My fascination with OCC'ing

[Paradox]

I realise for many that OCC'ing seems to have somewhat lost its intrigue and splendour looking at all the ELCG threads of late but,

I'm essentially knew to the intricacies of alternative civ2 strategies and for some reason (actually perhaps its almost concise and mathematical execution which is probably almost impossible to do with other strategies) the concept of early landing dates with OCC has captivated me....perhaps its the simplicity of it all in my early stages of development who knows....i know ICS strategy will need to be laboured shortly if I am to climb the steps of the academy but for now perfecting OCC will do.

I have read numerous threads (and shall continue...) on OCC including Pauls original OCC strategy guide...and even managed a 1888 Diety launch first try! (well i was reasonably impressed ). Now i have a long way to go for sure....hence a number of q's?

1. Is their much flexibility in order of advances to research, goverments, wonders, etc that will improve landing dates? i.e deviation from Pauls strategy guide

2. My science beaker count was max about 950+ beakers/ 2 turns to advance at late stage of the game but insufficient to ever get it to 1 even if i jacked science rate to 100%! SOme have claimed beakers well in excess of 1000...even 1300-1400 i think? How did they do it, i had all the science city improvements, and wonders relevant but couldnt get there? Was it my underlying terrain or perhaps insufficient trade??? I thought one could only have 3 trade routes per city?

3. Just for comparison and interest hehehe what is the earliest OCC landing with/without hut tipping? Anyone know? Where the 400's landings by the ribanah,smash,pauls from their fortnightly OCC challenges ever beaten and who accomplished them?

And finally....perhaps my biggest ...

Getting to AC with one city is remarkable enough in lieu of the whole concept of expansion which is civ's essential premise, which OCC negates as a requirement to win, but how in this universe!!! does one accomplish this with only 1 sorry citizen as the 'breadwinner'.

Aghast..... and awaiting all your esteemed answers

[solo]

Paradox,

In answer to some of your questions:

1) There is a lot of flexibility, but Paul's system was very effective. In my opinion, the only major thing his guide neglected was the effectiveness of establishing and using embassies. The biggest change coming after Paul's way of doing it was Samson's more economical approach by using a smaller city. This lowered the human player's power rating enough that many alliances and gifts were possible, as long as you did not not get tired of begging for gold from the AI.

2) 950 beakers is about average for a good SSC site, and an advance every two turns is about the best usually obtained in OCC games. However, if the SSC site is close to ideal, with say two gold specials and another set of good ones on a fertile site containing many rivers, beakers can really jump higher into the 1300 to 1500 range, affording periods of 1 advance per turn. Most of the record games you have read about were played on small maps, which have lower research costs, making it easier to get an advance per turn. Many of these games also featured starts including free techs. 3 trade routes per city is the limit, but the value of these increases considerably when they are with an AI city via a road/RR connection.

3) The earliest date using a random start was Ribannah's 436 AD. With an edited "river" map I made up for one OCC game that we played as a scenario, some BC landings were attained. I don't remember any OCC games without huts except one we played with a lone barbarian city.

OCC is certainly a lot of fun, and proves how effective one city can be when its supply of trade arrows is multiplied by adding all of the trade and scientific improvements and wonders. This exponential effect is enough to make enough beakers for it to work for even 1 citizen having a trade special to work with, since income is never a problem with lower power ratings.

I believe OCC games are still being run by Smash at CFC.

[TimTheEnchanter]

The best way to get the high beaker counts up over 1000 is to get your trade routes to a fat AI citiy and have the routes be roaded and RR on the "correct" route to get the bonus on the route. Since you can't use most of solo's unblocking techniques with OCC, your focus on the routes has to be on the ongoing trade route, not the one-time bonus.

For the size 1, it's actually not too hard if you have the right setup (gold + ocean)
1. As always, focus on ways to keep your research to a minimum - trade and gift judiciously to get what you need, and avoid techs you don't, and keep behind your key civ to reduce research costs!
2. Get roaded/RR trade routes to a good AI city. In the Size 1 game at CFC, much of the time was spent with settlers and engineers improving the terrain around the AI city to improve the value of the trade route.
3. Don't build things you don't need. There are very few improvements you need beyond the science ones. Marketplace and defensive ones as needed is about all you need. I had my science rate so high (usually 100% in demo) that a bank was not worth the cost of maintenance.
4. Get used to begging. The AI is not programmed to understand a size-1 occ attempt. It sees you as hopelessly pathetic, despite the fact that you are outresearching all the AI civs combined and have bribed yourself a bigger army than they have. Once things get going, you get alliances and ask for gifts over and over and over. You get cash gifts beyond your wildest dreams and then you rush build everything and bribe yourself an army. Using classic instead of MGE probably makes this easier.

