OCC - the miser of Civ IV

[AnaNg]

So, like the title implies, I was curious about the OCC and figured I'd give it a shot.

On the one had it's pretty cool to have enough ready cash to upgrade your armies in one fel swoop. But... There are only so many units you can produce and the AI (some of them, rather) aren't willing to trade techs for gold.

It seems like, in on OCC, that you'd want to run Representation for the extra beakers for all the specialists and super ones you have going so there's no "gold for building US" unless you go for anarchy for a couple of turns to do it then go back.

So what do you do with the obscene cache of gold you end up with in an OCC? I have to admit i didn't expect this - not a single cottage - a winery, a gold mine but I have a SICK amount of cash around, even after upgrades! It seems like I should be doing something uselful with this but... I can't see it.

What am I missing?

Thanks!

 

[uberfish]

You might be spawning too many great prophets? Be careful what wonders you build if so. Mostly the cash is useful for upgrades and the occasional deal-sweetener for a trade.

 

[frob2900]

Universal Suffrage is actually quite useful and should still be seriously considered. Of course, like you said, it's best if you're spiritual since you would probably want to go back to Rep after your buying spree. Also, don't forget that a Golden Age will allow you to get 10 turns of US without anarchy.

And maybe try building Cristo Redentor

Still, a better tactic is just building a huge bunch of a cheap outdated unit (by delaying a tech, e.g. rifling, for as long as you can), then mass upgrading those units with your gold.

 

[AnaNg]

Uber - I was spawning quite a few prophets with an engineer or scientist thrown in the mix. Honestly that was fine as I wasn't in the most hammer-rish spot so getting some from the settled GPs was fine. It was just really odd to have that much cash laying about.

Frob - I ultimately ended up having to go US for quite a while and teh cheap build/upgrade was a fine idea! I had some rather testy neighbors.

This was a fun little exercise actually. I don't know if anyone is at all interested in a newb's thoughts on a first OCC but as long as this thread is here... someone may want to read it.

Peter, Tiny Pangea, Time/Diplo/Culture disabled, Noble.

In some ways it was easier - smaller land areas to defend makes that easier than I thought it would be with a smallish force, and teching just flew by. But working around the "only one thing being built at a time" was really interesting. You really do need to think about what you're building and why. Despite the fact that it's drastically different from a regular game, I think a couple more of these will help me improve.

You can't switch gears on when assaulted and just mass produce units from all your cities. And that was sort of big thing.

See I sort of moved into a rough neighborhood.

My two neighbors on my little eden were Toku and Hannibal. Toku could never seem to get the idea through his head that even if he got a blip above me on the power scale, he wasn't likely to break through the defending stacks I had on the border. Macemen vs Cossacks, Cav vs Infantry and tanks... it's just not going to work, pal.

Hannibal was just sort of psycho as well. He was on the other side of Toku though and, well, I had that big stack of cash laying around and it turns out that Toku was pretty greedy... And neither of them researched any ocean-going techs. So they were all cramped in on the east end of the world with Barbs to the west of me.

When I signed an OB with them it was an invitiation to war so I stopped doing that. Toku's one city he managed to get to the west got swallowed in my culture wave.

Once I got that cavs I just started researching space race techs (and the subsequent defenders just fell into place nicely for me) and won that way.

It got a little annoying near then end though, Hannibal was randomly nuking barbarian cities to the west and causing global warming near Moscow. I'd never played a game where nukes were involved - is there anything I can do to reclaim those desert areas? Having one city where your food tiles are swallowed up by some nuke freak was a tad on the irritating side.

I think I'll try this again on a larger map, perhaps with diplo enabled. But in any event, despite different religions and cramped conditions, Hannibal and Toku were the best of friends - it may have been easier if I could have some extra civs around to foment discontent.

 

[Harbourboy]

OCC is a great way to learn about the real value of each and every hammer you produce, because you don't have the option of spamming units from a load of cities.

And using the cash to upgrade units isn't always useful because on larger maps and on continents, your stacks can be a LONG way from home and therefore often not able to be upgraded.

I'm not sure how you managed to end up with nuclear weapons in a Noble level game. All the Noble OCCs I have played have never reached Fission, even by 2050AD (yes, I have had some ridiculous OCC Time victories......)

 

[AnaNg]

Heh, I disabled time victory - Hannibal completed the Manhattan Project around 2045 AD or so and managed to fire off several ICBMs before I finished the space ship er, some time later

 

[KMadCandy]

"This was a fun little exercise actually. I don't know if anyone is at all interested in a newb's thoughts on a first OCC but as long as this thread is here... someone may want to read it."

definitely! grats on your win i'm an OCC addict and love to learn from the experience of other folks, and maybe help them learn from mine. which leads to...

"You can't switch gears on when assaulted and just mass produce units from all your cities. And that was sort of big thing."

yeah it's a big thing! one thing that helps me tons: in OCC your worker/s will have nothing to do for long stretches of time. i use them to make improvements outside the city cross. nothing (not even roads) on squares that i hope forests for future chopping will spread to, mind you. but maybe way out on the desert border i'll build a fort that i never plan to use, or on a grassland with no forests around at all put a workshop. see, the AI has this "must destroy KMad immedia... oooooooh shiny, must pillage!" instinct. sure, they get a bit of gold when they pillage it. but it gives me more time to prepare to save my city and the improvements i do care about. every turn of preparation i get during panic-mode is a really really really good thing, especially with no other cities to get reinforcements from.

