A peaceful strategy for OCC space race

[GreyFox]

@ocollard: in OCC, all the "X number Y buildings requisite" are removed. In fact, this single feature of OCC more than compensate for the lack of other cities. (Compare this with someone trying to play a 3CC cultural victory, for example).

 

[ocollard]

Thanks for the answer. I got it now.

 

[dalamb]

Has anyone experimented with how this strategy might change under Beyond The Sword?

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

This article is pretty much out of date and useless with BTS. Biology is the single most important tech post liberalism. The national park is too damn good in a OCC. You never chop any of the trees in your BFC the entire game, and place a forest preserve in each one for the free specialist. It also makes keeping up in tech relatively easy, at least up to emperor difficulty.

 

[Abegweit]

A pretty good guide, although I disagree with your dismissal of the Spiritual trait. It is far more than just an aid to diplomacy. However, I must say that I was ticked off by this.

Health, however, is a constant issue as an OCC player can only control resources near her city.

Who is this "her" you are referring to? Yourself? I seriously doubt it. The leaders you prefer? Ummm... Both men. The typical CIV player? Must be around 90% male. So who is "her"? And why did you choose to refer to him this way?

 

[dalamb]

This article is pretty much out of date and useless with BTS.

"Out of date" I'll buy given your mention of biology, but "useless"? The analysis of leader traits? The ancient era techs and wonders? He lists 4 national wonders, leaving room for National Park as the 5th (don't know if there was a limit in Vanilla, but max is 5 for BtS as I discovered to my anguish mid-game!)

Who is this "her" you are referring to?

Some people randomly (or alternately) choose "him" or "her" when referring to a person whose gender doesn't particularly matter in context. I don't see why it should bother you so much. Apparently we should all be writing in German, which I'm told has a neutral personal pronoun.

uberfish last logged in this morning; maybe he'd have some interest in updating if people were more polite than you two.

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

I found it a very good and thorough OCC strategy thread, just what I needed for my current obsession with OCCs and space victories and the way for me to get a better result than 2020.

A question: I read a lot of people turning cottages into workshops in the later game. It sounds really tempting, but doesn't this mean that you lose food? Since I become stagnant around 20-21 population, each food lost hurts a lot (and I usually have less than 5 unhealthy citizens, if none by then thanks to bio.) Am I missing something here?

I didn't agree with one part, though; I think the spiritual trait is a very useful one for an OCC, seeing that you need to keep up in tech and productivity and every turn counts. Not losing a turn (or more) for every civic or religion change helps really a lot. Plus the cheaper monuments are useful for quickly expanding boarders to get resources nearby that you can't acquire with other cities. Because of that I think Gandhi's pretty much the best leader for an OCC, because of his traits (I think philosophical is definitely the best trait for this strategy) and fast worker which is always good to have. Plus I like having mysticism as a starting tech so I can get a cheap monument out early.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A question: I read a lot of people turning cottages into workshops in the later game. It sounds really tempting, but doesn't this mean that you lose food? Since I become stagnant around 20-21 population, each food lost hurts a lot (and I usually have less than 5 unhealthy citizens, if none by then thanks to bio.) Am I missing something here?

You may be missing the State Property civic, which gives back a food for every workshop and watermill.

I didn't agree with one part, though; I think the spiritual trait is a very useful one for an OCC, seeing that you need to keep up in tech and productivity and every turn counts. Not losing a turn (or more) for every civic or religion change helps really a lot. Plus the cheaper monuments are useful for quickly expanding boarders to get resources nearby that you can't acquire with other cities. Because of that I think Gandhi's pretty much the best leader for an OCC, because of his traits (I think philosophical is definitely the best trait for this strategy) and fast worker which is always good to have. Plus I like having mysticism as a starting tech so I can get a cheap monument out early.

(a) Cheaper Temples, not Monuments.

(b) I think you are over selling Spiritual here. OCC space race is almost a perfect storm of not needing to change civics very often. How many times do you expect to switch out of Representation? Or Bureaucracy? How important are cheap temples when you can drop the Globe Theater into your one city, or post up a batch of Forest Preserves?

