radiofreestl
Warlord
I was a big fan of one-city challenge Civ 4 games due to my demanding schedule. I’ve played a few games of OCC in Civ 5 and want to share my (working) strategy and solicit feedback from others who may have attempted it. Since I’ve been going for a culture win (difficult for OCC but doable, imo), certain elements of my strategy will be useful in that context as well. Though it may be partially due to my lack of skill, I’m finding the unit/building maintenance costs make OCC much harder in Civ 5.
I’ve been playing on default map conditions (small, continents, Prince, standard speed) with the exception of jacking up the number of city-states to the maximum of 28 for some extra buffers.
Note that I’ve yet to win with this strategy. My first two games were learning experiences—in the first, I crashed my economy with too many unnecessary buildings, and in the second, Hiawatha declared on me in the medieval era. In my most recent game, though, I'd just finished the Hermitage with three completed policy branches by 1600 when I had to give up because the game crashed six times in a row on the same turn (maybe the new patch will fix this?). I’m hoping this strategy, fortified with your suggestions for improvement, will get me my first Civ 5 win on my next attempt.
I. Leader
I play with Gandhi, who in an OCC cuts your unhappiness in half. Monty (culture for every unit killed) and Napoleon (+2 culture per city before Steam) may seem better, but Gandhi is superior because of the Mandate of Heaven social policy, which converts 50% of your excess happiness into culture. In practical terms, this translates into about 4 extra culture per turn over what you’d get with any other leader once this policy is active.
II. Policies
Three branches are pretty much required: Tradition, Piety, and Freedom. They become available in the Ancient, Classical, and Renaissance eras, respectively. The first gives capital city bonuses, while the other two provide essential culture/specialist policies.
I’ve been beelining Aristocracy (+33% wonder construction in capital), Mandate of Heaven (50% excess happy --> culture), Free Religion (2 free social policies), Constitution (+100% culture in cities with a wonder), and Free Speech (-25% policy costs) in that order. Working toward or grabbing these policies should be the primary criterion for choosing which policy to adopt at any given time.
After Free Religion and before the Freedom branch is unlocked, there is time to backfill and complete most or all of the Tradition and Piety branches. Landed Elite (+33% growth in capital), Organized Religion (-25% happy for Golden Age), and the rest of the Freedom tree (specialist bonuses) are also very good policies.
I’ve yet to come up with a compelling case for which of the other two branches to pursue for victory. I’m leaning toward Honor (military bonuses) and Patronage (city-state bonuses). Commerce has a strong initial bonus of +25% gold, but the rest of its policies are worthless. The other four are either largely worthless or can’t be used at the same time as Piety.
III. Gameplay
Start with Monument (+2 culture)>Scout>Worker>Stonehenge (+8 culture). Use your starting Warrior to do a quick loop around the city and send him back to garrison when the Scout finishes. Let the barbs come to you, bombarding them with the city and finishing them off with your garrison. The map is crowded and barbs sparse enough that this has sufficed for me so far. Keep your Scout alive as long as possible, since you won’t want to devote production to another.
Tech-wise, you want to complete Pottery>Calendar at the same time you adopt the Aristocracy policy (your second) so you can immediately build Stonehenge. You can get at least two of AH, Mining>BW, and any necessary Worker techs before you need to do this. After Calendar, immediately go Writing>Philosophy to unlock and build Library (1 science per 2 citizens)>Oracle (1 free policy)>National College (+50% science)>Temple (+3 culture).
After the Nat’l College, once you have Horses and/or Iron hooked up, build 1-2 Swords/Horses and upgrade your Warrior. A larger army is too expensive due to maintenance costs. I usually send my army to hang out near the closest or most belligerent leader. I got burned by Hiawatha in my second game when I had a magnificent army of one Sword, but 2-3 has worked for me so far (though I doubt this will translate to success at higher levels).
Following Philo, get the following techs as soon as they’re available within a reasonable timeframe (<18 turns): Iron Working, Metal Casting (Workshop, +20% building construction), Theology (Monastery, +2 culture per incense/wine; Garden, +25% GPP), Currency (Market, +25% gold), Education (University, +50% science). If you have fresh water, add Civil Service to this list for the food bonus, and if you have horses, prioritize Wheel>HB.
Everything else is just backfill that you should research to kill time until your science is good enough to grab the prize techs. Build the buildings that become available with these techs quickly, along with the National Epic (+25% GPP). Do *not* build any other buildings, as they’re too expensive.
