One City Challenge

I've recently started exploring the possibilities of playing One City Challenge in Civ 1. For those not familiar with OCC, it means that you can possess only one city at all times in the entire game. That means you have to win by sending a space ship to Alpha Centauri.

I've managed to finish three games on Warlord difficulty, landing in mid 19th century in my last try. Difficulties I've encountered are mostly centered around important wonders getting obsolete when researching new techs. The Colossus gets obsoleted by Electricity, and Shakespeares Theatre is obsoleted by Electronics. I usually try to research all other techs necessary before researching Electricity, since when I lose the effects from The Colossus my tech pace slows down significantly.

A good starting location has rivers and/or lots of shielded grassland. Also some production special is good, but not necessary. Trade is more important than shields. It can also be beneficial to have a coastal city since then you can transport caravans to other continents and increase trade.

I usually start by getting Pottery and Bronze Working and after that going straight for The Republic (Despotism is REALLY horrible in OCC). Switching to Democracy later does no good since you have no corruption anyway, so I stay in Republic for the entire game. I try to get a granary ASAP and then a settler to improve the land around my city. After that I go for colossus and a library while researching for Construction and Trade and then going for Medicine to get Shakespeares Theatre. When I get Shake's and an aqueduct built i use We Love The President Day to grow the city to maximum size. This usually means size 25-30. After that when you build University, Bank and the science wonders, new techs will come in very fast. Before you get Electronics you have to build a Temple, Cathedral and Colosseum to avoid civil disorder. Also your tech rate slows down since The Colossus gets obsolete by Electricity and one of the science wonders by Automobile.

When I've researched all the techs needed for the space ship, I put everything on taxes and just buy all the parts and then launch. After launch it's good to build some defensive units just in case.

Other notes:

Buying peace can be sensible if you're against an agressive opponent; warfare slows down your advancement.

It's good to avoid dead-end techs that do nothing for you. It's a waste of time to research Monarcy and Horseback Riding. Also Genetic Engineering is pretty useless if you don't want the Cure for Cancer-wonder. Communism doesn't do much good either, other than lead to Labor Union which gets you Mech Inf.



I know this strategy is far from optimal (probably it sucks), but it's a start. My goal is ofcourse to win an OCC on Emperor and then just to land earlier. It's a long way, but I'm sure I can do it with some research.

Anyone with ideas on OCC, please reply!

Yes. I have heard of the OCC but have never played it. There was a thread on Apolyton Civ Forum long ago. Go here. (hope this link works.)

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64724

I like the idea of having only one city to manage as I get exasperated trying to manage many cities.

stwils

Nice thread that one, but it's about Civ3, so not so much help here.

Neat insight! I am going to try this!

After winning about five OCC's on Warlord I first tried a few Prince games but got bad starts and didn't succeed. After that I decided to just start exploring the possibility of doing an OCC on Emperor. I was lucky to get an incredible starting location, and to my surprise I won the game in 1865 AD! I did reload a few times when the AI's got some wonders I needed (in Civ 1 the AI players are given wonders at random), but I'm very satisfied anyway!

The Germans did launch a space ship too, but fortunately mine was faster. I've attached a few screenshots from my game. The surprising thing is that I never got Isaac Newton's College, but since the AI was warring quite a lot, I still managed to win. First I even missed the SETI Program, but with a reload I managed to get it.

I may post a better timeline later.

You say you missed SETI but it is visible on one of your thumbs..?

Thats interesting, going to try one city, good to see many ideas on this forum to get more game play out of this great game.

What you should aim to do now is try to get your civilization rating... having 100% Luxaries and turn the two tax collectors into entertainers also just before space ship arrives would obviously help too...

I've noticed that you were the Russians, I always go the Russians because if the computer is Russian it will constantly go to war with you...

Good work...

Jonathon, right, I forgot that I reloaded once when the computer built it, so I seemed to get it the second time.

nock371, sure I could do that, but I don't care about civ rating, just about the landing date. If I want a good score I surely do not play OCC

Russians are also nice since you often get two settlers, and that gives a nice headstart.

Congradulations to ozo for a job well done.

The concept of OCC was born with Civ2 and many players have been playing it for several years now.

I once tried a Civ1 OCC game but I never finished it; I should go back to it. One thing that makes OCC difficult to do in Civ1 is the lack of sophistication of the diplomacy system.

Yeah, I've played OCC in Civ2 too. It's probably one of the fastest ways (real time) to get a Deity win. In Civ2 the AI is very nice to you when you're small, you can request tribute often and mostly the AI will not attack you. In Civ1 it's the other way around: the AI bullies you when you're small, and it's kinda hard to intimidate anyone with just one city.

It also kinda sucks when sometimes the AI just parks units in your city area, but you don't have enough power to start a war. There's nothing you can do, since it doesn't violate the peace treaty.

You could try forting units around your city's land.. And maybe have an offensive unit parked outside one of the AI civ's cities. That way they will feel threatened and maybe be kinder to you.

Trada, nice idea. I have done that with caravans late in the game, but it's hard to do it early, and usually the AI puts a phalanx in your city area in 1500BC or something when I haven't had the chance to put units everywhere.

Never tried putting a unit near them, maybe it helps. I just don't want to have too many military units since they have shield upkeep.

Mm. Yeah. The tactic of placing an army near their city to slow their aggression is a well documented tactic called "The Spanner in the works". Believe me, it works.

I tried an OCC on Chefian just to test out my mod (as seen in the alternative rules thread) and did suprisingly well. I never set out to win and, naturally, didn't. However, I did have a pretty cool OCC game.

