OCC: One City Challenge

[Minou]

One City Challenge

Lately I have been having a ton of fun with One City Challenge and felt like writing up my thoughts with two example games since I wanted to share the fun and have not seen much on the topic lately on CivFanatics.

What is One City Challenge?

The basic rule is that you can only found one city - no building or using captured Settlers to found more cities, and no keeping captured cities. I am not sure if some people avoid capturing cities altogether. My personal rule is that they can be captured but must be razed immediately (e.g. no upgrading units in the territory before pressing the "raze" button).

The Benefits of OCC

I find four things specifically delightful about One City Challenge. First, it is just plain fun to build a giant city with 30+ pop, 10 districts with all the buildings and massive production/science/culture. Second, you can carefully plan every build and move, whereas I personally tend to lose focus late in normal games when there are dozens of cities to manage. Third, OCC games take a lot longer than normal games (at least for Science Victory) which shifts the optimal strategy away from endless chopping towards improving land, and allows things that normally don't matter, like Level 2 or 3 Alliances or the later Era Great People and Dedications to come into play. Finally, the game is actually a challenge. In regular games it seems to me you can only really lose by being rushed very early on Deity, otherwise a win is a forgone conclusion.

The Drawbacks of OCC

Perhaps the biggest drawback is OCC makes the game much more luck-based. For example missing strategic resources may ruin your game plan, since you are likely to be lacking several of them in your cities borders. The same goes for start location - if you don't have a coast tile for Kilwa for example you can't just found another city to unlock that wonder.

War or Peace?

OCC can be played violently or peacefully. Both are fun, but are very different games. In war games, pillaging is huge and you will probably spent most of the game at war. Norway is the best Civ for OCC war games, because the pillaging bonus is incredible and with smart warring will bring in more science/culture than your actual city! Other great Science Civs suffer way more in OCC, for example Korea is great in normal games, but cheap Seowons aren’t that helpful when you can only build one.

Peaceful OCC results in slower victories, but can take less actual time since you won’t be moving all those military units around to pillage. My house rules are that you cannot declare war on an AI or City State, burn their cities, or pillage. If attacked though it is acceptable to kill invading units. I also consider it OK to burn free cities if an AI city planted nearby revolts and starts spewing units.

China is by far my favorite Civ for peaceful OCC. Their ability to build early Wonders with charges is invaluable as it gives you a great shot at crucial ones like Temple of Artemis and Oracle. I usually don't have much space for Great Wall segments, but the first one can be a great source of quick Era Score for a Classical Golden Age (same goes for Crouching Tiger and Medieval Golden Age). The 10% bonus for tech/civic boosts is also really nice and can easily save a few thousand science/culture over the course of the game.

Maps

Personally, I feel it is OK to roll maps before committing to a OCC game. I know this is frowned upon in standard games, but if I am going to sit down for a 300 turn game with just the 36 tiles in my capital’s borders, I don't want to torment myself with 25 flat grassland tiles and no luxuries.

There are some major differences between a great OCC map and a great standard map. Here are some things to look for in an OCC map:

1. River - besides the obvious fresh water, a river is needed for Ruhr (which may be very strong in long games).

2. Food and/or a Camp resource. A Camp allows Temple of Artemis, one of the best Wonders in OCC. This really helps growth, and if you can’t get ToA then a few high food tiles are a must. It can be extremely difficult to grow if all your tiles are 2 or less food.

3. At least one Coastal tile - for Kilwa, another must-have wonder.

4. Few ocean tiles. Generally ocean tiles are weak, so in general I want as few as possible (two can be OK as this allows for a Harbor and Colossus). Of course in Norway games things are different and settling on the coast is pretty much mandatory.

5. Two or more luxuries: these can often be game-saving when gifted to keep a close-by AI from rushing you early, and later of course provide happiness and/or gold. Settling directly on plantation resources often makes sense.

6. Hills: as many as possible. Long term production in key. Forests and to a lesser extend rainforests are OK for lumber mills too, though they lag in production and don’t benefit from Ruhr.

7. Volcanoes and flood plains: In a game that extends for ~300 turns these tiles can become quite productive over time. Obviously you don't want to build districts on them until you can get a Dam up to avoid district damage. I usually use enriched flood plain tiles for a farm triangle, and place Wonders on excess Flood Plains since they can't be destroyed by floods.

Note: Mountains are a mixed bag in OCC. Normally a start near 8 mountains would be be great but with only 36 workable tiles too many mountains can make it really hard to fit all your districts/wonders and still grow to 25 pop. An ideal situation is when the mountains are in the 4th ring so you can still use them for adjacency without taking away tiles.

Note: Fourth + fifth ring terrain will come into play eventually. In a long game with the capital also generating a ton of culture, you will easily expand borders beyond the workable third ring. You can acquire additional resources outside the third ring by natural borders expansion though you can't buy those tiles, so fourth ring resources are a small bonus. You can also improve tiles in the fourth ring even though you can't work them, which allows you to get benefits from things like Monasteries or Wind Farms or adjacency bonuses from extra farms next to your third ring farms.

