OCC Strategies Anyone?

[ccAMELS73]

I have been playing Civ II for many years, but this one city challenge is something I have never thought of! This new concept has definitely piqued my interest so I am trying one...on king level ( I think), anyone have any pointers...cuz I am not fairing too well. I never seem to have any gold, but if I raise taxes I will never discover advances....hmm
I really need help with this! TIA:

 

[ElephantU]

OCC is fascinating for an uber-perfectionist like me, but you have to be willing to swallow your pride and play a bit differently than you would if you were building a big empire bent on world domination. The OCC Guide (called the Paulicy after PaulVDB) was on a personal website that got taken down; I have a copy of it that I was formatting to put up on CFC but I never finished it. It was written before Samson's discoveries about commodities and Solo's Early Landing Guide, so it is a little short and narrow. I'll try to resurrect that in the next few weeks.

Some quick suggestions:
- Play Classic (v 2.4.2), not MGE or ToT. The latter versions have AIs that are hard-coded to be much more hostile to the human player.
- Look around a bit at the start and pick a location that has three or four high-trade specials within the city radius. Remember that some can be developed (like a Whale hidden under Grass can be mined into a Silk). When you get Engineers you can transform (like an Iron Mtn can become a Wine Hill), but that usually happens too late to help the early part of the game, which is critical.
- Kiss up to the AI, especially close neighbors. Try to keep their attitude at Receptive or above. If they are on your continent don't get rid of them - a trade route that is roaded or railed along the KeyRoute path will greatly multiply your trade arrows.
- Most of the game keep your Power Rating at Pathetic or Weak. This keeps the AI from getting hostile or ganging up on you, and allows you to milk alliances for tech or gold.
- Work toward getting MarcoPolo as early as you can rather than doing a lot of exploration. Once you get it, pick only the techs you need but try to gift techs to AIs to get their attitude up high enough (usually Enthus or Worshipful) to get an early alliance.
- Be very selective about your techs researched early on, as each one you get causes the beaker cost of the next to go up. I like to go for Monarchy, then Trade, then Philosophy. Take a good look at the tech trees and the "hidden" techs and be very careful with popping huts when a "key" tech is about to be completed.
- Early on emphasize techs and city growth till you are using as much of the high-trade tiles as you can. Then focus on balancing your city to produce caravans as efficiently as possible for trade and wonder-building. Once you get Republic and Aquaducts pick the right time to switch and WLTCD up to size 10-12. Rebalance your city and focus on upping your research while you work toward Democracy and Sanitation. Do your growth in short, focused spurts of WL with high luxuries, otherwise turn the lux down as low as possible to maximize research.
- The only two units that do not require support are Dips/Spies and Caravans/Freights. The exception for this is NONE units, and they can be invaluable, especially Engineers. If there is one or two huts near your starting location, pop them before settling because you cannot get a Barb and you are most likely to get a NONE mercenary unit. In the midgame, once you get Explosives gift the tech to all AIs and send a few Dips on ships looking to bribe an Engineer that is not close to his capital. Two NONE Engineers are invaluable later in the game.
- Wonders you CANNOT miss out on: Colossus, MarcoPolo, Copernicus, Shakespeare, Newtons (well, maybe you could live without MPE but I think it makes a big difference in early relations with AI). Wonders that would be nice: HangingGardens, KingRich, EiffelTower, Leos. Wonders you could use but are usually not worth it: Lighthouse, GreatWall, Magellans, Darwins, Statue, UN. DON'T under any circumstances get the Great Library (unless you have launched your ship and are killing time for a higher score). Pay great attention to anyone building Manhattan and consider sending a Spy to sabotage it if they get close.
- The core of the game is Research, Appeasement, and City Optimization. The primary means of getting both beakers and gold is Trade. Read Solo's Early Landing Guide for trade and city management (the SSC) principles.
- The smallest spaceship that will launch successfully is 15 structurals and one of everything else. This takes 36 years to get there, which means 36 turns to keep the AI from attacking you. Adding one more engine and fuel in two turns drops the flight time to 21 years, and adding a third set drops it to 15 years. If you are going for earliest possible landing you might want to launch with a slower ship, but I like to build the three-engine one (this is the most common, as it also is the first with "100% probability", which just means 100 score points).
- PaulVDB was big on getting your city up to 80 shields production in time for producing your spaceship parts. My experience has been that you can save up gold and caravans/freights along with NONE units (to dismantle to start production) and buy most of your ship with careful planning. Getting your city up to 20-25 shields in the mid-game is advantageous for building caravans/freights in two turns, but not at the cost of reducing research. Once you get SpaceFlight you are probably going to be getting a tech every two or three turns anyway, and it's only three or four techs from there to Fusion while it's going to be 20-24 turns building your ship. Throttle back your research in favor of more gold for rush-buying and try to discover Fusion the turn you finish the last ship part. This also gives the AI less time to steal it from you.

