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?
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.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.
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.
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.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.
Could use some pointers to speed it up.
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.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...
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 38.324 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?
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.