BTS One City Challenge Space Victory
Note: The goal of this guide will be to discuss how to win a space victory in an OCC in high difficulties.
This guide will not be about other forms of victory such as Conquest or Diplomacy.
Introduction: The OCC Space Victory is a special challenge. Its a very fun game to play, moving quickly and providing an experience that is very different from other games of Civ. For those who havent tried it, I recommend it, you'll probably have a lot of fun, and you can play the entire game in a couple hours.
When played on a high difficulty, there are two main challenges in this strategy:
1) Playing well enough diplomatically to avoid being the target of a war. (This is hard, unless you choose peaceful opponents). While you could survive a war if you devote sufficient effort to preparing for it, doing so will probably slow you down enough that you wont achieve.
2) Achieving the spaceship fast enough to successsfully race the AIs culture victory and spaceships. The big challenge is beating their culture victory. In order to do this, speed is essential. Generally you will beat their spaceship, but beating their culture vicotry is extremely tough on high difficulties like Deity.
The Two Bottlenecks:
The two things that we need for a space victory are research and production. You might think that production would be the limiting factor on building a spaceship with one city, but it turns out that research speed actually ends up being the bigger limiting factor. Generally we will be able to build spaceship parts at the end of the game faster than we can research the technologies to create them (with certain exceptions).
Starting Position:
People have various opinions on regenerating the map to look for a good start. You start position is quite important in an OCC however, so you might consider regenerating even if you normally don't. With a start position that isnt useful for an OCC, if youre playing on a high difficulty, aiming specifically for a space race victory, you probably have no chance.
The following are elements of a successful start position:
1) Located on a river, which preferably runs through a large portion of the the fat cross, giving many river squares.
2) Food resource(s), especially agriculture based resources on a river. River corn is ideal, providing 6 food when farmed. Pigs/Cows/etc are good too, but its very helpful that at least one of your resources is agriculture based, since I generally delay Animal Husbandry until after alphabet (trade for it). Agriculture resources are better than Animal Husbandry resources.
3) Stone (or Marble?). Its great to have one of these in your fat cross, especially Stone. Stone helps with the Pyramids and Marble with the Oracle, Great Library, National Epic, etc. Stone makes the Great Wall worth building, providing more (but inferior) early GPs. The Great Wall helps to avoid needing to build military.
4) Not on the coast. You dont want critical city spaces wasted on water, and you also want plenty of land around you. Your city will reach culture size 5 for much of the game and 6 later on, so if youre in the middle of the land you have the abilitiy to gain access to most strategic resources.
5) 2+ Floodplains present. Having at least a couple floodplains is very helpful. Generally getting 2-4 is good. (Forests are great later). Alternately, you could have multiple food resources.
6) Gold/Gems/Silver. Extra commerce and happiness early on is strong.
7) City positioned on a plains/hill (2 production in city square), or a grassland/+food resource (3 food in city square). The food resource is best, but you wouldnt want to waste a corn or wheat on this. Some calendar resources like Bananas give +1 food, and it would be great to settle on one of these. (Finding the 3 food spot is extremely rare however. It is much more likely you will be looking for a good plains hill location).
You should look for a position with the first 3 conditions, and at least some of the others.
Map Size:
It is much, much easier to do an OCC on smaller maps. I generally play on 'small' size. On larger maps you will tend to have a runaway AI who conquers a huge area and then outraces you in culture or spaceship building at the end. Playing on 'Tiny' instead is kindof like playing down a difficulty level (or at least half a difficulty level). Less AIs leads to easier diplomacy, less people to race you with their culture win, less AI tech trading, etc.
Map Type:
As desired, but I like Inland Sea. Its a fun map, has good resources in an area within 6 spaces of your start, often will give you a river, and you also have borders with only 2 AIs. If those AIs like you, and dont like the rest of the AIs, thats a great position. The best position is for one next door AI to be your ally and to have them conquer the area on your other border, so they surround you. Then if they are strong, and war with everyone else, then no one else can reach you. You can focus on pleasing one AI. I have had a game where a far away AI DOWed me but couldnt reach me, because I got my ally who was surrounding me to cut off his open borders. Also, if you are surrounded by a friendly AI, it allows you to nuke the cities of another AI going for a cultural victory later, which can be critical for preventing AI cultural wins.
The OCC Economy:
In order to generate sufficient research and production in one city to win a space race, our Economy must be a Wonder/Specialist economy, focusing on settled super-specialists. By the end of the game, we will be generating over 1000 beakers per turn and several hundred hammers (with bonuses), capable of putting out a spaceship part every 2-5 turns. You will want to settle all your great people, except for the first scientist who builds an academy. With Library/Academy/University/Oxford (+200%), under representation, a great scientist will be generating 27 research!
Note that you will NOT be building cottages. Farms are better, for running specialists to generate more great people. Late in the game, Watermills replace some river tiles and Windmills should replace some mines (without resources), once you get State Property and Electricity.
The goal of the first half of the game is to reach Biology as fast as possible. This allows the National Park national wonder, giving a free specialist per forest reserve in the city radius and eliminating health concerns. Generally, you shouldnt cut down any forests within your fat cross, except possibly a small amount needed to win a race for a critical wonder. You will turn these forests into free specialists once you reach Biology. I like to have 6-10 forests by that time (usually a few will have grown during the game). Harvesting forests just outside the fat cross for production is very helpful early on.
Great People:
The two great person types that we seek to generate are Scientists and Engineers. The scientist generates 1 hammer and 6 beakers, and the engineer is 3 hammers and 3 beakers, before representation bonus. Generally an engineer is slightly better than a scientist, but the generation of either one should make you happy. Also the first scientist will be used for an Academy.
The other great people are bad in comparison. One early priest can be ok as a mini-engineer, and a spy is an ok mini-scientist. The others are very bad.
We want to generate as many great people as possible, because this is nearly our entire research base, and a significant amount of our production. Therefore we will focus on GPP generation bonuses like Philosophical, Natinal Epic and Pacifism, and on generating GPP points through wonders and scientist specialists (and possibly engineers later on)
Leader Traits:
The best traits for this strategy are:
1) Philosophical. Our economy is mostly based on the number of great people we create, and the speed at which we get them. Philosophical will result in about 20% more great people generated overall, and will also speed them up, resulting in earlier hammers and beakers being generated. This is by far the #1 trait.
