Roosevelt: A Powerhouse?

[futurehermit]

I had played Roosevelt a bit in warlords and had some good games with him, but I never thought of him as a powerhouse.

Then last night I was addressing my frustration with coastal starts. I really don't like them, but get them the majority of the time (I play hemispheres/monarch/normal). So I figure I need to work on getting used to them.

So, I spent some time thinking what I'd like in a leader that is powerful on coastal starts, but also has enough oomph when starting inland, which I prefer. I normally like leaders that have powerful inland starts and then get frustrated when I start on the coast.

What I decided was that I wanted a leader who starts with fishing and industrious and then sufficient complementary tech and trait for inland. My thinking was that fishing would help me start with a workboat asap and industrious would help me win the GLH, which isn't aided by any resource. What I found was that there are only 2 leaders with fishing + industrious: Roosevelt and Augustus. As much as I like Augustus, I find praets to be a turnoff, so I thought a bit more about Roosevelt.

I decided that organized was a good, but not great trait that would help a bit inland, and agriculture was definitely a good inland tech to have. Either way, coastal or inland, my people would eat, eat quickly, and eat well. I also figured that industrious would help me nab some wonders that would help out as well.

So, I figured I would try some openings with Roosevelt. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I always figure if I can get past the early game to have around 15 cities ca. 1000-1500AD that the game is won and it is just a matter of how fast I can finish. The trouble is surviving the early-to-mid game and balancing the tech and production needs (not easy).

When I started inland, I built stonehenge for the culture, oracle for COL, which has nice synergy with organized and SE, and pyramids to run SE. I would pick up other wonders if convenient. This approach worked well and I had some strong starts.

The real strength, however, was when I started coastal. I can't believe how much coastal synergy Roosevelt has. First priority is the GLH. Well, thanks to organized the regular lighthouse is cheap and thanks to industrious the GLH is cheap. Great! Once that is in the bag, you get a GM, who bulbs MC. This allows you to build the colossus. First, however, you need a forge. But wait! The forge is cheaper because of industrious and the colossus is cheaper because of industrious. Great! Two strong coastal wonders in the bag! But wait! It gets even better, because if you can then pull off the oracle, which I did more than once, you can take MACHINERY with your free tech! NICE!

On top of that, wonders like the GL, the parthenon, taj mahal are in the bag, and with a tech lead, the later onces like SOL and the pentagon are also no problem. National wonders like NE, HE, IW, Ox are much easier to build.

Yes, his UU and UB come late, but they are respectable enough and I think the synergies of his traits and starting techs give you the chance for a variety of strong openings which you can then use to dominate the late game when your UU and UB come online. It might be overkill at that point, but that's ok.

What I really like is the prospect of having strong coastal openings. I'm not a fan of coastal openings generally, but with Roosevelt I feel like I don't want to regen when I get a coastal start, which is good! The GLH helps a lot with your economy, especially if you can settle a lot of coast, which you usually can when you get a coastal start. The cheap lighthouses and courthouses helps those coastal cities become strong early.

I'm not saying Roosevelt is on par with HC, but I would definitely think of him near the top tier after this experience and I'm looking forward to trying some more starts with him tonight. I've been looking for a leader I enjoy playing on a consistent basis and I haven't been able to settle on one. But now I'm thinking this is a leader I could play consistently...at least for awhile

 

[toug]

Nice write up.

You mentioned that when you start inland you build the pyramids and run a SE. When you start coastal and have the colossus and GLH built, do you start with a CE and reveret to a SE once you hit corporation or astronomy? Or do you run a hybrid?

 

[Sjaramei]

Haha, my game now is with Roosevelt actually

But I settled my GP instead of bulbing with them. (Took MC from Oracle)
I've always found him a strong leader, cheap wonders and still able to war well. (Organized is nice for that)

I haven't thought about those synergies before, but GL is awesome for coastal starts, got to try that opening sometime. (In my game I was more worried about getting GW and Pyramids up fast enough , I did get Colossus though )

 

[martin026]

My top game so far was with Roosevelt. I barely made it to marines. I really liked the organized trait. I had a huge empire and once my continent was all mine, I did not stop warring until the world was too.

 

[johnny_rico]

That is a nice write up. It would be a pretty good exercise to think of all leaders in these terms.

I've only played roosevelt once and it may have been back in the days of vanilla. After my recent de gaulle game, I am itching to play another industrious leader.

 

[madscientist]

FH.

I absolutely agree with your assesment of Roosevelt. I have always felt the Americans are the strongest of the civlizations because they get off to such a fast start and get stronger since their UU/UB came late in teh game (the only close one are the Germans which are also very good).