 

[Minou]

One City Challenge: T280 Peaceful Science Victory with China (Deity, Standard Continents)

Here is a example game in excrutiating detail for anyone who is interested in how OCC games unfold compared to normal games. China is a really fun Civ for OCC as we can have almost any wonder we want, and a good one for fast times as the 10% bonus to boosts and extra charges for Builders stay useful all game.

Part 1: Opening Moves (T1-T42)

The Ancient Era is the most difficult part of OCC games. On Deity it is quite possible to lose the game to a rush from a nearby AI, or get pillaged into oblivion by barbarians (barbarians can attack a capital down to 0HP, but can’t actually capture or raze it). Surviving is nice of course, but in the meantime there are many competing Ancient Era goals. Over the first 30 turns, it is an all out rush to boost Astrology, Archery, Foreign Trade, Craftsmanship, and Political Philosophy if possible while searching for city states and huts and hopefully laying the groundwork for a Religion and the key Wonders Temple of Artemis and Oracle.

One big decision depending on how the early turns play out is whether to go for a Dark Age or Golden Age. The Dark Age is strongly preferred both for the Dark Age itself (for Monasticism) and of the ensuing Heroic Age. No need to worry about Loyalty with one city, so there is really no down side.

Spoiler :

Here’s the start. This spot checks the boxes of having some coast for Kilwa, fresh water (as long as we move west to the river), and some nice 2/2 tiles to work early. Moving towards the river really sweetens the deal as it turns out there are actually 3 Diamonds and 1 Amber nearby which will be great for the early game, providing income, happiness and if necessary bribes to keep nearby AIs from attacking. The only thing missing is a camp resource for Temple of Artemis, but you can’t have it all!


After moving the Settler west, we plant our city on the river on T3. The city will start with a Builder followed by a Monument and then three more Builders and a Slinger. Builders are the early game staple for China OCC, churning out the key Wonders and improving the land. The first hut yields a Bronze Working boost, which is not very exciting. Better news thought is that Original Warrior meets Armagh for a free first contact envoy.

Meeting Armagh early will spare us having to run God King at all, and Armagh is a nice city state for Peaceful OCC because Monasteries add Housing even if built in the fourth or fifth ring of tiles which will help once we hit very large population numbers.


The second city state we meet is Palenque on T12. Palenque’s normally bland growth bonus will really add up over ~300 turns. The third city state is Bologne (T14). It’s great to have two Science city states confirmed so early. Now, we have to hope they SURVIVE the whole game! A big danger is that one of the AIs will conquer them before we can create a defense ring (more on that later), since we can’t declare war to liberate them. Bologne is not as good in OCC since we can only have one of each district all game. Still, no complaints since the full Kilwa bonus is much more important. Thanks to Armagh, we get a Pantheon on T15. In most OCC games Divine Spark is the best choice. It helps ensure a Religion, and the extra Great Scientist and Great Writer points are a nice little boost for the rest of the game, especially when doubled with Pingula’s Grants ability.

Korea is the first AI encountered as our Warrior continues west. Korea is one of the better AIs to have in the game as their fast tech rate will make them a target for Spies stealing boosts later in the game. Hungary and Gilgamesh show up next. Hungary is one of the AIs we LEAST want to see. Their envoy bonus is going to be a pain as we compete for city states. Gilgamesh on the other hand is great, an instant friend for life is nice when you are playing peaceful. Hopefully Delegation and later Open Borders will get the other two to Friendly before they start thinking of attacking. By selling the first Diamond to Hungary for 117g, we can buy the next Diamond tile and hook it up as well, boosting Craftsmanship.

On T21 we are up to 3 pop and a helpful flood fertilizes several tiles. We also meet Vilinius. This is lucky in that cultural city states are good, but unlucky in that they were so close we could have met them on turn 4 and got a free envoy if our Warrior had went the other direction. Our Builder moves onto the hill to the southeast of the capital and reveals there is a third ring Fur tile that was not visible at the start. This meansTemple of Artemis is possible after all - though it will be tough to avoid getting scooped because we need Bronze Working to clear a rainforest in order to place it. The one thing that does not go right in the early game is that despite hitting the western ocean, our Warrior never finds a “new continent” and thus we need to complete Foreign Trade with no boost.

As the Classical Age approaches, our Scout makes a misstep on T31 and reveals the Matterhorn. Nothing wrong with that itself, but adding more Era Score pushes us dangerously close to a Normal Age at 10/11 Era Score. Checking the Appeal of the tile the Scout was moving onto would have warned of the natural wonder, but it is gets tedious to do every turn. The ten turn countdown to the end of the Ancient Era is tense: we can halt our exploring units to avoid more huts or wonders, but there is always the danger that an unmet AI unit will appear out of the fog and trip the limit.

Our Chariot (build to fulfill a City State quest) will leave this camp for Hungary to clear, since we are at 10/11 Era Score and want that Dark Age. Down south, our Warrior is also standing outside a Hut waiting for the Classical Era to begin before popping it.


The suspense ends on T42 - Dark Age accomplished! Now the Warrior can finally pop the hut and we get a great reward - a free Governor Title which can be used to hire Pingula.A digression on Governors - it’s Pingula all the way in OCC. We will want to use four of the first five titles on Pingula. Amani needs to be hired too, and when to do so will depend on the flow of the game. Magus of course can be useful for chopping, but bringing another Governor to the capital is extremely costly as you will lose the culture, science, and GP benefits of Pingula for at least 10 turns. Reyna isn't ever worthwhile since you should have enough production to get the Spaceport built before you complete the Satellites tech and thus science is a bigger limiting factor.

