OCC Spaceship

[ElephantU]

OCC-Spaceship

Playing One City Challenge, your ultimate goal is to get that
spaceship built and launched in the least possible time. With
only One City you can only build one part per turn, so you have
to figure on at least 20 to 24 turns from the completion of
Apollo to pressing the Launch button. Mistakes, lack of resources,
or poor preparations can make that take considerably longer. This
thread should give you the basic issues and calculations you need
to decide how you will do this and what resource "thresholds" you
need to shoot for in preparation.

First of all, which spaceship? The most basic ship has 15
Structures and one each of Propulsion Component, Fuel Component,
Habitation, Life Support and Power Modules. The shorthand for
this configuration is 15-1-1-1-1-1. The issues with this ship are
that it takes 36 years to arrive and has a 79% "success" rate,
which is really just the percentage of victory points (out of 100
per Hab Module). Adding just one Propulsion and one Fuel drops
the travel time to 21 years and ups the "success" rate to 94% (a
15-2-2-1-1-1). Adding a third set of Components drops the travel
time to 15.7 years and maxes the "success" rate at 100% (a 15-3-3-
1-1-1). Further increases in spaceship parts take more turns to
build than they save in flight time.

So the issues to consider are the amount of flight time you feel
comfortable with compared to the extra turns you sacrifice to
shorten that time. If you are before 1500AD each "turn" is
clocking 20 years, and before 1750AD they are still clocking 10
years each. But as soon as the first player launches their ship,
game turns shift to one year per turn. So waiting the extra 4
turns, whether that be 80 years, 40 years, or 4 years, greatly
shortens the amount of time the other civs have to try to kill
your city or launch a faster ship. Thus I would argue that the
15-3-3-1-1-1 is the wisest ship to shoot for. But if you are
hoping for the earliest arrival date, are still in the years
before 1750AD and feel you can handle the other civs for 36 years,
forget the extra Components and launch the first time the green
button shows up.

Secondly, what can you do ahead of time to build your ship as
quickly as possible? To build one part each turn you will need
two things: the techs and the production. If you have built
Apollo you have the ability to start on Structures right away,
but you still need to research Plastics, Superconductor and Fusion
(and probably one off-tech in there too) before you can build the
bigger parts and launch. So if you cannot steal or trade for
those techs you need to preserve a research rate of 6 turns per
tech (no sense in getting Fusion way before you are ready to
launch, giving others the opportunity to steal it from you).

Production is the remaining consideration now, on which the rest
of this post will focus. The first thing to know is that there
is a way you can pre-build your spaceship: stockpile 51 caravans
or freights (not counting those for Apollo!) and get your city up
to at least 30 free shields per turn. Start an unbuilt Wonder
each turn, add one freight for Structures, three for Components
or six for Modules, then switch to the part and let the city
production finish it. If your city is producing 80 shields per
turn you will need only 27 freights.

Achieving this goal requires getting your city up to either 25 or
50 shields per turn as early as possible in order to pump out a
food caravan or freight every turn or two. This really needs to
begin well before you get Factories, possibly with an early
KingRichards. If gold is flowing in, consider using Partial
RushBuying to set up enough shields for the city production to
finish one each turn.

The opposite end of the extreme is to consider using gold to
RushBuy each part without using any freights or disbanding units.
Here are the "magic numbers" for gold required at three different
city production levels:
-City producing 30 shields: 12,360g
...15x(160g(Temp=40sh)+120g(SAM/Pal=100sh))
...+6x(160g+560g(Sol/Manuf=320sh))
...+3x(160g+1120g(GW/Ora/Sun=300sh))
-City producing 50 shields: 10,200g
...15x(160g+40g(Gran/Hbr=60sh))
...+6x(160g+400g(Hydro=240sh))
...+3x(160g+1120g(GW/Ora/Sun=300sh))
-City producing 80 shields: 6,240g
...(no gold for Structures)
...6x(160g+240g(Airp/Nuc=160sh))
...+3x(160g+1120g(GW/Ora/Sun=300sh))

If you have two dozen units that you have collected through huts
or bribing Barbs this could save the first part of each RB: the
160g for RushBuying a Temple (the cheapest whole unit you can
buy from scratch in the end game). Be careful not to leave your
city defenseless in the process, and realize that the above
calculations are based on having 40 shields in a city improvement.
Disbanding a Legion to get started gives you 20 shields, and it
only costs you 40g to get the other 20.

