n0x-02 -- OCC Cultural Victory

[n0xie]

Acknowledgement:
This is a replacement thread for Methos' game which he had to cut short early because of time restraints. Now with the new patch out I want to continue where we left off. All the previous players have been pm'ed if they still feel like playing so currently there are no open slots but we might need replacements. Also there will be a spot for Methos for whenever he feels like playing again. Much credit goes to WastingTime for writing up the basics of a PA and thus how to win an OCC CV

Background:
They said an OCC Cultural Victory couldn't be done. They were wrong...

Obviously for a Cultural Victory you need 3 cities and the OCC variant only allows you 1. During the Beta HoF VII Gauntlet it became clear that by using a Permanent Alliance you could actually win an OCC game by CV, although it needed some planning and a different playstyle and in general, was a lot harder than other victory conditions. Thus Methos proposed to make a SG out of it to see if we could pull it off...

The Variant

In this game we're going to try to win by Cultural Victory while playing the One City Challenge Variant:

• OCC variant must be checked
• All Victory Conditions are checked
• We must win by Cultural Victory
• We lose if we 'accidently' win any other way
• We need to form a Permanent Alliance (PA)

The Settings
To give us a little push in the back we're going to play on Great Plains on the East side of the map, because this is pretty much optimized for OCC challenges.

• Difficulty: Prince
• Map Type: High Plains
• Map Size: Standard
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Speed: Normal
• Raging Barb: On
• Victory: All enabled ( )
• Civ: Lizzy

Roster:
(waiting for confirmations from all players: 1 slot open for anyone who is willing to undertake this experiment)

n0xie
Conroe
ruff hi
Methos

auto skip
mucco (untill he has a shiny new PC)

Lurker
senwiz

[n0xie]

Our starting locations:

[mucco]

I'd be happy to join; it depends if I can run civ again.
At the moment there's no way I can play a SG, don't put me in the roster if there are other people who would like to join. I'll be lurking, though!

[Methos]

I'll play this one. I'll try and make time for it as I really want to attempt such a challenge.

Quick speed huh. Should be a short game possibly.

I think my original civ of choice was Elizabeth. I like the Financial trait and Philosophical would be more suitable for the variant.

Thanks nOxie, for taking the lead on this one. I felt horrible for backing out of mine.

[n0xie]

senwiz informed me that he does not have the time to play in another SG atm therefor we have 1 open slot for anyone who is interested.

Thanks nOxie, for taking the lead on this one. I felt horrible for backing out of mine.

No problem

I just like this variant a lot and think it will actually be useful for some people to learn how you can win with this unusual setting. That's the thing I like most about Civ4: you actually have different strategies towards winning the game in contrast to Civ3 where the main goal was to spam as much settlers as possible.

[ruff_hi]

Yes - I am in. I have no preference for leader.

[Conroe]

Originally Posted by n0xie

(waiting for confirmations from all players: 1 slot open for anyone who is willing to undertake this experiment)

Reporting for duty! My vote for civ would be Elizabeth.

Originally Posted by n0xie

To give us a little push in the back we're going to play on High Plains on the East side of the map, because this is pretty much optimized for OCC challenges.

Is this a new map that comes with the 1.61 patch? I don't seem to have this map script. I have a Highlands and a Great Plains, though; or is this a typo? If not, can you post some details about the High Plains map?

[n0xie]

Somehow I always type High Plains when I mean Great Plains

My bad...

Unless someone signs up within a couple of hours I'll just start the game with Elizabeth with Ghandi as our preferred ally. I just want to get this going

[Conroe]

Originally Posted by n0xie

Somehow I always type High Plains when I mean Great Plains

Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't sure. I recall reading somewhere that 1.61 introduced some new map scripts, but I couldn't find the post earlier.

Originally Posted by n0xie

Unless someone signs up within a couple of hours I'll just start the game with Elizabeth with Ghandi as our preferred ally. I just want to get this going

I'm OK with a 4-person SG. However, if you really want a 5th, you could post an advertisment in the stickied registration thread.

[n0xie]

Ok I generated 6 maps at random to choose from. Opponents are Ghandi and Frederic (since I used him when I played this for BG) and the other are random.

Which one do you prefer?

