Occ

[ferenginar]

I have just successfully completed my first OCC, 1920 landing of 10,000. I set a map with a city radius sized island with access to the sea, 4 specials, 2 whales, 1 Iron, 1 spice, some nice mountains and hills on the coastline to provide secure defence points. Difficulty level chieftan, 5 civs, small map, raging hordes. Lucky enough to start with 2 settlers.

1919 Final Save

The key for me here was an early alliance with the spanish who rose to supreme, and bribing lots of units so I had a large army of NONs.

Engineers 3
Riflemen 5
Marines 3
Mech Inf 2
Dragoons 1
Cavalry 3
Artilliary 3
Bomber 1
Stealth Fighter 1
Destroyer 5
Battleship 3
Transport 2
Nuke 1

I had production at 85, so reduced supported units to 5 so that production of spaceship parts took, 1, 2, and 4 turns respectively. Managed to build 17 wonders, though I keen to know from experienced OCC players which are considered the must haves for success at higher difficulty levels.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

How would you get a NONE nuke?

 

[ElephantU]

The "Paulicy" guidebook for OCC is located here:
http://members.home.nl/paulvdb/occ/occ.htm

Key wonders for OCC (or any heavy-research game):
Colossus - adds 1 trade arrow to every tile with trade
Copernicus - doubles research
Newtons - half again research
Shakespeares - all citizens content
Apollo - enable spaceships

Very useful wonders for OCC:
Marco Polo - embassies with all civs before contact
Hanging Gardens - 3 happy citizens in city
King Richards - additional shield from each worked tile
Magellans - faster ships, faster deliveries for repeating commodities
Darwins - two extra techs (clears beaker box?)
Lighthouse - on watery worlds, earlier overseas deliveries
Leonardos - upgrade old NONE units (especially Settlers and Caravans)
Statue - instant government changes

Regarding your city placement, a Whale is nice when starting to get 2F-2S-2T, but later on land-based special resources are better because you can Road them and get extra trade from SuperHighways. Most of the strategy of OCC revolves around boosting your trade and thus your research (after your city is pumped up with citizens and infrastructure), so those Mountain and Hills tiles in your city radius are not as beneficial as you might suppose. Gold and Wine are very nice, but I'd rather have rivered grassland than forest, hills or mountains with no trade arrows. If you're worried about defense put a fort on it and keep your spare food caravans/freights as garrisons. Barbs cannot take the only city of your civ as long as you have any unit inside (even Dips or Caravans are invincible against Barbs). The key to defense against AI civs is primarily diplomatic: get Marco Polo or embassies early, establish alliances, give them as much tech as you can spare (by midgame you should be researching one every couple of turns or better), and monitor their attitude carefully. Get a few ships with Dips/Spies aboard and look for opportunities to purchase decent defense units far from their capitals (and a couple Engineers when they become available!) so that they are unsupported. In the latter half of the midgame you should start stockpiling food caravans or freights to build Apollo and your spaceship in as few turns as possible. Get your city to 50 shields so you can pop them out each turn, and prepare a plan for upping that to 80 with precharged Engineers and rushbuying. Alternatively, stockpile a bunch of gold and rushbuy the spaceship parts from disbanded units or a rushed Barracks. Keep track of the number of beakers required for the next tech and the number you have in your beaker box. When your current research will produce more than enough for the next tech, switch some Science to Taxes to accumulate more gold. There is a lot of micro-management involved in a good OCC game, but it is quite exciting to race the AI for key wonders and see how little you can get away with.

 

[Smash]

Gotta a save of the start?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Getting through your first OCC is a good step. Now the value is to learn efficiency in managing your city.

One of the keys to good OCC is to only build the things that are necessary. Although they may be pretty to look at , I don't think there are 17 wonders that are even cost effective for a one-city empire. Thinking of Michaelangelo, Bach or Suffrage? as long you have shakespeare in your city, all your people are no worse than content. Don't ever build Manhattan because that opens the door for some civ to drop a nuke on your city and take you out in one shot- it's about the only way to lose once your ship is off the ground. You don't need Great wall - for only 80 sheilds you get walls in "all of your cities". Oracle certainly isn't worth it, build a colosseum to get you by until Shake's is done. SImilarly, pyramids are not worth it. If you really want a granary you could build one, but your growth is likely through celebrations once you get to size 3 anyway, so don't bother. Instead of hoover, just build one hydro or nuke plant - with Shakes you won't go into riot, so it will never melt down. Adam Smith will probably never repay itself with only one city. You don't need Sun tzu because as mentioned above by Elephant, the key to defense is to keep your neighbors happy so you don't ever have to defend. GL is actually harmful to getting the RIGHT techs when you need them, in time to build wonders. Eiffel tower is useless because you are being nice with your neighbors. Your rep should be spotless throughout.

So off the top of my head that's 12 of 28 wonders that are more costly for your one city than the benefits they provide.