Note also that the above calculations depend on using particular
improvements for Partial RushBuying to certain shield amounts,
then switching to the spaceship part (accepting the loss of 50%)
and letting the city production finish the part. If you do not
have the one listed available look around for one of the same or
slightly higher price, or consider selling off something to use
for RushBuying. Also, at least one 300 shield Wonder needs to be
unfinished, or you will have to RB the whole Module. Often the
Oracle or Eiffel is unbuilt, but if it has been a long game they
may be gone too.

It is not necessary to have all of the gold ahead of time, unless
you need your city to focus all its trade effort on researching
the undiscovered techs. Usually a decent SSC is researching one
tech every two turns around SpaceFlight, so shifting it down to
one every six turns should free up some trade to divert to taxes.
Juggle your Tax/Sci/Lux sliders to see how much gold you can get
per turn and multiply that by 24 turns, then subtract from the
above numbers to calculate when you can start building.

To get your city up to 80 shields production, you need to examine
your terrain and find ways to make at least 32 shields before
adding in the effects of Factory, Power Plant and Manufacturing
Plant. For Ocean tiles add an Offshore Platform, and Grass or
Plains tiles can be upgraded to Forest in only a few turns (don't
forget to RR the flatland before mining to get an extra shield!).
Try to minimize the food losses by converting Plains before Grass.

Getting to 50 shields is a good target around the time you get
Factories, as that allows putting out one Freight every turn you
do not have a higher priority unit or improvement to make. NEVER
let your city work on ANYTHING for more than two turns - use your
gold judiciously to RushBuy improvements on the second turn after
starting so you can switch back to building food freights.

Another option to consider is stockpiling one freight as a
"starter" for each spaceship part, adding RushBuying gold and
city production. Those numbers look like this:
-City producing 30 shields: 5,400g + 24 freights
...6x(160g+240g(Airp/Nuc=160sh)) + 3x1000g(Fr+GW/Ora/Sun)
-City producing 50 shields: 4,880g + 24 freights
...6x(160g+160g(Cath/Sew=120sh) + 3x1000g(Fr+GW/Ora/Sun)
-City producing 80 shields: 3,360g + 12 freights
...6x(160g+40g(Gran/Pol=60sh)) + 3x(160g+560g(Sol/Man=320sh))

These are the main options, which you can juggle around based
on number of available caravans, freights or unneeded units. Don't
forget to examine your improvements list for ones you can sell off
for extra gold, assuming their job is done or not critical at the
moment. Your goal should be to launch that ship with as little
gold or units left as possible, except for immediate defense
needs. Realize that often the AI civs will become more hostile
right after your launch, so keep your production up and switch
all trade to taxes for RushBuying defensive units. If you can
keep the peace during flight you get extra points toward your
final score, but don't give away Fusion till you are sure it is
too late for even the fastest ship (around 5 years) to beat you
to AC. When in doubt, attack first to keep them from getting
too close - remember you only have One City to lose!

 

[mardukes]

AD 1500, etc

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Realize that often the AI civs will become more hostile right after your launch, so keep your production up and switch all trade to taxes for RushBuying defensive units. If you can keep the peace during flight you get extra points toward your
final score

You look at score when you've only got one city??? Build those stealth fighters and have some FUN!!!

When in doubt, attack first to keep them from getting
too close

That's more like it!


On a more serious note, an excellent writeup. I've never really studied the caravan/gold mixes necessary, particularly for setups with less than the stanadard 80 sheilds per turn. I usually go in too "fat" at the end, but that just means more stealths, armors and Howies to extend the umbrella of death around my city , or I can just RB wonders if I feel the need to inflate my score.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by TimTheEnchanter
... or I can just RB wonders if I feel the need to inflate my score.

See, you do look at score...

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by ElephantU


See, you do look at score...

Well...on those rare occasions when I do want to look at score , I'd rather focus on wonders instead of peace because you could have 97 turns of peace and some AI will invariably sneak attack the turn before the space ship lands. Wonders can be kept and one wonder= nearly 7 years of peace.

Plus, I usually consider the 15 years of killing to be my reward for 3800 years of peaceful grovelling, although I always wait for them to make the first move.

