That's awesome, pahakuutti, congratulations! So the answer to whether a OCC victory on Deity in standard maps is possible is a resounding yes! Awesome workaround the tech limit!
Did you have to send your army away to escort your religious units? How many hours did the game take, if I may ask?
Also, did you just swarm the world with your religion, or did you focus on civs one at a time converting their cities until they could not produce any religious units of their own? And did you convert civs in order of convenience, or did you go for those with their own religions first?
Thanks to everyone who pitched in (even those who did so briefly), very inspiring. While less restrictive rule sets are more than welcome (please, use this thread!), I’ll stick to some exploration of the strict version of OCC, in which you do not have a second city at the end of the turn, ever.
In particular, I decided to explore the real possibilities of the strategy outlined in the opening posts: to go out there and raze, pillage, destroy, until they are slower than your one city; then win. I’ll call this the Wear´em-off-one-city-challenge, or WOOCC.
Actually, not having a second city is impossible in this style, as before you can raze a conquered city you technically own it for a moment and you do, for example, get eurekas for population, districts, etc. from the conquered city, but that’s hardwired in the gameplay.
Anyways, some thoughs from the current “feeler” game in prince (embarrassing after that deity win above) in a fully grown and non OCC centric world: Standard size, continents, no special starting positions and even random Civ. Was this asking for trouble? Apparently yes. The Civ6 gods gave me Phillip of Spain, with nice conversion abilities that I did not intend to use, missions to give me faith that I do not need in extra hexes that I will not have, early armadas that I did not intend to build (is there space for a sea force in a OCC, Victoria?) and a nice bonus for trade routes between my cities different continents (very funny). All very useful, thank you, gods! Ah, I forgot, the gods also made me start in the coast in tundra near the pole, so it was 4 turns before I reached decent terrain for my totally-not-in-a-centric-position initial city, the only city I’ll ever have. Oh, well, it is prince, so it should be OK!
Some thoughts on playing WOOCC in a standard size continents map: Only two more civs started in my continent, which otherwise had plenty of city states. This meant little action and little contact for the first maaaaaaaaany turns, and large distanced to my Sumerian and Brazilian neighbors. Pitch that together with very rough terrain and a bit of sloppy gameplay, and movements are so long and slow that it is going to be turn 200 before I am done softening my land-mass roomies and get to put a serious army anywhere else (Achieved in turn 197, actually). Why? After reducing Sumer, I did a first attack on Brazil with my classic units (no iron!) only to have them pop a single knight. That knight, in rough terrain than prevented any surrounding movements, made a lot of damage, but I still managed to raze a city, pillage another and get a profitable peace including that iron. The plan after that: go back to Madrid, upgrade to swordsman, knights and (just on time) conquistadores, and go back to Brazil to finish the job ASAP. ASAP? Back to Madrid in a landmass of forest and swamps and hills, with few roads and lots and lots of idle city states which units that clog the roads was a grueling 15 turn micromanaging puzzle, then update, then a 10 turn crawl back… first I fear this will allow the runaway civs to runaway, but second, it is not fun!
Future games will have to be less purist and happen in smaller worlds and maybe in pangea worlds. Also because of other perverse effects of the standard map:
a) Resources are extremely scarce. 2 luxes, no iron, no niter. And I fear that is what can be expected as the norm. In this game, conquistadores can be built without niter, but otherwise it is too critical (that one knight!). I suspect smaller worlds have more densely populated resources?
b) With few initial contacts, city states tend to not be involved in wars, or at least not in actual fighting, early. The result? If any CS is against you and in the way, they’ll have about 6 archers roaming in packs. It is almost impossible for classical units to break through a pack or archers without casualties (or is it?), and if the name of the game is to not lose your units so you have super-elite units later in the game…
Would it be possible to gift a city to other civ just to trigger wars? In the middle of a war, you cannot trade the city, so the city would have to be conquered in the same turn you make peace, then traded immediately. Something to test in the future. Would this really trigger wars between rival civs and drag city states into them?
c) Runaways might control the seas, which you will need to traverse sooner or later. And your limited resources might not allow for a sea force. Again, too much hit and miss!
A bit of analysis on what the game actually looks like around turn 200 after finally cleaning my continent and jumping into the next:
Capital is not so bad, actually it does behave like a super city. The benefits from single envoys are paid to the capital, plus trade routes have the same effect for a city or an empire (few trading posts, though). With Merchant republic, 3 routes becomes standard around now, I am sure it can be forced to turn 150 with better play. Madrid is getting 20 gold, 2 science, 6 culture and 4 faith from 20 CS envoys, plus a few hammers and more science and culture to come soon. The envoys can also produce 20 more gold with the merchant confederation card.
My (slow) military consist right now of 20 units (horsemen, crossbowmen, knights and conquistadors, which including support units costs 41 gold per turn. Critically, not all can be brought to bear at the same time given the huge 20+ turns travel distance to the next battle. Many have with three promotions. How many units can one actually support? Madrid, and thus my empire, has a surplus of 35 GPT, so 55 GPT is available including cards. My economy is about to get better very soon, so supporting 25 units should be no problem. Not many more in the long term, though, since they will become much more expensive to maintain with the next round of upgrades. So actually, yes, one can support 25 to 30 units if they are not all current era from a single city, amazing. That is actually enough to split them in two combat groups, so maybe, just maybe, the standard world map will be playable in higher levels too. It is worth noting that money for upgrades is more likely to come from pillaging and extortion than from the normal economy.
The real limit is going to be science and culture, work on those from early on. Will this get better in higher levels via pillaging?
How to go around war weariness? Denouncing and joint wars, of course, but you will still be making everyone angry with razing in WOOCC. Is it just whatever friends/allies you have going into the middle ages are the only ones you can ever have?
An extra note: You really are stuck with this city and its hexes. So optimizing them is key. Is it still worth it harvesting forests and such? In a typical game which is decided by turn 200, yes, but this game is going to turn 400 at least… And district placement is key to your very limited science and culture. I think it would pay off to make a layout of the city at size 20 since the first turn, then simply execute that plan. Improvising leads to inefficiencies later on. But this optimum city layout is, so far, beyond my skill level.
An a last thought: would it be worth it to allow 1-2 close neighbors to keep many cities, but permanently dedicate 3-4 units to keeping them razed and unit free at all times, then use them as milking cows? I am thinking that instead of stealing their workers, you could allow just those to roam around and pillage whatever they build or (hopefully, much more profitable), repair? The spotty 50 beakers and 50 culture is a huge addition compared to my current yields: 25 science and 24.5 culture.
