Sethos - The OCC link in your excellent manual didn't work for me. Here is the text of the Paulicy (without the comparison games). I'm not sure if I have the one-page "quick reference table" anymore. IMO Elephant has mastered this kind of game, and has surpassed this rather old guide. So, listen to him, too!
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Civilization II OCC
Civilization II
One City Challenge Strategy Guide
By Paul van den Belt
Contents
Quick reference table
The reference table is a seperate page with a recommended chronological order of research and building. It will fit on one page so you can print it and keep it next to your computer while you're playing OCC games.
1. About OCC
1.1. Objective of the One City Challenge
1.2. Rules
1.3. Comparison Games
1.4. Tricks and Cheats
2. Strategy
2.1. The Opening
2.2. Period after the Opening
2.3. Middle Game
2.4. Modern Age
2.5. The Dawn of Flight
2.6. To Infinity and Beyond
2.7. More OCC Strategy
3. Comparison Games [omitted]
1. About OCC
1.1. OBJECTIVE OF THE ONE CITY CHALLENGE
The objective of the one city challenge (OCC) is to win the space race in the
earliest possible game-year without ever having more than one city.
1.2. RULES
You are allowed to settle one city. You are not allowed to settle more cities or
to get cities through conquest or bribery. It is of course not allowed to access
the cheat menu. It is also not allowed to reload a game to change anything that
did not go as you wanted it to go. There is only one occasion where reloading is
allowed which is explained in section 1.2.2 (advanced tribes).
1.2.1. GAME SETUP
A game must be started with the following options set: random map, raging
hordes, 7 civilizations. You may also start a game by loading a one city
comparison game. Results of comparison games will only be recognized if they are
made at the first attempt on the game. See section 3 (comparison games) for more
details.
1.2.2. ADVANCED TRIBES
If a goody hut results in an advanced tribe you should reload. The easiest way
to handle this is to save the game just before you enter the hut. You can then
just reload that save and enter the hut again. If you forget to save you may
reload the autosave from the beginning of the turn. In that case you must move
your units the same as the first time, you must handle all diplomatic contacts
the same way as the first time, all battles must have the same outcome (not only
the winner, but also the amount of damage) and any huts you entered before the
one that gave the advanced tribe must also give the same results as the first
time you played the turn.
1.3. COMPARISON GAMES
In order to be able to compare results of players in similar circumstances
comparison games may be distributed. In order to prevent players from getting
advantages by knowing the map and the other civilizations in the game results of
comparison games will only be recognized if they are made at the first attempt.
Results of second and later attempts at the same game will not be recognized.
1.3.1. COMPARISON GAME SETUP
A comparison game must be started with the same options as set in section 1.2.1
(game setup). The game may be saved in 4000 BC, but if you want to give players
more equal circumstances from goody huts you may also save at a later year. In
the second case the following restrictions apply: the game may not be saved
later than 3000 BC, you may not yet have settled a city and you may not have
made contact with other civilizations.
1.3.2. COMPARISON GAME DISTRIBUTION
A comparison game must be made available to all players who want to play it
either by e-mail or by making it available for download from the internet. The
existence of a comparison game must be published on the Apolyton Civ2 Strategy
forum where you must also announce how players can get a copy of the comparison
game. You can find some comparison games in section 3 (downloads) where you can
also find my email address if you have a comparison game you want to make
available for download from this site.
1.4. TRICKS AND CHEATS
Civilization II has some features that are not described in the manual. Some
players consider the use of these features as cheating, others don't. We have
had a vote among OCC players at Apolyton to decide how to deal with these
features. This vote has resulted in the following results:
1.4.1. AIRBASES ON HILLS
Besides their official effects airbases also work as farmland and railroads.
This gives players extra food on mined hills. The majority of the voters decided
that it should NOT be allowed to build airbases on hills in the city radius.
1.4.2. "SUPERSTACK"
Bombers can only be attacked by (stealth) fighters. This means that if you let a
bomber end its turn on the same square as one of your units that unit can't be
attacked by other units except fighters. The majority of the voters decided that
you may use this feature in OCC games.
