I just lost for the first time to the AI!

[asleepathewheel]

Well, I did.

that's not to say I've never been losing before, but I've never been finished off, usually I'll quit before the deed is done.

I was playing a standard size, continents, all rules, OCC on Monarch (I dropped down, as it was my first OCC game) Iroquois, 8 civs.

I haven't read any strats on this type of game, so play was a bit rough. I also didn't keep the 4000bc save or screenshots . The start was 2 plains cow, one forest game, one hill, one mountain, and the rest mostly plains and a few grass and forest. Not bad, but no luxuries. On a river.

I weathered several mass onslaughts in the game, first from the mass of barbs which kept coming. I stupidly aimed for some wonders and left my capitol severely underarmed, I think 2 warriors an archer and a spear. Luckily I held on, they only pillaged one road.

I managed to get (in order I think): oracle, great library, hanging gardens, bachs and mikes (maybe not in that order) so my happiness problems were fairly short lived. Obviously I was aiming for a culture victory.

Shared starting continent with three civs. The americans and indians quickly ate the aztecs. Once they built down to me, I had no more barb problems or uprisings.

I had a horse in my radius, but nothing else. I built a road and a colony to get some iron, but that didn't last too long, absorbed by another civ.

I survived the first war fairly well, the americans had to travel through indian territory to reach me, but I had a mp with said gandhi. Their cav army was swallowed up, and I entered a pointless golden age.

The second war was a bit...dicier. The am's landed directly on my territory with some cav's. So I traded for saltpeter and upgraded, now had 7 muskets and 4 mw's. Dicey. The second wave came from the north and my muskets valiantly held. I sent out my horses and killed four red lined cav's. I was down to 3 muskets. Luckily the americans then declared war on the indians, who finished off my attackers. Then an infantry unit lands and marches next to my capital. I figure nothing I have can take him out, so I rush a cannon. Of course, it misses. But before he could attack an Indian tank arrives and saves the day.

I figure I'm in the clear. I have maybe 15-20 turns before I win by culture, going at 73 a turn.

But then the Americans are driven off the continent by the Indians.

And I suppose Gandhi needed to do something with his tanks and mech infantry.....At least he didn't nuke me, he had only just built the manhattan project.

The first attack, a mech infantry, was soundly defeated by my valiant musketman. But the city quickly fell.



1972 R.I.P. And I had roughly 19,000 culture points in the city. So close.

fun stuff, would go through it all again, even if the result isn't a win

[Solomwi]

Sounds like big fun. It's amazing what one city can build when it's not pumping out a few settlers, isn't it?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Sounds like big fun. It's amazing what one city can build when it's not pumping out a few settlers, isn't it?

That's what was most striking to me. My one city was massively productive right away. I've been in settler pump mode for so long, it was surprising. I could pretty much build everything at will. I don't think it will alter my emperor gameplan at all, because the ai is so fast to settle everything, but it was an interesting way to play.

[Solomwi]

Yeah, after I played the AU OCC, I had this crazy idea that I could get my first settler out, build a settler pump with it, and use OCC tactics with my capital, effectively giving me the best of both worlds. I always wound up, though, using it to REX, instead. I may force myself to do that one day, just to see what kind of room I give up in the REX phase, and if the capital makes it worthwhile.

[peterfharris]

The first time I played an OCC (in Civ2 but have also played OCC in Civ3) I was also surprised at just how much can be done with a single city. Wow!

I have tried games where I edit one AI civ to prevent it building settlers and starting it off with 2 settlers. It is also surprising how much the AI can do if it is not REXing. It grabs several early wonders and usually takes quite a while for the other AI civs to catch up to its power and tech lead. (BTW The AI can do OCC because if it has only one city it builds only units).

I have tried the strategy of getting the first settler out, using it as a settler pump, and playing the capital as if it were a OCC. This hybrid strategy does not seem to work for me though.

[WackenOpenAir]

Yes, i have not yet done an OCC game in in civ3, but i did do so in civ2 on deity.
While an OCC game is very boring, and (in civ2) way too easy, and thus will probably never do one again,
i did certainly suprise me how productive that one city was. building settlers has a huge negative impact on your cities.

This definately did have impact on my game plans. i started to realise the cost of building settlers even better and now make much less cities myself than i did before.
I used to build like 40 in civ2 and 20 in civ3 or so, now in civ2, i build like 10 and then start conquering my empire (when crusaders are available)
In civ3, i build only 1 ring at distance 4 while i used to build another ring at distance 7 as well.

[WackenOpenAir]

in civ2 i also tried that plan of building 1 settler and the use the first city like OCC.
There is a huge difference though, the OCC is powered very much by the extra settler you have in civ2 that will work the ground for that first city. if you build a city with it, you miss out on that. (and building a city with it is still more efficient)

also does building one settler do enough harm to your OCC build to make it much less effective. and the extra cities cause too much unhappiness to the city (in civ2)

The way i do it now in civ2 is as follows: i build my 2 cities, both build a settler. 1 of them will then (after having 3 warriors for martial law) start on the collosus like the OCC is supposed to. the now 3 other cities can now continu to expand up to 12 cities (a boundary for happiness problems). The first city (SSC) will never contribute anything to the rest of my empire, it builds no settlers to work, and no units. only improvements. The other cities contribute to the SSC now and then by helping build a wonder with caravans.

I guess this is the standard way to handle the SSC, but the OCC game made me put a lot more emphasis on it early on. i now start building collosus immeadiately, and focus on getting out the caravans for trade routes much more.

Also, do i generally stop building cities at about 12, also in civ2. this is mostly because i go for early domination instead of having an empire as big as possible. if i stop at 12, i can have much more millitairy might early on, the crusader/elephant army i now produce instead of settlers can conquer 2 opponents and take key cities of some others.