[Mutineer]

It could be interesting, but I never played 1CC. IN addition I will get Oblivion delivered to my little Japanize town soon.
ON second trought I will lurk.

[ruff_hi]

Originally Posted by n0xie

Ok I generated 6 maps at random to choose from. Opponents are Ghandi and Frederic (since I used him when I played this for BG) and the other are random.

Which one do you prefer?

I prefer the one on the left! Actually, I cannot see any maps.

[Methos]

Originally Posted by ruff_hi

I prefer the one on the left! Actually, I cannot see any maps.

Check post #2 and you'll see them there.

[Conroe]

I like #3 best -- the one with the 4 pigs. All of that extra food for an OCC! The #4 site isn't bad, either. It has pigs, corn, and deer -- 3 different health resources. But, I think #3 is slightly better.

[Methos]

I prefer the 2nd one from the left on the top row. Production won't be the best, but having +4 is very nice.

[ruff_hi]

• one simple little word - yuk
• nice - lots of difference sources of food. This could be one kick-a$$ GP farm. Can you give GP to your partner?
• If I was jewish, this would be a really bad location ... as it is, good food, nice production and some gold
• another good city but 2 and 3 are better
• so so - the marble is nice for wonders
• pass

My final vote would go to #2 as it has lots of difference sources of food (and hence health) and we should be able to get a really really big city going.

[Conroe]

Originally Posted by Methos

I prefer the 2nd one from the left on the top row. Production won't be the best, but having +4 is very nice.

Are you referring to the one with the water? Yea that is a real nice one, too. What bothers me, though, is all of that water on a plains map. I just can't see us needing a navy.

[n0xie]

I agree with Conroe and my vote would have gone for 3, although 2 definetly isn't a bad place. I counted the tiles though and we can cottagespam EVERY single tile AND mine the 2 hills, and still have a food surplus... That's not bad... That's not bad at all

The fur will give us a nice early commerce boost (will give 4 commerce after a camp +1 from river and +1 from financial for a total of 6 commerce early on ). So the 2nd start it is then

I'll start the game in a few hours doing 30 turns then the rest 20 turns and from that point 10 turns per person.

I think the tech tree should be something like this: bw, hunting, wheel, pottery, writing, alphabet

We skip anything else and just trade for it after alphabet, abuse the Oracle slingshot to CS, then going straight for Literature (NE) and beeline for Education (Oxford), backfill using Alphabet, then beeline for Militairy Tradition (Defensive Pact to get relations for PA going)

Since we'll skip the 'religion' tree it will be easier to convert to whatever religion Ghandi has for the relationship bonus. We might have to have a temp religion (Con?) to keep the city happy else we can't grow.

As for building order I say: workboat, workboat, worker, some militairy unit, library (chop), oracle (chop).

I always like to plan ahead

I make a habit of rushing a library (especially on OCC) and then forcing 2 scientists to force an acadamy. This is because we will be at our happiness level by the time it finishes, it gives a huge beaker boost and an early acadamy is a gamewinner.

Well so much for my Plan of Approach. If you don't agree or think my plan is totally flawed, I'm all open for input: I play SG for learning experience after all

[Conroe]

I like the plan, n0xie. But, I do have a couple of questions:

I think the tech tree should be something like this: bw, hunting, wheel, pottery, writing, alphabet

We skip anything else and just trade for it after alphabet, abuse the Oracle slingshot to CS, then going straight for Literature (NE) and beeline for Education (Oxford), backfill using Alphabet, then beeline for Militairy Tradition (Defensive Pact to get relations for PA going)

Do we not want to research Drama to get the Globe Theatre? I usually try to get the Globe fairly early in an OCC.

Since we'll skip the 'religion' tree it will be easier to convert to whatever religion Ghandi has for the relationship bonus. We might have to have a temp religion (Con?) to keep the city happy else we can't grow.

If we get the Oracle slingshot, we will most likely be the founder of Confucianism. Do you see it being worthwhile to spam missionaries to try and convert Gandhi? Or is it better to wait and let him spread a religion to us?

[n0xie]

We'll get drama along the way sometime. It's not a big 'priority' unless we're short on happy faces. I usually stall the Globe untill after Oxford.

I don't know about Confucianism. We'll just have to see what Ghandi does. If we can convert him, that would be great, if not we'll just convert to his religion.