Meth02: OCC Cultural Victory

Since the rumor is that a patch will be coming out soon I prefer to wait until it has been released, but until than there’s no reason why we can’t discuss it.

In this game I would like to attempt an OCC Culture Victory! I know it is said that it can’t be done, but apparently we were wrong. During the Beta HoF VII Gauntlet it was realized by several of the players that both an OCC Domination and OCC Cultural win was in fact possible. Both were achieved through the means of a Permanent Alliance. WastinTime wrote up a strategy article on Permanent Alliances on some of the tricks he learned.

Everything is open to discussion. This type of victory has been proven so is possible. It’ll be difficult, but both interesting and a learning experience.

Again, I prefer to wait to start this until after the patch, as upgrading during a game tends to initiate quirks in the game.

Requirements: I would prefer the players to have some experience with both OCC and culture victories.

Roster:
Methos
mucco
Conroe
ruff hi
senwiz
n0xie

Lurkers:
Soul Warrior

cant play this, but will surely lurk

Cool, I've never tried permanent alliances, but I've played OCC and won cultural victories before, up to prince level. I feel I could win by culture at monarch, however I've never tried it. I also won a monarch OCC, but it was a tiny map with lots of civs...
However, if you'll accept me, I'd be glad to join

I would like to join this one, Methos. It does sound interesting.

Methos said:

It'll be difficult, but both interesting and a learning experience.

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Have you given any thought to the difficulty level, considering the variant? I have ZERO experience with PA's, so I am unsure of just how difficult the variant will be. I can certainly see the challenge in getting the AI to build culture rather than spaceship parts.

I'm thinking we should probably go with Elizabeth. She is Financial and Philosophical. This will help us to get a tech lead and churn out the Great Artists for gifting to the AI. Actually, depending on the difficulty level, Financial may not be necessary, but I think we should definitely go with Philosophical.

@mucco & conroe: Welcome, this should definitely be an interesting game.

Conroe said:

Have you given any thought to the difficulty level, considering the variant? I have ZERO experience with PA's, so I am unsure of just how difficult the variant will be.

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I'm thinking we should probably play this at an easier level, maybe noble or prince. I'm not really for sure so am up for suggestions. As to experience with PA's I'm extremely limited as well. My first attempt at an OCC Domination game I forgot to check the 'Allow Permanent Alliances' box. My second attempt resulted in my supposed ally stating 'he felt he could do it alone'.

I'm not for sure when the patch is coming out, hopefully soon, but I plan on playing a few test SP games in order to gain a little experience. WastingTime's article is nice, but I'd like to have a little experience under my belt before we attempt this. At least I'll try to play a few SP games.

The hard part IMO is going to be to get the AI's to build culture. I'm not sure how to do it, but it should be interesting.

Anyone have any suggestions on map type or opponents? I'm wondering also about whether to play normal or epic speed?

@Soul Warrior: Glad to have you as a lurker, and please feel free to post comments. This will be a learning game for all of us.

This looks interesting - I would like to join this game. Note, I am away for 2 weeks from April 1st.

I almost always play continents standard size, random opponents, normal speed. Prince level is fine for me, I don't mind about opponents: I'm often a good friend of the bad boys (toku, genghis, monty)
Culture shouldn't be a problem, since we could farm GAs and send them to the targeted cities.

mucco said:

Culture shouldn't be a problem, since we could farm GAs and send them to the targeted cities.

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According to WastinTime's article a great artist cannot be used to produce a great works in your PA's city. They can be merged as a super specialist.

@ruff hi: Welcome to the game!

If ya'll are still looking for more, I'll play. This sounds interesting.

I'll lurk around and might be able to give some tips. I got a few cultural OCC's and it's fun to play. Just requires a bit different strategy. Try to get Militairy Tradition as soon as possible. It will take a while before you get +3 on the 'our defensive pact bla bla' at which time you can get into a PA (I think WastingTime mentioned something around 40 turns). Keep sucking up and getting as much modifiers as possible: the sooner you get into the PA, the more you can do to speed things up like joining a GA or finishing a wonder with a GE.

Try to get a religion early and make your ally have the same religion: you want that +7 modifier when you request for PA.

I usually go for communism, and count on all the hard sucking up I did over the years, instead of waiting for Facism. It helps if your ally is industrious or creative.

I waited too long with gifting stuff to my ally, else I'd probably would have gotten a better score (my last try I managed before 1900). The best way is to get as much religions as possible (hydra! ) and just fill your ally up with religions and gift all your Great People away.

Ah, I am too late to join this, I guess ...

Sign me up for lurker or alternate if you intend to have one

-

Methos said:

According to WastinTime's article a great artist cannot be used to produce a great works in your PA's city. They can be merged as a super specialist.

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That makes things even more interesting! I'll have to read WastingTime's article sooner rather than later
I wouldn't wait until the next patch before starting the game, however. It's unlikely that it will come soon, Sirian says at RB that he *hopes* it will come out by the end of the year. He doesn't obviously know at what stage the testing is, but I'd trust him anyway. Waiting for the patch will delay the start too much.

Welcome Senwiz!

mucco said:

I wouldn't wait until the next patch before starting the game, however. It's unlikely that it will come soon, Sirian says at RB that he *hopes* it will come out by the end of the year.

