or 10 archers but hopefully they can be lured out.

I find scouts are pretty good for that. Weak enough that the stupid AI can't resist, and cheap enough that it doesn't really cost you much. If I don't have horses I"ll sometimes make a couple scouts to do quick mapping through my neighbours, I find the lures as the best FINAL use of em

 

[krikav]

I made a attemt at this.

Spoiler :

Did a workersteal on willhelm, killed one of his scouts and was able to make peace.
Peacefully expanded to 3 cities, ignored the crappy copper. (I figured I would have to get iron sooner or later for the UU anyway.)

Once I had iron, I made a ton of swordmen and two axemen to guard them, and pretty much steamrolled over willhelm.

By the time I had his cities, isabella was a total monster though.

I suspect that for this to be winnable, you have to leave willhelm alone, and do a jungle expansion.

 

[Grashopa]

I think my game would be competitive with other approaches, but it depended on some luck:

Spoiler :

I didn't take out Willem for a long time, and I didn't let him improve his land, so that set me back a lot. Plus I expanded into the jungle taking a couple barb cities which put me in a hole. However the Americans built the pyramids in their border city. I just took it at 50 AD. I have farmed everything so likely I'm in a good spot despite a slow war to take over the rest of America ( 800ADish?) Just don't feel like managing caste/specs and finishing it to see.

 

[Jozo_NL]

After the great start posted somewhere in this thread, I won the game by the narrowest of margins:

Spoiler :

After my last recap at 1000 AD, I decided to go Kremlin -> cavalry, as this is a new strategy I'm trying out. Not realizing that rifleman got a bonus from Toku's traits, where cavalry get none. Bad decision. Anyway, I missed the Kremlin by one turn (die! Izzy, die!) but bought/build 100+cavalry nevertheless and quickly vassilized Washington. This cost my greatly techwise, and Izzy was far more powerful as well. How to win? The people on the other continent hated my guts, so diplo was out of the question, as was cultural (too late). Domination seemed tricky, because I had to work with ships, and I hate that (always play pangea.

Therefore I wanted to go for space race. I refueled my economy, and by the time I caught op with the tech leaders, Justinian (by far most powerful player) declared war on me. He took several cities, but I got them back. I demolished lots of space parts from Izzy (Madrid produced a space part every 3 turns!) and beat Hapsetsuth by 1 turn to cultural victory.