Roosevelt: A Powerhouse?

[Artichoker]

I've never used them before, but the American leaders have one of the few UU types that never become obsolete.

The Navy Seal gets an entire +1 First Strike compared to the unit it replaces. This is comparable to having Aggressive or Protective in the modern age, in addition to the leader's own traits.

So, it's to their advantage to delay the time for war, as long as economy and diplomacy are going fine.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

If HC's rushing he doesn't have to spend the hammers most leaders have to spend on settlers and workers. Self build one worker, skip settlers early on, and have your quechuas get you the cities and workers you need. Where do the saved hammers go? Towards wonders.

Malls are great for upgrading. Hit refrigeration before some key military tech like assembly line, build malls while AL researches, then let them all finish. Go 100% gold, and modernize your entire army, and maybe rushbuy a few things.

Hm, can rifles upgrade to marines/SEALs? A refrigeration/industrialism cambit could be a good move if so.

And of course, a mall will always be a worthwhile addition if you have a shrine/corp HQ/wall street city.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Rifles can't upgrade to SEALs. But reaching refridgeration, flight and industrialism and then turning off research is typically how I finish my Roosevelt games. On 100% cash spent in rushbuying (with the Kremlin naturally) you can have an immense army that heals itself as it marches in no time.

 

[futurehermit]

Hey Invis, do you play R as a CE or transition to a CE later in the game? Alternatively, if you play a SE most of the game, do you find that you have enough for all your rush-buying needs?

 

[lordqarlyn]

Yeah, old Franklin is my favorite leader! I love the organized/industrious combo!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Hey Invis, do you play R as a CE or transition to a CE later in the game? Alternatively, if you play a SE most of the game, do you find that you have enough for all your rush-buying needs?

Kind of a hybrid.

Capital runs farms and mines and settles great people. Build Ironworks and Oxford. Thats common to any Roosevelt games.

Another good GP farm somewhere else since I don't want NE in the capital. Unless I see a really good alternate site for Iron/Oxford.

A couple of good cottage cities for cash in the early game when I am mainly running off settled GP in my capital. Later these will generate substantial science too.

Rest are fillins or minor cities that just produce whats best for their terrain. Cottages if grassland. Farms/Mines if food specials. I'm tending lately to run a LOT of these - so my economy is a true hybrid. These cities don't tend to have enough food to run specialists, but they help with military and missionary production. I will try to maximise their free bonuses such as mercantilism, SOL, UofS, AP and Spiral Minaret.

Later in the game I will switch some of the minor cities to more cottage based once more food becomes available (Sids Sushi/biology etc). That means cottaging some hills etc. Excess food will run specialists and the capital will not get cottages at all.

Whether I run cottage or specialist civics will depend a lot more on my ratio of cottages to specialists in the late game. I'll probably run emancipation, but US vs Representation could see me go either way right up until I don't care about research and want to rush buy.

 

[futurehermit]

thanks, good tips

 

[schwartz]

Capital runs farms and mines and settles great people. Build Ironworks and Oxford. Thats common to any Roosevelt games.

May be a silly question, but wouldn't oxford be better in a cottaged city? or do all the great people more than make up for lack of tile commerce?

PS:
futurehermit, did you play the age of games back in the day?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

As someone who likes to use capitals like that regardless of civ, minus the settled super specialists, I would recommend either of the epics in place of Oxford. National if you are building a lot of wonders in that capital, heroic if you aren't.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

May be a silly question, but wouldn't oxford be better in a cottaged city? or do all the great people more than make up for lack of tile commerce?

The settled great people usually generate enough science to outweigh what a cottage city would produce for me - at least until I switch out of representation to democracy - which would be late in the game. But the main reason I do this is that in the mid game this city far outweighs what my cottage cities could bring me - and often I am running the slider so that my cottage cities are bringing mainly cash. I might pay for it a little in the end game - but the mid game advantage of having oxford in my best science city outweighs it.

The other factor is that Oxford lets me run a lot of scientists - which helps switch my great person production to be mainly scientists. Without it I would be running other specialists that are less useful to me. I like priests early on to get production up and help cashflow, but nothing beats a lot of settled scientists.

As someone who likes to use capitals like that regardless of civ, minus the settled super specialists, I would recommend either of the epics in place of Oxford. National if you are building a lot of wonders in that capital, heroic if you aren't.

I don't like HE in the capital - my capital will be busy building wonders and can build most units in a single turn anyway. National is a problem - ideally I'd like NE + Oxford + Ironworks. Unfortunately this city is my best source of science, production and GPP.

Putting NE somewhere else has an advantage that I get a second source of GPs. Without it I would probably never get a GP from anywhere other than my capital. But whether the extra GPs from NE would outweigh the science from oxford or the production from ironworks, I don't really know. I'm happy with Oxford and Ironworks though.

 

[futurehermit]

May be a silly question, but wouldn't oxford be better in a cottaged city? or do all the great people more than make up for lack of tile commerce?

PS:
futurehermit, did you play the age of games back in the day?

