Deity OCC Science Victory - G&K Strategy and Tips

chmilz said:

So I just followed the guide on Immortal, and landed me a sweet T324 launch. Does Deity speed it up because you can steal techs?

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The Pilgrim said:

Not really. You steal the same junk on both, from my experience. Higher AI's bpt does speed it up a little, though, and higher cash flow is nice as well. But everything comes down to starting location. I win faster on better map, doesn't matter whether it's immortal or deity. There are downsides to both.

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Location really was good, but I was well ahead of AI in tech entire game, so nothing to steal, and their bpt clearly was not that good.

chmilz said:

My starting location was incredible, but I only had some horses for strategic resources, which greatly set me back since I couldn't generate nearly as much money. CS alliances didn't really exist, and I couldn't build Factory/Hydro/Nuclear Plant until AI allies tech'd up and I could buy the resources I needed.

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The Pilgrim said:

If you couldn't generate enough money, it had not been that incredible. CS allies help a lot. Recently I end up allying more or less all CS out there regardless VC and difficulty. In OCC every beaker counts, and you generally get more SP's than with multiple cities. So Scholasticism is a huge help. In the game I described above, I peaked at 988 beakers with 10 or so allies. You naturally have more cash towards the end and in the meanwhile can try to do their quests.

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I don't have map saved but I assure you it was a great start location. Couldn't get CS allies mostly due to England and Darius. England constantly couped the ones I had, and Darius was tied for top most of the game, had sick money and was able to buy them off. My lack of strategic resources put a massive dent in my early cash generation otherwise I would have kept that in check early on.

chmilz said:

Could use some pointers to speed it up.

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The Pilgrim said:

OCC is all about location. You can't get a crazy early finish on every map.
For better results you must:
- river.
- mountain (deity OCC without observatory seems totally unrealistic to me, tbh).
- religion (not necessarily yours) and high fpt.
- many CS allies.
- lots of culture to get Planned Economy and Scholasticism on top of Rationalism.
- neighbors that hate each other more than they hate you.
- obviously high food + high production (Petra + Desert Folklore combination is hard to beat).
- and more...

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Had a good river. Next to a lone mountain, 3x silver in the hills, a marble, 3 wheat fields, lots of grassland, hills next to rivers, and most of it was forested (chopped my way to some easy early wonders). CS was an issue, so I did not get into Patronage tree and I couldn't get coal by the time I closed Rationalism so I opened Freedom instead, which was likely a poor choice anyway. I was at peace most of the game and was able to churn RA with 4-5 of my allies, but most of the time they were poor and I was often 1 or even 2 eras ahead of them, so not only had to pay their way, but also add 100 or 200 gold on top of my own to pay for RA (explaining why I couldn't pay for CS...). Mid to late RA's often cost me 600-700 gold each.

The Pilgrim said:

324 though sounds too late even for less than perfect start. On deity AI will lunch before that. And there is a high chance it'll happen on immortal too.
There are few checkpoints that are worth paying attention to.
What turn do you hit Education? What's your bpt with university?
What turn do you hit Scientific Theory? What's your bpt with public school?
What turn do you hit Plastics? What's your bpt with research lab?
What turn do you get each of Rationalism policies?
What turn do you get Planned Economy?
How many RA's you have per wave?
How many scientists do you have at the end?

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Hit Education on time, can't recall the rest but they got progressively later. Hit all the good wonders (Pisa, PT, etc etc). Popped about a dozen GS (planted the first 7 or 8). Had a final city pop of 38.

Sounds like my golden start location was a ruse and the map itself didn't play well for me. Interestingly, it seems that the AI sucking cause me to win later. And no resources was a kick in the nuts.

Forgot to add: early on, AI conquered 2 or 3 of the CS closest to me too, so I couldn't complete barb quests.

CrispyCritter said:

IMO, it's never worth saving the great scientists to burn much later. The important thing is turns that the scientists save you, and that remains pretty constant (burning a scientist gives you 7-8 turns worth of science). If you're about to greatly increase the science per turn (eg, building a science building or getting a science policy), then save them until 8 turns after the increase before burning them is worthwhile, but other than that, it just costs you money (2-4 gold per turn mounts up).

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Are you saying popping two techs from ruins, Mining and Masonry, for example, shaves off 23 turns from your finish?