 

[Old n Slow]

Good stuff, Elephant.

I'm looking for a few "rules of thumb". I've largely ignored tech gifting with these games (mainly for laziness and safety reasons.) So I'm looking for a few 'rules of thumb' or partial status checks along the way.

For example, when should one start upgrading the terrain for production (ie plant trees) & risk the science slipping to a tech per fewer turns?

 

[Stegyre]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
For example, when should one start upgrading the terrain for production (ie plant trees) & risk the science slipping to a tech per fewer turns?

Assuming you control all 21 tiles of your city radius, (you DO, don't you?!) you shouldn't really need to resort to this tactic much, if at all.

Think of it this way:
(1) Each tile can produce 1 shield with no or only minimal food loss -- for ocean tiles, you build an offshore platform; for non-shield grasslands, you convert them to plains (plant a forest, cut it down, irrigate it, farm it, with sufficient engineers, you know you're doing this quickly); for shielded grasslands, you just sit back an enjoy! That gives you a base of 21 shields.
(2) You still need 11 more shields (assuming you don't need any extra shields for unit support, but if you're playing OCC, you probably have all NONE units, anyway), but how many specials are you sitting on, three or four? For each buffalo plain or wine hill, you are generating 3 additional shields over the 1-shield base we expected in step (1) (assumes railroad and - for the hill - mine). Even a whale or gold will give you 2 additional shields, and if you have coal, you get a whopping 6 additional shields. (I usually leave my land-fish-specials as buffalo, but if "a river runs through it" it becomes a hill, as that's perhaps the most valuable special, by my calculation.) Thus, the specials will probably take care of at least half, if not all, of the remaining 11.
(3) If you STILL don't have a base 32 shield production, convert ONE or maybe TWO tiles to mined hills, and you're there.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by Stegyre


Assuming you control all 21 tiles of your city radius, (you DO, don't you?!) you shouldn't really need to resort to this tactic much, if at all.

Think of it this way:
(1) Each tile can produce 1 shield with no or only minimal food loss -- for ocean tiles, you build an offshore platform; for non-shield grasslands, you convert them to plains (plant a forest, cut it down, irrigate it, farm it, with sufficient engineers, you know you're doing this quickly); for shielded grasslands, you just sit back an enjoy! That gives you a base of 21 shields.
(2) You still need 11 more shields (assuming you don't need any extra shields for unit support, but if you're playing OCC, you probably have all NONE units, anyway), but how many specials are you sitting on, three or four? For each buffalo plain or wine hill, you are generating 3 additional shields over the 1-shield base we expected in step (1) (assumes railroad and - for the hill - mine). Even a whale or gold will give you 2 additional shields, and if you have coal, you get a whopping 6 additional shields. (I usually leave my land-fish-specials as buffalo, but if "a river runs through it" it becomes a hill, as that's perhaps the most valuable special, by my calculation.) Thus, the specials will probably take care of at least half, if not all, of the remaining 11.
(3) If you STILL don't have a base 32 shield production, convert ONE or maybe TWO tiles to mined hills, and you're there.

The problem with this is that it takes a lo-o-o-o-ong time to mine to trees, then irrigate to plains, then irrigate, then irrigate again to farmland. For each grassland square I think that is 25 settler turns or 14 engineer turns per square, for one shield each (assuming no river). If you built leo's, you probably have 3-4 None engineers that were bribed as settlers and upgraded, without Leo's I usually have less because by the time the AI builds engineeers, they cost an arm and a leg. In that case you actually have to support a couple.

You want to keep your food up as long as possible so you don't starve off your einsteins, so slowly adding one sheild at a time, going through several turns of lower food as trees and unirrigated plains will kill off your science by starving your einsteins. You have to start this process very early in order to transform every square. If you only need one or two more shields this makes sense because you get the trade back when you get to plains, but it'd take too long for the whole city.

The way I've done it lately is to RR the city first, then have as many of the engineers as I can spare from pollution control pre-charging for several turns, preferably up to 9 turns each. A little while before I get SF I have the engineers each transform grassland into a hill. I immediately lose the trade, but only lose one food each because it's still farmland. I then work on mining the hills so I don't drop my food until I get the 4 shields per square (the RR is already in place). This way I can add shields to my base production in just a few turns, and hopefully at that point I have enough food surplus to get my einsteins through to the point where I don't need the science.