PW_Schwartz, is that you? Yep, I played the age series alot, specifically AoM. Good times (until the xpac ruined the game imo). Age3 sucks though so bad imo. The card system is really, really stupid.

 

[schwartz]

yeah thats me..
I was making sure my memory served me correctly. hard to forget a name like futurehermit though, it's.. original.. you'll find no argument about age3 from me, it's been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for the past 2 years.

 

[Diamondeye]

PW_Schwartz, is that you? Yep, I played the age series alot, specifically AoM. Good times (until the xpac ruined the game imo). Age3 sucks though so bad imo. The card system is really, really stupid.

Still hooked on AoE II: AoK, even with xp pack.

And yeah, The Titans ruined AoM, and AoE III sucks!

 

[futurehermit]

haha, good to see you here! civ4 is a great game. i kinda miss rts, but tbs has grown on me with civ4

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm starting to see the benefits of Charismatic, which makes me start to favor Washington for USA. I still lose tons of units, but settling GG's in a dedicated military city can often mean 3 or 4 (!) promotions to start out. A SEAL with its base extra first strike, march, and FOUR promotions can hang with just about any unit in the game outside of modern armor. Of course, specialized promotions help, but even just adding +40% to a SEAL makes them have 33.6 strength without any other modifiers...same as a combat 2 tank! Charasmatic makes this possible, which makes me wonder if it's even inferior to aggressive as a warmongering trait. Until my last couple of games I never realized how strong promotions can be.

 

[schwartz]

Still hooked on AoE II: AoK, even with xp pack.

And yeah, The Titans ruined AoM, and AoE III sucks!

Conquerors was the one xpack that they got right, i still play from time to time.

I'm starting to see the benefits of Charismatic, which makes me start to favor Washington for USA. I still lose tons of units, but settling GG's in a dedicated military city can often mean 3 or 4 (!) promotions to start out. A SEAL with its base extra first strike, march, and FOUR promotions can hang with just about any unit in the game outside of modern armor. Of course, specialized promotions help, but even just adding +40% to a SEAL makes them have 33.6 strength without any other modifiers...same as a combat 2 tank! Charasmatic makes this possible, which makes me wonder if it's even inferior to aggressive as a warmongering trait. Until my last couple of games I never realized how strong promotions can be.

Why Washington? He's more versatile, but Lincoln can run a good SE with phi and he's also charismatic.
I did once capture an AI city that had 5(!) GGs settled. Combined with barracks, theo, vassalage, and the pentagon, thats 19 xp coming out, 4 promotions and just 1 xp away from a fifth.

 

[InFlux5]

It's a shame the thread had to morph into a discussion of the blatantly-overpowered Inca. Beyond both being Industrious, does it really make sense to compare Roosevelt to Huayna Capac?

Anyway, going back to my love for coastal starts/empires:

Organized also has cheaper Lighthouses for Coastal cities

To state the obvious, a Lighthouse is the key improvement for a new fishing village. After that, production will likely come from Slavery.

Here's an example of the power of a coastal start from a game I was playing last night:

This far-away island city generates 8 commerce from trade routes alone as soon as it's founded. (Half is eaten by maintenance, but so what? I'm not even working a single commerce tile yet!)

Now, looking at the mini-map you can see that I don't need to found these off-shore colonies, I could focus more on military and expand on the mainland. The coastal strategy is essentially a peaceful one for most of the game. But I'm mostly a peacemonger.

 

[Diamondeye]

Conquerors was the one xpack that they got right, i still play from time to time.



Why Washington? He's more versatile, but Lincoln can run a good SE with phi and he's also charismatic.
I did once capture an AI city that had 5(!) GGs settled. Combined with barracks, theo, vassalage, and the pentagon, thats 19 xp coming out, 4 promotions and just 1 xp away from a fifth. CRIII tanks coming out with an extra promotion to heal after losing health

Being charismatic the fifth promotion comes at 21 xp, I think ?

Well yes, the AI is stupid, always settling, even when youre outside their gates and they have one longbow left - 20 xp in that situation can change summat.

 

[schwartz]

I'm pretty sure it goes 2/4/8/13/20, could be wrong though.

 

[PL_Komuch]

Hello everyone! This is my 1 post, althought I've been reading Civfanatics forums since 1,5 year. I want to start in this tread because 2 things: Roosevelt (my fav leader) and AOE 2 someone mention. I'm experienced player in CIV1 (played for 2 years and that was my only Civ experience before Civ4) and AOK2 (4 years online - I'm still loving Zone friends). Now I'm playing in CIV4:BTS, when I have free time. Before BTS I was Emp/Imm level player in Warlords, addicted to Bismarck for paceful games and Cyrus in pangea (highest score ever for me with Immort rush).
I really like Roosevelt in BTS, especially coz he gave me first win on Immortal level few days ago and Big_and_small map. My strat for water maps ( B_a_S & Hemispheres $ Continents) highly relay on wonders, GLH is most important - its must have for TRE. I'm still working on strat, but it works for other leaders too, except that with Roos u can have GLH+Piramids in 900BC with 4 cities.
PS. forgive my english skills, its not my native lang