The Beginner’s Guide to the One City Challenge (OCC)

[Heeringas]

OCC is a great!
I hope I can make super cities like that in my next " normal" game

One question: why Colonies are gone from Civ4?
I think they were interesting part of former one, while you didn´need to build horsehockey cities...and you had to defend them quite well aginst the enemy...

 

[Bezhukov]

The nice thing about Great Merchants (super specialists) is that you can use them to support more regular merchant specialists, which increase your chances of making more, etc... I got a city up to 40 pop doing this (non-OCC game) by the time I got bored around 2000AD. The city had 19 merchant specialists and was making 320 GPP/turn!

Not sure what you'd use all the gold for on a OCC though...

 

[microbe]

I've tried multiple times on Prince and got kicked by AI's space victory.

I'm trying again, and this time I'm going to beeling to Internet in the later game, because I couldn't research faster enough.

 

[bobtheflob]

I usually like to cheat when I play OCC. I'll go to the world builder and put resources near my city. I find it's the only way to stay competetive on Prince level (which is what I play normally). The resources combined with not having to worry about expanding allow me to get out to early leads. I feel like the hare against the tortoise though in the late game as I can see the AIs closing in on me. I find that starting a religion is pretty important for the money that it brings in. Because I usually need a pretty big military, it's much easier if I can pay to upgrade my troops.

Most recently I modded Rhye's 18 civ world map to make it a OCC and I'm playing with Germany (I also made Bismarck the leader for the industrial trait). My culture is giving Paris and Rome serious issues. I've had to fight pretty constant wars with France, Rome, the Russians, and the Arabians, sometimes 2 at once, so it's been pretty tough. I just got Riflemen, which is better than anything my enemies have, so it appears the tide may be turning. I plan on winning a Space Race victory, it's the only way I've been able to win OCC games.

 

[Karstedt]

I'l have to give this a shot, sounds pretty fun. A couple of things before I get started though.

1) As some asked earlier, can it be modded to allow the construction of the "semi-special" religious buildings?

2) Does war unhappyness effect the AI the same way it effects the player? If it does, I would see no point in every ending a war with a rival civ. Having the Globe Theater in your 1 city would spare you any negatives, while constantly increasing the rivals happyness penalty; effectively crippling thier cities production and growth with unworkable population. I've always been a fan of, "Never give up, never surrender", when it comes to warring, but in the OCC it would seem like a real tactical advantage. 2000 years of war could really piss off your rivals population.

 

[Ogrelord]

^^ 2. no cuz the AI will do anything to get his happyness up.. trade for happy ressources, civics, happy buildings.


I love OCC!! I learn alot on how to micro manage a city to get its full efficency and all the little nuance on tiles improvement maximization.
For a variety play on OCC, try it with permanent alliance.

 

[Periander]

*Please note, this is just a startup, not a complete strategy.*

My little OCC startup involves using Saladin as your leader, and the key point is rushing to the Pyramids. It allows you to not only keep up scientifically, but lead on all but the hardest difficulties. Though, like all OCC strategies, victory is hard...

It's also flexible enough to allow you to defend against AIs and Barbarians, (if you choose to put them on).

Also, Saladin is Spiritual, which gives you the added bonus of being able to switch Civics and Religions straight away, which is very handy indeed when dealing with heathens, (you can switch Religions and Civics to mimic them for a bit, to obtain better deals).

You can also adapt this strategy for normal play quite easily.

General Build Queue:

Barracks (while size < 2) -> Worker -> Pyramids (chop rush) -> Barracks -> Walls (if barbarians) -> Warrior/Axeman (while nothing else to build) -> Library -> Research -> Great Library -> National Epic

General Science Queue:

Masonry -> [Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry] AND/OR [Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working (if no copper found)] -> Polytheism -> Writing -> Alphabet -> Literature -> [Priesthood -> Code of Laws -> Civil Service] AND/OR [Meditation -> Drama -> Philosophy] AND/OR [Monotheism]

Desired Early Civics:

Representation -- Bureaucracy -- Slavery -- Decentralisation -- Pacifism

Firstly, I'll set my warrior to explore a bit. Once he's found a few huts, I'll bring him home.

I usually just build on the starting tile. If in a few turns I find it unsuitable, I'll regenerate the map, (generally though, you can make do with what you get).