 

[ElephantU]

My main point in this thread was to show the tradeoffs for doing the spaceship on less than 80 shields. I've experimented with both 30 and 50 shield OCCs, and while 30 is easier the gold required is higher and the number of saved freights you will stockpile will be significantly less. So for a "rule of thumb" I'd say get to 25-30 as soon as you max the city (500bc-500ad), then after Factory and PowerPlant go right up to 50 and stay there till SpaceFlight. Pound out an extra freight every turn you can, and use saved ones only to free up your blocked commodities (someone at Apolyton called it "WonderBread") if possible. Let someone else build Darwins (gift him everything just before, then trade) and Leos, and juggle your Sci/Tax sliders to keep extra trade from being lost. You should approach SpaFli with several thousand in gold and a couple dozen food freights, if you have done it right.

The other thing I noticed was that 50 is not much better than 30 for building parts, particularly if you have freights saved up. It's going to take 24 turns to build all the parts anyway, so slow down the techs and get more gold. Perhaps you can sell off a PowerPlant or upgrade it to Nuc/Sol.

The unmentioned element of confidence in relations with AI civs is playing your OCC with Classic/2.42. Relationships are a joke with MGE: you gift them everything, and they go from Worshipful to Hostile in one turn. Classic permits long-term respectful relationships, as long as you gift them regularly and do not break treaties. I consider MGE a step backward in the diplomatic realm, and a great impediment to OCC or EL games.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by ElephantU
My main point in this thread was to show the tradeoffs for doing the spaceship on less than 80 shields. I've experimented with both 30 and 50 shield OCCs, and while 30 is easier the gold required is higher and the number of saved freights you will stockpile will be significantly less. So for a "rule of thumb" I'd say get to 25-30 as soon as you max the city (500bc-500ad), then after Factory and PowerPlant go right up to 50 and stay there till SpaceFlight.

Good stuff. But I sometimes have a hard time getting a city up to 25-30 shields as a base without doing the terrain manipulation and thus losing food and/or trade. If you've got that much, you're not far from getting the Manu Plant and going up to 80 anyway. Is there an advantage of not building the ManuPlant other than the cost and turn(s) to build it?(too lazy to look at my tech tree, or otherwise think of ideas )

Pound out an extra freight every turn you can, and use saved ones only to free up your blocked commodities (someone at Apolyton called it "WonderBread") if possible.

[Another Digression]
I thought you needed two cities to do the wonderbread thing. I've never really worked at it, but it was my understanding you have to deliver a food van for it to unblock a trade commodity. If you do it to one of your own cities you "Help Build Wonder" (hence the name), but if you do it to the AI it has to be a food route which would tie up one of your 3 routes. (or does it somehow not replace a route if it's delivered to a low trade city.)
[/Another Digression]

 

[ElephantU]

In most games you can get a city to 10 shields pretty easy - sometimes even before size 8. So size 12 is usually around 15 shields, assuming you dont have a ton of ocean tiles (if you do, prioritize KingRich). As soon as INDust arrives, do REFine (on your way to AUTo anyway) and put in a Factory and PowerPlant. You should then be up to around 30+ shields. If you have decent terrain it may be around 50. Doing this early enough should allow you to stockpile significant food freights, so you don't have to add two off-path techs (MobWar and Rob) and build an extra improvement. I've done several recent OCCs with my city never getting past 30 shields, and a few more where I hit 50 mid-game and brought it back to 30 after Apollo (sparing the extra pollution work).

As to WonderBread, it can be done in an OCC, in fact it should be "required knowledge" for unblocking commodity supply. When you notice a blocked supply that does not have a caravan or freight "en route" nor a corresponding trade route locked in you can "cash in" a food van to free it up. It should free itself up in 16 turns or less anyway (the "Solo cycle"), but if you have a chain or a nearby demanding city it can be made and delivered several times in 16 turns. Switch the city to a Wonder, deliver any food van, and check the supply list: the blocked one should be freed, so just switch back to van production and finish it that turn. The advantage of delivering to yourself, aside from proximity, is that you get 25 shields toward the new commodity van, and if you are doing 25 per turn already it will cost you nothing but a lost food van. Beware trying this around the time of getting Pottery, Ind, NucFis, or your 32nd non-starting tech: the priority list could change radically on you at those times.