"I think I'll try this again on a larger map, perhaps with diplo enabled. But in any event, despite different religions and cramped conditions, Hannibal and Toku were the best of friends - it may have been easier if I could have some extra civs around to foment discontent."

what a combo, ugh. as far as diplomatic relations, even without it enabled as a victory condition, as you saw yup it can be crucial in how the game plays out! i also sometimes like more civs for more resource trading opportunities, since i don't have much territory myself. that of course requires carefully watching relationships between them, since somebody eventually will demand you stop trading with the vile so-and-sos.

perhaps my favorite victory type (if i'm planning on one from turn 0, so picking my leader traits and regenning maps til i get a start i like) is OCC diplo. my votes count for diddlysquat (i vote for my opponent just for giggles), and i have to groom friends. and make the UN first, can't capture it if stinking gandhi or mansa makes it first. it's always them if i get beaten to it!!!!! i find it really challenging and fun, plus it's OCC so even MMg every turn it only takes a couple hours to get defeated that way on deity. i did finally win one OMG! mind you i love the political jedi mind-tricks part of the game. i'm not necessarily suggesting this to sane people. i'm just rambling .

 

[AnaNg]

Thanks for the tips!

I'll keep the random, throw-away improvements in mind (because yeah, workers just sort of lounge about quite a bit) but I'm not sure it would have been the way to go in that game. I had one small shared border and it was all forests and hills and I think I would have been loathe to give up that defense. I did manage to have several units fortified on many of the tiles but I see where you're going.

The AI *could* have just wandered by but they insisted on attacking the fortified units, thank god.

I definitely could have had better neighbors there was just no way to be diplomatic with those two and I'm not very good at that anyway.

However, that may improve. Well, if I keep doing OCCs it'll really have to. The neatest thing about the OCC is it really forces you to focus on certain things - it seems like tech speed and money are less of an issue (though researching the right techs in the right order is still important) so you can look at diplomatic relations, a little on city composition, reading the signs of war even if you don't see stacks on your border and coming up with the most efficient stack of units to counter your attackers and such.

I struggled a lot (perhaps that's the wrong tense, I still struggle) with Civ because there are just so many things to focus on and improve that I had a hard time doing them all at once.

Through all the info here I've gotten over my early-war phobia, I've learned a lot about city/economy details so those two aspects are coming together so maybe with some OCCs it's time to work on my horrible diplomatic game.

Though it doesn't seem quite sane to pursue a diplomatic victory in an OCC, could be fun though!

 

[Harbourboy]

OCC Conquest Victory is the really interesting challenge......

 

[AnaNg]

You know now that I think about it, that's really what I should have done with those two idiots I was stuck with.

 

[Weird Piggy]

Today I played a Vanilla Tiny / 9 Civ / Pangea with Monty and Toku as neighbors. I thought I was okay as Monty was my religion as Toku had no good route to my cap. Then Monte backstabs me but I was eventually able to fend him and Toku off. Fun fun neighbor. It seems to me if you play Standard size OCC and just Pyramid / Oracle. You easily win the tech race at Prince / Monarch. Quite odd actually.

 

[KMadCandy]

I'll keep the random, throw-away improvements in mind (because yeah, workers just sort of lounge about quite a bit) but I'm not sure it would have been the way to go in that game. I had one small shared border and it was all forests and hills and I think I would have been loathe to give up that defense. I did manage to have several units fortified on many of the tiles but I see where you're going.

yeah it's situational. and i'm real nitpicky with forests since i love for them to spread so i can chop 'em, since i'm loathe to chop the ones in my city cross.

Though it doesn't seem quite sane to pursue a diplomatic victory in an OCC, could be fun though!

one thing you'll learn ... never expect a post from me to be quite sane *giggle*. your name inspires me to sing ...

Spoiler :

"i want to raise my freak flag higher and higher" i can't stop giggling!!

It seems to me if you play Standard size OCC and just Pyramid / Oracle. You easily win the tech race at Prince / Monarch. Quite odd actually.

i haven't tried OCC in BtS with the limit on national wonders. but warlords/vanilla i can win diplo/space OCC games on a much higher level than i can normal games, since i tech so fast with my uber city. well, not culture games, tried one once with a PA, it was very odd. i won, but it was bizarre and i don't think i'll try it again. and conquest, only once so far, and that doesn't count ... team OCC with hubby. i'm not good at conquest in the first place, even with a huge empire of cities to make me units!

 

[AnaNg]

one thing you'll learn ... never expect a post from me to be quite sane *giggle*. your name inspires me to sing ...

Spoiler :

"i want to raise my freak flag higher and higher" i can't stop giggling!!

You sing like a girl

On a side note, or rather back on topic - my diplomatic game is horrible. I just set it up so... my competitor won both the UN elections AND the diplo victory