One City Challenge on King (or higher) and Pangea Map

[RedRover57]

Has anyone been able to complete the OCC on King or higher on a pangea map? It was easy on King with an archipelago map and Siam - I ended up with a diplomatic victory but could have easily won by cultural (all I had left to build was the Utopia Project) or domination (I could have taken out the entire world with my 2 infantry and 2 destroyers - both heavily promoted from original warriors and triremes).

But pangea is a different story. Every attempt for me on King or above has the same issues - lack of gold, slow teching due to low science, lack of resources (unless you have iron in your city zone you are in real trouble). I can usually hold off the AI for a while, but my economy usually does me in.

Anyone have a success story? If so, what was your strategy? I'm a bit obsessed with trying to achieve this now.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Yes, I won a Cultural Victory:

Spoiler :

This was my second attempt at it. You need to ally with Maritime city-states, that's for sure. I was only able to grab two in this game unfortunately and my start wasn't too stellar either. You need to spam trading posts for gold (having a start with Gold/Silver or plenty of other luxuries helps) and run as many scientist specialists as possible to to keep up in technology, prioritizing libraries, universities, National College, etc.

 

[aimlessgun]

Posted this in another thread, but I guess I'll link it here: Deity standard pangea pacifist diplo win.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9855026&postcount=34

I agree with everything Jedi said. Spam tradeposts to get money to sink into City states, as Patronage is the obvious Social Policy you'll want to pursue. Half my science in that win came from city states.

For defense, you can do what I did and roll with the "2 scouts 1 warrior until 20 turns from the end" method, where you keep bribing the AI into wars with each other. It takes a bit of practice though, I failed a few times while getting the hang of it.

If you don't get strat resources (I didn't in that game) you'll have to rely on city states.

Don't forget to keep selling those open borders, all day every day, along with any luxuries you have.

Oh and Diplomatic is by far the fastest, easiest and cheesiest victory to achieve.

 

[pickle]

had a go at it, but got left behind in tech, had no lux, no food surplus tiles and rome went on a binge of destroying city states then liz got longbows and took over the world.

 

[RedRover57]

Aimless, that is pretty impressive considering your central location. I would have thought that being somewhat isolated (at least to one side with maybe a natural barrier like mountains) would be key. In my attempts so far I have not been lucky enough to find maritime CS early (let alone have the cash to buy them off). Plus in one game I was on a cross-shaped map and sitting at the intersection, with Rome north, Arabia to the east, Japan west and Alex south. Needless to say they all wanted to expand to my small plot of land in the center!

 

[Tanix]

Aimless, that is pretty impressive considering your central location. I would have thought that being somewhat isolated (at least to one side with maybe a natural barrier like mountains) would be key. In my attempts so far I have not been lucky enough to find maritime CS early (let alone have the cash to buy them off). Plus in one game I was on a cross-shaped map and sitting at the intersection, with Rome north, Arabia to the east, Japan west and Alex south. Needless to say they all wanted to expand to my small plot of land in the center!

Indeed, that is impressive. I had an immortal cultural OCC victory that was peaceful, however my start was far easier to maintain peace. Buffered on one side by a city state and crap land on the other which ended up as only refugee cities of conquered nations.

 

[dubrown]

I've only done one OCC so far in CiV, on Immortal as Alexander/Greece on a highland map. My aim was a diplowin. Unfortunately I lost out because I just couldn't get enough votes. The AI was atleast bright enough to kill of enough city-states to make me two short of a win and before I was able to liberate any of them Ramessess managed a space victory on me.

I did quite some mistakes in this one and was a bit slow in research, with my goal on globalisation I did fall behind a bit in military techs and wasn't really strong enough to take on the most prominent AIs. It really didn't help either to have Monty next door, but on the other hand, a highland map has plenty of chokepoints that a human can utilize to max effect while the AI really can't handle it well. Unfortunately chokepoints doesn't help you much if you need to liberate a city-state on the other side of the map...