Hammer Rabbi said:

@The Pilgrim: i usually dont do Oxford for astronomy. i used to in vanilla but ive changed it around and saved it for later

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I tend to save it for later with multiple cities, because Astronomy is not at high priority. However with OCC observatory is too important and, IMHO, shouldn't be delayed. On top of that Sailing + Optics + Compass together are cheaper than Acoustics, and your bpt with only one city is the most limiting factor.

sutasafaia said:

Silly question maybe, but do you get more science with OCC picking a good spot for a city or without OCC and just spreading like a virus? My roommate is playing America, basically taking over everything in his path, putting cities every 6 hexes or so, and has 1000+ science per turn at T250 on prince setting. That completely destroys my 400 science per turn at 250 doing OCC with Inca. Is science better when you spread out or is it just my inexperience messing me up?

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Agree on everything with Syntax Error. More cities = more science. So much more you can totally ignore RA's.

sutasafaia said:

Also, how do you work specialists normally? Filling all your specialist slots gives you a lot of science but it really hurts your population since it stops you from farming all your farm tiles.

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How does it stop you from farming? Farm everything farmable and work the best food tiles. In order to work some production too, you need high population. That can't be stressed enough. Very high. Gradually I add more and more specialists and eventually work all available slots, including useless merchants, as long as it doesn't result in a wrong GP.

sutasafaia said:

Lastly, does the starting bias for Inca really put them ahead of Babylon and/or Korea for science? I do love the Incan bonuses with hills and farms, a lot, but sometimes I wonder.

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Their bias combined with unique improvement puts them at the top. Not sure if they're better than Babylon. Frankly, I'm not that familiar with them, neither with Korea (probably, the last person on Earth, I know ). But can say, that Inca are amazing.

chmilz said:

Had a good river. Next to a lone mountain, 3x silver in the hills, a marble, 3 wheat fields, lots of grassland, hills next to rivers, and most of it was forested (chopped my way to some easy early wonders). CS was an issue, so I did not get into Patronage tree and I couldn't get coal by the time I closed Rationalism so I opened Freedom instead, which was likely a poor choice anyway.

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Aside from Planned Economy Order allows to faith purchase GE for Hubble. Unless you produced one naturally, you should have opened it regardless. Also, it's worth to delay Rationalism finisher to get the more expensive techs. Preferably the most expensive, Nano and Particle Physics.

chmilz said:

Hit Education on time, can't recall the rest but they got progressively later. Hit all the good wonders (Pisa, PT, etc etc). Popped about a dozen GS (planted the first 7 or 8). Had a final city pop of 38.

Sounds like my golden start location was a ruse and the map itself didn't play well for me. Interestingly, it seems that the AI sucking cause me to win later. And no resources was a kick in the nuts.

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Babylon, I assume? I can suggest to try out jeespoks' map. This way we can compare oranges to oranges. Yes, sucking AI can delay your finish. But I really think we're overlooking something. I haven't played too many OCC games, however even with sucky AI on immortal I managed to launch around 280. In one game I had 27 RA's. You can imagine how fruitful they were.

The Pilgrim said:

I can suggest to try out jeespoks' map.

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OK, that's a legendary start. I got backstabbed by 4 "friends", 3 at the same time, even with a dozen CB and then XB, I couldn't repel the onslaught, repair pillaged tiles, and I had no one to RA with

Might have to play that one again.

Lol. Sorry, it didn't work for you. I was DoW'ed by Polynesia pretty early, no CB's at the time, but 5 archers did the job. Later they were wiped out by China, who stayed deceptively friendly for a long time. Eventually Wu attacked, 3 or 4 times in total. Somebody must have paid her to, because the moment signing peace had become available, she came to me and took my cash. ~4 each time. Have you bribed AI to war each other? Personally, I find that on deity this is the key for survival.
BTW, I don't think that was a legendary start. Well, no doubt it was legendary, but the option was probably off. Dunno.
If you come across an interesting map you'd like to discuss, feel free to post it. The good part about OCC, it doesn't take long to finish. I'm sure some players will be up to a challenge.

Pay for wars, that's what I was missing. I knew I had too much money kicking around. While I was being attacked my city was set to Research because there was nothing left to build (cash bought them) and every available tile around my city had an XBow on it.

