Nobles' Club LXXXII: Roosevelt of America

dalamb

dalamb

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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 Roosevelt of America, whom we last played in NC XV; we last played America with Washington in NC LXV. The Americans start with fishing and agriculture.
  • Traits: Roosevelt is INDustrious and ORGanized. IND gives +50% :hammers: on wonders (both World and National) and doubles production speed for forges (for early-game production). ORG reduces city maintenance costs (allowing bigger empires sooner) and doubles production speed of courthouses (also nice for bigger empires sooner), lighthouses (for faster growth of coastal cities) and factories (for late-game production).
  • The UB: The Mall is a Supermarket that gives :gold: and :). It comes quite late in the game, so some players consider it very weak compared to other UBs. The extra cash might be useful in keeping research at a higher rate in the late game, where it could make a difference in a space victory race.

  • The UU: The Navy Seal is a Marine with March (can heal while moving) and 1-2 first strikes (one of few late-game units to have them), making it a very strong late-game military unit. Like the UB, some players consider it weak because they're in too strong a position at that point to need it (or have won the game already).
And the start:

Spoiler map details :
Archipelago, snakey continents (as requested), selected AIs.
Spoiler edits :
I regenerated a lot of times to avoid maps where somebody had too much room to expand, or which didn't look "snakey" enough to me, then out of several more or less satisfactory maps picked the one with gold in the BFC. I fiddled with the nearby rivers a bit, and turned our starting flat plains tile into a plains hill.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:
There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
  • 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
  • 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
  • 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other continent if applicable, etc)
  • 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
  • End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
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 82 Roosevelt 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 Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

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.
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.
 

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Darn you Dalamb, I'm trying to finish the HoF challenge series and you throw in a leader/start like this on Noble's Club to distract me. :drool:

Guess I'll see how fast I can get to space on nooble wth GLH - REX abuse. Without huts, though.

cas
 
Enjoying the game so far, Monarch/normal was going to post screenshots but kept missing the reccomended dates and have a habit of just exiting built wonders etc from trying to play quickly :lol:

But i've gotten to lib pretty easily so far and have some thoughts on the map and AI's..

Spoiler :
Interesting starting place for the player but IMO some of the AI's don't stand a chance in this game.. Namely ragnar and Elizabeth (Tokugawa should count here to, but he didn't last long enough :lol:) unless it was just unlucky for them in my game. Ragnar had 4 citys by 1000AD and Elizabeth had 5, one which was surrounded by desert tiles mostly.. neither had lost any by wars and I don't have huts or events on so it pretty much leaves crazy barbarians or really bad spawn placement imo. While other leaders like Izzy and Joao are around 12 each at this time

And Izzy has just declared on ragnar.. poor guy..


Edit: 1816 Diplomatic win
Spoiler :
After lib, tech'd to upgrade elephants into Currisars and then declared on Willem took 3 of his citys and he cap'd. Healed up and marched back towards home then declared on Elizabeth took all her mainland citys bar one which Willem took and then cap'd her, I am way to lazy to chase her up into those ice citys :lol:.

Moved my whole set of troops down to Toku's old capital and began transporting them over to Izzy's continent, I had already settled 2 citys over there to give me a foothold for a much easier invasion. Captured 2 citys and she cap'd pretty simple and incredibly easy. As stated earlier I am lazy, I really couldn't be bothered building and transporting a huge navy to get my army over to Joao and realised I could just win diplo by spreading Religion to Elizabeth, Ragnar and Izzy.

And that's where the frustation came for me :lol: Spread Buddhism to Izzy and Elizabeth and decided to just kill Ragnar as it was quicker (2 turns:lol:) I had just missed a possible diplo vote 1 turn before killing ragnar, sad times. Convinced to get the next one spread more to Izzy as she has more cities, convert her to my religion and then a few more minutes hitting enter to hurry up the game, and there it is! Diplo victory! wait.. no? Izzy reconverted back to her old religion on the same turn as the voting came up and because she changed I missed diplo win by 5 points.

After I finished facepalming for a while I just spammed missionarys everywhere in Izzy's and my citys which I hadn't bothered to yet. I could of won muuuuuuuuch earlier diplo if I paid more attention but I've only been getting die hard into civ the last couple of weeks so I'm still learning. Probably gonna play the map again as water maps are my weakness so far. If I do I'll be looking for a early (for me) Domination win.

