One City Challenge Club (OCCC): Justinian

[madscientist]

Welcome to the next One City Challenge Club where we play a OCC game. We have started out at Nobel and now working at Prince! Let's see how far we all can go

The next leader is Justinian of Byzantium. Imperialistic only get's half it's bonus here, but getting alot of Great Generals can only be settled in one city ! Spiritual is powerful as you never lose a turn in civic switches, so micro manage your city away!. The UU is very powerful here while the UB is essentially useless.

The save is a Prince difficulty/Epic speed and the WorldBuilder save is also attached if you want to change those settings. The Map is Pangea standard sized in case you want to go down the war-mongering path. Remember I plan to be moving the difficulty up as we go along in the series, Prince for now.

General statements about a One City Challenge, according to Mad Scientist

1) You get ONE city! Go and win yourself a game champ!

2) You cannot build a settler, nor can you capture a city. Captured cities will autoraze, a great way for ticking off a rival.

3) You are allowed 5 National Wonders per city, and they still require the prerequisite buildings. Example, for the Globe theater you need a theater, Oxford requires a University. etc....

There are plenty of players that can offer great advice, I will keep to just hosting this game for the time being.

Examples of OCC games can be found in the Classic RPCs in my signature: Agustus, Stalin, Lincoln were all OCC games focusing on diplomacy, military, space victory pathes although the Lincoln game was a last minute failure. Also under the RPC Next Generation the dali Lama was an OCC but certainly not a typical game.

So onto the leader



and the start



I have attached the start as well as a worldbuilder save. If you want to change difficulty/speed simply place the WB save into the worldbuilder save folder and start the game as a scenario!

ENJOY!

 

[Stochastic]

Nice start! I'm thinking settle on the Banana maybe? 4 hills for production (I think there is another 1 E of the Gems), 2 irrigated corns, and gems in the BFC! Maybe the best start yet?

If I've got horse I think I'll try to beeline guilds for a domination, but I doubt I will be able to get it in time (ie before everyone else has LBs+Pikes) so I will probably go down in flames .

 

[lymond]

Hmmm....interesting trait combo for an OCC. While at first glance Imperialistic seems the most useless OCC trait, Justin may make a great OCC warmonger.

 

[Stochastic]

Hmm, so I've managed to get Guilds by 595AD by getting MC from the Oracle and bulbing machinery with a GE from the combined power of 'mids, gardens and an engineer (unfortunately I didn't get a 2nd to bulb Feudalism, but was a GS so that's ok)

But now things are getting interesting.

Spoiler :

Turns out settling on the Banana was the best choice I could have made, iron horse, river, plenty of hills and food let me get a bunch of wonders while still teching fast and getting some Xbows out.

Here's a view of the land:

Spoiler :

I'll be getting the gold in 2 turns and the rice soon too so I'm doing really well for the happy and healthy caps.

Now Julius has declared on me. I've got maces and X-bows holding his preats off, but I haven't got any cataphracts yet so I can't go on the offense. I was hoping to declare on Joao (hidu) b/c JC and Monty (who are right on my doorstep) are Buddhist and I can convert to that religion, something I probably should have done already in retrospect. When monty and JC are adjacent and in the same religion, that sounds like a good one for me!

But I thought I was safe when JC declared on Bismark (Jewish founder and sole convert) and I didn't want to antagonise Joao before declaring as he was very close too.

So the plan now is to switch to Buhdd, wait for some more units from JC to kill off while builiding up GG points, a sable and the HE and waiting for him to take peace. Then getting Cataphracts. When I've got ~10 I'll declare on Joao.

@Madscientist: Did you add any resources to the vicinity or was this just a really good roll?

 

[madscientist]

Hmm, so I've managed to get Guilds by 595AD by getting MC from the Oracle and bulbing machinery with a GE from the combined power of 'mids, gardens and an engineer (unfortunately I didn't get a 2nd to bulb Feudalism, but was a GS so that's ok)

But now things are getting interesting.

Spoiler :

Turns out settling on the Banana was the best choice I could have made, iron horse, river, plenty of hills and food let me get a bunch of wonders while still teching fast and getting some Xbows out.