2) Industrious. We are trying to build lot of wonders, and in particular some big early ones such as the Pyramids, and Great Library. Clearly industrious would be highly beneficial in getting more and faster wonders.
HOWEVER, there are no Philosophical/Industrious leaders, and therefore we wont get this.
3) Spiritual. This saves a number of turns of anarchy, speeding up every aspect of our game. During the game we will make the following conversions:
Religion (1+ times)
Representation
Beauraucracy
Caste System
State Property (possibly Free Market first)
Pacifism (possibly Organized Religion first)
Thats 6-8 turns saved. A much bigger impact than any of the other choices.
4) Expansive. +2 health which can help early on, and it saves a couple turns on our initial worker, speeding us up. Less beneficial than Spiritual overall.
5) Charismatic. +1 happiness and another with Obelisk, can help before globe theatre. But not as helpful as the above traits.
6) Financial. This could give small amounts of commerce with special resources, lakes, watermills/river windmills with electricity, etc. Not nearly as helpful as other traits.
Creative: The library discount is the only relevant thing. Very poor.
Organized: With 1 city our upkeep is 0, this does nothing. The discounts are worth almost nothing.
Protective: If we fight a war in this strategy we will have already lost, so this does essentially nothing.
Imperialistic: This will do nothing at all during the game.
Aggressive: This will do nothing at all during the game.
Thus our top leaders are:
Ghandi (India): Philosophical/Spiritual: Mining/Mysticism: Fast Worker and Mausoleum. Mining and Mysticism are about the best starting techs we could have for this strategy. Fast worker helps early, saves some worker turns on our only worker. Its about the only UU that would be of any benefit to us.
Peter the Great (Russia): Philosophical/Expansive: Mining/Hunting: Cossack and Research Institute. Hunting is worthless, and being forced to research Mysticism will delay other things a bit. Research Institute is strong late, though it does come quite late in the game.
Abraham Lincoln (America): Philosophical/Charismatic: Fishing/Agriculture: Navy Seal and Mall. Fishing is worthless, that will delay us. Unique stuff is worthless.
Ramesses II (Egypt): Industrious/Spiritual: Agriculture/The Wheel: War Chariot and Obelisk. We lose Philosophical which is a big blow. The techs are great, and Obelisk is interesting. We can get Stonehenge early and then try to make Prophets quick with priest specialists, to get early great people. However, this really isnt that good, because Priests arent nearly as helpful as Scientists/Engineers, and also without philosophical the early GP generation will be at half rate. You can do better with Ghandi and more early wonders.
Overall Ghandi is clearly best, and I recommend him. Peter is ok and you could try him, you might be able to grow a bit more early, and the Research Institute is cool late.
National Wonders:
You will build the following 5 National Wonders, and no others:
National Epic. +100% GPP generation! This is a priority, built right after the Great Library.
Oxford University. Getting to this is your top priority after Great Library.
National Park. This fixes health propblems and generates a ton of specialists.
Globe Theatre. Eliminates happiness problems. Build it once your happiness becomes your limiting factor.
Ironworks. For production for the spaceship late game.
If you have no coal AND no iron, then clearly Ironworks wont help you. However, no other National Wonder is helpful at all. You might want to build Ironworks anyways for the Engineer GPP point and specialist slots, and try to trade for Iron.
What Wonders to Build:
Here is a look at all the non-endgame world wonders, and whether you want them:
Stonehenge: The benefits are that you get 2 great prophet points and your cultural border will grow to collect more resources a bit faster. Also, no AI can have this to help a cultural victory. Its not worth it without stone. It might be worth it with stone, but getting it delays Pyramids and Oracle and generates prophet points. You dont really want great prophets, however getting one very early could help you build more wonders faster. Generally I would prefer to get the pyramids done faster, but you could consider it if you have stone.
Great Wall: You get 2 great spy points per turn and dont have to deal with barbarians. Its not worth it without stone, since you need to finish the pyramids, but with stone it is good. Without it youll need a few warriors positioned around the borders of your territory as fogbusters.
Pyramids: Your #1 early priority. The only thing you might build before it is the Oracle, without stone. With stone, consider building Great Wall or Stonehenge (wall is probably better).
The Oracle: This accelrates you technologically, and slows down an AI by preventing them from doing the same. Therefore I would prioritize this highly. On Deity it will be built around 1500BC, give or take a few hundred years. You can probably build it before or after the pyramids. (If you have stone, build pyramids first, if marble or neither, Oracle first or else you wont get it).
Choices to take with the Oracle are:
Alphabet (Allowing you to fill in all low level techs). I have found this to be one of the best. It is nice if you manage to get the techs you want by trading Writing/Priesthood/Polytheism around, and avoid giving the AIs Alphabet.
Aethetics (Saving time toward Great Library). I find this not as good as Alphabet, but its reasonable. Generally I am still building pyramids until shortly before I get literature normally.
Code of Laws (Caste System and a Religion, plus saving time on the path to Civil Service, plus allowing scientists without a Library). I find this to be probably the best, those its pretty close with Alphabet.
Civil Service (VERY HARD). This only works if no AI gets priesthood fast, and you really have a 5-10% chance of this working, and thats with a great start. I have done it on deity, with a LOT of luck. However, the speedup doesnt actually end up being very big great because you delay great library and national epic to do it. Its also a low probability strategy, so I'd probably avoid it. Also, I find that Code of Laws earlier is about as helpful as Civil Service later, so I would definitely not try for this.
I find that using Oracle on Metal Casting isnt great for this strategy, you have enough production and you dont want to have to research Pottery before completing the Oracle.
Therefore, the best Oracle slingshot for this strategy is to take Alphabet or Code of Laws. The Tech path i give below is for Alphabet, but goign for CoL is good too.
The Parthenon: Initially tempting for the GPP boost, but not really helpful. DONT BUILD THIS. It has several problems:
1) It wears off at scientific method, right before you get tons of specialists through the National Park.
2) It generates terrible artist points.
The main benefit is probably that you keep it away from AIs to deny them culture.
Statue of Zeus: Worse than Parthenon.