[Elephant]

For One City Challenge (helps the searchers find this thread) getting your city maxed out as quickly as possible is the first priority. For that you need Republic and Medicine, followed by Construction and Sanitation. Streamline your tech plan to get to these as quickly as possible (after Trade of course), depending on what you get at the start and who is in your neighborhood. You want to get rid of all supported units as well by bribing Barbs and other civs units to become NONEs (they have to be closer to an AI city than to yours when you bribe them). The most successful games expoit another AI city on your "continent" to set up a Key Road/Rail route for all three trade routes. Every turn track how many beakers you have accumulated and how many you need to make the next tech, and tech-gift your KeyCiv to reduce the beaker cost. Getting MarcoPolo early can help contact other civs, and if you are small at first contact they will "take pity" on you and agree to alliances. Beg for gold and tech every two or three turns if you get an alliance. When you know you do not have many beakers left to the next tech, change your tax slider to pump out gold instead for RushBuying caravans. Whenever you have nothing else to build, RushBuy rows for caravans. Stockpile them: if you can hit SpaceFlight with 63 caravans you have it made. Put 12 into Apollo and the other 51 will give you a 15-6-3 spaceship with a city only making 30 shields per turn.

You have to take risks with One City, but one thing you can forget worrying about is Barbarians. Choose Raging Hordes and go after the Barb Leaders for the rewards, but as long as you have one unit of any type in the city Barbs will not take it. The other civs, on the other hand, need to be appeased...

For Size One OCC the trick is to start mining a Gold mountain, then build your city on it. Ideally the mountain is right next to the ocean, and a rivered tile in the city radius would make perfection but is not necessary. You also need an AI city nearby to make a KeyRoad. You are going to be Pathetic throughout the game so find and techgift the White civ. Most of your tech and gold will come from begging so find every other civ too and keep begging for alliances. Eventually you will get them all. Build the minimum science wonders in your city and nothing else but caravans. Keep your one worker on the ocean except when you need some extra shields. If you have a rivered tile, turn it into a Forest with a bridge road, and railroad it later. The whole idea is to do the absolute minimum and beg for everything else. Tim also brings up a useful trick: if you have an alliance you can use your settler to improve the AI city's terrain. You still cannot build improvements in their city, nor can you force them to use better Trade terrain, so in general you want a KeyRoad with as big an AI city as possible.

Some of us are learning how to use Marco Polo to treat the AI civs as "tech slaves": gift them a couple pre-req techs and hope they research something we need in the future, like Seafaring, Chivalry, Engineering, etc. It is worth looking into, but I would say the most critical area of Civ play for OCC is Trade. Read all the threads you can here and at CFC on Trade, and study Solo's and Samson's threads like an algebra textbook. Learn about predicting when cities will change their Demands and how to unblock your commodities if possible. These kinds of things take centuries off your landing times.

[rah]

Originally posted by TimTheEnchanter
Using classic instead of MGE probably makes this easier.

Yep. But it does make it more challanging.

And don't keep a lot of money around. Spend it quickly or get it demanded by your buds

RAH

[Smash]

Hey,I also landed that river map in 436AD

I think I change my name to Dangerfield

[Paradox]

Sorry i haven't posted my thanks to you guys for the replies ( plenty of concise info that sure answers most of my OCC q's for now )...as im sure your'e all aware Apoly must take the responsibility for that .....i was even wondering if it would ever come back up and the secrets of OCC lost in some broken file allocation table on a trashed disk in some server room in the basement of a sleazy inner city building

Just a couple of remarks....

1. "Beg for gold and tech every two or three turns if you get an alliance."....Im playing MGE and begging seems to get a WAR declaration rather than gold more often than not!! lol. Sure they come round and will make peace after a while if they attack your city and lose a couple of units but ive only found begging to be helpful in very early game.
BTW i thought begging the AI was semi-"illegal". Is it? Surely one wants to defeat the opponent using tactic and skill rather than floor-licking.....

2. "Whenever you have nothing else to build, RushBuy rows for caravans. Stockpile them: if you can hit SpaceFlight with 63 caravans you have it made. "....Ive never been successfull at building more than 8-10 caravans before i need to use them or build an improvement...perhaps not begging really puts you at a gold disadvantage or is it your trade routes that allow you to rush buy so much? Once again i thought they only give you one time gold bonuses?