Here's a view of the land:

Spoiler :

I'll be getting the gold in 2 turns and the rice soon too so I'm doing really well for the happy and healthy caps.

Now Julius has declared on me. I've got maces and X-bows holding his preats off, but I haven't got any cataphracts yet so I can't go on the offense. I was hoping to declare on Joao (hidu) b/c JC and Monty (who are right on my doorstep) are Buddhist and I can convert to that religion, something I probably should have done already in retrospect. When monty and JC are adjacent and in the same religion, that sounds like a good one for me!

But I thought I was safe when JC declared on Bismark (Jewish founder and sole convert) and I didn't want to antagonise Joao before declaring as he was very close too.

So the plan now is to switch to Buhdd, wait for some more units from JC to kill off while builiding up GG points, a sable and the HE and waiting for him to take peace. Then getting Cataphracts. When I've got ~10 I'll declare on Joao.

@Madscientist: Did you add any resources to the vicinity or was this just a really good roll?

Spoiler :

The horses were moved closer, iron was there from the start. A Pangea map for Justinian with Horses and iron is not much fun! If you did more you would have had the horses and iron after the third broder pop.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Default save.

Start ----> Finish (1360 AD)

Spoiler :

It's not like there was much strategy:



Resulting in:



Settling on banana looked like and was a strong option. As soon as I noticed Pangea, horse, gems, it was off to the races. I did slow tech lit so that HA production was pretty strong by the end of the game.

AIs wars:

1. Ceasar (peace)
2. Monty (peace)
3. Joao (killed)
4. Mehmed (killed)
5. Bismark (bribed against me) (killed)
6. Ceasar (killed)
7. Monty (capped)
8. Liz (capped)

Liz was kind of tough because of her longbows and war elephants, but I took a large stack of horse archers on sherman's march through london, wrecking her production. By then, I had combat IV HAs out of the gate, very strong. I even had one HA that made it up to combat V shock without a great general. All generals settled except the first one (medic).

 

[lymond]

@tmi

Spoiler :

Impressive. I'd say your game is a good primer on having a plan and sticking to it. (I settled on the monkey food too) Although I planned some early warring (took out Monty), my plan was to beeline Phracts and go on the rampage. I did this and went after Liz with JC but he capped her before much damage was done. ( I think that whole system is frakked) Now phracts are about done and I'm in a tech battle.

Really interesting to look at the buildings you have or lack thereof. I am curious why that granary wasn't built. Did you use slavery? What were your civics?

I may try your approach for kick even though the game would be skewed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@tmi

Spoiler :

Impressive. I'd say your game is a good primer on having a plan and sticking to it. (I settled on the monkey food too) Although I planned some early warring (took out Monty), my plan was to beeline Phracts and go on the rampage. I did this and went after Liz with JC but he capped her before much damage was done. ( I think that whole system is frakked) Now phracts are about done and I'm in a tech battle.

Really interesting to look at the buildings you have or lack thereof. I am curious why that granary wasn't built. Did you use slavery? What were your civics?

I may try your approach for kick even though the game would be skewed.

Spoiler :

By the time I could build a granary, I had enough pop to work all the hill mines and was at the cap. It wasn't until much later when I got monarchy that the cap went up...and even then without water poisoning I could work the mines mostly. I probably should have built the granary after I got monarchy, just forgot since HAs were looped.

Tech rate was miserable of course though I overtook most of the AIs .

Slavery was not used. There are too many highly efficient food:hammer hill mines to merit slavery. My final civics were HR/vassalage/serfdom/default/theo. For most of the game, vassalage and serfdom were not available to me (I switched to serfdom kind of as a joke because I wasn't whipping and was SPI). I'd have obviously gone bureaucracy but I never got civil service (neither did anybody else). Once I extorted theo I swapped but never got those guys to the front because the game was over then.

 

[Sleepless]

Immortal Space Victory 1949

Spoiler :

I was going to try a violent game but with the excellent starting position and having lost the Asoka space race I thought I'd try this one first and go for a second game at Prince with the aim to have Cataphracts in use.

