The Immortal Challenge Lineup #44 - Inca OCC

This map is pretty fun. I got 15 huts, several sucked but many were useful. BO Scout 3, Shrine, Granary, Worker... Got 2 Sclinger upgrades, both still alive. Barbs like crazy in all those remote valleys. Currently 366 influence with Ife due to many rescued Workers and camps.

Such a strong start, so I went a little wonder crazy. ToA (46), HG (65), MoH (75), Oracle (89), HS (102), Borobudur (109), SC (137), and FP (141-GE). I think NC was 82, I delayed it a bit. I got beat on a few by a few turns. I have left a bunch of basic buildings and NW unmade, which is probably stupid.

5th religion - took Sun God, Tithe and Divine Inspiration (2 faith/wonder), Sword-Plow, and Itin Preach. Sadly I can't spread to Sweden and Poc very easily.

Full Tradition, 2 Aesthetics (Fine Arts), Patronage open, Rat to Secularism. Not sure where to go now - Rat seems limited mid-game with only one city and I tend to not do RAs, Aesthetics will help, but Patronage is probably strongest to eventually get CS science. I am soon to work all tiles, so will likely build Music Guild just to use the slots. Planning on a CV - I had planned to wait closer to the end game to get better value for the natural ones.

CV is dodgy on OCC. The runaway may just be really far and it will take ages for your musicians to get there. In my game that was Persia so I dropped it

Good start with GL, ToA, HG, Oracle, and HS. Went for a CV and proceeded to get my ass kicked. Could have eventually won the CV but it would have taken forever. Decided to roll back and go for Diplomacy instead.

I skipped a t297 DV, and I'm glad to have the CV as I really screwed some things up. The biggest mistake was forgetting about the Observatory - didn't build it until 220 due to drain bamage tech-wise. I also did no RA's, which are probably quite helpful for a OCC!

I got all non-military wonders except Louvre, which again, I forgot about. After I built Neuschwanstein I forgot to build Walls/Castle as well. I slogged a natural GM all the way to Persia that I popped just after Internet - I had two more faith GMs on the way with a tile-busting convoy of 9 units to try to keep the path clear. I don't think I would have made it through Kathmandu a second time.

Full Tradition, Rat, Commerce, Aesthetics, 4 in Patronage, and 8 in Freedom. Policies came every 8 turns, I mostly began to quit caring what I chose. Ended with 121 happy, 121 fpt, 949 bpt, 264 gpt, 888 cpt, and 891 raw tourism - Cusco was pop 54.

I went Radio to Fertilizer to Plastics to Refrigeration (Hotels) to Internet to Radar (Airports) to Globalization (for DV fallback) towards Computers. Combustion TR bonus finally got me a TR to Darius on t299.

I passed Wonder Culture, then WI Freedom, then WR Taoism, so had 43/39 at first vote. Tithe gave me 109 gpt - I had the whole eastern 1/3 of the map converted, and with any effort could have had more than half. Cathy had Settlers backed up to settle my wastelands, which would have really propelled the spread because of Itin Preachers, but I just didn't want the nuisance of her surrounding me.

Poc kept asking me to join wars, but could absolutely never be bribed - I hate that part of the mechanic. Sweden and Mor were almost always willing to fight, and Sweden crushed IG while in 5 wars (2,697 hammers to my 770). He stayed with order amidst heavy pressure, everyone went Freedom after WI passed, except Poc flipped from Autocracy very quickly.

Darius forward settled Delhi, and lost Persepolis in a war. Sweden razed a Persian city too, and Poc took Moscow and another Russian city. Pretty wacky since there was so much warring, but the mtns really choked off troop movement.

I may try a regular game with these settings - it certainly was OP for The Inca, and it would be fun to see just how high the population could get!

One scout went north to meet William, then I believe I explored the area near the edge of the map, behind the mountain range. This is probably the first scout I built, given the distance he covered by T26
I would guess I sent my warrior south then west, scout #2 north-west, scout #3 south-east first to see of there's anything there and then go for worker steals from Russia and Yerevan

First time playing OCC. Only built 1 scout, didn't notice it was Highlands. Still found maybe 7+ ruins including a late T154 population one. Missed on ToA (T44) and HG (T54) both built by India. I built NC (T69), Oracle (T79) and HS (T106). Netherlands founded the 5th religion just as my Great Prophet from Hagia Sophia appeared. I had Sun God as Pantheon and was able to keep it for a while until Cusco was converted to Eastern Orthodoxy (Russia) which had at least Fertility Rites.

After stealing a worker from Yerevan, Netherlands forward settled me which turned out to be fortunate since it was the only city in range for a trade route without a caravansary.

