A photo finish...

[Dark_Jedi06]

So I've been trying to win an OCC lately. This was my second attempt as Alexander on a Pangaea map, Standard game speed on King difficulty.

I resolved to go for a cultural victory a little late in the game, realizing that I wouldn't be able to make the money or get in contact with enough city-states to win diplomatically...so while I chased after social policies and kept pace technologically with endless great scientists (I was 2nd in number of techs at the end) Babylon went along happily dominating nearly half of the Pangaea, with Wu conquering the other half.

10 turns to go on the Utopia Project then...bam! Babylon and China declare war, with the Babylonian army flooding across the border. I had a few Mech Infantry and one precious Atomic Bomb. Being very careful in my tactical planning, I drop the bomb partially in my own territory to damage almost all of his Rocket Artillery.

Spoiler :

After some fierce fighting, the hundreds upon hundreds of gold poured into maintaining my Walls, Castles, etc. pays off, and I just eek out the victory (with a rating as Neville Chamberlain ).

Spoiler :

Proof that the AI will declare war to prevent you from achieving victory? I think so.

 

[aimlessgun]

Haha nice. Games where you need to go nuclear are the best. Congratulations!

 

[stormerne]

Well done. I suspect it's a particularly hard switch to make a late change to a cultural victory.

 

[Spes]

Nice work. Nukes are always fun.

I believe I've had an almost similar game as yours. Gunned for a cultural victory.

Been friends with the strongest AI Persia since the beginning of time. In the end, when I started building the Utopia Project, he said something in the lines of, "It's now or never..." then DoW'ed on me even though my military is slightly stronger than his. He was going for a tech win seeing that he had made 3 spaceship parts already but it is good to see that the AI did try to prevent me from winning the moment I started the utopia project.

So yeah, I feel the same satisfaction you got from this

 

[nebux]

that would explain why on my occ with india , france dowed on me when finishing utopia project

 

[elthrasher]

This is my experience as well when I'm on the same continent as the AI. If I'm on another continent, so far what I've seen is the AI will just sit there and watch me win. I had a Deity victory in which the last AI on the other continent was waaaay ahead of me in military tech. I had actually sold all my units because if it came to violence, I just wasn't going to win, so I had no military whatsoever. The dummy built the UN and sold me 7000 gold for 300 gpt, which let me get the city states I needed to win.

Okay, that's cheesy. I reloaded it and didn't go for the diplo win. Instead I built a space ship. Darius kept referring me to his good friend even as I sent up ship parts. No military movement. No threats. Nothing. He just watched me win. Why he wasn't working on his own ship, I have no idea, because he probably had the tech for it.

I only have a few games in which I've been able to observe this behavior, but it seems that if you have no close borders and always maintain friendly relations as well as a steady stream of trade agreements, you'll never get a dow from that AI.

 

[sarah_aus]

i agree and i had that happen yesterday. i was playing immortal and i was only 1 part away from building my spaceship for a science victory, and low and behold, FOUR civs declared war on me all at once. civs that i had been free trading with and on good terms with told me they got sick of looking at my face and jumped on me. i didnt have a hope in hell so i closed it up and went back to work.

 

[milk steak]

I think I've won 2 or 3 cultural victories (all on Emperor, various map types) and almost none of the AIs have DoWed on me, ever. This was pre-patch, though.

And, holy crap, how do you win a Cultural Victory on Deity? I slingshot my way to Acoustics, but the AI beats me to the Sistine Chapel every damn time. I can't get Construction for Great Engineers since I'll deviate from the Acoustics bee line... Blah.

 

[Druin]

This is my experience as well when I'm on the same continent as the AI. If I'm on another continent, so far what I've seen is the AI will just sit there and watch me win. I had a Deity victory in which the last AI on the other continent was waaaay ahead of me in military tech. I had actually sold all my units because if it came to violence, I just wasn't going to win, so I had no military whatsoever. The dummy built the UN and sold me 7000 gold for 300 gpt, which let me get the city states I needed to win.

Okay, that's cheesy. I reloaded it and didn't go for the diplo win. Instead I built a space ship. Darius kept referring me to his good friend even as I sent up ship parts. No military movement. No threats. Nothing. He just watched me win. Why he wasn't working on his own ship, I have no idea, because he probably had the tech for it.

I only have a few games in which I've been able to observe this behavior, but it seems that if you have no close borders and always maintain friendly relations as well as a steady stream of trade agreements, you'll never get a dow from that AI.

This is why Pangaea is pretty much the only maptype that makes for competitive Deity games

 

[bigwinw]

Is there a thread for the best way to win a Cultural Victory? Which techs to go for? Which 5 Social Policy trees to complete, or at least the must haves. Also how many cities do you have? It looks like this screen shot only has 1 city?

 

[elthrasher]

This is why Pangaea is pretty much the only maptype that makes for competitive Deity games

That's my sense as well. I haven't played archipelago on Deity yet, but I won an easy Immortal game as the French. The only warring I had to do was to sink Oda's stupid undefended fleet before it could reach me. A little vigilance and preplanning and my Triremes took care of the rest. Nobody else ever even threatened war and with trading post spam I was able to have RAs with everybody for easy tech parity.

