Using leader traits (No 2) - ROOSEVELT

[couerdelion]

Continuing on my previous thread I decided to play the random option again and the computer said…….ROOSEVELT

Industrious - +50% wonder production
Organised - 50% civic upkeep
Starting techs – Agriculture, Fishing

Now here I had to stop and think a bit. The first trait immediately makes me think of Stonehenge while the second only really comes into its own once the civilisation starts expanding. The industrious trait might point towards Stonehenge but for that you’ll need Mysticism, Mining and Bronzeworking before you’ll be getting close to finishing the project. Compared to Gandhi you have to research one tech before you can start Stonehenge and another one to allow you to chop it to completion. Here, the Stonehenge option looks less certain and there would be more compelling argument to look for a more traditional slingshot.

On balance, although obviously depending on your starting position, I think the traditional slingshot is probably the way to go here. Mining and Bronzeworking will give you slavery and the chop option. Your fastest route to Writing is via Animal Husbandry allowing the library to be finished comfortably ahead of the completion of priesthood and the building of the oracle.

With those sorts of techs, you’ll be looking very closely at your starting position to see if you can immediately play on the build advantages offered by either. With nothing much special to build you’ve got a little free time here so a workboat would definitely be in order with sea resources around. With any farmed resource it might even be beneficial to throw out an immediate worker since you’ll be waiting ages for slavery to rush one out. It wise, however, to make sure that there are sufficient things for your worker to do though even if it is just to put a mine on a hill.

All in all, I found difficult to think of an obvious play for Roosevelt. Perhaps there isn’t really one and that Organised and Industrious are just little reminders that you should expand and build lots of wonders. I would certainly be interested to hear other views on how this leader should be played.

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In this particular start I was given a river, fur and sheep so no great fit with the starting techs. There were also a couple of floodplains in the fat cross so food would not be a problem in the blackout phase. Thinking a little, I rather suspect that the fur will be quite useful. Even though I would need to research hunting, I will get a significant boost to research which should more than payoff during the slingshot itself. In this situation, hunting will allow that extra boost so is not really a diversion from the main path but is an integral part.

In fact, my tendency he would be to invest in the following order: Animals, Hunting, Mining, Bronze, Writing. I would also immediately build a worker to get those early improvements up.

I could also add that this game also gave me an island start so a successful slingshot and wonder building would be a major priority. However this information is not available at the game start and it is there that you make the most important decisions that will determine your game. Furthermore, being alone on an island is an exceptional case – albeit one that has been given me for two games in a row. There are additional tips that you will need to “recover” from these games but those questions are for another thread.

[Blake]

IMO roosevelt is simply a bad leader. The traits have nearly no synergy and this combines with a UU that comes so late as to be useless.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone rave about Roovey, no doubt for quite good reason.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Blake
IMO roosevelt is simply a bad leader. The traits have nearly no synergy and this combines with a UU that comes so late as to be useless.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone rave about Roovey, no doubt for quite good reason.

That might explain why I had problems thinking what I could use those traits for.

Organised and Industrious both have their uses so I think the problem with Roosevelt has to be in the early play.

[Swiss Pauli]

The main benefits of Roosy are that he's quite a willing trader and fairly easy prey, so that's another problem with playing him!

Unless it's a sweet start I'd re-roll, or try an ambitious Slingshot for the experience.

May your goodie huts be bountiful!

[Blake]

The thing is that Organized as a trait is kind of an excuse to not build wonders, it IS the edge you need.
To make the most of Industrial you want good research to get to wonders in a timely fashion, well when you play to the strengths of organized you get tolerable research but it’s not great.
When you play to the strengths of Industrial you need to expand quite slowly and focus on vertical growth for wonder-pumping.

Basically Roosevelt only has one trait at a time, you can use Industrial OR you can use Organized. This is in contrast with say Tokugawa, who uses Aggressive to take territory, while Organized simultaneously eases assimilating that territory, and the Samurai UU makes the conquest go even more smoothly, that's some beautiful synergy. (and if that’s not enough, he starts with the pre-req techs for Pottery!)

