OCC is alive and well - one city victory on Warlord

[player3]

Yeah, I know what you all are going to say 'Warlord: big deal' but I won a diplomatic victory using ONLY ONE CITY THE ENTIRE GAME.
So there

This was my very first civ3 game AND first attempt at OCC. I actually didn't intend to play an OCC, but I was dropped into an absurdly fortunate starting position so I thought I'd give it a try (6 food bonus tiles and a luxury resource all within one city radius AND sea access (I kid you not!)

I also learned a few things from the experience; cultural assimilation appears to be COMPLETELY random. I built every possible improvment in my city and at least 8 wonders and I did not assimilate a single enemy city in THE ENTIRE GAME, even though I had a ridiculously high culture value (60+ culture points a turn by the end of the game). Also, I was able to operate at 90% research levels by simply trading my techs to every empire as soon as I got them; by doing this I was able to import every resource and still have a net gain of 200+ gold per turn (The AI appears to become more gullible in trade deals as your culture level increases). As for surviving attacks; there weren't any. By trading constantly and maintaining a sky-high culture rating the AI was very passive the entire game.

For those of you who don't know what OCC means, I 'believe' it stands for 'One City Conquest.' It entails playing an entire game of civ using only one city and trying to win.

I'll try to provide a screenshot tommorow and a saved game if anyone's interested. But for those of you wondering if OCC can be done in civ3, now you know.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by player3
but I was dropped into an absurdly fortunate starting position so I thought I'd give it a try (6 food bonus tiles and a luxury resource all within one city radius AND sea access (I kid you not!)

Yeah right. Next time try playing without using the editor.

[player3]

I swear it's true! I intended to play through normally (as the Romans) but decided I'd go for the OCC. Had I planned ahead I probably would have picked a civ with better traits (Industrious, Scientific) rather than Rome's (Commercial, Militaristic) which is ill suited for OCC. Of course, I have no way of proving I didn't use the editor.

Besides, the extra food didn't help much until late game due to the low pop limits, and the fact that sanitation is WAAAY up the tech tree. Shields were actually quite scarce due to the open terrain so I had to build forests to make up for it. Still, it was a great position.

[player3]

One other thing I noticed from my OCC experience; Specialist citizens are USELESS! After I had enough citizens to work all of the surrounding spaces I turned all my excess citizens into scientists. Unfortunately they did not increase the science output of the city AT ALL. Same for the tax collectors; the only one that worked was the entertainer. Am I missing something, or is there a serious bug here?

[Gaius Marius]

Want to post a screenshot of your starting position (use ctrl-shift-M to hide everything but the map)..Not that I don't beleive you, I just want to see perfection.

[player3]

Does anyone know how to take a screenshot? I tried looking for a hotkey command for it but can't find it...

[RobC]

Originally posted by player3
Does anyone know how to take a screenshot? I tried looking for a hotkey command for it but can't find it...

In windows, just use [ALT]-[PrntScrn] to capture the screen, then go to the Paint application and use [CTRL-V] then save the bitmap.

[MrRogers]

but preferably use a good program other than paint if you have it, cos then you can compress it to a jpg and thusly a reasonable size.
id like to see this too.
just prnt scrn, then alt tab or wahtever to photoshop (or soemthing similar) and the ctrl-v to paste into the canvas

[Robert Plomp]

For those of you who don't know what OCC means, I 'believe' it stands for 'One City Conquest

it means One City Challenge.

Specialist citizens are USELESS!

Yeah, I noticed something like that as well !
I turned a citizen into science collector, and nothing happened.
I didn't pay much attention to it, but now you say so........

ding dong, FIRAXIS, are you reading ?

[Trachmyr]

It's doable... I got an OCC victory w/ cultural (20K culture in athens). Also had a nice location, 1 food bounus and a gold bonus on a river with lots of hills and grassland (a few prairies that were converted to forests as soon as I got engineering).... the only strategic resource I had was 1 oil that was "exhausted" about 25 turns after I discovered it. LOL, I did A LOT of trading... The key to victory is trying to keep up with science, and trading tech often (for world maps toom then you can trade thoose).

[Gaius Marius]

If you have win ME, and presumably later versions, MSPAINT can save as a .jpg. Of course, you can't change image size. I just use photoshop, but judging from how both it and CIV run when both are active, that may be overkill.

prtscrn (not alt-prtscrn) works fine for me. I remember discovering for the first time that it didn't actually PRINT the SCREEN anymore and being really disappointed. How am I going to print the screen now when something cool comes up that I want a dot matrix version of?

[Rasputin]

wow OCC victorys already, I guess the AI wasnt that hard then, I guess soon we will see the top level OCC winners. I think I if people start posting wins at that level I wont play SP civ3 at all , I will defiantly wait for MP , if it ever coems ....

[player3]

Ok, here are the screenshots I promised; you can see all the food bonus squares I was referring to (5 cattle, 1 grain, 1 silk, 2 whale and 1 dolphin). Although not all of them were within the city radius (only 4 cattle, 1 grain and the silk) it's still incredible that there were so many in such a small area. This is a shot 1 turn before the diplomatic victory; the United Nations is about to be completed.

[player3]

Here's a shot of my pathetic power histograph (I'm red, on the far left)

[player3]

Some facts about the game:

* Level: Warlord
* Ending Year: 1976
* # of Civs: 7
* Map: Medium Sized, RANDOMLY generated (and no, dammit, I didn't use the editor )
* Civ used: Romans

Some tips for those interested in attempting their own OCC victory:

* DON'T use the Romans Pick a civ that has Industrial/Scientific bonuses

* DO trade as much as possible with the other civs. Trade your techs for money (or other techs) and import all luxuries. By trading techs you can make an absurd amount of money; I was able to maintain a 0% tax level and import every resource for nearly the entire game simply by trading, and I was still netting an average of 200+ gold a turn. Also, trading appears to pacify other civs so they don't think about storming your poorly defended mega-city.

* You MUST build all the one-city science wonders to stay in the tech race (Observatory, Newton's college, also Colossus for extra trade) as well as have a library and university. This is crucial since all your income comes from trading techs.

* Go for Construction/Sanitation as soon as possible; maintaining a large population is crucial to maintaining a high level of trade, which in turn is your only source of science output. Ignore all military techs, but go ahead and trade for them as you can always give them to a third party for more money!

[Gaius Marius]

Awesome starting position. It should be noted, though, that some of the food resources are out of your useable range. Really what you have is TWO awesome positions, but this isn't TCC, is it?

[player3]

Gaius, that's correct. Not all the resources were in the city radius (only 4 cattle, 1 grain and 1 silk which is still pretty darn good) I was not able to utilize the others since I only had one city (otherwise it would have been a TCC as you noted)