 

[chieflookout]

The thing I was wondering about OCS was that there are only so many tiles to work, and maximizing the balance between shields, trade, food, and ocean access. I usually have one city in a regular game that does very well, but I maximize food and trade, and wait for factories and manufacturing plants to get shield production up, but even then its between 40-60. 80 shields is insane!! Anyways, thanks for this, elephant!! OCS is the only strategy I haven't been able to find a guide for.

 

[chieflookout]

Elephant, please post here when you finally put the OCC guide on the site!

 

[Rowan]

Elephant.
What do you mean by key route path;in regard to trade please.

 

[sethos]

Please have a look at Civilinic books.
Chapter "Book of Strategy".
There you find Paul's guide.

 

[Peaster]

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!
--------------------------

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]

 

[Peaster]

2.3. Middle Game
After size 12 population is reached, go ahead and cancel WLTCD by lowering the
luxury rate back to 10% or 20% - the lowest rate that will not cause disorder.
You may be able to sell your colosseum at this time. Your next research goal
should be astronomy, followed by medicine. Being the first to discover
philosophy can help here. Maybe another AI civ has already discovered
mathematics. While you are researching, build caravans. The goal here is to
complete the Copernicus’ Observatory and Shakespeare’s Theatre wonders to
improve science output and to quell unhappiness for the remainder of the game.
It is more efficient to build caravans rather than starting on a wonder at this
point, because you can incrementally rushbuy the caravans. Six caravans each
will buy each of these wonders. If you have enough gold you may be able to
complete these wonders a bit faster by only using caravans to contribute partly
to the wonder and directly buying the remaining shields. I think Copernicus
should come before Shakespeare, because you will benefit more from the science
sooner. Some have built Shakespeare’s first and have had very successful games.
After medicine is discovered, make sanitation your research goal. Likely, the AI
will have discovered horseback riding, the wheel, and possibly engineering.
Once Shakespeare’s is built, you are guaranteed a city of content citizens for
the rest of the game. As a result, the temple and the colosseum are no longer
needed. Sell these off. This will help you buy a sewer system, which is the next
thing you need to build. Bump the luxuries back up to begin WLTCD. With a sewer
system, you can go to size 21. You may have food to support more people, but
under a Republic without Hanging Gardens, size 21 is the max you can grow using
WLTCD. After reaching size 21, I suggest clicking on the "Top-5 Cities" option
in the game and pat yourself on the back.
Now you want to move towards discovering the theory of gravity to build Isaac
Newton's College. First you need to research university, and then build a
university. Have you been giving all your techs to the AI? I find that usually
the AI likes to discover banking, and you can trade for it. If not, research
that along the way. Upon the discovery of theory of gravity, hopefully you will
have 8 extra caravans sitting around. If not, build some after building the
university and bank or if you have enough money buy any remaning shields for
Isaac Newton's College. Begin researching towards democracy. While you are
researching democracy, the AI will usually research economics (provided you’ve
given them the prerequisites). Upon the establishment of democracy, you are
ready to celebrate WLTPD up to the maximum population your food supply will
support. When you switch to democracy, there may be a period of anarchy for a
turn or two. This will be the last time you can demand tribute from any AI civs
that you are either peaceful with, or have a cease-fire with. Use it to your
advantage.
At this time you should start paying even more attention to micromanaging your
science output. In Civilization II the science output of one city can only
contribute to the research for one scientific advance; any excess beakers from
the city making the discovery are wasted. Since you will have only one city in
an OCC game, this means that you should carefully adjust the science rate and
the number of scientists in your city to minimize that waste. The way I do this
is as follows: first I will set all surplus citizens to scientists and then I
will maximize the science rate. You will now see that you will make your next
discovery in for example two turns. Now you will lower your science rate to the
lowest percentage that will still allow you to make a discovery in that many
turns. After that you may be able to change scientists to tax collectors until
you have just enough scientists to keep your discovery rate at two turns. When
you make your next discovery you will usually have to change one more tax
collector to a scientist to keep your discovery rate or you may have to raise
your science rate by 10%. In the latter case you can of course change some
scientists back to tax collectors.
If during this period you deliver any freights or caravans I suggest that you
deliver them when you have just discovered a new advance and your beaker counter
is still empty. You can find the total number of beakers needed for the next
advance by having no scientists and setting your science rate to zero. The
number of turns for the next discovery that is now displayed is the same as the
number of beakers you need. Subtract from this the one-time science bonus from
the caravan (which is the same as the gold bonus) and you will have the number
of beakers you still need to discover the next advance. Now, maximize your
beaker production and check the trade advisor (F5) to see how many beakers you
produce and how many turns you need to discover the next advance. Use the
methods described in the previous paragraph to optimize your science production
to get just enough beakers to discover the advance in that number of turns.