Roosevelt IS my favorite leader because he has my 2 favorite traits. Another point you did not mention is he can adopt those expensive civics like Bureacracy and OR very easily with ORG, and thus can outproduce almost anyone else, especially if he gets the oracle and slingshots MC. His only draw backwith the oracle is that he needs three techs (4 if he has marble and you want to use it for the oracle) plus it's not so easy for him to found a religion, even later.

Washington is a bigtime favorite of mine as I have written up before in other threads.

Lincoln is not discussed much but he is a monster in a different direction. A stronge SE with him as it can start early with the fast food (OK he does need a library) which can support a stronge military compaign using the Charismatic trait.

But I still like FDR the best of the three, for essentially the reasons you mentioned and his ability to use the pricier civics.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Rooosevelt+Pyramids+Police State=Dead Neighbors.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With their late UU and UB and trait combos I thought they kind of sucked (I don't have BTS). I thought differently after a while since I usually win with USA. I never figured out why, but this may be it .

 

[Diamondeye]

Sounds really good. I dont like Ind but Ill remember this if I random Roosy.

 

[Iranon]

Roosevelt is an excellent choice if you want to break free from restrictions in empire size; whether by trade or religious wonders, Industrious helps you accumulate per-city-bonuses while Organised cuts down on maintenance.

On watery maps he's excellent, on non-watery ones he has the potential to become a monster but needs some breathing room... and since I generally have more problems getting ahead than staying ahead, I prefer leaders who reach their peak earlier.
My main problem with Roosevelt is that he's dominated by Huayna Capac... any strategy that works well with Roosevelt will work well with HC, and HC is better at exploiting other opportunites if they present themselves.

 

[madscientist]

Roosevelt is an excellent choice if you want to break free from restrictions in empire size; whether by trade or religious wonders, Industrious helps you accumulate per-city-bonuses while Organised cuts down on maintenance.

On watery maps he's excellent, on non-watery ones he has the potential to become a monster but needs some breathing room... and since I generally have more problems getting ahead than staying ahead, I prefer leaders who reach their peak earlier.
My main problem with Roosevelt is that he's dominated by Huayna Capac... any strategy that works well with Roosevelt will work well with HC, and HC is better at exploiting other opportunites if they present themselves.

HC generally dominated everyone early. FDR can hold his own against almost anyone.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

The US is actually pretty good for domination in any non Pangaea map.

3 or 4 carriers with fighters, 3 or 4 transports full of marines, and a bunch of destroyers, subs, and battleships as stack protectors, and you can take a city about every other turn, and just fly in infantry to protect your captured cities.

 

[futurehermit]

I'm not saying HC isn't better than Roosey, as I mentioned in my original post. But to say that R isn't as good as HC isn't saying much since HC is so (overpowered) good in general.

The thing with HC for me is the same as Rome. I'm turned off by the UU as both feel like exploits, HC's moreso.

With R I feel like I'm working with a level playing field to a certain extent.

p.s., I started a game today when I got home. It was me, Sitting Bull, and Mao on a continent. I had enough space to build 10 cities peacefully and didn't feel like facing the giant that is SB early in the game, so I went with my 10 cities and SE and launched myself toward rifling, which I got in the early 1000ADs. When I quit the game it was around 1400AD and I was about to invade SB with around 40 drafted/whipped rifles with more to follow. After taking him out, I would be in line to face Mao who had a gigantic empire, but was behind tech-wise. After that slog-fest I would've been alone on my continent and would invade the other continent (who was tech-backwards relative to me when I met them) during the era of my UU/UB to win by domination. I decided not to play it out, however, because I am just trying out starts with R right now.

 

[InFlux5]

Good post, I'm always interested when people point out synergies, and especially if it's a less-played leader.

I have to say, though, that something else to get out of your post is that coastal starts are not all that bad (as long as there's seafood.) You just have to embrace them.

"Once that is in the bag, you get a GM, who bulbs MC. This allows you to build the colossus. First, however, you need a forge."

This is exactly how I proceed whenever I have a coastal start, and don't want to (or can't) REX inland for whatever reason. (As it happens, I run into this a lot since I've been playing Global Highlands. This is actually a very nice, organic-looking map to play, try it sometime.) Industrious obviously helps, but is in no way required since the AI doesn't prioritize the GLH, and the Colossus is in the bag thanks to lightbulbing MC.

