Designing a "one city challenge" for Nobles' Club

I've taken to making maps for the Nobles' Club lately -- which is by now for everybody, though it's nice if people help out the lower-level players.

My main focus is to find interesting lessons for lower level players; e.g. with Julius Caesar, the idea was to take an easy warmonger and encourage Nobles to get out and start those wars. With Ghengis it was to try out TMIT's Horse Archer Horde strategy. People don't have to focus on the lesson, but it's meant to be there.

One of the things I'd like to try is set up something that's a good lesson for a Once City Challenge, and I'd like advice on how to set it up to make a decent lesson. I'd appreciate advice on the following plan:

1. I'd set up the WB save files to have OCC turned off, with advice in the "lesson" part of the post about how to turn it on. I'd make sure the rest of the map made a reasonable non-OCC game.
2. I'd need a link to some of the OCC threads, e.g. uberfish from 2006 (focuses on settling Great People and other means of getting free specialists). I don't think it has been updated well for BtS, though, so additional advice might be necessary. What other thread should I link to? I found tomaalimosh's from Sep 2007 and maybe n0xie's from Apr 2006 (though that's focused on the much trickier cultural victory).
3. I think I'd pick Peter, one of the currently-unused NC leaders, since apparently PHI/EXP is one of the good OCC combinations.
4. Any suggestions for a link to a basic guide to diplomacy? (since Noble-level players usually haven't mastered that stuff yet). Is schtick's thread from mid-2008 OK?
5. Which opponents? Maybe some "nice guys" like Hatty and Mansa -- or do they tech so fast as to be serious barriers to a peaceful space victory? I'd avoid kill-crazy Monty. Maybe avoid other PHI or IND leaders? Fortunately backstabber Cathy is excluded by taking Peter.
6. Maybe add an AI or two to hobble their growth a bit, or at least make sure none of them has huge amounts of territory into which to expand. Apparently on higher levels that means the AI tend to launch sooner, though.
7. I'd put in a river for health, hydro power, and a levee. Debatable how many tiles to connect; too many is too easy, but the levee production boost might be critical within the BFC.
8. I figure an OCC can count on controlling all the land within 3 border pops (4 rings) and probably a 4th, so any critical resources you didn't want to be forced to trade for should be in those rings. What resources are critical? I'd guess
   • Definitely BFC:
     • Stone for the critical early Pyramids and Hanging Gardens wonders.
     • 3 food, all different to get the best health benefit. uberfish says 2 is enough, though.
     • A metal, either copper or iron, for military units and good production boost. uberfish says trading for iron is OK.
   • Outside BFC:
     • Marble. With 'mids early, you'll have the first outside-BFC ring in time for National Epic and Great Library, and the +2 from quarried marble isn't so great as some other resources.
     • Oil. Critical for late-game military, which you'll surely need.
   • Not sure which ring:
     • Horses, for Cossacks. Since they're a mid-to-late-game unit, an outer ring might be OK as long as there are enough other resources inside the BFC.
     • Aluminum (spaceship parts). Given low production from a single city, this accelerator seems essential. It isn't needed until the outer rings are available, but BFC is easier to protect, and my OCC experience is that people wind up trying to crush me towards the end because I've had to slow down military production to build spaceship parts. OTOH uberfish says trading two "hit" resources pretty much guarantees getting it.
   • Maybe not needed, though I wouldn't rule them out; most can safely be traded for:
     • Happiness resources; the Globe will take care of most of that. Although you might want a couple for trade value, which could be in outer ring, and gold in the BFC would give a much-needed research boost.
     • Most health resources beyond what you get for the 3 food.
   • Definitely not wanted: Coal. The health hit is nasty, none of your military units need it, and if you go for National Park you'll lose it anyway.
9. A fair number of forests; they give a much-needed production boost early on, and in the BFC they're critical for the National Park's Forest Preserve free specialists.
10. Is sea access important? TriremeLost@Sea said he has had a lot of trouble without it, and at least one of the replies in that thread said Sid's Sushi can be a big win.

Any other map creation advice? I figure strategy discussion should go elsewhere -- maybe the uberfish thread.

With the advent of the national park, health resources are not as crucial any more in OCC games. If you're going to space, you'll want aluminum or its corporation. The only resource you'll probably want nearby regardless of vicotry condition is iron. Iron is super expensive to trade for from the AI, but you'll want it for ironworks (and assorted military builds).

