Role Play Challenge: FDR's Dream

[madscientist]

Welcome to my next RPC, FDR's Attonement. These games are meant to be educational walkthrough as well as entertaining, with an alternative twist to history or our beloved leaders attitude during the games.

The Current game is an alternative History type of game, well as alternative as we can get in CIV! Here is a quote from FDRs 4000BC diary

" I had a dream last night, or perhaps a view into the future as a gift from the god's, precognition, or nothing at all. I had become leader of the great land of America, however a horrible war came about involving the entire world. As horrible as it sounds, our great country was at the heart of it, but the greatest tragedy was the end of that war where we had devastating weapons that killed too many people to count from a country called Japan! Two major cities were utterly wiped out in a blink of the eye.

I cannot accept this vision, and feel we must change the outcome. True it may be just a dream, but I don't think so. So we shall explore and build a great navy to see if such an empire of Japan exists. If we do in fact find it I am sure if we completely befriend this empire and unite with them we can avoid such a horrible end to an unforgivable war."


So FDRs diary says it all.

Settings

Monarch difficulty
Marathon speed
Islands map with various islands, every civilization has their own starting large island.
Temperate map with medium sea level
PERMANENT ALLISANCES are on!
Tokugawa and 5 other random leaders
All victory conditions are open.

Rules
1) We must befriend and form a permanent alliance with Tokugawa at all costs.
2) We must adopt Toku's religion and stay with it until/if Toku adopts FR.
3) We must adopt and stay in mercantilism as soon as we tech banking.
4) We must honor every Tokugawa request no matter what.
5) If Toku declares war on us, we must fight defensively and get peace ASAP just short of giving cities (FDR cannot abandon his own country).
6) If toku vassals to another AI we simply have to figure a way toi deal with that.

In order to find Toku fast we shall target a strong trade route game using the GLH/Colossus wonders (FDR is supposed to be the best for getting these early, let's test if out!). ToA is also a possibility. Once we get banking, we shall make a dramatic switch to a SE game, let's see how that goes!

So our leader

The settings

And the start

Very odd start, with a mountain in the BFC! I say move 1 square east.

Also if we are alone on the island military is not that important early on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

After some immortal frustration I might give this a shadow run in a few days . Looks fun.

 

[AngryZealot]

If Toku vassalizes to someone else, would we try to liberate him? What if someone destroys him?

 

[Geoffroy]

A peak in the capital BFC? I thought that was impossible??

I concur with 1 East. Any plans for the Great Lighthouse?

 

[vale]

A peak in the capital BFC? I thought that was impossible??

On islands you get peaks in your BFC fairly regularly.

 

[vicawoo]

Perfect start for an american leader.

 

[Quotey]

Isn't it impossible to form a PA with Toku?

 

[CivCorpse]

If you're going to do a water map with FDR...you should kick it up to emperor

 

[Killroyan]

Well great lighthouse should definitely be on the route. 3 hills to mine at least, 2 seafood and wheat. Incredible start if you would go 1E. This could even be a good place for Maoi statues (cross your fingers for stone close). This of course if the tiles around the wheat turn out to be sea tiles.

 

[r_rolo1]

Isn't it impossible to form a PA with Toku?

According to ori, in BtS there are no leaders which is imposible to get a PA with.... but Toku needs to be Friendly for that and a friendly Toku is not a common sight

Other thing that needs to be considered is that you'll need to have a minimum lenght of turns fighting a common war for any civ consider PA as a option ... that can be tricky

 

[Diamondeye]

Ehm. I suppose you mean move 1W? 1E makes no sense except getting rid of the mountain, while 1W wins another resource that can supply 6! with a Lighthouse...?

Also, will vassalizing Toku (peaacefully) do? That way, Merc will be profitable as well

 

[futurehermit]

1E allows for another hill to be mined at the expense of losing a forest and also loses the peak. 1W gains the fish, but does not gain a hill, keeps the forest, loses the wheat.

 

[nbcman]

I would move the warrior 1N before deciding-but it does look like the best choice is settling 1E. The second fish to the W can be picked up by a future city.

 

[PaulusIII]

According to ori, in BtS there are no leaders which is imposible to get a PA with.... but Toku needs to be Friendly for that and a friendly Toku is not a common sight

Other thing that needs to be considered is that you'll need to have a minimum lenght of turns fighting a common war for any civ consider PA as a option ... that can be tricky

Toku does war a lot, so getting that requirement done would possibly not be that difficult.

