Babylon OCC Science Victory (emperor/immortal)

[Kavil194]

hi everyone... first of all i really need to say i am not a HARDCORE civ V player... i played it alot and know almost everything, every mechanic of game, but still there are many thing i did not know..

lately i started to play with Babylon because his UA is interesting so i gave it a try. on Quick game speed, continents and small or tiny map and both Difficulty Settings (emperor/immortal) i try to settle my city near a mountain+river+ hill and grassland. i am keep Restarting the map if the conditions is not proper for my standarts

can you correct my mistakes or suggest new things?? here my adventure...

after i settle my capital. i go for writing. meanwhile going for Monument. after few turns i go Tradition Policy Tree and Aristocracy after pottery finished i immediatly start for granary building. if i play on Emperor and have some hills around i rush for GL and out of 3-4/5 games i can finish it before other civs. i use my GS on Academy. while GL construction i go for Archery-Mining-Animalhusbandry depens on the Luxs Around... and Legalism and Landed Elite on Tradition tree.. when GL done i go FREE tech on Drama and Poetry and also 1-2 turns left for Mathematics after Math i go for other Ancient Era techs, bronze working, calendar etc... (except Sailing) and also one Bowman and rush to Hanging Gardens while HG construction usual Barbarian invasion some fights i go for Education (sub branches auto research) after HG i go for Water mill and rush to National Collage and so on...

i usually get NotreDame for massive + Happiness and get Pisa and free GE and instant build Porcelein Tower [+ i go for other scientific building like oxford, observatory etc....]

i sell my embassy to other civs for 1gpt 25 turn (remember i play on Quick)and i have extra lux i sell it too...
i prioritize the Science buildings >>Food>>Production>>Gold>>Military... and keep my units at minimum and well placed... both protections from neigbours and barbarians... fortunatelly even in immortal AI isnot that smart to outplayed few cleverly placed human controlled units but if ai declares war on me it really slows the progress of my advance in science...

but most of my games in AD1950+ some AIs like Elizabeth or Dido or Alexander win game by Diplomacy... they have massive CS votes and i cant prevent that happening... having 1 city (maybe a one more puppet city) it is really hard to make money and bribe even the lowest influenced CS (even i try to take GPT loan from other AIs it is not enough...)... when i got my Hubble Space Telescope and free Spaceship Factory and finished 2 Booster and a cockpit, AI won game...

what should i do?

 

[civ54lyfe]

how many cities you running?

 

[Kavil194]

how many cities you running?

most of my games just capital as the title says One City Challenge. but if ai really really annoys me.. i quit everything i do and focus on cannon or artilery and capture the nearest AI city and make it puppet and use it as a shield...

edit: yes iknow in OCC every city you capture is razed... but i play as normal but dont build settlers or dominate neigbours.. just hanging on my capital...

 

[civ54lyfe]

oops doi

 

[Deau]

First, you shouldn't waste hammers on Notre Dame for OCC

Second, you should explore rather than build monument first. Meeting CSs earlier will provide opportunities for quests netting some +food per turn, +faith per turn, +culture per turn (CPT being a very important science component).

Second, you should kill GL from your rotation and aim for ToA+HG or just ToA even will outweight GL. Particularly for Babylon since you kinda have the luxury of early NC with Babylon anyway. Also because it is reasonably replicable at higher difficulties whereas GL is impossible.



I don't know if you play GnK or BnW, but FREEDOM is generally slightly better than order for OCC and trivializes countering Diplo as you can use trade routes to CSs to get perma allies.


You should also avoid cleaning out the tree after mathematics and whatnot. It's best to do so when you have a few CS "science" quests. It is also crucial to beeline civil services and education so unless you are coastal/need CBs to defend, you should skip some of the 2nd/3rd row (classical) techs until after education.


Besides that, it's difficult to provide further help without screenshots at different point in time...what's your pop/science around T125? How many GSs did you produce/plant/bulb? What was your SP path beyond tradition? Scholasticism is very strong for OCC and works great with freedom. Did you ever halt growth for hammers? If so how often/how long? Did you manage to get the Oracle? How many RAs did you sign? Do you steal workers? If so, around what turns? From a CS or from an AI? If not, when did you get your first worker built? When did you get the second one? What tile did you plant your writing GS on?


Last but not least, for OCC, I HIGHLY recommend going for a religion. Sub deity, you need a pantheon that provides +3 faith or so which most starts can provide esp now with the patch. The only exception I would consider is to take something like +1 food per wheat/banana/citrus if I had 4 of these tiles from T0. Regardless though, something like Tithe/DI/RC/Méssiah (or replace RC by SiP) are extremely potent for OCC. In fact, Stonehenge would yield you far more total science than GL if it was your only alternative to a religion.