2.4. Modern Age
From now on, if it hasn’t already happened, you will begin to discover
technology much faster than your AI counterparts. If you haven’t gotten
economics, research it now and build a stock exchange. Otherwise, you need to
focus on refrigeration and explosives. Whether to go for refrigeration or
explosives first depends on your situation. Usually, I prefer explosives so that
I can have my river-grassland squares turned into forest or hills sooner. Choose
which one you want to research first, and go for it. You can probably trade for
or ask for a few of the prerequisites from the AI at this time.
Upon discovering explosives, you should build two or three engineers. These will
help modify all the terrain to your desire, and later in the game service as
quick pollution clean-up, so you won't need to build a recycling center, a mass
transit, and/or a hydro/nuclear/solar plant. Upon discovery of refrigeration,
build a supermarket and begin upgrading your irrigated land to farmland. While
all this research is going on, you should stick to building caravans. Build them
exclusively until you discover a technology that allows you to build a
beneficial building.
The next goal is automobile. Along the way, you will discover railroad. If you
build railroads on squares that produce at least two shields, you will get 50%
extra shields (rounded down), but I recommend doing this after you have upgraded
all irrigated terrain to farmland. If you need to transform any grass or plains
to forest or hills I recommend building railroads before you transform the
terrain because railroads can be built faster on grassland and plains. The
purpose behind changing grassland or plains to forest or hills is to achieve a
32+ base shield production so that you will be able to get a total production of
80+ shields with factory, power plant and manufacturing plant. The base shield
production is the number of shields that are produced by your terrain plus the
shields added by the offshore platform plus the extra shields from railroads on
terrain producing 2+ shields. Don't forget that you also need to support your
units, so I would recommend 34 shield base production, allowing you to support 5
units.
You must also consider building Darwin’s Voyage. It is not essential to have
this wonder, but it comes highly recommended. It will make the automobile
discovery come faster. Immediately after automobile is discovered, build the
superhighways. This results in an enormous boost to your science and gold
income. The final science boost comes when you build a research lab after
discovering computers, which is your next goal.
If you don’t have warrior code by now, or any of the other prerequisites that
will assist you in getting computers, go trade for it. At this point, I will
give the AI anything but combustion, since combustion is a prerequisite for
flight. You do not want flight discovered before you’re ready to discover it
yourself, because a premature flight discovery will obsolete the Colossus and
thoroughly impede your science progress.
Along the way to computers, I hope that your engineers have finished putting the
final touches on your terrain. Once they have, you can celebrate WLTPD to get to
your maximum city size. You may start celebrating while your engineers are still
making farmland. If you time this properly you should be able to reach max size
at the same time your engineers finish making farmland. After this, there is no
need to hang on to your aqueduct or your sewer system (since you won’t grow
anymore), so go ahead and sell those off. Also, once your engineers finish the
terrain modifications, they are ready to start cleaning up pollution. Therefore,
at this time, you can start building your factory, power plant and offshore
platform, if applicable, when miniaturization is discovered.

2.5. The Dawn of Flight
After you discover computers, your next goal may not be space flight. If you are
under 80 shields, you will need to first discover robotics and build a
manufacturing plant. If, after building a manufacturing plant, you are still
under 80 shields, see if you forgot to build a railroad somewhere. Your endgame
will be much easier if you have 80 shields, so as a last resort, you will have
to change a number of grassland or plains squares into forest. Use the settler
for this because you never know when pollution will require the engineers’
services. Keep pumping out those caravans or, by now, freights. Should be one
per turn by now.
The last four techs before space flight should be flight, radio, advanced
flight, and rocketry. Upon the discovery of advanced flight, I recommend
changing production to some wonder. The goal is to have the Apollo Program built
on the very next turn after space flight. Since your city is producing 80
shields, and a caravan or freight will only contribute 50 shields, building a
wonder at this point seems economical. When you should start on this wonder
depends on your game and your discovery rate.