Shwedagon Paya: This is ok because it lets you use Pacifism for more GPPs before getting Philosophy (allowing you to also delay Philosophy). Without Gold its probably too costly. Build it after Great Library and National Epic, if youre going to. However, the priest points probably make it inferior to the Hanging Gardens.
Temple of Artemis: Merchant and Prophet points, and some research. Its decent but lower priority than some other stuff. The free priest also disappears at scientific method. I'd go for this if you have marble, after Great Library and National Epic. But you risk generating bad great people with it. However if you get lucky in your GP generations, it helps you get them faster. This is a risk.
Great Library: The major focus after getting pyramids. 8 great scientist points! Even after scientific method, its still 2 scientist points.
University of Sankore: Build it when you run out of better stuff to build, which will probably occur while researching education. Scientist points and a few beakers.
Sistene Chapel: Here is the thing that sucks: You have to build this or an AI will beat you on culture, guaranteed. But you dont want the artist points. Delay it until an AI gets music or is close to music and then beat them to it. You should also make sure to research music first for the artist. I tend to research music after education.
Hanging Gardens: Helpful for engineer points. Do it after other more important stuff, but try to get it.
Great Lighthouse/Chicken Itza/AngkorWat/Notre Dame/Mausoleum/blahblahblah: No.
Hagia Sophia: You wont be researching Theology and an AI will build it before they trade it to you, so we dont get these engineer points
Apostolic Palace: same as Hagia. But if you share the religion you still get the benefit.
Later on if I build a wonder it is to deny a culture points to the AI, except for the Internet, which you will go for. Most of them are in places where you will let the AIs research those techs for you and trade for them, so you wont get the wonders.
To Summarize: (++ = primary goal, + = good, 0 = do not build), sorted
Pyramids ++
Great Library: ++
Oracle: ++
Hanging Gardens: +
University of Sankore: +
Sistene Chapel: + (when an opponent could build it - this is for denial purposes)
Great Wall: 0 (+ with stone)
Shwedagon Paya: 0 (+ with Gold?)
Temple of Artemis: 0 (+ with Marble??)
Stonehenge: 0 (+ with stone???)
All others: 0
Tech Path/Build Order:
You tech path is very important. You want to get certain wonders fast, and you want to research techs that the AI doesnt, so you can trade for the ones they all research (like Calendar). If you just want to see the summarization of the entire path and skip the big explanation, scroll down a ways.
Your early tech path 'T', and build order, 'B', and worker orders 'W', is:
Starting Techs: Mining and Mysticism (Ghandi).
B1) Set city to build a worker. Use warrior to go explore for more civs. I play with goody huts and random events off (randomness bad!), but if they are on, you are obviously looking for huts hoping for techs.
T1) Agriculture (assuming Corn/Wheat/Rice).
T2) Masonry.
W1) Your initial worker is built and goes to make a farm on the agriculture resource.
B2) Pyramids! (If you have stone, you could go great wall/stonehenge or both first instead).
W2) Your worker makes a quarry as soon as you get masonry (assuming stone/marble). Without those resources, he makes farms/mines.
T3) The Wheel. (Skip this if the stone/marble is connected to capitol via the river).
W3) Your worker makes the road to the capitol from the quarry (if stone). After that (or instead), the worker then would go mine 2 spaces (hopefully with gold, gems, or silver).
T4) Polytheism.
T5) Priesthood. (You can now build oracle. Unless youre targetting Civil Service, you can just switch to it now).
B3) Build Oracle (go back to Pyramids afterward).
W4) Worker finishes off making enough mines/farms to have 6 people working them. Hopefully the Corn/Wheat/Rice, 2 farms on floodplains, The stone/marble, the Gold/Gems, and a couple mined hills.
T6) Writing (don't finish Oracle before this is done).
Next you have some choices on tech path:
1) The 'normal' path. Take Alphabet with the Oracle, trade your writing/priesthood/polytheism techs for Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, Meditation, etc. Research order is:
Alphabet (with Oracle)
Aesthetics
Literature
Code of Laws / Mathermatics
Civil Service
Paper
Education
Music (for the settled Artist's research beakers)
Keep an eye on if an AI can research music. If so, you should probably do it immediately. You should not EVER trade Aesthetics, Literature, or Music if you can possibly avoid it. (You might get a demand from an AI you need to keep friendly and have to give it to them, in which case you might as well then trade it).
2) Civil Service with Oracle path. Here you delay Oracle until after Mathematics and Code of Laws. You'll probably get beaten to the Oracle and need to restart. Follow that with Great Library and then Education, then Music.
After you get Education, your next goal is to make a Liberalism -> Biology slingshot!! Yes, Biology with Liberalism! I did it on Deity shortly after 500 AD. (This is why strong start positions are important). You should keep an eye on if any AI can ever research Liberalism, and if so do it ASAP and get a big tech on your path to Biology (hopefully at least Scientific Method).
Your first choice now is whether to research Philosophy first or not. If you go for Shwedagon Paya you can avoid it until right before liberalism, to try and trade for it. Otherwise, get it next.
You need a long list of techs in order to get to Biology. Your goal is to trade for as many as you can, while researching down different paths than the AIs. You should NOT EVER trade Paper or Education! The AIs do not prioritize paper highly, and they cant get to liberalism without these. Do NOT open up liberalism for them.
You need the following techs to get to Biology. Note that we are going to approach Scientific Method through the Chemistry path, not the Astronomy path, because we need chemistry for Biology. I am excluding all techs in the first two rows, since you can easily trade for those earlier.
Tech (Relevant bonus):
Philosophy (Pacifism - you can put this off until right before Scientific Method/try to trade for it if you build Shwedagon Paya)
Metal Casting (+Production/Engineer slot)
Gunpowder
Construction
Machinery
Engineering (Castle)
Chemistry
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Liberalism -> Biology!
Generally youre fine trading off the military techs like Machinery, Construction, Engineering, Gunpowder, Chemistry, for things that save you time. You should try to trade the same tech to several AIs and thus limit the number that you have to give away to them.
You can often trade for some of these, such as Philosophy, Metal Casting, Construction, Machinery.
Now the techs are really expensive, and our next goal is to get research bonuses from Observatory, Laboratory, free great people like the Scientist from Physics and the Spy from Communism. Also, the Ironworks from Steel can be a decent research boost in this phase, since we will start building research for much of this period. I have found that you actually want to go for Laboratories very early like this, for research, and so that later as soon as we get apollo project we can build 5 items while we research for more parts.