Minou City at the start of the Classical Era. At this stage our capital is barely developed but that will change rapidly. An army of Builders is being assembled to push out key wonders as they get unlocked. One of the Builders chopped in the Holy Site in this turn, finally boosting SWF. We have two Diamonds mined and the Fur, revealed late because the screening jungle hid it from view until borders expanded, means we still have a shot at Temple of Artemis once Archery finishes.

Part 2: The “Dark” Age (T43-T82)

The next phase of the game will be a push for early districts and wonders, which will make or break the overall game. Our major goals are locking down Oracle and Great Library, while also making sure to grab a Religion, getting some more districts up, and continuing to map out our starting continent.

Spoiler :

Mysticism is finally completed on T45 and the envoy goes to Palenque for Suzerain status - that DF will be worth at least 8gpt. Sadly, Temple of Artemis is scooped up by an AI out in the fog on T45. There was probably no chance of getting it even with more dedicated planning, due to the bottleneck of needing Bronze Working to clear the rainforest. At least we did not waste any hammers starting it. Our growth will be slow this game, but Palenque will provide a little help.

On the plus side, Oracle is completed T50, using only Builder charges. T50 is late enough to be risky, but the delay was unavoidable due to low culture delaying Mysticism all the way to T44.

Completing the Oracle is a nice way to mark T50. At this stage all the third ring tiles have been defogged so it makes sense to map out the long term plan for districts. This is the original plan, which layout change slightly because we ultimately lost the Great Library race and the Dam was later replaced with Ruhr Valley when an AI built a Dam upstream on the same river. This particular layout saves as many rainforest as possible for Chichen Itza and also preserves as many of the enriched floodplain tiles as possible for farms. Our civic/tech rates of 16cpt (boosted by Monasticism) and 9spt are not great but not terrible either.


Sandbagged by a lack of high food tiles and missing out onTemple of Artemis, we finally hit 6 pop at T50 as well, boosting Early Empire. Culture has been slow this game with no cultural city state envoys, and so we are not even close to Political Philosophy at T50. Finally, though, Early Empire let’s us give Pingula the Connoisseur promotion for another 7cpt and make a sprint for the finish line getting Political Philosophy on T58 - just in time as we need the free amenity from Classical Republic to stay at neutral happiness and get out from under the housing cap. Our second district, the Campus is completed T56, providing an instant 3GSP per turn thanks to Oracle. Generally the Campus is the best choice for the second district because of the high value of Great Scientists, which can be rapidly recruited thanks to Divine Spark + Oracle + Grants + Classical Republic + Inspiration. Clearing a Marsh puts us at 7 pop on T62 just as Currency completes so we can start a Commercial Hub next, which completes on T71. The city is starting to become really productive thanks to Pingula and Oracle.

Two more close calls occurs a few turns later. First, Hungary moves up to our borders with some units, but thankfully a bribe of Diamonds gets them to Friendly just in time. Next, we secure the last Great Prophet on T59. We were really slowed by late Political Philosophy keeping us from ever running the Revelation card. Losing out on religion would be a major blow, and the fact that we managed to grab one provides another example of the usefulness of the Oracle. As it is, we can take Work Ethic (which will generate a few thousand hammers over the course of the game) and Holy Orders (since faith will be hard to come by). Later we will want Mosque and Cross-Cultural Dialogue. As pointed out by Boyan_Sun, Cross-Cultural Dialogue is one of the only ways to scale up science in a peaceful OCC game.

The Great Prophet arrives T59. Hungary started poking around with a Chariot and Warrior, but gifting them a Diamond and Open Borders was enough to get them to Friendly before they attacked.


Our next goal is the Great Library. Two more Builders queue up for the Great Library push. Sadly, when we hit Record History on T71 the Great Library is already gone. This is not terribly surprising but a bit of a disappointment after already missing the Temple of Artemis. Slow culture has bitten us again. At least the Builders have plenty of other things to do, hooking up Amber and Bananas, and building a third mine for the Apprenticeship boost along with a bunch of Farms for the Feudalism boost. The Governor title from Record History gives Pingula the Grants promotion.

Thanks to Grants and Oracle, we can rapidly recruit Great Merchant Zhang Quiang for a second Trade Route (which will really pay off later in the game) and grab Great Scientist Omar Khayyam as well, boosting Mercantilism and Education along the way. As the era winds to a close, we are looking just short of a Heroic Age but can sprint across the finish line by teching Masonry and building a single Great Wall segment for 4ES to put us over the top.

 

[Minou]

Part 3: The Heroic Age (T82-T124)

Whereas the “Dark Age” was a bit of a slog as we limped to Political Philosophy late and missed out on two of the critical wonders, things really turned things around during the Heroic Age. Over the next 40 turns lots of big advances occurred.

