OCC culture vic much harder now?

[Smokeybear]

Just tried an OCC culture game with Babylon (for the science boost), huge/epic/pangaea map on King. I've had fair luck with OCC games in the past, as long as I could keep the science up far enough to not fall terminally behind with the big civs. If you fail to do that, they either roll over your musketmen with modern armor and bombers, or clean your clock with a science victory long before you can slog out the culture.

Playing the same kind of game after the fall patch, I got wasted. Of the 11 other civs, 5 of them took off like jackrabbits spamming ICS crap all over the map, and each of them eventually became 'a big'. After wiping the floor with the lesser civs, they were all fairly even in size and set about amassing population and science as fast as they could go. I somehow managed to not get invaded and wiped out, but Germany won the 5-cornered space race handily, while I still had 3 SP's to finish out yet. Didn't get near the Utobitha project (gratuitous nod to FO:NV).

And this was despite playing a pretty darn good game with my one city. I took off fast with the science, got the Great Library, Terracota Army, and even the Chichen Itza. I had two scientists planted and a strong site with plenty of gold and hammers and food and built up my population as rapidly as I could. If I'd played that well before, I'd have probably won. But from that point on, my inability to keep up with the incredibly fast-growing tech rate of The Bigs saw me lose Alhambra, Tower of Pizza, Taj Mahal, Sistine Chapel... everything. I never saw another wonder after that. Couldn't even dream of Cristo Redentor.

So what was different? The incredible rate at which every civ that could spammed huge amounts of cities and built up vast science-generating empires so quickly it boggled my mind. Nothing at all slows this borg-like, happiness-ignoring advancement and expansion of theirs, other than getting stomped or stunted by a bigger civ doing the same thing. Instead of the usual decent grace period while civs expand and populate the world, now they are all spamming down stupid little crap-cities everywhere they can squeeze one in next to you before you even have time to look up and see the stampede coming, regardless of the (frequent lack of) resources available to build on. It's unseemly! Like sugar ants swarming a tiny bit of donut on the kitchen floor.

I had my spies out stealing every tech I could, but as I fell farther behind and the other civs got anti-spy protections faster than I could keep up, that became a losing game by the second half. All of the good culture-related wonders of the mid/late game that I had hoped for to speed up my task, were nabbed by the science and tech-glutted big guys long before I could tech up to them. There was just no way my po' little one-city empire could keep up in the science part of the race. I'm currently doing a 3-city culture game and think I have a decent chance of winning it, but I seriously wonder how viable OCC culture games are now, at higher difficulties, with the huge increase in AI science buildup observed so far. Anyone else running into this?

 

[kamex]

I could sympathize if this is on Deity as that would be tough. But OCC culture should be doable up to and including Immortal so King should be easy with the right method (no offense).

Try:

SP unlock order - all, Tradition, all Piety, some Patronage until Freedom is available, all of Freedom (constitution first), then any other tree (maybe Honor).

Ally as many cultural CS as possible, and spam as many Great Artists as you can. Settle them before completing Freedom, then uses them for Golden Ages afterwards (so you get the bonus).

Important wonders: Oracle, Sistine, Stonehenge (if you want a religion)...

Sign lots of RAs for extra science. Babylon may not be best for OCC cultural because its UA encourages Scientists, where you need Artists.

 

[Smokeybear]

I could sympathize if this is on Deity as that would be tough. But OCC culture should be doable up to and including Immortal so King should be easy with the right method (no offense).

Try:

SP unlock order - all, Tradition, all Piety, some Patronage until Freedom is available, all of Freedom (constitution first), then any other tree (maybe Honor).

Ally as many cultural CS as possible, and spam as many Great Artists as you can. Settle them before completing Freedom, then uses them for Golden Ages afterwards (so you get the bonus).

Important wonders: Oracle, Sistine, Stonehenge (if you want a religion)...

Sign lots of RAs for extra science. Babylon may not be best for OCC cultural because its UA encourages Scientists, where you need Artists.

