One-City Challenge Functionality

[Gidoza]

Not a huge deal, but I noticed something about how One-City Challenge works that makes the game rather funky and un-fun.

Namely, that if you capture a city, it simply vanishes instantly. This isn't quite how I imagined this challenge's working, because this generates a couple of problems.

1. The biggest problem is that the AI can't take its city back if there's some opportunity to do so, because it just vanishes.

2. The presumption of one-city challenge (except if Venice, I suppose) from my point of view is that I won't settle anything new and won't annex anything. Puppets give limited advantages to non-venice civs and so I wouldn't imagine that that would really count against the challenge (if anything, having said puppeted cities and never being able to raze or annex them might cause more problems than not and genuinely be part of the challenge).


I think the main issue is #1, but I'm curious what others think - can the challenge be changed somewhat? My idea would simply be the following:

1. If a city is captured, it is automatically put into "Raze" mode.

2. A city that can't be razed is automatically puppeted. Annexation is never possible.

3. Settlers cannot be constructed. If something would have given you a settler (like Pyramids or Authority policy choice), receive 2 new citizens in your Capital and 100 Culture (scaling with Era).

 

[CrazyG]

You cannot liberate cities either, which can be annoying.

I don't think you should be able to puppet cities in OCC, its not one city then!

The biggest improvement the OCC could get is extra supply. I used to play them all the time, last time I tried I had like 5 supply, I managed for a while but you just cannot defend yourself.

If something would have given you a settler (like Pyramids or Authority policy choice), receive 2 new citizens in your Capital and 100 Culture (scaling with Era).

Scaling with era? You building the pyramids often in Medieval?

 

[Stalker0]

You cannot liberate cities either, which can be annoying.

I don't think you should be able to puppet cities in OCC, its not one city then!

The biggest improvement the OCC could get is extra supply. I used to play them all the time, last time I tried I had like 5 supply, I managed for a while but you just cannot defend yourself.


Scaling with era? You building the pyramids often in Medieval?

The key to supply in one city challenge are wonders, which never be a problem for you to get.

Terra-cotta Great Wall already gets you a healthy supply for holding one city

 

[CrazyG]

The key to supply in one city challenge are wonders, which never be a problem for you to get.

Terra-cotta Great Wall already gets you a healthy supply for holding one city

Can you explain how they "never are a problem for you to get?" Great Wall goes really fast, like its sometimes built before I can get the tech at all.

If I build terra-cotta, I have 8 supply instead of 5? I recall a game where I had great wall and himeji castle, and in industrial era I had like 6 supply. I don't think that's enough. I used to play OCC very often and really enjoyed them, but now I feel like I lose the moment anyone declares war on me past industrial era.

 

[Gidoza]

You cannot liberate cities either, which can be annoying.

I don't think you should be able to puppet cities in OCC, its not one city then!

I think you're missing my point.

The idea of "one-city challenge" is that it's supposed to limit the player by putting literal roadblocks on what the player is able to do, and thus create the challenge.

What *actually* happens is that the type of roadblocks that have been instituted completely change the game.

One-city challenge shouldn't change the game; it just just limited your options. I think the proposal in my OP describes the challenge properly.

 

[CrazyG]

One-city challenge shouldn't change the game; it just just limited your options.

I am missing your point, specifically this sentence. The one-city challenge setting changes several settings, some of which are outright buffs. For example, your national wonders have a lower minimum population, which is a serious benefit. This is done because otherwise, you'd probably never get to build them, or build them extremely late. Your suggestion to change the pyramids or authority policy are also big game changers. I think the point of OCC is to challenge yourself to win a game with one city.

If you wanted to change that, but not be able to build settlers or annex cities, you could just play a game with a self-imposed rule that you don't build settlers or annex cities.

 

[zxcvbob]

The only thing really wrong with OCC is there is no option to liberate cities. If the city could be liberated, there should be an option to do so or raze it. I'm not sure the razes should be instantaneous, but that's not as bad as no liberation.

 

[Gidoza]

I am missing your point, specifically this sentence. The one-city challenge setting changes several settings, some of which are outright buffs. For example, your national wonders have a lower minimum population, which is a serious benefit. This is done because otherwise, you'd probably never get to build them, or build them extremely late. Your suggestion to change the pyramids or authority policy are also big game changers. I think the point of OCC is to challenge yourself to win a game with one city.

If you wanted to change that, but not be able to build settlers or annex cities, you could just play a game with a self-imposed rule that you don't build settlers or annex cities.

See I'd personally disagree with the change to National Wonders - the population while razing a city counts towards that, and so that's a framework in which a player could force it to work even if with only a single city the player normally couldn't: at the end, there's still one city.

