One of my favorite modes of play is OCC. The problem is that cultural victory is not really possible without permanent alliance and a cooperative AI (who can't be persuaded to cooperate). So I decided to try a variant of OCC with three cities at the start. This is possible in world builder, although you can't gain any more cities after the start. I found the game to be a lot of fun. I'll do a walkthrough of it, but I recommend people try it (it goes very quickly).

The settings (in BTS):

http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/dualdoc_az/3cc_settings.jpg

To be fair, since you get three cities at the start, the game is at Deity level and the AIs are given three settlers. I also relocated some of the AIs very close to your starting position to make things more interesting (especially when you learn who those neighbors are).

The starting position:

http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/dualdoc_az/3cc_start.jpg

I upgraded the extra two cities' surroundings to capital quality by changing jungle to forest, adding fresh water sources, and adding extra forests on empty tiles. It seemed fair since I usually have three capitals early whenever I play Huayna. The cities all have great potential and can be effectively specialized. The start is slow however with research since you have 7 maintenance from the extra cities and very little commerce other than the palace.

The rules are that you must win by culture. Note that if you lose any of your cities, you lose the challenge since you can't recapture it (it will be razed as per OCC rules). If you neglect your military, it could happen.

The challenge is not to win. That is fairly easy. The challenge is to win fast. I finished in 1130 AD with a score of 93811, but I'm sure someone could finish before 1000 AD and score over 100,000.

The save game for the start:

197017

Does this mean that each city can have 5 national wonders, but each nat wonder can only be built once?

Edit: I'm not quite sure whether a 3CC is that much fun. It seems to take away the 'uniqueness' of the OCC (lack of resources, max one unit per turn, difficulty to continue growing in the end game) and make it more like a regular (but more cramped) civ game. Wouldn't it be more fun to put a culture victory condition at 2-10 times the current victory threshold, and make sure the AI understands that they need to raze you before you get there? I've no idea whether that can be achieved in XML or python or whether you'd need the SDK, but I think it'd be more fun that a 3CC...

I might still try it though :-)

It's a variation. I've sometimes done a hotseat "multiplayer" OCC mode, where I play as 2 different civs on a team. Then you get 2 cities to play with, and 2 different leaders to deal with.

Anotehr variation that would avoid world builder I think. Play the OCC game but select No city razing and simply take 2 more from another AI.

Good thing you don't have unbalanced starting position at least.... :sarcasm: However whatever makes the game fun for you, you should do. People had very fun with the occ diety always war scenario, this might be similar.

Anotehr variation that would avoid world builder I think. Play the OCC game but select No city razing and simply take 2 more from another AI.

That doesn't work in the 3.17 patch. There was another thread about that - now, in a OCC, any city you capture automatically get razed.

Anotehr variation that would avoid world builder I think. Play the OCC game but select No city razing and simply take 2 more from another AI.

I didn't think that would work, you can only control 1 city in OCC. I'll try it out

I didn't think that would work, you can only control 1 city in OCC. I'll try it out

Got taken out in the 3.17 Patch, sadly. Used to be my favorite variation...:(

is there a way to remove that part of the patch?

I'll acknowledge the starting cities are fairly strong, but all I did was take the starting location I was given (which became Tiwanaku) and add the best possible locations nearby. I did add rivers and some forests, especially at Machu Pichu which would otherwise have been choked in jungle for a long time and crippled you. The biggest mistake I made was foresting the jungle sugar rather than just clearing it. That gives you 3f1h tiles undeveloped, which is not normally possible.

As I see it, the game is a laboratory for experimenting with different cultural strategies (tech orders, city developments, wonder builds). It seems to me that there is a lot of uncertainty regarding "optimal" approaches to cultural, especially for tech routes and when to go 100% culture. This game skips the empire development stage and gets straight to the culture build up stage, which then goes very quickly without ancillary cities to manage. With Huayna, you could easily get 2 capitals to adjunct your starting city; this game just lets you skip the Quechua rush and go straight to the purpose of the game, building culture as fast as possible.

I did bolster the AIs and they are a real threat (it is Deity) especially the very aggressive neighbors placed close by. One of them will invade with a large stack at some point, unless you are very lucky (and if you neglect military techs and builds, good luck).

You should think of it as a scenario rather than a normal game. Winning isn't so difficult with the strong start, but winning before 1000AD is the ultimate goal.

I tried again yesterday and finished in exactly 1000AD. I will try again today with a different tech order and aim for 900AD. I will provide write-ups for the different approaches I've tried which should give people an idea of what cultural strategies are most efficient (e.g., go deep or shallow in the tech tree, pursue or ignore religion founding).

my effort..

Edit: tried again. 900AD victory. Monty delayed me a few turns by war.

Early on focus on research (GLH, Pyramid, GL, TOA)

Then found all religion on and after COL, wonder spam, Lib 300BC, Free speech ASAP, multiple GAs with MOM, Caste system and focus on Great Artists.

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/12/17/f_900ADvictorm_cc74f43.jpg (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?img=/3/12/17/f_900ADvictorm_cc74f43.jpg&srv=img37)

This is a very interesting idea. I did make a save that can be played at any level and making all the civs with their default techs +archery

note: for some reason I get an 'invalid file' when trying to upload the save, so here's another link

3 city challenge (http://www.box.net/shared/mcf48s1lt4)