One City Challenge won at Emperor level - here is the story

[Mercani]

Hello all,

I decided I would head for cultural victory(20K culture points from single city). So I chose Babylonians(scientific, religious) to take advantage of cheap temple, library, university, cathedral - the culture generating improvements. Extra tech each age was also nice.

I restarted several times (15-20) in order to get a good starting position. River is a must, and it should be next to the sea. I moved my settlers 2 tiles and found my city only 2 tiles from Indian capital for a good location. I thought I would raze that city and claim the land.

Built temple and then Colossus. I think Colossus is very nice. The one and only city has to generate as much science as possible. Then I headed directly to Literature(bought Alphabet). Built Great Library. (started Pyramids, and then switched) After that, time has come for that Indian city to the end. 6 Bowmans easily wiped it out. Immediately signed peace treaty afterwards.

I didnot need aquaduct since the city was next to river. It went up to size 12 quickly. Nothing interesting till industrial age. Important thing is to get the key wonders. Sell the techs and get as much gold per turn as possible, or get the techs on the other branch of the tree. This way it's not hard to keep science at 100%.

Building the key wonders is very important for the culture and science. After Colossus(3) and Great Library(6), I built Hanging Gardens(4), Sistine Chapel(6), Copernicus(4), Magellan(3), Shakespeare(6), Newton(6). The numbers in the parantheses are the culture generated each turn.

Copernicus and Newton is also very important for the science. If you can't get at least one of them, it may be very difficult to stay in the tech race.

Industrial era: I built Universal Suffrage(for the culture, nothing else was to be built at that time). At this point I needed coal to lay railroads(I had iron). Nobody wanted to give. There was a source of coal just next to my border, inside Iroquous land. I decided to extend one city rule a little bit to get the coal. Built a city next to the coal source. Whoila now it is in my territory!

Kept this city at size 1 and built only walls. A few turns later coal was exhausted! What a luck! I abandoned the city by building a worker.

Then I built Theory of evolution. Make sure that you get all the techs that you can from your AI friends before finishing this wonder to get the greatest benefit. Sold those 2 techs for very good money. I remember getting 100 golds per turn for one of the techs. Phewww I remember having more than 4000 gold at some time.

Suddenly Iroqous decided I should not live in my little country and declared war. I was not prepared, so I had to reload at this point.(Reloaded 2-3 times only, this was one of them) After reloading I immediately signed protection pacts with both Americans and Germans. There was no war this time. Iroquous could not take the challenge to fight 3 civs at the same time.

I also built Hoover Dam. Preserved mutual protection pacts, and started preparing for the World War. I knew peace would not last very long. Started building fortresses along all my borders. Pumped out riflemen and infantry and artillery. I managed to get rubber one time only from Americans.

I fortified one riflemen/infantry at each fortress. Also placed artilley at key positions. After a few turns, expected thing happened. Iroquos went to war with Americans. I had to help my friend Lincoln for the sake of friendship(ok, ok, actually because of the protection pact )

Iroquos mostly attacked Americans. I gues they knew it was nearly impossible to even enter Babylonia. Few infantry managed to pass between the fortresses and pillage a few railroads. But they couldn't live long under heavy artillery fire!

The part of Iroquous land next to my borders was burned to ground by artillery fire. Not a single civilization improvement survived. I even got a leader while I was hunting cavalry with my elite infantry. I decided to keep the leader to create a tank army after I research the tech.

I mobilized for war, but that resulted in producing half culture. I started producing 50 points every turn instead of 100. And I couldn't go back to Normalcy from war-mobilization as long as I was at war. So I decided to let the Iroquous people live for some more time. Americans signed for peace anyway after losing 2 of their cities. So I signed for peace and switched back to normal also. German had signed peace with Iroquous long before and contined living in their peaceful continents.

Won by cultural victory just after advancing to modern age in 1914 AD. I wished it would end at 25K points instead of 20K, so that I could build SETI with my leader. (And maybe I could even start WW2. )

Managed to build 11 wonders. The city was producing 250+ beakers at the end of Industrial age. I think in Civ 3, key wonders for OCC are Colossus, Great Library, Copernicus and/or Newtons, and Shakespeare(not critical).

Maybe I should have posted this in the stories forum.

What kind of strategies do you guys think of for OCC? I think at Deity level it can be won by constantly fighting.

Feel free to download. Saved just before the victory.

[ChrisShaffer]

It's not a OCC victory if you build a second city, eh? A colony would have been a better choice.

[solo]

Well done, Mercani! I downloaded your file and took a look. This was almost accomplished by hanZ in deity, who was wiped out just a few turns shy of 20,000 points.

I have been trying at deity, too, following much the same path, but was overtaken by the AI in the Modern Age, even though I had over 250 beakers from all science improvements and wonders.

As for colonies, without any borders, they are too difficult to hold on to. All the AI have to do is plant a new city nearby and zap, they are gone. I lost 6 very good ones in my game, and believe some adjustments have to be made to the OCC rules to have realistic chances at deity level.

Chris,

Colonies or cities can not be built inside of the AI borders, so the only way to get a border resource is by founding a new city right next to it outside the border, so that the resource shifts into the new city's borders.