 

[dalamb]

(b) I think the only benefit of SPI is being able to knuckle under to civic- and religion-change demands without anarchy -- not so much changes in general. Minor compared with EXP, IND, and PHI IMHO.

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

Thank you, I somehow had forgotten about the State Property civic! This'll make things much easier

You're right, I might be too fond of the spiritual trait! But I change religions quite a lot during an OCC since I hate it when they DoW on me during one, plus waiting for the corn or iron right outside my borders at the beginning of the game really gets to me, so I like getting temples out early (forgot monument was the UU of the Egyptian Empire in BtS ) Plus when a friend asks me to change a civic I sometimes do it when I'm Gandhi, since I just have to wait a few turns and not lose one.
Unfortunately once I switched back to HE from Representation since I had happiness problems and was reluctant about getting the Theather at that point, so, (for me) avoiding at least a few anarchy turns plus religious switches makes me love SPI in the OCC. Though I never said I'm a good civ player, so what I write isn't necessarily correct. But expansive seems to be really useful too.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Cherrysnowdrop:

Another very good guide is the guide to deity space race. The ideas apply to all and a few of them apply here. It is up-to-date.

Spiritual does have value in an OCC, it's true. But diplomacy is even more important in an OCC. I always try to get into the religion of my near neighbors. If some idiot on the other side of the world declares, why do I care? If I'm friendly with a big buddy nearby, we often war together. I just don't fight. One recent game, I was at war with SB for over 1,000 years. I was between Shaka and Ragnar, who had the same religion. I didn't even consider changing religion. I build the AP and voted for Shaka to head it (+2 diplo) and he called for a crusade against SB (usual for SB as lightning rod). Longest phony war I can remember - I never saw one SB unit and had a small military. I got +4 and +5 for mutual military struggle - even Shaka doesn't declare at Friendly.

I agree, Expansive is very good for an OCC. I rank it just behind PHI and IND. Tip: build worker first and then when your city is nearing happy cap, build a second. Chop every forest outside the BFC for hammers with #2 worker. 2 workers really help when you get Scientific Method to preserve every forest in your BFC.

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

Exactly! You're right, the key in OCC is really diplomacy. I just like spiritual since it makes diplomacy easier for me. I read and played a game with the deity thread strategy and thanks to it I pulled a victory about a hundred years before.
What I hate is when my "friend" suddenly changes his/her religion and I'm back to square one. Sometimes I change religions a lot to keep my neighbour pleased, which gets really annoying.

I played once with Peter and his Expansive helped me out a lot, especially since I didn't have many health resources nearby, but when with Gandhi I trade my happiness for health and manage to avoid unhealthy citizens, though it doesn't always work! Expansive obviously is a very useful trait for an OCC. I still haven't played with industrious, but I think I'll give it a try with my next game since with the deity strategy, specialists and wonders become even more important. Bismarck seems pretty good for it.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Is the National Park worth it every time? With the Globe and National Park you can pretty much grow as big as your all farm/windmill food supply allows, but is the loss of coal worth it in terms of production? Assuming access to coal (obviously the deciding factor), if you go with the suggestion of Bismarck, you loose 100% production potential from National Park. With an endgame city having at least 50 hammer output that would be a net loss in my book. Even if we're talking +50% from Ironworks (with Coal) how could you net an overall gain?

Also, on great merchants, one shouldn't forget that they effecitively count as a +1 since they cancel out one with their +1 . Don't forget the Representation bonus either.

 

[dalamb]

I doubt NP is worth it every time, but I think it was worthwhile in the recent Noble's Club: Peter game, which some of us played as an OCC. I had cooked the map so there were several forests you could get away without chopping; if you had to chop more of them to access resources, leaving only a couple in the BFC, it likely wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Jakt]

I was so close on my attempt to play this strategy. I rolled a perfect start, with flood plains meandering through my city cross, with copper, corn and incense there as well. Managed to keep the peace as Suli expanded insanely large on the rest of the continent, easily twice the size of any other civ. My city grew to size 37 by the modern age, and the GP spawns were insane. After I laid the internets tubes, my tech supremacy was untouchable.

Trouble was when I ignored the damned UN, and Suli walked away with a diplo win right as I was about to finish my spaceship. Too frustrating to open an autosave and try to make some changes.