Our tech order is now:
Drama (Probalby trade for it - for Globe Theater, which we need now that our health cap went away)
Communism (for the spy)
Iron Working (you probably got this a long time ago)
Compass (possibly in trade)
Optics
Calendar (trade for it)
Astronomy (Observatory!)
Physics (Scientist!)
Electricity
Refrigeration (+1 Food)
Supercomputers (Laboratory!)
Steel (Ironworks - feel free to move this earlier)
Next we go for the production stuff and Apollo progect.
One of my goals is to delay the path to Replacable Parts as long as possible so we can trade for a bunch of crap we need for it, such as:
Monarchy
Feudalism
Guilds
Banking
Now we research:
Replacable Parts
Steam Power (Levee, Coal)
Rifling
Artillery
Rocketry (Apollo project!)
Now we can work on our early spaceship parts when we dont have other stuff to do.
Next:
Economics
Nationalism
Constitution
Corporation
Assembly Line (Factory)
Industrialism (Aluminum)
Fission (Nukes) - note, this could be moved much earlier if needed, but we dont have the production to build nukes as well before factories.
Railroad
Combustion
Plastics
Radio
Computers
Fiber Optics
Fusion (Engineer)
Satellites
Composites
Medicine (can get with Internet)
Genetics
Ecology
This order tries to put some cheap spaceship pieces at the end so that youll be able to immediately build them, instead of ending with Fusion and needing to build 2 big engines.
Summary of the tech order:
+ means its reasonably likely you can trade for it by now.
? means you might be able to trade for it.
(Mysticism/Mining to start)
Agriculture
Masonry
The Wheel(if no river to stone/marble connection - otherwise get Alphabet and trade for it)
Polytheism
Priesthood
Writing
Alphabet (with Oracle) - trade for many early techs: Animal Husbandry, Meditation, Pottery, Bronze Working, etc).
Aesthetics
Literature!
Code of Laws
Mathematics ?
Civil Service!
Paper
Education!!
Music
Philosophy (Delay if you have Shwedagon)
Metal Casting ?
Gunpowder
Construction +
Machinery ?
Engineering
Chemistry
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Liberalism
Biology!!! (With Liberalism)
Drama +
Communism
Compass ?
Optics ?
Calendar +
Astronomy
Physics
Electricity
Refrigeration
Supercomputers
Steel
Monarchy +
Feudalism +
Guilds +
Banking +
Replacable Parts
Steam Power
Rifling
Artillery
Rocketry
Economics +
Nationalism +
Constitution +
Corporation +
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Fission - note, this could be moved earlier if needed, but we dont have the production to build nukes very well before factories.
Railroad
Combustion
Plastics
Radio
Computers
Fiber Optics
Fusion
Satellites
Composites
Medicine
Genetics
Ecology
My first few tries on Immortal+ difficulty (in which I didnt get DoWed on early) resulted in AI cultural victories. Thus we need to focus on slowing the AI down, throughout the game. Here are the steps we take in order to do that:
1) Never trade Aesthetics, Literature, Music. This prevents them from getting certain culture wonders as fast, and cathedrals.
2) Never trade Paper, Education. This stops them from increasing their research with Oxford, and allows your Liberalism->Biology.
3) Do not trade for something that will be worthless to you, like Horseback Riding. You dont want to hit the limit for techs traded for that causes the AIs to stop trading with you because you are 'becoming too advanced'.
3) Use diplomacy to keep AIs at war.
4) Use Nukes near the end to hit big cities of any AI going for a cultural win (the nukes were the key to my first Deity win). Note that to use nukes, you must first have managed to surround your territory with a friendly AI's, who will give you a defensive pact.
Diplomacy and Nukes:
So how the heck do I survive (with almost no military), and especially if I am going to enter war to nuke somoene later?!
The key here is to get one AI to be your best friend, who will be militarily strong. You should share a religion, and give in to all (or almost all) their demands during the game. You should even agree to join them in wars, if the AI they are attacking has no way to reach you. One of your goals will be to get this AI to completely surround your territory, by getting them to attack and conquer some cities of the AI on the other side(s) of you.
Once this is accomplished, you dont need to care about any AI relations other than them in the late game.
If this is accomplished, then you will be able to Nuke any of the other Civs at will. Just nuke the civ that is going to win a cultural victory. You can try to figure this out by seeing if any AIs are generating great artists. Nuke their cities that are biggest and have the most religions first. You can also often tell who is going for the cultural win based on how many religions are in their big cities, and by watching for their borders to push out against other AIs.
Early on you must use diplomacy to avoid wars at all costs, because they will destroy you. Try to get the same religion as your neighbors. Dont go to a state religion if you border an AI with a different state religion, it will get you killed.
Espionage:
Once you are building your spaceship, you will find that your neighbor(s) will sabotage it, even if you are very friendly. To avoid this, you need to send spies to each AI that you share a border with and perform a counterespionage mission every 10 turns. Focus your espionage points on these AI to enable this. You wont really have enough espionage to engage in other activities, nor do you need to. You just need to perform counterespionage after you begin building your spaceship.
Conclusion:
High difficulty OCC Space Race is a fun challenge, and worth playing if you havent done it before. To summarize the keys to the game, they are:
1) Great starting position with River/Food/Stone
2) Leader Choice (Ghandi - Philosophical/Spiritual)
3) Following the tech and wonder path: Pyramids, Oracle/Alphabet, Great Library, Civil Service, Education/Oxford, Biology/National Park, Research Laboratories, Spaceship.
4) Diplomacy to avoid wars, and set up a friendly AI who SURROUNDS you. Use diplomacy to keep as many civs as possible in a state of war to slow tech trading and advancement, and to slow cultural victories.
5) Nuke AIs threatening a cultural win, targetting all their larger cities.
Note: The goal of this guide will be to discuss how to win a space victory in an OCC in high difficulties.
This guide will not be about other forms of victory such as Conquest or Diplomacy.
Introduction: The OCC Space Victory is a special challenge. Its a very fun game to play, moving quickly and providing an experience that is very different from other games of Civ. For those who havent tried it, I recommend it, you'll probably have a lot of fun, and you can play the entire game in a couple hours.
