OCCC (One City Challenge Club) MarkII - Gandhi

[cas]

Hello.
Madscientist started the original OCCC (one city challenge club) but eventually he let it go for other Civ4 projects, Civ5, and possibly even some real life time. Original bullpen:
Madscientist original OCCC bullpen

I enjoy OCC and decided to start the series up again for 10 games. 1/week with progressive difficulty 2/ea noble-prince-monarch-emporer, then 1/ea immortal-deity. We will also have a preferred VC each game this time around...although all VC's will still be open. In OCC, culture and dom wins are not possible for the human player without PA (permanent alliances)...well, dom may be theoretically possible but very unlikely.

I'm going to use this thread as the new bullpen:
OCCC markII bullpen

Here is the first installment. Gandhi of India on a fractal map at noble difficulty. Other settings: normal speed, no huts, no events, temperate climate, medium sea level. A strong OCC leader (Philo/Spiritual) on an easy difficulty with a good start position to kick things off.

Preferred VC is space

Starting screenshot:

And smaller version in case Photobucket ever has issues:


Starting save:
View attachment OCCC - Gandhi BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

I encourage you to post your general strategy and updates along the way...as well as your VC and finish date. Any spoiler info or screenshots please put in 'spoiler' tags.

Enjoy the game!

cas

 

[cas]

Settled in place.

First update to 975BC:

Spoiler :

Initial tech path was fishing-ag-poly-priest-writing-CoL-Math-(Oracle 1400BC) Civil Service-Alphabet (1160BC)-Masonary-Monotheism. I traded for AH, pottery, BW, hunting, and wheel.

Initial builder order was (partial) worker-wb-(finish) worker. After that I can't remember but I built 5 more warriors for fogbusting, Hindu/Confu temples, library asap after writing, Oracle, and a 2nd worker. Population 7 now and I can run 3 scientists with food.

I decided early not to go for SH or GW even though we have stone after the 2nd border pop. Got lucky with founding late Hindu in 3120BC. First GS popped in 1840BC which is late for a Philo leader...built academy. Settled 2nd GS. 3rd great person is about to pop (GS). If I had gone straight ag-AH-writing, it would probably have been better but I wanted to try something a little different. No one else on the continent has founded a religion, so my plan is to spread Confu quickly to their capitals for +diplo and avoiding wars.

Next goal - asap Pyramids and other wonders. Spread confu.

Through 940AD:

Spoiler :

Since we have stone and no marble...and the tech pace is going fast, I decided to grab education asap and not build the GLib this game. Also spread Confu to all capitals on the continent for a religion lovefest. Shaka still declaring on Mansa though...heh. After I researched Theo, I traded it to everyone so one of them would build the AP for me. MM followed through in 780AD

Techs:
(t) means I traded for the tech rather than researched it:
paper-med-education(1 GS bulb)-philo-aest-lit-theo-IW(t)-sailing(t)-archery(t)-gunpowder-music-MC-Machinery-Calendar(t)-Ppress-Monarch(t)-Construction-Eng-Chem-SciMeth-Liberalism 920AD -> Biology from Lib

Builds:
Pyramids 775BC
HG 25AD
HSoph 425AD
temples, couple of monasteries, and some additional workers for building quick forest preserves.
Working on National Park since I just lib slinged Biology.


Next phase - forest preserves and tech tech tech.

Space win in 1901AD. Bleh. Was hoping to hit the 1800's. Messed up a couple of things...could have been at least 10 turns better.

Spoiler :

Slow tech march to the end. At some point, I got smart and started donating LOTS of techs to the AI so they would research a couple of things for me. And I needed to gift multiple techs to KKhan so he would mine all the aluminum in his land and trade it to me. Fooled around with a couple of privateers just to generate a GG for giggles. I messed up with saving enough GP for the end to have constant golden ages. I always mess that up. I should have saved the GM from economics and the Gspy from Comm rather than settle them.