During this time (Classical/Medieval eras), your economy will slowly stagnate. Your science will stay competitive on Prince, however. Get the Market up quickly and build trading posts as necessary to stay at least at a slight loss (farms and mines otherwise). Your city will explode geographically at about the same pace that your Worker can improve tiles. I don’t micromanage, so I usually just emphasize culture in the city screen, but sometimes will emphasize production (if I can cut 15 turns off a building at the loss of only 2 culture, for example).
You’ll get at least three great people during this time. All artists should be used for landmarks on crappy tiles, which with later game multipliers will bring an extra 8-10 culture per turn. Scientists should bulb an expensive prize tech. If you can afford it, save engineers for the Sistine Chapel or Louvre (they cost maintenance too, so not always feasible). Angkor Wat (+33% GPP) is a good use of an early Engineer, but probably isn’t worth lost turns of production otherwise.
Enter the Renaissance era with Acoustics to unlock Sistine (+33% culture) and the Opera House (+5 culture), then do a immediate beeline of Astro (Observatory, +50% science)>Navigation>Archaeology. Arch is the holy grail: it opens the Louvre (2 free Great Artists), Museum (+5 culture), and Hermitage (+100% culture), so time Oxford University (1 free tech) to finish at the same time as Navigation. If you’ve been able to save a Great Engineer, rush the Louvre.
This is as far as I’ve gotten in actual gameplay, but I was humming along nicely with Tradition/Piety/Freedom completed, breaking even with a slight tech lead and no immediate prospects for war. I tried to stay as friendly as possible with all civs without becoming embroiled in their disputes with one another. Since I had tech parity and research agreements are expensive, I avoided them. I’ve yet to exploit city-state friendliness and alliances, since those are also expensive, but I’d like to figure out a way to get some of that goodness.
The next step, I imagine, is to focus on military techs so my pathetic army is at least well equipped. This means the Physics>Steel>Gunpowder>Metallurgy>Rifling branch. Other Renaissance/Industrial prize techs are Banking (Bank, +25% gold), Chemistry (Ironworks, +20% production), Scientific Theory (Public School, +50% science), and Electricity (Stock Exchange, +33% gold). Telegraph is worth a beeline, as the Christo Redentor knocks 33% off policy costs.
In the modern era, the only thing that really stands out is Globalization for the Sydney Opera House (one free policy). I expect there will be a significant period of turtling similar to many Civ 4 culture victories, when I'll eventually lose tech parity and be counting down the turns to victory hoping that the AI doesn't attack my paper-mache army.
That’s it—I look forward to reading any attempts at implementing this strategy and suggestions for improvement.
I’ve been playing on default map conditions (small, continents, Prince, standard speed) with the exception of jacking up the number of city-states to the maximum of 28 for some extra buffers.
Note that I’ve yet to win with this strategy. My first two games were learning experiences—in the first, I crashed my economy with too many unnecessary buildings, and in the second, Hiawatha declared on me in the medieval era. In my most recent game, though, I'd just finished the Hermitage with three completed policy branches by 1600 when I had to give up because the game crashed six times in a row on the same turn (maybe the new patch will fix this?). I’m hoping this strategy, fortified with your suggestions for improvement, will get me my first Civ 5 win on my next attempt.
I. Leader
I play with Gandhi, who in an OCC cuts your unhappiness in half. Monty (culture for every unit killed) and Napoleon (+2 culture per city before Steam) may seem better, but Gandhi is superior because of the Mandate of Heaven social policy, which converts 50% of your excess happiness into culture. In practical terms, this translates into about 4 extra culture per turn over what you’d get with any other leader once this policy is active.
II. Policies
Three branches are pretty much required: Tradition, Piety, and Freedom. They become available in the Ancient, Classical, and Renaissance eras, respectively. The first gives capital city bonuses, while the other two provide essential culture/specialist policies.
I’ve been beelining Aristocracy (+33% wonder construction in capital), Mandate of Heaven (50% excess happy --> culture), Free Religion (2 free social policies), Constitution (+100% culture in cities with a wonder), and Free Speech (-25% policy costs) in that order. Working toward or grabbing these policies should be the primary criterion for choosing which policy to adopt at any given time.
After Free Religion and before the Freedom branch is unlocked, there is time to backfill and complete most or all of the Tradition and Piety branches. Landed Elite (+33% growth in capital), Organized Religion (-25% happy for Golden Age), and the rest of the Freedom tree (specialist bonuses) are also very good policies.
I’ve yet to come up with a compelling case for which of the other two branches to pursue for victory. I’m leaning toward Honor (military bonuses) and Patronage (city-state bonuses). Commerce has a strong initial bonus of +25% gold, but the rest of its policies are worthless. The other four are either largely worthless or can’t be used at the same time as Piety.
