Updated

Having played the One City Challenge a few times now I’ve realized that its one of the most exciting ways to play Civ IV, so I decided to write a short article to get people interested.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the One City Challenge (or OCC for short) limits the human player to only one city. The computer players can (and do) build as many cities as they want. Sound hard? Well maybe… The good news is the limits on two national wonders per city are lifted, as are the limits on wonders that require a certain number of building as prerequisites (except monasteries for some reason).

Starting The Game
To begin a One City Challenge game you need to go to the custom game menu and check the box marked One City Challenge. Note: while the descriptive text says one city at a time, this is misleading, its one city forever. You can’t switch cities even if you capture a nice one from a rival, and cities that culture flip automatically get razed. So be sure you start in a good place, because that’s the one and only city you’re going to get!

Maps:
Since resources are spread out more on larger maps, they’re naturally harder to play a OCC game on. If you’re feeling brave, go right ahead, but I usually start on a Tiny Pangaea map with 3 Civs. It guarantees you a few good resources on your start.

Victory Conditions:
It will probably be a good idea to change the normal victory conditions. A culture win is impossible for a human player on an OCC game, so I usually uncheck that box (note to Firaxis, might want to change that). Also, I usually uncheck the Time and Diplomatic victories as well, since the AI players can expand, they usually gain more points than the human player with one city can. Update: if you want to play with the Permanent Alliance option on, it allows more variety in an OCC game. Because you are permanently allied with another player, the Cultural victory option becomes available (3 cities with legendary culture) and the Diplomatic and Time victories also become more easily attainable. Its your game, have fun with it.

Civs:
Choose your Civ wisely, because it makes a big difference in this game! As will be mentioned later, health, wonders and great people are key aspects to an OCC game, so I usually pick a Civ with combinations that will help me out in those areas (expansive, philosophical, industrious.) I usually forgo a financial Civ because cottage spamming isn’t really a viable option for this game, you just don’t have the space.

The Early Game
Probably the most important part of the game for an OCC player is the early game, because it determines how many wonders will be built, and how quickly Great People will start accumulating. But before we move into too many aspects of the early game, I’d like to cover the key game elements to winning the OCC game.

Key Game Elements
There are three key areas an OCC player needs to pay attention to in order to become a significant threat to the AI: health, wonders, and great people.

Health: probably the most important aspect to an OCC game, it determines how large your city can grow. In most OCC games, city size is limited only by health (we’ll get into why happiness isn’t a problem later). So be sure you maximize your chances for a healthy city! This means moving next to fresh water (+2 health) if you can, and away from jungles and towards forests. Also, one health resource is probably more important than two or more happiness resources, so if you have a choice, chose the health resources. Of course any resources are good, since you can always trade them away for gold, and sometimes for health resources, but be careful, the AI is stingy! The only exception to this is Flood Plains, they provide enough food to give you some specialists.

Wonders: another very important tool in the OCC arsenal (I’ve always wanted to say that.) Along with their usual benefits, wonders also work at constantly expanding your cultural borders, thereby giving you more territory, and probably more resources. But their most important role is providing the ever important GPP (Great People Points) that keep you ahead of the AI.

Which leads us to great people, that last key element of an OCC game. I use all forms, but generally I find Great Engineers and Great Prophets to be the most important, especially in the early game. Great Scientists are useful for the Academy they give you, and also for discovering techs, while Great Artists keep your borders expanding constantly, allowing you to take over neighboring resources. Occasionally I get a Great Merchant, but since I play on a small map, they’re not too useful, especially in large numbers. Others, however, find them to be incredibly useful, you can read their strategies in later posts.

Starting Location and Resources
Now that we’ve covered some key elements, lets get back to starting our game. To begin with, check out your starting location. Sometimes I keep my settler stationary and explore with my scout to try and find a better area. In an OCC game, its not really what’s in your city radius as what’s just outside of it. Because your culture expands fairly quickly, you generally get access to resources rather fast. But at some point your borders slow down or the AI builds next to you, which means you should start your city with enough resources 6 to 7 squares away in order to ensure early game access to them. Anything outside of that means you’ll have to wait a bit longer for your culture to catch up. So if you have your choice, move closer to health resources and away from happiness ones.

On a related note, I should mention two other resources that are vitally important to the OCC win: marble and stone. Since they increase wonder production, they’re even worth moving away from a health resource to get. Especially if you can get to within 4 or less squares right away. This will allow you to punch a worker out as quickly as possible, by which time your borders will expand enough to envelop the resource, and you can hook it up and start producing wonders.

To end the resource discussion, remember that unless you start on the coast you’ll never be able to produce workboats to get access to sea-based resources (and the health they provide.) Its very frustrating to see your borders expand to the open ocean, and not be able to do anything about it. So if you notice an abundance of water resources, you may want to start on the coast.

Early Game Tech and Production
Since wonders are an important part of an OCC game, I usually beeline for techs that give me wonders. A nice thing about the game is that you don’t have to worry about building any settlers! So while the AI is building theirs, you can be starting your first wonder. Usually I build a warrior until the my city reaches a size two, then I switch to a worker, and then finish the warrior and start my first wonder.

Religion: I generally don’t bother with starting a religion. Usually I let others spread theirs to me so I can switch depending on who I want to please, plus I don’t want to lose turns building the missionaries that make them worth while. Since unhappiness isn’t really a factor in an OCC game (usually,) their only worth is monastaries and gold from shrines. Its up to you if you want to make this part of your game, I think either way can work. Just remember, you only have one city, so you have to justify everything you build!

Ok, so which Techs to research? I usually start with the worker techs, (animal husbandry, agriculture, the wheel, fishing, mining, masonry) since I really want my worker to get out and start hooking up my resources, especially if there’s marble or stone about. Polytheism is also an important tech, because it allows you to build Stonehenge, one of the cheapest wonders. You should also go for Priesthood, to build the Oracle, and Masonry, which allows you to build the Pyramids. After that, you may want to research a few militaristic techs in order to be able to produce something other than Warriors, because barbarians are going to become a problem about this time.

Now, which wonder do you build first? This is actually a hard question. If you build the Pyramids first, your first GP (Great Person) is going to be an engineer, who can rush your second wonder. If you build Stonehenge, it will be a Great Prophet, who provides a substantial gold and hammer boost. I usually chose Stonehenge because it’s the cheapest, and the Great Prophet is amazing. Turn them into a super specialists right away, they provide a production boost and start your treasury going. Then I usually build the Oracle for the free tech, and then the Parthenon, for the GP boost. I’ll try the Pyramids if nobody has gotten to them yet.

The Rest of the Game
This part is rather vague, since I can’t really cover how every game will go. But I will note a few things for you to watch out for.

First, stay current in your military, and keep building units! You may feel safe seeing six units inside your city, but really you’re not! Trust me, you’ll always need more. I usually keep a line of defense along my borders on hills and in forests to keep barbarians and other civ’s out. Pillaging can kill an OCC city, so don’t let the enemy get too close. Also, you need more units than you think. The AI can arrive quickly with a stack that will demolish your city garrison in a heartbeat. Its better to meet them out in the field by playing a defensive game in the forest and on hills. I usually have my worker (I usually only produce one a game) build roads when they have nothing to do. It allows me to get my units out from my city quickly, and attack and withdraw in the same move if need be.