When played on a high difficulty, there are two main challenges in this strategy:
1) Playing well enough diplomatically to avoid being the target of a war. (This is hard, unless you choose peaceful opponents). While you could survive a war if you devote sufficient effort to preparing for it, doing so will probably slow you down enough that you wont achieve.
2) Achieving the spaceship fast enough to successsfully race the AIs culture victory and spaceships. The big challenge is beating their culture victory. In order to do this, speed is essential. Generally you will beat their spaceship, but beating their culture vicotry is extremely tough on high difficulties like Deity.
The Two Bottlenecks:
The two things that we need for a space victory are research and production. You might think that production would be the limiting factor on building a spaceship with one city, but it turns out that research speed actually ends up being the bigger limiting factor. Generally we will be able to build spaceship parts at the end of the game faster than we can research the technologies to create them (with certain exceptions).
Starting Position:
People have various opinions on regenerating the map to look for a good start. You start position is quite important in an OCC however, so you might consider regenerating even if you normally don't. With a start position that isnt useful for an OCC, if youre playing on a high difficulty, aiming specifically for a space race victory, you probably have no chance.
The following are elements of a successful start position:
1) Located on a river, which preferably runs through a large portion of the the fat cross, giving many river squares.
2) Food resource(s), especially agriculture based resources on a river. River corn is ideal, providing 6 food when farmed. Pigs/Cows/etc are good too, but its very helpful that at least one of your resources is agriculture based, since I generally delay Animal Husbandry until after alphabet (trade for it). Agriculture resources are better than Animal Husbandry resources.
3) Stone (or Marble?). Its great to have one of these in your fat cross, especially Stone. Stone helps with the Pyramids and Marble with the Oracle, Great Library, National Epic, etc. Stone makes the Great Wall worth building, providing more (but inferior) early GPs. The Great Wall helps to avoid needing to build military.
4) Not on the coast. You dont want critical city spaces wasted on water, and you also want plenty of land around you. Your city will reach culture size 5 for much of the game and 6 later on, so if youre in the middle of the land you have the abilitiy to gain access to most strategic resources.
5) 2+ Floodplains present. Having at least a couple floodplains is very helpful. Generally getting 2-4 is good. (Forests are great later). Alternately, you could have multiple food resources.
6) Gold/Gems/Silver. Extra commerce and happiness early on is strong.
7) City positioned on a plains/hill (2 production in city square), or a grassland/+food resource (3 food in city square). The food resource is best, but you wouldnt want to waste a corn or wheat on this. Some calendar resources like Bananas give +1 food, and it would be great to settle on one of these. (Finding the 3 food spot is extremely rare however. It is much more likely you will be looking for a good plains hill location).
You should look for a position with the first 3 conditions, and at least some of the others.
Map Size:
It is much, much easier to do an OCC on smaller maps. I generally play on 'small' size. On larger maps you will tend to have a runaway AI who conquers a huge area and then outraces you in culture or spaceship building at the end. Playing on 'Tiny' instead is kindof like playing down a difficulty level (or at least half a difficulty level). Less AIs leads to easier diplomacy, less people to race you with their culture win, less AI tech trading, etc.
Map Type:
As desired, but I like Inland Sea. Its a fun map, has good resources in an area within 6 spaces of your start, often will give you a river, and you also have borders with only 2 AIs. If those AIs like you, and dont like the rest of the AIs, thats a great position. The best position is for one next door AI to be your ally and to have them conquer the area on your other border, so they surround you. Then if they are strong, and war with everyone else, then no one else can reach you. You can focus on pleasing one AI. I have had a game where a far away AI DOWed me but couldnt reach me, because I got my ally who was surrounding me to cut off his open borders. Also, if you are surrounded by a friendly AI, it allows you to nuke the cities of another AI going for a cultural victory later, which can be critical for preventing AI cultural wins.
The OCC Economy:
In order to generate sufficient research and production in one city to win a space race, our Economy must be a Wonder/Specialist economy, focusing on settled super-specialists. By the end of the game, we will be generating over 1000 beakers per turn and several hundred hammers (with bonuses), capable of putting out a spaceship part every 2-5 turns. You will want to settle all your great people, except for the first scientist who builds an academy. With Library/Academy/University/Oxford (+200%), under representation, a great scientist will be generating 27 research!
Note that you will NOT be building cottages. Farms are better, for running specialists to generate more great people. Late in the game, Watermills replace some river tiles and Windmills should replace some mines (without resources), once you get State Property and Electricity.
The goal of the first half of the game is to reach Biology as fast as possible. This allows the National Park national wonder, giving a free specialist per forest reserve in the city radius and eliminating health concerns. Generally, you shouldnt cut down any forests within your fat cross, except possibly a small amount needed to win a race for a critical wonder. You will turn these forests into free specialists once you reach Biology. I like to have 6-10 forests by that time (usually a few will have grown during the game). Harvesting forests just outside the fat cross for production is very helpful early on.
Great People:
The two great person types that we seek to generate are Scientists and Engineers. The scientist generates 1 hammer and 6 beakers, and the engineer is 3 hammers and 3 beakers, before representation bonus. Generally an engineer is slightly better than a scientist, but the generation of either one should make you happy. Also the first scientist will be used for an Academy.
The other great people are bad in comparison. One early priest can be ok as a mini-engineer, and a spy is an ok mini-scientist. The others are very bad.
We want to generate as many great people as possible, because this is nearly our entire research base, and a significant amount of our production. Therefore we will focus on GPP generation bonuses like Philosophical, Natinal Epic and Pacifism, and on generating GPP points through wonders and scientist specialists (and possibly engineers later on)
Leader Traits:
The best traits for this strategy are:
1) Philosophical. Our economy is mostly based on the number of great people we create, and the speed at which we get them. Philosophical will result in about 20% more great people generated overall, and will also speed them up, resulting in earlier hammers and beakers being generated. This is by far the #1 trait.
2) Industrious. We are trying to build lot of wonders, and in particular some big early ones such as the Pyramids, and Great Library. Clearly industrious would be highly beneficial in getting more and faster wonders.
HOWEVER, there are no Philosophical/Industrious leaders, and therefore we wont get this.