1.4.3. MINING THE CITY SQUARE
If you build your city on a hill you can't mine that hill. However, if you start
mining the hill and build a city on that hill before the mine is finished you
can get a mine on the city square. The majority of the voters decided that you
are allowed to mine your city square.
1.4.4. INCREMENTAL RUSHBUYING
Rushbuying a unit is cheaper if you first buy the cheapest unit you can build,
then switch to the next cheapest, buy that and so on until you buy the unit that
you wanted to build. This incremental rushbuying may be used in OCC games.
1.4.5. FOOD CARAVAN TRICK
It has recently been discovered that a city can use food caravans to set up food
trade routes with itself. Using this trick it is also possible to get your city
to grow in population even if you have a food shortage. It is not known exactly
in what circumstances this will work and it may be version specific. This use of
food caravans is NOT allowed in OCC games. You are of course still allowed to
use caravans to help build wonders or to disband them to contribute to whatever
you are building.
2. Strategy
So, you want to reach the Alpha Centauri system with only one city, eh?
Hopefully this walk-through will help. If this is your first time playing this
style, the first thing you need to do is to forget everything you have already
learned about winning. You will not need the Pyramids, and you will not need a
cathedral. You will not build phalanxes or AEGIS cruisers. What you will be
focusing on is science and caravan production. By the end of the game, you
should be producing 80 shields with your city site, and normally you will
produce over 1000 science beakers to go along with it.
2.1. Opening
When you start the game you will be very lucky if you start at the ideal OCC
city site, so you will first wander around looking for a good city site. During
this search you will also find goody huts and I recommend to always open the
huts. Before you settle your city you will not get barbarians from huts, so you
don't have to worry about that. In the ideal situation your first couple of huts
give you some fast units to help you search for your city site and to find more
huts and other civilizations. It would be a good idea to keep your settlers not
too far away from each other so that when you find a good city site it doesn't
take your second settler too long to get there and start improving the land.
Finding a suitable city site is the most important part of the opening. A poor
city site will add many turns to your landing date, while a superior site will
greatly lower your launch date. Before I begin, I will assume you know that
there is a pattern that the "special" terrain features appear in. If you place a
city in the middle of the pattern, you will have access to either three or four
of the special squares. This is where you want to be. Another note: if you find
only 3 specials, take a close look at the terrain where the fourth special would
normally be – is it a grassland square? If so, there is a good chance that this
may also be a special. To quickly determine this, you can move a settler on to
the square and mine it into a forest.
The second important consideration when choosing a city site is the number of
river squares in the area. A 4-special location with rivers running around is
vastly superior to a 4-special location with no river squares. The main
advantage of the river squares, apart from the extra trade arrow you get from a
river, is when you need shields and trade arrows later in the game. A forest or
a mined hill is a common need for a city in order to produce a lot of shields.
Unless it is on a river, you will lose out on the trade arrows from this square.
With river squares, you can terraform a grassland river square into a forest or
a hill. This way, you will get both the shield bonus you would expect from a
forest or a mined hill, and also the trade arrows from the river. In most cases,
I would prefer a 3-special location with a lot of river squares over a 4-special
location with no rivers.
Of course, watch out for bad terrain. Forests, jungles, and swamps are not
preferable, but they are not too bad. You can convert these into more suitable
terrain with just a settler over time. I consider ocean squares to be pretty
neutral, allowing a little more trade, but initially only one food and no
shields, and only two food and one shield after certain city improvements are
built. You will need access to an ocean square in order to build these
improvements, but land-locked city sites are acceptable, too. Deserts, tundra
and glaciers are much more inferior, because it commonly takes some engineer
work to maximize the usefulness of this terrain. Too many mountains or hills
will choke a city’s growth later in the game.