You don’t need to build every wonder! Ok, that sounds funny, but I’ve come close. But some wonders just won’t do anything at all for you, so use that time to build military units instead, or produce research if you can. Stay away from maintenance wonders and buildings, which means Versailles and a courthouse, there’s no need. You can also forgo ones like Notre Dame, the Spiral Minaret and the Sistine Chapel.

So what wonders are important? Probably one of the most important national wonders is the Globe Theater. It eliminates all unhappiness in the city its built in. And hey, you only have one city! If only there was a building like that for health… Since its very important, its often worth it to make a beeline for Theater if you're having problems with happiness. It means you can be at war without worrying about war wariness, and you can also grow as large as you like. It also allows you to trade away your happiness resources for health ones if you can (which is why health resources are more important, once you build the Globe Theater you don’t need the happiness ones anymore.) However, be aware that some happiness resources can provide health in connection with some buildings later in the game, so check which ones you’ve traded, and get them back later if you need to.

Other wonders which do a lot of good are the Great Library, The Hanging Gardens and The Parthenon. I generally stay away from wonders which provide small but valuable bonuses across an empire, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Sistine Chapel, the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Lighthouse. It’s a hard choice because you only have one city, so it may not be worth it. But if you have the time, have a good amount of military units etc., you may want to go for it, because the bonuses are good, even though small.

You may face a problem with happiness in the early/mid game stage. It usually comes at the point at which you’ve exhausted your happiness resources, but haven’t yet been able to build the Globe Theater. A solution to this is researching Monarchy and switching to the Hereditary Rule civic. It gives you +1 happiness per military unit in the city, which means anytime you have an unhappiness problem, just build another unit. Since you always need another unit, this is a good thing. A quick way to get this there is to build the Oracle and use the free tech for Monarchy. Since its usually worth the most beakers, this makes sense anyways, plus you get the added bonus of the civic.

Don’t neglect your health techs: they’re very important, so make time for researching them. This means Pottery, (for granaries) Mathematics, (for Aqueducts, and the Hanging Gardens if you can) and Guilds (for Grocers).

Use your Great Artists for Culture Bombs: it may seem like a lost cause, but its not, you’ll notice your borders moving slowly but surely. Sometimes its even fun, because culture flipped cities automatically raze themselves, so its like watching a blast radiating outwards from your capital in slow motion. Coupled with the culture of your wonders, you can get access to resources three or even 4 squares into your neighbors territory.

Bureaucracy: ahh, the most wonderful of civics. Really, its amazing. Head for Civil Service quickly and pick it up. The +50% boost in production and gold is worth staying with it the rest of the game. Another useful civic is Pacifism, giving you a 100% boost in GP points. I also find Mercantilism to be a somewhat useful tech as well, along with Representation, which provides a nice boost to your science levels.

So there you have it, that’s all I can think of right now. If I have any more I’ll add it later. I hope you enjoy your OCC game.

Greencardman

P.S. Please let me know if you notice any errors, and I’ll correct them.

Thanks guys, I've made those changes. I guess I read the patch info wrong, Mercantilism only gives two specialists to a size 1 city? Still haven't quite figured it out, because even though the patch changed things, the descriptions in the game have stayed the same.

I also find Mercantilism to be a somewhat useful tech as well, (it gives two specialists with the patch, not just one)
I have the patch, and was just playing on Mercantilism and it only gives one specialist still. Maybe you were counting the Statue of Liberty?

"If you don’t build the Globe Theater before the AI, well then I don’t know what you’ll do. Sorry, you’re screwed. Kidding! But I’ve never had that happen, so I assume you’ll try keep your happiness up with temples and other buildings."


I think globe theater is a national wonder. You always get one of your own. Could be mistaken.

I think globe theater is a national wonder. You always get one of your own. Could be mistaken.
You are correct (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/wonders/smallwonders.php).

Good advice, especially on the cottages. I'll incorporate some of this into my own strategies.

Er, how do you win? Space race? Razing all of the AIs cities?

Well the three possible ways to win on OCC are
1. Space (quite reasonable as you have a super city)
2. Conquest (also reasonable but Only if on a Pangea/Land map or you have a coastal start)
3. Diplomatic (Hard as population determines your votes...have to be Real friendly to AIs)

Domination Might be possible if you form Permanent Alliances (is that possible with OCC?)
Culture is impossible (Unless you have a Permanent Ally that has 3 of their OWN Legendary cities..so you really can't herlp them with your own culture)

Has anyone gotten an OCC Diplo win? I would like to know how they did it...

Okay, I just did it. Small map, noble, regular opponents (4 others), on a "balanced" map.

I was just goofing around with an old save of this OCC. The first time around, I built cottages (which I still think is very important early game to get some science going). After thinking about it more (and reading various articles on OCC), I went back numerous years to raze my towns/watermills for farms, just to see what it's like. Bam! It was huge. The extra farms totally overame unhealthiness (I was running at like -12 health at some point), and I made it a priority to research health techs this time around. I was generating a lot more GPP, which helped. I see how you can built Modern armor in 1 turn ;)

Anyway, replaying these turns, the AI started some wars with my friends, as well as me. I waited longer to build the UN (since going for more health stuff), so I could afford to go to war. I know from my first time around, the reason that I could NOT get a diplo win was because one of my AI friends became 2nd person running for Diplo win, and thus there's no way I could muster enough votes from everyone else (since some were "enemies").

Anyway, this time around, since I'm going to war, I tried my best to keep my friend slightly behind the other person running for Diplo win. Montezuma had a lead on population along with his friend (about ~180 vs. my ~170 with friends), he ended up as Secretary a couple of times. Nonetheless, I kept pounding on his friend to reduce the number of votes. My friends Caesar and Catherine definitely voted for me everytime (and I still couldn't get Secretary General, so you can imagine how much Montezuma and the Incan dude were ahead in pop).

Luckily, my tech was huge, and eventually me and Julius were making good headway on the Incans. By this time, I was Secretary General, and I kept asking for Diplo win. I'm always just a bit off. The first time: 15 votes off, then 10. Then Caesar finished off the Incans, grabbing one of their towns. Voting: I was 5 away. Soooo close.

I decided to rely on myself, and built more health stuff, and trying to raise my population. I also needed more votes from Catherine (Montezuma did a number on her a while back), so I gifted a total of 7 workers (all of my workers), in hopes of her building more farms.

Monty then declared on me. Thankfully, I had Modern Armor and Stealth Bombers, and he only had Tanks. He brought a ton of guys in my border, but I took all of those units out in a turn. Voting: 3 off. This is a good opportunity to to kill a small town to try to garner the votes (I don't want to kill a big town, since then Julius would be in the running. He and Monty were about 9 pop off).

I took a town without fanfare, then voting: 1 off. 1!!!!!!

I was fairly frantic at this point. I was going to make a couple of workers, but saw that I was only 3 turns off from getting a new pop point, and figured voting would come soon. So I just made some bombers.

Then it came: Voting. *crosses fingers*, and POW! 191 votes of 191 required!!! And, that last pop point came on the same turn, so that was pretty much the deciding factor!

Damn, that took FOREVER.