A couple of examples of Industrial leaders with good synergy are Qin, Financial goes well with subdued horizontal expansion, and can help achieve a top-notch research rate getting to techs in time to build the wonders. Another excellent example is Gandhi, not only are his starting techs a million times better, he also has Fast Workers which synergize excellently with Industrial and empower him to build wonders very, very quickly. Everything about Gandhi makes it easy to build Stonehenge and found a religion, and that sets you up for a strong religious game.

Tokugawa and Gandhi are what I’d describe as leaders, traits, starting techs and UU’s all work together. Roosevelt is sadly a leader, all his attributes pull in different directions.

[Alkis2]

I too had several starts alone on an island on Emperor while on Monarch only one. So maybe it's not an accident.

About your game, I think it's a bit risky to take animal and hunting and mining and bronze. You may fail the slingshot. I don't think an Industrious leader will have a problem building Oracle, but getting CoL will be hard.

You know of course that you can mine the fur tile (supposing it's a hill) and farn the sheeps. You won't get the maximum out of it but still you will get something.

About Rousvelt. I never played that leader but all I see is two good skills. Industrious will let you build Oracle (or any other wonder you want) faster and organized means you can research at 100% despite playing on Emperor. Not that bad.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

Hmmm another slingshot....

I definitely think this is the wrong play for Roosevelt, although being on an island I guess its ok for lack of anything better. I think industrious is a really weak trait in comparison to organized and Id really rather have anything else to pair it with. Therefore, especially in the early game, I think the focus should be getting as much mileage out of that organized trait as possible.

I like the tech choices, and would probably follow along those lines then pop and chop a quick army and immediately start attacking cities. Getting a fast source of copper would be my highest priority with this guy.

If stone is easily available (or not), then it is probably best to make a play for the pyramids rather than the oracle. This will bolster the Organized and allow you to use your Idustrious trait as well. I would probably just ignore the Industrious until medieval period.

If stuck on an island I would go for rapid expansion combined with a pyramid grab and then beeline to optics.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Blake
The thing is that Organized as a trait is kind of an excuse to not build wonders

I’m not sure I quite understand this point. Organised is a trait to reduce empire city and civic expenses. What you might be suggesting is that wonders require some vertical growth while organised tends to support more horizontal growth. The question is whether or not a strategy can be adapted to allow both.

I would perhaps suggest that these are not two mutually exclusive lines of development. For a start, let us perhaps be clear that early wonders do not really indicate vertical growth anyway since most of the production for them comes from those ex-forests. It is therefore subsequent wonders where vertical growth starts to become a more important factor – though probably less important the simply being far ahead in the tech race or of even having the key resource to double the speed of the wonder.

Organised as a trait is not a pure licence to expand and there will always be times for consolidation. It’s during one of these times that Roosevelt might be useful to allow one city a brief expansion burst and production of a forge before embarking on the odd wonder project.

Saying that, city sprawls with cheap forges seems an ideal way of quickly ramping up production. Seems a strong candidate therefore to fund a war machine to in the middle game.

[raguas]

Originally posted by couerdelion


Saying that, city sprawls with cheap forges seems an ideal way of quickly ramping up production. Seems a strong candidate therefore to fund a war machine to in the middle game.

Allowing for some oversimplication on my part, this was the key reason the US won World War II, right? And that was under Roosevelt... good job by Civ IV in abstracting it.

[uberfish]

Roosevelt is a very good pyramid builder, you can build more settlers to expand faster with a pyramid start than you can with an oracle build where all your resources have to be tightly focused. With industrious, it's correct most of the time to follow up with getting relatively quick Literature and build great library and possibly national epic in capital.