Find your location, build your city, and put the other settler to work improving
the land. What should the settler improve first? If you have whales for your
first worker, consider mining a wine or gold square. Otherwise irrigate one or
two grassland shield river squares first, or road and irrigate one or two land
grassland shield squares if you don't have rivers in your city radius. Early on
you want trade, but you also need to be prepared to support a rapidly growing
city, so balance out settler improvements with this in mind. Mining non-special
hills is usually of later concern unless you have a very low shield production.
What do you build first? One of two things, depending on your situation.
Depending on how many units you got from huts, you should build warriors or
start a wonder. If you have a lot of units, or think you could get some more
from huts relatively quickly, go ahead and start on the wonder. If not, I
suggest cranking out between one and three warriors (depending on how many units
you already have). The purpose of building warriors is to fight civil disorder
when your city increases in size. Based on your situation, decide what is best.
Ideally, you want to be able to have one unit in the city before it goes to size
2, with an additional unit moved into the city when it increases to size 3 and
size 4, with a maximum of three units inside the city. You should choose to
build warriors instead of phalanxes for two reasons: warriors take half the time
to build, and because of some game mechanics, barbarians can never conquer your
first city if it is the only city you have, provided you have "some" defense in
it. A diplomat or a caravan will defend your city against barbarians in OCC just
as effectively as mechanized infantry will. This rule does not apply to the AI,
but the plan is to stay at peace with the AI. After you have taken care of any
future disorder with these martial law units, begin building the wonder.
Now your tech goals will be monarchy and bronze working. Perhaps you do not have
bronze working. If you have another tech that allows you to start on a wonder
(such as pottery or masonry), go ahead and start building whatever wonder you
can, and later switch to the Colossus after you discover bronze working. If you
are able to start a different wonder, don’t research bronze working until after
you get monarchy. If you start with no technologies (which is often the case),
go ahead and research bronze working first, then monarchy.
Whatever military units you have out there need to be searching for contact with
the AI civs. Early AI contact and successful diplomatic relationships are
crucial to OCC success. When encountering AI civs, feel free to offer any
technology you have in order to gain favor. It is perfectly alright (and
encouraged) to give away all your technologies. Remember, you have to unlearn
what you have learned about regular civ sometimes in order to be successful in
OCC. Giving your technologies away actually helps you in several ways. First, it
lowers the amount of time it takes you to discover your next technology advance.
Second, it allows the AI to quit researching something you’ve already discovered
and begin working on a different technology that you may need later and that you
can trade for later. Third, it pleases the AI so that hopefully peace will
endure longer and alliances are more likely. Gifts and tribute will be more
bountiful.
Be careful with what technologies the AI offers you. Before monarchy, I suggest
only trading for alphabet, ceremonial burial, code of laws or bronze working. I
realize you will eventually need techs such as warrior code and horseback
riding, but if you take these now, it will delay the discovery of monarchy.
After monarchy, however, you might want to trade for more technologies even if
they are not in your immediate research path. I always hate it when I get an
advance from a hut that I could have gotten from the AI and when you ask the AI
for a gift or tribute you may sometimes get science when you would prefer to get
gold. Besides, the AI may have other (more useful) advances besides the one it's
offering to you. One advance you should always take when you get the chance is
map making. With map making, you can trade maps with enthusiastic allies, or any
AI civ that is worshipful. The benefit of trading maps, aside from gaining favor
with the AI, is to realize where the other cities are and know where to send
your trade caravans.
A successful opening, in my opinion, is the establishment of monarchy and the
completion of the Colossus prior to 2000 BC. But you can still have a very
successful game even if you don’t complete these until 1000 BC.
2.2. Period after the Opening
After monarchy and Colossus, your research goal should be writing, currency and
trade. Build a library as soon as possible after the Colossus. While you are
researching writing, you have the technology to build a temple. You can go ahead
and do that, but the priority is to build a library. Remember that AI civ that
tried to trade you currency? Go trade for it, because you need a marketplace
after a library. If you haven’t built a temple by now, do so after the library
and marketplace or wait until after you have built your first three caravans.
Remember, with three units for martial law you only need a temple when your city
grows to size 5.