So, lesson in diplo win with OCC:
1. First off, definitely play friendly with everyone. I was going to try to persuade the Incans, but halfway through, i figured I couldn't count on them.
2. Getting a religion early is important, so that others covert to your religion (and you'd want multiple civs on the same religion. I even tried to get more religion, so that other civs won't found the own and change - Catherine eventually founded Islam, but stuck with my Hinduism).
3. Next, is to assess your competition. With only 1 city, you'll get ~30 votes max. So, it's important to see who are going to vote for you, and maintain their friendship.
4. Keeping the right competition. You don't want civs who would otherwise vote for you to start running for UN themselves. Basically, you want a mutual enemy occupying the 2nd spot.
5. Gain and limit votes: Kill off the weak civs who are not voting for you. Reducing the total votes needed is a big help. Help your friendly civs win wars, and think about just weakening a city so your friends can take the extra pop points. But having a smaller pool helps.

And that's how I did it. Took a LONG time, but finally get the idea on how it IS possible, albeit very hard, but very rewarding.

(Looking back, Monty and Inca weren't on my side earlier on because they were of a different religion early on. Perhaps if I got them on my side earlier, it may have been easier. But I'm sure the AI would've found some reason to start wars, etc., thus having 2 strong allies was as much as I could've asked for.).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it really possible to build a Globe Theater in an OCC? If this is possible, then it is a differnt rule to the standard game, where you need 5 Theaters.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it really possible to build a Globe Theater in an OCC? If this is possible, then it is a differnt rule to the standard game, where you need 5 Theaters.

One of the first things mentioned in the guide is the "build x of building y to build this Wonder" rule is gone (except for the Monastaries needed for the Religion quasi-superbuilding that isn't made by the Great Prophet) in a OCC.

Carefully planning your Oracle building at the precise moment that researching Civil Service is quite nice thing to do. Usually when beelining to CS it has research time of some 80+ turns so it's quite a saving.

OCC sure is different form a normal game. In a good way, I definately enjoyed it (Standard map, 6 civs, Peter of the Ruskies). I was 3 votes away from a Diplo win at one point, I only had 25 votes and nuked the French the turn the vote came up as with 2 medium sized civs not voting for me had me out of range by 20ish votes ;( Being landlocked I couldn't get troops across to their continent to raze their population and win by Diplo. I ended up winning in 2042 Spacerace...on Chieftan! I really thought I was rocking but as things started getting further and further into Industrial Era the larger size civs were catching up fast in the Reasearch Race.

Although, I had gotten a TON of Great People (total > 3950/4200 another due in 2 turns before end of game). Most of them got settled as super specialists to boost production, with my civic choices Moscow was at 74 base production and cranking out 222 hammers a turn! 507 beakers at 100% research! 1212 Culture at 0%! All while pumping out 246 gold into my vaults per turn, only had one shrine I just wanted my main religion spreading as I couldn't afford to devote much time pumping out Missionaries. Ended up with 184,433 Culture.

Lessons learned don't get land locked...find the coast and settle on it, so you can send units across the oceans, or you lose many choices on controlling the game, I spent a ton of turns trying to get my best friend Hattie to do some damage to the French and 2nd place UN goon Cyrus even though he was friendly to me. In the hopes to boost my votes by reassigning or stiffling their populations :) I gave her soo many free techs and cash for upgrading units but still with 5 Infantryman in her cities she let Napoleon pillage her countryside with Knights...instead of going on the offensive and hitting him hard with superior units. So be friendly to all the AI's if you're going for a diplo win especially if you are land locked! I was friendly with 4 out of 5 and it wasn't enough! I guess if I'd built up 2-3 more nukes I could have just barely snuck in a Diplo win by reducing Napoleon's population just that little bit extra to give me those 3 extra points I needed.

Even on Chieftain this is a tough fun game...of course the beginning was easy and I got all 7 religions which significantly improved my start, I can't imagine doing an OCC above Noble...I'm going to try another one at Noble but I have a feeling I'm not going to do very well.

Thanks for all the oringinal tips they came in very useful. GPP is what this an OCC seems to be all about, at least in Civ4. I was pretty much stuck at 24-25 population with no more food to support a larger population. I could have reassinged some tiles to food but you really need high the high production too. Definately worth trying to get Great Merchants for the bonus food they provide as super specialists imo.

This thread has inspired me to try a OCC.
Small map, continents, 5 civs, Noble, English. I have made some gross blunders so far but some things have gone well and a space race victory seems possible rather than likely. Managed to grab The Great Pyramids, The Parthenon and the Taj Mahal. Health in the mid game has been a significant problem, too many cottages and not enough farms seems to be the root cause. In future I would go for an expansive rather than financial civ.
Production power is very, very poor but gold has been good and has given me a vital edge in research. The plan for the end game is to get satallites and start building the Apollo Program, whilst under construction I will beeline for computers (free engineer) and the onto robotics (space elevator). The engineer can then finish the very expensive elevator in 1. At that point it becomes an all out race. As soon as I have all the techs for the SS then research will fall to zero, in doing so I hope to accumulate lots of gold to rush SS partswhen needed. It's going to be tough but this has been a cool challenge. It's also a lot less tedious than managing lots of cities. The simplicity of having only one city adds to the fun and increases the challenge.

One of the first things mentioned in the guide is the "build x of building y to build this Wonder" rule is gone (except for the Monastaries needed for the Religion quasi-superbuilding that isn't made by the Great Prophet) in a OCC.

Another example of "Better read two times before posting that something is missing or incorrect" :blush: Thanks, I have just overlooked it.

Wow, using the Oracle for Civil Service, even I haven't been able to do that. Either you get to Civil Service quickly, or you build the Oracle late. Uusually its the second wonder I build, so its usually reserved for Monarchy.

Great Merchants: not a bad idea for them. I never really get any so I didn't realize they gave food, but that might be a rather useful addition if you're looking to max out on spcialists. Nice catch.
Greencardman

P.S.
I think I have a save somewhere of an OCC victory on Monarch, but I'm not sure, it may have been at an easier setting, but I'll try post it if I can.

Just pulled a Diplomatic win on noble (not too hard, I know). I was very lucky in that my opponent for the votes was the incan guy. I had been refusing him all game; he demanded that I stop trading with X Y and Z just about every turn it seemed like. At any rate, I finally convinced the other three civs still in the game to vote for me.

I actually got two engineers relatively early, and since I didn't have any wonders left that I really needed I settled them. Maybe that was a bad move, but I'm still not sure. I ran Representation through most of the game (go Pyramids!). One thing I didn't realize until it was too late is how good Environmentalism is. Six health is three specialists, which is far better than the extra trade route of Free Market or the extra one specialist of Mercantalism. On a larger map the trade routes are more useful anyways, so Mercantalism isn't that good. Also, Biology was a huge jump forward; prior to that I couldn't grow any more, but afterwards I kept growing until the end of the game.

I was Ghandi, and both traits were useful. I liked being able to switch into Universal Sufferage to rush something and then switch back without losing two turns.

Six health is three specialists,

Actually as a side note, six health is only 2 specialists. For illustration imagine a city of 24 population (sickness)and 18 health (city has 54 food 48 eaten by people 6 by sickness)

with Environmentalism the city now has
24 pop (24 sick, 24 healthy) 48 food eaten out of 54
25 pop (25 sick, 24 healthy) 50 food + 1 sickness eaten out of 54
26 pop (26 sick, 24 healthy) 52 food + 2 sickness eaten out of 54

so the population only went up by 2 (and the city received the maximum possible benefit as it was unhealthy both before and after environmentalism.)

Essentially Environmentalism is like a 'super mercantilism'... it gives you 2 extra specialists instead of one, but
Cons
1. you need happy resources for them
2. it takes time to get them
3. they are high maintenance
Pros
1. You get to keep foreign trade routes

Got my ass kicked.

