OCC in BNW

I'm thinking of starting a new game with OCC turned on. Any thoughts of best civ? I haven't tried Venice yet, but I'd imagine it'll be a good choice. Probably try it on immortal, but maybe emperor would be safer (huge map)

With ideology kicking in only if you have three factories, I'd think it's important to beeline for anything modern to get those two free tenets. I'd also lose out on internal routes, which means slower growth. Anything else to watch out for?

Venice wouldn't be half bad - lots of trade routes work well in OCC as well, and MoVs are very powerful even if you ignore the CS purchase ability.

Venice would be a great choice. You'll get double the normal amount of trade routes, allowing you to keep up in terms of gold, and in terms of production (Buying buildings and units with your excess gold). In addition, the Merchant of Venice has a role other than buying city states - it is twice as effective as a regular Great Merchant: When performing a trade mission you obtain double the normal amount of gold and influence, that's 60 influence in just a click of a button, and you make gold with it!

Talcove said:

Venice would be a great choice. You'll get double the normal amount of trade routes, allowing you to keep up in terms of gold, and in terms of production (Buying buildings and units with your excess gold). In addition, the Merchant of Venice has a role other than buying city states - it is twice as effective as a regular Great Merchant: When performing a trade mission you obtain double the normal amount of gold and influence, that's 60 influence in just a click of a button, and you make gold with it!

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Oh yeah. I had a very successful run as Arabia using a combination of Faith and the Commerce tree to beeline out Faith-purchased Great Merchants and score an easy diplomatic victory literally the turn the first UN vote happened, using similar benefits like their high number of luxes (which Venice will have through city-states) and trade route bonuses

I can only imagine something similar could be accomplished with a Venice designed to be a Faith powerhouse that snaps out MoVs (although getting Venice there might be a little harder - their start bias doesn't lend them to capitalizing on a powerful faith belief like Desert Faith - on the other hand, though, double trade routes means twice as many cities experiencing pressure from your religion, which could help it spread)

Excuse me, what is OCC?
From the rest of the post I guess it's the single city challenge? What does OCC stand for?

TomKQT said:

Excuse me, what is OCC?
From the rest of the post I guess it's the single city challenge? What does OCC stand for?

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Right in One (City Challenge)

I love playing OCC and if I've learned anything it's that the leader doesn't really matter so much as the start location. If you can get a good start then you'll be very successful and the leader will just help you on the way. Venice is okay at a OCC, but you have to consider that half their tiles are going to be useless (unless you get a bunch of water resources) and are just going to be 1 food coast/ocean tiles. It might not matter as you'll probably only work half the tiles in your radius anyway but you need more luck with what you get on the half that is workable. Personally, I'd rather have nice inland river start (preferably desert for folklore).

Thuellai said:

Right in One (City Challenge)

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Oh my God, how is it possible I didn't think of the word One for the O, only Single came to my mind

Teaf said:

Personally, I'd rather have nice inland river start (preferably desert for folklore).

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Hm but cannot it be a problem that you will not be able to build a single navy unit? Of course you can still explore using your land units (embark). Do you have good experience with that?

TomKQT said:

Hm but cannot it be a problem that you will not be able to build a single navy unit? Of course you can still explore using your land units (embark). Do you have good experience with that?

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I've never had a problem with it. It has it's ups and downs though.

The AI won't take into account that you aren't naval based. So if you have an aggressor coming at you and they are naval based and have 20 crossbowmen with 10 caravels and you have 20 crossbowmen only then the game will rank your military strength much lower, which makes the AI more aggressive even though you are technically matched on land as the caravels can't get you.

Exploring I don't find that bad. It is faster with naval units also but generally it's okay with just scouts (as long as you aren't doing Archipelago).

Upside is no navy to worry about, you'll have extra gold and don't need to worry about naval assaults. You also will have more workable tiles, and a much higher chance at getting good tiles - especially strategic resources.

It guess it depends on the VC you're opting for too. Whilst I generally wouldn't pick Venice as they'll always start on the coast, they can be effective with a cultural OCC as they have sea trade routes (and double of them). But you could find that you have little access to other leaders from where you start and you'd have been better off spawning inland and being in caravan range of 4 or 5 of them.

And there even aren't many great wonders that require sea. Just Sydney Opera I think? The others I can think of right now are giving naval/water bonuses anyway
And you cannot build naval trade routes, so not being able to defend them isn't an issue.

So, yea, it sounds that you don't really need to have your city at the coast.

How about Marocco? With a little bit luck (and/or few restarts) you can get nice desert city where you can put Petra and spam Kasbah into . With your trade bonus everyone wants to trade with you - more money for them, more money for you

Might try this my next game =)