Tech:
compass-optics-feud(t)-currency(t)-HBR(t)-medicine-astro-guilds-bank-eco-physics-steel-comm-drama(t)-elec-refrig-nationalism(t)-superconductors-constitution-corp-radio-rep parts-rifling-DivR(t)-artillery-rocketry-steam-democ(t)-MilTrad(t)-assembly line-industrialism-satellites-fission-Railroad(t)-genetics-combustion(t)-ecology-fascism(t)-plastics-composites-computers-fibre op-fusion (1872AD)-laser

Wonders and things:
Kong Miao 1000AD
Colossus 1110AD
Ang Wat 1420AD
Taj M 1505AD
Broadway 1535AD
Cristo R 1585AD
Rock&Roll 1615AD
Apollo 1665AD
Statue of Lib 1705AD

Agree with the comments below the game dragged out a bit. But I wanted to start with something easy in case we have people new to OCC or lower difficulty players. Next week, we'll go to prince rather than another noble game.

 

[michmbk]

1965 Space. It's so slow researching all the techs yourself, plus I screwed up the tech tree a bit at the end...

Spoiler :

Started AG-BW-Masonry-Wheel-Fishing. Henge in 2720, GW in 2120, and keep the wonders going:



TThen ToA in 875 BC, GLH in 350 BC, and followed by basically every pre-lib wonder except SoZ and Hanging Gardens (missed that by 2 turns). At 1 AD:



Somewhere in here, Shaka brings some horse archers and cats to attack my city with muskets and maces - seriously? I killed his little 10 unit stack and moved on...1 turn from lib, I decided to delay it a bit...



To pick this up:



Preserved all my forests (11 of them) while teching bio to speed up tech. Tech is so slow - I had to self-tech everything...



I forgot about the gap you have if you don't get to fusion quickly, so I was left building research for 15 turns while finishing my way to fusion. Launched, built Manhattan in 3 turns, 5 nukes and hahahahaha 1 turn away take that AI:



I had to nuke Shaka and Khan just because, and Zara annoys me in higher level games, so he got a nuke too. Game over:



Builds - a few great people. May have been more except I couldn't get confu to spread to me until later than I would have liked.



And our single city, with plenty of settled great people...

 

[lymond]

@michmbk

Spoiler :

Why take Comm with Lib. BIO seems a much better play to get NP out and free specialists earlier. Comm and Krem was probably guaranteed anyway. Not sure Comm and Krem are worth it anyway. Did you rush buy? Otherwise it is a dead end tech on path to space.

 

[Agramon]

Is this an genuine start? I never seem so get starts like this Corn, pig and fish. Settler on plains hill. Lots of forest and stone in 3rd culture. o_O

 

[michmbk]

@michmbk

Spoiler :

Why take Comm with Lib. BIO seems a much better play to get NP out and free specialists earlier. Comm and Krem was probably guaranteed anyway. Not sure Comm and Krem are worth it anyway. Did you rush buy? Otherwise it is a dead end tech on path to space.

lymond:

Spoiler :

At that point I was teching so fast it was only 9 turns to bio - my workers needed to preserve the forests after sci meth anyway, so bio would have only meant 1 extra food (I only had the one farm) until everything was preserved. I figured communism & build kremlin while teching bio and preserving forests with my 3 workers was easier. Plus I wanted state property for the production bonus.

You're right though - it was pretty unnecessary. I was thinking at the time with my 10000 gold I might build cristo and then have some opportunities to rush buy, but even a factory & industrial park were only a couple turns, so rushbuying would have been pretty useless.

Not to mention I was trying to finish in under an hour, so I was going fast and not really thinking through much.

 

[babar]

I agree with michmbk, very slow...

(1941 space)

Spoiler :

Had a messy opening when I suddenly decided to try for hinduism after agriculture. Failed by two turns and threw my worker techs all out of whack. It would've been a bad idea diplomatically anyway of course.