 

[Kavil194]

First, you shouldn't waste hammers on Notre Dame for OCC

Second, you should explore rather than build monument first. Meeting CSs earlier will provide opportunities for quests netting some +food per turn, +faith per turn, +culture per turn (CPT being a very important science component).

Second, you should kill GL from your rotation and aim for ToA+HG or just ToA even will outweight GL. Particularly for Babylon since you kinda have the luxury of early NC with Babylon anyway. Also because it is reasonably replicable at higher difficulties whereas GL is impossible.



I don't know if you play GnK or BnW, but FREEDOM is generally slightly better than order for OCC and trivializes countering Diplo as you can use trade routes to CSs to get perma allies.


You should also avoid cleaning out the tree after mathematics and whatnot. It's best to do so when you have a few CS "science" quests. It is also crucial to beeline civil services and education so unless you are coastal/need CBs to defend, you should skip some of the 2nd/3rd row (classical) techs until after education.


Besides that, it's difficult to provide further help without screenshots at different point in time...what's your pop/science around T125? How many GSs did you produce/plant/bulb? What was your SP path beyond tradition? Scholasticism is very strong for OCC and works great with freedom. Did you ever halt growth for hammers? If so how often/how long? Did you manage to get the Oracle? How many RAs did you sign? Do you steal workers? If so, around what turns? From a CS or from an AI? If not, when did you get your first worker built? When did you get the second one? What tile did you plant your writing GS on?


Last but not least, for OCC, I HIGHLY recommend going for a religion. Sub deity, you need a pantheon that provides +3 faith or so which most starts can provide esp now with the patch. The only exception I would consider is to take something like +1 food per wheat/banana/citrus if I had 4 of these tiles from T0. Regardless though, something like Tithe/DI/RC/Méssiah (or replace RC by SiP) are extremely potent for OCC. In fact, Stonehenge would yield you far more total science than GL if it was your only alternative to a religion.

thanks for detailed answer...i have BnW DLC...i hope i can play another game tomorrow and take notes and SS as you said.. which turn, what happened, which Social P. tree etc...

i usually play my games on standart map size pangea or continent or sometimes other maps and Epic game speed and wide or tall empires not OCC... so epic game lenght dont take too much time for wide empire and many borders to control many units to command but.. in OCC i found my self in a position clicking Next Turn and waiting a huge time (after industrial-atomic age...) so i move on to Quick game speed...

so my question is if i take notes on Quick speed will it be accurate for you to understand which position i am in spesific time?? because QUICK
Game Length (Turns) = 330 Turns // EPIC Game Length (Turns) = 750 Turns

 

[joshua43214]

I started a thread on this subject here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=508579
It has input from some top players and some sample games of my own.

Deau nailed pretty much all of it.
Never build the GL
Never build Notre Dame (do not build any happiness buildings for that matter)

The only reason you need to improve lux's is for your economy, so you want to focus on making bee lines for science techs. 3 early workers is about optimal for OCC, you want you want to get every farm possible up and working asap.

Tech order Beeline education getting sailing and a lux tech for your economy. Astronomy if you have a mountain or not on Pangaea, Printing press, plastics, satellites.

Best BO I have found so far is scout, scout, shrine, worker (steal at lest one more, buy one if possible), library, 3 achers, Oracle, NC.

Get a pantheon that gives growth, this is usually either 10% growth or +1 food from plantations if I got a calendar heavy start. Make an effort to get a religion, take swords into plowshares and then plant the second GP.

Full tradition, consulates (still worth it in the patch), as dump SP's into rationalism until ideology then take Freedom or Order depending on how hammer heavy your start is. Freedom is usually slightly better, and the Statue of Liberty is very good.

You can hard build Pisa, PT, Brandenberg Gate, Forbidden Palace and Hubble. Use Oxford on Plastics usually.

Avoid coastal and jungle starts like the plague. Scout early and well. do CS quests

min/max every turn for the first 70 or so turns and then every other for the rest of the game. make sure you are working only good food tiles before working hammer tiles. Getting high pop extremely fast is essential.