Playing a OCC on a small map on Noble level. I was attempting a Space race victory. I had saved 2 engineers, the 1st to finish the Apollo Progam quickly (this turned out to be impossible), the 2nd to finish the Space Elevator quickly.

Major Problem
I could not build the Space Elevator, I had researched the necessary tech. However it did not appear in my build options at any time. Anyone know how this could be?

Engineer could not hurry Apollo. Why not?

Cannot rush buy any Spacecraft parts. Why not?

Any help appreciated.

Isn't the space elevator a world wonder? If so, someone could have built it before you. The Apollo Program is a project, not a building. You can't rush projects. I'm not sure, but the spacecraft parts may be projects too.

They are, and can't be rushed. You should probably just settle the engineer in that case. Kind of a waste, but really the best option left.

Space Elevator also needs to be built relatively close to the equator. Not sure what the acceptable distance is, but your city definitely can't be near either of the poles.

Space Elevator also needs to be built relatively close to the equator. Not sure what the acceptable distance is, but your city definitely can't be near either of the poles.

Thanks for that. I had know idea that latitude governed the building of the S.E.

I can now stop pulling my hair out and devise an alternative strategy.;)

is JUST the human set to one city only, or do the other civs get stuck with this as well?

Just you. That's what makes in a challenge.

Thanks oringial poster.. after reading your article I played a few games of OCC and found them to be highly entertaining.

For starters..games take about 3.5 hours. Much better for ppl with limited time.

I have a noob question. how do the forest squares help your health exactly? Can you not build improvements on them? Do you automate your workers or do everything manually?

Beautiful! My first OCC game is completed! Took 5 hours. It turned out too easy on chieftain.
Won a space race in 2001, as this was the only victory option I enabled in the game setup.
No warfare has been carried out during all the course of the game. That was kinda strange. I made deep friendship with three countries, thanks Hinduism. Only the Malinese were hostile towards me throughout the game, but they hadn't guts to declare war, since their longbows and knights just feared my infantry.
So, probably I could have won the Diplo victory. Cathy and Roosey were always "friendly" towards me, and Mao was always "pleased".
And, I completely agree about the Civil Service thingy! In my game, I figured this out by myself, withouth having read this thread!

Rams,
AFAIK, one forest square gives 0,4 health. If you chop your forest, you will lose this benefit. I waited until Replacement Parts tech, and then built lumbermills over these tiles.
I made all improvements manually. If you play for India, one worker will be pretty enough.

Space victory looks impossible at Prince and above with patch 1.09. I was a research monster, 500+ beakers per turn, but lost due to time. Even with 500+ beakers techs like Genetic and Fusion still take 13+ turns. There's just not enough time to research everything needed for the spaceship. How does one do this?

Diplomacy, aggressive tech trading and beelining for techs (trading them out as necessary) usually does the trick for a faster space victory...

Thanks for this guide, I hope to play an OCC shortly. I can already imagine all the super specialists piled up...

speaking of super specialists.. it appears you can only have 6 at a time in your city? after that they replace the oldest one.. is this correct?

speaking of super specialists.. it appears you can only have 6 at a time in your city? after that they replace the oldest one.. is this correct?
You get to keep all super specialists. The rest are just not shown.
I like to note beaucracy gives +50% commerce. That's much much better than +50% gold from banks. Commerce goes into science/culture/wealth sliders. Gold is just hard cash each turn.
Space victory looks impossible at Prince and above with patch 1.09. I was a research monster, 500+ beakers per turn, but lost due to time. Even with 500+ beakers techs like Genetic and Fusion still take 13+ turns. There's just not enough time to research everything needed for the spaceship. How does one do this?
I think you should shoot for at least 700 beakers for prince. There is a post in another thread. If you can't research fast later, use the internet to steal techs.

I find the inability to construct cathedral buildings in OCC quite unfair. Anyway to mod this?

Thanks for the guide. I am playing on emperor, so far so good...

I usually turn off the "Time" victory option when playing an OCC game because of the way score is tabulated. Its unlikely you'll be ahead unless you destroy a lot of your opponent's cities. It also allows you to play for a Space Race victory without worrying about losing on points or running out of research time.

Completed a game in Small Continent/7 Civs/Emperor/Epic level. Moving up a level and play in normal size map - conquest/dominant win only :)

I found OCC quite amazing! If only I could build cathedral buildings...

I found the most import 1st GP is... Great artist. That will give you instant 6000 culture (in Epic) and make your borders go 5 blocks (the max is 6, and you need 75000 cp). This will ensure you have access to all resources (especially health resources) within the radias quickly, plus, avoid the hassle to declare war early on AI just to get that only iron resource you need...

To have to both marble and stone is critical in OCC.

Got my ass kicked.

Major Problem

Engineer could not hurry Apollo. Why not?

Cannot rush buy any Spacecraft parts. Why not?

Any help appreciated.

they are projects and you can not rush projects with engineers.

Completed a game in Small Continent/7 Civs/Emperor/Epic level. Moving up a level and play in normal size map - conquest/dominant win only

64% of land area on OCC? That'll be a neat trick.

On small continet, if play 7 civs, the AI usually only have 4 - 6 cities. The key to success is to play nice with the laggers, but try to slow down the #1 or #2. The keys are to maintain a good navy, and try to pillage the hell out. I literally destroy every single tile around the AI city, so they all go starve.

I usually ally with civs on the same continent with me (by convert them to the same religion), but try to slow down AI on a different continent.

On normal contient though, I don't know if this strategy will work...

I used to do 2 or 3 city challenges, which is still pretty challenging especially if you are playing on a large map. You still have the fun of building a little infrastructure network, along with the self imposed limitation. It may not be as 'hardcore' as one city, but it also gives you some leeway to switch cities around and stuff or maybe capture a good enemy city if you like. You could set this up in all kinds of ways, for example you could start with one home city and allow yourself to capture 2 foreign cities... lots of options :)

OCC is a great!
I hope I can make super cities like that in my next " normal" game :)

One question: why Colonies are gone from Civ4?
I think they were interesting part of former one, while you didn´need to build cities...and you had to defend them quite well aginst the enemy...

The nice thing about Great Merchants (super specialists) is that you can use them to support more regular merchant specialists, which increase your chances of making more, etc... I got a city up to 40 pop doing this (non-OCC game) by the time I got bored around 2000AD. The city had 19 merchant specialists and was making 320 GPP/turn!

Not sure what you'd use all the gold for on a OCC though...

I've tried multiple times on Prince and got kicked by AI's space victory.

I'm trying again, and this time I'm going to beeling to Internet in the later game, because I couldn't research faster enough.

I usually like to cheat when I play OCC. I'll go to the world builder and put resources near my city. I find it's the only way to stay competetive on Prince level (which is what I play normally). The resources combined with not having to worry about expanding allow me to get out to early leads. I feel like the hare against the tortoise though in the late game as I can see the AIs closing in on me. I find that starting a religion is pretty important for the money that it brings in. Because I usually need a pretty big military, it's much easier if I can pay to upgrade my troops.

Most recently I modded Rhye's 18 civ world map to make it a OCC and I'm playing with Germany (I also made Bismarck the leader for the industrial trait). My culture is giving Paris and Rome serious issues. I've had to fight pretty constant wars with France, Rome, the Russians, and the Arabians, sometimes 2 at once, so it's been pretty tough. I just got Riflemen, which is better than anything my enemies have, so it appears the tide may be turning. I plan on winning a Space Race victory, it's the only way I've been able to win OCC games.

