Toku's economy

[futurehermit]

I've been playing random leader starts lately. Last night I pulled Toku. I smiled. I used to play him exclusively in vanilla. Now, I don't like the fact that he is protective.

His economy sucks so bad now. No financial, no philosophical, no industrious, no organized, no half-priced economic buildings of any kind. Nothing. Of course I am talking about the first half of the game here, before his period of (really good) strength kicks in around the time of his UB and drafted gunpowder units.

Here's how the game went: I had one of those uber-production, forest-spammed starts. Definitely not a commerce capital, way too low food. Good production city though. I had Monty too far to rush to the south who had the cataphract-rider right nearby. I had Willem a rushable distance to my east. Fortunately, copper turned up in my 2nd city to the east, toward Willem, so naturally I axe-rushed him. After the war my empire went: Capital-production city-amazing commerce city (I moved my capital there)-Willem's former capital, which made an excellent gpfarm.

Sounds like a nice BC empire, right? The problem was that my economy was in the dumps, around 30-40% science and I didn't have currency/col yet. By the time I got those techs so I could expand my empire further, it was already ca. 600AD or so (I play on normal speed). The window of opportunity to use his UU (instead of trying to make the jump to the renaissance) was rapidly closing (and I was a fair distance from CS/Machinery!).

Now the two others on my continent weren't outteching me in any way, but with Monty on my continent it would only be a matter of time before I was embroiled in a war with him further slowing me down.

I figured I could win the game in the long run, but that it would be a total dogfight all the way.

What can I do to help his really rough early-game economy?

I think he would work much better on a coastal start. He starts with fishing and could go after the GLH like I did with Genghis in a recent coastal start I had with him. Genghis' early game econ is about on par with Toku's so that was a good judge for me.

But if Toku starts inland, I'm not sure what the solution is. Oracle->CoL? Pyramids->SE? It seems like he needs at least one economic wonder to help him out.

If the capital has some floodplains or is generally a good commerce capital going for early pottery to get some cottages started is a potential plan as well I guess.

Thoughts?

 

[Ibian]

Whats the problem again? That you dont start with financial?

You expect to get into a war, so enjoy your free promotions.

Personally i think its best to come up with a solid economy type that isnt overly dependent on traits. For me that means cottages and a GP farm that makes settled prophets and merchants.

 

[futurehermit]

Did I say the problem was that I didn't start with financial? I said the problem was Toku doesn't have any economic bonuses whatsoever. I could accept a slower economy with Toku I guess and just go through the dogfight I mentioned, but I was wondering if there might be another alternative.

I wonder if Toku might be a good candidate for an espionage economy, for example. Since he's not likely to lead the tech race, maybe chopping out the GW early and focusing heavily on espionage after alphabet might be a good way to go. That way he can focus on warmongering, but not having to worry really about being outpaced by the AI?

 

[Ibian]

Spies work. If you dont build any wonders other than GW in the same city, and if you dont have a GP farm after you get your academies, and if you have neighbors, and if you are behind them in tech.

Its can be a fun system and its a nice supplement to more normal economies, but there are just too many "ifs" to make it the main part of the economy for my taste.

 

[MyOtherName]

The problem was that my economy was in the dumps, around 30-40% science and I didn't have currency/col yet. By the time I got those techs so I could expand my empire further

If you're playing a strategy that requires economic techs, but doesn't allow you to research currency -> code of laws early enough... then choose a different tech path! For example, the religious line to monarchy and code of laws is a lot cheaper. And, in my humble opinion, often much more effective.

 

[slobberinbear]

I have run into the same problem with Toku. You have to be conservative with him due to his lack of economic/wonder perks.

I suggest slow growth at the start with an emphasis on an axe rush if you can get away with it while teching pottery, writing, code of laws, and currency. For research/commerce, put two scientists in your high food cities and cottages everywhere else. It sounds so basic but there it is. The first rule of Toku gambit: there is no Toku gambit.

You just need to get him to a position in mid-game where he can blossom with his UU, and be very careful capturing cities.

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages!!

 

[Yeosol]

I'm quite sure Toku is one of the hardest leaders to play on the higher difficulty levels because of his complete lack of early game anything. However I love the idea of playing as Japan, if I could only figure him out.

I agree with a coastal start TGL will really help you get going. For inland starts however I just don't know what to do with Toku. It seems the only thing to do is go super slow expansion. The problem with this is your usually late to Samurai then. Maybe going for an econ wonder is the best plan. However Toku's start is so slow that more then one would be ruin for your expansion.

So for coastal defiantly go TGL.
For inland with stone I would say try for the pyramids. (though this is same for most leaders)
I'm not sure any other wonders are worth the trade off. You could go Orical->MC and build the Colossus. But thats a lot of tech/hammer commitment.
If you're near jungle I would say go for a calender economy.

I think the biggest problem with Toku is the Axe rush. Unfortunately I think it's best not to do it. Unless.... maybe if you raised every city. That would give you a good supply of early gold and workers. The problem here is you would still be behind on city's if you don't keep any.

