Is this game hopeless? (Diety OCC) Need tips on stopping superpower.

[Mopheo]

Must KILL Persians. :rocket2:

I’ve just attempted around 20 deity one city challenges, and the Persians keep beating me. I was originally using the Babylonians, as I was playing tiny continent maps with minimum landmass in an attempt to decrease my disadvantage. After a bunch of reloads and failed attempts, I finally got a good start, with a very early Colossus, and Great Library (1025 BC I think), due to a Persian induced golden age (they attacked me with archers and warriors, vs. my bowmen, agreed to peace like 5 turns in, after heavy losses). Unfortunately, about 20 turns after the Great Library, the Persians attacked again. I had been on wealth for a while, as I didn’t want to spend shields on money draining military, and this time they overran me with immortals. That decided it: Not only was I not going to allow the Persians to play (this was about the 10th time they’d killed me), I was going to switch to the defensive Greeks. The cheap temples and cathedrals (and maybe a turn or two off the anarchy) didn’t count for nearly as much as the free tech of alphabet, which gave me head start on literature.

Since the Persians were to be disallowed, I chose my own opponent civs, (mostly expansionist, as that wouldn’t help much on a standard map with minimum landmass). As expected, my first starting position was bad, and I reloaded a couple times till I got an passable one. I ended up being all alone on a tine island, and being connected to the Aztecs with the same sad fate. I was able to build both Colossus and Great Library (finished in the end of the BC’s I think), and waited with wealth for the other civs to arrive. I was hoping that I wouldn’t meet them until astronomy or navigation. During this waiting time, I received horrible news: the PERSIANS had built a wonder. A little before that I had gotten the message that the Romans had died.

I’m guessing that quick start doesn’t save your opponent civs, and thus I got stuck with them again. In any case, I finally received contact with them in the late 700’s, and got 5 techs immediately, and 19 a couple turns later (all the way up to Military tradition and Astronomy). The Persians had a continent to themselves of course, as they had wiped out the Romans . They were also the tech leaders by at least 4 techs, as they could make mpp’s. I gifted tech to put all the other civs up to near tech parity, and also got right of passages and world maps (only the Scandinavians and the Persians were not gifted).

That is the state I am currently in, and I don’t know how to get out of it. In my emperor OCC game, I was half an age behind (stuck on own island in pangaea map), but I was able to catch up to win through tech brokering. I don’t know how I can do that in this game with only one person to broker with. Maybe someone here has an idea has a way of stopping them?

Here is the save file: here

Also, even supposing I could end the Persian tech lead, would my economy, with a marketplace and bank be nearly enough to maintain tech parity even with great deals?

Lastly, if anyone has some really good deity starting positions that might work well for OCC’s, could you post them? I’m looking for optimally: river, coast, bonus food + money producing luxuries and strategic resources. Preferred civs are scientific, though expansionist is also preferred for larger maps.

 

[#1 Person]

I like indain civ, Esspaitaly for diety, for some reson they allways have resoursces near them. but anyway change some peoples to scientists. use a ebassy to steal tech. Change to democracy (if you haven't already) and buy a navy.

 

[DaveMcW]

Have you ever considered BEING Persia? They are the best OCC civ in my opinion.

Deity OCC is tough, most randomly generated games are simply impossible to win. You can improve your odds by playing a smaller map as well as smaller landmasses. Be prepared to restart dozens of times to get a good position.

Here's a good OCC start that has been proven to be winnable on deity:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=83315

 

[Mopheo]

Hmmm, I had written a whole long thing about OCC and civs for another thread, when I saw your reply and clicked on the link.
I had never heard of a "true" OCC. I just had a goal of winning with one city. I usually won culturally (on monarch) or diplomatically, though most of my wins would also have been possible as space race without much work.

I'm still not sure if Greeks or Persians are better. They are both pretty good, and I can't think of any other viable options except for the Russians, if you want to try larger land areas. I have played all 3 civs with success, though the Persians are more adapted for the 2CC 20,000 K cultural win, as you can use the immortals to cripple the opponents research early on, slowing down the tech pace (you may remember me posting a failed (4 turns away) attempt of simultaneous cultural victory.