Too bad 'cause I like the random. I like not knowing what kind of map I'm on when I'm starting.

 

[Helmling]

This is my experience as well when I'm on the same continent as the AI. If I'm on another continent, so far what I've seen is the AI will just sit there and watch me win. I had a Deity victory in which the last AI on the other continent was waaaay ahead of me in military tech. I had actually sold all my units because if it came to violence, I just wasn't going to win, so I had no military whatsoever. The dummy built the UN and sold me 7000 gold for 300 gpt, which let me get the city states I needed to win.

Okay, that's cheesy. I reloaded it and didn't go for the diplo win. Instead I built a space ship. Darius kept referring me to his good friend even as I sent up ship parts. No military movement. No threats. Nothing. He just watched me win. Why he wasn't working on his own ship, I have no idea, because he probably had the tech for it.

I only have a few games in which I've been able to observe this behavior, but it seems that if you have no close borders and always maintain friendly relations as well as a steady stream of trade agreements, you'll never get a dow from that AI.

Same here. My culture win was on my own island...no interference from the AI. Actually, they never bothered me at all about much of anything. My home island was never threatened with invasion

 

[ChaosPearl]

I don't go for cultural wins after about half a dozen of them... it somehow seems too easy, though I'm not smart enough to be able to say what exactly about it is broken, heh.

I did notice that you almost never get attacked by civs that you don't have open borders with. I'd played several games in a row where a neighboring civ asked for open borders and then DoW'd me within five turns, so in my next game I got mad and wouldn't sign open borders with anyone. Guess what, I made it to a time victory (started on ancient) without a single war EVER. WTF? At one point I had Alexander's significantly stronger military practically camping at my borders and every three turns Alex pops up asking for open borders, which I'd refuse, and he never DoW'd. He could have stomped me into the ground twice over if he had. I don't get it.

 

[bigwinw]

That's my sense as well. I haven't played archipelago on Deity yet, but I won an easy Immortal game as the French.

So you are saying that I should be able to beat Deity easy on and archipelago map?

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Is there a thread for the best way to win a Cultural Victory? Which techs to go for? Which 5 Social Policy trees to complete, or at least the must haves. Also how many cities do you have? It looks like this screen shot only has 1 city?

That's because it's a "One City Challenge" as well.

 

[Druin]

So you are saying that I should be able to beat Deity easy on and archipelago map?

It really shouldn't be that hard ... yea

 

[elthrasher]

So you are saying that I should be able to beat Deity easy on and archipelago map?

If that is your desire, I have every confidence in you. Of course you may have to practice on easier levels first. I have no idea how good you are. My point is the AI don't seem very good at doing anything other than spamming units to mow down their neighbors (and teching ahead to get better units of course). Like for example, they don't seem to be very good at reaching victory conditions. Deity AI can be in the modern age way before a human player typically could (like when I'm in renaissance - I'm not the best player), but they just aimlessly tech and build and it's surprising how much time you have to catch up. Twice I've seen the AI build the United Nations with absolutely no way of winning a diplomatic victory. Once I saw the AI build the United Nations when it had 5 allied city-states and I had 5 allied city-states. It also had like 30k gold, but since we were pals, it never tried to bribe any city-states away from me to actually win, nor did it seem to pursue any other victory condition.

So in a lot of ways you just have to not die and expand at a moderate rate and you may well win. An archipelago map can really help in that regard. The diplomatic victory is stupid easy since it totally doesn't matter what your tech level is since the dumb AI will build the UN for you. You just have to know 9 city states and bribe them the turn before the vote comes up. Really the only danger there is that one of the AI will kill too many city states for anyone to get a diplo victory. Again, this is less likely on an archipelago map.

Really the diplomatic victory is more of a "the world survived relatively peacefully to modern" victory and that can have very little to do with what the human player is up to. Coming up with the gold for bribes is simple because you don't need it for anything else at that point and the AI will pay gold for GPT. Or you could even sell all your luxuries. What do you need happiness for at that point? But what makes this really easy is the AI, even with tremendous gold reserves, doesn't enter a bidding war with you. At most you need 1000 gold per city-state that isn't already in your pocket. Probably you don't even need that much.

 

[Zenstrive]

I tried OCC once. I got so left behind it's no fun anymore....

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

I tried OCC once. I got so left behind it's no fun anymore....

You need to have as many Maritime city-states as possible (I was only able to secure two, the map spawned mostly Militaristic/Cultured ones) and you need to run as many scientist specialists possible, prioritizing libraries, university's, etc. Add in the National Epic and you'll be churning out Great Scientists to help keep up in technology.

 

[Zenstrive]

You need to have as many Maritime city-states as possible (I was only able to secure two, the map spawned mostly Militaristic/Cultured ones) and you need to run as many scientist specialists possible, prioritizing libraries, university's, etc. Add in the National Epic and you'll be churning out Great Scientists to help keep up in technology.

I played as Babylon trying to beeline to Acoustics but it takes too many turns. As for MariCS, do you guys realize that MariCS now set further away from you compared than before patch? Pre-patch, I usually able to get 2 or 3 MariCS close, now they are like 30-40 hexes apart so if your scouts or warriors got screwed by barbs on the way you may not be able to contact them if doing OCC.