I'l have to give this a shot, sounds pretty fun. A couple of things before I get started though.

1) As some asked earlier, can it be modded to allow the construction of the "semi-special" religious buildings?

2) Does war unhappyness effect the AI the same way it effects the player? If it does, I would see no point in every ending a war with a rival civ. Having the Globe Theater in your 1 city would spare you any negatives, while constantly increasing the rivals happyness penalty; effectively crippling thier cities production and growth with unworkable population. I've always been a fan of, "Never give up, never surrender", when it comes to warring, but in the OCC it would seem like a real tactical advantage. 2000 years of war could really piss off your rivals population.

^^ 2. no cuz the AI will do anything to get his happyness up.. trade for happy ressources, civics, happy buildings.


I love OCC!! I learn alot on how to micro manage a city to get its full efficency and all the little nuance on tiles improvement maximization.
For a variety play on OCC, try it with permanent alliance.

*Please note, this is just a startup, not a complete strategy.*

My little OCC startup involves using Saladin as your leader, and the key point is rushing to the Pyramids. It allows you to not only keep up scientifically, but lead on all but the hardest difficulties. Though, like all OCC strategies, victory is hard...

It's also flexible enough to allow you to defend against AIs and Barbarians, (if you choose to put them on).

Also, Saladin is Spiritual, which gives you the added bonus of being able to switch Civics and Religions straight away, which is very handy indeed when dealing with heathens, (you can switch Religions and Civics to mimic them for a bit, to obtain better deals).

You can also adapt this strategy for normal play quite easily.

General Build Queue:

Barracks (while size < 2) -> Worker -> Pyramids (chop rush) -> Barracks -> Walls (if barbarians) -> Warrior/Axeman (while nothing else to build) -> Library -> Research -> Great Library -> National Epic

General Science Queue:

Masonry -> [Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry] AND/OR [Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working (if no copper found)] -> Polytheism -> Writing -> Alphabet -> Literature -> [Priesthood -> Code of Laws -> Civil Service] AND/OR [Meditation -> Drama -> Philosophy] AND/OR [Monotheism]

Desired Early Civics:

Representation -- Bureaucracy -- Slavery -- Decentralisation -- Pacifism

Firstly, I'll set my warrior to explore a bit. Once he's found a few huts, I'll bring him home.

I usually just build on the starting tile. If in a few turns I find it unsuitable, I'll regenerate the map, (generally though, you can make do with what you get).

Once you have the Pyramids, you will start producing great people. Do NOT use the Great Engineers to build wonders quickly, make them all super specialists. The one exception to this is the Great Scientists, make an Academy with your first one.

I would leave religions to your neighbours, eventually, they'll pass one, two or even three on to you. Don't make it your State Religion unless you have a Religious Civic. You could go for Monotheism after Literature to get the building bonus, if you have a religion by that stage. If you don't have a religion, and it doesn't like you will, after literature, go straight for Meditation, Drama and Philosophy.

I like to hold off on religion for aslong as possible, (so I can be close to Free Religion, and can switch to it immediately if my heathen neighbours appear to be gearing up for war against me). So sometimes I'll go Priesthood, Code of Laws, Civil Service after Literature, to get Bureaucracy.

However, I find Pacifism very helpful to this strategy, so I'll usually bite the bullet and adopt a State Religion once I have Philosophy, (or use Taoism if I get it and no one around me has a religion).

Once you get Alphabet, you can build Research, and you can trade Research. I would trade asap for early technologies that are handy, like Pottery.

My next step after all of this would be Liberalism, (pick up Gunpowder if you get the free technology), then Democracy. It depends on how you want to play though ofcourse.

Also, Mercantilism is handy, but having no Foreign Trade Routes with only one city is going to hurt. Free Market isn't far off, so I'd usually go for that.

Good luck!

By Periander and OzAvatar

One question: why Colonies are gone from Civ4?

OCC is the only time I've ever missed the Colonies from CIV III. Wait a minute... what am I saying? I only played Civ III for about three games. I never got the hang of it, never liked it. I played Civ II until the day I got Civ IV.

In short, colonies are gone because they really didn't make sense. If you're in England and you want tobacco, you need to send people to Virginia to grow it. If there are people there, they why wouldn't there be a city there?

I made an experiment today, after reading the last HOF guantlet, so I decided to go for monty on a small pangea, quick speed, noble.
I popped near a coast, so I decided to move the settler and build the city near the clam.
I immediately went for bw, so I started building a worker.
three squares far from me were the germans, four squares Hatty.
I discovered bw, but I had no bronze :|
My city was ner a river and flood plains, so was grewing in a incredible way! I switched to slavery and soon I had three archers that razed berlin before discovering IW.
First surprise: I was totally new to OCC so I was very disappointed to see berlin destroyed, what a beautiful place :|
I kept warring with egipthians, discovered IW: same story of bronze, no iron!
Damn...
Anyway I built two jags and razed Thebe in 2000 BC :)
At that moment I was thinking to achieve the fastest victory ever, with only two opponents, then I noticed that the AI is able to build more cities :D :D :D :D
Damn, I'm n000000000000000000000b!!
Anyway I came to a conquest win in 1500 AD vas louis and mansa with cats and elephants, very funny.
Probably I could have won in 800/900 AD couse I had a totally wrong tech path. I researched the useless priesthood, meditation, feudalism instead of horse riding and construction...

Inspired by this, I started an OCC too.
Noble, Tiny Pangea, Gandhi, 4 other civs.

Not content with simply winning the game(by some military rush method), I wanted to get as much culture generated in the city as possible (to grab as much land as I could).

This I then proceeded to do by founding ALL religions and NOT converting to any of them. This way I generated 5 culture for every religion. Meditation and Polytheism came early enough to stake out quite a bit of land at the early game. I got stonehenge, pyramids, GL and oracle (for Civil service) for early wonders, and built all monasterys (which might have helped research too) I culture-razed 2 cities before AI learnt to keep their distance...Built some more wonders, as well as national wonders for culture too. Sistine chapel helped, as I added quite a few GPs to the city (representation + sistine bonus applies to them). The GPs that add money take care of your upkeep and upgrading needs.

This was a fun game, probably not optimal as I had pretty weak defenses (under 10 units) for 4500 years. It was good to see myself leading in land area around AD500 with my one city compared to enemies 5-6-7.

I guess I cheated by putting 4 other civs on a tiny continent, though.

Victory Conditions:
A culture win is impossible for a human player on an OCC game, so I usually uncheck that box (note to Firaxis, might want to change that). Also, I usually uncheck Time and Diplomatic as well, since the human player on an OCC game is very often low in the points because of limits on population, etc. But the rest are fair game.


I just won a cultural victory in OCC for Gauntlet 7! Yep, you read that right. It is not "impossible" as I once thought--actually quite easy. I finished in 1968 on my first try, so I had plenty of room to spare.

I also came in 3rd place in Gauntlet 4 with Diplomatic OCC, so you should not eliminate that win condition either. Both are very fun ways to play. Please update the original post so we're not steering people away from the fun.

Did firaxis leave this combo out to make the OCC that much more interesting?

I just won a cultural victory in OCC for Gauntlet 7! Yep, you read that right. It is not "impossible" as I once thought--actually quite easy. I finished in 1968 on my first try, so I had plenty of room to spare.