The win

Score sheet

Final score


Edit2: 1785 Conquest win
Spoiler :
Pretty much the same game, except 2 different cities, one I captured from tokugawa never got settled and he settled another spot so i couldn't settle that town again, and I got beaten to a spot near elizabeth so had to move 1 square south and it changed the production of my citys by far lol still enjoyable ;d thanks for hosting!
 
(Emperor/Normal; no huts/no events; to 580 AD)

Spoiler :

There are five important factors in this start:
1) The possibility of building the GLH. (Very synergistic with Roosevelt, as explained here.)
2) Elephants in the capital's BFC.
3) Double gold in the capital's BFC (!!!).
4) A limited number of good city locations (especially after a slow WB-first start).
5) Tokugawa, way too close for comfort.

All this suggests quite a clear game plan:
Build the GLH, then Elepult Tokugawa off of ~3 cities. This is precisely what I did, after going WB-first and teching Mining => BW. Between the double gold and the first Great Merchant from the GLH (and his 900 gold trade mission to London), I was rolling in cash, allowing me to spam elephants and catapults without sacrificing tech. Elepulting is really strong, even after devoting the early game to wonder production. As of now, I've wiped Toku off the mainland: I razed two crappy tundra cities and kept the other three. From here I basically have three options:
1) Sign a peace treaty, tech up to Lib, and focus on other opponents (probably upgrading my stack to Cuirs);
2) Tech to Feudalism and vassal Toku; or
3) Build some galleys and finish him off.

I'm leaning toward #1, since he's pretty neutralized at this point and the other two options will take too long.

BTW, I'd forgotten how OP double gold starts were. This is pretty ridiculous...
 

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Roosevelt. Great traits, UU and UB tend to be irrelevant, but I guess they'd help if I have to invade another continent.

Man, that start lol. If Ind+hill capital isn't enough for wonder whoring, the fact that it's coastal means the GLH is probably gonna be a priority.

Also, dat gold and elephants. I'm not moving anywhere and gonna find something to conquer. :D

Edit: And played, Prince/Normal/No huts events
1862 domination
Spoiler :

Omg, is that marble down there? Well, I failed to scout the fish near the southern marble; could have easily had another city there.

The joys of IND and hill capital. Workboat---> worker, and straight bronze working/myst/masonary/sailing. I snagged Stonehenge, The Great Wall, and of course the Great Lighthouse. My first priority was to settle to the west, and stop him from taking the nice land over there. Toku's a pain, so he had to be dealt with somehow. I then spared a settler for him to settle some crappy tundra city so we could get open borders. I'll just turn on him later; since he's not really going to be a threat given the land he can settle.

Meanwhile, I don't really care about strat resources, since I have elephants. I lacklusterly expand south and a bit north, and Lizzy gets in my way. But the AIs are doing horrifically on this map so it doesn't matter if my military comes slow. She still has archers and chariots defending, so some elephants and catapults were enough to run her over. I get a dogpile going but it seems she has cities off the mainland. I research feudalism and cap her.



As everyone was horrifically behind I decide to build the AP under hinduism, which was the only religion that spread to me well. Toku didn't have it, but that's fine-- I backstabbed him and he had crap too.

To make matters worse, I can use the AP to screw Toku over; poor guy.



Because I was so rich, going to war didn't even slow down my tech much. GM from GLH arrives, and I get another one for winning economics. I was first to every tech that granted a great person, basically.



After that, I libbed constitution, teched a little more; and converted my elephants into cav to roflstomp Orange. Then came the annoying part, since I had to build a fleet and oil was hard to come by. Crap! It's covered by that stupid city I gave toku. But whatever; I didn't need an oil navy anyways, so as I managed to secure oil near the south pole, a bunch of frigates and galleons carried some random cav and took isabella and ragnar down.

That left Joao, who has managed to get mass media and beat me to rock and roll. But he has no rifling? Wtf? I spent all that time getting infantry for nothing; just shipping a bunch of cav would have worked.

Joao refuses to cap for a while until he loses quite a few cities, and I get credited with a domination victory. Aww, no conquest??


The joys of being IND, metal casting was sweet too



Had I realized this was an archipelago map, I'd probably turn it back up to monarch; AI just can't handle maps like this well.
 
Looks fun - I love playing as Roosevelt so I'll have to give this one a go over the weekend.

edit: 2 early happiness resources that don't need roads, gold, just enough food and lots of hammers in the capital should theoretically make this an extremely powerful start for Roosevelt. Lots of wonders to build!
 
