Earth18Civ OCC Conquest...?

[krikav]

*EDIT* I have removed the faulty T16 save, which was not even theoretically possible.
I have instead added a T5 save which leaves you at T5, having popped BW from a hut and razed Berlin for two yummy workers.
This line of events is a one in 12250 chance just to get a rough figure of how insanly lucky this is!
*/EDIT*


I didn't want to clog up @valergrad s nice thread more.
Go check the original thread out, very fun stuff!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...e-on-a-huge-map-with-18-civilizations.673400/

The question arose if it could be possible to win conquest with OCC on this map.
I did a try with France... No success, way to slow to get the first vassal.
Then I did a try with Italy, but that was also probably abit too slow.

So, this thread is about "how to win OCC on earth18 civ by conquest?".
Someone had an idea to run with Marathon, but I don't want to do that.

If someone has any idea of any other civ to try out, do speak up! Want to have a nice collection of ideas here.
But for the time being, I'm stickign with italy.
I think IMP is super nice. Having laods of settled GGenerals will help alot! Itally also has access to both stone and marble.

Here is a quick run up to T16, the idea being that this could serve as a starting position for anyone who wants _ALL_ the luck, but don't want to run 10 000 games to get it.

Spoiler T16 :

Anyone knows if the warrior can spawn 1N of the clam...? I did 3-4 starts and couldn't see it spawn there, but if it can, that is a slight improvement.

Too bad for alex scout that a forest just so happend to spawn on that spot, costing him the race for that goodyhut!

Oh look! The hut served BW!
(In reality, I just worldbuildered away the hut, and gave myself a GEng and gave me TW+Mason temporarily, then I could bulb BW. After that I just remove TW+Mason again.

I don't KNOW that Freddy can happen to place his worker on that copper spot. But I figured in this alternate history run it can happen.

Almost 10% odds, ofcourse we go !

Well, look at that! Aint we lucky...?
(That the warrior had CR3+Shock+Combat1->Combat8 and drill etc during the attack is a well kept secret)

Chopped a warriors, and then chopping a second boat for the fish.
I'm going myst->poly, because I have a hunch that the scandinavian hut which our woody2 guys is sprinting toward holds masonry...

Well, look at that!

And the hut on the souther tip of itally held TW.

I have attached the save from this run. Feel free to play around with it.
And if you have some other idea of possible scenarios or micro, do shout out!

The key ingredient for me to feel that it's interesting is that it has a chance of happening, if that chance is 1 in a million it's up for grabs.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Does all the water surrounding Italy prevent an easy first cap (from lack of land tiles)? That could be a key factor.

Not familiar enough with the map to know of any viable Imp alternatives. I assume Mongolia suffers from being too removed from the juicy European targets?

 

[Fish Man]

I didn't want to clog up @valergrad s nice thread more.
Go check the original thread out, very fun stuff!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...e-on-a-huge-map-with-18-civilizations.673400/

The question arose if it could be possible to win conquest with OCC on this map.
I did a try with France... No success, way to slow to get the first vassal.
Then I did a try with Italy, but that was also probably abit too slow.

So, this thread is about "how to win OCC on earth18 civ by conquest?".
Someone had an idea to run with Marathon, but I don't want to do that.

If someone has any idea of any other civ to try out, do speak up! Want to have a nice collection of ideas here.
But for the time being, I'm stickign with italy.
I think IMP is super nice. Having laods of settled GGenerals will help alot! Itally also has access to both stone and marble.

Here is a quick run up to T16, the idea being that this could serve as a starting position for anyone who wants _ALL_ the luck, but don't want to run 10 000 games to get it.

Spoiler T16 :

Anyone knows if the warrior can spawn 1N of the clam...? I did 3-4 starts and couldn't see it spawn there, but if it can, that is a slight improvement.
View attachment 610770


Too bad for alex scout that a forest just so happend to spawn on that spot, costing him the race for that goodyhut!
View attachment 610771

Oh look! The hut served BW!
(In reality, I just worldbuildered away the hut, and gave myself a GEng and gave me TW+Mason temporarily, then I could bulb BW. After that I just remove TW+Mason again.
View attachment 610772

I don't KNOW that Freddy can happen to place his worker on that copper spot. But I figured in this alternate history run it can happen.
View attachment 610773

Almost 10% odds, ofcourse we go !
View attachment 610774
Well, look at that! Aint we lucky...?
(That the warrior had CR3+Shock+Combat1->Combat8 and drill etc during the attack is a well kept secret)
View attachment 610775
Chopped a warriors, and then chopping a second boat for the fish.
I'm going myst->poly, because I have a hunch that the scandinavian hut which our woody2 guys is sprinting toward holds masonry...
View attachment 610776
Well, look at that!
View attachment 610777

And the hut on the souther tip of itally held TW.
View attachment 610778

I have attached the save from this run. Feel free to play around with it.
And if you have some other idea of possible scenarios or micro, do shout out!