Could you please tell me more about how you won this?
In my game the city went "legendary" around 1910, but I didn't win the game untill I conquered the rest 15 years later.

Don't you always need 3 legendary cities? Or was this a modded game?

It's still Civ IV were talking about?

No mods, no cheating. It's a gauntlet 7 submission. I control 3 legendary cities just like the rules for victory state. I be happy to discuss any strategy tips, but the whole thing can be summed up in two words:
Permanent Alliance.

No mods, no cheating. It's a gauntlet 7 submission. I control 3 legendary cities just like the rules for victory state. I be happy to discuss any strategy tips, but the whole thing can be summed up in two words:
Permanent Alliance.

Heuhyeah. Hmm.

Well, I'm in a game right now, late 1800's, and my city is at around 35000 but my nearest rival is barely 5000.

So, yeah, stategy tips welcome!:rolleyes:

What made the culture win so much fun is how differently you get to play. You know the "long pole" is going to be getting your PA partner cultured. I got to stroll along up the tech tree for a change instead of racing through it. I purposely avoided all religions so the others would found them. I built the pyramids and the Parthenon. I would have skipped Pyramids, but I had a few extra hammers. I avoided all other wonders so the AI would build them. I gave all my tech to the one civ I selected as my eventual partner, so they'd have first shot at most wonders. As soon as I got Liberalism, I gifted it to them and I forced Free Speech on them.

You must get a defensive pact first (at Military Tradition) and then it takes about 50 turns before they'll accept a PA (fascism), so you can't entirely coast up the tech tree. You do have to work it pretty hard, but not like a space race.

Dang, I'm gonna go play an OCC now...

One thing that I found useful in OCC (and other games as well, but particularly) is to send out a worker with a military unit guard and have him chop right outside the AI's borders. I get chopping benefit, steal their trees and keep my trees for the health. This helps me get Stonehenge and Pyramids if i get a good spawn.

Just completed my first OCC game and won a time victory! Ok it was only at cheiftan level, but was still quite a challenge (for me!).

Was aiming for space race, but Monty was out pacing me and I was running 3rd to him and Washington so decided to go all out and kicked his butt. :)

Fortunately Freddie declared on Washington while I was fighting Monty, which dragged his score below mine, and once Monty was rubble, with 3 turns to go I took the lead! Great game and I learned a lot.

Thanks to the OP for a very inspirational thread!:goodjob:

I just tried this strategy, pretty much treating the guide as scripture :). Used the supplied saved game. It is the first time i've even dared look at deity, usually having a hard time actually winning on anything over noble (i know, the shame!).

I got wiped out at one point where i was at war with 4 ppl and then 3 more entered the fray in a single turn (Yikes!) but reloaded that and pretty much just sucked up to the AI till they all went away.

When i'd FINALLY managed to research communism it turns out japan was the friendliest civ with me. They were all plus (probably about 15+ im not sure exactly) with no negatives against me. They formed a defensive pact with me right away but the world map option was red... this concerned me but i kept going. After 20ish turns i looked at Japan and PA was still redded out but it was 'we just dont like you enough', same deal for the World Map!

The only snag (ie. where i didnt follow the guide) is that Japan has a neighbouring border with me... i figured this wouldnt be a real problem since they liked me so much. Does a neighbouring border mean the civ wont form a PA with you?

Apart from that, I quite enjoyed this game :) first time i've had a unit with over 60xp!

OCC is great fun, it's revitalised the game for me!

Has anyone managed to get a ranking better than Ethelred the Unready so far?

Just wanted to bump this thread because OCC is so much fun. It is challenging and with just one city...it is less complex. I'm just about to finish my first OCC game...aiming for conquest.

Got some comments:

1. The problem with conquest victories in OCC is that whenever I raze a city (since its automatic) the other AI comes in a take over that space. What this effectively means is that by eliminating an enemies city you are making another AI stronger. So in my opinion...it is better to start war on an AI that is (relatively) stronger than you. This way...the smaller AI will get that space.

2. Health is so important as the OP said. Unhappiness can be easily managed with hereditary rule and then globe theatre. Health is the key!

3. Build up your military when you can. Germany declared war on me and sent over quite a few troops. Luckily I had some good number of defensive troops.

4. I use Great Artist to get my culture to 75000. After that all my GPs are used as super specialist...except for Engineer. I usually keep one or two of these in my cities for when a wonder needs to be built.

5. Pillage pillage pillage. If you are going to war...you should try and pillage as much as you can. If you don't, another AI will take over the space and get some good bonuses. Plus pillaging increases your gold reserve by quite a bit.

OCC is fantastic. Its not as hard as you think and its not as easy as you think.

OCC definitely helps you in building your city specialisation skill.

I was having a good time on my first OCC game. I ended up the Russians on an 18-player small map, so we are nice and crowded. I have been keeping enough people happy and have been researching deep, so I have many friends and a few enemies, and I have been able to get the various civs to eliminate two of the 18 so far.

I am about 12th of the 16 remaining civs in score, and I have about half the score of the highest civ. I was biding my time until I could bee-line and get cossacks, and then unleash the proud fury that is Russia. It was only then that I found out the bad news:

There are NO horses on this planet!

I wasn't worried about not seeing any horses in my space. I figured I would trade for them eventually when it was time for the cossack rush. But nobody has horses!

Now I'm stuck. I'm on the coast and I have Egypt pushing my cultural boundaries, so I will probably have to go after them first, but without cossacks, I don't have any clear advantage and will probably not be successful eliminating either of their two cities. They are pretty high up in the score and seem to have a lot of friends of their own.

Should I continue? I have defensive pacts with five civs of varying strength. I don't want to attack Egypt, as these will all go away. Egypt is annoyed with me, I believe. Should I just badger Hatsheput (sp?) every turn until she declares war on me, so my defensive pacts will kick in? Should I just hang out and wait for the world wars? Should I hang out and bee-line for the United Nations and go for an end-around to a diplomatic victory?

i tried this one city thing too...i tried it on monarch which is rather a challenge because the comp gets 2 settlers to start(meaning it gets 2 cities and you get 1). but the real deal is whether your near bronze or iron(i wasnt) so the comp came at my archers and longbowman with a variety of interesting units and cut me to bits. on the other hand that could work in your favor..just keep loading until you get metal and attack the civs that dont early on..seems kinda like a luck thing to me.

i noticed another thing about OCC..i was playing on monarch as i said..and getting wiped out very nicely i might add..even though i had by far the best city in the game..then i noticed something...the AI was fanning out all over. and i got crushed militarily so i resigned and saw the replay..the AI had LOTS OF CITIES!!! HAHA..its only YOU that can have one it appears. OCC is good if your doing pvp or feeling very masochistic it would appear.

Wow, just played by first game of OCC, was really fun. I'm kinda a noob at this game ; ; played pangea/epic/cheiftan and loss ; ;

Problem was that I became best buds with Ghandi and he grew too big and finished the Space Ship 4 turns before I did.

Any tips to cranking out more beakers? I was only able to hit 300(then Ghandi-the UN leader- decided to change the civics which raped by science down to 230).

ppl have done occ on diety and won, theres a strategy out there somewhere. The secret is the permanent alliance. Pick an AI tha you think will succeed (adjust partner if necessary), and be friendly to him, then get a defensive pact or mutual struggle and rush for a permanent alliance. then pray that the ai you picked wins (then you win as well). I did this on emperor and won!!! (A downside is that the AI's do this amongst themselves, so make sure your partner doesn't permanent alliance with someone else!)

