OCC Assistance

I've been trying to do an Immortal OCC recently. I've tried twice now in between other games. Both times I end up just getting swarmed by my neighbors sometime around XBows.

I found the Civ 4 OCC thread on this forum but I couldn't find one for Civ 5. Is there one? Is there another resource I could find info on OCC games?

I've been running Ethiopia as they seem to be a good OCC civ (Also because I figured I'd get 2 achievements at once, The OCC achievement and the Win With Ethiopia achievement). Early religion without having to research Pottery thanks to Stele and a defensive combat bonus against everyone (even Venice eventually gets 2 cities). Normally before XBows everybody is all cool with the dude who's not expanding. Some AIs settle close to me but nobody has gotten inside my 3rd ring so far. I am bribing the nearest warmongers. I'm not stealing workers from anybody (I only have 3 rings of tiles I need to improve). I might have 1 CS ally so I'm not really competing against anyone in that area. I don't compete for Wonders because I'm to busy building infrastructure and the few units I can squeeze in.

But right about that time is when people finally start coveting my lands and they start to see I'm weak in production and think I'm a pushover. And with so little production I just can't seem to produce enough units by Machinery to defend against the amount of units they produce at Immortal. I'm seriously thinking of backing down to Emperor for this challenge.

One thing I haven't tried is farming XP on a CS. I'll do that on the next game. Maybe if I can get lvl 5 CBows that'll help.

You said you might have 1 CS ally, make sure it's a militaristic CS so you don't have to focus on defense. Other than OCC, what settings do you play on? If you're doing this solely for the achievements, I would recommend manually selecting your opposing civs to be less-aggressive like Venice & India.

Well. Playing occ comes down to being excellent at micro managing your only city.

But you shouldnt avoid competing for wonders, cses and other stuff just to avoid'pissing off AIs as no matter what you do,you ll be DOWed at some point.

So, might as well use the perks of playing occ as they arent much of those.

First, steal a worker, two if you can, or even three. it s something you wont have to build and it s not that much of a cost iplomatically as long as you dont attack a CS that is being protected by an AI.

Spam scouts. Big time. Getting lots of ruins and meeting all ais and cses for gold will help you a lot. Beside, you dont have settlers to build. Which means around 20 turns at least of production for three settlers that you can do something else with. So yeah. Spam those scouts.

Three. Caravans or ships for trade routes need to happen fast. It s science and gold.you wont have much science output because occ. But research cost wont go up either so the few science that trade routes bring is just awesome.

Four. Build defenses. On deity if i play occ. I will try and get involved in safe wars whenever i can in the beginning. Without settlers to build, you have time to build a decent army and go farm experience safely killing units. Go at war when an ai offers you too. You will end up with a great general or two that will allow to secure more land (might be resources there) and a solid defense positiin for your few units in case someone gets a wrong idea.

Policies. Invest in patronnage and ally cses as much as possible. You ll get science out of them, food that will make your only city grow like a beast, and culture which will allow you to spam policies because agzin you have only one city.

Science remains key as having better units is what will allow you to push back a carpet of doom.

Alright, I'll go all Atilla on a CS next game. I'll take some workers and farm some XP.

How about social policies? I'm assuming I should go Tradition? In my second attempt I only opened the tradition opener for the culture and border growth, then I went Piety. 1 free aqua duct and Ampathieter didn't seem worth the culture cost whereas boosting my religion seemed a little more inticeing. And I didn't forsee happiness issues with one city. Really the only benefits are the growth and GE purchasability. Well... and the increased wonder production.

How about religion? Last game I went with; Pantheon - Desert Folklore, Founder - Pilgrimage (I was going to get either Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts), Follower - Religious Community. I figured I need the production increase since I only had 1 city. Should be hard to get it up to the full 15% pretty quickly. I was also going to get To the Glory of God.

In regards to settings, I'm on a Tiny Oval with 4 other civ I've already met. On my last attempt I went with Quick Speed. I've played a Epic speed Terra game since then and can't remember any other settings. It's funny, I checked my last save, and it was Casimir who went agro. Sejong and Maria are both DoFed as of turn 71. I think this save is right before Casimir DoWs out of the blue.

Piety generally benefits a wider empire; unless you're getting a lot of FPT from pantheon or wonders, it's not as useful as the growth bonuses from Tradition.

My preferred OCC is a France culture game, Boney's even better suited to it than Haile.

Wandering at the start has merit. If you can get next to a mountain and on a river, it's a big help. And a starting spot seems to rarely have any Antiquity Sites. Coast only hugely matters if you intend Tourism or naval conquest.

I love to play either as Poland, Babylon, Korea, or the Inca for OCC.

docbud said:

I love to play either as Poland, Babylon, Korea, or the Inca for OCC.