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End of the year!?! Are you sure? It seems like everyone is expecting it to come out very soon. IVOTM is even stating they're not sure if the next GOTM will be 1.52 or not. The MTDG has been waiting for the next patch for a month or so now. I hope Sirian is wrong in his guess.

I'm going to wait a little while anyway, as I want to try this out myself a couple times before we start. I probably should have waited before posting this game.

Sirian was sarcastic in his statement, I wanted to say that we don't really know when the patch will be out. Many events haven't started waiting for the patch, and now months have passed. Maybe it would be just better to start and, at some point, decide to change. It can't possibly be worse than waiting other months!
Maybe my post was not clear, English is not my mother tongue. (I should really include this sentence in my sig )

I've decided to allow n0xie in as a sixth player, as I feel we could use his experience in this sort of game. Give me a couple days to hopefully play a few solo games and than we'll start this one up.

Anyone have ideas on game settings?

Conroe has suggested Elizabeth so far.

Hi everyone and thanks for having me. I hope I can be of any use

I'd say Lizzy is very strong for this builder type game. Are we going to pick our AI opponents (ie ally?) or is that random?

We could try an expansive civ since the only limiting factor in OCC will be health (after Globe Theatre), and that +2 health means 2 more citizens... (Victoria or Peter perhaps? Although Victoria is kind of ugly, I don't know if anyone would ever want to play her...)

n0xie said:

Are we going to pick our AI opponents (ie ally?) or is that random?

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I think we should at least pick our ally. From the reading that I have done, it appears that Gandhi is most likely to go for a cultural victory. It would be a shame to miss this variant if no cultural AI's get randomly selected.

Methos said:

Anyone have ideas on game settings?

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I would suggest a pangea-type map. It sounds like we need to start sucking up to our ally rather early. A continents or arch map could make this quite difficult. What about the Great Plains map? It seems like there is a better chance of food resources on this map. Besides health, we will also be limited by our food supply. It would be nice to see at least 2 food bonus' within our city radius.

n0xie said:

We could try an expansive civ since the only limiting factor in OCC will be health (after Globe Theatre), and that +2 health means 2 more citizens... (Victoria or Peter perhaps? Although Victoria is kind of ugly, I don't know if anyone would ever want to play her...)

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I could agree to Peter, as well. Do we need to found a religion? Saladin or Isabella would make that easier. I've read conflicting posts on whether you should go for a religion with this variant.

Well it would be great if our ally founded religion(s) . In my games I ended up with Confucianism and Taoism most of the time (on my way to CS slingshot and Pacifism). In one game though, my 1 city got 2 other religions from the AI and that helped alot. It seems the AI is more eager to build religious buildings (=culture) the more religions it has. Once the AI starts building temples it will most likely also build cathedrals. So we could try a complete different approach, going for all religions and spam missionaries for a 1000 years (7 headed hydra would be pretty cool )

We do have to convert our ally to whatever religion we have though as soon as possible (or we convert to theirs). It's the biggest bonus we'll get on diplomatic relations. We need somewhere around +15 on our diplomatic modifier.

Ghandi could be nice for it's industrious trait (we're going to gift him all the tech we have, so he might actually build a wonder or 2 before the other ai's have access to it). Another thing to consider is the creative trait. That +2 culture adds up over the years. Maybe Louis XIV? (although I think his personality is a bit stacked against us: most games I can remember playing against him he was annoying: also his preferred civic doesn't really work for us and we do want that 'you have chosen your civics wisely' bonus)

I'm just summing up options and I'll let the rest decide

Expansive is my favourite in OCC, and industrious could be very helpful too. The bonus also applies to national wonders, right? My best choice would be Bismarck.
The point with the traits is, do we need a powerhouse city, wonders or religions? Expansive can make our capital bigger, industrious helps with wonders, spiritual helps with religions. However, I believe that we'll build either Stonehenge or the Oracle, leaving us the chance of some prophets to spend on religion techs.
I don't think the creative trait is big in this game: With only one city, filled with NWs, it's easy to get over the 50k mark.
Financial and organized are the most useless traits we could use, methinks.
Philosophical?

As for allies... Hatty with spi/cre could be good. Saladin seems to grow very cultured cities, too, as does Isabella. One of these three IMO.

mucco said:

Expansive is my favourite in OCC, and industrious could be very helpful too. The bonus also applies to national wonders, right? My best choice would be Bismarck.
The point with the traits is, do we need a powerhouse city, wonders or religions? Expansive can make our capital bigger, industrious helps with wonders, spiritual helps with religions. However, I believe that we'll build either Stonehenge or the Oracle, leaving us the chance of some prophets to spend on religion techs.
I don't think the creative trait is big in this game: With only one city, filled with NWs, it's easy to get over the 50k mark.
Financial and organized are the most useless traits we could use, methinks.
Philosophical?

As for allies... Hatty with spi/cre could be good. Saladin seems to grow very cultured cities, too, as does Isabella. One of these three IMO.

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I have been playing the Germans recently, Bismarck rocks. As for Allies, I agree with Hatty and Izzy. But, I think we might want to throw Ghandhi and Asoka in there as well. They always seem to be the cultural leaders. Of course, in my games of late, they were also the first to fall before my Blitzkriegs. LOL