The key ingredient for me to feel that it's interesting is that it has a chance of happening, if that chance is 1 in a million it's up for grabs.

You know, instead of going through all this WB trouble, you could just "turn on random seed on every session" and reload like a maniac. Take it from the reload master themselves - that replicates virtually everything you did with WB shenanigans here, with far less hassle (newly randomized huts, combat results, tech orders from the AI every time they "decide" what to tech, when AIs start plotting, what AIs build in cities, all of that). There's a reason I don't check that option in most/all games; it's too OP even for a reload junkie like myself .

 

[drewisfat]

I've won an AW with Rome on this map years ago Probably not as hard as it seems because the warrior starts really allow you to steamroll. Pretty much any European start can snowball over the other Euros and then it's off to the races (China biggest issue).
OCC a different beast and even assuming a miraculous start I'm not sure what the plan would be. Most of the starts are great, but not necessarily fitting an OCC. I think the "must start in Europe to conquer the 1-2 city microstates" is not necessarily true though. I might also consider MM, and trying to vassalize Egypt, and then let Egypt fill all of Africa, and then just keep feeding cheap unupgraded units and let hatty do the fighting. (The reverse of that would be better except MM has skirmishers). Vassaling isn't easy because not only do you have to get them down to 1 city and have feudalism, but you need that 40 warscore. Might be easier to do this against a 4 city empire than a 2 city one. East Asia also has lots of open land, the problem is Mongolia's start is horrible, Japan's start is over water, which leaves you as China trying to vassal Mongolia (hill capital) to have him then backfill over your general direction.

The bigger problem I see is you can't get domination with just the old world when you rely on vassals. Diplo probably doable, space maybe doable, but I don't know if it's possible to get an AI vassal to conquer two whole continents across the ocean or not. And of course, if you have this mega vassal, you can probably prevent them from space race by controlling their research, but how would you stop them from culture victory?

 

[Heathcliff]

Diety OOC conquest on this map is too hard for me.
Did anyone manage to do it on immortal yet?

But Rome is good for regular diety on this map, tech pretorians at once and conquer europe and you have alot of really nice cities.

 

[valergrad]

[QUOTE="krikav] if that chance is 1 in a million[/QUOTE]

I believe 1 in a million - it is too high estimate. Your start already has something about 1 in a million chance ( or may be because of this worker thing - 0 in a million, I don't know algorithm of choosing the route for worker, it could be determined, not a random ).
But if continue to just set all victories in worldBuilder, I believe the conquest OCC victory is possible at this map.

 

[krikav]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

Nice going!

I think that going for russia asap is the way to go. That will have the highest likelyhood for your vassals to start settle some land I think.
And if you manage to cut down cathy in size, Genghis Khan will benefit, and that will help keep the balance between him and Qin.

I have tried to keep to one vassal from the start, but perhaps your idea of getting alot of small vassals could work out better. If one AI isn't too keen on sending out a settler, perhaps some other of the vassals are.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Moving previous post to here:

Scrap that, it doesn't look promising!

@krikav Thoughts on viability/next move?

Spoiler Continued campaign T116: :

Took 2 cities from Frederick on original trajectory, but Louis threatened me, so I stop the German campaign short.

Not terrible position at 1 AD I think. March through Middle East, or go through Russia?

Edit: Maybe really need to try Marathon + NTT.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

I think the WB modification might be a little too unrealistic. it's possible to triple hut like that, but there's no reason for Frederick's worker to walk within striking distance from south, and ofc the early kill is super hard.

 

[krikav]

@drewisfat
Nice winning AW here!

Getting war-score shouldn't be the most difficult think I think? Reaching feud feels like the unachievable thing.
I did a quick try with Qin two days ago, did the same thing with Khan as I did to freddy above, eliminate him and get two workers.
The idea was to then make a vassal of Asoka/Cyrus, or perhaps even Toku.
Getting war success against Toku would be easy as you can assault cities that are hard to defend due to over water.

I did try Khan too, moving 4 times to east of Qin, but no stone and no starting with warrior make it very very slow.
As long as you start coastal, the new world is possible to handle yourself I think.

Culture victory feels less problematic than in many normal games due to more religious spread, no one AI hogging 4-5 religions for themselves.

 

[krikav]

there's no reason for Frederick's worker to walk within striking distance from south,

You sure...? I had that happend when I started with Louis alot of times w/o any manipulation.
Unrealistic? You bet!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

You sure...? I had that happend when I started with Louis alot of times w/o any manipulation.
Unrealistic? You bet!

