How many cities do you need to keep up in the late game?

[pi-r8]

I don't understand, then. Is the goal to see how fast you can win with under an X amount of cities, or how few cities it takes to win? If it's the former, then fair - I'll give it a shot limiting myself to 8, same as you. If it's the latter, then you can pretty easily make it on immortal with just one, even without OCC on, I think.

Both! I don't have any specific rules in mind, I'm just trying to push the limits of peaceful teching with a relatively small number of cities.
I'm sure someone with better micro than me can do it a bit faster with 8 cities, but I don't think you could do it a whole lot faster, unless somehow the AIs develop faster and trades you a bunch of techs. I would also be interested in seeing how you do it with just one city and no OCC, without using wars to cripple all the AIs.

 

[Fippy]

Are you interested in seeing occ space with a good leader / tiles, or with an average start?
Traits and land make a huge difference ofc.

 

[pi-r8]

Are you interested in seeing occ space with a good leader / tiles, or with an average start?
Traits and land make a huge difference ofc.

Not a hall of fame type start with crazy resources, but it's fine if it's a good start/leader.

 

[pi-r8]

I'm thinking now that that this really depends on how many fast teching AIs are in the game. Basically three types of game situations:

1) A single runaway AI, with tech way better than anyone else. Often happens when one of the financial AIs gets a bunch of land to themselves. You'll need a *lot* of beakers to keep up with them peacefully (and really you shouldn't even try, much easier to declare war on them or go for culture or something).
2) Several fast teching AIs, probably trading with each other. Often happens when they share a religion, or when Mansa is involved. You can keep up peacefully by savvy tech trading or using the internet, and then optimizing the spaceship a little better than them. You do need *some* beakers, but not all that many (like in @krikav's game).
3) no AI is teching very fast, they're all at war or doing slow culture victories or something else is slowing them down. You can easily out-tech them, as long as they don't declare war on you unexpectedly.

 

[georgjorge]

Well...it can definitely be done, but it's not a sure shot (for an average player like me).

Deity, Hub map (as I mentioned before, well suited for that type of game). No warring of any kind. 12 cities, The Internet, hammer economy with State Property (but still a cottaged capital).

It was close - Sury won Cultural the turn after I launched my spaceship, so I would still have needed nine turns. Played sloppily in the end, but also got screwed by the UN voting me out of Representation, then voting me out of State Property, and by Peter sabotaging my space parts. Oh well...it was a fun exercise!

 

[krikav]

@georgjorge Looks like you had a peaceful game.
Yes, the AIs are extremly annoying. They took away caste system and rep for me early on as well. But rep I imagine hurts them really much as well, as they love to run specialists.

And also... Yes I think you need some luck to pull this off, having a AI going for culture is really problematic, it's not like you can afford to spend a ton of espionage to keep them behind either.

 

[drewisfat]

The problem with this challenge is culture victory derails it as that can pop 50+ turns before space and is basically a loss to RNG super late in the game. Normally it's balanced by culture guys being super weak and squishy (think Gandhi) but if we limit ourselves to being peaceful it's a real hindrance.

The main thing that allows culture guys to get decentish times is # of religions (as the AI is basically building every building). So I suppose if you wanted to minimize culture victories you could hog a lot of the religions. But on Deity that's a big sacrifice in suboptimal play, assuming the conditions are right for it to even be possible.

Also, you basically have to assume the UN is going to ruin your day and should probably run a cottage heavy empire when going space so the late game civics work to your benefit.

 

[pi-r8]

Nice attempt, @georgjorge !

It does seem like cultural victories are going to be a big problem. I'd still consider that a win in tech, at least. If you (or anyone else) wants to try again, I think it's fair to turn off cultural victory for this.

Did you just turn on the espionage slider on the very last turn, or is that something you were running earlier too?

 

[georgjorge]

Thanks for the replies! I think I could have beaten Sury to his victory with more attention to the game (getting Internet a few turns earlier, paying more attention to Diplo, switching AI into anarchy in the late game...).

I only switched on espionage right after I got the last spaceship tech, to sabotage Peter's parts. But he had already spent so much on espionage that I had too much to catch up to. Turns out the real threat was another one...

