[BTS] OCC space strategies

[Pangaea]

Note to self (and you guys): Keep a wary eye on Defensive Pacts. It can bite you in the arse.

Spoiler :

A very real chance I will outright lose here. So closed to the end, just a few techs left and building some parts, and we're off.

(Lost aluminum too, and nobody else have double)

That -- ahem -- minor issue aside, the forest preserves + National Park works well. Like it does in normal games. There is the question of when you tear down the forest preserves, as there is a lot of stuff to research.

 

[Qactus]

@Pangaea

Spoiler regarding your Peter game :

That's basically how I would play it, with one difference though. After Biology, i.e. from your first post onwards I'd have farmed over all the floodplain towns and villages to run even more Scientists. With the same food surplus you could then quickly have seven more pop and thus seven more scientists and their GPPs. Would require more happiness maybe, but there's always the possibility to build the Globe Theatre.
Point taken with the defensive pacts. I often accepted these but probably was always lucky so far.

 

[Pangaea]

Interesting. Do you find that farming over towns is worth it, and it's better than workshops later?

Happened to survive to the end in that game, but it was as close a call as you're likely to get. One tank survived at 8.4 health, and next turn she finally took the worker baits.

One thing I noticed that I hadn't really thought about before. Globe is good for the UN... Once they start demanding Emancipation and the like, you can just defy. No unhappiness

 

[Qactus]

Interesting. Do you find that farming over towns is worth it, and it's better than workshops later?
...

Farming over towns: Yes, I would think so. You're basically exchanging 5 commerce for 6 beakers and 3 GPP.
Better than workshops: No, I'm just refering to the ~110 turns between your stopping points, i.e. after Biology, but before transitioning everything to workshops.
Hmmm, now you got me thinking. Those 5 base commerce with Buro will be more than the 6 base beakers. So towns will have a bit more beakers and farms more GPP... it's not as straightforward as I thought maybe.

 

[Nick723]

Yes, I think by the time you get to towns, it’s not worth farming them over due to the buro bonus. The question more is, pre biology, whether it’s worth growing the cottages at all.

Here the maths gets a bit complicated, and I think could depend on whether you have Flood Plains or not.

1. Without Flood Plains:
- if growing on a grassland cottage, with 2, you’re quickly going to max out with the health cap.
- similarly, it’s pointless growing beyond the health cap with 3 farms, as they not adding anything if you’re in
My strategy here is normally to cottage nothing, just grow to the health cap and run the maximum number of specialists. This maximises GPP generation, you can get many more settled scientists than in your example @Pangaea, for example.

2. With Lots of flood plains, I’m not sure. In @Pangaea’s example if he farmed all flood plains you’d have 35 food (working those + wheat). This is size 18 and likely this is beyond your health cap, so more than you need. Thus I think with flood plains it does indeed make sense normally to cottage.

Interested in thoughts!

 

[Fippy]

Ideally there are no cottages (and later towns) cos the city either works or creates
Settled GS also give an extra which turns into 2 later
I would consider Globe as must have.
Globe..Ox..NE..NP..and probably IW for 50% with just Iron?

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, that was what I went with it that game, @Fippy. Oxford, NE, NPark, Globe and IW (despite lacking coal). Learnt something else in that game. Tried to create the Aluminum corp, by buying coal from Mansa. Since we could build railroads with it, I hoped it was possible to create the corp, and thereby get aluminum (ofc we lacked that too). It wasn't. Button was greyed out, and showed "requires coal" (or wording to that effect).

Picking up the thread on cottages vs farms again, post-Biology each FP farm is 5, maybe it would then make more sense to tear down towns? It would be the equivalent to 1.5 scientists. However, with PPress, towns are really quite nice when teamed up with Buro. Moving a citizen from town to scientist yields about -10. (iirc from a game I played earlier).

One thing I struggled with, was when to transform those forest preserves into workshops. Too early, and you don't get the hammers into space parts. I also felt like there was a pretty big research hole too, it's not just about hammers. Admittedly things went badly in that game due to the very untimely DOW, but I never tore down those FP towns. Production was still okay for the most part, and there are a lot of techs to go through, which are expensive that late in the game.

Do anybody know how much we 'lose' (or gain I suppose) by not building the 2nd engine or all those extra thrusters? In that game (normal speed) we left orbit with one engine and two thrusters, which was an 18-turn journey.

 

[Izuul]

Unless you start with gold or gems, I would think a couple of cottages would be beneficial early to help get to at least Code of Laws.

 

[Nick723]

@Pangaea I’m not sure - but I do know that 1 engine / 1 thruster is 20 turns on normal speed, compared to 10 turns for the full ship.

There’s a thread here which has the times for marathon and quick, but unfortunately not normal.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/spaceship-travel-time.326855/

What I take from this in general though is that unless you can build the part in ~2 turns or less, you’re likely slowing down your eventual landing date.

 

[Pangaea]

Thank you, @Nick723. Fine resource that. Would be nice to have Normal timings, as most people probably play that. Saw somewhere that the 2nd engine saves two turns, which is probably the biggest factor in practice.