I know all that stuff, and did all that stuff. I'm not a cultural noobie, please don't assume. Have you tried an OCC game like that, since the patch? It's a new game out there, now- you can't just waltz through an OCC culture game with the old way of doing business- science is king now, and the AI suddenly has a vast edge over the player in that category, unfortunately. Go try one, then let me know how it goes.

 

[Browd]

You will probably say that before the patch you could do an OCC culture vic on a huge map all the time, but with the AI more readily spamming cities post-patch, and with the generous real estate offered by a huge map, I'm unsurprised to see the AI outstripping your one city as easily as you describe. The larger number of civs, and the more room they have to spread out before they start chewing on each other, the more likely you are to have one (or three or four) AI civs run away with the game (how quickly could an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters write the complete works of Shakespeare?). For a map that size, I would think fomenting early (and frequent) wars between the AI civs would be critical to your success. Or just cram more AIs on the map.

 

[Smokeybear]

You will probably say that before the patch you could do an OCC culture vic on a huge map all the time, but with the AI more readily spamming cities post-patch, and with the generous real estate offered by a huge map, I'm unsurprised to see the AI outstripping your one city as easily as you describe. The larger number of civs, and the more room they have to spread out before they start chewing on each other, the more likely you are to have one (or three or four) AI civs run away with the game (how quickly could an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters write the complete works of Shakespeare?). For a map that size, I would think fomenting early (and frequent) wars between the AI civs would be critical to your success. Or just cram more AIs on the map.

Yes, I suppose playing it on a huge map did give the AI those advantages, the way things work now. Sad you have to even take such things into consideration. Map size shouldn't matter to any victory condition- if it does, then something is unbalanced. As many have noticed, the new AI tendency to massively city spam on all maps and blow the science curve out of the water, is now rather imbalanced for OCC games on any but the smaller maps.

 

[JFM2796]

When I was fairly new to the game I tried a OCC game as Rome (I misread the ability as "25% production towards buildings in the capitol) on Large, Pangaea, King, and Epic with random personalities. I was lucky enough to get a thick mountain range down about 4 tiles from my capitol. Got quite a few wonders, but the other AIs got a little crazy with city spamming. China kept bugging me until about the medieval era, when I finally had enough of her invasions and destroyed two or three of her cities. Ramesses, however, became a beast. He ate up Germany, Russia, China, and about half of the Aztecs. I believe I counted 57 cities in his empire. About half his size were the Iroquios and England in the west with the little Songhai people north of them. The Aztecs were pushed onto a penninsula in the far east. My capitol ended up reaching 42 population.

I came back to the game after Gods and Kings was released just for fun. ramesses had already backstabbed me a few times and had units lining up on the old Chinese border by the mountains. I dowed him just for fun, as the only way he could get through to me was a wine tile pass in the mountains or an amphibious assualt which he never seemed to realize he could pull off. He kept sending GDR after GDR to get shredded by my super logistics Artillery, but every now and then one would slip by and kill like three of them. I was feeling good until one turn where he decided to. Drop a nuclear missile on my cap, reducing the 42 people to 20 and then to 10 and then to 5.

Although I lost horribly, it was still fun.

 

[kamex]

I know all that stuff, and did all that stuff. I'm not a cultural noobie, please don't assume. Have you tried an OCC game like that, since the patch? It's a new game out there, now- you can't just waltz through an OCC culture game with the old way of doing business- science is king now, and the AI suddenly has a vast edge over the player in that category, unfortunately. Go try one, then let me know how it goes.

No. You are doing something wrong. When people can win Science OCC on Diety, you can't moan saying its impossible to keep up in science. Okay so you are playing on a huge map and insisting OCC. Thats naturally giving you a further handicap - thats up to you.

Firstly, you are playing as a civ whose UA will be no help at all in this scenario. Like I said, generating a Scientist is a waste. You need artists and artists alone. Try playing as Siam / Korea / Greece for this set up, focus on allying the cultural CS and you will win easily.

What date did you lose at? You need to get there much faster if you lost to Space Race on King. I didn't know the AIs even tied to win by Space Race on that level...

