A few questions on the one city challenge..

[Shudz]

Prince (I win), monarch (I lose) level player, recently have got into the occ.

A few questions for those who know..

If I put a farm or watermill outside the bfc, do I get anything or are they like cottages and need to be 'worked'?

How many cottages would you say minimum..I usually manage 2-3?

I should say I've won on noble, in prince I keep parity til steel, then tech time doubles.

My strategy is use Gandhi, build wonders, found all religions, spread only 1 after reading the forums on here.

Also how does war weariness work? Is it a set unhappiness level, or does it increase the longer the war goes on? If so, do you reckon getting hereditary rule ASAP via pyramids, build enough units to satisfy happiness and stop pillaging/defend, then declare on all ai civs and keep war for whole game would be advisable? Would it effect them in the long run?

 

[Shudz]

Also obviously use hereditary rule til globe theatre then it won't effect me will it?

 

[lymond]

If you build the Mids, you should be running Representation in an OCC. Plenty of happiness, plus any resources, to tide you over until you build Globe.

Gandhi is one of the best OCC leaders. Most Philo leaders are, like Peter. IND is also a good one - think Ramses.

I don't build cottages in OCC games. I build Mids, TGL, etc. Run Rep. Settle most Great People.

Going for all Religions is really not a great idea unless you just do it for kicks. It's not feasible on higher levels. As for religion spread, it depends on what victory you are going for. If going for AP cheese then you control the spread of the AP religion to fix the vote. Otherwise it really doesn't matter except for possible diplo reason. I see no reason to spread just one religion around except if you want everyone to adopt it. I like to create tension among AI so I can bribe them into wars and keep them off my back.

Non-resource improvement don't do anything for you if not in your BFC - unless you need farms to chain irrigate the land inside your BFC. I'm really surprised you don't know this already. Otherwise, just place Forts with roads on resources outside your BFC so that you can get access to them for health, happy, wonders, strategics or to trade any extras.

After Globe Theatre, you can trade away all your happy resources for health, if you need it, or gold. And note that trading or gifting at least 2 or more to an AI will eventually get you +2 trade bonus.

War Weariness gets worse as the war continues and how many losses you take. You might need HR some if you are really hurting, but really need to be in Rep as much as possible. If Spiritual like Gandhi, then you can flip back and forth between Rep and HR as needed. Another way is to just win your wars quickly. Take bites out the AI or plan the war better.

 

[Heathcliff]

I used to play some OCC space games before.

I used to go with wonderspamming and specialist settling.

Nice worldwonders:
Mids, Oracle, Artemis, TGL

Nes:
NE, HE, GT, OxF, NP

Pick a spot with 2 foodresources and Marble and lots of forrests in BFC.

For an easy game pick peaceful opponents.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, if you go NP, leave most forests. Cottages generally are not ideal for OCC as they favor larger empires, so FIN is not such a good OCC trait.

 

[JustBen]

Improvements outside your BFC are not useful. The only exceptions are chopping forests and harvesting resources outside your BFC. Bear in mind that a fort harvests a resource too, once the appropriate tech is researched.

I've never used cottages in OCC. I've tried to cook starts that make me want to, but I always wimp out and farm over them eventually. This is to fuel GPP for settled super specialists; I don't bulb in OCC.

Your religious strategy is sound but difficult to achieve on higher difficulty levels. Founding CoL or Philo is pretty common but letting the AI tech Hin/Bud/Jud is something you're going to have to get used to if you want to keep moving up in difficulty. You basically can't share a border with someone of a different faith. This often forces me to run no religion (and no religious civic until the lackluster FR). I prefer the AIs to have some religious wars anyway, since it foments late game conflict also. Religious harmony is causing an outbreak of world peace in your games, which leads to the mid game tech monsters you're seeing. Bribe a war or two early and they'll start on their own later.

I do not know WW details. Usually I only get into a war with rivals that can't reach me. I've been flattened by many OCC invasions, but I've also held off my share of them too. The one OCC I won by conquest was painfully boring though, so I never really learned any good tricks. It was neat to use mechanized infantry for once though.

edit -- Missed the HR question. If I can't build mids for rep I call the game a loss. On immortal I've learned to grab it reliably even without stone or industriousness. When I actually lose them, it's because I try to build too much stuff before Pyramids. Even mids+oracle can be done with no production bonuses, but your barb defense will be thin.