This is why it's kind of sad to me to see people down coastal starts so much. If there's no seafood, then it's pretty awful. But given at least one source of Fish, a coastal start is very workable:

-Fishing is a cheap tech, and it's going to pay dividends beyond the first couple of fishing boats
-While researching Fishing (if you didn't start with it) you don't have to stunt your city's growth building a Worker
-While building the first Fishing Boat(s), again, your city is able to grow

From there you can:

-Push out Settlers and Workers (especially good if you have more than one seafood source)
-Continue to Sailing for a Lighthouse and The Great Lighthouse

The key thing to keep in mind is that if you have a coastal start, you have a high commerce start - if you want it. After Fishing you can supercharge your research at will, since you now have a size 4+ city that can be stagnated on all-commerce tiles whenever you want. That's a pretty small investment for a huge commerce boost in the very early turns of the game.

So you get gold as long as you have Fishing. And then, of course, you can really ride the wave and go for the Lighthouse-MC-Colossus beeline that you outline. I never realized how well-suited Roosevelt was for this, but you're absolutely right. He probably is the best leader to have for a coastal start.

 

[MGee]

Started a game as Roosevelt. Settings were:
Continents/Normal climate/Random sea level/Noble difficulty
and got a really strong start. In the capital's fat cross I had two fish, two crabs and a corn resource + it was coastal and riverside with some nice hills. I was planning for REXing, but I had Hamurabbi as a direct neighbour - we had only a one tile wide area between the BFC of Washington and Babylon. While I was expanding to other directions it turned out that I'm on a peninsula and the Babilonian guy blocked my path. Also, he founded Hinduism (does he start with mysticism? ) so I had to plan an axe-rush carefully. Luckily, I had copper in NYC's fat cross and rushed the guy.
It was an interesting war, because of their UU, the bowman, which is an archer with +XY% vs. Melee (don't know exactly). I wasn't able to take his last city because it was full of bowmen with CG1 and was on a hill. Signed peace. We've lost about a dozen of axemen and got 3 cities, including the Hindu holy city.
Despite the rapid expansion and the early was we were able to be always on 80% research - had on 70% only for about 20 turns. Grabbed some decent wonders, including The Colossus, The Oracle, The Parthenon and the AP!. Also, we were able to be quite strong techwise.
We met our new neighbours: Cyrus and Alexander. Both were Jewish, Cyrus was the founder and I managed to convert Alex to Hindu. The last guy on the continent was Wang Kon who founded Buddhism. Later on Alex founded Taoism (didn't convert) and I founded Islam and Christianity. So that we had all the religions, but Confu on our continent.

Roosevelt is very strong with a coastal start, and even after an agressively rushing/rapidly expanding start he can be the top guy with all his wonders and low upkeep civics.

 

[Archbob]

I personally think Washington is strong tan Roosevelt.

China's Qing is pretty strong too.

 

[vicawoo]

Why do you want to grab machinery? It is kind of cute, I admit. Maybe if you got those domestic island trade routes to exploit the great lighthouse before it obsoletes, that could be a really strong opening. Organized for lighthouses and courthouses and coastline city spawl.

I like how they changed washington from the multicity powerhouse financial/organized to the big city powerhouse charismatic/expansive.

 

[oyzar]

I can't say i agree with his uu and ub beeing relevant in most games.. Neither of his traits are anything to say hurray for. I would have ragnar or wilhelm on a coastal start every time. Neither of those are bad inland either. Sure you might not get the great lighouse as consistently but the fact that their traits are often way better more than makes up for it... Their UU and UB is way more relevant as well. Obviously organized is clearly at it's strongest on the coast as you get the very good fast lighthouse. Industrious is still not worth it at most levels even if it gives you another 1-2 wonders... Sure Roosevelt is playable or even decent at a coastal start but with his almost non-existent UU and insanely late UB(both come at a time when the game is almost always decided anyways...), i would certainly not call him a powerhouse.

 

[futurehermit]

Why do you want to grab machinery? It is kind of cute, I admit. Maybe if you got those domestic island trade routes to exploit the great lighthouse before it obsoletes, that could be a really strong opening. Organized for lighthouses and courthouses and coastline city spawl.

I like how they changed washington from the multicity powerhouse financial/organized to the big city powerhouse charismatic/expansive.

Because it is way more expensive beakers-wise than anything else available at the time period, is reasonably hard to lightbulb, and after a CS beeline you have very early macemen.

 

[druidravi]

I remember playing Roosevelt back in vanilla for isolated starts . Stone henge+ oracle chopped in second city = code of laws followed by Confuscain shrine . While capital gets Great light house + collossus

You can spam lot of 1 seafood resource coastal cities . Due to Great lighthouse+ shrine each city pays for itself and generates a lot of commerce working those water tiles . Infrastructure needed in each city was lighthouse+ couthouse+forge+granary mostly whipped .You can run on engineer specialist in each city later with mercantilism . However this was when chopping was ridiculously powerful and it was easy to chop wonders with industrious.