 

[Arachnofiend]

Just won a King culture victory with Ghandi OCC so it's definitely possible. I had a very backstabbey Russia for my neighbor but I managed to just barely survive them. By the end of the game I was at gatling guns and they had gotten to great war infantry but thanks to the river that divided our territory I was able to keep them out long enough to build the Utopia Project.

 

[Smokeybear]

No. You are doing something wrong. When people can win Science OCC on Diety, you can't moan saying its impossible to keep up in science. Okay so you are playing on a huge map and insisting OCC. Thats naturally giving you a further handicap - thats up to you.

Firstly, you are playing as a civ whose UA will be no help at all in this scenario. Like I said, generating a Scientist is a waste. You need artists and artists alone. Try playing as Siam / Korea / Greece for this set up, focus on allying the cultural CS and you will win easily.

What date did you lose at? You need to get there much faster if you lost to Space Race on King. I didn't know the AIs even tied to win by Space Race on that level...

It was mostly three things- I've done some OCC culture victories in the past, but it was always smaller maps, and that was also before the AI got the big ICS/science boost from the patch, as well. It is a bigger factor now in these kinds of games, whether you realize it yet or not. So I wasn't aware that there was going to be an extra big negative from playing OCC on bigger maps. I guess the leet OCC players only do tiny maps, so they don't have much real competition from the AI. Probably add extra AI's in too, so none of them get much of a running start. Yeah, that would make it quite a bit easier, all around. Guess I was doing it wrong. But I have won OCC culture games on large continents maps on epic speed in the past, so I don't have to claim those crutches.

Second, there were only TWO freakin' culture CS's on the entire huge map, out of 26 of them. Not a lot of help there.

Third, kindly can the eye-rolling at players who aren't up to your diety-snob level. Nobody appreciates it.

 

[King_Course]

Man you just write the same whine post over and over again.

 

[whyidie]

Guy poses a simple question and gets pounced on for being a whiner and a ding-dong. Nice.

I could sympathize if this is on Deity as that would be tough. But OCC culture should be doable up to and including Immortal so King should be easy with the right method (no offense).

Fair enough...

Babylon may not be best for OCC cultural...

His point isn't that its not possible. Remember the topic is "OCC culture vic much harder now ?"

Have you tried an OCC game like that, since the patch? It's a new game out there, now- you can't just waltz through an OCC culture game with the old way of doing business- science is king now, and the AI suddenly has a vast edge over the player in that category, unfortunately. Go try one, then let me know how it goes

Yeah, thats the OP trying to drive home the point of the thread. Its harder post patch. His initial post lays out the reasons...which Browd essentially agrees with :

You will probably say that before the patch you could do an OCC culture vic on a huge map all the time, but with the AI more readily spamming cities post-patch, and with the generous real estate offered by a huge map, I'm unsurprised to see the AI outstripping your one city as easily as you describe. The larger number of civs, and the more room they have to spread out before they start chewing on each other, the more likely you are to have one (or three or four) AI civs run away with the game (how quickly could an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters write the complete works of Shakespeare?). For a map that size, I would think fomenting early (and frequent) wars between the AI civs would be critical to your success. Or just cram more AIs on the map.

When people can win Science OCC on Diety, you can't moan saying its impossible to keep up in science.

Still missing the point....didn't say impossible. Its harder post patch. Not even complaining about the difficulty, just stating that it is.

Okay so you are playing on a huge map and insisting OCC. Thats naturally giving you a further handicap - thats up to you.

Yep. So remember his point. He has played this setup before pre-patch. So he has a baseline. Playing a similar setup post-patch, results in a different experience. And keep in mind, there wasn't any judgment (its a terrible change, etc..), just a statement that its more difficult.

Man you just write the same whine post over and over again.

Maybe there's some history I'm missing here, I don't see the whining in this thread.

Third, kindly can the eye-rolling at players who aren't up to your diety-snob level. Nobody appreciates it.

Yeah, but you gotta admit it can be damn funny when done at the right time

I did have a chuckle at this statement :

No. You are doing something wrong.

Love the balls. Loses its effect over the internet and when the point is missed though...

 

[buchengshi]

Third, kindly can the eye-rolling at players who aren't up to your diety-snob level. Nobody appreciates it.

Gotta agree with this.