Played a quick speed game yesterday and had time to get out the (rest of) 2nd engine in one turn. Hoped it would save two turns, but it only went from 7 to 6 turns. But we weren't worse off at least. But means it's pretty pointless to build that 2nd engine on quick speed, even if you can one-turn it. Presumably the same with all the extra thrusters, unless you build them while waiting for other techs, like I did here.

Can't know how general this experience is after only two games, but I actually found that research was arguably as big a bottleneck as production. You won't be one-turning techs here with only one city.

Also, there appears to be a common theme for my games so far

Spoiler :

Didn't catch me as blindsided this time, because there was no surprisingly chain-DOWs from defensive pacts, and Brennus happened to be landlocked. When I saw he started plotting, I knew it was on us, and had just gotten out a cannon in preparation. DOWing after only 4 turns of plotting was surprising, but it ended up fine here. He was way behind in techs, and soon we had infantry against longbows and muskets.

Interestingly there was no negative diplo when a city he settled in my face got auto-razed quite early in the game. However, he wasn't best pleased when we razed his capital, which a Buddhist shrine (not like we had a choice).

Didn't expect he would be willing to capitulate, tho, which may be a good option if the circumstances are right, and the AI isn't as badly outdated as here. Kind of like having a permanent alliance in OCC (which kind of defeats the purpose of OCC, but I digress).

Founding Mining Inc probably wasn't the best idea ever, but it gave us 8 base hammers instead of 3 from the GE, and we ended up staying in Environmentalism until the last 5 turns or so, so I reckon it was worth it in this case. Being Spiritual definitely helps!

We settled one or two more GPs after this, but here we have 16 settled + 17 specialists (and the free one on top?). Good capital despite no gold or gems to help out in the early game. No copper or goal either, but thankfully we got aluminum in this game, which is far more important. Copper and iron is usually easier to trade for (had iron too here tho).

Brennus kept sending hordes of spies in our direction, ruining many forest preserves and towns and villages, which is why some of the once-towns were farmed over. Otherwise I think it's better to keep FP towns, unless perhaps you need the hammers in the very last turns.

Fun with games like this, that even a tortoise like I can play in 10-12 hours

 

[HMonsterX]

Ive been doing OCC for literal years now, but always default to what i once read as the meta. Basically only get GE-giving wonders, setttle them, town/farm/everything, only take spaceroute techs, etc. Pretty much 99% of my games are with Huayna or Elizabeth. Never considered anything other than phi/ind/fin for leaders. What good is spiritual?!

But reading this...christ! I never even considered half of this stuff! Never considered bulbing, workshops, not having national park, not having globe...i think i had a very limited view!

 

[krikav]

Welcome to the forums @HMonsterX !

 

[HMonsterX]

Thank you! Im sure i joined years ago, but it seems to have deleted my old account! =/ But yes...this has opened up a whole new batch of things to try going forward!

 

[Anysense]

Yeah, that was what I went with it that game, @Fippy. Oxford, NE, NPark, Globe and IW (despite lacking coal). Learnt something else in that game. Tried to create the Aluminum corp, by buying coal from Mansa. Since we could build railroads with it, I hoped it was possible to create the corp, and thereby get aluminum (ofc we lacked that too). It wasn't. Button was greyed out, and showed "requires coal" (or wording to that effect).

That would be because of National Park - it removes access to coal. What I found most difficult is to counter AI's cultural pressure. They easily take 3-4 ring and AI going for culture can steal even BFC! There is not much to build in OCC game, though. It would no hurt much to get, may be, Sistine+Hermitage? And a couple of cathedrals won't go amiss, but you need religions for that. On the whole, to my taste OCC is disgustingly luck-dependant.

 

[Qactus]

Wow, I have never experienced cultural pressure in an OCC. Do you play with extra AI maybe or on deity so they settle closer to you earlier? For me, the neighbouring cities are usually 5 tiles away and I own all the tiles in between. And that is just from the wonders and maybe a temple or monastery.

Spoiler Example, culture output only 105 per turn :

If you need a higher culture output, I guess Sistine would be quite good with all the specialists you're running. Hermitage wouldn't be an option because you'd have to sacrifice Ironworks, Globe or one of the even more valuable national wonders for it.

Edit: Thinking about it, rather than building up culture it'd probably better to attack and raze the cities that encroach you. Depends of course at what stage of the game it happens. Do you happen to have a savegame of such a situation?

 

[Pangaea]

That would be because of National Park - it removes access to coal.

Aye, I'm aware of that. But the odd thing was that we were able to build railroads, which also requires coal. Inconsistent.

I didn't expect the corporation to work tbh, because of the NatPark, but it was worth a shot.

 

[Nick723]

Aye, I'm aware of that. But the odd thing was that we were able to build railroads, which also requires coal. Inconsistent.

I didn't expect the corporation to work tbh, because of the NatPark, but it was worth a shot.

I think you can build railroads with oil as well as coal? I’ve certainly had scenarios where I couldn’t build railroads.

 

[Qactus]

National Park removes access to coal only from the city:

Spoiler :

so building railroads with it works just fine. Trading it away, too. And founding Aluminum or Mining in another city would work as well, if it weren't OCC

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks. Bit weird, though, considering this is OCC, and we only have one city. You'd think that when coal is removed from that city, we wouldn't be able to build railroads either. But I suppose that is part of the "empire", which is somehow separate from the city in OCC games.