Maybe Orical->CoL. I know some people don't like it but it's really a good plan for most leaders. He could switch to caste meaning he wouldn't need monuments, could run specialists, build courthouses and maybe build the shrine.

GW for a espionage economy sounds like a good idea as well.

Another option is build production heavy city's and have them build research.

Edit: What about a vertical growth strategy?

 

[Gliese 581]

Toku is definitely favoured by a coastal start imo since that's his only food/production boosting starting tech. Inland you have to research 2-4 techs to get started. Unfortunately this tactic has just become weaker since bts, he used to have half-price lighthouses when he was organized.
I sometimes play with a modded Toku (Agg/Org) in offline games since I miss it so much.

Edit: I have had the same experience as you more than once with early rushes. If you do the axe rush, your economy don't recover in time to use the UU. Maybe an axe-rush shouldn't be pushed even if possible if there's some distance between you and the enemy. Experiment with slow-build and a medieval war?
I don't know if it's neccesarily better, you have the problem of them having more troops, more sensitive diplomatic game etc. But it's worth considering especially with a militarily weak neighbour like Willem.

 

[Priah]

Toku probably has the two weakest traits in the game, but for your economy, just sort of play it like you would any other game, with just a nice little hybrid economy that wont be anything overly impressive, but strong enough to keep up with the others.

Id say that your economy didn't really fall behind solely because of Tokus traits, but just that his traits sort of aggravated it. Basically, you need to either devote less of your empire to building military units and rely on his protective/aggressive traits to keep you safe while operating with a very small elite army.

Or you can build a ridiculously large elite army, play the game at -20 gold a turn at 0% science, find yourself some mongolian allies, and make the dark ages just that much darker.

 

[johnny_rico]

Toku is without a doubt one of the toughest guys to play.

Cottages ftw will always work but I find that boring.

All suggestions offered up thus far are viable.

I thought there was some way to work the tree where you could get MC from the oracle, work towards machinery while trying to bulb civil service (or work towards CS and generate a Great Engineer to bulb machinery).

Or, oracle for CoL, for courthouses to run spies/EE. If possible, build the Great Wall first in another city (probably asking too much).

Yeah, he's pretty much a mess and the map + your neighbors is going to dictate which way to play the game (e.g. - if Mansa was my neighbor, I'd adopt his religion and run hardcore EE until I could conquer him).

One thing I think for certain is the great lighthouse, the oracle, and the great wall are the only wonders I'd think about building in the early game. The pyramids are great, but that's 15 axemen you didn't build. I'm not convinced the great lighthouse is worthwhile either.

Toku should also always be at war with someone. It's ok to run around pillaging cottages and hamlets for cash. Don't wipe people out in one war, it's best to try to get a tech or two off of them, then finish them off another time. In addition to all this, I'd try to keep as many relations as sour as possible. If everyone is fighting, they aren't teching fast. Bring them down to your level even if the bribes are ridiculous. Toku thrives best in chaos because his units will consistently be the best.

Maximum Carnage!

Another thing you can do is that 'exploit' where you whip a wall (helps to have stone) with one turn left in addition to completing a couple of chops simultaneously. All the excess hammers convert to gold. You can run your slider a lot higher.

 

[futurehermit]

I tried another game with slow expansion. I only expanded at a rate my economy could handle. Unfortunately, I had another production-only capital that was too low food for cottages (ahem, DaveMcW ) I kept Monty at war with Izzy but GW became a powerhouse between me and Monty and although I started winning a medieval war against him to the point where we each had about 8 cities, it was already 1450AD and I was like: "How am I going to win this game before 2050?!?!"

I think Toku is like playing 1-2 skill levels higher. It definitely felt to me like the emperor games I have played. Everyone is ahead on tech, has a larger empire, etc. etc. and I am playing catchup the whole game.

That's not to say it isn't fun, but it is definitely more of a challenge imo.

There's two things I am thinking for him, if I could only get the capital location for it:

1) Go hardcore CE in capital and try to hit monarchy-CS by 1AD. Try and have a huge capital with tons of cottages. Use this commerce to then support horizontal expansion while teching toward machinery.

2) Go hardcore SE in capital, get the GL, run tons of scientists. Then tech through CS. Bulb through liberalism and keep gunning for rifling while securing 6 cities. Get the GT set up before rifling hits home. Pre-build cats/trebs/spies. Draft about 20 rifles and start a war with an opponent and take him out in waves. Once that territory is secure, keep drafting, drafting, drafting while teching to communism.

That's about all I've got, but it depends a lot on the capital imo. If the capital is coastal, go GLH and coastal city spam while teching toward the UU.