In civ3, i play completely different. no SSC in civ3 early on. early on, i need to catch up with the AI. i need to have units and capture the needed resources and techs from peace talks. In civ3 early game, there is no time for wonder building or even improvement building. (except for barracks with a militaristic civ and/or temples with a religious one)

[Harovan]

I won one OCC at Regent. That was in the early 2002. Since then I ran 3 or 4 tries for an OCC on Deity and lost them all. Usually I succeeded to get a nice city with many wonders, even on Deity, but I wasn't yet able to defend it and got wiped out by sneak attacks. It's always the same. As soon as railroads show up, I get attacked by 20+ cavalries in one turn. I always try to set forts with garrison and cannons at strategical important positions and keep them in the city too, but that never helped so far.

Another game I tried recently was a game in "God mode". I played a game at Regent in Debug mode (seeing the whole map) with an edited, unaccessible island. It consisted of 3x3 tiles with the city in the middle and tiles with all 8 luxuries around. Around this, a 5x5 square coast with fishes, and around this a 7x7 square with mountains. No strategic resources whatsoever. That means no railroads, no factory and no coal plant, too.

Nobody found me till the industrial age. That meant I have to research all myself. Still had a tech lead by then, because I emphasized research and built an early library, university, Cope's and Newton's, and the luxuries gave tons of gold. I couldn't build the Colossus, because the city wasn't coastal. In the end I made over 300 beakers per turn. Producing wonders got harder and harder, because you can't get very far with 22 shields per turn and no railroads, factories, and power plants. Still won uncontested by culture in the early 1900's, at the end of the industrial age. The AI's were fighting wars for most of the time, which slowed down the game hefty, because I saw the whole map. I don't think this game is worth to mention strategy-wise, I just wanted to see how such a game turns out.

[Master Zen]

I lost the space race in my first OCC game (AU 302) on Monarch. Then my second game on Emperor I won. Practice makes perfect.

[Cort Haus]

After AU302 I played a few OCC on small pangeas, and lost a few times to domination wins. If Persia gets going early, there's not much that can be done.

[bernardjan]

You had a horse in the radius with the iroquis ??
Build barracks and eight mounted warriors and clear the continent. Put the slaves along the coast, and you will not be invaded. This gives you a much better timed
Golden Age as well, maybe even a Leader if you are lucky.

Bernard

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by bernardjan
You had a horse in the radius with the iroquis ??
Build barracks and eight mounted warriors and clear the continent. Put the slaves along the coast, and you will not be invaded. This gives you a much better timed
Golden Age as well, maybe even a Leader if you are lucky.

Bernard

In retrospect, I should have done that. However I wanted to play a peaceful OCC game.

Also, I wasn't coastal, so I needed a civ to have a harbor. I should have pruned the other civs early on, that is for sure.

[bernardjan]

I do not understand the choice for the Iroquis if you want to be peaceful. Their power is the Mounted Warrior. For a OCC, you do not need to be expansionist. I would prefer Egypt (industrious) or Babylon (scientific). Especially industrious is nice:
this fast worker really counts.
If you don't have a harbor, you can't clear the entire
continent: just leave them with one city and place slaves along their border.

Bernard

[Cort Haus]

I don't agree with you about Industrious for OCC, bernardjan. Two workers kept up with city growrth easily, I found. I agree with Scientific, though.

[asleepathewheel]

I chose Irq's because:

expansionist would let me scout out and get some techs and gold and find the others.

religious cheap temples, thus earlier culture and gov't change.

UU would allow me to have an active, fast, defense against barbs and ai until medieval.


Not the best combo. I would probably prefer a religious scientific civ next time.....


Note that I was playing standard continents, so the exp trait wasn't wasted.

[Harovan]

I think religious+scientific is by far the best trait combo for OCC. Militarist is plain useless, you won't have the resources to fight wars anyway (apart from ancient age skirmishes), so is Commercial, as you have only one city. Expansionist can prove useful early, but it's main benefits (more settlers/cities) are a no-no for OCC and the cheap techs/maps/gold you get just don't make up the difference. Industrious is, well, the best trait for Civ3 and PtW hands down, but not for OCC. You have only 1 city to improve anyway, so I churn out ~4 workers early, do the whole improvement within, say, 50 turns and then add them back to the city to boost its size up to twelve. After all tiles are improved, industrious is as useful as expansionist in the medieval age.

Religious+scientific provides cheap happiness improvements (very important, as you usually don't have more than one own luxury) and scientific improvements (own research helps saving money to get to the key improvements). Additionally, the early culture adds up quickly, because the 1000 years needed to double culture output are quickly reached in the early game.

[bernardjan]

Playing OCC, I want a cultural victory (probably), which means ancient wonders. I can choose
Iroquis, Egypt or Babylon. The main disadvantage of the Iroquis is the fast tech pace early on due to expansionistic neighbours. You want to stop the first cascade with the Great Library.
Scientific is not that useful. You also risk to lose your
Golden Age. (Oracle+ Great Library will trigger it).
So I chose Egypt instead, emperor, small, five opponents. Build temple, granary, warrior, warrior, warrior (limit number of free units), Oracle, Great Library (ends cascade).
Revolt to Monarchy before completion of Hanging Gardens+build Colossus and Lighthouse during the Golden Age.
The result was a cultural victory a bit after 1750.
Another advantage of Egypt is that you can build the
20 shields war chariot in 1 turn, buy salpeter,
overrun some opponent with cavalry. Just for fun,
you do not need it at this stage.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel

I haven't read any strats on this type of game, so play was a bit rough.

There are some excellent threads about OCC games.
Check my 'Best threads of the past year' thread.
I *bumped* it for you.