On the plus side, I love how OCC games just fly. If there aren't wars to prosecute, an entire game can be played in a couple hours!

 

[Ataxerxes]

Is the National Park worth it every time? With the Globe and National Park you can pretty much grow as big as your all farm/windmill food supply allows, but is the loss of coal worth it in terms of production? Assuming access to coal (obviously the deciding factor), if you go with the suggestion of Bismarck, you loose 100% production potential from National Park. With an endgame city having at least 50 hammer output that would be a net loss in my book. Even if we're talking +50% from Ironworks (with Coal) how could you net an overall gain?

Also, on great merchants, one shouldn't forget that they effecitively count as a +1 since they cancel out one with their +1 . Don't forget the Representation bonus either.

I think the NP is worth it every time. I usually get my cities up to size 27 in an OCC - impossible without NP. I actually make Biology a priority. I get my production back with 7 Engineer specialists. Also, it really helps in getting to the space techs. I never forget Representation (or Bureaucracy) in OCC. Without those 2, OCC would be a lot harder.

Also, remember the second benefit of the NP. One specialist for each forest preserve. I try to leave 6-7 forests in my BFC, get to Biology and get 7 more specialists. I always settle my great merchants for the +1 food because that's half a specialist with Rep bonus and I have no health problems.

For a long time, I did it avoiding the National Park because I wanted Aluminum Co. Even without Aluminum, all those Engineers help production.

I chop minimally in the BFC, but I clear cut everything else. Looks ugly, but . . .

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I just played a game as Peter on a huge Pangea and got rolled in the late middle ages by Hyuna and later Saladin because I had a weak military. I'd missed a few good wonders, but none that were listed as "needed".

I wasn't sure how to address the roving stacks in my territory. If I'd gone with full catapult production I would have had problems due to the mid game switch to a military complex. I had no real allies either because in trying to remain neutral I slowly degraded my standing with everyone. Maybe next time.

Also, I guess the NP thing has to do with your final food supply. If you have coal and can't make up the lost production with engineers (7 might do it) then I don't know...

 

[Ataxerxes]

I just played a game as Peter on a huge Pangea and got rolled in the late middle ages by Hyuna and later Saladin because I had a weak military. I'd missed a few good wonders, but none that were listed as "needed".

I wasn't sure how to address the roving stacks in my territory. If I'd gone with full catapult production I would have had problems due to the mid game switch to a military complex. I had no real allies either because in trying to remain neutral I slowly degraded my standing with everyone. Maybe next time.

Also, I guess the NP thing has to do with your final food supply. If you have coal and can't make up the lost production with engineers (7 might do it) then I don't know...

OCC is harder on larger maps. On a smaller map, it's easier. Inland Sea/Small works quite well for OCC.

Trying to do an OCC without allies is HARD. You try to get in a situation where you're in the same religion as your neighbors and can tell the rest of the world to !@#$ themselves. AP can be quite helpful and sometimes a pain in the ***. You can vote for your opponent in the AP election and get +2 diplo. I've used it to stop wars on myself or to declare holy war. Diplomacy is key in OCC.

The NP is for both your final food supply and the forest preserve specialists. I average 13 specialists in the late game and work every BFC tile. I usually have about 8 engineers by the time I'm building parts, 10 if I'm Germany. Most city sites start on a river, so Plastics might be worthwhile for Hydro Plant. Remember, you can still use coal to build railroads.

I used to not build the NP because I was worried about the coal. I've changed.

What level were you playing? Were you using Representation/Caste/Pacifism?

 

[dalamb]

I've often heard advice to add more AIs and restrict land area to cramp the AIs a bit; the ones that expand into "your" territory (had you played a normal game) may get too powerful. This thread also advised that diplomacy is very important, so your remaining neutral was likely part of your problem.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Well I did try to be diplomatic when it was feasible, but constant requests to cancel treaties with this guy and switch to this civic for that guy put a cramp on things.

I might try a spiritual leader just to get diplo mods in the early game. Maybe Ghandi or Mansa Musa. I would say Izzy, but with all the talk of NP being more worthwhile the trait is a wasted one post biology.