 

[Yeosol]

I defiantly agree with you that Toku feels like a level up. I recently played a game from hell as him. Ended up with Shaka and Nappy on my island. Shaka rushed me leading me into about a 2000 year war while Nappy built the GW + TGL + Parth + Orical + Gold + Ivory + SoZ!. I stooped playing it about 300AD, though I'll eventually try and win it. (Monarch). I'm thinking a capital strike

What about this Idea.
Expand a very small empire, like 5 city's and focus on early vertical expansion. Go Monarchy EARLY, maybe even by Oracle. Use the happiness to mass whip then grow the city's up with 2-4 defenders in each. So like 7-10 happiness total.
Capital = Production
City's 2+3 = Cottage
City 4 = Production
City 5 = Specialists.
Then go for a late axe/cat rush. Like hit closest civ ~30 turns before they get feudalism while teching toward samurai. Go peace when they get Longbows or when your econ starts to drop too much. This will leave you with a weak civ to crush with Samurai. Then continue on the expansion. Your empire should look a lot like japan, small but powerful.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just use cottages, coastal start, or if you're fortunate enough to have strong commerce in your start you can consider specialists. Toku is about warring so pick whatever will work best on the map .

If you manage your early techpath and use of commerce/scientists, you don't need any traits to pick up currency or CoL before attacking. It's very important to TIME your REXing or rush so that you don't completely halt science. If you have 2-3 cities running scientists (even in CE, this is usually needed at higher difficulty to keep research up while growing them), that should be enough to pick up currency and CoL decently quickly, even if your research slider is poor.

Once you get through the economy, Toku is a top class warmonger. If your warring falls behind you can always take advantage of his protective castles for espionage and start stealing. He doesn't NEED a tech lead to war, because his units have sick promo advantages (esp. with gunpowder). If you can manage a tech lead, those rifle or grenade/cannon pushes are just deadly.

 

[MyOtherName]

Thoughts?

Think about your Joao rexing games. Joao doesn't actually have anything to help your economy -- pretty much all he has is cheaper workers and settlers. In principle, whatever you do with Joao, you should also be able to do with Tokugawa, just at a smaller scale. (Or maybe even on a similar scale if you replace settler/worker building with city capturing)

 

[Bandobras Took]

If you had these high-production cities, were you at any time ever building Research? How soon did you get Alphabet?

 

[futurehermit]

the thing about joao though is:

1) expansive helps a lot for vertical growth and having more workers means earlier and more numerous terrain improvements

2) larger empire faster, with enough workers, means better econ if you can sustain it. 50% of a large empire is a good amount of beakers; 50% of a small empire is much less.

 

[Gliese 581]

Yeah Joao is a different game. Expansive also gives cheap granaries so you have cheap workers, settlers and granaries, meaning the whipping in the early game is great. You can rex much faster than Toku can which means you can grab ALL the gems/gold etc to get great cities more often. On the higher levels especially there will be a noticeable difference here.

 

[futurehermit]

I finally have a Toku game going that seems to be headed in a winning direction.

Here is how it went:

-Started out with a coastal capital: High food (3 clams, irrigated rice) and average production (3 grassland hills, one of them popped iron)

-I had Gilgamesh to my North/Northeast, Kublai to the East of Gilgamesh, and Monty to my south...yeah, I know

-I got two coastal cities built between me and Gilgamesh. Then I chopped out the GLH in my capital. I got two coastal and one inland cities built between me and Monty. I got two good island cities built for a total of 8 cities. Still able to run 70% science thanks to the GLH.

-I also got the GL and NE in my capital and ran 6 scientists + 2 from GL powered by NE. I bulbed: paper, education (2), printing press, philosophy, astronomy. I also built 2 academies.

-I was first to liberalism (nationalism)

-ca. 1300-1400 I'm working my way toward rifling. The plan is to take out backwards Monty with theocratic/aggressive/protective rifles, which will give me a solid empire. Then I can turn my sites on Gilga then Kublai adding cannons and going for infantry as necessary.

-The plan is to workshop spam my empire and stick in caste system/state property after chemistry/communism/UB come online

-At that point I don't think anyone will be able to stop me militarily

Toku is really poweful at that point, but man it is hard getting there!!!

Even in this game things were always tentative. The diplo situation was dicey to say the least! Fortunately, we were all buddhist and able to keep the peace (I was the meat in a potential Monty/Gilgamesh sandwich...not so fun).

Very tough imo, but I think it is true that if you can nab a couple economic wonders (in this case GLH and GL) then you can hang in there long enough to get to his period of strength.

It's tough though. Adds one difficulty level imo.

 

[patagonia]

The main bonus expansive has is the 1-pop-whip granary which helps get new cities up and running that much quicker. If you've got fewer workers in a game with a non-expansive leader, it simply means you haven't built/chopped/whipped/captured enough of them. Two per city is a good number (up to a total of about 10-12) unless you've got a ton of jungle to clear.

There's no tech hole Toku can't get out of if you get writing first. On normal speed you can pop a GS in 17 turns (with a library) and bulb alphabet so you can build science. If you have to get maths first (can't remember the exact GS tech preference order right now), the GS-spawning window (or loot money from the rush you got carried away with gives you time to do that too.

Not being fin/phi, Toku needs a bit more land, but his traits make it easier to capture and hold on to.