OCC: The Tree-Hugger Strategy

[Figaro]

Has anyone tried a One City Challenge like this...

1. Play the Arboria map (Pangaea, but with forest almost everywhere and Deer consequently abundant).

2. Build your city with as many patches of deer in the radius as possible (on a Small map it's easy to get 3-4). This is in order to grow quickly. On larger maps you should still be able to get at least 2 Deer.

3. Leave all forests inside your radius (chopping those outside) and beeline for Scientific Method/Biology/Medicine. This lets you build Forest Preserves (SM) on your forests, which provide +1 Free Specialist each with the NAtional Park (Biology). This translates to easilly about 12-15 free specialists, and with Enviromentalism (Medicine) +2 Commerce per square. The preserves also produce +1 happiness, though you shouldn't need this due to the Globe Theatre. As an added bonus, every two squares of Forest in your radius produce +1 Health, meaning your city should be able to expand quite nicely if you have enough deer...

4. Meaning it's quite possible to be producing completely insane ammounts of GP points, loads of science points under representation (this is the ultimate specialist economy) and loads of Hammers thanks to all the Engineers/Priests and the forests themselves.

The catch of course is that you have to get to the techs before the strategy begins, but if you prioritise GP along the way it's not too difficult, you should be able to lightbulb your way through most of it. Because the whole damn' map is covered in forest, you can chop-rush like crazy all the forests outside your radius. I found the strategy quite fun and effective on the lower difficulties (mind you, almost everything is!).

 

[slobberinbear]

I haven't gone as totally tree crazy as you, but on one game as Sitting Bull, I tried to go "all natural" .. very limited chopping (just for resources only). I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, but you have to wean (sp?) yourself off of chop/pop rushing, since not only will you not be chopping, but you'll lose the food bonuses from farms that makes pop rushing easier.

You save a lot of production time by not having to build as many workers, and the workers you have will have less to do. This frees up the production queue for more military units and buildings.

Usually if you get a high-tree starting position, you get a lot of food too. So you end up with a production powerhouse city great for wonders or military.

Oh, and monarchy is very critical, because you can grow your cities through the roof up to your food cap. Trees will raise your health cap, and military units will raise the happy cap from hereditary rule.

 

[icantdrawanime]

That sounds interesting. Always keen to try a strategy that produces a buttload of specialists...

I generally dont chop trees unless theres a wonder that I want but dont have time to build. I like the hammer bonus, makes those plains and grasslands in the middle of nowhere less useless...

 

[Figaro]

One catch with the strategy is that you'll be researching Scientific Method & Chemistry which between them make obsolete the Great Library & the Parthenon, which is a shame as both would complement the strategy really well otherwise (by boosting your already-huge GP points).

The best leader choice for this I think is Elizabeth - Philosophical goes without saying, to maximise those GP points, then financial will net you another commerce on each Forest Preserve. Also her UU is defensive (this is not a warmongering strategy) and her UB is suited well enough to the strategy. Ideally though, Elizabeth leading the Romans (for the Forum), for GP heaven.

 

[Molybdeus]

In marathon games, I generally don't chop trees unless I am building workers or settlers. Lumbermills on grassland with railroad provides 2 food and 3 production, which is the same as workshops on grassland with state property, with the added bonii of not needing to adopt the state property civic and the health bonus from forests.

I still think it's better to go with other terrain in fast games, but forests seem very underrated in marathon games. The optimum number to keep seems to be 5 forests. That way you still get enough terrain to improve and use in the early game before you get to build lumbermills.

 

[uberfish]

I've been playing emperor OCC games with Elizabeth on standard maps trying to keep some forests around for the national park, so it definitely works on higher difficulty levels. It's no big sacrifice obsoleting the great library because you very soon get more free specialists than you give up (you can nab the free great scientist at Physics.) I can't believe I actually missed that environmentalism gives the forest preserves +2c, which makes them strictly better than towns once you count the free specialist.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I'm going to try this tonight and let you all know how it works.

Typically I go with an Expansive/Financial for OCC, but since I'll have more forests I can make up for the +2 health bonus.

I just hope I get Aluminum because by removing it from my town I can't use Aluminum Co. to get access if I don't have it within reach of my massive cultural borders.

I'll go with either Persia or Babylonian (Early barb defense AND health bonus) or Rome (full out Great person production). Thoughts?

 

[darrelljs]

What about food? It seems unless you have Deer like to OP stated or several food resources your city size will be too limited in the early stages of the game.

Darrell

 

[uberfish]

2 food resources or 1 food resource + floodplains works well

 

[Feyd Rautha]

What about food? It seems unless you have Deer like to OP stated or several food resources your city size will be too limited in the early stages of the game.

Darrell

Actually I'm more worried about the utter lack of coin I'll be facing.

The only way I can forsee this working is to clearcut a couple spots by a river for cottages, having 3+ deer in the fat cross, and leaving only about 12 squares forested. Without at least four cottages there's no way I see this working. You'd just lag too far behind from lack of research.

After you get Enviromentalism and the National Park up you're golden (literally), but getting there could be problematic.

 

[uberfish]

Behold the 43 specialist, 1500 research city:



You need mines early in order to build stuff, cottages not so much if you have the food specials since pyramids-SE can do a lot of research. Arboria is a cool map, although very easy compared to standard pangaea.

 

[Figaro]

Well the idea is you chop each and every forest square oustide of your city (but you'd be doing that on OCC anyway). You get the free Specialists whether or not you have citizens working the preserves, so theoretically you could swap your Hunting Camps on Deer squares for Preserves and suffer a drop in poluation - and therefore production, but production shouldn't be too much of a problem with all those forests and specialists. But this of course doesn't address the issue of actually getting to the National Park in the first place!

Does anyone know how realistic the chances of forest regrowing are? Because, what you could do is, once you do reach the NP, pillage your Towns and let the trees grow back... not sure how reliable/likely to happen this would actually be though.

Looks to me like Elizabeth is the best choice by far for this strategy (actually, I'd say she's best for all OCC strategies, but that's just me).

How about looking into the possibilities presented by the new espionage system? I haven't explored it too much yet.

 

[Dan Quale]

Nice idea, Although I dont play occ, I sometimes like to treehug in a portion of my empire. Lumber Mills are better than mines along rivers by far, and in general a lumber mill is a great improvement(health is your friend). I've also built a 19 forest NE/NP city, and it was amazing.

If A Occ Diety conquest could be performed this may be the way to do it.