Yeah, pay them as often as you can. Not only it makes them hate someone else more than you, but the wars also slow them down in every possible way. No cash for CS, no RA's. Just huge armies they throw at each other senselessly. Something to be careful about, though, is that you don't want a runaway to become even more powerful. So don't feed him with more cities. Instead try to make him DoW someone he can't physically reach. Stupid AI still tries and wastes a lot of time and resources on pointless attempts and on top of that gets hate from everybody. Win-win for you.

This is pretty insane with mayan. Had a 40ish pop city around T220. I made a few mistakes and still was very competitive towards the end. Had a little runaway in the form of arabia which seemed odd. All the timings match up very well tho, I liked this strategy alot.

Thanks for sharing this. I am making my first serious attempt at Deity-level play, and this is helping a lot. As others have said, focusing on one city helps a lot to see how various tactics work (and where my weaknesses lie). I still haven't won a game, but I think I'm improving. I'm having trouble getting past a couple of problems though.

First, I sometimes run out of interesting things to build. This isn't a problem with the Temple of Artemis start (or Maya), because I can always spam archers during downtime. However, when I played Inca without ToA, I had to spam scouts and warriors while researching Philosophy because I had too much production and no Archery. What should I do in this situation? Move Archery ahead of Philosophy or just find a use for the extra melee?

The bigger problem is that I keep getting crushed by my neighbors. I can hold off early warrior rushes fine, but it seems like the more aggressive civs show up to stomp me with dozens of units when they get their UUs. I can hold them off for a long time, especially with a citadel, but eventually the AI just overwhelms me, or a second one joins in, and I'm so trashed that even if I won the battle, I'd lose the game. Is there anything I can do to avoid this?

I've tried this strategy a few times now, with varying leaders and varying success. Inca seems to be the easiest as it is the one most likely to give a suitable starting position. I tried quite a few times with Ethiopia but never got very far. The main reason is I never got a good starting position. Either I'm surrounded by mountains which give me too small of a usable area. Or I have to walk my settler to a good spot. But then it invariable gets encroached by either a CS or two or worse another AI or two.

Even when off to a good start, success is not guaranteed. A nice desert start with Desert Folklore religion fails to get Petra more often than not as some AI often gets it around turn 62, after which it's pretty hopeless.

Some other things I found: spying is still a good way to catch up with tech. I found you don't have to be afraid the AI gets upset. Most of the time a tech steal goes unpunished. Occasionally, after a steal the AI will demand you stop spying. As long as you do that the AI remains friendly, you just move the spy to another AI. Planting the spy in my capital has only rarely resulted in catching a spy.

People ask about policy timing. If you set the 'Allow Policy Saving' option this is no problem.

In case you don't get the coveted mountain-river start, settling a second city with some good food and a luxury or two is a good alternative.

I've never come close to finishing around turn 230. More like 290-300. I'm wondering if this has to do with settling Great Scientists. I always settle the first one but keep the rest in reserve. I'm now starting to think this is a mistake (and not clearly explained in the strategy).

Lastly, policy saving also allows me to keep the last Rational policy in reserve until I'm just two techs away from Particle Physics (or Nano Tech if you prefer).

All in all I find it a great strategy. But rather than always following it, I see it as a good option depending on the terrain-civ combination. And as I pointed out, switching to a 2-city approach is a good option.

Yeah, I have trouble getting Petra too – I've seen the AI grab it in the 50s. Finally managed to build it by cutting out everything but Pottery and Writing before bee-lining Currency. Either that or the AI just didn't try for it that game. I'm not sure how much that hurt me in science, because Oda steamrolled me with samurai before I got a chance to find out. (Japan's UA is tough to defend against!)

I have been trying this approach with the Inca, Maya, and Ethiopia. Lots of false starts because of mistakes or maps that I'm just not good enough yet to work with. My best game was with the Inca (until the Mongol keshik horde rolled over me), second best with the Maya (see above).

BWS said:

First, I sometimes run out of interesting things to build. This isn't a problem with the Temple of Artemis start (or Maya), because I can always spam archers during downtime. However, when I played Inca without ToA, I had to spam scouts and warriors while researching Philosophy because I had too much production and no Archery. What should I do in this situation? Move Archery ahead of Philosophy or just find a use for the extra melee?