With pyramids you want to focus on food early and get to the stage of getting 5 medium-sized cities fairly quickly (taking full advantage of representation.) Organized helps with the maintenance, which is really helpful when you're running a food-based economy and keeps your science rate from tanking too much in the transition period where your libraries are still building.

Sure organized has most synergy with early conquest since that gets the most cities fastest - but it also helps with peaceful expansion, the difference in terms of how early I can afford to put up new cities is pretty noticable having played various random civ island starts.

[Common Sensei]

The only early game advantage in this case that comes to mind is that it's easier to be first to the Pyramids.

With Organized, it's probably best to then take advantage of the reduced civic cost, select Police State, and warmonger.

[Blake]

Yeah, I actually pretty much consider Industrious to be the Pyramid / Farseer trait, pretty much you want to go for one of those.

However, regardless, the fact remains that Roosevelt has horrible starting techs and a UU that comes way too late to change anything. The trait combo might be okay, altough it's definitely not top-notch.

[smbakeresq]

I have had good success with Roosevlet, however it is only through playing one style. On a large or huge map woth 6-8 total civs, you have enough space to expand for a good while. Just pump out settlers, no early wonders until the Gardens, then you can have multiple cities building multiple wonders. It takes a while get set up, but when you do you can snag almost every wonder from early-mid game on.

Since organized has more benefits the bigger your civ is, and %50 off wonders gives you turn and game advantages with the more wonders you build, you must expand RELENTLESSLY. If I remember right, I have had about built 15 cities by 100 AD on epic speed. No early wars, just enough military to keep the barbs off you, tax rate down to %50-60 to break even. You fall behind in research or stay even until economics of scale take over, then you can have so many cities producing research you really accelerate through the wonders and techs from classical age on.

The size of your empire does keep the AI off you, but that being said, Roosevelt is one of the least flexible civs, IMO.

[paleman]

Man, all this dissing of Roosevelt is out of hand. He's a good leader. I can think of several advantages Roosevelt allows:

1) You can get a forge and Heroic Epic in your primary military city before the competition. (Remember, Nat'l wonders are also half-price for industrious.) This will give you an unstoppable army. The fact that courthouses are so cheap gives you the option of using this army to expand more than you otherwise might due to city maintenance costs.

2) Here's another good synergy: Org. Religion isn't as bad on the wallet for Roosevelt. Combine that with early forges in any city with any production, and you'll be constructing mid-game buildings faster than most, and the mid-game wonders (Great Library, Angkor Wat, etc.) even more so. (Obviously, this synergy calls for spreading your religion within your borders.)

3) I find that Roosevelt allows for a quicker transition to caste system (for me, at least). In most games I tend to keep slavery around for a while, because it's cheap and because i like the pop-rush option for courthouses in conquered cities. For Roosevelt, courthouses are cheaper, so pop rushing them isn't as necessary. Obviously, caste system is less costly. Also, (here's another synergy) you'll be able to more quickly build the Nat'l Epic in your GP factory, which in most of my games tends to be food-heavy, but not very strong on hammers. This allows an earlier start on generating the merchants/artists/scientists.

4) As for great wonders, I know everyone loves the pyramids and all the oracle tricks, but the fact that Roosevelt starts out with fishing makes the Great Lighthouse a compelling wonder to aim for and be sure of getting. Since you'll probably make Metal Casting a priority, you'll likely be able to get the Colossus built in the same city. That adds up to some sweet commerce bonuses for your whole empire. Also, the concentrated amount of great merchant points in that city will give you more flexibility in your GP factory (i.e., you might not need to generate as many great merchants there, since you're assured at least one, maybe two, from your Lighthouse/Collosus city.)

These are just a few early to mid game benefits and synergies I can think of, and I like them all.

[JackRudd]

I always reckon that the Organized trait is one with which to ask the following question:

"What expensive civics support my other trait?"

In the case of FDR, I would suggest he is an ideal candidate for Bureaucracy + Organized Religion for an early and mid-game Wonder Rush.