3) Spiritual. This saves a number of turns of anarchy, speeding up every aspect of our game. During the game we will make the following conversions:
Religion (1+ times)
Representation
Beauraucracy
Caste System
State Property (possibly Free Market first)
Pacifism (possibly Organized Religion first)
Thats 6-8 turns saved. A much bigger impact than any of the other choices.
4) Expansive. +2 health which can help early on, and it saves a couple turns on our initial worker, speeding us up. Less beneficial than Spiritual overall.
5) Charismatic. +1 happiness and another with Obelisk, can help before globe theatre. But not as helpful as the above traits.
6) Financial. This could give small amounts of commerce with special resources, lakes, watermills/river windmills with electricity, etc. Not nearly as helpful as other traits.
Creative: The library discount is the only relevant thing. Very poor.
Organized: With 1 city our upkeep is 0, this does nothing. The discounts are worth almost nothing.
Protective: If we fight a war in this strategy we will have already lost, so this does essentially nothing.
Imperialistic: This will do nothing at all during the game.
Aggressive: This will do nothing at all during the game.
Thus our top leaders are:
Ghandi (India): Philosophical/Spiritual: Mining/Mysticism: Fast Worker and Mausoleum. Mining and Mysticism are about the best starting techs we could have for this strategy. Fast worker helps early, saves some worker turns on our only worker. Its about the only UU that would be of any benefit to us.
Peter the Great (Russia): Philosophical/Expansive: Mining/Hunting: Cossack and Research Institute. Hunting is worthless, and being forced to research Mysticism will delay other things a bit. Research Institute is strong late, though it does come quite late in the game.
Abraham Lincoln (America): Philosophical/Charismatic: Fishing/Agriculture: Navy Seal and Mall. Fishing is worthless, that will delay us. Unique stuff is worthless.
Ramesses II (Egypt): Industrious/Spiritual: Agriculture/The Wheel: War Chariot and Obelisk. We lose Philosophical which is a big blow. The techs are great, and Obelisk is interesting. We can get Stonehenge early and then try to make Prophets quick with priest specialists, to get early great people. However, this really isnt that good, because Priests arent nearly as helpful as Scientists/Engineers, and also without philosophical the early GP generation will be at half rate. You can do better with Ghandi and more early wonders.
Overall Ghandi is clearly best, and I recommend him. Peter is ok and you could try him, you might be able to grow a bit more early, and the Research Institute is cool late.
National Wonders:
You will build the following 5 National Wonders, and no others:
National Epic. +100% GPP generation! This is a priority, built right after the Great Library.
Oxford University. Getting to this is your top priority after Great Library.
National Park. This fixes health propblems and generates a ton of specialists.
Globe Theatre. Eliminates happiness problems. Build it once your happiness becomes your limiting factor.
Ironworks. For production for the spaceship late game.
If you have no coal AND no iron, then clearly Ironworks wont help you. However, no other National Wonder is helpful at all. You might want to build Ironworks anyways for the Engineer GPP point and specialist slots, and try to trade for Iron.
What Wonders to Build:
Here is a look at all the non-endgame world wonders, and whether you want them:
Stonehenge: The benefits are that you get 2 great prophet points and your cultural border will grow to collect more resources a bit faster. Also, no AI can have this to help a cultural victory. Its not worth it without stone. It might be worth it with stone, but getting it delays Pyramids and Oracle and generates prophet points. You dont really want great prophets, however getting one very early could help you build more wonders faster. Generally I would prefer to get the pyramids done faster, but you could consider it if you have stone.
Great Wall: You get 2 great spy points per turn and dont have to deal with barbarians. Its not worth it without stone, since you need to finish the pyramids, but with stone it is good. Without it youll need a few warriors positioned around the borders of your territory as fogbusters.
Pyramids: Your #1 early priority. The only thing you might build before it is the Oracle, without stone. With stone, consider building Great Wall or Stonehenge (wall is probably better).
The Oracle: This accelrates you technologically, and slows down an AI by preventing them from doing the same. Therefore I would prioritize this highly. On Deity it will be built around 1500BC, give or take a few hundred years. You can probably build it before or after the pyramids. (If you have stone, build pyramids first, if marble or neither, Oracle first or else you wont get it).
Choices to take with the Oracle are:
Alphabet (Allowing you to fill in all low level techs). I have found this to be one of the best. It is nice if you manage to get the techs you want by trading Writing/Priesthood/Polytheism around, and avoid giving the AIs Alphabet.
Aethetics (Saving time toward Great Library). I find this not as good as Alphabet, but its reasonable. Generally I am still building pyramids until shortly before I get literature normally.
Code of Laws (Caste System and a Religion, plus saving time on the path to Civil Service, plus allowing scientists without a Library). I find this to be probably the best, those its pretty close with Alphabet.
Civil Service (VERY HARD). This only works if no AI gets priesthood fast, and you really have a 5-10% chance of this working, and thats with a great start. I have done it on deity, with a LOT of luck. However, the speedup doesnt actually end up being very big great because you delay great library and national epic to do it. Its also a low probability strategy, so I'd probably avoid it. Also, I find that Code of Laws earlier is about as helpful as Civil Service later, so I would definitely not try for this.
I find that using Oracle on Metal Casting isnt great for this strategy, you have enough production and you dont want to have to research Pottery before completing the Oracle.
Therefore, the best Oracle slingshot for this strategy is to take Alphabet or Code of Laws. The Tech path i give below is for Alphabet, but goign for CoL is good too.
The Parthenon: Initially tempting for the GPP boost, but not really helpful. DONT BUILD THIS. It has several problems:
1) It wears off at scientific method, right before you get tons of specialists through the National Park.
2) It generates terrible artist points.
The main benefit is probably that you keep it away from AIs to deny them culture.
Statue of Zeus: Worse than Parthenon.
Shwedagon Paya: This is ok because it lets you use Pacifism for more GPPs before getting Philosophy (allowing you to also delay Philosophy). Without Gold its probably too costly. Build it after Great Library and National Epic, if youre going to. However, the priest points probably make it inferior to the Hanging Gardens.
Temple of Artemis: Merchant and Prophet points, and some research. Its decent but lower priority than some other stuff. The free priest also disappears at scientific method. I'd go for this if you have marble, after Great Library and National Epic. But you risk generating bad great people with it. However if you get lucky in your GP generations, it helps you get them faster. This is a risk.