Wouldn't the AI choose to farm everything without AH?

Spoiler Btw, on Marathon T3: :

I'm not sure what to do with this information. I've acquired 2 workers that have nothing to do for like 50 turns.

It feels like maybe Feudalism isn't even worth trying(?) Just bee-line Iron Working and try to remove all but 1 non Americas Civ from the game.

 

[krikav]

Wouldn't the AI choose to farm everything without AH?

Yeah, I think so. But what Freddy does is more weird since he doens't have agri.
He does climb that forested pig hill anyway, even though he can't do anything there. Perhaps just planning ahead for when BW/AH is in?

It feels like maybe Feudalism isn't even worth trying(?) Just bee-line Iron Working and try to remove all but 1 non Americas Civ from the game.

Fun idea! Could be a path forward, but I have a suspicion that you will run into troubles.
There are so many AIs and so many cities, you will probably need hundreds of pretorians to keep everything under wraps. Might be possible to do some estimation with the number of pret-turns you needs.

 

[krikav]

I checked the AI worker movements abit.
It seems like T0, they run out to scout with their workers, but after that (T1 and forward) they keep their workers in their cities unless they can do something with them.
Perhaps they are more brave with their workers T0, since they don't have any city to place their workers in yet...?

In any case, stealing two workers from Freddy is just as easy, you just get them both when you raze Berlin at 10% odds instead. But it does change micro abit.
Scrap that OP start above above then, that can't happen even in a billion to one odds!

 

[krikav]

Regarding rome starting location for warriors, I rolled the map a bunch of times and found these spots:

Spoiler :

So I think I'll provide a updated superstart save with the warrior starting in this location, moving to pop BW from the hut nearby, and then razing Berlin and ganing 2 workers.

What do you think the first build should be? Another warrior to possibly stir up some trouble with Louis or go south for that hut? Or is a workboat just better?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Regarding rome starting location for warriors, I rolled the map a bunch of times and found these spots:

Spoiler :

View attachment 610811

So I think I'll provide a updated superstart save with the warrior starting in this location, moving to pop BW from the hut nearby, and then razing Berlin and ganing 2 workers.

What do you think the first build should be? Another warrior to possibly stir up some trouble with Louis or go south for that hut? Or is a workboat just better?

@krikav here, saved you the trouble.

Edit: Marathon, NTT.

 

[krikav]

TY @CarpoolKaraoke, but I want to go with tech trading and normal speed. I'm fooling around with this for my personal enjoyment so I want to go with the settings I like.



Okay, now I have uploaded a more "modest" start that perhaps others can feel is more acceptable.
Me personally, I'll go on and pop at least masonry or polytheism in a hut though... That would bump this up from a 1 in 12250 chance to a 1 in 214375 chance!

Spoiler T5 :

First you can roll the map until you get the warrior in the right location, but thats still 1 out of 7.
Then the hut have to generate a new technlogy, I think the odds for this is 2 out of 20?
That the tech is BW is 1 out of 7 since there are 7 techs unknown. (Does huts work this way...?)
So up at popping BW in this hut, we are up at (1/7)*(2/20)*(1/7) = 0.002 or 0.2%.
You are guaranteed to get this if you are just willing to roll the map and follow the same procedure 490 times.

Then the attack and razing of Berlin to get 2 workers. I thought I had 10% odds previously, but here I got 4%? Perhaps due to more fortification?
But still, this is something you can achieve if you are willing to do the same procedure 12250 times. Still a long way from 1 in a million!

 

[krikav]

And the updated T16 version:

Spoiler :

BerlinRazer Woody2 guy went up and found Masonry.

Freshly chopped warrior (after clam boat) went south and popped Polytheism.

I put the intermittent turns into IW since it's likely needed later, but I'll turn my attention to Monotheism here.
I like the idea of getting a early shrine (Thanks @BornInCantaloup ) .
The massive jolt in culture from SH+Holy City+Shrine+ other wonders will help get enough land early on. And getting some early wonders built for passive GPP will help alot too I think.
In any case, thats the way I'll like to play.

 

[valergrad]

OCC - is just a huge bait)
You get a perfect start and think that everything is fine, but every turn situation get more and more complicated.
It is totally different from snowball games in normal play where in the middlegame your already know if you won or not. That's why I like it)

 

[krikav]

OCC - is just a huge bait)
You get a perfect start and think that everything is fine, but every turn situation get more and more complicated.
It is totally different from snowball games in normal play where in the middlegame your already know if you won or not. That's why I like it)

That sounds about right! I'm having fun with it, and thanks for bringing up the subject to my attention.