So with the the pigs in site and settling on the bananas for 1 extra food and late levees seemed the right way to go. Later on picking up horses and iron helped a bit as well.

Joao founded bud and spread it early to me. So as soon as I was able I spread it to JC and Monte. Could have struggled with having a peaceful game otherwise.

As per usual I went for the Mids first, once I had priest though I swapped for the Oracle and took MC. With a forge and OR that speed up the Mids/GLib builds. I was able to get marble from Monte which also enabled quick builds of Sistines/Parth. Those 2 did cause a bit of close border negatives until I had raised a few of JC's later by culture.

From there it was on to Edu, Econ for the GM then Lib. (Took Physics)

Managed to keep a tech lead for most of the game which isn't easy when you only have 1 city.

Techs at 1130.



With Monte and JC in the game it wasn't going to be peaceful although the first war was Mehmed v Joao. Later on they had another one and to get shared mil bonuses I bribed JC and Monte into it as well. Long term not such a good idea as JC vassalled Mehmed and would go onto have Biz/Liz and Monte as vassals as well.

I kept on changing JCs civics especially when he had constitution for fav civic bonus. Later on my civics changes of choice for him were Rep/Beau/Pac (that should have cost him a bit of troop upkeep . Managed to get him into SP after he founded Mining otherwise he wouldn't let me have any of his aluminium.

Now it was just a matter of trying to keep world peace although JC went into WHEEOH and out again around the 1850s otherwise game over if he attacked Joao then.

Had this offer from Joao which I wasn't keen to take up



JC didn't attack Joao this time. Might have something to do with me giving Joao lots of mil techs and him building his mil up though it didn't take long for JC to go back into war mode.

More bad news. Mehmed built the UN in 1904ish. Obvious winner of the elections was JC and if he had voted for a diplo victory he would have won easily. Luckily he fancied going into US more as he kept raising that as a vote instead.

I did get the Internet but had to do a lot of my own teching. Including rocketry which I gifted around to get some of the AI to tech satellites which worked as I got that from the net.

With JC back in war mode and having sent my ship off (20 turns). I managed a quick build of the Manhattan Project and started shipping tac nukes to Joao. Found out you can't gift ICBM's otherwise he would have some of them as well.

So with a few turns to go JC declared on Joao. Glad to see some of my Tacs were put to use.



With only 1 turn to go there I managed to land in space where I should have room for more than 1 city.

Thanks for hosting this Mad Scientist. Now to try a Cataphract game.

 

[Stochastic]

Wow, seeing TMIT's early conquest, my 1810 conquest seems paltry by comparison. I didn't start until I had Cataphracts, kept those up until I "liberalised" Rifling and switched to Cav. By the end I was getting one Combat IV Pinch Cavalry out per turn I decided to Cap everyone so that they would backfill cities for me and keep the number of cities for my next opponents to build down

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Start ----> Finish (1360 AD)

Hmm. Do we have a good HA strategy guide anywhere?

 

[Sleepless]

Hmm. Do we have a good HA strategy guide anywhere?

Yep use Epic speed as per the default.

After my space victory I thought lets go for cataphracts. Prince/Epic

Spoiler :

Copying Semi-ramis plan from the bullpen.



Definitely could have got here earlier if I had thought more about it. But managed an engineer from the early mc, possibility of a prophet. Took Machinery from the Oracle. Self teched feud and bulbed most of guilds. Popped 5 maps and 1 set of barbs early on so huts could have been luckier and should have had my library/writing earlier. I still need a few turns on Hbr then time to go vassal some people.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ I've taken out 2-3 civs on immortal with only horse archers on normal speed.

The reason there's no guide is that the principles are similar for all mounted after chariots: you're strong in the field, OK at hitting cities, and you have inordinate mobility such that you can threaten multiple cities with one stack. I blew right by some defended positions even in this game, to sack capitols, productive cities, etc. It's really a question of practice in picking one's battles.