 

[aimlessgun]

I would have thought that being somewhat isolated (at least to one side with maybe a natural barrier like mountains) would be key. In my attempts so far I have not been lucky enough to find maritime CS early (let alone have the cash to buy them off). Plus in one game I was on a cross-shaped map and sitting at the intersection, with Rome north, Arabia to the east, Japan west and Alex south. Needless to say they all wanted to expand to my small plot of land in the center!

With OCC it's tempting to just blow all your money on city states because you have so very little of it. But you have to budget for bribing other civs if you're in a central location. Ideally you want any neighbor not in a PoC with you to be at war permanently.

In my game I got lucky with having 3 luxury resources to sell. That third luxury is a whole 10 gpt! I didn't get any strat resources though (each 'unit' of a strat resource is worth 1.5 gpt so they're also quite valuable economically).

Your cross shaped game sounds like it would have taken some luck to win. 4 adjacent AI's is probably too expensive to hold at bay just with bribes, some of them would have to fight amongst themselves of their own accord.

 

[RedRover57]

Alex does seem like a good choice since he has strong enough troops to fend off early aggressive neighbors, plus the CS bonus if you do find some maritime CS early. I have been trying with Persia since long GA's will be nice in mid-late game, but getting to that point is the problem. China is suited for expansion, but also seems like a strong choice for OCC. With Oligarchy, CKN and a GG you would have very strong defenses early. However for an average player like myself, it seems like the biggest factor is luck with a good starting position: somewhat isolated, long stretch of river/hills/plains, maritime CS nearby, defensible city position (mountains or other natural barrier).

 

[RedRover57]

Your cross shaped game sounds like it would have taken some luck to win. 4 adjacent AI's is probably too expensive to hold at bay just with bribes, some of them would have to fight amongst themselves of their own accord.

The cross-shaped game was an extreme. Not only did the other civs all have to go through me to get to each other (and I didn't give them OB), but there was a luxury rich area a few tiles from my border (out of my reach even with buying) that they all wanted badly. My scouts were stuck in the middle as well so all I found during the entire game were 2 cultural and one militaristic CS. And my city was not on the water so I was land-locked. The land was shaped more like a German cross, with very narrow passages to all 4 "peninsulas". Was very interesting.

 

[aimlessgun]

Ah being landlocked sucks. Much easier to explore from the seas. I didn't actually build boats until much later, but I unlocked Rennaisance via Navigation, so I got embarkment quite early, and the ability for my embarked scouts to run around the ocean a bit later

I think you need the money from selling open borders. If you have a PoS with 2 guys that's still 5 OB sales: 250g every 30 turns (over 8 gpt!) is nothing to sneeze at when you're a cash strapped OCC.


Even though I didn't build any of his unique units, Alex's unique ability alone was key in my game, so if you're utilizing the completely overpowered Companion Cav. then he has to be the clear winner.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

The cross-shaped game was an extreme. Not only did the other civs all have to go through me to get to each other (and I didn't give them OB), but there was a luxury rich area a few tiles from my border (out of my reach even with buying) that they all wanted badly. My scouts were stuck in the middle as well so all I found during the entire game were 2 cultural and one militaristic CS. And my city was not on the water so I was land-locked. The land was shaped more like a German cross, with very narrow passages to all 4 "peninsulas". Was very interesting.

Could you not have culture bombed to get those nearby luxuries?

 

[RedRover57]

Could you not have culture bombed to get those nearby luxuries?

Heh, there was no chance for a Great Artist really. All my citizens needed to work food tiles without maritime CS allies, and I had no river tiles or other good 3-food tiles. Plus I had to work gold tiles for money (I was always under 10 gpt anyway) and hammer tiles to at least have a measly production rate. I don't think the game lasted past 150 turns as Rome and Arabia both declared on me early, and Alex joined in later. I fought them off for a surprisingly long time considering I had a total of 3 archers and 2 swords as was at constant war from about turn 50. The only reason I had swords was from buying and somehow maintaining relations with one of the cultural CS that had iron (I had no iron within my borders). So most of what little gold I had went to that CS. As I said - extreme case.