A photo finish...

I tried this today and u are spot on chaos. I played immortal and refused every open border request. Got through the game with noone declaring war when usually 3-4 will at one time. Thank u for the wonderful advice, it's made life in the civ world a little less stressful.
Xx

 

From my sole OCC experience (India, Prince, Pangaea, standard everything), I found it's better to just focus on science and maintain a small army. Not a respectable army, just enough for barbarian policing will be enough. Get maybe up until Public Schools and assign scientists as quickly as you can. You won't be needing happiness buildings most of the time because of just having once city, so all your building maintenance will be coming from culture/science buildings. Switch specialists to Artists when you get the techs for Redentor and Broadcast tower.

Having early science buildings will help you get more Great Scientists sooner, allowing you to slingshot through lots of parts of the tech tree. What I did was use them for quickly getting Acoustics, Hospital (I forgot its tech name) and for the two techs for Redentor and Broadcast Tower (these are the most important, but those GS'es can be popped to get whatever Wonder you need in your production line sooner, like Sistine Chapel). What little gold I had, I used for rushbuying since Germany and China trampled on a lot of CS's in my game, and left me without maritimes.

 

Just finished an Immortal/Pangea/Standard/Non-legendary OCC game as Ramesses. It got pretty tight at the end when both Germany and Russia DoWed me a few turns before my final policy. I didn't have the best defensive position (a few hills one side, grass the other) but managed to hold them off until I completed the Utopia project. My city was down to about 10 health and my only remaining combat unit was an artilery piece in the city! Perhaps could have held out another few turns as there were no units about at the end.

One of the things that saved me was my citadels. I'd set up three on scattered hills around my city, and, with a fortified mech infantry on each they don't fall easy! Swarms of panzers and mech inf would fly in and mostly die to arty and citadel goodness. I lost them eventually, but I was easily getting 20:1 kill ratios by just sitting there. I was also heavily helped by a bug which gave me a Khan from a city state... +4 healing per turn beats +2 by a long way!

Fortunetly I had marble to start, and, with the tradtion boost as well I could chuck out wonders like anything. Managed to get stonehenge (really helps!) and the oracle (also really helps). Maritime city states were useful, but I found I ran very short on cash around the industrial era. Unit maintainance was my main problem and at times I was running a deficit, living off the three luxury sales I managed to snare in my 4 tile radius, and open borders to far away AIs.

The trees I ended up with were Tradition, Piety, Patronage, Freedom and Order. I think Tradition, Piety, Patronage and Freedom are pretty much must-haves for an OCC cultural win. Tradition for the combat bonus and wonders, patronage 'cos of awesome, Piety because it has two free SPs in it and Freedom because it really helps culture and reduces SP cost.

The 5th is harder to pick, and I think I should have gone commerce with hindsight. +25% gold as an initial take allows for one point earlyish, before filling it up with the mostly useless ones at the end. Order's main bonus is the +5 production (ok, but comes late) and the +25% attack in own land (I was defending most of the time!).

Another thing worth bearing in mind is that unhappiness rarely comes into effect, and the only real benifit you get from it is a little bit of culture (from Piety) and occasional golden ages (I got 3). I was pretty constantly over 10 happiness, even while selling all my luxuries. Mostly from CS luxuries though - I never built any happiness buildings.

 

How do you get such a high beaker count? Just gave OCC a try and even though I started out quite well, I was still at 49 beakers in late rennaisance, heh. Lib and university scientists but that didn't help much. Is it all from that patronage policy that gives you a share of your allies' beakers?

Didn't help that the only maritime state I had that game got conquered by an AI, sucks.

 

Damn 1 city can get pretty huge. It sure is a picture finish. Nice job.

 

When I did mine, I didn't have any city-states. I just rushed wonder after wonder after wonder. When I was done, I only had a few buildings that weren't wonders.

Other than that, the games sound similar. Most of the game was focusing on research and production to rush technologies and wonders with the GS and GE. I would guess that around 1900, I switched to culture focus. The GA tile upgrades are just too nice. I had a total of 8 of those laid down by the time I finished up my civics.

My military consisted of 4 units that I bought early when I had the gold, upgrading them along the way. Two fortresses helped with defense. I had to stave off a mid-game and late-game attack.

OCC Culture victories can be fun, but they are definitely much more casual. A lot of repeated NEXT TURN clicking going on.

 

Actually, if you are lucky on a post-patch game (and chuck all possible city-states in) you can actually have a MariCS close to you.
(I had this earlier today, Helsinki was 4 hexes to the north)