Likewise, NONE units are nice, but you don't need too many of them. A few None engineers are priceless, because they don't take food away from your science producing citizens (More einsteins). A few other units for token defense and barb hunting are good as well, but you don't need to amass an army or pick fights. It's not helping you get off the planet unless you've got a close, angry neighbor who can't be bought off with gifts. You will actually learn that it can be to your advantage to keep the other civs close to you in technology for a while so that they can research things that you will eventually need and you can trade for them.

You want to acheive a balance between research/trade and production/cash so that just at the point you have the techs for spaceships, you have just enough production and gold to finish off all the parts necessary.

Good job, good luck, and enjoy. There is a ton you can learn playing this type of game.

 

[ferenginar]

Duke - Apologies for the badly written post, it didn't mean that the list were all nons, the Nuke was built at the end after the spaceship had been launched and is supported.

Smash - I have attached a selection of files, 4000, 2100, & 580 BC; 640, 1010, 1420, 1535, 1788, 1878, & 1902 AD.

Tim - Some of the Wonders were built because I didn't have anything else to build at the time, 5 Oracle, Sun Tsu, Manhatten, Cure for Cancer, & Great Wall were completed post launch.

I have now read the paulicy and have learnt that food caravans can be used to help build spaceship parts, as you can switch between wonders and spaceship, this was news to me and would have helped in the game.

Many thanks for all the comments, I will make the most of it in the next game.

One question regarding the rules of OCC that I would like to confirm, but is not relevent to the game I completed.

If you open a hut and get an advanced tribe, do you have to reload a saved game or is it allowed to rush build a settler to disband the city?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

That makes more sense about the wonders. The fact that you did it [occ] without using caravans for Parts makes it more impressive.

 

[The Person]

Yes, nothing is like an OCC thread to bring out the pros.

 

[ElephantU]

Tim - Some of the Wonders were built because I didn't have anything else to build at the time, 5 Oracle, Sun Tsu, Manhatten, Cure for Cancer, & Great Wall were completed post launch.

The first rule of Civ applies especially to OCC: When in doubt, build a caravan or freight. In fact, in OCC you often want to build a new one every turn if possible.

I love grabbing obsolete/unbuilt wonders after my launch...

I have now read the paulicy and have learnt that food caravans can be used to help build spaceship parts, as you can switch between wonders and spaceship, this was news to me and would have helped in the game.

And you built 17 wonders? Impressive.

Many thanks for all the comments, I will make the most of it in the next game.

One question regarding the rules of OCC that I would like to confirm, but is not relevent to the game I completed.

If you open a hut and get an advanced tribe, do you have to reload a saved game or is it allowed to rush build a settler to disband the city?

Playing OCC, before you enter any hut on Grass or Plains, save a copy of the game just before the entering unit moves. If the entry results in an Advanced Tribe, reload the saved game and try again. One of the cardinal rules of OCC is never to have a second city at any time. Reloading huts when they produce cities is thus mandatory, so you must remember to save. Note that you will never get cities from huts on rough terrain.

 

[biru biru]

Barbs cannot take the only city of your civ as long as you have any unit inside (even Dips or Caravans are invincible against Barbs).

whoa. I am new at occ at this level too. cheers for the tips, and thanks.

 

[biru biru]

Alright, I payed mine way all the way through. definitely not a record, and maybe not even respectable, but I learned a lot with it and I'm sure that I can do better next time. Launched a 15/4/3 spaceship in 1818, to arrive in 1837.

Early game was a rush for monarchy. I had my best early game to date; Monarchy by 2250, Collossus built 2100. City size 4 (no growth), tech every 6 turns, 10 shields per turn at year 2000.

Spent the middle game as a republic, trading for some techs, but mostly tech gifting to keep my own rate down, and using caravans for extra beakers and cash.

In the late game I used engineers to build farmland and railroads to max city growth, and changed to democracy. At times the 100% option is what let me keep my advances comming every two turns.

When it was time to start building my ship, I had a few innefficient turns (took two turns each for a couple of structurals), but then switched to freight and used engineers to change farmland to forests. When I was really ready, I was able to use gold (tax rate 100% gold, a few specialist scientists working on fusion power) and caravans to rush components and modules every turn, then just as they were finished, and I was broke, I was getting 80 shields per turn to bust out structurals. Did get some starvation unfortunately.

Things to do better next time:
- sanitation earlier
- better job w/ caravans and freight, especially keeping supply unlocked
- know which advances I need, and holding off trading
until I really need another civs tech.
- never broke the 'advance every 2 turns', although I did use caravans to get an
advance every turn for a while.

Tricks I used for the first time:
- tech gifting! I had read about this, but never really tried it.
- Oedo Years! perfect revolutions at Monarchy, Republic, and Democracy
- incremental rushing; although I've done this, I used it obsesively this game
- Size one settler trick. cool head start