I had 100% tax on my size 5 city throughout the entire game. I never explored the world but got curious travellers reports of the Indians wiping everybody out. This was pretty wack as the Indians are exactly known to go on conquests.

By 2100AD I had suvived without meeting any other civ. I saw the replay and everything was made clear. I was on a huge continent with the Indians plus 5 other civs. The Ganhdi had finally got in touch with his inner fighter and had methodically taken the cities of every other civ on the land but me. Somehow he missed me (or leaved me alone) while he was busy with everybody else.

The Babs had an extremely small island in the bottom left of the map which could barely hold their two cities. And the Greeks had a long island to the upper-right of the map. The Greeks and the Indians (who had huge cities all over the stupidly big continent in the middle of the map minus my little top right corner) had warred for thousands of years. The Indians had four times the might but the Greeks had the will. Indian troops would take some of the Northen Greek cities only for the Greeks to raze them to the ground and erect more. These too would be taken and the cycle continued with nobody getting the upper land. Perhaps the Indians had the upper hand as they were the ones on the offense..

I sent caravans and diplomats throughout the land and by 2250AD I had explored every inch of the India mass. Of course, the Indians made sure I paid my tribute to Gandhi and I did with the knowledge that they would never stab me in the back. Every so often I would watch the latest replay and found out what was going on in the world. Something quite cool I saw: The Indians build first NUCLEAR! The Indians of all civs! I am now convinced it isn't just the Americans or the Russians who would use them first as I am pretty sure Gandhi would have used them with against the Greeks.

And one day Gandhi got bored and took my city. The End.

That's my kewl OCC experience ^.^

Heh, Shakespeare's theatre is the possibly the most vital wonder for your success in OCC on higher levels

Tenochtitlan, pretty much. The Colossus is vital too though, I can't imagine to do well without it. It sucks to get them both obsoleted when reaching the advanced techs (Colossus by Electricity, Shake's by Electronics) though. Need a plan for that too

It is a good idea to play the civ1 this way.
I never did it before, so it was my first try. Never played this in other versions of civ as well.
First, tried to play for Americans on Earth. Built the first city, started to settle down. There were no Aztecs nearby, so it was a promising future with no close neighbours at least for the first time.
But then, the Babyloneans were destroyed and Zulus started in South America. I never guessed that they will be closest civilization to me. In some years, they declared war on me and started to attack with cavalerias and legions. The city was captured in 10 turns after or so. I decided not to replay because they will not stop from sending lots of units on me.

The second try was better then the first one - warlords level, Russians on a random map. I started inland (which is good as the city was never attacked by ironclads and later battleships). My neighbours were Americans (also good as I never was at war with them thruoghout the whole game).
I started with building the Colossus, then built all scientific and trade improvements (marketplace, library, later unvivercity and bank), researched Republic and switched to it using president's day. Moscow grew to size of 19 citizen which was the maximum for my area. Research started to happen each two turns - quickly left all other civs behind.
When I got to riflemen stage, inwaders started to come recently - and they were Mongols and Zulus (occupying two nearby continents). Using cannons, reflemen and later armors I was able to keep them away from Moscow and a group of mobile settlers was quickly re-irrigating pillaged lands.
Since the inwasion started, I never had free time to build any more improvement - tanks were winning, but not always and reinforcements were needed constantly. At about same time, Americans were attacked and their cities started to change their ownership.
Later in the game I had to switch Moscow to produce Apollo wonder and later SS parts - and this was the hardest time as Mongols and Zulus were not stopping. I lost all mobile military defence and started to lose irrigations, so that city size fall down to 15 to the time the starship was launched. At about the same time, Americans were conquered and Mongol troops wereall heading on me. I was able to lauch the spaceship successfully (even that it happened late in the game - year of arrival was 2022) and quickly built armors to clear the territory. Then I won the game being the last civilization on the powergraph. Even Aztecs, I never heard of in the game, were higher.
This was my only win so far in the game when I was so low in the graph.

I have tried, and often succeeded, winning games with just a handful of cities; I kind of like the idea of being a modest-sized -- but technologically and infrastructurally formidable -- civilization. But I only play on King level, and the fewest cities I've managed to win with was four.

I don't think it's possible to win OCC at King level. If anyone has, please tell the story!

I once finished the game with single city as English on Earth (London FTW, though I re-started twice to get game and coal if I remember right). It was either Chieftain or Warlord (don't remember). I didn't really start off with the intention to win, but later, I realized I can and I rushed spaceship. I barely made it.
After win, I started the great war against russian Eurasioafrica, but kinda gave up after conquering western europe (too many bombers and armors coming from the depths of Asia and Africa, and the conquered european cities couldn't produce army fast enough).

I've been trying this OCC! Since I only play at King level, I'm finding it, well, ridiculously difficult. I am playing Rome, and I lucked out: I got two settlers, one of the hills has coal, and I can run up and destroy the neighboring unoccupied French capital in 3920BC, leaving nobody right next to be at the start.

I found that building the Colossus and the Great Library ASAP improve matters greatly, but I still don't see how any of you are managing to actually "win"...

I've only played this up to about 900AD. The Indians have demolished everybody else in Asia and Africa, and the Aztecs and the Germans (the reborn French) occupy North and South America respectively. The Germans are the most powerful, with the Aztecs and the Indians neck-and-neck right behind. Oh, and the English are still around, stuck on Great Britain doing their own OCC thing.

I made trade routes quickly, and up until 800AD (i.e. a couple of turns ago) I was the Most Advanced civ. Now I'm second. Rome (I called it Vatican City, actually) has all its improvements and three juicy trade routes, and is doing nicely. So far the Indians have been mellow to me. Any thoughts?