One really lucky break this game is that none of the three AIs on our home continent founded a religion. So, as soon as Exodus takes effect it is time to send out some Missionaries for easy conversions of nearby cities, which we can eventually use to generate Science with Cross-Cultural Dialogue. The first two convert some Hungarian cities and Bologne, and another heads into Sumeria. By T100, we have about a dozen cities with 40 population converted. An Apostle finally evangelizes the Cross Cultural Dialogue belief on T107, adding 12spt. The big lucky break of this era is that Geneva turns out to be in the game. The cream of the crop in peaceful OCC games, this city state would ultimately bring in almost 7000s between the added science to capital/library/university and the 15% bonus.

Spoiler :

Thanks to the Dark Age we can take Free Inquiry, Pen, Brush and Voice, and Exodus of the Evangelists during a mid-game Heroic Age. With a Commercial Hub already up this will generate ~80s and about 120c plus about 150s/c more thanks to 10% bonus on boosts over the next 40 turns. It will certainly help with spreading religion too.

The second Great Merchant up was the powerful Marcus Lineaus Crassus, who went exploring east by sea as Shipbuilding completed, taking advantage of having 4 movement and not being needed until later at home. It turns out there was another small continent right off the coast of the capital! The good news is this means we can go find some more city states without waiting for Cartography, but the bad news is that Arabia is right next door and has Missionaries streaming towards our land. Marcus Lineaus Crassus makes a welcome discovery 3 turns later when he discovers Geneva! Since this is a peaceful game, the 15% bonus will last the entire game so long as we can gain Suzerain status and not let the city state be swallowed up. Luckily Arabia has only invested a few envoys and Amani + an envoy with Diplomatic League swing Geneva to our favor in just 5 turns.

Since no other religions were founded on our continent, we can save a few charges by partially converting some cities and letting passive pressure finish the job. Here Egar and Szekesfeherva (what a name) will convert in under ten turns thanks to pressure from 6 nearby cities.

Arabian Missionaries take their time sailing around before finally making landfall on T110. A cluster of 1-charge Missionaries form a defensive ring - once the enemy Missionaries come ashore they will either be trapped and unable to move inland or smashed by an Apostle with 3x flanking.


Kilwa is arguably the most important wonder in OCC, and also the hardest to get since AIs tend to tech Machinery rapidly in the current patch. We hit Machinery on T83 at which point the wonder would take until T121 to build (we have a small bonus from Work Ethic and no bonus from Corvee, accidentally slotted while forgetting Kilwa is not a Classical Wonder). That’s certainly not going to cut it, but luckily the Great Engineer Isidore is the first in the queue. He will cost 2000g to recruit, but thanks to the peaceful game with plentiful luxury sales we are earning over 60gpt. In the meantime, Apprenticeship adds 3h to our production to shave 2 turns off the completion time. We finally stockpile enough gold to recruit Isidore on T99, but still need another 6 turns of production to get the wonder in range of one charge (so as not to waste the second charge which is earmarked for Chichen Itza). Finally, after a nerve-wracking stretch of turns, the wonder is completed on T105!

Minou City at T100. We still only have three districts (Holy Site, Campus, Commercial Hub) since all production is focused on Kilwa, but a Theater Square is planted to the SE of the Oracle. Another tile SE, Isidore is waiting to complete Kilwa when it is within 215h. The plan for completing the city calls for preserving as much rainforest as possible in hopes of getting Chichen Itza. We have only met 5 city states, but since three of them are Science and one is Geneva, we are more than happy with that part of the game.

A beautiful site, Kilwa. With Palenque and Geneva already in our orbit, Kilwa instantly boosts Science by 30%. To be honest we were extremely lucky to secure the wonder as Kilwa often goes before T100. We are also fortunate to have put together 4 trade routes in time for the MF boost.

The second big project of this era is Chichen Itza. We are able to squeeze this one in as well, thanks to reserving the second charge of Isidore. In retrospect that was a very greedy move, but thankfully it worked out. Chitchen Itza arrives on T124, adding a massive 24cpt as well as 10hpt, The next goal will be getting to Mercantilism so we can set up some nice Lumber Mills on those rainforests as well.

Chitchen Itza instantly makes the east cost of our “empire” a powerhouse of production and culture. Notice that after being easily rebuffed a dozen turns ago when they arrived with Missionaries, Arabia is returning with a vengeance with Apostles.

While Kilwa, Chichen Itza, and Geneva are the big highlights of the Heroic Age, a few other developments are worthy of mention. We secure Marco Polo, another of the free trade route Great Merchants on T96. This is especially nice because he provides the fourth trade route to get a sweet 60% boost on Medieval Faires. We also recruit Galileo, a very useful Great Scientist. Minou City grows to the robust size of 13 allowing a Harbor to be planted, and adds a slew of buildings by gold purchase while production is tied up in wonders - Granary, Water Mill, Temple, and most importantly University. Our first Lumber Mill goes down on T117 (in a forest for the boost, still waiting to unlock rainforest Lumber Mills).

We also start Alliances with all the AIs we have met so far on T110 (this is actually 14 turns late, having not paid enough attention when Civil Service first completed). We meet two of the remaining AIs too, finding Aztecs on T107 and Russia on T109 and find three more city states, all of them military: Ngazargamu (T101), Preslav (T122), and Kabul (T123). These are very unexciting as we will not produce many military units and hope never to have to fight anything but barbarians with them. One minor irritation occurs when Hungary plants a city close enough to steal one of our third ring forest tiles on T96. Hopefully, we can use loyalty pressure to remove it….