Once you have the Pyramids, you will start producing great people. Do NOT use the Great Engineers to build wonders quickly, make them all super specialists. The one exception to this is the Great Scientists, make an Academy with your first one.

I would leave religions to your neighbours, eventually, they'll pass one, two or even three on to you. Don't make it your State Religion unless you have a Religious Civic. You could go for Monotheism after Literature to get the building bonus, if you have a religion by that stage. If you don't have a religion, and it doesn't like you will, after literature, go straight for Meditation, Drama and Philosophy.

I like to hold off on religion for aslong as possible, (so I can be close to Free Religion, and can switch to it immediately if my heathen neighbours appear to be gearing up for war against me). So sometimes I'll go Priesthood, Code of Laws, Civil Service after Literature, to get Bureaucracy.

However, I find Pacifism very helpful to this strategy, so I'll usually bite the bullet and adopt a State Religion once I have Philosophy, (or use Taoism if I get it and no one around me has a religion).

Once you get Alphabet, you can build Research, and you can trade Research. I would trade asap for early technologies that are handy, like Pottery.

My next step after all of this would be Liberalism, (pick up Gunpowder if you get the free technology), then Democracy. It depends on how you want to play though ofcourse.

Also, Mercantilism is handy, but having no Foreign Trade Routes with only one city is going to hurt. Free Market isn't far off, so I'd usually go for that.

Good luck!

By Periander and OzAvatar

 

[WaxonWaxov]

One question: why Colonies are gone from Civ4?

OCC is the only time I've ever missed the Colonies from CIV III. Wait a minute... what am I saying? I only played Civ III for about three games. I never got the hang of it, never liked it. I played Civ II until the day I got Civ IV.

In short, colonies are gone because they really didn't make sense. If you're in England and you want tobacco, you need to send people to Virginia to grow it. If there are people there, they why wouldn't there be a city there?

 

[Tauro]

I made an experiment today, after reading the last HOF guantlet, so I decided to go for monty on a small pangea, quick speed, noble.
I popped near a coast, so I decided to move the settler and build the city near the clam.
I immediately went for bw, so I started building a worker.
three squares far from me were the germans, four squares Hatty.
I discovered bw, but I had no bronze :|
My city was ner a river and flood plains, so was grewing in a incredible way! I switched to slavery and soon I had three archers that razed berlin before discovering IW.
First surprise: I was totally new to OCC so I was very disappointed to see berlin destroyed, what a beautiful place :|
I kept warring with egipthians, discovered IW: same story of bronze, no iron!
Damn...
Anyway I built two jags and razed Thebe in 2000 BC
At that moment I was thinking to achieve the fastest victory ever, with only two opponents, then I noticed that the AI is able to build more cities
Damn, I'm n000000000000000000000b!!
Anyway I came to a conquest win in 1500 AD vas louis and mansa with cats and elephants, very funny.
Probably I could have won in 800/900 AD couse I had a totally wrong tech path. I researched the useless priesthood, meditation, feudalism instead of horse riding and construction...

 

[Thomas G.]

Inspired by this, I started an OCC too.
Noble, Tiny Pangea, Gandhi, 4 other civs.

Not content with simply winning the game(by some military rush method), I wanted to get as much culture generated in the city as possible (to grab as much land as I could).

This I then proceeded to do by founding ALL religions and NOT converting to any of them. This way I generated 5 culture for every religion. Meditation and Polytheism came early enough to stake out quite a bit of land at the early game. I got stonehenge, pyramids, GL and oracle (for Civil service) for early wonders, and built all monasterys (which might have helped research too) I culture-razed 2 cities before AI learnt to keep their distance...Built some more wonders, as well as national wonders for culture too. Sistine chapel helped, as I added quite a few GPs to the city (representation + sistine bonus applies to them). The GPs that add money take care of your upkeep and upgrading needs.

This was a fun game, probably not optimal as I had pretty weak defenses (under 10 units) for 4500 years. It was good to see myself leading in land area around AD500 with my one city compared to enemies 5-6-7.

I guess I cheated by putting 4 other civs on a tiny continent, though.

 

[WastinTime]

Victory Conditions:
A culture win is impossible for a human player on an OCC game, so I usually uncheck that box (note to Firaxis, might want to change that). Also, I usually uncheck Time and Diplomatic as well, since the human player on an OCC game is very often low in the points because of limits on population, etc. But the rest are fair game.