3. Im using civbeakers which is pretty useful if tiresome way to streamline your beakers and gain a bit of gold/trade when your about to discover new a new tech.....What i want to know is how do you know what your key civ is and what if your'e playing white civ as i was recently in a saved map game?
Also, i usually give away all my techs except those that are on my direct research path or will put me in tech danger of AI researching before me? Isnt there a limit to the advantage of gifting techs? Surely you dont want AI one step behind you constantly? What is the general accepted strategy with tech gifting?


Still a bit sceptical of that one citizen getting to AC all by himself :LOL:

Damn i ask a lot of q's........

Finally:


Smash:"Hey,I also landed that river map in 436AD "

"Where the 400's landings by the ribanah,smash,pauls from their fortnightly OCC challenges ever beaten and who accomplished them?"...Smash are you reading my posts LOL

[solo]

Paradox,

1. Any way of obtaining gold is useful, but in OCC games with fewer citizens, so much begging was required, it became boring because of the lack of alternative strategies.

2. I don't think I ever accumulated so many caravans in an OCC game, but the more you can rush with extra gold, the better you'll be off.

3. You can also use the science slider to check beakers. For a full description of that and of using tech gifts with the key civ and other AI, you can check out the relevant sections of my early landing guide.

Sorry to omit Smash's 436 AD game from the river map, as that was a record for a game not played as a scenario. Because space ship parts are not available in BC years in a regular game, 436 AD is the best you can do in an OCC game. Better dates were only possible in the games played on that map as a scenario.

[Smash]

technically,the river map was not a random start.If Rib did it on a total random start,then my hat is off.

[solo]

Smash,

Rib's game used a random small map start found by Samson. He and I also had very good non-OCC games using it, since the SSC was the best I've ever seen from a random start. There were also many more easily accessible huts than usually found with a small map start. I will attach the start below for any wishing to give it a try.

Take a bow anyways for your 436 AD game, since research costs were much higher on the large river map!

When comparing landing times, there are so many qualifying factors involved, that it's almost not worthwhile doing this unless landing dates using the same start and playing conditions are used in the comparison being made.

[Smash]

Yes I agree.Your no huts cuts down on randomness somewhat but there is still the luck of the AI and which techs it has for you.

Maybe you should try with no AIs at all.Completely on your own.

[solo]

I'm game. If you want to set up a game like that, count me in!

[Paradox]

I'm definitely game on that idea

[Paradox]

On the subject of huts...

Originally posted by Smash
Yes I agree.Your no huts cuts down on randomness somewhat but there is still the luck of the AI and which techs it has for you.
.

Whilst reading Ribannahs logs for her "Aurelius' OCC comp game logs" http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&threadid=2254 i started to realise what a crucial effect huts could play in terms of gold payoffs....when you receive 150 gold by 3000BC it makes a helluva difference to rushbuy a temple and library that would take someone who hasnt contacted any civs and is still only pumping out 5 gold an awful lot longer to build...maybe change your landing date by 1000 yrsd all other things being equal....

So 2 major pluses on OCC ELG's:

1. Early gold income to rushbuy esp from huts/diplomacy
2. Receiving units and techs from huts or techs via diplomacy enabling

both essentially enabling you to leap frog basic building and tech research which in 50 yr turns is one helluva BONUS on landing date reduction.

So with that in mind I think no huts IS a gr8 leveller
IMHO it is the ultimate 'comparison' as all randomness besides your diplomacy is eradicated.

Problem then is, landing times are dismal in comparison id hazard to say.

[Straybow]

I think nobody mentioned the trick to begging every 2-3 turns is asking for maps on the alternate turns. The AI takes map swapping as a positive input and is much less likely to declare war on you, even if your One City is large.

[Straybow]

It also looks like nobody answered your key civ question. Your key tech civ is the color that corresponds to your power rating.

Power Rating ****** Key Civ
1 Pathetic ********** White
2 Weak ************** Green
3 Inadequate ****** Dark Blue
4 Moderate ********* Yellow
5 Strong ************ Sky Blue
6 Mighty ************ Orange
7 Supreme ********** Purple

Maybe technically that is the inverse of the power rating order as defined in the game. Anyway, if you intend to play large city OCC, don't choose a late order color. If you intend to play small city OCC, don't be white or green.

Of course, we often choose white for OCC in case the AI launches and both ships reach AC in the same year. Play order breaks ties.