Hello,

I decided to submit my saved game after the Diplomatic Victory in 1992.
I know it's chieftain difficulty, but maybe it will help someone, or inspire another one.
In my opinion OCC games are briliant.

Here are some facts:

Diff: Chieftain
Map: Pangaea
Size: Duel
Climate: Temperate
S.Era: Ancient
G.Speed: Epic

Victory: Diplomatic
Civ: India

At first I found all religions, adopted buddhism, spread to other civ, thus they adopted buddhism. Built most of the wonder, skipping those witch were unprofitable in one way or another. In the middle of the game I was still trailing by points, but then two of the strongest civs started a war between each other and their score suddenly stopped increasing.Interstingly all of the 3 civ were pleased or friendly to me.Scientifically I was far ahead(by 5 or 6 techs). As it was told in this thread that civ health is vital for growth, so I took it into consideration this time(somehow health didn't get my attention in previous games ;/ ).Culture ofthe city fenomenal (in my playing history :) ) city finished with 288774 culture points(1336/turn).Raized 5-6 cities with my city boundaries. Research-581 green bottles(I forgot english word for it :D ) per turn.
Time spent playing: 2h 2mins.
It's a lot of fun. U can concentrate on one city, and perfect it.
For those who haven't tried it-believe me-ought to try.You won't be disapointed(maybe).
Have fun [;

P.S. Just finished Tiny pangaea map with two civs.Lost diplomaticly ;/
Though I built UN, one of the civs had enormous territory, because I destroyed other civ.

127057

Hey All
Thanks for the great feedback. I've updated the original post so that people reading it for the first time will have the corrections people have mentioned in the later replies. Again, I hope you all are enjoying the OCC. I haven't been around for a long time: school and Civ4 don't exactly mix well, but I'm glad to see people are having fun.

Greencardman

I've finally begun an OCC - been planning to do it since before Civ III came out - and it's a blast!

I'm playing at Noble difficulty, albeit I used Worldbuilder to build up my starting area considerably - my first OCC and I'm also fairly new to Noble (although my current Marathon game looks to be a huuuge runaway). This is a quick game.

Cossacks are cool. Tanks, Mechanized Infantry and Helicopter Gunships with Bomber and Fighter support are cooler. Both my main neighbours (Napoleon and Genghis) are coming after me hard, to stop me from building a spaceship. Montezuma was quite reasonable about coming in on my side. It's going to be a tight race to alternate military builds and spaceship parts and beat the deadline.

Hello, this is my first time here after some lurking.

I have been playing alot of civ4 OCC. So much so that I cant play a normal game anymore :eek:

Well, I just had my most exciting OCC game. After winning a few on noble against about 4/5 civs, I thought Id crank up the difficulty. Even though I lost by 12 turns!!!! it was rather exciting.
Map: Pangea, standard
Difficulty: Prince
Leader: Saladin
9 other civs, chosen randomly (china (moa), mongols, spanish, incas, german (fred), english (vicky), malinese, romans, aztecs)

I managed to make an early game rush to the pyramids, stonehenge and the parthanon. The oracle wasnt available when I got preisthood (damn fast civs). I had borders with the mongols and germans. Early on in the game monte of the aztecs decided he didnt like me and tried it on. I managed to hold him off and eventually made peace with him.

All was going along smothly. The mongols had destroyed the chinese and I noticed the neighbouring germans were the only race that were technologically a threat. A quick bit of trading with the mongols and got them to go to war with the germans, to try to slow them down a bit.

The mongol empire was constantly the biggest (just how big I didnt know at this point, but had the biggest score by about 500) but he always seemed behind in tech, so I used him as a war mongerer for me. Things were generally quite good, with me being ahead in tech most the time. I think some other petty wars were going on. I only had 1 religion, but it was the same as the germans, so it kept them from going to war with me (as they had to get through me to get to the mongols, who they were at war with alot).

Fast forward a bit (quite a bit), and I notice mali has done its usual thing of just sitting around being clever, and were the first to build an appolo program. I couldnt have this, so negotiations were made with spain and the romans for open borders (as the malinese were all the way over the other side of the map, and I couldnt build boats). I discovered he had 1 city just the other side of the mongols, which I razed asap, then trecked over the continenet and started stiring up some **** by piligaing as much as I could. He only had 4 cities, but still managed to be be very tech (the mongols had about 20 citys by this point). The mongols were just wondering around generally annoyed with everyone except me, at war with the germans and spanish at the same time.

I then lost borders with the spanish (I think izzy had one of her hissy fits) so declared war with them. I didnt have many units spare to did as much as I could before I lost the units I had around there. This is where the mongolian power came into view. They defeated the germans, followed by the spanish, then the romans, then the malinese as a favor to me (they even did it for free), aswell as going to war with the english for a bit. As mali had got itself back on track I declared war on them again (after some peace to regroup). Unfortunatly this brought the english against me (werent that pleased with me anyway). The incas were now starting to catch up and overtake in the space race (as were the mongols, but slowly as they lacked a few key techs), while being at war with the english.

The war with the english really hurt, as they had a city with 6 bombers on my borders and were really doing some damage to my improvements. My forces were a little thin and attempts to destroy the city were in vain. I managed to get the internet built in the middle of the war which really helped. As vickys space was pretty lagging I decided to declare peace for some advanced tech so I could get on with the spaceship. Then it just became a drag race, and I eventually finished only 12 turns behind the incas who took a space race victory!

My city never made it past size 17 (was 13 by the end) due to having limits on food (had 5 lake tiles around the city) rather than health.
Wonders I had (order they were built): Pyramids, Stonehenge, Parthanon, Hanging Gardens, Great Library, internet. Incas managed to grab the space ladder which I think was the biggest problem.

Being spritual saved me alot of trouble changing civics. Had I had more religions it would have helped alot in diplomacy too. But then theres next time.

Sorry if its too long. I thought it was rather excitign and wanted to share it.

I can't seem to find an industrious/philisophical civ. Are there any?

no there arnt, firaxis judged tthe greatpeople points would make the civ too powerful

The Next Level Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147161) has two Industrial/Philosophical leaders:

P.M. Menzies of Australia (Mining and Agriculture)
King Solomon of Israel (The Wheel and Mysticism)

I like King Solomon for Wonder heavy OCC games. The starting traits help get early wonders and early religions.

I noticed the neighbouring germans were the only race that were technologically a threat.

Am i the only one who's a little uneasy about seeing german and race in the same sentence? :nono:

A quick bit of trading with the mongols and got them to go to war with the germans, to try to slow them down a bit.

Yes, when the Germans start refering to themselves as a race, it's time to act before it's too late! :goodjob:

The Next Level Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147161) has two Industrial/Philosophical leaders:

P.M. Menzies of Australia (Mining and Agriculture)
King Solomon of Israel (The Wheel and Mysticism)

I like King Solomon for Wonder heavy OCC games. The starting traits help get early wonders and early religions.

I think Firaxis was right to leave out this combo because it's too powerful. One more example of the general tendency of mods to be grossely unbalanced, and a good reason not to download them.

I think Firaxis was right to leave out this combo because it's too powerful. One more example of the general tendency of mods to be grossely unbalanced, and a good reason not to download them.

Oh, go ahead and download them. We won't tell. Besides, the first one is free...