I was originally playing tiny continent maps with minimal landmass, but the Persians always turned up next to me when I had good starts, and even though I got the Great Library and Colossus every time I survived that long, I died to Immortals soon after. I decided to try more civs, so that I would have more brokerage opportunities later on.

By reading some turn logs and tips from old threads in the Apolyton forum, it seems that Copernicus and Newton’s was a must. Is this still true with PTW 1.21? If so, then this current game is certainly doomed. Future attempts will be pangaea, so that I can have other civs form military alliances and actually hurt dominant civ.

And for your final point, I did restart many, many times, it didn’t help much though, as on tiny map with minimal landmass I rarely got rivers or fresh water at all (not to mention with coast).

 

[JMK]

That is a very difficult variant!
As I never try this variant at that level, I can not help myself, but I read that Zed did try and give you a link bellow to his report.
Although it does not answer directly your question, you may find some good advice.

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=189557&messageid=1039158613

GOOD LUCK!

 

[Mopheo]

I was afraid someone would redirect me to that . I actually want to use that map once I'm a little more experienced, so I don't want to read the spoiler.

In any case, I tried again, on a tiny map with a less then optimal starting location (no coast) and I did very well (comparatively). Them map had Vikings, Arabia, and Chinese. China was wiped out early, meaning that after the Great Library, techs were only affordable at last civ rate (the only other option was monopoly). It was even cheaper to by two techs at last civ rate than to buy one at monopoly and trade it for another one. I did keep up with money saved from Great Library, and a saltpeter, which gave me some 300-400, gold every 20 turns. I snagged both the Copernicus and Newton’s, in addition to an early Hanging Gardens.

By the time I got to the Industrial Age, I was almost bankrupt, but luckily selling medicine at monopoly gave me lots of gold. This was enough to research Steam Power at max, and then Electricity and Scientific Method (buying industrialization and rush building part of a factory along the way). Toward the end I had to make gpt for lump sum deals to fund my research, and I also had to sell my bank to make a short prebuild for TOE (Universal Suffrage had been finished quickly). Finally I got the wonder, netting Atomic Theory and Electronics, and I built Hoover Dam 11 turns later. I also got a lot of gold from gpt deals, and Corporation (for some reason they didn’t go along the top, and I had to sell both techs early). I accumulated more money doing 10% research one Radio, while making wealth. This was enough to keep up with Scandinavia and Arabia.

Unfortunately, Arabia, the much weaker and smaller civ declared war on Scandinavia, and I rushed to build military units to block off Arabia’s cities, so they could not be captured. I also bought an expensive rop for 110 gold. The combination of Arabia’s defense and my blocking of Scandinavian troops kept the Vikings below the domination limit (though they destroyed ¾ of the tile improvements). I was now in the modern age, and Fission had been my free tech I would have easily won. However, I got Ecology, and didn’t get Fission for another 20 turns. Finally, 7 turns before the UN completed, Arabia and Scandinavia made peace. This was to me relief, as I wasn’t sure if Arabia could hold out long enough to let me win. This actually turned out pretty bad, as 5 turns from winning Scandinavia declared war on me and I died. Most of my troops were still slowly returning from Arabia (all roads had gone).

This game isn’t as impressive as it seems, as I had to reload a number of times, when things got pretty messed up. I had reloaded several times when Arabia declared war on Scandinavia, until I finally gave in the inevitable. I had also played very badly in the last half of the middle ages, and had to almost completely redo that. Finally, I was declared war on by the Vikings once in the early game, and I had to go back a couple turns to bribe them. Even with all this “cheating,” I think I learned a lot, and future attempts should have less and less reloads (and maybe less aggressive, and stupid civs ).

In any case, a notable fact from this game was that I was only first to two non-freebie techs, post Great Library. The tech was Flight, and the other two civs had already researched part of it anyway. My city was on a river, but do to the absence of Colossus and mass money producing luxuries (I had 2 dyes), I was only able to get 240 beakers a turn with all 19 people and science wonders (one tile was cut off by a city close by).