[BTS] My first OCC space race victory on deity!

[dfg26]

Well, it wasn't easy, and I had quite a bit of luck (as is probably required for any one city game on the higer difficulties) but I did it. I've played quite a few occ games in general (some people play solitaire, I play civ4 occ ) and managed to win on immortal once, and now I decided to kick things up a notch.

My map settings were slightly unconventional: small size, balanced resources, arid climate. Smaller world size reduces the amount of beakers needed for each tech slightly, and I also have few less opponents to worry about. Also less chance of some of them becoming an unstoppable monster.

Balanced resources starts every player off with some certain strategic resources, and I used it to make sure I have aluminum (and iron for ironworks). Aluminum is virtually required for occ space victory on deity, so I don't wanna play over an hour and find out I don't have it.

Arid climate is a minor thing, but it tends to add more rivers and flood plains, which are very useful. (And I'm not sure but I think it generates more goldmines?) After playing this game though I think it might be slowing down forest growth significantly, so it might be a net negative.

Here's my start:

Spoiler :

Not a crazy start or anything, but I still decided to give it a go. I choose Gandhi, who's my go-to for this kind of game.

I didn't take any screenshots along the way, but here's my general strategy and writeup of the game:

Spoiler :

Agriculture -> Polytheism -> Priesthood -> Writing -> (build academy) CoL -> Math --> Oracle Civil cervice. Oracling cs on immortal or especially deity is very dicey, but now I decided to gamble and it paid off. Immediately after that I go for the pyramids, and get them too for that sweet rep.

After that it's pretty much a beeline to lib biology. I don't actually manage to do it, because I see Hannibal having access to liberalism, but I get engineering gifted to me and I'm able to lib chemistry. Better than nothing I guess.

I lose the sistine chapel to Brennus, who's putting a bit of cultural pressure on me. Luckily he doesn't win culture, which is almost always a threat on the higher levels.

The diplo situation is a bit challenging, since both of my neighbours (Sitting bull and Brennus) are in Judaism, which I don't have, so I keep having to change in and out of religions. Thank god for that spiritual trait I even manage to get a few wars started, and by the end of the game the world is perfectly split into two equally strong factions where the two stronger guys take the weaker guys as vassals, and keep hating and declaring wars on each other till the very end, which slows them down and prevents trade.

After biology the #1 priority is getting the internet, which I'm able to do. I usually don't go for the space elevator, even in occ games, but this time I feel like it's justified, because all the other spaceship techs at that point are owned by at least one other person at that point, so some of them is gonna be available through the internet soon. So getting robotics won't slow me down. And I'm about to get a great engineer, which I can use to speed the space elevator up.

The final stretch of the space race is a really close one, as sitting bull keeps stealing the space ship techs from me and almost manages to beat me to it, but he doesn't and the rest is history

We even get a nice world war a couple of turns before my victory, which I manage to stay out of.

I included the saves if anybody else wants to have a go of it.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Wow, that's possible on deity? Who else is a good leader on OCC games?

 

[dfg26]

The best strategy for OCC is to keep settling great people for specialists, and getting to biology for national park + forest preserves, which allows for huge amount of specialists if you have a lot of forest. So I think philosophical is the best trait, followed by industrious. Spiritual is also important, because on the higher difficulties diplomacy is your only defence. Ramesses is another leader people seem to like for OCC games. I guess any industrious or philosophical would be decent, although I prefer philosophical.

 

[rah]

For OCC what's a decent beaker count in the modern era? I was just under a grand. Makes for an awfully slow trudge getting the space ship parts techs.

 

[dfg26]

In this game I think I was making barely 1000 as well. So much of it's dependent on luck, how many scientists you get instead of artists and other crap, etc. Of course I was also playing small world size, so techs cost less than on standard (don't remember the exact percentage) but the downside is the AI also researches faster. Either way you have to try to slow the AI down, but most of the time in occ you can't really control them.

At some point I think it's better to start bulbing instead of settling the great people, but haven't really bothered doing the math on when that threshold is. Usually around the time I start building the spaceship parts.

Also helps if you get somebody other than Sitting Bull as your neighbour, I would've won by much wider margin if he didn't steal half my techs towards the end

 

[rah]

I was on a small world also. I bulbed quite a few techs. I also had sitting bull next to me but he (and everyone but but one got capped by the Incas. Fortunately I was slightly ahead in tech so I could beat him off every 10 turns when he'd declare. I had to keep trashing his cities that bordered me to keep him from a diplo victory. It really slowed down the last few space techs. I couldn't just hit enter, enter, enter.