 

[Minou]

Part 4: Spreading the Faith (T125-150)

The next age is an Exodus Normal Age, and our focus shifts to religious battles and defending our precious city states. We meet the final AI, Cree, on T128 and despite starting at -7 relations they instantly sign Friendship and an Alliance. With that, the whole world except Korea is friendly.

Spoiler :

On the domestic front, T135 is a nice turn the capital hits 15 pop in time for the Urbanization boost and Mercantilism completes, allowing those rainforest tiles to host Lumber Mills for a big production boost. Now that the wonders are done, the Harbor goes up T130 followed by the Theater Square on T137. We gain an extra trade route thanks to Colossus on T141, the last wonder we can crank out with Builders (and on that is usually available quite late). To top things off, the World Congress votes to give us an extra Trade Route on T144!After sitting on GS Omar Khayyam for dozens of turns in order to clear the easy boosts, it is finally time to use him. With some good luck, he boosts Humanism, Printing, and Metal Casting. After passing the GM Raja Todar, the more lucrative Jakob Fugger is recruited T134.

On the religious front, Arabia finally breaks through on our continent, with one of their Missionaries surprisingly showing up on the west coast. They kill off one of our own Missionaries on the east coast as well. In war games it is possible to pillage a ton of faith and replace religious units constantly, but in peace games each one is precious and typically hangs around at 1-charge to fight or flank, so this loss is unfortunate in weakening the “east wall”.

Arabia continues to pour in religious units but thanks to being on home turf, we can defeat them with a much smaller force. Near the capital, our Missionaries soak up the initial attacks and then go heal while our own Apostles knock out the invaders. Note here the City of Pecs is annoyingly occupying a tile in our third ring that is planned for the Entertainment District.


One of the biggest letdowns of peaceful OCC games is watching as a key city state gets taken down (especially when the city state parades its units around getting slaughtered instead of defending). So, with the wonders handled it is time to start churning out cheap Warriors to go guard our vassal states! They complete defensive rings around Geneva on T144 - and it pays off big time when Arabia attacks the city state on T177. Arabia bombs the city defenses to 0, but can’t get past our cordon of units to conquer it!

Geneva is by far the most crucial city state in the game, and thankfully fairly close by. A ring of 6 Warriors will prevent anyone from capturing them, so long as we maintain Suzerain status (so the units can remain in the borders). Later in the game, we will set up similar protective rings at Bologne, Palenque, and Vilinius.

Minou City at T150. Note there is coal underneath the Theater Square (pretty lucky with only 12 coal in the game), which provides a supply but does not count as a mine for the Steam Power boost.

 

[Bangau]

I love OCC as well. Great story so far, will check back later to read more (it's too much for the time I have now...).

 

[Minou]

Part 5: Religion, Spies, and the Race to Rocketry (T151-200)

For the start of this interval we still be in an Exodus Golden Age to squeeze in more Apostles, but the next Golden Age has limited options. Heartbeat of Steam is not great, but at least will provide a little production thanks to our +4 adjacency Campus. Spies finally become an important part of the game at this stage.

Spoiler :

Our first Spy, Byngwen, heads to Korea and gains sources, then starts a siphon funds but is caught and has to escape on foot. He fails his second attempt as well, but goes undetected. Spy #2 Kong has better luck and steals the Flight boost on T178, escaping on foot and gaining the Disguise promotion. He makes it back to steal 324g on T193 gaining the Rocket Scientist promotion, which might be handy if the Space Race becomes a real race. Spy #3 Fai is unfortunately killed on their first mission trying to steal a boost. Enemy spies end up stealing gold once, but on the second attempt the spy is caught and sold back for 16gpt. Another is caught trying to neutralize Pingula.

On the religious front, we shift off defensive footing to start attacking Arabia’s home island. So far the Apostle promotions haven’t been the greatest (did not realize that bad promotions like Chaplain clog up the works if you don’t leave unpromoted Apostles around) but our first Debater appears T151. He quickly kills off an Arabian Apostle and will end up slaying about a dozen enemy religious units over the course of the game. With the east flank secure the next Apostle is used to evangelize the Mosque building (after spending his first 2 of 5 charges of course). The first Arabian city is converted by a burst of pressure as the Debater Apostle smashes a Missionary. While things are going well in the east, Aztec Missionaries start showing up in the west….

Religious beliefs. Not a combination likely to be used in a normal game, but pretty powerful in OCC.

By the end of this era, our Apostles have started converting Arabian cities thanks to pressure bursts from taking down Arabian Apostles and Missionaries. The +10 bonus from our Religious Alliance is huge here.


On the domestic front, we hit the milestone of 20 pop on T176. This last pop point was a real crawl due to the Housing cap, but things start moving again as this same turn we complete a +5 Housing Neighborhood and finally gain Suzerain status over Armagh (and so can build Monasteries in the fourth ring for extra housing).The main project this phase is Oxford. Checking the mostly revealed map shows no AIs have started it, so it is possible to squeeze in a few other buildings before getting underway. An Archaeology Museum (purchased) which allows the Combustion boost and our one Archeologist can dig up a dozen or more artifacts as long as we keep selling the before the museum fills. Plus, we end up getting a free 30DF by “promising” not to dig up AI artifacts. We also purchase a Shipyard, which is pretty much a waste as it only provides 1f/2h but at least looks nice in the city overview. The Encampment is the next district on T164, with an instant Barracks+Armory purchase for more housing and production.