I built the GW and the GLH to within a turn of completion for failure gold, since I had nothing else to build thanks to my sloppy opening. The GLH might have been good, but I figured everyone else would build it, so I went for something different.
I was a bit lost as to what to tech, since I couldn't rely on being able to trade for anything useful. I made virtually no tech trades whatsoever the whole game, only trading for about 5 techs, and didn't particularly need any of them at the time.

I more or less followed my usual strategy of one food tech, then mids, worker techs, beeline HG, then alphabet for building research, then literature. I went for music immediately for the settled GA, but I'm not sure this was optimal in this situation. After that, the usual liberalism techs, with metal casting and calendar thrown in as well.

The liberalism race is on:



After education I went for economics for the GM.


The tech situation immediately after taking biology with liberalism:




I never had any diplo worries the whole game. The only threat was Shaka, and he was perpetually at war with Mansa (who was holding his own). I gave in to all requests and threats (except joining wars, or closing borders with shaka) for much of the game. When I eventually built my first defensive unit (a machine gun), I stopped bothering with diplo at all, since by then the AIs were so backward and pleased with all the free stuff I had given them.

I drew my confidence from this kind of tech disparity:



Completely pointless, but I got my 3 GG eventually .

I normally like to beeline the laboratory pretty quickly, but it may not have been ideal here without the opportunity for any backfilling through trades.

Having to research rifling myself in the 1800s was annoying:



End city view:



End game stats:



Whew. For a variety of reasons, that took a lot longer than your average OCC. Mainly I think it was very unfamiliar since I've been playing OCC on deity recently. The wonder I regret not building is the sistine chapel, since it would've helped get that aluminium in a more timely fashion. Also, Mining Inc is usually a good idea in OCC, and I didn't decide to get it until it was irrelevant. It was pretty easy to trade for 8 resources + the one or two already available.

 

[Sleepless]

Had a little time to play this afternoon and managed a space victory in 1901. Thanks for the game Cas first OCC I've played since Mad's series

Edit: I did try something this game I haven't done in an OCC before which was to bulb Edu. Saved 14 turns and had Oxford up a lot quicker. 1AD in this game.

 

[cas]

Is this an genuine start? I never seem so get starts like this Corn, pig and fish. Settler on plains hill. Lots of forest and stone in 3rd culture. o_O

Spoiler :

I added the fish since the start was a little food poor for a philo leader with all those hills and brown...I wanted the first game to be pretty easy. I won't be editing the maps moving forward, although I will probably regenerate until I find something decent.

cas

 

[Benginal]

Attempt 1:

1945 Space

Spoiler :

Yeah, no kidding about the slow tech pace. It's ridiculous. I like the OCC space challenge, but I usually play it on Immortal where all sorts of things are different. So I only built engineer/scientist wonders and did other stupid stuff. I like this OCC and the map/neighbors are interesting, so I'll give this another go and do a better write-up since hopefully I will play it better.

 

[Framesticker]

I HIGHLY encourage you to make a WB save, for those of us who want to play this at levels/speeds different from the stated.

 

[Kid R]

Forgot how boring OCC space is. So eager to finish I launched in 1961 with 1 casing instead of 5.

Mission failed! Disappointing - I was hoping for an explosion movie or something.

 

[cas]

I HIGHLY encourage you to make a WB save, for those of us who want to play this at levels/speeds different from the stated.

I considered this, but with only 20 people playing (at best)...most of the games would be at different levels/speeds...and there would be no comparison possible between games.

I was planning to do another noble game, but from the comments here I'll jump straight to prince next week. I'm thinking conquest VC...maybe Boudica and global highlands map to take advantage of the Celt early UU/UB. Once you conquer the initial continent, you still have to invade the other one across the ocean.

If anyone has a fun idea on map type / civ for a prince conquest, speak up.

cas

 

[evil_spock]

Space victory 1934.

Spoiler :

Rather peaceful game. Only combat I saw was my warrior defeating a barbarian warrior early in the game.

I basically beelined to scientific method so I could get biology with liberalism. Then I built the national park and as I saved all my forests I got quite a few free specialists from that. All but 4 great people were planted so that in the end base production was 111. 16 great scientists, 4 great engineers, 2 great prophets and artists and one great merchant.

