Weekend OCC

[sooooo]

Unless Sirian objects, here's just a little something-for-the-weekend in case people have finished their epic 8 reports:

Civ: Russia, Peter
Version: Civ 1.61
Map: Pangaea, standard size, high sea level, rocky climate, natural shoreline
Difficulty: Monarch
Extras: One City Challenge is checked. No permenant alliances.
Speed: Normal
AIs: Random, default number
Victory: All enabled, but players must aim for a spaceship launch.

Variant rule: No great wonders are to be built. National wonders are OK.



Post in this thread with your launch date and the strategy you followed. Hell, feel free to put a write-up on your personal website if you want.

It shouldn't take too long with just one city and normal speed. No closing date. Just don't read any spoilers in this thread if you haven't finished the game.

Download the start here

[Qwack]

Ill try this out. Believe it or not, I havent played a game with the OCC option checked, although I have played a OCC, but it just wasnt official . Is there any real difference other than unlimited national wonders? Btw, if there no due date, why is it called weekend OCC?

[Kodii]

I'll play

[Qwack]

Complete. Nice little quick 3 hour game. Its nice to have a short game like this once in a while. OCC is pretty interesting.

Ill have a mini-report up later, but basic highlights.


CS in 825 BC regular research obviously
Convert everyone on "right" side to confucian except tokugawa.
World war in around 1500, tokugawa eliminated
victory in 1971
Victory delayed because NOBODY connected thier health resources :mad:, so capital was stuck around size 13 for way too long.

[Qwack]

Minireport:

Founded on spot. Since we arent allowed to build wonders, No representation early and no CS slingshot, I decided to beeline to CS the regular way. Initial tech path = Agriculture, Masonry from hut, Wheel, Pottery, Archery, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, CoL. My initial build was 2 workers straight at size 1. I emphasized alot of research and cottage spammed at the start. With Tokugawa nearby, I decided archery would be necesarry for now. Tokugawa founded buddhism in my game in 3360 BC(Mysticism from hut I assume). I completed my CS beeline in 825 BC, heres my capital at that point.



I started spreading confucianism to Musa, JC and qin, hoping to get them to convert so I can use them as a shield against Toku. After CS, my tech path was Alphabet -> Drama for Globe theatre. By 625 BC, I converted most of the people. After Drama, went Theology to make sure one of my friends doesnt found a religion. It didnt help as Qin lightbulbs philosophy and founds Taoism. Globe theatre in 200 BC finished happiness concerns. Health was the real problem this game. Capital in 350 AD, basically the size it stayed around until way late game:



I tried getting some Great merchants for thier +1 food, but globe + national epic killed my genepool. I think I got 6-7 worthless artists in the game... Meet remaining civs Kublai and bismarck around 500 AD. Luckily they werent same rreligion as toku. Qin and Musa were worst enemies in this game even with same religion. This was really annoying and almost messed up my game at hte end, check this out...



I finally get my first health resource in 800 AD, fish from Musa. This allowed me to grow to size 13. Liberalism in 1110 AD. use it to take astronomy, which was most expensive tech. Qin converted to Taoist every 10 turns, I converted him back each time for some gold. I get my second helath resource, again from Musa, in 1280 AD. Size 14... \



Qin beats me to economics by 1 turn in 1280 AD. AGH, thats 1 food :mad: .I finally get constitution for useful representation in 1420. Heres capital with representation now running at size 14: Around same time, war horns sound and scare the living **** out of me. But Toku declares on JC. JC comes to me in 1460 to declare on toku, I agree. I bribe all my good friends to declare on heathen tokugawa.



I forgot to mention everyone was my friend? Scientific method in 1545 hurts my research because obsoleted monastaries. Third health resource from Qin in 1685 was rice, atleast this one is +2 health... I was kissing everyone's ass, so whenever someone asked for help, I gave them the tech. By 1720 I finally had enough health to support max size. Heres capital:



End-game, beelined to computers first for lab. Traded for some backwards tech's like steel for ironworks. Than Apollo and basically finished off the game in 1971. We were missing coal and iron so I had to trade alot of stuff for those, but luckily we had 2 aluminum which helped out. Heres the closest screen I took of end-game capital..



Note: I ran caste system for this whole game.

[uberfish]

My base strategy: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185305

I'm modifying things to take account of no world wonders, but the main strategic concept of focusing on GS/GE generation, settling them all and delaying the Globe Theatre and other artist producing buildings (national epic is OK) until late remains the same. Fortunately the start position is extremely strong, which makes up for not being able to get wonder GPP. Running a heavy specialist economy is however going to be necessary which means early Caste System. Without pyramids, I will be racing to constitution quickly, and without Broadway/R&R to supply trading resources, biology and medicine are probably going to be of high priority too.