The map was a pain to explore with the huge terrain and many mountains (especially with one scout, but built 1-2 later). Some of the concave mountain formations were breeding grounds for barbarians. I was searching madly for the remaining 3 CS and thought that maybe they were surrounded by mountains and unreachable, but the map replay at the end proved otherwise.

Russia was at war pretty much the whole game to the Shoshone. Mid game I was friends with all Civs, except Persia and Shoshone and got many RAs. This changed drastically after Ideologies where I was the only one going Freedom (except Morocco which was last to Ideologies). Many turned to Hostile, but Netherlands was the only one to DoW about 10 turns before the end. Took the Voluntary Army tenet, killed a few of his units, then the Orange begged for mercy. Bulbed very tightly my GS near the end to reach the Information era in time for victory.

Settled like everybody i guess, next to the mountain for that mandatory observatory. Started Scout-Scout-Shrine-Scout as the map is huge. Shrine was there to get a fast Sun God because 3 Wheat would really help me grow.
For SP i opened Tradition (what else) then Honor (OCC on such a map means there will be barbarians all game long). This helped my scouts survive and my warrior defend. I stole a worker from Yerevan, bought one. Grabbed ToA and HG (going for Mathematics before Philosophy) so my growth was great. Went Theology before Civil Service and built Hagia Sophia to save my Pantheon, eventually got my first GP right before finishing it thanks to the Religious CS so went from Pantheon to fully enhanced in 2 turns. Got Religious Community (AI rarely takes it) and the from World Wonders beliefs in order to have some for Great Persons purchase.

Medieval/Renaissance was a simple scientific game. Education was T111 or 112, not that bad considering i took some detours. Filled Traditions rather fast (with only 1 city working guilds) then filled parts of Honor until i could open Rationalism. Lost WF to Pocatello by about 50 and totally forgot to open Patronage . I still managed to keep Yerevan, Monaco and the Religious CS allies mostly with gifts as i was swimming in gold selling tons of stuff to the AI.

I hit Industrial with Scientific Theory and Oxforded Radio for my Ideology. Took Autocracy of course, Freedom is so much better for OCC but Autocracy really is meant for Domination. After this i went for Dynamite and Military Sciences and started the war machine. I made an army with 4 Cavalry + 3 Arties + Great General and rolled on Russia. William DoWed me and took Monaco so i assembled a second army (same composition) and started to bring him down. I Quickly figured it would take time to move through this map so i went for plastics, then Biology. Noticing i had no oil wasn't nice, but then i saw Yerevan had some so i fortified all accesses to my ally and paid them to build the Oil Wells. At last i could go for tanks.

I mostly kept advancing with both armies, bringing some units back home for upgrade (free roads does help) and adding a Mobile SAM when i saw bombers appear. By the time i reached Sweden and Morocco, they had Bazooka, Mobile Arties and other advanced troops, but nothing could stand in the way of my ultra promoted Modern Armors with Lighting Warfare and Clausewitz Legacy. The map didn't allow for fast capital sniping so it was more a steady sweeping advance as you can see from the minimap

I had one city, but it was a big one

Some crazy Armors

In the end, i was 7 turns from sending Giant Death Robots into the fray. I even used some excess GG to take the Uranium from my Ally Yerevan so i could double it with 3rd Alternative by Ahmed really didn't put much of a fight.

Game plan was quite simple: turtle until dynamite, build artillery, kill AI. It worked like a charm . Russia (eliminated) - Shoshone (capital) - Holland (eliminated) - Persia (eliminated) - India (eliminated) - Morocco (eliminated) - Shoshone (eliminated) - Sweden (capital)

I kept building and teching, assuming I would need more than artillery to finish the AI, but they never really got anywhere. Last AI (Sweden) had some artillery and bombers, but by that time I had at least 5 range+logistics artillery and that just eats through anything. I did supplement with infantry + landships in the end, especially the landships made things quite a bit easier.

Also, I tried to stay under the unit supply limit, so I only used two relatively small armies for most of the game, and built more wonders etc. instead. I could have probably finished earlier if I had stopped building after artillery+cavalry and just created as many troops as possible.

I allied almost all CS, which was quite useful in war: I never had trouble fighting CS as well, and they are pretty good at distracting the AI (And even captured a couple cities for me ).

Final army:


As you can see there are quite a lot of workers as well, to build railroads through all the captured territories. Probably lost no more than 5-10 units in the whole game, mostly cavalry that captured a city in kamikaze actions.

As you can also see in the minimap, there are not a lot of AI cities left ;-)

Cuzco:



Production is low because of supply limit, without limit it would be 154.

Policies:



Tradition (finished) - Commerce (free roads) - Patronage opener (filler) - Rationalism (opener + specs) - Honor (finished) - Autocracy (everything combat related) - Patronage filler.

I build way too many mid/late wonders for a DomV game, but honestly I didn't really know what else to build and spent GE's/faith on.