Civ suggestion for One City Challenge

[Softly]

I’m going to try my first Civ 6 one city challenge. Pangea map on Chieftain or Prince. Going for science victory since I doubt any of the others are doable. Need help on choosing a civ.

Germany: The ability to build an additional district seems like it could be very helpful.

Kongo: Extra relic/work slots and early additional housing.

Arabia: Can use my free religion to get additional housing or amenities. Also the earlier Madrasa can keep me from falling behind in faith and science.

England: Additional trade route. Also gives me another three artifact slots that will help with late game culture. Hesitant to play any costal civ (besides Indonesia) though since I’m sure I’ll need every tile available.

Greece (Gorgo): Since this is chieftain/prince I could just build a few units and pillage/abuse the AI for culture.

Macedonia: My strategy would basically revolve around abusing the +100% naval prod card with Basilikoi Paides. I feel like I would have to start deleting my own units to keep up with maintenance though.

Indonesia: Kampung

Also open to suggestions on what my build order for districts should be.

 

[civtrader6]

I've done quite a few couple of months ago.
Many civs offer distinct strategies for OCC Challenge.

I managed to hit T157 cultural victory with Kongo on Prince (and T180ish on Emperor), but couldn't make it on immortal sadly.
Kongo is fun because you get a bonus on GPP and any relic/sculpture you find will give you food/gold/production.
The strategy was to get a good production capital, then beeline for Oracle first then early Theater Square (2 works of writing). Then Apadana (2 more works of writing) and Commercial hub and then a great library (2 more work of writing slots). Science wise, prioritise Printing, and do a few Theater Square projects to get early great artist sculptures for extra food and production. Very fun I must say. Getting the commercial hub early also means a lot of great merchants - which on prince translates into 4-5 trade routes from one city (all to culture city states etc). Then a few more wonders as well - each giving you free envoys (which really boost culture). If you're lucky to run into Antanarrivo or Kumasi, then the game is even more fun.

Science victory, on the other hand, while doable would be extremely tedious - as it would essentially take forever to research all the techs.

I've also had one with Germany - perhaps not so much fun though. Nevertheless Germany can rival Kongo when it comes to how much production you can put into one city - and with a good hansa, allows for a wonder heavy game.

Note also that the higher you move in difficulty, the less great people you will get (not necessarily because AI will snatch them, but rather because of Era progression). Also, having Peter or Gorgo will make the grind for great writers harder (but still doable on prince), but on higher difficulties it may be impossible to stop.

 

[Softly]

Interesting, I assumed for a OCC I would in general stay away from Wonders. Did you find yourself running out of tiles to work twords the end? Also how big was your city by the time you won?

 

[civtrader6]

Oh, i forgot to add - key to speeding up the culture victory there was sending delegations and exchanging the open borders with AI and declaring as many friendships as possible (both to avoid war) but also to get that tourism boost.

I also happen to have a screenshots from my first ever Emperor OCC win with Kongo.
Took a bit too long turn wise, and I was able to streamline it later - but it was super fun to plan and execute.
Hope this helps.

 

[Softly]

Interesting. Did you use specialists? I can't imagine you would have 24 tiles to work with all those wonders, districts and neighborhoods.

Also how did you handle amenities? Imagine as Kongo you got some of those great merchants that provide resources.

 

[civtrader6]

Interesting. Did you use specialists? I can't imagine you would have 24 tiles to work with all those wonders, districts and neighborhoods.

Also how did you handle amenities? Imagine as Kongo you got some of those great merchants that provide resources.

The focus was constantly manually adjusted between production and food (to grow).
Specialists later because there were no more tiles to work. As for amenities - if my memory is correct, at 10 pop I went for an entertainment complex (+1 amenity), and then Colloseum (+3), then arena (+1). At least 2 from great merchants, and friendly relationships with neighbours end up in some really cheap luxury trades.
There was a big shortage of amenities between 6 and 10 pop though.

 

[UWHabs]

Haven't tried it, but I imagine science would be a real pain to come by. And with only 2 trade routes (3 with England/Carthage, 4 with both), that's not a lot extra that you can get. Russia might be an interesting civ for this, too, since the lavra would also help make sure the borders expand as much as possible to get the most chance at resources. Although obviously you'd need a game where you're not just stuck in the tundra, since that can be a real challenge for food.

 

[antimony]

Look at this thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/occ-in-civ6-one-city-challenge.616574/page-2#post-14802732
(that specific post shows a Deity Russia religious OCC by pahakuuti, and soon after they demonstrate a Deity Kongo cultural OCC)

Both religion and culture are easier than science and domination since you don't need to keep up with the AI's science. Most Civs can achieve religious OCC at Prince, the key is picking up the Pilgrimage belief which gives you +2 faith for every converted foreign city, ensuring a snowball effect.

Culture OCC might be limited to certain Civs like Kongo which used to get 100% bonus on great writer points (so theater square + divine spark + oracle = 8 GW points per turn, before any buildings). Even now the 50% bonus is pretty good. In addition, lots of jungle = massive culture from Chichen Itza. Finally, if you're playing on TSL Earth (as was done for the Deity Kongo OCC), Kongo is guaranteed the Kumasi CS bonus.

The main issue with science is that there are not many ways to gain science from having a bigger city. The 0.7 sci. / pop itself is far too slow. One exception is Gilgamesh if you have river flatlands, just turn the whole thing into ziggurats. I have an example game on Prince on the thread linked above, I reached 99 sci. per turn and still cut it close (Turn 466).

In principle, the Cross Cultural Dialogue belief would be great to gain science from converting cities; the problem is that you can't have both it and Pilgrimage, and without Pilgrimage your faith can't keep up. Arabia gets a weaker version of Cross Cultural Dialogue (+1 sci. per converted city) in its unique ability, but I've found it to be slower than the Gilgamesh strategy.
Perhaps on a slower speed (Epic) it scales better since your religion spreads faster vs. the passing of eras (that's assuming the amount of religious pressure to convert a pop. point doesn't also increase at slower game speeds... haven't tested it).

To add insult to injury in Saladin's case, the converted city bonuses to science don't count as being generated by your capital, so they don't stack with the city % bonuses (e.g., +10% from Mosque, +20% from Oxford).