I decided to move 1W because of the large amount of forest visible and the gain of an extra river tile, and was overall happy with the decision despite losing bronze as I was able to get 10 forests in the city radius this way and had earlier Ivory. I built only one cottage, on a river grassland.


early research:

Agriculture, wheel, BW (looking for military resource), pottery, writing
Mysticism, Poly, Priesthood, Monarchy (HR), CoL, CS (Caste + Bureau and extra food from the corn, reached in 525 BC)
then Literature, Philosophy (50 BC)

Lost 2 axes and 2 workers to a barbarian axe (don't ask) but it didn't set me back that much.

In 250 AD National epic was completed, and having converted Toku and Caesar to Confucianism I converted too in order to run Pacifism.

I was attacked by Toku in 500 AD despite the shared religion anyway, but was able to repel him with Macemen. Qin also jumped into the war in 700 AD, at which point I bought in Kublai against Toku and Mansa against Qin. Toku gave up and signed peace.

Reached liberalism in 1040 AD, taking constitution as planned. The fighting delayed me a lot, but I was able to sign peace with both my enemies and get Oxford up in 1190. I went to free religion at this time too to try and avert more attacks, and added free market when I researched economics (getting the free merchant.)

AI tech pace wasn't very fast due to all the warring, so I had to research a lot more techs myself than normal, reaching biology in 1480. I decided to go up to medicine this game as there weren't sufficient health resources around.

Caesar declared war on me for no apparent reason at this time, but my grenadiers razed his two closest cities to claim resources. In the meantime Qin reached cavalry, declared on MM and took 3 cities from him. I bribed Qin to make peace to try and stop him becoming too large but the damage was done.

Built red cross and globe theatre at this point.

Reached computers in 1780 with a size 18 city, and Toku declared on me again. I decided to sack his nearest city but lost a few units in doing so, which may have been fatal as Qin and Kublai declared on me the turn after. I didn't see Kublai's forces yet but Qin had 20+ cavalry and cannons. I lost two more rifles trying to pick off loose cavs at 80% odds and could see the writing on the wall. I reached assembly line and upgraded my remaining troops to Infantry just as Qin's SoD reached Moscow, but was promptly destroyed by collateral damage as expected.

Conquest loss in 1822, game took about 2 hours. I don't think I've ever been declared on so many times in a game of civ4 before, and mostly from Pleased relations too. Most of my OCC games are peaceful. In retrospect, it was a clear mistake to go for computers before assembly line facing this level of AI aggression so I have no hard feelings about the loss. Think I had the space race pretty much sewn up if not for the timing of this last attack.

Thanks for the scenario, OCCs are always fun.

[Blake]

Decided to play this one despite not finishing my Epic 8 report.

My strategy was basically this:
1) Get a religion to befriend everyone. This religion was Conf, I built the shrine. I pumped out missionaries and converted everyone except Mansa Musa and Qin.
2) Beeline to Philosophy, to max GPP. At this point I'm focusing on GS.
3) Beeline to Education then Liberalism, using it to pick up Astronomy.
4) Beeline to Steel to build ironworks, to maximize Great Engineers. At this point I got National Epic since the GA points were very diluted.
5) Beeline to Medicine (after Physics) to maximize Food and Health (+8 health from that tech, w00!). At this point I sacrificed my flatland forests for farms (previously I kept forests for health). I also built Globe Theatre since the GA points were VERY diluted.
6) Beeline to Computers for obvious reasons.


In 1785 the first war was declared - Qin vs Mansa Musa. So I wouldn't even have "Join the war" whines.

When trading for SteamPower, I waited until an AI had coal. Once an aI did I then traded for Steampower and Railroad. Turned out I had coal (not connected) so I begged for Bizzy's spare coal and he gave it to me (since we were at Gay Lovers relationship level).

Random Trivia:
I generated 1 unwanted artist and 1 unwanted prophet (I wanted the first one) and 1 unwanted Merchant, altough that guy I used to start a GA with fusion engineer. Since I was culturally cramped at the end, the Artist might actually have helped.

To speed the space race I ran scientists (neglecting mines/lumbermills) if production was ahead of research. To speed the final part I used a GA and chopped all my forests.

Space Victory in 1970AD.

From a few turns before victory (before GA and final engineer settled):


My total yield from settled Great People alone (no Rep bonus):
60b
22h
8g

I believe this comes to:
1 Prophet : 2h 5g
1 Artist : 3g
4 Great Engineers: 12h 12b
8 Great Scientists: 8h 48b

I used 1 GS on Academy, 1 Prophet on a Shrine, used 2 GP's on a GA and settled a final engineer after that SS was taken.
Total Great People generated = 19. 2 of those were from techs.

I always like OCC's.

I think I may have focused too heavily on Great Engineers, altough they have great stats I ended up with too much production, that means higher science (GS's) might've proved more useful.

