[BTS] Deity One City Challenge on a Huge map with 18 civilizations

[valergrad]

Hi everybody,

I am going to try to do this challenge for the next several months or so.
The map will be Earth18civs huge map. It looks like it won't be an easy walk ( at least with my experience), as some civs will have 30-50 cities near the end, and confrontation with them with just one city should be challenging.
The key into this game probably will be a diplomacy, hence currently I am digging into the code and creating "psyhological profiles" of all my 18 possible opponents. As well as finding diplomacy exploits I can use. Probably making mischief or reconcilation between AI will be important part of this game as well as having good relationship with any of them.
This will be my preparation that will take probably 2-3 weeks.

To make it more fun, I am going to post there before all important choices during the game before making them.
And I'll be totally open to ideas, suggestions, analysis from experienced players that this forum has a lot.
This will be my way of learning how to play.

So,. the first important choice is - to choose leader to start. I'll post there all 18 starting locations from this map and will try to understand what will give me the most chances. As it is the OCC - the choice is hard to overestimate.
And of course your opinions about the best start as well as the opening strategies will be appreciated.

Options:
Level : Deity ( otherwise it is too easy)
Gamespeed: Normal ( Or may be better take epic? Marathon probably make it too challenging as AI will have more time to kill each other and create one superEmpire)
No goody huts ( still we have some at the map already)
No random events ( don't want to lose the game after 200 hours spent because of unlucky event)
Vassal states enabled ( this is again to prevent creating of superEmpires and leave more space for diplomacy games).

 

[valergrad]

Starting points for all 18 civs

Roosevelt, Monty and Huayna Capac probably not worth considering. They will be isolated on America until Optics so choosing one them means that you'll have to trade with 2 civs only ( and one of them will be Monty, errrr ).
The same is Mansa Musa. Mansa is the best tech trader in the game, i think you definitely need him as a trade partner and a friend. In fact I think he is irreplaceable.

Hatshepsut

+ Stone, Marble, Wheat
+ A lot of oases.
+ She can isolate the whole Africa for some time
+ Africa have 6 goody huts, probably she can gather all of them
- deserts within city range
- no copper or iron, oil is dubious
+ Spiritual
- useless creative trait

Isabella

+ Decent number of bonuses including silver
- No stone or marble for early wonders
+ Goody hut
+ Spiritual and Expansive - usefull traits
+ Good chance that on the land it will have 8 shared cells only with Lui and Julius Caesar. I.e. it will not be "Land Target" for other AI's. This decrease chance for attacking her.

Elisabeth

+ Fantastic set of resources - especially if you win cultural war against Paris
+ Island = Safety until late game
+ Philosophy and Financial traits - looks like the best set for this challenge
+ No land target for anybody
- You have to learn sailing and writing to contact other civs, that's it later then in other cases
- Vulnerable in the late game
- Sea cells not effective in the late game

Lui

+ Very good all-around set of resources
+ Probably best city in the late game
+ Industrious trait
+ Good access to the water routes
- Creative trait

Frederick

- You have to choose between sea access and resources
- Looks like many bad tiles
- Useless organised trait

Caesar

+ Stone, marble, iron, fish - good start
- A lot of water tiles - not effective after the middle-game.
- Useless traits

Alexander

+ Starting plot looks like "poor version" of Caesar's plot.
+ At least has philosophy trait

Catherine

- No access to a sea. No trade or contact with 3 out of 18 civs
+ Poor starting location
+ Philiosophy trait
- Creative trait
+ Total safety from unexpected attacks when you get enough culture
+ You will not have to play against Catherine - and she is a crazy in this game

Kir

+ A lot of resources on the start
- But food situation is awful
+ Possibility of being a land target of Cate, Saladin, Hatshepsut and Asoka - or all together
+ Apothecary building is strong
+ Charismatic
- Imperialistic

Saladin

- The only city in the middle of a desert. Looks like the showstopper

Asoka

+ Good number of resources
- Desert and jungle tiles
+ Spiritual
- Organized

Quin Shi Huang

+ Decent starting point in term of resources
- Closest neighbours are Genghis Khan and Tokugawa!
+ Industrial
- Useless trait

Genghis Khan

- Poor starting point
- With your OCC, Quin Shi Huang will take all Asia and will be unstoppable. Or Cate , that is even worse\
- Both traits useless for this challenge

Tokugawa

+ Fantastic set of food resources
+ Isolated on an island : safety until midgame
- A lot of water tiles
- Will be hard to get contacts other civs to trade with them
- Island - vulnerable in the midgame
- Both traits useless for this challenge

 

[valergrad]

Other 8 starting points

 

[mscellaneous]

Interesting... If you are going for the diplo route then a coastal capital is key. So I think you can ignore a lot of leaders. France seems a decent start, without having too much water tiles.

Are you considering moving the settler at T0?

 

[valergrad]

Are you considering moving the settler at T0?

