OCP = Settler Rape

[fephisto]

Personally, I like OCP, worthwhile cities, and O.K. corruption handlage. However, I've been playing the worst game ever lately.

I'm stuck on a peninsula, which is stretched over a large area the size of many of the biggest empires I'm facing, but has only given me 9 cities. I have no natural source of water, I had to get two RoPs, settle two temporary cities in an RoP rape war, and have an army of workers to bring water to my peninsula. I have NO natural resources (except saltpeter, if that counts, which, by the way, is a few turns from being culture flipped away from me (not the city that holds it, but just the tile that holds it will probably be culture flipped)). I've had to go war after war, occasionally facing three superpowers at once, and I'm still O.K. (AI stack of doom faces spearman.....spearman wins! 8D), and I'm still well in the tech game, because the AI don't know how to trade, and the poorer countries love me for pretty much giving them techies (although I keep wiping out their bank accounts and making them even poorer 8/).

I hate being stuck like this, however (you have nine cities, let's start a war!), and I want to expand north, but I see only three cities that I'll actually want to place in an area where the AI country (Japan, whom I've had three wars with, the third being conducted now because he keeps sending galleys with stupid settler/spearman combos), and I don't want ever AI in the game to send those ******* IRRITATING settler/pikemen over, which will send me into war with the entire world!

Any tips?

 

[vmxa]

They would not be sendign settlers, if you had grabbed all the land. This is not done, because you insist upon OCP. Had you gone with CxxC, you would have had more than 9 cities, no spaces and no settlers coming into your land.

Wars would have been easier to fight as yo could get some help even with slow moving units as three tiles with roads can be covered in one move (if no river crossings).

workers coudl have gotten more accomplished as they would not have had to travel as far and all the tiles in the empire would be worked, so all roads would be needed. Now you have tiles that are not going to be worked.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

what do you want to do? expand? If you are out of land, the only way to expand is to take the AI's cities. you could plop some more cities down between the ones you have, since you aren't using most of your tiles - those could just be temporary towns that get a barracks and pump out cheap units or workers or something, if you want.

Knowing what type of victory you want is pretty important - having a plan is the human players single largest advantage over the AI.

 

[Ansar]

On Monarch, CxxxC is my preference, since I usually like winning late in the Modern Age.

 

[vmxa]

On Monarch, CxxxC is my preference, since I usually like winning late in the Modern Age.

You can of course do that, but it cost you. There is no value to even that wide of a spacing as far as I can tell. You have to have workers deal with tiles that cannot be used, you have to travel over those tiles repeatedly.

You also end up with fewer towns covering a given area and it adds to distance corruption. I don't see the upside. What you get to pick which tile to not have a citizen working until hospitals?

No real need to even have hospitals, but if you insist, you can have some and work 18 or so tiles in the core, with CxxC. I do it often, if I am going domination or conquest.

 

[Ansar]

it seems odd how cities could grow to size 12 with CxxC. but i'm a low-level player, what say do I have in this?

 

[vmxa]

They have 12 tiles, so 24 food is not a problem as long as you have decent land and or water. If you have bad tile, you can steal from your neighbor and ripple out till you get either what you need for all or some place that is not going to use 12 tiles anyway.

If you did go with a hospital, you already have rails, so food is not an issue. You steal a tile or 3 from surrounding cities and ripple that some to get everything smooth. About the most I ever went with is 4 metros and probably one or more of them would be able to use lots of coastal tiles.

The levels do not matter, I would do the same thing if it was chief. In fact I have done it in some posted games that were warlord or regent just to show them it could be done.

One I recall the player was losing at Regent and I played his 4000 save winning by domination at 15xxAD. Not using warmongering, so he could do the same, just using solid placement and worker management and a few good trades.

 

[Little Corporal]

I usually like to have several large metros, so I tend to fluctuate between CxxxC and CxxC depending on terrain. It may waste tiles, but I enjoy building up large cities. A bunch of small cities just don't appeal to me. I might not ever get to Deity with my playstyle, but I don't really mind that.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

it seems odd how cities could grow to size 12 with CxxC. but i'm a low-level player, what say do I have in this?

You don't do a strict CxxC, but something that looks like this:

C
x
x
CxxxC
x
x
C

When you do this consistently, you get 12 tiles per city. You need 13 though (city center). Steal it somewhere.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I don't really get the CxxC or RCP strategies because what usually happens is: oh, hey, there's a mountain there, and the rest is sea, and....hell, it'd just be easier to go OCP, I might as well have 4 really good cities that can make a longbowman in 3-4 turns rather than 8 cities that make it in significantly more turns with more corruption.

Call me oldfashioned, but I rather take 8-12 RCP'd size 12-cities making Riders in 3-6 turns anytime.

 

[Eltrai]

Call me oldfashioned, but I rather take 8-12 RCP'd size 12-cities making Riders in 3-6 turns anytime.

I don't think that is old fashioned I would say that is smart.

 

[vmxa]

fephisto
"I prefer having actually worthwhile cities, oh hey, I can build things in less then 10 turns, almost guarenteed! It makes mobilization (strategic mobilization, not actually pressing down the mobilization button in the game down) a lot easier, and it makes it a lot more convincing to have a ton of units stack in a city."

A ton of units in a city, don't know what you are talking about. I have as many units as I need for the job or can afford. It sounds a lot like some sort of Monarch game on cruise control. If you have stacks of units, why did you not finish the game off?

"With most territorial cities I'll end up losing money, simply because I think it's reasonable for them to have four things:

1)At least 2 units in defence, a sea-unit if by the water
2)Barrax, harbour (most are usually planted by water, because by random chance I end up on peninsulas or islands most of the time)
3)Some sort of culture-defence, like a temple or library, usually a temple (since with wealth and large corruption most only give me 2 coins when I start building territorial cities)"

It is not reasonable, it is crazy and wasteful and will get you dead in high levels.

