Weekend OCC

[Blake]

It's to prove a point. Those tricks to shave 1 turn off a victory?
They matter.

Now guys, which trick didn't you do? .

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Hmm, I took three or four swings at this without getting anywhere. I couldn't get a lead in tech, and the one attempt I made at warring looked as though that answer was going to go horribly wrong.

I never did work out that I should be delaying the Globe Theatre. I did eventually work out that I wanted to be running HR (though I mostly treated that as a patch, and reminded to build enough axes to discourage abuse), though never settled in my mind whether that comes before or after Code of Laws.

I never actually managed to crack the whip. Not from doing the math or anything, just the feeling that "it would be bad". I did remember not to chop any forrests.

I think it was only on my last run that I recognized that beelining education was critical.

Concerns about health talked me out of building a forge until the space race began. I think in my last attempt I was first to Apollo, but after that things quickly began to look bleak.

I think the marble really fooled me into thinking that masonry was important, and therefore some time should be spent in Org Rel. But that doesn't really work, does it, given the extra anarchy? Of course, Masonry is important for Aquaducts (had to learn that twist again).

It looks like the main flight line should be
Writing
Code of Laws (via Meditation)
Philosophy
Education
Constitution

with Monarchy and Literature dropped in there somewhere.

Do any buildings get whipped? It looks to me as though the granary shouldn't be, so the only candidate would be the library (my feeling is that the barracks isn't worth much in this game). I suppose you could whip a monastery before switching to caste system. If we're not using the whip, shoudn't we be going for Archery instead of Bronzeworking?

[Qwack]

Blake:

Now guys, which trick didn't you do? .

Only thing I can think of is chopping the forests on last turn??? I only had 2 left anyways so it wouldnt have made much of a difference in my game

VoiceOfUnreason:

Do any buildings get whipped? It looks to me as though the granary shouldn't be, so the only candidate would be the library (my feeling is that the barracks isn't worth much in this game). I suppose you could whip a monastery before switching to caste system. If we're not using the whip, shoudn't we be going for Archery instead of Bronzeworking?

I believe the best move in this game is to quickly get as much science in your capital as you possibly can. There was 2 ways to do this, cottage spam and early beauracracy, or farm spam and settle alot of great scientists. Slavery is very weak in a scenario like this, and Caste system will work out much better. The most important tech's for this scenario are CS(If your spamming cottages at start like me), Philosophy through code of laws (If your spamming farms and using specialists) and education (Oxford). Later important tech's include constitution for representation, medicine for health, and computers for that science boost. Obviously im skipping alot of things, but these tech's stick out to me.

Only way you can concentrate on research like this is to establish friends early, so converting a few AI's to confucian(which is almost guaranteed) will help incase anyone declares.

[Blake]

I whipped a worker (my first tech was BW) and I think that was the only thing I whipped. It is *slightly* beneficial to whip a worker in a new floodplain city, rather than just training it, however the anarchy makes it non-break even. I later whipped a library (Faster scientists) and temple, to get rid of unhappies. But you can certainly get by without the whip.

For a Philo in OCC really the only way to go is maximize great people points. Usually this is done with Pryamids + GL but in this case with GW's forbidden it was nessecary to use food and specialists. It's critical to maximize forests, only chopping them to build biology farms. And at all times run maximum specialists in favor of hammer improvements - even use them in favor of things like the copper mine.

Financial civs can obviously get better value of cottages.

A religion was basically essential because otherwise the city would get very, very bored, and the income is useful for buying resources, tech trades, and unit upgrades. I never got declared on but I always had a large standing army.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

It's critical to maximize forests, only chopping them to build biology farms.

That never occurred to me.

A religion was basically essential because otherwise the city would get very, very bored, and the income is useful for buying resources

Income...? You built the shrine!? That did occur to me, and I felt really good about vetoing the idea (my income mostly came from inadvertanly spawned artists).