 

[cripp7]

Default save 1020AD

Spoiler :

Here's my attempt with cataphracts

Built Oracle->MC, Mids, GW, ran an engineer and bulbed Machinery, got HG, tracked to Literature for TGL-HE, made a try at SP and got it! Now I'm just spamming cataphracts like crazy, Joao is just about dead

Spoiler :

Popped gold!

settled GG

 

[LuCiver]

Took a much different path than the rest...

Spoiler :

Figured with an OCC I didn't have to worry about REXing so I went religion. Settled on the banana and started with polytheism/warrior = Holy city #1. Worker techs next, then Priesthood->oracle->Col = Holy city #2. Focused on OB/trade networks and confu spread nicely. Monty, JC and Joao all converted so I followed suit. Set up to bulb Theocracy->AP and picked up Judaism and Christianity in the process = Holy city #3 and #4.

At this point I already had a big tech lead so just passed out techs like candy until the whole world (except Liz) was Confucian and pleased. Completed the Hindu AP 140 BC and was voted in unanimously and unopposed. While spreading hindu to my non-voting neighbors I bulbed Philosophy just for giggles and Holy city #5. In the latest round of voting I was re-elected unanimously by all my Confucian friends. Just got a hindu missionary to Liz so stage is set for an AP win on the next vote. I was tempted to hold out a little longer so I could bulb DR for Holy city #6. I think I would have done it if it was for #7, but Liz took buddhism.

Only one war the whole game (JC vs Monty), which I bribed for peace after JC took two cities. I liked my religious love-fest and didn't want Jules to become a monster and spoil it.

Posting away from home so no screenies ATM, will try to put one up with the final recap.

 

[cas]

Settled on banana. Default save.

Spoiler :

I'm still not very good at OCC conquest and had some problems in previous prince attempts...so I decided to take the default save. But even if I'd moved up to Monarch, this game still would have been very easy.

retired somewhere around 2000BC after I used chariots to take out the three eastern civs. Lost interest. No need to research beyond HBR on this one. The only 'problem' would have been Germany (after looking at the wb file) due to 2 copper. May have needed to research IW to finish him.

1) Horses + 2) epic speed + 3) no protective AI civs + 4) pangea = too easy.

I didn't play the GKhan game, but this couldn't have been much different.

Even if I didn't enjoy the individual game, thanks for hosting this series.

cas

 

[Sleepless]

@Cas/all - 1714AD

Spoiler :

That is why I deliberately avoided any early wars and would just use Cataphracts. To easy otherwise. Must admit it did take some time to take all the cities (should have split my forces up better) though but eventually vassalled everybody/killed Joao (wouldn't vassal to me but did to JC when he had one city left).

So conquest victory in 1714. Cataphracts built 77. Lost 44. 8 Great Generals one super medic the rest settled.

 

[semirami]

Spoiler :

Got XP 2 times from huts and HE was enabled 3800BC. Settled on Banana for the extra food. Guilds at 100BC. Used an engineer to hurry Globe, then whipped the capital to death. Phracts just eat praets for breakfast. 1000AD or so game over.

 

[beestar]

Were we supposed to go military on this one?

I used WB to set the game to Emperor/Epic but screwed up the start (forgot to give archery to the AIs and barbs, and for some reason I couldn't get rid of huts).

Spoiler :

Went for space.

I choked Monty early (easy since he only had a warrior - oops) and got the other AIs to dogpile for great diplo - I had all AIs at Friendly with me in the 1800s.

Unfortunately I lost in 1930 or so when Joao launched his spaceship about 10 turns before mine was ready. I threw around a few nukes, but there was no way I could reach and raze Lisbon with my puny OCC army.

In terms of higher level strategy, should have teched faster, and maybe embroiled the AIs in a war to distract them from space.

Some better detailed management would have helped: I shouldn't have been handing out the techs so liberally (was trying to accelerate the tech pace), and could have workshopped over my lands earlier. Could have acquired aluminium a bit earlier as I realized a few turns late that Julius could trade it.

Oh well, at least an OCC is a quick game.

 

[Sleepless]

@Beestar

Looking at the start I wanted to try a fast (failed but won) immortal space race. Much better starting position than Asoka/Ghengis. Had to do a military game as well though but as for what you should play. Military/Space/Diplo etc. Whatever you find most fun.