 

[Shudz]

Yeah I thought improvements out of bfc didn't do anything..but when you have a worker on some of them, the option in the menu flashes blue as if you were on a tile it recommended to improve.

Can't say I've ever built a fort???? Should I be?

My religion philosophy was to let an ai get buddisim, while I go poly to div right, not all out though. Then spread poly to other civs and the Buddhist ai takes the heat off me..worked once haha

So say I have no happiness worries, because I got mids and ran hr or rep until globe theatre. If I had enough defences, could I declare on all rival civs straight after getting mids for whole game and they get ww for all game? Would this affect their production etc?

 

[damerell]

Can't say I've ever built a fort???? Should I be?

Yes; on a resource out of BFCs, a fort is as good as the "right" improvement - and boosts defence to boot.

So say I have no happiness worries, because I got mids and ran hr or rep until globe theatre. If I had enough defences, could I declare on all rival civs straight after getting mids for whole game and they get ww for all game? Would this affect their production etc?

In theory, but WW would only affect them if they prosecuted the war in your territory, and were then willing to run large numbers of units into a futile attack. Conversely, they'd all form a lovefest, trading techs back and forth, and not to you, their worst enemy.

 

[ChaosSlayer]

I am curious if anyone have tried:

-OCC
-huge map/marathon
-10+ AIs
-Conquest/Domination Victory

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

If I put a farm or watermill outside the bfc, do I get anything or are they like cottages and need to be 'worked'?

You don't get any yield tile yield (food/hammers/commerce). Farms outside the BFC can be used to create a irrigation chain after Civil Service is discovered.

Forest Preserves improve the chances of spawning a new forest whether or not they are worked; this effect is still present outside the fat cross (CvMap::doTurn invokes CvPlot::doTurn for each plot on the map, which in turn invokes CvPlot::doFeature, which in turn uses the iFeatureGrowth setting in Civ4ImprovementInfos.xml to adjust the growth rate).

Warning: that's the result of a code read, not a code test.

How many cottages would you say minimum..I usually manage 2-3?

Minimum? none. As a rule, OCC + late game victory condition tends to turn into Super Specialist City. Either you are constructing a wonder - in which case you need hammers now - or you are farming more super specialists.

That said, I'm not sure how well the rule is proven. It might be that early cottages are viable, or that in an OCC it makes sense to switch from Specialists + Caste to Cottages + Emancipation.

 

[vranasm]

in occ you have 100% slider whole game and early game tile yields of cottages are less then rep fueled specs, settled specs.

makes more sense to put farm to feed half/1 spec and run caste.

happiness isn't limit (see GT) which makes the decision easier.

 

[babar]

FIN is not such a good OCC trait.

I agree, not the greatest, but above average.

I would rate the traits:

PHI/IND (IND is safer and quicker to liberalism, PHI overtakes it after NP, and probably launches spaceship earlier)

SPI

FIN can get easily get 15+ extra post environmentalism (almost 2 settled GSs), and maybe a little something early if you get lucky with bonus tiles.

CHA
EXP
can't be bothered with the rest...

 

[JustBen]

I agree, not the greatest, but above average. ... FIN can get easily get 15+ extra post environmentalism (almost 2 settled GSs), and maybe a little something early if you get lucky with bonus tiles

Financial is bad for OCC. Early game +2 health or +2 happy make Exp/Chm quite strong. Creative lets you finish your library a few turns earlier, which is almost certainly more useful than a few commerce in the Modern Era. Only the pure warmonger traits, Agg/Imp/Pro, are really worse than Fin.

 

[babar]

I'm sure you're right about CHA. Wasn't thinking there. It helps if you get attacked too.

CRE won't give you more than a turn or two on the library. At that point I'm usually too busy building stuff for a few turns to run scientists for a little while anyway. Maybe a more useful benefit is if it gains you access to stone in the third ring in a timely fashion, but that is pretty situational.

EXP will rarely do anything much (it used to be better pre-BTS).

I don't think 15+ should be disregarded completely. 50+(?) might be close to 5% of your total output (I think).