[Blake]

Well my shrine gave me... 93gpt at the end of the game. That is not useless, I used it to buy resources and upgrade my army. In other OCC's I've used shrine gold to buy wonders or buildings (in this game it wasn't needed). Altough hammers and beakers ARE more useful than gold in an OCC, the sheer magnitude of this shrine income makes it worthwhile.
It can also be used to buy Aluminium, oil etc. The AI charges a king's ransom for these, but hwen you have 110gpt it doesn't matter how much they charge... Aluminium can be invaluable for a space race.
You don't NEED a shrine, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have one, at least if you plan to do the missionary thing.

[sooooo]

@Uberfish: Ouch! Were you unable to sign a defensive pact? I think your decision to move 1W was interesting. You gained 2 health but lost a potential 4-food tile. Still not sure which is best. Thanks for playing and reporting

@Blake: Yes, I built a shrine too. Keeping a large army with 1 city's upkeep and running pacifism is an expensive business. You got much more money from it that me, probably because I couldn't get open borders with Qin. Could you spread confucianism to Bismarck and Kublai?

@Qwack: Pretty weird that we got the same launch date using vastly different strategies. I would never have thought that cottages could keep up with specialists for a philosophical civ.

@Voice of unreason: Thanks for trying. You seem to have a sound idea in terms of strategy. Maybe you're not making the scientists quick enough? I was rarely working any mines in my game, instead keeping about 5-6 specialists pre-biology/medicine. I was moving all the specialists over to mines when something important needed to be built - eg Oxford, observatory etc.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

@Voice of unreason: Thanks for trying. You seem to have a sound idea in terms of strategy. Maybe you're not making the scientists quick enough?

Beats the heck out of me. My most recent attempt looked like:

Worker Warrior Archer(s); the warrior slotted in because I couldn't quite get Archery done in time, and I can't see defering the Corn. That done, I spam archers to get defenders posted up on the hills, and run Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood Writing. At this point, I'm closing in on the happy limit, so I grab The Wheel to connect the gold.

First scientist Academy Jack is born in 1640.

Code of Laws, then Monarchy follows, with a swap to Monarchy/Caste System following.

Scientist #2 gets iced, and scores philosophy after Math comes in the hard way. Then Alphabet, and backtrade for Poly, Fishing, Pottery, Bronze. Masonry gets researched, then another trade for Monotheism, Sailing, Animal Loving. At that point, the fast way to Paper was through Theology, so I scored a third religion.

I think I got slowed down somewhere in this period, as Education didn't come until 560AD, and slingshot to Constitution in 1150 AD.

I've definitely been lacking on the diplomatic side, as Qin and Mansa persist in making me choose sides.

Another trick it looks like I've been missing is a great work, to score and secure that 5th ring. This last game was the first time I've ever built the Hermitage for tactical reasons.

[Qwack]

The research dates on your last attempt look pretty good. You should try to finish it out.. I think the game is winnable from the position your in.

[Blake]

@Blake: Yes, I built a shrine too. Keeping a large army with 1 city's upkeep and running pacifism is an expensive business. You got much more money from it that me, probably because I couldn't get open borders with Qin. Could you spread confucianism to Bismarck and Kublai?

I had OB with everyone - except Mansa Musa, and he called like every 20 turns to plead pitifully for OB with me.
I spread Conf to every city on the map - including Qin's (despite having his own holy city... they sometimes convert anyway... he didn't). The lukiest bit was having the religion spread naturally to Tokugawa, because otherwise he blocked off most of the western AI's (later in the game Toku offered me a defensive pact :D, I refused to sign any though as to stay out of war).

My allies of choice were Kublai and Caesar, but it turned out that Bizzy was my most staunch ally.

Diplomatically all I really did was give in to every reasonable demand without question, about the only demand I refused was to switch to h.rule - but that was after free-rel when everything had turned to mud, it was like previous conf-buddies started hating each other. I just stopped trading altogether except for buying the industrialism line from Bizzy. Oh I also made sure to have resource trades going to everyone I could, to get those bonuses. Also if one of my conf allies demanded I declare war on Mansa Musa, I would've done so, but as it were they never did so I went through the game without war.


Regarding Cottages vs Farms...
Great People have diminishing returns, I think you'd probably gain nearly the full benefit from GP's running only about 6 scientists. A town is after all worth more than a settled great scientist.