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ToA or no ToA, Archery should be right after your lux techs at best. Many players believe that Construction should come before Philosophy too. From my experience, you can survive ancient/classical DoW's with 5 archers, but do not research Philo without them. On deity it's just suicidal.

BWS said:

The bigger problem is that I keep getting crushed by my neighbors. I can hold off early warrior rushes fine, but it seems like the more aggressive civs show up to stomp me with dozens of units when they get their UUs. I can hold them off for a long time, especially with a citadel, but eventually the AI just overwhelms me, or a second one joins in, and I'm so trashed that even if I won the battle, I'd lose the game. Is there anything I can do to avoid this?

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First, bribe them to DoW someone else. As often as you can. If you have spare luxes/strategics, it's a well worth investment. Sometimes even lump sums, depends on your overall financial situation.
Second, try to avoid early DoW's by having defense. It seems like when AI doesn't get angry with you from a get go, it'll more likely be willing to maintain a friendly relationship during the game. If you're marked as The enemy right off the bat, you'll remain the enemy unless someone more appealing shows up. Since your military will never match that of AI, the chances of having easier target are slim. Once you signed a DoF, it's easier to maintain it. At least these are my observations.

Tesuji said:

People ask about policy timing. If you set the 'Allow Policy Saving' option this is no problem.

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Cheesy.

Tesuji said:

I've never come close to finishing around turn 230. More like 290-300.

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Like you said yourself, even if you had a good start, the success is not guaranteed. For super early start you need pretty much perfect conditions, which won't be satisfied 9 times out of 10. In my current game I have a very decent starting position, settled right away, got ToA and Petra. Even my own religion and the Oracle. On turn 208 I'm 3 turns short of Radar and will be glad to launch by 260-270.

Tesuji said:

I'm wondering if this has to do with settling Great Scientists. I always settle the first one but keep the rest in reserve. I'm now starting to think this is a mistake (and not clearly explained in the strategy).

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No one is really sure, what's the optimal number of academies. Ideally before Scientific Theory I pop two scientists from Oracle and universities, one from PT and another one from Pisa, if I manage to build it. Settle all of them and save the rest.

Tesuji said:

All in all I find it a great strategy. But rather than always following it, I see it as a good option depending on the terrain-civ combination. And as I pointed out, switching to a 2-city approach is a good option.

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6-8 cities approach is even better.

Thanks for the tips!

The Pilgrim said:

ToA or no ToA, Archery should be right after your lux techs at best. Many players believe that Construction should come before Philosophy too. From my experience, you can survive ancient/classical DoW's with 5 archers, but do not research Philo without them. On deity it's just suicidal.

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Perhaps I misunderstood the OP? "TECHPATH: Pottery, Writing, Mining, Calendar, Philosophy, Archery (buy some archers)...." I took that to mean that I should bee-line to Philosophy even before archers, but that causes production and sometimes defense problems.

The Pilgrim said:

First, bribe them to DoW someone else. As often as you can. If you have spare luxes/strategics, it's a well worth investment. Sometimes even lump sums, depends on your overall financial situation.
Second, try to avoid early DoW's by having defense. It seems like when AI doesn't get angry with you from a get go, it'll more likely be willing to maintain a friendly relationship during the game. If you're marked as The enemy right off the bat, you'll remain the enemy unless someone more appealing shows up. Since your military will never match that of AI, the chances of having easier target are slim. Once you signed a DoF, it's easier to maintain it. At least these are my observations.

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I have trouble getting anybody to declare war at all (on my behalf)!

Early rushes don't actually give me much trouble, and I even manage to keep my neighbors friendly. It's when the aggressive leaders get their UUs that seems to cause the problem: Darius with Immortals, Genghis with Keshiks, Oda with Samurai. They get on a domination binge, build zillions of units, and start taking out their neighbors. I'm usually not the first target, but eventually they do come after me, and then I'm toast!

BWS said:

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP? "TECHPATH: Pottery, Writing, Mining, Calendar, Philosophy, Archery (buy some archers)...." I took that to mean that I should bee-line to Philosophy even before archers, but that causes production and sometimes defense problems.