Oxford finally completes on T182 providing Radio and Sanitation, both nice gains. Since we have production to spare, it makes sense to build Broadway as well for a free boost (Cold War) and the culture bonus. With Oxford in hand, the Industrial Zone finally arrives on T189 with the Workshop, Factory, and Coal Power Plant instantly purchased. Ruhr follows quickly on T195, boosting us up to 189 production. As the power plant goes up, coal is being burned slightly faster than it is coming in, but our stockpile should last until Solar Farms can be built.

Two Military Engineers arrive. Each builds a fort for the boost, and then one heads over to the Arabian continent to build an airstrip for another boost while the other works slowly on railroads to boost trade yields. Korea declares war on Bologne on T189 but fortunately we already have a defensive ring of units around them. Protecting Bologne and Geneva made a huge difference - our tech rate would be much worse if both science city states had fallen.

On the GP front, we sadly miss out on Darwin - it is tough to battle for GPs with only one city, and our limited faith supply has so far been dedicated to Apostles. The first Great Writer finally arrives on T162 (providing a useful envoy to Bologne) followed by the first Great Artist T176. We keep the books for culture but the art fetches a sweet 30gpt. We also score GM Astor on T182.

Alliances are actually starting to have a noticeable impact as we hit level 2 Commercial Alliance with Hungary in time for the Chemistry boost and level 2 Research Alliance with Gilgamesh soon after, with eventually provides boosts for Rifling.

There is actually a little real combat over this interval as that city Hungary founded dozens of turns ago flips to a Free City, spewing a bunch of rebel units. Amusingly, our Encampment can fire directly on the city of Pecs and one of the Bombards we upgraded for a boost can sit in the Encampment to join in as well. Before the city is actually destroyed it flips to us though, and we have to give to Hungary due to our Alliance.

A sailing Warrior discovers the last free city state, Buenos Ares, on T153. They are a welcome discovery as the extra happiness is useful and we now have 2 Industrial city states for the full Kilwa bonus. Cahokia is also in the game, but sadly already conquered by the time we meet them.

Another sailing unit risks life and limb to score a Grass-cutting Sword Relic from a late tribal hut on this barbarian infested island.

As turn 200 rolls around, we are just past 200spt and 200cpt, and happen to hit Rocketry exactly this turn as well.

 

[Minou]

Part 6: End Game (T201-T280)

The “endgame” takes a whopping 80 turns because there is only so much science/production that can be squeezed out of a single city.

Spoiler :

Apostles continue racking up kills, powered by our level 2 Religious Alliance with Cree. By the end of the game, our 15 Apostles ended up killing 36 enemy religious units. The Apostle task force reaches the third continent on T217 and starts fighting there as well. One of the shockers of the game comes T226 when somehow our capital is converted to Buddhism! That causes us to lose the Work Ethic production boost for 3 turns, but luckily some Apostles are close enough to come to the rescue. Arabia somehow converts the capital again on T231 - they must have very good Apostle promotions. It is nonetheless easy to reconvert. By T250, the religious combat phase is winding down and all remaining Apostles overseas use their last charges to convert a few more cities. We end up with ~75spt from Cross-Cultural Dialogue - it was a lot of effort but certainly worthwhile.

The Spies keep working as well. Our last Golden Age (starting T242) will be Bodyguard of Lies to help with sabotaging AI Spaceports and protecting our own. Veteran Bigwen manages to steal the Military Science and Nuclear Fusion boosts over the final stretch. He then gets captured but is ransomed for 27gpt and then heads over to Fabricate Scandel in Buenos Ares to regain Suzerain there. Kong gets captured but can be ransomed free as well, and grabs the Synthetic Materials boost on his first mission after being sprung from jail. He then gets shifted to sabotage duty. Our third Spy Changpu (replacement for the lost Fai) manages to steal Advanced Ballistics on his first try and gains the Technologist promotion, then comes up big again with the Electricity boost and gains Ace Driver promotion as well. The slow pace of OCC games along with the impossibility of getting boosts that require 2 or more of a given district really makes Steal Tech Boost missions worthwhile! During the end game, all 3 offensive Spies focus on Siphon Funds missions - at one point we actually got hit with one ourselves and end up at -20gpt requiring counter-siphoning to get back to positive income.

On the defensive side of the espionage game, an enemy Spy is caught trying to neutralize Pingula again on T221. A fourth Spy, Shen, is sent to guard the City Center and a fifth, Diangxoang assigned to guard the Spaceport once the projects are under way. Defensive Spies work well as on T225 a Cree Spy is killed trying to sabotage the Bloshoi. As the game winds down, enemy Spies start getting turned back just about every other turn, usually trying to neutralize Pingula or to recruit partisans. Annoyingly, Pingula does get nenutralized sometime around T272 - having missed seeing the notification, the exact date is uncertain. At this late stage the science/culture/GP points are irrelevant but losing the space projects bonus is inconvenient.