"Barrax and harbour are usually a must, because I manage to heal my units quite often (I use the spearman v. tank/stackodoom strategy back against the AI, a lot), but I don't use them for upgrades too much, because I can just shuffle them 2 turns to a neighbouring city if that's the case."

I am not able to follow this one. Shuffle in 2 turns, I am lost. I can say having a Rax in towns that are making troops is the way to go. Having one in a frontline towns is nice, if you can get one, before the front moves. Any others are a waste.

Harbors are useful in the right places. That is to say, if you need them to grow or to connect to the net. Else they are a waste of, well everything. Shields, time and support. They have to be needed or pay for themself, like everything else.

"I don't really get the CxxC or RCP strategies because what usually happens is: oh, hey, there's a mountain there, and the rest is sea, and....hell, it'd just be easier to go OCP, I might as well have 4 really good cities that can make a longbowman in 3-4 turns rather than 8 cities that make it in significantly more turns with more corruption. It also allows me to choose a wealth city ith semi-good production to go library/university/any possible research-upping wonders I can get to get a super-science city."

I see you do not get it, sorry. RCP is only for non C3C and of course in those version it is king. OCP is for crusie control games and what is the point in one of those. I mean an easy game like Emperor or less, where you can play anyway that you want.

None the less, if you went with CxxC, you would beat the level even easier. LB are not to be make at all, unless you have no better units. The deal is you have to live with corruption, so don't sweat it.

Just get all the land you can and make the best of that land. Do not put resources into unproductive towns. Researching wonders are for Demi or less games, learn to play without them. If you are able to make them, move up to the next level.

If you built troops instead of those wonders, you would be able to kill off someone. 600 shields makes a lot of troops.

"And I always manage to keep my workers busy, because I hear your score goes down otherwise, so I road up everything.....and then begin to puts forts everywhere. I get railed pretty fast too. That and the majority of my workers come from wars too (and a lot of them I'm also able to buy because I weasle some countries into poordom by crafting war vs.s diplomacy which makes at least one conutry down to a few cities with more workers than they need: buy 'em >8D), so I'm not paying huge costs for them. I guess I don't mind it THAT much (because I feel like Israel, every turn another war), it just gets irritating."

Score is not impacted by having workers or using them. It is affected by territory, pop, tech and level played. It is also affected by happy faces and by the victory date.

Many games are won before rails are available. But then, they are not going OCP. Getting slaves is always good, buying them is only good in the early part of the game.

This is becasue the AI will suffer a bit if it sells a worker very early. It won't matter all that much late in the game, especially if they have plenty. Then you are in fact helping them by lower their support cost and giving them gold.

Anyway what ever you can to with OCP, you can do even better with not so wide of spacing.

 

[MAS]

I prefer having actually worthwhile cities, oh hey, I can build things in less then 10 turns, almost guarenteed! It makes mobilization (strategic mobilization, not actually pressing down the mobilization button in the game down) a lot easier, and it makes it a lot more convincing to have a ton of units stack in a city.

With most territorial cities I'll end up losing money, simply because I think it's reasonable for them to have four things:

1)At least 2 units in defence, a sea-unit if by the water
2)Barrax, harbour (most are usually planted by water, because by random chance I end up on peninsulas or islands most of the time)
3)Some sort of culture-defence, like a temple or library, usually a temple (since with wealth and large corruption most only give me 2 coins when I start building territorial cities)

Barrax and harbour are usually a must, because I manage to heal my units quite often (I use the spearman v. tank/stackodoom strategy back against the AI, a lot), but I don't use them for upgrades too much, because I can just shuffle them 2 turns to a neighbouring city if that's the case.

I don't really get the CxxC or RCP strategies because what usually happens is: oh, hey, there's a mountain there, and the rest is sea, and....hell, it'd just be easier to go OCP, I might as well have 4 really good cities that can make a longbowman in 3-4 turns rather than 8 cities that make it in significantly more turns with more corruption. It also allows me to choose a wealth city ith semi-good production to go library/university/any possible research-upping wonders I can get to get a super-science city.

And I always manage to keep my workers busy, because I hear your score goes down otherwise, so I road up everything.....and then begin to puts forts everywhere. I get railed pretty fast too. That and the majority of my workers come from wars too (and a lot of them I'm also able to buy because I weasle some countries into poordom by crafting war vs.s diplomacy which makes at least one conutry down to a few cities with more workers than they need: buy 'em >8D), so I'm not paying huge costs for them. I guess I don't mind it THAT much (because I feel like Israel, every turn another war), it just gets irritating.

A more efficient territorial city would be nice.....

It is actually very simple, I (And other good players) don't care about our cities. We care only for our empire!
Of cource, good cities help the empire, but they only need to be as good as the empire needs them to be.
I don't think: "This city needs to have..."
I think: "The empire needs this city to have!"

For example, I defend my empire at the borders, in fact, beond my borders if possible. When a hostile unit gets near, I send my offensive units to kill it.
So any defensive unit inside a city is a waste, becouse they never see any action. (I make sure of that)
I don't defend my cities, I defend my empire!

If you build you cities closer, you don't need culture for border expansion, so the emire will become more efficient. Becouse it has more shields and turns left to build other things.

And I don't place the cities in a strict pattern, CxxC is just an average.

A note: score is only effected by how many content and happy population points you have had each turn of the game. (inside cities, workers don't count.)

 

[Desertsnow]

My core cities are usually spaced at CxxxxC, tending toward RCP but not necessarily exactly so, mainly because I don't like them to be crowed in by their neighbors, and because I want to get an early jump on geographic expansion, but I scale down after that so that I have mostly CxxC to CxxxC among my outer cities.