III. Gameplay
Start with Monument (+2 culture)>Scout>Worker>Stonehenge (+8 culture). Use your starting Warrior to do a quick loop around the city and send him back to garrison when the Scout finishes. Let the barbs come to you, bombarding them with the city and finishing them off with your garrison. The map is crowded and barbs sparse enough that this has sufficed for me so far. Keep your Scout alive as long as possible, since you won’t want to devote production to another.
Tech-wise, you want to complete Pottery>Calendar at the same time you adopt the Aristocracy policy (your second) so you can immediately build Stonehenge. You can get at least two of AH, Mining>BW, and any necessary Worker techs before you need to do this. After Calendar, immediately go Writing>Philosophy to unlock and build Library (1 science per 2 citizens)>Oracle (1 free policy)>National College (+50% science)>Temple (+3 culture).
After the Nat’l College, once you have Horses and/or Iron hooked up, build 1-2 Swords/Horses and upgrade your Warrior. A larger army is too expensive due to maintenance costs. I usually send my army to hang out near the closest or most belligerent leader. I got burned by Hiawatha in my second game when I had a magnificent army of one Sword, but 2-3 has worked for me so far (though I doubt this will translate to success at higher levels).
Following Philo, get the following techs as soon as they’re available within a reasonable timeframe (<18 turns): Iron Working, Metal Casting (Workshop, +20% building construction), Theology (Monastery, +2 culture per incense/wine; Garden, +25% GPP), Currency (Market, +25% gold), Education (University, +50% science). If you have fresh water, add Civil Service to this list for the food bonus, and if you have horses, prioritize Wheel>HB.
Everything else is just backfill that you should research to kill time until your science is good enough to grab the prize techs. Build the buildings that become available with these techs quickly, along with the National Epic (+25% GPP). Do *not* build any other buildings, as they’re too expensive.
During this time (Classical/Medieval eras), your economy will slowly stagnate. Your science will stay competitive on Prince, however. Get the Market up quickly and build trading posts as necessary to stay at least at a slight loss (farms and mines otherwise). Your city will explode geographically at about the same pace that your Worker can improve tiles. I don’t micromanage, so I usually just emphasize culture in the city screen, but sometimes will emphasize production (if I can cut 15 turns off a building at the loss of only 2 culture, for example).
You’ll get at least three great people during this time. All artists should be used for landmarks on crappy tiles, which with later game multipliers will bring an extra 8-10 culture per turn. Scientists should bulb an expensive prize tech. If you can afford it, save engineers for the Sistine Chapel or Louvre (they cost maintenance too, so not always feasible). Angkor Wat (+33% GPP) is a good use of an early Engineer, but probably isn’t worth lost turns of production otherwise.
Enter the Renaissance era with Acoustics to unlock Sistine (+33% culture) and the Opera House (+5 culture), then do a immediate beeline of Astro (Observatory, +50% science)>Navigation>Archaeology. Arch is the holy grail: it opens the Louvre (2 free Great Artists), Museum (+5 culture), and Hermitage (+100% culture), so time Oxford University (1 free tech) to finish at the same time as Navigation. If you’ve been able to save a Great Engineer, rush the Louvre.
This is as far as I’ve gotten in actual gameplay, but I was humming along nicely with Tradition/Piety/Freedom completed, breaking even with a slight tech lead and no immediate prospects for war. I tried to stay as friendly as possible with all civs without becoming embroiled in their disputes with one another. Since I had tech parity and research agreements are expensive, I avoided them. I’ve yet to exploit city-state friendliness and alliances, since those are also expensive, but I’d like to figure out a way to get some of that goodness.
The next step, I imagine, is to focus on military techs so my pathetic army is at least well equipped. This means the Physics>Steel>Gunpowder>Metallurgy>Rifling branch. Other Renaissance/Industrial prize techs are Banking (Bank, +25% gold), Chemistry (Ironworks, +20% production), Scientific Theory (Public School, +50% science), and Electricity (Stock Exchange, +33% gold). Telegraph is worth a beeline, as the Christo Redentor knocks 33% off policy costs.
In the modern era, the only thing that really stands out is Globalization for the Sydney Opera House (one free policy). I expect there will be a significant period of turtling similar to many Civ 4 culture victories, when I'll eventually lose tech parity and be counting down the turns to victory hoping that the AI doesn't attack my paper-mache army.
That’s it—I look forward to reading any attempts at implementing this strategy and suggestions for improvement.
Thanks for pointing out that error.
So close, need only 5 more Policies. Mixed feelings about the city states. I guess it depends on the map. They don't do any harm, but they're not a significant improvement either, or so it seems. Losing, say, 24 culture per turn might be made up for by using excess gold for more military...
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