If you are waiting around for the trade technology to come, and really have
nothing to build, I build a diplomat at this time. If you already have trade and
have nothing to build, build caravans. Either commodity caravans to send to
other cities for the gold and science bonus or food caravans to help you build
wonders.
One thing that you should understand is that by the time you discover trade, you
should just about drop everything you are doing and build 3 caravans. The sooner
you get those caravans delivered, the more it will benefit your science
research. Now, if your city is producing 10 shields, and you have some extra
gold from gifts or tribute, there is a way you can manipulate the game to get
caravans completed sooner. It is called incremental rushbuying, and perfectly
acceptable to do in OCC. For the first turn of caravan construction, let the
city contribute 10 shields. On the next turn, you see in the production box that
there are indeed 10 shields. Now, change production to a phalanx. You only need
10 more shields to complete the phalanx, but go ahead and buy it for 25 gold.
Next, on this same turn, switch production to a diplomat. You will see 20
shields in the box (10 the city produced and 10 more from rush-buying the
phalanx), with 10 shield remaining for diplomat completion. Buy the diplomat for
25 more gold. Now switch to building a settler, and spend 25 gold to complete
that. Finally, switch back to producing a caravan. Through all the rush-buying
you did at different increments, you will see that the caravan only needs 10
more shields until it is completed – therefore it will be complete on the next
turn. This way, provided you have the gold, is quicker than waiting for the city
to build a caravan normally. Additionally, buying the caravan this way is
cheaper than if you were to just directly buy a caravan. Finally, if your
coffers fall to below 50 gold while doing this, I encourage you to contact any
AI civ that you are at war with. In order to gain a cease-fire, they will not
ask for gold if you have less than 50, they will ask for some of your technology
instead. Now, if you have a lot of gold, then you can, instead of waiting for
the city to contribute 10 shields towards the caravan on the first turn, go
ahead and buy a warrior for 50 gold on the first turn, then follow the
procedures for the second turn above during the first turn. If you have 375
gold, you can build three caravans in three turns using incremental rushbuying.
If you only have 225 gold, you can build three caravans in six turns using this
method.
Deliver the caravans to the nearest, biggest, demanding city you can find.
Normally you would want to deliver the caravans as soon as possible to get the
advantage of the continuing trade bonus, but there are circumstances where it
may be wiser to delay the delivery of the caravan by one or two turns. For
example, if you have almost discovered your next science advance the one-time
science bonus of the caravan will be mostly wasted so you could park your
caravan next to the destination city until you discover that advance and apply
the full science bonus to the next advance. Also, if you are growing through
WLTCD when your caravan arrives at its destination you may want to wait until
you finish growing. The one-time bonus is related to your own city's trade
arrows, so your bonus will be bigger if you deliver the caravan when the city
has stopped growing. Another way to get a bigger bonus is to put your workers on
the squares that produce the most trade before you deliver the caravan. Don't
forget to put them back before you end the turn.
After discovering trade, your research path should point towards construction
and republic. Has any AI civ discovered masonry yet? If so, trade for it. The
same goes for any other techs that will help you. While waiting for these
discoveries, I suggest building more caravans which will help with wonder
building later on. Construction will allow you to build a colosseum to help with
happiness, and an aqueduct to reach size 12. The republic will allow you to
rapidly grow to size 12 through celebration of "We Love the Consul Days"
(WLTCD). Make sure that your city has reached size 3 by the time you get
republic. This should usually not be a problem, but it could be if you put your
second worker on a gold mountain and discover republic early.
After a republic is established, bump your luxuries up to the minimum that will
make at least half your citizens happy and makes no citizens unhappy, which is
usually 20-40%. Each turn that at least half your citizens are happy, your city
will grow by one population, provided there is enough food available and
provided that there are no unhappy citizens. If you do not have mysticism, be
sure and trade for it now or research it, because that is critical to getting
all the way to size 12 from a happiness perspective. From a food perspective,
your settler should have worked enough squares by now to support 12 citizens.
You may also need to build a harbor if you have a lot of ocean squares.
[continued in the next post]