It's a fun challenge - I always thought that Deity wins DEMANDED warring, and I like trying something different, like a real space race. Thanks! I wouldn't necessarily try it out on Pangea or similar maps with limited space though (if they're uncooked).

 

[krikav]

My opinion is more that for a space win, you almost always need to wage war somehow.

And if you find yourself in a situation where you are completely safe and loved by the others, why not just rush UN?
Or if you realize this is the situation you are in early enough, just gear up for a culture win of your own.

 

[pi-r8]

My opinion is more that for a space win, you almost always need to wage war somehow.

And if you find yourself in a situation where you are completely safe and loved by the others, why not just rush UN?
Or if you realize this is the situation you are in early enough, just gear up for a culture win of your own.

Culture or UN are probably faster/more reliable, yeah. But it's fun to see that you don't *need* to go to war with the AIs to keep up in tech, even all the way to space.

I'm still curious how people think this is doable with just one city though. That seems impossible to me.

 

[Anysense]

There are 14xx AD Space games in HoF played with OCC. Of course, such results can't be achieved on just any map, but I think that 17xx AD is doable. You might want to have a look at them. Albeit played in different conditions they can be instructive.

 

[pi-r8]

@Anysense
I can't find any examples of early OCC space victories except for ones with very handicapped settings, like settler difficulty or tiny map or with PAs.

Anyway I just finished my own OCC victory. Immortal, pangaea, 1970 finish. Maxed out just above 1000 , or about 1200 when building research, so it made for very slow tech at the end. Luckily my two main rivals went to war with each other, and my third (Mansa Musa) switched to a culture victory. I was able to get him out of Free Speech for a hilariously low price, like 120 gold, and then the victory was easy. Mostly it just felt very luck based. Hoping no one would attack me or stop trading with me, hoping they'd tech the right way so I could pick up techs from trading/internet, hoping that I'd get good great people, hoping they won't steal tech from me or sabotage my spaceship, hoping to avoid global warming at the end. And of course, a lot of luck with the opening position itself (which I regenerated a few times). You can see from the screenshot that I got a lot of great prophets and great artists, which was annoying, but other than that I don't see how to significantly increase the max tech rate for a OCC.

But in the end, no one was really close to me in tech, even though I wasn't teching very fast. I think playing on a pangaea map like this leads to a high chance of a huge, all out war that slows down tech significantly. Tech feels a lot faster on a map with two separate landmasses, like Continents or Big and Small.

 

[Fippy]

Congrats
While some of this can feel luck based, good diplo & decisions with the AI is an area that can be improved constantly (even guys like Lain often think long and carefully what they trade etc.).
Let's remember how SPI is often rated an average trait, food for thought.

 

[Anysense]

There is 1485 AD by WastinTime (epic speed) http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gam...Entry[29953]=Del&addEntryChoice=12544&dsply=0
and 1570 AD by SuTzuWu (normal speed) http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gam...Entry[29617]=Del&addEntryChoice=20248&dsply=0
Both use permanent alliance which help a lot.

Just corn+gold and no river isn't great. You should not expect much with such start, its good enough that you've won this game. When you settle just one city it makes sense to walk around for a while and look for better place. Not that chances are high to find another gold with better food, river etc.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

You could start wars and only raze the cities you take. That way you wouldn't be getting close to dom or anything, but you could still really cripple the AI, allowing yourself enough time to launch to space.

And I say the following understanding that everyone has their own play style, but I couldn't imagine wanting to play a game like this without going to war at some point. Seems like a futile effort in hitting "end turn" over and over again.

 

[pi-r8]

You could start wars and only raze the cities you take. That way you wouldn't be getting close to dom or anything, but you could still really cripple the AI, allowing yourself enough time to launch to space.

And I say the following understanding that everyone has their own play style, but I couldn't imagine wanting to play a game like this without going to war at some point. Seems like a futile effort in hitting "end turn" over and over again.

There was a lot of hitting "end turn" when I played my peaceful OCC game, but it's kind of relaxing and makes the turns go very quickly. It's interesting enough to me, since I can still appreciate what's going on at a strategic level, and sometimes I find the micro of wars tedious, especially the late game wars with huge stacks.

I'm not trying to say this is some optimal way to play the game, I was just curious if it was possible, and how far you can take it. I still feel like there should be a better way to use corporations to really milk the system.