And even with Puppets: really, those are providing little to no bonus, and you can't build stuff there, either. Not really a city. A city is only a city in any meaningful way if it's annexed. Consequently, the only thing to change is free Settlers - because you *should* be getting something for those instances, the only issue being that you can't use what you get, so compensation is in order.

 

[CrazyG]

So if I understand correclty, your idea of the OCC is

1) You cannot annex.
2) You cannot build settlers.
3) Free settlers have some other bonus, like the pyarmids and stuff.

1 & 2 are already possible, just don't click annex and build settlers. What about this isn't good enough? For a game that you don't pick authority or build pyramids, you already can play exactly as you want to.

 

[Gidoza]

So if I understand correclty, your idea of the OCC is

1) You cannot annex.
2) You cannot build settlers.
3) Free settlers have some other bonus, like the pyarmids and stuff.

1 & 2 are already possible, just don't click annex and build settlers. What about this isn't good enough? For a game that you don't pick authority or build pyramids, you already can play exactly as you want to.

Most games I've played enable the option just to make it smoother to play that way (self-control is - believe it or not - an issue). I'm just not sure what game the current OCC is attempting to create, as the effects are rather odd. Vanishing cities, no liberation, etc...it's not (properly speaking) a OCC - it's some other game with different rules and really throws one for a loop.

 

[Gazebo]

OCC is a niche option, I'm not planning on catering to it (for the sake of option bloat).

 

[zxcvbob]

I played it one time (Ethiopia) and thought it was hilarious. Assyria declared war on me; I killed his siege towers and then when his other units started retreating I chased them down and killed them too, then took his capital. *Poof*. Later in the game did something similar to Japan, but the really funny thing that happened was when Tokyo flipped to me due to unhappiness and it vanished.

The annoying things were (besides previously mentioned no liberating captured city-states): I couldn't sell buildings and upgrade/heal my troops while the cities razed. And my city was not on the coast, so no navy and no cargo ships.

 

[CrazyG]

OCC is a niche option, I'm not planning on catering to it (for the sake of option bloat).

G, I do play these pretty often and have some feedback. How would you feel about.................

-Giving a little bit more supply (like +2 base)
-Making some national wonders have a higher minimum population. Oxford is a big one, as rushing it is actually a very strong strategy.

The option to liberate would be nice too, but I'm expecting that would require code.

 

[zxcvbob]

G, I do play these pretty often and have some feedback. How would you feel about.................

-Giving a little bit more supply (like +2 base)
-Making some national wonders have a higher minimum population. Oxford is a big one, as rushing it is actually a very strong strategy.

The option to liberate would be nice too, but I'm expecting that would require code.

Why would you rush Oxford, rather than save it for Radio or Dynamite? For the +3 science? Just curious.

 

[CrazyG]

Why would you rush Oxford, rather than save it for Radio or Dynamite? For the +3 science? Just curious.

Are you playing the full community patch? It gives a great scientist, not a free tech like in vanilla. Its smart to plant that scientist for an academy immediately.

 

[ColonelCarter]

Also the 75 culture (era scaling) per tech researched. That's more than completed Progress gives.

 

[zxcvbob]

Are you playing the full community patch? It gives a great scientist, not a free tech like in vanilla. Its smart to plant that scientist for an academy immediately.

No, is the Community Patch forum? Sorry, I didn't notice that. I'm playing BNW, with G&K and all the other DLC but no mods or patches.

But I'm going to try building Oxford early to see if that early-ish +3 science is significant; it might be worth more than a strategic free tech later.

 

[Gidoza]

No, is the Community Patch forum? Sorry, I didn't notice that. I'm playing BNW, with G&K and all the other DLC but no mods or patches.

But I'm going to try building Oxford early to see if that early-ish +3 science is significant; it might be worth more than a strategic free tech later.

Haha yes this is the Community Patch forum - might I suggest that it's worth trying out.

I played it one time (Ethiopia) and thought it was hilarious. Assyria declared war on me; I killed his siege towers and then when his other units started retreating I chased them down and killed them too, then took his capital. *Poof*. Later in the game did something similar to Japan, but the really funny thing that happened was when Tokyo flipped to me due to unhappiness and it vanished.

The annoying things were (besides previously mentioned no liberating captured city-states): I couldn't sell buildings and upgrade/heal my troops while the cities razed. And my city was not on the coast, so no navy and no cargo ships.

I think you've illustrated all the issues with attempting to play with it and the ridiculousness associated with it. Actually it's solely in this play mode that Capitals can disappear...and City-States. And not being in the coast kind of makes the game difficult...