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Those are all great civs to play with. Do I need to go with a top tier civ? I mean, I am trying to do this on Immortal so maybe I should. I am trying to make this challenging, but damn, I've already lost twice. If I'm going to go with a better civ I'll probably play with one that has a really good UI over one with a UB. Something like Terrace Farm or Polder, maybe even Kasbah.

I'm pretty sure I've won with all of those civs before though, so no extra achievements.

Damn I need to finish this Epic speed Spain game so I can get back to this.

^^I don't play achievements.

But if I'm going to handicap myself with OCC, I'd rather play with a top tier civ.

But that's just me. Though I did win as the Huns on OCC once. Had a ton of salt, which was nice.

OCC is all about having a big capital, and tradition is still the best way to do that, especially as you can't send food caravans, you really need the growth bonuses to keep up. Joint wars are good to farm xp, and become friendly with your nearby neighbours.

OCC is about the only time I build forts as well, and stacking them with Ethiopia's combat bonus should make your almost unassailable.

There is currently in the Game of the Month a Babylon OCC. Its Emperor and a pretty awesome start. Babylon is an excellent OCC as you have a excellent archery and enhanced walls for defense. The other thing is the free GS upon getting writing, and the faster GS in general.

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Where do you find the GotMs?

sixty4half said:

Where do you find the GotMs?

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Here is the link for the Forum

Here is the announcement to the game announcement thread.

Let me know if you have an issues with the save.

You need tradition for occ. If the finisher isnt great, the food growth and happiness gold policies are must have imo. Then patronnage for solid bonuses from CSes is probably the best choice. Rationalism then.

So, I went Tradition, then followed that up with Exploration. I was able to get Petra by rushing Currency. Nobody else went Tradition so I got Hanging Gardens as well. Those bonus' plus the free hammers, culture and gold from Exploration mean I have the greatest city in the world. In my 3 rings I have copper and marble and then I picked up Crabs, Pearls and some random Plantation Lux in my 4th/5th rings so happiness is NOT an issue.

Then I discovered something I did not know. Civs can re-settle their Capitals after you raze them in an OCC. Well, Pacal can't because he's gone. But Gustavus did. And I can't destroy Marrakesh until I get Battleships due to it's positioning.

So, I'm probably gonna go ahead and destroy Marrakesh which should stop Morocco's Tourism dead in it's tracks. At that point I'll probably win a CV of my own. Or, once his Cap is razed I can probably just coast to a SV.

If it wasn't for those stupid submarines I could probably take Marrakesh now but I'd have to sacrifice a bunch of privateers and a few frigates. The three frigates I can hit it with (+1 range) are only doing about -15 damage a turn after taking the city healing into account.

Also; Thanks for the help everybody. This game is going much more smoothly than my last two attempts.

Civs can re-settle their Capitals after you raze them in an OCC.

Kind of. I believe the Palace (which defines the Capital) gets relocated on capital destruction, the capital's site is always a good one that the AI wants to settle, and the name of each city settled is the top one of a list that is topped by the name of the capital; burn an expo city and you'll often see it 'rebuilt' - this is just the naming system returning the razed name to the list.

Three frigates chipping away at a city

Keep it up, they'll get Logistics soon enough. I find that when you commit to XP farming, promotions tends to outpace upgrades in terms of killpower. (It's often worth finding a City State whipping not for target practice.) Though admittedly, Battleships are a massive step up!

lindsay40k said:

Civs can re-settle their Capitals after you raze them in an OCC.

Kind of. I believe the Palace (which defines the Capital) gets relocated on capital destruction, the capital's site is always a good one that the AI wants to settle, and the name of each city settled is the top one of a list that is topped by the name of the capital; burn an expo city and you'll often see it 'rebuilt' - this is just the naming system returning the razed name to the list.

Three frigates chipping away at a city

Keep it up, they'll get Logistics soon enough. I find that when you commit to XP farming, promotions tends to outpace upgrades in terms of killpower. (It's often worth finding a City State whipping not for target practice.) Though admittedly, Battleships are a massive step up!

Click to expand...

No, this is how it happened. I took and razed the Swedish Capital and his 2nd city. After I took The Maya capital I checked the Victory Condition screen. The Domination section looked normal as if no Caps had been taken. So I hover my mouse over Sweden and it says "Sweden has not settled a capital city yet." And then it was the same for The Maya. Now I killed Pacal because he only had 2 coastal cities. But soon enough I see Gustav sending a settler over to his original Caps tile. Next turn he re-settles the exact same spot with the exact same name, Helsinki I think. Then I rechecked the victory condition screen and it said Sweden was in possession of its original capital.

Thanks for the help again everybody. Finally got around to finishing this up. Once I took Marakesh I got the domination victory. The Victory Progress screen is a little confusing because of the way it words it but the game does give you the victory once you burn all the original capitals.