1790 AD to 1846 AD, 32 turns: The Endgame
The rest of the game is somewhat tedious, running around razing cities as fast as possible.
Monty sends a few more stacks at my city, but all of them are modest and easily absorbed by subsequent draftees set in the pass. The rest of the AIs just sit back in their cities and wait for the end.
After the fall of Rome (the city) in 1794, I send the bulk of my army north to deal with Shaka. A few units stay behind to polish off what's left of Genghis.
In 1802, Shaka dies. On to Boudica.
In 1820, Genghis dies.
In 1824, Boudica dies. On to Tokugawa.
Now it gets harder. Toku's cities are defended by multi-promotion agg/prot infantry. C1 CG3 D1 infantry fortified in 80% culture cities lead to high casualties. I'm steadily losing units faster than I can replace them (and my city raiders are irreplaceable). But the end is near.
Even my warlords are at risk. I'm very careful with their moves to avoid stopping them alone on the plains where they can be gang attacked and possibly overwhelmed. I occasionally mess up and do that with the commando units, and typically they vanish immediately, but never with the precious warlords. I will throw my warlords at the toughest city defenders, but they are so strong the odds are usually 99%+. In 1830, Vercingetorix attacks one of Toku's infantry with 97.6% odds and loses (fair enough given the number of attacks made by my warlords) but the 80% withdrawal rate kicks in and he survives. I make sure to guard him with multiple units to let him heal up.
Speaking of healing, it happens quickly. With 4 units offering 40% bonus to healing and many units with combat 5, I typically get 55% healing in enemy territory, so I almost never decline to attack with a unit due to injury. That keeps the invasion going full speed.
One thing that makes the conquest annoying is the stupid BTS rule that city razing gives the victim a bunch of infantry, usually more than the amount that guarded the lost city. This is particularly infuriating in OCC, since you don't have the option to keep the city. I get accustomed to using my city raiders to take a city, then sending in the commandos to clean up all the spawned infantry before they can run behind city walls.
Finally, in 1841, Tokugawa dies.
I get my 21st great general in 1843. For no particular reason I use Rommel to make a warlord mech. Unfortunately, he never sees action as I blitz through Monty while he marches to the front line.
Finally, in 1846, the last AI, Monty dies.
A conquest victory and an Augustus Caesar rating with 20,802 points, not bad for OCC.
Just for kicks, in the last year I change civics and do a final draft, providing the following remarkable city screen:
78 unhappy faces, but no unhappy citizens. That has got to be a record. In all seriousness, while running sensible civics (Police State and Emancipation), I never had happiness problems and only got up to 90% culture by the end. I could have done a little more drafting without problems.
Following is a list of my builds and deaths:
I lost 81 mechs and had 39 at the end. Without the draft, I would have had very few units by the end. Of the 51 city raiders, only 11 remained after the final battle. My four mighty warlords survived with over 5,000 combined experience. People rightfully criticize warlords for being too fragile, but this game shows that with enough promotions they become practically immortal. The promotions largely synergize so 10 promotions are more than twice as effective as 5 (think of how guerrilla 3 and tactics combine, or drill with basically everything). The trick is getting them to high level. Once there, you can use them fearlessly.
I got 21 great generals and 22 other great people. Not bad given neither Philosophical nor Pacifism for almost the entire game.
Note that I torched 67 cities. I did this over a span of just 47 turns, after making preparations for 389 turns.
Following are my kill stats:
Altogether, I destroyed 3,234 units (vs. 85 losses counting aircraft). Unsurprisingly, the most numerous victims were infantry and cavalry. I hardly saw anything else during the conquest.
The power graph:
Obviously, I lagged for most of the game by a lot. The spike when I got Rifling was quite dramatic.
Finally, GNP:
Very strong early, but Hammurabi was a monster as the game progressed.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It had a lot of remarkable superlatives (mega warlords, monster production, huge but controllable unhappiness, and massive kill total). Looking back, I think my strategy was generally good, but I made a few mistakes that I may be lucky didn't cost me (neglecting early defense, getting Music too early, not finishing the Statue of Zeus, raising too much cash). My impression from reading other people's comments on their experiences and my own experiments with restarting the game with different opening moves (following Turinturambar's 3 hut tech start) is that there is a lot of luck involved in what the AIs do. They might race to the Great Wall and Oracle making it impossible to get them, or they might hit you early with a large force. Or as in my game, one of them might skyrocket in techs and cause problems with aerial pillaging or an early UN. That makes this game variant exciting; you are on the edge and need some luck to survive.