I just won a cultural victory in OCC for Gauntlet 7! Yep, you read that right. It is not "impossible" as I once thought--actually quite easy. I finished in 1968 on my first try, so I had plenty of room to spare.

I also came in 3rd place in Gauntlet 4 with Diplomatic OCC, so you should not eliminate that win condition either. Both are very fun ways to play. Please update the original post so we're not steering people away from the fun.

 

[RemoWilliams]

Did firaxis leave this combo out to make the OCC that much more interesting?

 

[Thomas G.]

I just won a cultural victory in OCC for Gauntlet 7! Yep, you read that right. It is not "impossible" as I once thought--actually quite easy. I finished in 1968 on my first try, so I had plenty of room to spare.

Could you please tell me more about how you won this?
In my game the city went "legendary" around 1910, but I didn't win the game untill I conquered the rest 15 years later.

Don't you always need 3 legendary cities? Or was this a modded game?

It's still Civ IV were talking about?

 

[WastinTime]

No mods, no cheating. It's a gauntlet 7 submission. I control 3 legendary cities just like the rules for victory state. I be happy to discuss any strategy tips, but the whole thing can be summed up in two words:
Permanent Alliance.

 

[RemoWilliams]

No mods, no cheating. It's a gauntlet 7 submission. I control 3 legendary cities just like the rules for victory state. I be happy to discuss any strategy tips, but the whole thing can be summed up in two words:
Permanent Alliance.

Heuhyeah. Hmm.

Well, I'm in a game right now, late 1800's, and my city is at around 35000 but my nearest rival is barely 5000.

So, yeah, stategy tips welcome!

 

[WastinTime]

What made the culture win so much fun is how differently you get to play. You know the "long pole" is going to be getting your PA partner cultured. I got to stroll along up the tech tree for a change instead of racing through it. I purposely avoided all religions so the others would found them. I built the pyramids and the Parthenon. I would have skipped Pyramids, but I had a few extra hammers. I avoided all other wonders so the AI would build them. I gave all my tech to the one civ I selected as my eventual partner, so they'd have first shot at most wonders. As soon as I got Liberalism, I gifted it to them and I forced Free Speech on them.

You must get a defensive pact first (at Military Tradition) and then it takes about 50 turns before they'll accept a PA (fascism), so you can't entirely coast up the tech tree. You do have to work it pretty hard, but not like a space race.

 

[The 777 Hoax]

Dang, I'm gonna go play an OCC now...

 

[Splaaat]

One thing that I found useful in OCC (and other games as well, but particularly) is to send out a worker with a military unit guard and have him chop right outside the AI's borders. I get chopping benefit, steal their trees and keep my trees for the health. This helps me get Stonehenge and Pyramids if i get a good spawn.

 

[AxsMan]

Just completed my first OCC game and won a time victory! Ok it was only at cheiftan level, but was still quite a challenge (for me!).

Was aiming for space race, but Monty was out pacing me and I was running 3rd to him and Washington so decided to go all out and kicked his butt.

Fortunately Freddie declared on Washington while I was fighting Monty, which dragged his score below mine, and once Monty was rubble, with 3 turns to go I took the lead! Great game and I learned a lot.

Thanks to the OP for a very inspirational thread!

 

[Rolypoly]

I just tried this strategy, pretty much treating the guide as scripture . Used the supplied saved game. It is the first time i've even dared look at deity, usually having a hard time actually winning on anything over noble (i know, the shame!).

I got wiped out at one point where i was at war with 4 ppl and then 3 more entered the fray in a single turn (Yikes!) but reloaded that and pretty much just sucked up to the AI till they all went away.

When i'd FINALLY managed to research communism it turns out japan was the friendliest civ with me. They were all plus (probably about 15+ im not sure exactly) with no negatives against me. They formed a defensive pact with me right away but the world map option was red... this concerned me but i kept going. After 20ish turns i looked at Japan and PA was still redded out but it was 'we just dont like you enough', same deal for the World Map!

The only snag (ie. where i didnt follow the guide) is that Japan has a neighbouring border with me... i figured this wouldnt be a real problem since they liked me so much. Does a neighbouring border mean the civ wont form a PA with you?

Apart from that, I quite enjoyed this game first time i've had a unit with over 60xp!