Domestically there are a few buildings left to add for kicks, including an Entertainment Complex and Zoo on T211 - actually marginally useful since we saved so many rainforests for Chitchen Itza. Bolshoi arrives on T226 providing Totalitarianism and Class Struggle as free Civics - the latter allowing a shift into Communism, though we ended up running Democracy most of the late game for the +4h/+4f trade route bonus and New Deal policy. Growth tops out at 30 pop on T252 as we enter our final government, Distributed Sovereignty. Our Research Alliance also helps a bit, providing the boost to Combined Arms and Predictive Systems. It hits Level 3 on T265 providing a 10% tech rate bonus. We hit level 3 Cultural and Military Alliances in the late game as well, and as it happens the Military Alliance gives our Spies a free promotion.

A few unhelpful Great People like James Watt, Einstein (sadly weak in OCC), Alvar Aalto, and Lisboa are passed over. In a spot of luck, two AIs purchase Einstein and Turing, revealing Janaki Ammal, one of the best OCC Great People. She adds 1600s instantly, completing Steel instantly to further power up our 6 Jungle Lumber Mills. Shroedinger provides a little help as well boosting Nuclear Fusion. Grace Hopper ends up giving Computers (saving a turn) and Stealth (which is useless). Tesla, Levi Strauss, a Great Musician, and another Great Writer arrive as well, but none really have a major effect on the game.

The World Congress ran a Worlds Fair which we narrowly win thanks to Oracle, Pingula, and Campus Research Grants, providing boosts for Distributed Sovereignty and Social Media along with 50DF and 100GP points.

Climate Change inevitably impacts OCC games due to the long length. Even with only one Coal plant, it hit Level 1 on T239. It scales up to level 2 on T250. Once it hits level 3 on T257, 2 tiles get flooded. It progresses rapidly to Level 4 on T266 and level 5 on T276. In the end the flooding did not affect our victory time. The stupid Ironclad we built for Steam Power boost (which we actually did not get) and docked outside the capital should have been deleted, as it all it did is sit around puffing carbon into the atmosphere for 100 turns, speeding up Global Warming.

The Space Race starts slowly when the Spaceport completes on T209. With hundreds of gold per turn from trade, purchased Builders do all the space project work while production goes into Campus Research Grants.The Satellite goes up T214, at which point no AI has yet completed a Spaceport. The Moon Landing is completed on T222, generating 2750c and instantly completing Globalization. Containment allows us to pick up two more city states for the 5% tech bonuses immediately afterwards. Power is needed for Lasers at the end of the game.With our coal supplies dwindling, a few Builders start laying down Solar Farms in all of the available 4th ring tiles.

Mars Colony completes T242, the same turn Korea finally starts building a Spaceport. A few turns later, the Aztecs suddenly have 3 Spaceports and Korea 5! Nuclear Fusion reveals Smart Materials on T251, meaning a relatively easy push for the Exoplanet Mission. Nanotech is discovered T256 and Exoplanet Mission launches T258. Now it is a matter of teching to the Laser projects. Spy Bigwen disrupts a Korean Spaceport, but this is pretty much just for kicks as no AI has even launched a Satellite at the point our Exoplanet Mission is flying. Luckily, we only need to tech Seasteads before revealing Offworld Mission, which is completed on T268. We get Laser projects out on T270, T271 and T275. There is at least a tiny bit of late game drama - that delay comes when an AI Spy finally breaks through our counter-spy firewall and sabotages the Spaceport, necessitating 2 turns of repair. Once the repair is complete though the Exoplanet Mission cruises to completion on T280.

Jungle tiles eventually reached magnificent richness this game thanks to Chichen Itza + Zoo.

Flood Barriers went up a little too late as Global Warming swamped these tiles.

The capital near the final turn, repairing the sabotaged Spaceport (Exoplanet is already flying). All the trees in the fourth and fifth ring were chopped for Lasers. The game probably could have ended a turn earlier if we cut down all the jungles for Lasers, but they were just too pretty with all the bonuses.

End Game Recap

This was a really fun game. Despite the rather slow start (took forever to get to Political Philosophy and we missed Temple of Artemis and Great Library), the game turned out to be a fairly nice victory date for OCC thanks to nabbing Kilwa and having Geneva in the game. Founding the only religion on our continent was another lucky break as it allowed us to ramp up Cross-Cultural Dialogue much quicker.

Religion

Although there was no actual war, religious combat was constant for most of the game. In the end we built 15 Apostles and a about a dozen Missionaries/Gurus, and tallied close to 40 religious kills (with about a half dozen losses), which together spread at least as much religion as the actual charges. This eventually added up to 77.7spt from Cross Cultural Dialogue. With 29 of 30 citizens following our religion, Work Ethic also added 29% production, worth about 60hpt by the end of the game.