[Qwack]

Interesting. We came up with similiar finish date but looks like you focused more on specialist for research and I focused on cottages. The thing im surprised about is your culture borders with JC.

Settled scientists/engineers are pretty strong. I think one thing from both your and Uberfish's game I learned is I built national epic and globe theatre too early, screwing up my whole genepool. I would have had enough happiness in my game with heriditary rule without globe.

[sooooo]

Settled on the spot, popping a scout from the hut. Started researching agriculture and built a worker. Then wheel, pottery, bronze working, writing, alphabet. Built 2 warriors, a barracks, axeman, library then straight axes/spears for a long time. I basically followed the specialist strategy of merging as many scientists as possible. Once the library was built I had 2 scientists going until I could get caste system. I farmed all the floodplains and corn and mined the gold.

Then I traded for some of the religious techs and went for monarchy. With no early representation, we can use HR for our hapiness problems instead of the globe theatre, thereby preventing artist dilution. First scientist appeared in 1720 BC and built an academy. I think my next 6 GPs were scientists too, and they were all merged.

Qin was the early runaway points leader. He had founded buddhism, gotten the most cities out early and built oracle and parthenon. Hinduism found founded by Kublai, but we couldn't meet him or Bismarck until later because of a chokepoint occupied by Japan (no open borders with that guy!). Eventually I was able to meet Bismarck via roman lands and Toku converted to Hinduism, letting a mongol scout through to meet me.

After monarchy, it was a straight bee-line to civil service. I founded confucianism and build a monastery and some missionaries. I Converted Caesar and was sending missionaries to Mansa when Qin declared on Mansa in 500 BC. That's despite them both sharing buddhism. That guy is such a slimy backstabber! Anyway, I managed to convert Mansa to confucianism, and when he asked me for help in his war I agreed. I wanted to get someone up to 10 XP to build the heroic epic. However, I picked the wrong team because Qin captured a malinese city with elephants. I had to pay off Qin to stop hurting Mansa any more. This would become a regular occurence. Qin declared on Mansa two more times, each time I had to give him some techs to ease off the poor guy. He captured 1 more malinese city, this time the jewish holy city.

Civil service was discovered in 400 BC. I went literature, then philosophy, founding Taoism. This let me (a) hire another priest from the temple, (b) get another 10% research for the monastery and © convert to pacifism. After trading for some other stuff like metal casting, calendar, currency etc, I went for paper, then education to get oxford built ASAP. I built the national epic sometime too. It was painful when the pop-up appeared and listed great library as taking 5 turns to build.

In 25 BC:



Tokugawa was getting itchy. He had other things on his hands, and put a stack next to my border. I put some troops onto the gold hill, and sure enough next turn he declared. I had such a massive tech lead on everyone else at this point that I bribed everyone but Qin into the war with Toku. The only civ who had success was Bismarck, and I had to bribe him to get peace later on. Very annoyingly, my 9 XP axeman on a jungle hill lost at 0.6% odds to a catapult. GRR. Eventually I would get up to 10 XP with a spearman, so I could build the HE. The mutual struggle bonus was excellent though, as Kublai, Mansa and JC all got up to friendly. Kublai is a great friend. He's easy to befriend because he doesn't care about religion, and even when pleased will trade when others are worried about WFYABTA.

Qin still hated me though, but his eternal punchbag mansa was distracting him. I got nationalism, then liberalism and took constitution in 980 AD. However, I couldn't go to representation yet because I had yet to build the globe (or even research drama). Once that was out of the way we really were cooking on gas.



Went up to economics for the great merchant, and I also got my first prophet about now despite working 2 priests for ages. He built the confucian shrine, and after grocer, bank, wall street it payed for my pacifism-army.

Then I went to astronomy for the observatory, physics for the free scientist, biology for food and then medicine (switch to environmentalism). Once I had biology and medicine, I farmed over 2 of the 4 forests. I signed a defensive pact with JC, so wasn't too worried about being attacked yet. Therefore I went to computers for the lab before getting infantry.



After that it was fairly standard. I went for the health techs first to compensate for building a factory/coal plant, then sattelites and finally fusion. Triggered a golden age with the final engineer and a saved scientist. I think I could have launched about 10 turns earlier, but I got flight and built a bomber fleet for any chinese shenanigans.

Qin settled down, and didn't declare on Mansa again despite having a massive army. I was thankful for the DP with caesar - I would probably have been the next chinese target if I didn't have that. Kublai declared on Bismarck in the industrial era but fared worse and lost a city to the germans.

Space Launch in 1971.

[Sullla]

Three victorious games so far, with finishing dates of 1971, 1970, and 1971.

Either great minds really do think alike, or Qwack/Blake/sooooo are playing a VERY elaborate trick on us.