Monarch, no huts no events. Up to 1 AD
Spoiler :
WOW what a start! After very little thought SIP. Built GLH, attacked Toku in West with Ellies. War successful got his 3 Cities on main continent. Some screenies:





Now I'm not sure how to continue?
Finishing Toku off desn't sound that attractive as it will take several turns as I'd have to build a few galleys, at least 3, in the newly conquered cities. I could vassal him, next turn I'll have Feudalism. On the other hand grabbing his 2 cities which must be on an island or two in the west has the attraction of more coastal cities. I have only 5 with a possible 2 more in the lands I control already which doesn't seem great for the GLH. But then again with Toku vassalled I could turn my attentions east. I think I could take on Liz or Willy van O with the army I already have. I'd love some input/advice/critique
 
@Batorius Iffy
Spoiler :

I don't think it matters too much if you kill him or not, but if you do vassal him, the overseas trade routes always work well. I would scout the rest out and see if you can turn east and conquer the other civs.

Depending on Liz's strength, I think it'd be best to switch to Hinduism, and maybe you can get a dogpile on her from the rest. If you do vassal Toku, it'd probably be best to eventually ship over missionaries to get him to convert as well.


So I tried it again on Monarch and...
Spoiler :

Start was a bit better; I get a 2nd worker to chop stuff out and still got all the early wonders I wanted. Oracled Construction.

They still teched really bad, so I was slacking off. Game time was like 1:30.

This time I botched it up and tried to take on the Dutch without cav and just tried to take him out with my remaining elephant/catapult. Oops...that took forever. Also Isabella took forever to cap so I just built the UN and ended it. I still managed to grab a bunch of wonders regardless, and stupid Isabella had to DoW me; longbows vs rifles and later infantry. Smart... and since Ragnar had pvassaled earlier it took a while to pull them away.

Lib communism... I usually don't even get to do this on Prince. =p



 
A good leader with a nice start :). 1852 space win on Immortal.

Spoiler :
This is another game where I decided on space from the beginning, just for the fun of it. But this time the map was too crowded for a peaceful game. Good thing we have a wet corn + double gold start, which means extra early horse archers.

I went mining, BW, AH, wheel, HBR. Second city was settled far to the southwest for the horses, third city went 2E/1N of the capitol to help with production. Toku was boxed into a corner with only 3 cities, and couldn't withstand HAs for long. The next war against Liz was a slaughter, because she had no metal. I even had time to take 2 key cities from Willem with HAs before he got feudalism, which denied both his iron and elephants. I came back later with elephants and catapults to finish him off.

By 900AD I had 20 cities, and the continent was mine. Two civs destroyed, and Willem reduced to a couple island cities. In 980 I took Lib -> Constitution, then went down the corporations path to found Sushi and Mining Inc.

The AI tech pace in this game was poor from start to finish. I traded for maybe 10 techs all game, everything else was self-researched because nobody had anything. This also gave me free reign to spam wonders, particularly three gorges dam and all the mass media wonders. I actually got some use out of the American UB, imagine that :).

I was too lazy to take screenshots throughout the game, but here's some end-game stuff just to show off.
Sid's Sushi: +19 food / +76 culture
Mining Inc: +23 hammers

The empire:
Spoiler :

Oxford:
Spoiler :

Wall Street:
Spoiler :

Ironworks:
Spoiler :

National Epic:
Spoiler :

Wonders:
Spoiler :

The "competition":
Spoiler :
 
I played emperor for a quick jaunt.

Spoiler :

Double gold means oracle - Civil Service at 1600 BC. With the map type you may get that on deity. Liz had absolutely horrid land. but I had 6 macemen and 3 trebs about to attack the Dutch next turn here at 200 BC. I only lost 1 unit this game despite Ragnar having longbows when I got there with CR3 Trebs... Finished at 700 AD. Trebuchets are quite dominant, I could have attacked Ragnar much earlier than I did.


 
epic/monarch at 320 AD

Spoiler :

Jeez that capital is strong. Settled in place mining->bronze working->wheel->masonry->sailing built great lighthouse and colossus in the capital, not going to bother with great library, it's not going to be needed.

So Tokugawa eh, can't have him breathing down my backside the whole game. No horses, so it looks like elephants/catapults. At this point I've cleared out all his cities on this peninsula and vassalized him (he has two cities on another island to the west.) The last city gave me horses, so I'll tech up to cuirassiers and try to romp over the world with them.