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Oh, I should have mentioned I'm not following the guide word by word but adjust it for my play style. For example, I tend to grab more wonders than the guide suggests, especially commercial ones and cultural ones. Whatever is available. I also try to double or triple pop last bunch of great people. Scientist, artist for GA and engineer for Hubble. That of course depends on where AI stands in terms of research. I won't risk the Hubble if the race is close (deity) and faith purchase the engineer from Order. But on immortal it's pretty safe and I'd stretch out my faith towards the end and buy one more scientist instead.
Besides, the guide is not fully updated. Initially it was written for vanilla, when Philosophy was cheaper and early DoW's with 5 warriors could do nothing to your cities. Although Sadato updated it for G&K, some details might have been overlooked. He'll correct me, if I'm wrong. On top of everything the last patch somewhat changed early game balance once again. Researching Philo without archers on deity really sounds insane to me.

BWS said:

I have trouble getting anybody to declare war at all (on my behalf)!

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Keep trying. And don't be afraid to overpay. Luxes will be back and cash as scarce as it might be, still comes easier than everything else in this game.

BWS said:

Early rushes don't actually give me much trouble, and I even manage to keep my neighbors friendly. It's when the aggressive leaders get their UUs that seems to cause the problem: Darius with Immortals, Genghis with Keshiks, Oda with Samurai. They get on a domination binge, build zillions of units, and start taking out their neighbors. I'm usually not the first target, but eventually they do come after me, and then I'm toast!

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If you keep them busy with someone else (or keep someone else busy with them), they'll less likely come after you. Genghis is one of the more loyal friends you can get. If he's not very close, there is usually no reason not to stay best buddies for the entire game. At least he's not the one I have diplo troubles with.
Btw, getting out of war in OCC is fairly easy. After 7 turns technically you can make peace. Since you have no luxes/strategics and no cities, all AI can ask for is your cash. Spend it or sell it for gpt to friendly AI and you get out of it for free. AI should really demand gpt in this scenario, but it doesn't.

A side note, something I've learned the hard way: you either need your own religion, or hopefully neighbors' missionaries/prophets will come to visit. Otherwise you're toasted. The city is growing so fast it may never be converted by pressure only.

And don't save policies which is cheesy and exploitive at best. One of the most fun gameplay strategies is trying to time together the finishing of a policiy, the research of a tech, RA agreements and/or the completion of a building/wonder.

Aha, thanks Pilgrim! Is the 7-turn truce something special for one-city games? I'm wondering because I'm currently playing Celts ICS (for Longest Name), and Sweden will not negotiate for peace at all! I would just take him out, but he has the Great Wall.

I'm not totally sure, but I think it depends on your diplo status. If you're crazy warmonger hated by everybody AI will refuse to talk to you, even if it's completely dead. I've encountered pretty amusing situation, when Germany was down to one one tile island city with 0HP and no units whatsoever and refused to talk. I didn't kill it just to see how long it will take for AI to come to its senses. Took maybe 30 turns or more. However if you fight defensive wars only, that shouldn't be a problem, I believe. In case someone knows for certain, I'd be glad to hear about this too, because that's something I constantly plan to pay attention to and always forget.

Hmm... launched 340 most recent game. Interesting start location, all jungle hills contained in a circle of mountains with a river running through it. Probably the best bunker I've ever had. Late launch 100% due to not having a religion and not being able to faith buy even 1 GP.

Try it out for yourself.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...
Pretty yucky location, to be honest. Don't know about lions, but fast finish won't happen here, just because jungle starts are extremely slow. Tech path is beyond sub-optimal and you need 4 early workers just to clean this mess. And to pray really really hard to pop BW from a ruin. RA's with backward immortal AI don't ease on your progress as well. At first glance I assume ~t280 to be reasonable. You do need religion, no matter what. At least two free scientists and free engineer are invaluable.
It is interesting though. I'll try it after I finish my current game. Just in case you're curios, here's my initial save. Not the best possible, but workable.

without looking at the jungle save im guessing a beeline to Pyramids will help a lot since a free worker from Liberty (for tile imp. bonus) isnt likely. The best jungle starts i saw had a couple bananas for early growth help but I certainly wasnt doing OCC. I needed a 2nd city to be my food/hammer powerhouse. Jungle OCC sounds miserable, haha.

It was miserable. Jungle really needs more benefits. Like forests you should get hammers for cutting them down, or have jungle give a hammer after Chemistry or Medicine or something.