One city challenge science victory

[Khal Drogo]

So I want to try a one city challenge with Babylon on immortal. I've never played on immortal before nor have I ever tried to win a science victory. I really like to have one city though and seeing it grow and prosper. As far as I see it a science victory is much easier with more cities, but I could be wrong. What is a must do to win a science victory with one city? And does it even make sense to rush to the Great Library?

 

[Memoryjar]

It's a Gods and King guide, but it's a good start.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=467359

Great Library seems to be impossible in Immortal.
I try OOC SV on Emperor. I think GL is a dangerous gamble and prefer build library and caravan instead GL.

 

[Khal Drogo]

Yeah I plan on playing a marathon game, so I would really hurt if I didn't get the GL. I think I'll skip it and aim for the PT instead. Thanks for the guide.

 

[Deau]

Both ToA and HG each provide significantly more leverage over OCC than GL

 

[Khal Drogo]

Didn't manage to build either of them, (didn't even try) but I got the Oracle instead. Not the greatest wonder, but +1 GS point and a policy is not horrible. Even managed to destroy one of Odas cities. He'll be a huge problem in the future, so I don't know if I should focus on taking him out of the game completely. What happens when you conquer a capital in a OCC anyway?

 

[Browd]

In OCC, a conquered capital is insta-razed the moment you conquer it.

 

[Memoryjar]

Both ToA and HG each provide significantly more leverage over OCC than GL

I agree. It's the best thing I learn through the guide.
Also, ToA help you to have decent range army to avoid or win early war with you neighboor.
Don't etablish ambassy before you have 3 to 4 archers. If you do, AI use to Dow you early.

 

[Khal Drogo]

I lost on turn 650 due to 3-4 DoW. I survived long enough to kill a ton of Ethiopian and Japanese units, but eventually Japan was just too strong. My production was crap as was my science output. Would you recommend to stay very defensive, please everybody and rush to the atomic bomb? Oda took a lot of my territory, so I thought I had to take him out, but 3 civs against me was really my fault.

E: Second game. Again Oda was right next to me. A screenshot to let you see how far I am away of winning this.

 

[joshua43214]

I lost on turn 650 due to 3-4 DoW. I survived long enough to kill a ton of Ethiopian and Japanese units, but eventually Japan was just too strong. My production was crap as was my science output. Would you recommend to stay very defensive, please everybody and rush to the atomic bomb? Oda took a lot of my territory, so I thought I had to take him out, but 3 civs against me was really my fault.

E: Second game. Again Oda was right next to me. A screenshot to let you see how far I am away of winning this.

your SS says it all, your researching Steel, you should not be anywhere near this tech until you are making the run for Plastics. Pikes are almost as powerful as long swords and are on the natural tech path to SV.

Are you selling embassies early? You should never do this in OCC (should really never do it at all) until after T75ish on standard speed.

Not much you can do when an expansionist is less than 10 tiles away and decides to ring you in. You can either choose to continue and hope you did not need any of the 5ring stuff or just retire. I play a ton of OCC, and I very seldom end up in a war and I seldom have more than 4 units until I start getting CS gifts.

EDIT: Do Not rush Atomic Bomb, you will not have time to muck around building the wonder, let alone the bombs. Just rush to Plastics, then satellites like any SV.

 

[Acken]

Try it first with a good start with a mountain for observatory.

 

[casualplayer]

A couple things. Oracle is awesome for Babylon because of the Great Scientist points it provides that are multiplied by their unique ability. Actually Oracle is just awesome, any civ, any victory condition. A free Social Policy is just that good.

Great Library is entirely possible on Immortal, if you can finish it by Turn 40. Every turn after that is borrowed time. You can chop it out and with Babylon's early Academy-fueled BPT you could possibly even Theology slingshot.

Even though you are shooting for OCC you are going to want to pick fights to produce Great Generals to create Citadels. It expands your borders, giving you access to new luxes and resources, plus Citadels discourage attackers. So pick fights even if you don't really want to win. It will level up your Bowmen, making them better defenders, and get you some GG points.

Other than that I highly recommend moving your Settler because you can't do well at OCC with an just OK cap location. Settling Turn 5 in a good location is better than Turn 0 in a poor one.

 

[Khal Drogo]

Thanks for the comments. How do I generate more science with one city? There's the Library, University, Oxford and other than that I really have no idea. Maybe I underestimate research agreements, even though I sign them every time I got a chance.

 

[Cromagnus]

your SS says it all, your researching Steel, you should not be anywhere near this tech until you are making the run for Plastics. Pikes are almost as powerful as long swords and are on the natural tech path to SV.

Are you selling embassies early? You should never do this in OCC (should really never do it at all) until after T75ish on standard speed.