I also think it's a mistake to avoid chopping trees in OCC for the NP specialists. The early hammers for early wonders are worth so much more than mid-late gameish specialists.

An expansive civ generally makes OCC easier, as it lets you grow your city 2 sizes bigger in the pre-NP age.

There's only been a brief discussion of tree chops vs National Park in uberfish' thread, where the strategy discussion might belong, so I'm happy to believe there's room for argument. In any case, putting in a bunch of trees is a Good Thing regardless of strategy, especially for the early health benefit.

And since Peter is the planned leader (some of the other reasonable choices having been already played in the NC series), EXP is definitely in. Bismark (EXP/IND) is also unplayed, so I could do a similar setup for him if people like this one -- which they might not; I think OCC is a specialized taste.

I don't know if the leader is discussable, but the first thing for OCC would be a leader with Chm too. I think the early happy cap increase would really give an edge, since you can't grab gold/jumbo's/gems, etc...

Well, there are some CHM leaders unplayed in NC, but as a fairly naive player I rely on other peoples' advice, and there has only been limited discussion of the effects of BtS in uberfish' thread. I'd much rather avoid a CHM leader until I've seen a more thorough discussion in some other thread -- but I accept the concept of thread drift, so feel free to comment if you like.

The currently unplayed leaders are listed in the NC bullpen. If you buy that EXP or IND is essential, the possibilities would be De Gaulle (EXP/CHM, but played) or Lincoln (PHI/CHM, not played, but cas wants to claim him).

If OCC is more popular than I thought someone could start a separate series; I could help with producing the 4 WB saves a series ought to have (Noble, Monarch, Immortal, and Deity, with the latter 3 adding specific techs to the Noble).

Woops, sorry, my post sound smore aggresive than I thought.
I don't know a lot, but I meant it as
"The first thing that springs to my mind is that it'd give an edge"

I didn't think your post was aggressive at all.

And "no happy resources" was just a first thought, so I'm happy to consider, say, adding gold to the BFC for that wonderful science boost (with early happiness being a secondary benefit). I think a key thing for aiming this to be possible for a Noble-level player to contemplate is making things fairly well tailored, but not so easy that we learn nothing.

CHA is utterly useless, IND is a good one to have, so is EXP. PHI is good as well, altough the NE/pacifism will take away most of that advantage. The earlier GP are nice though. Bismarck is my personal favourite.

Here is a very good OCC map.
Try to win conquest on! It standard size, so conquest is not so easy.
Unfortunately it's BUFFY/Lock modified assets, so some people might have issues w/
Perhaps I should start a separate thread for the map.

dalamb said:

If OCC is more popular than I thought someone could start a separate series; I could help with producing the 4 WB saves a series ought to have (Noble, Monarch, Immortal, and Deity, with the latter 3 adding specific techs to the Noble).

Click to expand...

I think you should post a map today if it's possible. An OCC series - that would be really something!

@bestss: A separate thread would be better, to avoid sidetracking this one.
@Sidney Magal: This is for Nobles' club, the next game of which will be in about 2 weeks. I don't really have the energy to run a separate series myself at the moment, but could teach somebody else how to edit the WB saves to allow correct techs at multiple difficulty levels.

dalamb, you have too steep restrictions on the resources, look at the map, it's a good map w/ enough resources to win either space or conquest.

@dalamb
Have you gotten any further on this? I would love to see an OCC series

An enjoyable OCC start would preferably have the following:

1) Abundance (10~) of forested tiles, plains and grass.
2) A river. Since coal and uranium are scarce and you don't want to pay an arm and a leg to get them, river provides Hydro power and enables levees for some extra prod.
3) Plenty of food. I'm talking Corn+Pig or Wet Wheat+Flat Grass Sheep+Banana or some other combination that produces enough surplus to comfortably run specialists. Furthermore, assuming part 2) is filled, 4-5 of those riverside tiles could be flood plains.
4) Inland. Coast weakens an OCC, unless it's like 2 or 3 tiles with 2 of them featuring food.
5) Aluminum and Copper. They don't have to be in the BFC but assuming a 1 strat resource per bfc, one of them could well be in it.
6) Some happy/health scattered in the 3+ rings, perhaps marble or stone in the 3rd ring.

I know that's asking a lot but when those conditions are filled, an OCC is truly fun to play despite the fact that you don't really get to micro that much.