Which brings me to:

No. You are doing something wrong. When people can win Science OCC on Diety, you can't moan saying its impossible to keep up in science.

Well, why don't you enlighten us with this awesome strategy?

 

[Arachnofiend]

Well, why don't you enlighten us with this awesome strategy?

I'll do it for him!

 

[Smokeybear]

I'll do it for him!

Nice tips, and a nice thread, but a) that thread's about science OCC game, not culture; b) things have changed a bit since last summer. Not everything obviously, but definitely some things. As to the pointless trolling of 'King_course', he can eat my ______.

 

[Arachnofiend]

buchengsi, based on the quote he cropped out, seemed to be asking about the OCC Science strategy.

 

[TractorBoy]

Nice post Smokeybear, I don't play OCCs but I can fully apreciate the points you are making. I too have seen the City spamming exploits of the AI players even on a standard sized map.
Whatever type of game we play (OCCs in particular) and indeed whatever the level, we are going to have to make adjustments post patch.
As far as Kamex is concerned, I think the guy is very rude and he seems to have totally missed your point.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I am also under the impression that the "new" AI makes OCC culture games much harder:

(1) Quicker AI expansion means the AI has a better overall science ratio and is researching much faster. It will exceed a cultural OCC player 2-3 techs earlier than before.

(2) The AI has also a lot more units, making a peaceful approach much harder. In my last game, I was under constant attack for roughly 100 turns. Combined with the fact that the AI pillaged EVERYTHING around my city, I lost a lot of city output...

(3) Overall I see a lot more expansion AI vs AI. While I rarely saw a runaway civ in my earlier games, all new ones I played have 2-3 large civs that swallow up the rest of the world.

I usually play emperor and would say my winning chances for OCC culture have fallen from 95% to around 75-80% now.

 

[buchengshi]

I'll do it for him!

There's a problem with that strategy: It doesn't work well on lower levels. All of the deity science strats are big on selling your resources then signing a bunch of RAs. The one you linked even says to sign four of them the turn you finish Education. Unfortunately, at king level the AIs don't have much money. Playing at lower speeds makes it even worse, since the Ais will blow their money on something else before saving up enough. This means you sell your resources for gpt, then often have to give the other civ money to afford the RA. You can also also do the loan them money for gpt, but that assumes they even have the gpt to fully repay it. (Resource sales for gpt tend to eat their gpt.) Side note: If you have an inland start on what turns out to be a continents map it may be a while before you meet those last few civs.

I started a game with the OP's settings (Nebby, huge, epic, king, pangaea). It's turn 208. I have four RAs going. (Five now, playing while I write this post.) Only one was for the straight 375g. The others averaged me 800g each, between having to give them enough to have 375 and their request for another 100 to sign the RA. (The one I just signed cost me 475.) Before Education unlocked RAs, I was able to sell one lux for 360g. All other lux sales have been for 8gpt/18g from me. Things will improve some in the later game, but the current averages for the AIs are 156g and 20gpt. Some of them have negative gpt. Bismarck has 63 gpt, but only 163g to his name. Isabella is up to 83g now (probably from that CS she just bullied), but her -24gpt will drain that soon enough. I am doing rather well on SPs though. I'm sure someone else could probably be doing better.

The short version: OCC science victories are harder (or at least take longer) on lower levels than on higher levels / deity strats don't work as well at lower levels.

Added note: I usually play huge/marathon/king (but not OCC). It's usually easy to be the runaway CIv, but I rarely get a science victory. The nerf to RAs often means I get less than half a tech, even with rationalism/PT, making them less useful than in the past. It's usually quicker to take out all of the other civs, or just build UN and call it a day (since the other civs can't even come close to buying out a CS) - if I don't get a culture victory first. Yeah, it's not deity, but I LOVE me some wonder spam.

Edit:
Another thing I thought of (before I go to bed):

...b) things have changed a bit since last summer. Not everything obviously, but definitely some things.

Needing to have a DoF to get an RA is a big one. Not everyone wants to be my friend Yeah, I'm looking at you, Boudicca. At least my pikes are getting some xp. Say 'hi' to the Huns for me.