Science

We reached 681.3spt on the last turn, though it was certainly lower most of the game when not running projects and before the Level 3 Alliance bonus kicked in. Here is the full breakdown:

15 from 30 population (0.5 per citizen base)
30 from Pingula (1.0 per citizen bonus)
2 from Palace
6 from Science City State bonus (x 3) to capital
6 from Campus (3 adjacency, doubled by Five Year Plan policy)
40 from Campus buildings (14 base, doubled by Rationalism, and +12 from three City States)
10 from tiles (rainforests boosted with +1s by Zoo)
6 from citizens assigned to buildings in Campus
12 from Trade Routes (boosted by Merchant Confederation and Science Alliance)
51.9 from Campus Research Grants


All these yields total 180.9spt and are assigned to the capital and boosted an additional 90%

+10% from happiness
+15% from Pingula
+15% from Geneva Suzerain bonus
+20% from Oxford
+30% from Kilwa
The modified total is 343.8spt

Cross-cultural Dialogue adds 77.7 and Raj add 18 - these are considered global and not part of the city and bring the total to 438.4spt.

Finally, we add a bonus of 45% from International Space Agency with Suzerain of 9 city states and a bonus of 10% from having a level 3 Research Alliance for the total of 681.3spt. These are the most powerful bonuses since the are multiplicative with the other bonuses and also effect CCD/Raj. Not bad for a single city!

How Close did the AI come to Winning?

Despite playing on Deity with only one city, the game was never in doubt after T50 or so. The biggest risk of losing in OCC is getting rushed with Warriors very early.

Religion: At the end of the game 4 Civs shared our religion and each of the four AI’s who founded a religion only had themselves converted. The AI does not seem very competent in late game religion pushes, and the incentive to push Cross-Cultural Dialogue has the side benefit of being strong defense against any AI breakout attempt.

Domination: None of the AIs ever threatened militarily, and none conquered another capital. Only Korea and Aztecs never signed Friendship. Laughably, Korea hated us for the entire came for “ignoring science” despite having a higher science rate than the rest of the world for most of the game. Luckily, open war never broke out.

Science: Korea and the Aztecs were the only AIs to build Spaceports (in fact Korea built 7). Both were able to launch the satellite, but neither progressed to the next step. It would have been impossible to sabotage all of those Spaceports at once, but they were still probably 100 turns off from actually winning.

Culture: Cree got up to 235/438 tourism, which is not particularly close. They were really blasting away with Rock Bands by the end of the game but with the global culture rate this was nowhere near enough.

Diplomacy: Aztecs reached 11/20 points. Not sure if the AI can ever actually win a Diplomatic Victory under normal conditions or if they all dogpile the AI leader in votes just like when a player is trying to win. At any rate, a possible victory here was at least 100 turns away.

 

[Minou]

So that's my Science example game. T280 is my best time so far but I have only tired OCC a few games. I will post a war example with Norway when I get a chance to write it up. With the world on virus lockdown, there should be plenty of time.

 

[Minou]

I love OCC as well. Great story so far, will check back later to read more (it's too much for the time I have now...).

Glad to meet another OCC fan. I would love to hear your critique of this game, as I suspect I have a lot to learn about this format.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Good post. Looks like spies are really important. I'm guessing that is what allowed you to Suzerain with 8 envoys. You ended up with a fair amount of water tiles. Did any cities loyalty flip to you?

 

[Minou]

Spies were way more valuable than in a normal game. They stole quite a bunch of boosts, some of which would have been impossible to get naturally in OCC. They were also very useful defending the against enemy Spies. It’s impossible to know how many enemy attacks would have failed naturally and how many were stopped by counterspying, but I assume Pingula would have gotten knocked out and the Spaceport sabatoged a few times more at least with no extra protection.

Regarding water tiles, the capital had a ton by the end of the game, but only 2 were in the third ring. Both of those got “built over” by the Harbor and Colossus. The other tiles are were not workable but they did provide a little help, for example a Fish was harvested for quicker growth and a Turtle was hooked up for +1 Amenity.

One city (Pecs) planted just 4 tiles away by Hungary did flip to a free city and then flip to me, but I gave it back to Hungary. It then flipped to free again and I razed it. I consider killing barbs / partisans / free city units fair game in Peaceful OCC.

 

[Bangau]

Had some more time to read your thread tonight. Well played out I think, I use similar strategies doing OCC. Have won four of five so far and failed maybe two or three. Religion is by far the easiest I've tried, science was quite doable, I found culture to be the hardest since the longer the game takes the bigger the culture defense of the AI. I succeeded a while ago with Catherine of France:

Spoiler occ culture :

One of the fun things of an OCC is that you have to really use mechanisms like spying to their full potential. If you have 15 cities at turn 100 (or something like that...) you can get sloppy and loose focus. And I often do. With the one city you have to manage every little thing you can to get the most out of that one city. And you can do so, because you only have to manage the one city and the game goes very fast because of it.

Have you tried the other victory conditions yet? I've done a 'capitals only domination challenge'm with Hungary too, which is a lot of fun, but not so hard once you get enough money and suzerainty. Might try a OCC diplo one time. Should be doable, with a bit of luck and skill.

 

[Minou]

I have not tried any other victories yet. I ave won Religious Victory with 2 cities so 1 city is probably not much harder though probably much slower if open ocean travel is needed (due to lower tech rate / unavailable boosts). Hungary definitely sounds like the way to go for Domination. Cultural sounds like a real challenge and I might try that next. Diplomacy is just so boring to me I am not sure I can bring myself to try it in OCC......

 

[Bangau]

Diplomacy is just so boring to me I am not sure I can bring myself to try it in OCC......

Maybe it'll be less boring without all the city to manage in an OCC.