Sure, if it worth it. This is just how AI placed the cities - not always in the best way of course!

If you are going for the diplo route then a coastal capital is key. So I think you can ignore a lot of leaders.

But all of them have coastal start. Except for Catherine and Mansa, i believe.

 

[AcaMetis]

If you're going to need to rely on diplo than SPI is also key, I would think. SPI would also help if you end up doing any spy-based shenanigans, and OOC I can see that happening.

 

[valergrad]

If you're going to need to rely on diplo than SPI is also key, I would think. SPI would also help if you end up doing any spy-based shenanigans, and OOC I can see that happening.

Agree on this. SPI gives incredible flexibility in diplomatic interactions... Especially against non-spi opponent. On this map we have 6 SPI AI's - Asoka, Hatshepsut, Isabella, Mansa Musa, Montezuma, Saladin.
Looks like decent start location have only first 3 of them.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

I'd pick Elizabeth or Louis and grind to space. Europe is going to be a religious bloc for most of the game.

 

[valergrad]

One small ( or may be not so small) factor: Elizabeth ( and Tokugawa ) wouldn't be able to steal a worker at the beginning of the game. They'll have to build it themselve.

 

[krikav]

Is diplomatic victory the only concievable victory condition?
If so, I would want to focus on as a tech-heavy leader as possible. Financial one with room for plenty of towns.

If conquest is an option, GKs traits is looking kind of nice imho, easy access to the commando promotion with free combat1 and lots of GGenerals!
Moving 4 turns with Khan and settling by the river east of Qin looks tempting though.
Haven't paid much attention to the earth18 map, but most starting positions look kind of awful for OCC.
Having a large food surplus, loads of tiles and lots of resources in the extended culture feels important.


Edit
This spot looks nice imho!

Spoiler :

/Edit

 

[Nick723]

Is diplomatic victory the only concievable victory condition?
If so, I would want to focus on as a tech-heavy leader as possible. Financial one with room for plenty of towns.

I think conquest would be off the table on a huge map, OCC conquest is no mean feat on a standard sized map (gets very difficult to control all the land and stop them resettling)

On the other hand, I would have thought space would be doable? Certainly it is on a normal map.

Re starts, if not moving far I like Louis. Gotta love wonder spam in OCC = GPP. One settled great scientist in Rep is roughly equivalent to a fully matured town, so the more great people you can get the better.

Edit - also on this map script I believe the AIs start with just warriors so if playing Louis you might want to rush Germany to get a bit more room.
Also Louis has aluminium, which is key for space.

 

[Heathcliff]

This is Rhye's map, many good spots.
Rhye players have discussed doing one city space race challange on this map most people prefer Kansas City, where I have show on picture or one to southeast St Louis.

 

[valergrad]

@krikav, I agree, a very nice spot! Didn't see it.

@Heathcliff, i probably missing something but I don't understand what is so good with this Kansas City spot? It has just 3 corns and that's all. Especially taking into account that you'll stuck in America with just 2 civs, where in Eurasia 15 Civs will do extensive tech trades..

 

[valergrad]

@krikav , all kinds of victory turned on. But I am not sure if conquest is possible on map of this size on deity, for me it looks totally impossible ( if you don't do save-reloads for each battle of course). I believe space race will be the easiest goal... Diplomatic too, but I have a little bit bias against it ( it always looks like almost cheating)

 

[Heathcliff]

3 wet corn and 15 riverside cottages. Cant do better than that.

 

[krikav]

I think it's the mass of rivertiles.
Good production with levee.

But I don't think that hammers is the key bottleneck really.

 

[krikav]

I can only recal me playing one OCC ever, and that was with Justinian on deity.
Did not succeed at all with a military approach, but second time around I did get a space victory.

So take all of my speculations with a huge grain of salt.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

I can only recal me playing one OCC ever, and that was with Justinian on deity.
Did not succeed at all with a military approach, but second time around I did get a space victory.

So take all of my speculations with a huge grain of salt.

The main hurdle with conquest /domination in OCC is that you cant force capitulation unless you have at least 2x population /land as the target AI. So you desperately need a few vassal under you to start helping beef up your own land and pop values by half of theirs. If you wait until Cuir rush its tough as you need to typically knock down the first civ to 1 or 2 cities, you get none of the benefits of those captures except gold, and then when you finally vassal them, they are quite small and weak.

You can't even gift your vassals cities or settlers as you can't build any in the first place, so you realistically need to empty out an entire land area, vassal a few crippled civs, and hope they fill it back up on your behalf. On a huge non-pangea map, I doubt military victory OCC is truly possible.

 

[jnebbe]

I don't play OCC at all, do you keep captured cities or are you stuck at 1 city the entire game?

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

I don't play OCC at all, do you keep captured cities or are you stuck at 1 city the entire game?

Any captured city is autorazed - can't even cede control to a neighboring civ with culture present on the tile.