 

[Sidor1982]

All my OCC's cultural games post-patch were successful (Immortal). And the deity ones are just as difficult as they were pre-patch (but of course not impossible).

The patch introduced a couple of changes that make the OCC cutural more difficult, but also a couple of ones that make it easier.

The ones making OCC cultural easier:
1. AI concentrates on expansion instead on science (most cases, ie. AI's like Korea don't do that). So it's easier to keep up in science in OCC than pre-patch.
2. AI is not bulking on gold, and if, there are a couple of ones that usually have large amounts in the late game (not only one). Additionally the AI conquers CS very fast - both these disable the dilpo win, which was the first one the AI went for pre-patch.

The ones making OCC cultural more difficult:
1. AI is more aggressive, making OCC games less likely to be a non-war peaceful ones
2. AI goes for tech vict way better then pre-patch (but it is still later than going for diplo win)

 

[kamex]

In defense against the hostilities which seem to have occurred over night...

It was mostly three things- I've done some OCC culture victories in the past, but it was always smaller maps, and that was also before the AI got the big ICS/science boost from the patch, as well. It is a bigger factor now in these kinds of games, whether you realize it yet or not. So I wasn't aware that there was going to be an extra big negative from playing OCC on bigger maps. I guess the leet OCC players only do tiny maps, so they don't have much real competition from the AI. Probably add extra AI's in too, so none of them get much of a running start. Yeah, that would make it quite a bit easier, all around. Guess I was doing it wrong. But I have won OCC culture games on large continents maps on epic speed in the past, so I don't have to claim those crutches.

Fair enough.

Second, there were only TWO freakin' culture CS's on the entire huge map, out of 26 of them. Not a lot of help there.

Bad luck. Happens to us all, try another game.

Third, kindly can the eye-rolling at players who aren't up to your diety-snob level. Nobody appreciates it.

This I have a problem with. No where in any of my responses did I claim nor imply i play at Deity. I don't play at Deity, I simply said it was possible to achieve victory using these methods, therefore it 'must' be possible at King.

Still missing the point....didn't say impossible. Its harder post patch. Not even complaining about the difficulty, just stating that it is.


Yep. So remember his point. He has played this setup before pre-patch. So he has a baseline. Playing a similar setup post-patch, results in a different experience. And keep in mind, there wasn't any judgment (its a terrible change, etc..), just a statement that its more difficult.

So you're 'just stating its harder' without complaining about it, and not asking for help? I don't really see any grounds for a conversation then...

Yeah, but you gotta admit it can be damn funny when done at the right time

I did have a chuckle at this statement :

Love the balls. Loses its effect over the internet and when the point is missed though...

Love the balls? Believe it or not this wasn't intended to sound patronising. I'm simply saying if the condition can be achieved at x difficulty level, then it must also be achievable at all levels below it. Thus if you can't implement at said lower level, you are doing something wrong. Simple.

Nice tips, and a nice thread, but a) that thread's about science OCC game, not culture; b) things have changed a bit since last summer. Not everything obviously, but definitely some things. As to the pointless trolling of 'King_course', he can eat my ______.

The mai complaints where along the lines off "I couldn't keep in culture by getting my wonders becausethe AI out teched me to them." So science is very relevant...

Nice post Smokeybear, I don't play OCCs but I can fully apreciate the points you are making. I too have seen the City spamming exploits of the AI players even on a standard sized map.

"City spamming" as you call it s a valid strategy, just as valid as OCC. You chose OCC, AI chose ICS. What's the problem?"

Whatever type of game we play (OCCs in particular) and indeed whatever the level, we are going to have to make adjustments post patch.

No way. Really?

As far as Kamex is concerned, I think the guy is very rude and he seems to have totally missed your point.

No. This is what I get for answering a question quickly and concisely. Question: "I can't win cultural OCC". Answer: "Here's strategy proven to work at Immortal / Deity, it will work on King". Or, if the OP is stating its simply 'harder' than it was before, either:

a) Adapt your strategy to the new balance changes

b) Refine you strategy to improve your speed

c) Lower the difficulty level

If you don't ask a specific question nobody can help you.