I'm playing an OCC game right now. I have a lot of floodplains, which is giving me a good finance kick, but there's the health penalties. Fortunately, I have 4 Golds within my 500 culture radius, so I can trade those away for health.

The big problem was that there was no Copper or Horses anywhere near me and the only Iron was in my 5000 culture range and someone put a city next to it. Fortunately, Izzy spread Judaism to everyone on the continent, so I only had Barbs to worry about, but my Archers are starting to have a hard time dealing with them, since there's a Barb city between me and the coast, so none of the AI's are going over to deal with it and I only have Archers, so I'm not going to be taking any cities.

The cool thing that happened is that I researched Drama for the Globe Theatre and then realized that no one had gotten Music yet, so I grabbed that and Culture Bombed the free Artist, which expanded my borders and the Iron tile is now in range. I've never thought that Artists could be useful in an OCC, but there appears to be a place for them.

My personal findings for OCC:

When starting a new game, always make sure the land is crowded. Giving other civs lots of space just lets them run away with science, and on the harder levels it just makes the game impossible. Should also help with wars, ie. getting the civs frustrated with each other. With a few civs on lots of land they can all exist quite happily with each other for 1000s of years.

Always go with a philosophical leader. GP are the key to OCC, so any boost you get in their production is the most important. Build all the national wonders for the GPP.
Spirutual helps alot with diplomacy, You will need friends on the harder levels as someone will go to war with you, and you will need friends to help fend them off and start wars to suppress other civ's science/production (cos they should be occupied with war)
Financial civs will only benifit the early game if you are next to lots of ocean. Later on GP produce most of the science (assuming you have representation), so cottages wont make much difference, and you'll need more food than commerce.

Grab the pyramids if you can, so you can go to representation ASAP. This will help happyness and boost science from the start.

Make friends with your neighbours. This can help in preventing anyone you're at war with getting to you. Plus it allows you to get at other civs you need to damage. when you do need to damage someone over the other side of the map, if you're neighbours wont let you through their borders you cant do anything, especially if you're land locked.

Buidling up a decent treasury is very useful. Apart from being able to makes friends go to war and stop trading without giving science away, it allows you to go and do lots of sabotaging with spies anyone who might be getting ahead in tech (if you're going for space win).

Leave forrests alone in your city area unless you need the food (so replace with farms). They provide a very useful health boost and help with production, especially when you have lumber mills and railroad (a forrest on a hill is as good as a mine in the later game unless theres a resource there, plus it helps with health). Only chop from outside of the city radius. I only tend to put cottages on empty plains, with farms on grassland and leaving most forrests alone. Once you've removed them, you cannot get them back.

Wonders I find most useful:
Stonehenge for early culture boost, and great prophet
Pyramids for representation. (chop for it. Probably the only wonder you'll chop for, as it will probably cost alot of forrest)
Oracle for free tech (you need to get as many free techs as possible, so go for liberalism aswell)
Hanging gardens for health + free growth
Space ladder for space production.
Great library for free scientists.

If you get no wonders, you're probably going to lose the game as you lose alot of GPP.

Representation is useful the whole game for the science boost. It also helps early game for the happyness. If its still not enough, switch to monarchy for the military happyness until you get globe theatre.
Beaurocracy is great for production
Environmentalism for health, obviously.

Civs they are lagging in tech can be very easy to bring onside and then be used as a war mongerer for you, and if done later in the game, it should be harder to catch up in tech.

SO theres my thoughts from playing OCC.

I kind of like having a coastal city in an OCC game. It has drawbacks in that some of your tiles are water ones, which sucks since you only have the one place to work with, but there are distinct advantages, too.

The first is ability to build the Great Lighthouse and Colossus. These two are great because they give you early Great Merchants. Those are probably the best things to get in an OCC game. Firstly, they give an extra food point, which allows you to run mines on your hills instead of windmills, to keep the production up or run extra specialists. Secondly, they give extra cash, which comes in useful during the end game, when you can mass upgrade your units to handle an assault or pay off someone to attack your space race opponent.

Another benefit is the increased trade - I'm not talking about trade routes, but actually being able to trade with all the other civs. If you're a landlocked city, then you have to sit around and wait for a civ on another continent to come by and see you before you can trade with them. If the extra health resources you need are across the ocean, you have to hope that someone over there sends a ship by where you can see them in order to be able to get access to those resources. Having ships yourself lets you get over there and trade with them as early as possible, which means you hit the health limits later in the game.

Yep. They are a good defense too.
My latest game I only have 8 non-sea tiles, and Im doing ok, its just now down to who can build a spaceship first (its pretty even). I am out on a peninsular, and other than coming in by boat there is only a narrow corridor to get at my city.

OK I usually play on noble. If I want to play OCC do you suggest me stepping down a level or just play on noble?

i was addicted to OCCs for a few weeks recently, mostly diplomatic victory OCC. one thing was crucial for me that i don't see here, as far as resource trading. obviously this only applies if the political situation makes trading a viable option for you (worst enemies and all that). since i was going for diplomatic victory, i had designated friends that i needed good trade relations with anyway.

there were cases where someone had a health resource i wanted, but neither of us knew currency yet. even though i wasn't at my health limit, i knew i would be someday, and if i didn't get the trade locked in now, they'd trade it to someone else and i would probably never get the chance. in cases like that, i'd sometimes trade my only source of a resource for their spare. this is a no-brainer for something like my cow for their granary-doubled rice, but i'd do "my corn for your rice" and sometimes "my corn for your cow" if there weren't many options out there and i was on a whipping frenzy anyway ;). then, when one of us got currency, i'd cancel that trade and renogiate it as X gpt from me. i think of it as making a "please hold this for me" order on that health resource in the future. if i wait until globe is done to trade happy resources away for health ones, there sometimes just aren't health trades available since the AIs have trade deals in place.

i check the resource trade screen as often as the tech trade screen during some stages of OCC games. after all, the worker and city micromanagement doesn't take long each turn :lol:.

@feldmarshall: i don't know what to recommend. i tried my first at a level lower than i usually play and it was way way way too easy. i played 4 over the last 6 weeks at Deity level, going for diplo. i never did win, altho i came very close (curse those DPs they sign at the end!!!). the thing is, i don't ever ever play at deity for normal games. so, i can play OCC much higher than i can a normal game, if i'm playing a victory condition that i'm good at. if i was playing an all-out warmongering OCC, i have serious doubts that i'd do so well even at my normal level, that's an area that i am just not so great at :lol:. OCC games go very quickly, so probably try one at noble and see how it goes. you'll likely find out whether it's too high a level for a first try before you've wasted a lot of time is my guess.

I think Firaxis was right to leave out this combo because it's too powerful. One more example of the general tendency of mods to be grossely unbalanced, and a good reason not to download them.


I'm gonna download it and use the Aussies to fight against the Jews. I'll try to team up with Frederick. :goodjob: That's a good reason to download it.

What are some good strategies for winning a Conquest and a Diplomatic victory with OCC? It's really hard...

What civilization? Also, what kind of economy should I run? (I'd like to know for Space Race Victory, Diplomatic Victory and Conquest Victory)

P.S. This is on a normal sized map playing at normal length,

I tried to play an OCC again, for the first time in almost two years, but apparently I could only have 5 national wonders :(

Some good links that I have found that helped me out for my OCC games.

Many Leaders Game 5 - One City Challenge (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252517)

Deity Always War OCC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254455)

the deity game is a LOT of fun and the many leaders challenge, you get to see everybody else's tactics.
Cripp