The rest was just then clicking next turn and building necessary parts. Shame that I couldn't get the aluminum that was just barely in Mansa's territory.

I only built 4 national wonders (nat. epic, oxford, nat. park and ironworks), as the national park basically worked as well as globe theatre. The wonder order was: Oracle 1280bc->monarchy, Temple of Artemis 850bc, The Great library 75bc, Pyramids 175ad, Sankore 780ad, Notre Dame 1400ad, Taj Mahal 1565ad, Cristo credentor 1928, UN 1930, Hollywood 1933).

Not a great result but considering I just clicked it through quite fast, I'm happy with this. Hopefully next game will include Monty and Gengis as neighbors. Just to provide a little excitement.

edt. Not a big deal but it was kinda strange to play without the BUFFY mod. Any chance of getting BUFFY version next time?

 

[michmbk]

I think there should be a speed bonus. I clearly finished later than everyone else (primarily because I screwed up the tech tree late), but I did it in 67 minutes. You should have to add the number of minutes you took to your finish date for the true "score"!!

My "score" for this game would thus be 1965+67, or 2032. The 1901 finish probably beat me under this alternate "score", but anyone else?

I know, by throwing that gauntlet down I'm inviting TMIT to come in and throw up a 1930 win in 38 minutes or so....

 

[Benginal]

Spoiler :

Did any of you guys find a way to get Aluminum? It never came up for trade as I guess the AIs never got the techs to see it. I thought about gifting Kublai (who had it in my game, there might have been other sources) up through Industrialism so he could see it and then I could then trade for it, but then I didn't. Also, we can't build Aluminum Inc since we have no access to coal because of the National Park. Do you think it might be worth NOT building the natl park just for the access to aluminum? I decided no, but what do you guys think?

 

[cas]

@ Benginal

Please use spoiler tags on questions like that...thanks.

Answer to your question:

Spoiler :

I gifted KKhan up to industrialism so he would mine his 2-3 sources...then traded for it. Also, I eventually got the border pop for the one to our NE. I did not have Sistene Chapel, but if you built Sistene and ran specs from forest preserves / National park...you would have aluminum before you reached the SS parts.

@ michmbk
I would lose that competition every time. I'm sloooow.

cas

 

[Benginal]

@ Cas

Spoiler :

Sorry about forgetting the spoiler! I totally forgot.

I think I will try the use culture to get aluminum route next time. That should improve the time as should changing my late game tech order. I finished the thrusters and then realized that a fusion beeline was a poor tech order since the internet wouldn't be getting me anything as I'm used to it doing. Also, I think I will switch to Buro sooner than 25 turns after getting Civil Service this time. And I'll chop down the forest preserves a little sooner. I had a lot of extra beakers at the end of last game and not enough hammers.

Other question? What tech did you guys get with the Oracle. It looks like I'm the only fool who didn't build it. I'm thinking I'll Oracle Bio and then take Fusion with Lib, . Actually though, I think popping Civil Service with the Oracle is completely reasonable. And if not, then I didn't want those prophet points anyway, .

Alright let's try take 2.

@ Michmbk

I'm afraid my computer might be a little slow. Also at the beginning/end of every turn I'd get a trade request offering me HBR. No thanks!

 

[ranger1]

Ooops. Does anyone post their embarrassing defeats?

Spoiler :

Lost in 2009 to a Shaka domination victory

Where did I go so badly wrong? I can usually handle LoR @ Prince, so thought this would be do-able, but I let Shaka rampage through all the other civs. Think I'm not aggressive enough in early game.

Fun though anyway, despite the loss. Will try again

Check out the shameful screenshot...

Spoiler :

 

[Ataxerxes]

Ranger I:

Welcome to the Forums!

That's our Shaka! I'd suggest turning off vassals in an OCC. With you restricted to one city it's harder to stop domination from the most dangerous AI.