Great Library: The major focus after getting pyramids. 8 great scientist points! Even after scientific method, its still 2 scientist points.
University of Sankore: Build it when you run out of better stuff to build, which will probably occur while researching education. Scientist points and a few beakers.
Sistene Chapel: Here is the thing that sucks: You have to build this or an AI will beat you on culture, guaranteed. But you dont want the artist points. Delay it until an AI gets music or is close to music and then beat them to it. You should also make sure to research music first for the artist. I tend to research music after education.
Hanging Gardens: Helpful for engineer points. Do it after other more important stuff, but try to get it.
Great Lighthouse/Chicken Itza/AngkorWat/Notre Dame/Mausoleum/blahblahblah: No.
Hagia Sophia: You wont be researching Theology and an AI will build it before they trade it to you, so we dont get these engineer points
Apostolic Palace: same as Hagia. But if you share the religion you still get the benefit.
Later on if I build a wonder it is to deny a culture points to the AI, except for the Internet, which you will go for. Most of them are in places where you will let the AIs research those techs for you and trade for them, so you wont get the wonders.
To Summarize: (++ = primary goal, + = good, 0 = do not build), sorted
Pyramids ++
Great Library: ++
Oracle: ++
Hanging Gardens: +
University of Sankore: +
Sistene Chapel: + (when an opponent could build it - this is for denial purposes)
Great Wall: 0 (+ with stone)
Shwedagon Paya: 0 (+ with Gold?)
Temple of Artemis: 0 (+ with Marble??)
Stonehenge: 0 (+ with stone???)
All others: 0
Tech Path/Build Order:
You tech path is very important. You want to get certain wonders fast, and you want to research techs that the AI doesnt, so you can trade for the ones they all research (like Calendar). If you just want to see the summarization of the entire path and skip the big explanation, scroll down a ways.
Your early tech path 'T', and build order, 'B', and worker orders 'W', is:
Starting Techs: Mining and Mysticism (Ghandi).
B1) Set city to build a worker. Use warrior to go explore for more civs. I play with goody huts and random events off (randomness bad!), but if they are on, you are obviously looking for huts hoping for techs.
T1) Agriculture (assuming Corn/Wheat/Rice).
T2) Masonry.
W1) Your initial worker is built and goes to make a farm on the agriculture resource.
B2) Pyramids! (If you have stone, you could go great wall/stonehenge or both first instead).
W2) Your worker makes a quarry as soon as you get masonry (assuming stone/marble). Without those resources, he makes farms/mines.
T3) The Wheel. (Skip this if the stone/marble is connected to capitol via the river).
W3) Your worker makes the road to the capitol from the quarry (if stone). After that (or instead), the worker then would go mine 2 spaces (hopefully with gold, gems, or silver).
T4) Polytheism.
T5) Priesthood. (You can now build oracle. Unless youre targetting Civil Service, you can just switch to it now).
B3) Build Oracle (go back to Pyramids afterward).
W4) Worker finishes off making enough mines/farms to have 6 people working them. Hopefully the Corn/Wheat/Rice, 2 farms on floodplains, The stone/marble, the Gold/Gems, and a couple mined hills.
T6) Writing (don't finish Oracle before this is done).
Next you have some choices on tech path:
1) The 'normal' path. Take Alphabet with the Oracle, trade your writing/priesthood/polytheism techs for Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, Meditation, etc. Research order is:
Alphabet (with Oracle)
Aesthetics
Literature
Code of Laws / Mathermatics
Civil Service
Paper
Education
Music (for the settled Artist's research beakers)
Keep an eye on if an AI can research music. If so, you should probably do it immediately. You should not EVER trade Aesthetics, Literature, or Music if you can possibly avoid it. (You might get a demand from an AI you need to keep friendly and have to give it to them, in which case you might as well then trade it).
2) Civil Service with Oracle path. Here you delay Oracle until after Mathematics and Code of Laws. You'll probably get beaten to the Oracle and need to restart. Follow that with Great Library and then Education, then Music.
After you get Education, your next goal is to make a Liberalism -> Biology slingshot!! Yes, Biology with Liberalism! I did it on Deity shortly after 500 AD. (This is why strong start positions are important). You should keep an eye on if any AI can ever research Liberalism, and if so do it ASAP and get a big tech on your path to Biology (hopefully at least Scientific Method).
Your first choice now is whether to research Philosophy first or not. If you go for Shwedagon Paya you can avoid it until right before liberalism, to try and trade for it. Otherwise, get it next.
You need a long list of techs in order to get to Biology. Your goal is to trade for as many as you can, while researching down different paths than the AIs. You should NOT EVER trade Paper or Education! The AIs do not prioritize paper highly, and they cant get to liberalism without these. Do NOT open up liberalism for them.
You need the following techs to get to Biology. Note that we are going to approach Scientific Method through the Chemistry path, not the Astronomy path, because we need chemistry for Biology. I am excluding all techs in the first two rows, since you can easily trade for those earlier.
Tech (Relevant bonus):
Philosophy (Pacifism - you can put this off until right before Scientific Method/try to trade for it if you build Shwedagon Paya)
Metal Casting (+Production/Engineer slot)
Gunpowder
Construction
Machinery
Engineering (Castle)
Chemistry
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Liberalism -> Biology!
Generally youre fine trading off the military techs like Machinery, Construction, Engineering, Gunpowder, Chemistry, for things that save you time. You should try to trade the same tech to several AIs and thus limit the number that you have to give away to them.
You can often trade for some of these, such as Philosophy, Metal Casting, Construction, Machinery.
Now the techs are really expensive, and our next goal is to get research bonuses from Observatory, Laboratory, free great people like the Scientist from Physics and the Spy from Communism. Also, the Ironworks from Steel can be a decent research boost in this phase, since we will start building research for much of this period. I have found that you actually want to go for Laboratories very early like this, for research, and so that later as soon as we get apollo project we can build 5 items while we research for more parts.
Our tech order is now:
Drama (Probalby trade for it - for Globe Theater, which we need now that our health cap went away)
Communism (for the spy)
Iron Working (you probably got this a long time ago)
Compass (possibly in trade)
Optics
Calendar (trade for it)
Astronomy (Observatory!)