[Mercani]

Yes, I know it is not 'strictly' one city victory. But that extra city only lived for 20-25 turns, it was always size 1 with an entartainer and it produced only 'Walls' for the defense. I could win without that city also. Maybe it would be 10 turns later. AI was not even close in winning. We were head to head in tech race but nobody had ever started the spaceship.

The colony wouldn't work, because the coal was inside Iroquous territory, just outside mine. So, by building that city just next to my border, I enlarged my border to have access to coal.

Happy civin'...

[MadWombat]

I'd like a copy of the 4000BC game =]

[Smash]

why don't you attach it in the thread?

1 city means 1 city.I do not accept this as a 1 city win.Good game and good playing but not 1 city.I could say the same thing in civ2."I just built that city to have the gold square".

Win the game by SS,with,and only ever, 1 city.No ammendments.

[Mercani]

I am very sorry guys. I realized I've started another game after that game and 4000BC auto-saved file is lost!. Smash, yes you are right, next time I want to try space ship victory with sticking to 1 city rule. However I will play on a tiny map instead, I think.

Sorry again about the 4000BC file.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by solo
Chris,

Colonies or cities can not be built inside of the AI borders, so the only way to get a border resource is by founding a new city right next to it outside the border, so that the resource shifts into the new city's borders.

Chris is right. If you build a 2nd city (or 3rd or 4th) you no longer have a OCC victory, but a 2CC victory. The reason is irrelevant. One city = one city.

Nevertheless good job.

[HalfLotus]

So he got his 1's and 2's mixed up, big deal.

I had a great 16CC victory last night.

[Smash]

hehehe...

I hope I don't seem to harsh.It is a great effort.But we need to stay true or it is not a challenge.Allready we have seen players zeroing in on the deity 1 city win.Its only been a month or so.

I say SS because that is probably easier than a 1 city culture win.Absolutely no UN win should be considered.

I think it is probably going to turn out to be relatively easy to do but I'm not sure how.Science is kinda shot in this game.I think you'll want a site with lots of luxury resources for trading.Cash is gonna be the sacred cow.And as in civ2,tucked away in a good defensive position.
On smaller maps,one could go a warring for some early leaders.That would be very beneficial..but 1 city is gonna be tough to produce enough numbers to be effective in the small window of opportunity.You'd want an early UU for an early golden age...
Deity should be "easier" in that the ai will do more for you than monarch or emp.How aggressive they will be kinda remains to be seen.It appears as though the ai doesn't calculate 1 city as any kind of threat..same as civ2.You go for the win before it figures out what is happening.
On the other hand,the prospect of 1 city defending against a 20+ city civ with armor while building the very expensive SS parts is not very appealing

Am I the only one that finds this game alot more tedious than civ2?...even with 1 city...argh.Civ2 I could finish an OCC game in a couple hours.Seems I spend that much time contacting ais and waiting for their turns.I play for what seems a good long time,I look and see only 7 turns have been finished

[Mercani]

Ok, guys, I admit this is not one city victory. I only posted for the strategy. That 2nd city was irrelevant, I could still win without that city, only maybe 5-10 turns later. I am not trying to make myself superior to all you guys. You can check the replay, and see how less that city was beneficial in the victory !

Smash, I think cultural victory is easier than space ship victory, if you can build the key wonders. At diety level I'm sure it will be nearly impossible to build 11 wonders.

Beiing lucky and getting iron and coal in the city radius to build Iron Works can make even SS victory easy at Diety level.

Next time I'll try at Diety level, but I'll really make sure I start at a very good location.

[ToeTruck]

Any ideas on how to zero in on a set of OCC ground rules?

Smash sez: "Win the game by SS,with,and only ever, 1 city.No ammendments"

I agree with the "1 city" part of that, but it means Civ3 OCCers must agree to a couple of ground rules:

1) No cultural assimilation! You *must* rebuff the rebels.

2) No building a city and then selling it to the highest bidder.

3) If you conquer a city, you must raze it immediately.

OR, we could just agree that OCC means "no more than one city at the *end* of any turn". That opens up a bunch of possible strategies, but isn't truly "OCC".

Regarding the victory method, I'm partial to the space race, but I'm open to playing comparison games for other victory conditions as well.

Thanks.

- TT

[Auk]

Mercani - how many civs were you playing with? Unless you got a LOT of great leaders, I'd be interested to know how you got that many wonders built... I was playing with 16 on monarch and didn't have a hope of getting that many mid game wonders...

[solo]

Pyrodrew,

You misunderstand my point about colonies. Chris was suggesting the use of one in a situation where they can not be used. I was only stating that the only way to claim that resource inside the AI borders would be by founding a city, since a colony could not be used in that situation.

I can't agree more that 1=1. That's obvious.

My points are that the design of CivIII make OCC much more difficult on higher levels than it was in CivII, maybe difficult enough that a different approach for OCC (or limited city) games is warranted in order to have meaningful comparison contests as we did in CivII. I am willing to adapt the rules, if need be, for a more playable game, and have already stated that FCC, a game limited to just 5 cities would be better suited for CivIII's design.


Toe Truck,

I agree with limiting OCC to a space race win. How to handle the cultural assimilation of another city is tricky, but for OCC games I'm willing to go along with the general consensus. For sure, there are other special situations presented by CivIII that need to be addressed, too.