Korea is better BTW for OCC

 

[Kavil194]

thanks all of you for answers... i started new game with Korea.. settings in the first attachment..
as you all suggested i farmed all best food tiles first then gone to production... and as Deau suggested pick a + faith... Stone circles+2 Faith from Quarrieswhich i got 3 quarrys = +6 faith...
found religion and took both Church property and Feed the world (sorry i forgot to pick swords into plowshares) and in tech tree skipped bottom branches and Beeline to Astronomy for Observatory.

in SP menu i completed Tradition and saved SP for the Rationalism.... and early on game i met with jureselam (which is relatively far from me so no real treat) DoW on her and steal ONE worker then build one myself... i am still at war with it... should i make peace or keep war?

and finally i am thinking what should i do if i get - balance? and happines is another issue... in my lands i have only 2 Copper and 1 Salt Tiles not another Lux around.. when my city gets bigger i dont want to get Unhappy... but you all suggestted me NOT to build NotreDame.. how can i get happiness otherwise?

and conculusion what you think of my progress... what should i change? what should i have done or what should i do in future Turns?

best rigards..

 

[joshua43214]

You should never go unhappy in OCC, just by its nature unhappiness is not an issue. Just make a minimum effort at some CS quests, kill a local barb camp, hook up a resource they want, etc. I typically find in my games I run >20 happy even when I sell all my resources. The only time I ever build a happy building was playing an OCC with India to get the +100 happy achievement. I had 92 happiness and I had not even built a coliseum.

 

[Deau]

SP saving is obviously very strong since you get to go through rationalism very fast and then resume back to other trees. Secularism doesn't scale nearly as good on smaller size maps but it should still be reasonably good.

T100 education is slightly late for quick speed but with SP saving and korea on emperor, you are still on track for sv.

You should look into getting trade routes up as soon as you can reach England (once she plants a city 15 tiles from cap you can reach with whatever building +50% range). Your pop is large enough to sustain at least the 2 science slots but you should consider getting GW guild up to work the slots as you grow your cap slightly. Higher GPT will help you shave a few turns off of building Pschool.

Save oxford to bulb modern era (beeline Radio after scientific theory - should get you first ideology easily).

As josh said, your happiness should come from a few CS quests, side effects from wonders/SPs and with 8 happiness left, since you have monarchy, you can grow to pop 33 before you go in the red. you still have a LOT of room to breathe. You can always consider trading your copper copy for another AI copy - in fact, as soon as you can, you should trade copper+salt for marble to whichever AI has it so that you get the +25% growth bonus from King's Day. It is a core element of tall empires to have almost permanent King's day, at least in cap.

 

[Kavil194]

i will try it my Another trial i just go finished it and England won game by Cultural Victory.... i totally forgot about turism and with my invasion on Cartaga (england also invaded Alexander.. and even ididnot open borders and diffrent İdeologys (me Freedom, england Order) i have like +30 turism at T2xx compared to England's 108 plus and She overrun me at T241 and gameover... i just need 10-15 turns to finish the game


but i still have T100 save.. i will restart from it and try to have mix of turism and cultural building to keep atliest exotic lvl of England instead of Unknown

and as you all said Happiness dont gave me a single trouble... i need to say my notredame way is totaly useless ..


and another thing.. i really cant understand AI's mind... Dido (cartaga) DoW twice on me with just 6-7 musketmen, 4 crossbow, 2 trebuche, few cavalary etc VS my 3 infantry and 2 gatling gun. and 2 great war bombers.... and as you can see i have Way ahead tech then their so i Devasteted their army and capture and made puppet its whole Country and Dido was defeat... it makes no sense to me... seeing infantry on border and attacking it with musketmans....

 

[Deau]

It's not so much your tourism that you have to worry about but your total culture as this is what enemy civs have to out-tourism.

Make sure you ally culture CSs if any. Try to get the national wonder sooner than later. Try to enact +culture to wonder/historical landmarks early in WC.

Use your great writers after 8 turns worth of "high culture"

 

[joshua43214]

30 tourism is probably a bit too much if going for SV. I usually will not even build amphitheatres if I can get some cultere CS allied. I usually have about 6-12 tourism by the end. Bulb off the artists, use the first writers for great works and save the rest for bulbing SP's. You want to use one on a well timed rationalism finisher, using the finisher to bulb nanotech is good, and then you can faith buy some GS's to speed your way to the end, use the other writers to bulb the tier 2 Freedom tenet that gives the boost to great tile improvements, or the tier 2 Order tenet that boosts science from factories. I usually will not build the musicians guild even with Korea, musicians are close to 100% useless compared to writers.

The really tricky part is getting the late game RA's. If you take Freedom, you will end up losing all your RA partners at some point. You have to play it a bit by ear to get those last RA's in before DoF's wear out or you have to do a lot of hard teching.