Spoiler :

I'm already getting the positive diplo for mutual struggle with Toku. In my shadow game, Toku has founded Confucianism and has made contact with two civs: Churchill, who's also Confucian, and Buddhist Izzy. Toku declared on Izzy some time ago, so when Toku came asking for help I obliged.



The economy is going great. Got all the wonders for a TRE: the Great Lighthouse, the Temple of Artemis and the Colossus, obtained with Oracle/MC slingshot. Darius starts on an island right next to FDR so you get foreign trade as well. Before 1 AD one could already run above 100 beakers in this setting.



I'm trying to delay banking for as long as possible, because mercantilism would kill my economy the way I'm running it for now. I'm considering a communism beeline (might even be able to take it with Liberalism!) to get that PA up as soon as possible, so from there I can keep a trade route economy by simply getting myself and Toku some vassals.

 

[PaulusIII]

Shadow, continued:

Spoiler :

I indeed managed to grab Communism with Liberalism - I could have taken Physics. Luckily, Hannibal got distracted (he wanted astronomy as well, plus he went up the economics branch) so I was able to complete the beeline I had in mind. When Astronomy came in, Confucianism (Toku's religion) spread to one of my cities, pushing Toku to friendly.

And when Communism came in:



The alliance with Japan is sealed. Now, on to conquer the world together!
... starting with Spain.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

According to ori, in BtS there are no leaders which is imposible to get a PA with.... but Toku needs to be Friendly for that and a friendly Toku is not a common sight

Other thing that needs to be considered is that you'll need to have a minimum lenght of turns fighting a common war for any civ consider PA as a option ... that can be tricky

If I shadow this I'm going to try to intentionally delay meeting him until I have either currency or alphabet (likely currency), then gift him gold or a tech instantly when meeting him. this usually is enough to get OB with the idiot. That and sharing religion means you're a war away...

 

[PaulusIII]

Shadow, end:

Spoiler :

And so it went on... all victories open, so time for some good old-fashioned conquering. In the order Isabella-Brennus-Hannibal-Darius. Didn't attack Churchill before domination because he's such a PITA when it comes to capitulating. Teched up to Railroad before domination, when banking/mercantilism came I changed civics...

but Toku didn't! Toku, it seemed, was much happier running state property instead of mercantilism.

In 1624, the results were in...

http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fdr10lo3.jpg









Tokugawa proved really easy to handle. Because there were little who had met him save Churchill and Izzy, he wasn't constantly demanding to stop trading with somebody (Only request I got was the DoW on Izzy, I of course honoured that one). And once the PA was into place, there were no more problems. The communism beeline was the key - because Toku did not know everyone yet, he didn't manage to ruin all the relations. I still was able to get some decent tech trades off Hannibal once the PA was into place, which would have been much harder if Toku would've come knocking to stop trading with Carthage.

 

[Quotey]

You need 40 turns of a shared war OR defensive pact, no?

 

[LuCiver]

It looks to me that the wheat is coastal to the east, se and south. If you move 1E to settle you will be trading that peak for 3 extra coastal tiles, not sure if it is worth it. You will probably have won the game by the time your capital is pining away for that lost production in tile #21.

 

[madscientist]

On secodn thought , I like the idea more of settling in place as pointed out by LuCiver. It will be a long time before I need to work the mountain tile (Hell in Agustus's Rome OCC I had a tundra in teh BFC).

Regarding diplomacy with Toku, I have a few ideas

1) Do not adopt any religion until we meet Toku.
2) Do not open borders until we meet Toku.
3) Gift enough gold/techs to Toku to get him to open borders. THIS is the key and most difficult thing to do.
4) Once we have open borders, never refuse anything from him.
5) We need to be very cautious opening borders with other AIs once we trade with Toku. We need to make sure Toku likes them.
6) My experience with Toku is he will take defensive pacts easily, usually at pleased. So we probably should target Military tradition ASAP.
7) Mutual war is a given.

One question, in BTS when does the Permanent Alliance option come up? I remember in Vanilla it was at Fascism, but I believe that was changed in Warlords or BTS with teh Fascism free GG.