2.6. To Infinity and Beyond
After the Apollo Program is built, take a look at your city. You will usually
build a spaceship consisting of 15 structurals, 3 propulsion components, 3 fuel
components, and one of each module (habitation, solar panel, and life support).
If you have 27 caravans or freights sitting there, then you won’t have to spend
any gold on producing the space ship parts. You probably won’t have this many
caravans/freights, which is not a problem. Having 9 units, whether they are
caravans, freights, diplomats, or archers, is really all you need. You can do it
with less if you have a big treasury. But first begin building the SS structural
parts. You will need to build 15 of these, which gives you 15 turns to finish up
on the last technologies and begin building your treasury.
If you can launch your ship before 1750 AD when turns still go in 10-year
increments you can consider building a ship with only one or two of each type of
component (propulsion and fuel). This will give you a slower ship and a less
than 100% chance of success, but when you launch the ship turns will always
switch to one-year increments, so you can get an earlier landing date. A ship
with one of each component launched in 1710 will land in 1746 with a 79% chance
of success. A ship with two of each component launched two turns later in 1730
will land in 1755 with a 95% chance of success, while a ship with three of each
component launched two turns after that in 1750 would arrive in 1765 with a 100%
chance of success.
The two major dangers of these smaller ships are that they can crash on their
way to Alpha Centauri and that this will gave the AI civs more turns to build
their own ships and overtake you. If you discover space flight before 1500 AD
you could consider building these smaller spaceships.
The research path after space flight should be plastics, followed by the
necessary techs to get superconductor, followed by fusion power. After fusion
power, you really do not need to discover anything else, so at this time, set
your research rate to 0%, your tax rate to 100%, and convert all the extra
citizens into tax collectors. You may also sell off your research lab, your
university, and your library at this time. Don’t sell the superhighways, stock
exchange, bank, or the marketplace, because these things will increase your tax
income. Hopefully, you will pull in over 300 gold per turn in taxes.
For the SS components (the engines), you need to first switch to building a
wonder. If you donate 2 caravans to building the wonder, you can switch back to
building the component and it will be completed on the next turn. This takes
advantage of the fact that switching between wonders and spaceship parts does
not cost you a shield penalty. If you don’t have a lot of caravans, then only
contribute one caravan to the wonder, switch to building a SS structural, buy
that, and then switch to building the SS component. This way will also complete
the component on the next turn. Do this 6 times – one time for each component
you will build.
There are more options to consider building cheap modules. They cost 320
shields, so the easiest way, provided you have 5 caravans, is to contribute 5
caravans towards a wonder and then switch to a module and have it complete on
the next turn. Assuming you do not have 15 caravans left at this point to build
3 modules in this fashion, I offer alternatives.
If you can afford it, you can contribute one caravan to the cause, then rushbuy
the rest. This costs about 1080 gold per module to complete it in this fashion.
If you have less gold and more caravans, you can contribute more caravans before
buying. Also, look at which wonders are left to be built. Instead of buying the
entire SS module, you can purchase a 300 gold wonder (if any remain) and let the
city build the remaining 20 shields. If there is a 200 gold wonder still
remaining, you are in luck! Contribute one freight towards it, then buy it, then
contribute another freight for 250 shields total. Your city will crank out the
remainder of the module on the following turn. And on your very last module left
to build, do not hesitate to sell off the manufacturing plant if you need extra
cash to rushbuy it.
After the launch, begin fortifying your city with units and/or defensive
improvements. If you are able to easily build the United Nations, consider doing
so. It may help you get back to peace if an AI civ decides to attack you and it
will prevent them from starting a war if you refuse to give in to their demands.
If you can't remember all this and want a one page short reference to research
and building in OCC to print and keep with your computer while playing OCC
games, check out this reference table which contains a recommended chronological
order of research and building in OCC.

2.7. More OCC Strategy
If you want to find more OCC strategy advice and meet other people to discuss
about OCC strategy or Civilization related topics in general you can go to the
Apolyton Civilization Site forums. The Civ2 Strategy forum and archives have
threads on OCC dating back to february 1999 and they have certainly helped me
become a better Civ2 player, so I would recommend it to all of you. Many of the
strategies described on this page were originally posted there and I would like
to thank the people at Apolyton for their contributions to this guide,
especially Vik who did some good work editing and expanding the guide.

 

[sethos]

@peaster
The most left link works. The Apolyton link doesn't work any more.

 

[Peaster]

Thanks, I didn't notice that was a link. And it includes the quick reference chart, which is quite useful, as I recall (though I've only played OCC maybe once or twice).

 

[rysmiel]

Thank you for the guide repost. Peaster.

Is anyone on record as having successfully done this in MGE/ToT ?

 

[LordValuna]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=181703&d=1214884844
above is a link to a pdf of a table for OCC retyped from Paul's original

some things have changed like needing 80 shield for a spaceship but still is relevant