Physics (Scientist!)
Electricity
Refrigeration (+1 Food)
Supercomputers (Laboratory!)
Steel (Ironworks - feel free to move this earlier)
Next we go for the production stuff and Apollo progect.
One of my goals is to delay the path to Replacable Parts as long as possible so we can trade for a bunch of crap we need for it, such as:
Monarchy
Feudalism
Guilds
Banking
Now we research:
Replacable Parts
Steam Power (Levee, Coal)
Rifling
Artillery
Rocketry (Apollo project!)
Now we can work on our early spaceship parts when we dont have other stuff to do.
Next:
Economics
Nationalism
Constitution
Corporation
Assembly Line (Factory)
Industrialism (Aluminum)
Fission (Nukes) - note, this could be moved much earlier if needed, but we dont have the production to build nukes as well before factories.
Railroad
Combustion
Plastics
Radio
Computers
Fiber Optics
Fusion (Engineer)
Satellites
Composites
Medicine (can get with Internet)
Genetics
Ecology
This order tries to put some cheap spaceship pieces at the end so that youll be able to immediately build them, instead of ending with Fusion and needing to build 2 big engines.
Summary of the tech order:
+ means its reasonably likely you can trade for it by now.
? means you might be able to trade for it.
(Mysticism/Mining to start)
Agriculture
Masonry
The Wheel(if no river to stone/marble connection - otherwise get Alphabet and trade for it)
Polytheism
Priesthood
Writing
Alphabet (with Oracle) - trade for many early techs: Animal Husbandry, Meditation, Pottery, Bronze Working, etc).
Aesthetics
Literature!
Code of Laws
Mathematics ?
Civil Service!
Paper
Education!!
Music
Philosophy (Delay if you have Shwedagon)
Metal Casting ?
Gunpowder
Construction +
Machinery ?
Engineering
Chemistry
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Liberalism
Biology!!! (With Liberalism)
Drama +
Communism
Compass ?
Optics ?
Calendar +
Astronomy
Physics
Electricity
Refrigeration
Supercomputers
Steel
Monarchy +
Feudalism +
Guilds +
Banking +
Replacable Parts
Steam Power
Rifling
Artillery
Rocketry
Economics +
Nationalism +
Constitution +
Corporation +
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Fission - note, this could be moved earlier if needed, but we dont have the production to build nukes very well before factories.
Railroad
Combustion
Plastics
Radio
Computers
Fiber Optics
Fusion
Satellites
Composites
Medicine
Genetics
Ecology
My first few tries on Immortal+ difficulty (in which I didnt get DoWed on early) resulted in AI cultural victories. Thus we need to focus on slowing the AI down, throughout the game. Here are the steps we take in order to do that:
1) Never trade Aesthetics, Literature, Music. This prevents them from getting certain culture wonders as fast, and cathedrals.
2) Never trade Paper, Education. This stops them from increasing their research with Oxford, and allows your Liberalism->Biology.
3) Do not trade for something that will be worthless to you, like Horseback Riding. You dont want to hit the limit for techs traded for that causes the AIs to stop trading with you because you are 'becoming too advanced'.
3) Use diplomacy to keep AIs at war.
4) Use Nukes near the end to hit big cities of any AI going for a cultural win (the nukes were the key to my first Deity win). Note that to use nukes, you must first have managed to surround your territory with a friendly AI's, who will give you a defensive pact.
Diplomacy and Nukes:
So how the heck do I survive (with almost no military), and especially if I am going to enter war to nuke somoene later?!
The key here is to get one AI to be your best friend, who will be militarily strong. You should share a religion, and give in to all (or almost all) their demands during the game. You should even agree to join them in wars, if the AI they are attacking has no way to reach you. One of your goals will be to get this AI to completely surround your territory, by getting them to attack and conquer some cities of the AI on the other side(s) of you.
Once this is accomplished, you dont need to care about any AI relations other than them in the late game.
If this is accomplished, then you will be able to Nuke any of the other Civs at will. Just nuke the civ that is going to win a cultural victory. You can try to figure this out by seeing if any AIs are generating great artists. Nuke their cities that are biggest and have the most religions first. You can also often tell who is going for the cultural win based on how many religions are in their big cities, and by watching for their borders to push out against other AIs.
Early on you must use diplomacy to avoid wars at all costs, because they will destroy you. Try to get the same religion as your neighbors. Dont go to a state religion if you border an AI with a different state religion, it will get you killed.
Espionage:
Once you are building your spaceship, you will find that your neighbor(s) will sabotage it, even if you are very friendly. To avoid this, you need to send spies to each AI that you share a border with and perform a counterespionage mission every 10 turns. Focus your espionage points on these AI to enable this. You wont really have enough espionage to engage in other activities, nor do you need to. You just need to perform counterespionage after you begin building your spaceship.
Conclusion:
High difficulty OCC Space Race is a fun challenge, and worth playing if you havent done it before. To summarize the keys to the game, they are:
1) Great starting position with River/Food/Stone
2) Leader Choice (Ghandi - Philosophical/Spiritual)
3) Following the tech and wonder path: Pyramids, Oracle/Alphabet, Great Library, Civil Service, Education/Oxford, Biology/National Park, Research Laboratories, Spaceship.
4) Diplomacy to avoid wars, and set up a friendly AI who SURROUNDS you. Use diplomacy to keep as many civs as possible in a state of war to slow tech trading and advancement, and to slow cultural victories.
5) Nuke AIs threatening a cultural win, targetting all their larger cities.
However, a great general generating strategy could be amazing, they are 1/3 of a scientist each! If you can work that part of the game in as well, its an improvement. 
, and 
) come from several sources besides working tiles. 
and 
and comes from shrines and corps which the AI is only too happy to spread. On lower difficulties you can get a huge advantage out of founding Hinduism, Judaism, and Confucianism off of research and the Oracle. If you stay unlinked to the AI until the Oracle is done, then you can force your near neighbors to go Confucian, the next tier out Jewish, etc. with selective missionaries. Most AIs will spread religion which nets you 1 raw 
on that game!
? You get better multipliers until superconductors, you get vasty more off AI religious spread (say 20 gpt on average) than you can with a settled Gsc.
