One City Challenge help

[HolyFlare484]

So, I gave myself the challenge of trying to beat the OCC on every Civ game, and so far, I've beaten 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Now, time for the problems: Not only is Civ1 my weakest game, but I also feel that it's the hardest mainline game, and I have yet to find a single OCC guide for this game. I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to Civ1. I only got my one and only space race victory by guessing and hoping for the best.

Do the bigger minds of Civ1 have any tips and guides that I can use in my quest? I will need it.

 

[Mize]

It's usually a coin toss on Emperor unless you use some luck manipulation, but it's actually pretty easy on lower difficulties, as the AI builds, grows and researches slower than the player as opposed to faster. To prove a point, I just banged an OCC game out in under two hours on Prince. Could've took 15 more minutes to build a full-sized ship, but decided I'd had enough.

If you look around this subsection of the forums you'll find lots of threads and comments with tips and stories about OCC. The general idea is to grow as quickly as possible (republic/democracy + celebrations), build up a solid tech lead and stockpile cash and caravans after you max out your city and secure its defense. The Colossus and Copernicus' Observatory are your friends, so is min-maxing cash and science. The only problem you might have is if a large civ with lots of cities catches up with you in space technology because it is able to build several ship parts per turn. You on the other hand can only build one and need at least 14 turns for a slow ship with one engine and a minimum of 18 if you want a faster ship with two engines, provided that you have the cash and caravans to spend.

 

[Tristan_C]

Some crutches for higher diff, in ascending order of crutchiness

- Tech the republic. This isn't a crutch, it's just definitively the government to use for OCC. Anarchy is minimized if you switch on a turn that's a multiple of 4, minus 1, or right on that turn and reload. Republic can be postponed until after the wheel and bronze working if applicable.

- Second starting settler and/or extra techs are awarded based on rival proximity and the strength of the starting tile as a potential settlement site. Randomly getting the second settler (requires no food upkeep) or popping the capital from a nearby hut (effectively the same thing since you can now keep your first settler on the field) snowballs into a lot of saved turns and growth.

- Tech the wheel first and clear your region out, or be ready to gift tech regularly to the neighbor AI. The latter option is reasonable, because the AI doesn't leverage tech with the panache of a human. I'm brave and stupid, so I will always choose the former option anyway, given the choice. It's important to only takedown cities with 1 pop in order to keep it OCC. Genocide is over once city walls start appearing. I think you cannot wipe out a walled city without diplomats (saboteurs), artillery, or bombers.

- Buy buildings and switch: buildings are 2g per remaining shield, while wonders are 4g and units are (remaining * 2) + (remaining^2 / 20)

- The AIs are awarded wonders like a random event. They don't actually build them. Chances are high that you will win the Colossus, regardless, if you prioritize it (it only needs BW), but I guess you can insist on the matter by save-scumming. It will put you in space hundreds of years earlier than without. When I did an emp OCC, I built 3 units as a garrison that the city could grow into while building it.

- Once you have a city, any huts you pop on high difficulty are 25% likely to be barbs. Whether you want to scum huts for good results or not is up to you. It isn't necessary.

- The fast settler cheat, reactivating settlers in progress improving, also isn't necessary.