On the strength of the capital I'm well ahead in the race to lib and I'll try to get military tradition with it.
 
(Emperor/Normal; no huts/no events; 580 AD to completion)
Spoiler :
Blech, I suck at naval invasions. Somehow I didn't win until 1942 (Diplo, a turn or two from achieving Domination). I took out Elizabeth, Willem and Ragnar pretty quickly, but took a long time on Izzy and her vassal Tokugawa thanks to her AP peace resolutions. I was too lazy about chasing after small island cities, vassaling their owners instead. Also I built Oxford very late This is one of my latest wins...
 
fizzix -

Spoiler :

Don't be afraid of going for trebuchets and continuing with Treblephant.
 
Looks like an awesome start and plan for some great lighthouse abuse, so I decided to move up to Emperor/normal/no huts for this one.

650BC
Spoiler :
Started with worker first > warrior x2 > worker > settler or something like that. Built the GAbusehouse and Oracle.


Went Mining > BW > Wheel > Myst > AH > Sailing > Masonry > Meditation > Priesthood > Hunting > Archery > Pottery > Writing > COL(oracle) > Aest > Alpha(trade) > Math > Currency > then down the Music path. I forgot to switch to slavery and didn't realize it until I had COL *doh!*. So what do I do? Switch to Caste of course, lololololol. It actually came in pretty handy. I got an early academy and made use of the artist spec in new cities for the first border pop.


700AD
Spoiler :
Toku beat me to the iron city by a few turns :mad: So what do I do? I proceed to lib Steel, even though I don't have iron!:lol:




1020AD - 1250AD
Spoiler :
About to get me that iron to upgrade me trebs.


As the city comes out of revolt, the iron flips to England :badcomp:


Capped Toku without a single cannon. He had Samurai, Longbows, and Castles. A lot of trebs were lost. Now it's about to be Liz's turn, I think?
 

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Spoiler :
Finally got around to finishing this tonight after playing most of it over the weekend. I played Monarch / Normal / No Huts and I definitely need to move up a level, at least with Roosevelt. I wound up dragging this one out a bit so I could get Sid's Sushi spread everywhere and try some different civics. I was so far ahead that I also delayed Liberalism long enough to take assembly line with it.....and could have waited longer.



As some others have said, the AI unfortunately had no chance from some of those starts especially with how they play. Liz for example never teched agriculture for some reason and simply never grew her cities at all. The way the game went down seems to have been similar for others - I wiped Tokugawa off the continent with elephants and cats (capitulate), then took out Liz and Willem with Curs (destroyed Liz, capped Willem). Waited to build an oil navy and seals to drag the game out then took over the portugese island before going back for the vikings and izzy.

This was almost certainly one of my best capitals ever as well. I don't think I've ever built Cristo Rendetor in 2 turns



and after it got sid's sushi it was really powerful (this is at the very end of the game)


 
@jdros13
Spoiler :

Oh yea! Libbing Assembly line would have been so much better. :S There's literally no chance of them like ever teching lib if you bonk the Dutch out
 
Immortal/normal 1560AD Conquest
Spoiler :

This was the easiest game I've played for a long time. After a quick circle around the surrounding land I stole Toku's worker that was building a useless road mostly for the lols. He wasn't going to be nice anyway right? The only snag was the lack of military resources but I still managed to Oracle CS at around 1300BC after taking a detour to archery and building stonehenge for the hell of it. At that point I decided that I'd play a wonderwhore game. I ended building every wonder except Great Wall, TOA and one other I've forgotten. 14 of those wonders are in the capital. I also settled nearly all of my great people in Washington.

All up I think I was at war for all but 15 turns of the game. :lol: Toku was killed with Maces and Cats, Lizzy as mentioned by others was nerfed by her start. I'd added trebs and phants to kill her then I went straight for WVO. I vassaled him as I didn't know where his island city was. The Izzy war took a long time as all those 1 movement units needed to go all the way back across the landmass but was sped up at the end with cuirrasiers? Ragnar lasted 4 turns thanks to his crappy start. Killing Jao was meant then moving all my horse back the other way and building more Gallons. I capped him after landing 30-40 cavs on the West side of his island and rolling through his longbows. The highlight of my game was realizing that I'd meant to revolt into Hindu at some stage but forgot until about 1300AD meaning that my switches between pacifism and Theocracy were a giant waste of time. :crazyeye:
 
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