Those points look good, but I think your point 4 is double-edged. Inland means more useful tiles, sure, but it also means it's almost impossible to do anything about a rival winning culture on a different landmass.

I play Pangaea so much that I assume things I suppose True, if it's a continents/hemispheres map, you might want to consider coastal (with 3 coast) and have some food there so it's not a total waste.

CivilizedTiger said:

Those points look good, but I think your point 4 is double-edged. Inland means more useful tiles, sure, but it also means it's almost impossible to do anything about a rival winning culture on a different landmass.

Click to expand...

Nukes.

I've just got a new computer after months without one and have relapsed back into the warm comfy glow of a Civ-high... and I've just managed to slog out an OCC win with Peter (only Prince-level, so infer what you will from that).

My views on the OCC:

SEA
===
It's winable without sea access, but I think it leaves too much up to chance - if the other continent has someone like Musa and a religion-in loveup then it just isn't possible to get over there and duff them up, you need to rely heavily on being able to bribe your neighbour (who you will be mates with by this point, as you'll have had to have killed them if you aren't) into declaring war on them AND then hope that they can actually muster a decent intercontinental invasion.

Also, boats are very effective at fending off an invasion - it's much better to kill units on the transports than off them

Double-edged sword, of course, as too much sea in the BFC ruins the productivity of the city. The ideal is the three-square corner of the BFC being sea, and each having a different seafood. Although I doubt you'd ever get that without a lot of luck...

TRAITS
======
PHI I think edges IND, just. You do want to bang out as many wonders as possible and as early as possible, but I think (and it's more of a feel thing, I haven't run the numbers) that losing out on a wonder or two due to not having the IND bonus is more than made up for by double GP points. Someone may prove me wrong though.

Second trait perhaps less important, but there are still obviously good ones - EXP and ORG are Ok, Spiritual is pretty good. I do quite like CHA, but IMP is a bit of a waste, as is CRE. Having said that, you are playing the game with the PHI/IMP choice, I'dve said your bigger concern after that is the UB and, to a lesser extent, the UU.

RESOURCES
=========
Marble slightly better than stone, pound-for-pound. Pyramids is crucial (and GW too, IMO), but I think there are slightly more wonders you really want (ToA, GLib, preferably Oracle, Parth even though it poisons the pool) that you're better off having Marble than stone. It does make the 'Mids a pain to build, but I've taken to aiming to get the Oracle to bring in Maths and saving a batch of chops for it.

Of course, if you slap in both then that's fab, although probably not the greatest of prep for a random map.

Metals are nice, but you can just about live without them. I've almost always swung to Feud before someone's send a horrible stack after me (granted, sometimes by the skin of my teeth, and if I see Shaka at the start my stomach falls...). Oil however... the end-game is ludicrously terrifying if you don't have Oil.

In my Peter game I spend a good hundred turns or so surrounded by three nations carriers just dropping bomb after bomb on me, poor little workers scurrying around fixing the damage, Moscow churning out insane numbers of cannon fodder infantry ready to die when Charlie Main brought over his next wave of Mech Inf, all the while teching laboriously to Plastics for Standard Ethanol. And then laying out a few choice obscenities as three GPs on the trot came out as Artists despite the chances of a Scientist being >60%...

Grains are better than livestock, because you wring maximum health bonus out of them at the time you need it.

MAP
====
Personally, I love Global Highlands. not just for OCC, I just love it, but I do find it works well.

River does make a difference, but you can live without it.


While designing this map, I suppose the big choice is to what degree you want to optimise it for OCC - do you want it to be fun yet challenging, good training for running an OCC on any old RNG map, or a bit more of an easy ride to ease people into the scope of playing with just one city (or something totally brutal, I suppose, but that seems just mean)

kossin said:

Nukes.

Click to expand...

Oh... lol... I've never even considered nukes. I guess that would work well, for most players. It still wouldn't work for me, as I will absolutely never build the Manhattan project, and I'll never build any nukes (I hope higher difficulties don't compel me to), but you're right, for people playing the game, that sounds like a good solution. I'd only lose out of my own stubbornness, if I had to eliminate someone on a different continent and I had no water access.

I did think about an OCC series some more, and I am inclining towards starting one someday of nobody else does, but not just yet -- I'm playing other games at the moment.

Thanks for all the suggestions. A series should have a variety of maps; an inland city with Pangaea and a "coastal inlet" city with continents both make sense.