Not much you can do when an expansionist is less than 10 tiles away and decides to ring you in. You can either choose to continue and hope you did not need any of the 5ring stuff or just retire. I play a ton of OCC, and I very seldom end up in a war and I seldom have more than 4 units until I start getting CS gifts.

EDIT: Do Not rush Atomic Bomb, you will not have time to muck around building the wonder, let alone the bombs. Just rush to Plastics, then satellites like any SV.

Are you saying not to sell embassies early because the AI will forward-settle if you do? Or are you saying to wait so that you get the gpt all at once later?? Or so that you can trade embassies evenly? Personally, I find the +1gpt early more valuable than the alternative. Although I definitely avoid selling my embassy to warlike AIs until I've seen that they've scouted me anyway. There is one other conceivable reason: To thwart spying. If an AI doesn't find you until later in the game, your cultural boundaries might prevent them from seeing your capital. But that seems like pretty convoluted reasoning.

 

[casualplayer]

If you let other civs have an embassy in your cap they will always know what you are building, what units are present, what improvements you've made, what your city's defense is. The computer will always "peek" at your part of the map. If I'm gunning for a competitive Wonder, like Great Library or Petra, I don't allow embassies until afterwards because someone will snipe it.

 

[Memoryjar]

Other than that I highly recommend moving your Settler because you can't do well at OCC with an just OK cap location. Settling Turn 5 in a good location is better than Turn 0 in a poor one.

I agree. I experimented it and settle in non-coastal tile. I thought be on continents or pangea (random map). I realized few turn after, I was effectively on a continent, but alone with two CS.
No trade route with AI = No research agreement before World congress. So too late.

 

[Cromagnus]

If you let other civs have an embassy in your cap they will always know what you are building, what units are present, what improvements you've made, what your city's defense is. The computer will always "peek" at your part of the map. If I'm gunning for a competitive Wonder, like Great Library or Petra, I don't allow embassies until afterwards because someone will snipe it.

So you're saying the computer only cheats in this way if you give them an embassy? I could imagine that for later in the game the AI might *always* put a spy in the player's city, but for the early game, it seems silly that without a spy, the AI only "cheats" in this way if you give them an embassy.

None of that info except city size and defensive strength should be apparent from an embassy unless they're cheating. Which they probably are, I'll concede that. But why would they need an embassy?

 

[Khal Drogo]

I'll try a diplo victory with Venice today. I want to see if the problem is the difficulty or the science victory. And I've read I should put my city on food focus when going for a one city challenge. What do you think about that?

 

[tommynt]

If you let other civs have an embassy in your cap they will always know what you are building, what units are present, what improvements you've made, what your city's defense is. The computer will always "peek" at your part of the map. If I'm gunning for a competitive Wonder, like Great Library or Petra, I don't allow embassies until afterwards because someone will snipe it.

you REALLY believe that?

Please stop spreading such stuff which is OBVIOUSLY not true.
AI is dumb as hell...

To OP:
learn game mechanics ...
there are LAODS of threads here help u doing so.

 

[Cromagnus]

I'll try a diplo victory with Venice today. I want to see if the problem is the difficulty or the science victory. And I've read I should put my city on food focus when going for a one city challenge. What do you think about that?

If you're not already micromanaging your tiles, you're not ready to try OCC. Always manually lock every tile. Never use food focus unless you're stagnating at low surplus food, which you should never be doing for OCC. Food focus is useful in that one case because if a unit blockades a tile (or tiles in the case of a naval unit) it can starve your city down a population point. But you should still have your tiles manually locked. Production focus is always the way to go when growing, so that when your city grows you get extra production that turn. But immediately lock the tile the turn it grows. Also don't forget to verify your tile selection is optimal whenever your cultural boundaries expand

For learning to micromanage tiles, you might find it easier at first to use the UI Notifications mod, which alerts you when your cultural boundaries expand and when your city grows, even beyond 5 population. Without that mod, unfortunately, you just need to keep checking your city (all cities normally) regularly to see when it will grow/expand.

Good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Memoryjar]

Without that mod, unfortunately, you just need to keep checking your city (all cities normally) regularly to see when it will grow/expand.

Unfortunately too. I often miss one or two turn because I forgot to check a city.
For me, it's the main difficulty in OCC : micromanagement. Where's allways two or more things to check every turn : tiles, lux trad, RA, DoF, Science, Build or rush, move units…
And when one or two no action turn pass, I sometines «next turn» again saying myself : «Damned, I missed to trad this lux».

Special mention for this last action since the patch. When AI want an agreement during his turn, I can't adjust gold per turn to the right level and have to wait my turn to go back diplomacy screen. And at last, I can retrade for 7 gpt this lux.

Do you have the same trouble since the last patch ? Or there's a way to fix this bug ?