I have a decent OCC game with Babs going. Friendly with Genghis, Washington, Alexander and Hiawatha, around T200, just finished Ballistics and pushing towards Apollo and Hubble. I am very interested to see where this game will end, and how. Used the ToA opening, and will have a GE for Hubble.
EDIT 1: The game turned out all right. Since I had to leave for work there wasn't much tme to do a writeup or make screens. I will upload the screens tomorrow when I get back home. Everything's done, T251, I just need to add the last part to the starship. Napoleon was my everyday bully, we are still at war as I am about to launch. I hate to double post, so I am editing this one.
EDIT 2: So, this is how the game went...
My opening was: Monument (as no culture riun can be popped) - Scout - ToA - (save money, sell embassies, find CS, get loan, buy worker) - Library - buy a Bowman - NC - (buy Water Mill with the 2xWine, or buy more Bowmen if CoD'd and build the Water Mill) - Oracle - Granary - buy University - start Oxford and save up - buy Observatory whenever you have 780g. This gives me 2 ok wonders and 1 GE point to work with, along with a lot of BPT. When I had nothing useful to choose, I cranked out Bowmen, worked on a Garden and a National Epic. I also refrained from singing any RAs before I knew I have my Observatory set up for a better RA boost.
Tiles: Monument before Scout helps buy the Citrus jungle tile 1 turn faster, followed by the Wheat tile. The Wheat tile has 1 production, which greatly helps when building the ToA and NC without hindering your growth or forcing you to stagnate just to finish the wonder sooner. After that, the hill tile close to the wheat tile on the river is very important. I slapped a farm on it too. I found that going for farm on the two riverside hill tiles is better than mines in the early game, as it allows you to grow and expand to other tiles with production rather than sitting on the same 3 hammers all the time.
Tech: Archery - Pottery - Writing - Philosophy - get Civil Administration (techs vary, just look which one is the cheapest for its time - e.g. Drama and Poetry and Currency cost the same amount of beakers, so if you see that Currency is like 7 turns and Drama 9, go for Currency) - get Education - beeline to Compass and select Astronomy with Oxford free tech. After that the mileage varies, but in my game I beelined Pisa so that I can get a GE for PT. The next beeline was to Plastics for the Research Lab, and after that to Hubble.
Policies: Full Tradition, Commerce opener, Rationalism left side, Order + Factory bpt boost, finish Rationalism. I freely admit I saved 1 turn before finishing Oracle cause it really plagued me to see if I can do a double Rationalism opener (Policy + Oracle), but I couldn't, as Haile always built it around T90. Too bad really... Would have made for a great game. So I simply continued as I would have normally played it, by building it and selecting the commerce opener with the free policy. The most difficult thing here was to actually count the turns and select a specialist for the Amphitheater so that I can open Rationalism on time, or no more than 2-3 turns after getting Astronomy. Ugh. Took like 5-10 mins of calculations and a few pieces of paper, lol
Religion: founded Tangrism (same as Tengriism, but the Mongols got it first), picked whatever available, along with the Desert pantheon. Ended up with Tithe, up to +15% Production, Swords into Plowshares (big gamble, as selecting it paints a bull's eye on your city), +20% combat near our Religious city. 10 faith per turn was enough to get a GS around T245 with faith for the last tech to pop.
Wonders: ToA, Oracle, Pisa, PT, Sistine (as nobody cared about it), Hubble. Nothing else. Beelining to Pisa is very useful if successful, as it opens Ironworks early and allows for extra Hammer production. For Hubble I intentionally removed all my beakers specialists and left only the 3 Engineers in the workshop and factory to get a GE in time. Took lots of planning, lol...
Otherwise, the game itself was a rough ride up to T100. I made early friendships with the Mongols and China, while having America and France coveting my lands. America DoWed around T45, followed by France (Napoleon had the perverse pleasure of bullying me all game long, even managed to kill a few of my units). I beat them both back, and saw that America was friendly with the Mongols and China, so I bought myself off the war with some money and woe and behold, 1 turn later Washington offers me a DoF. Nice plot twist, you *+*+*... So I used that option to get friendly with as many civs as possible. In the end, I befriended Genghis, Hiawatha, Washington and Alexander and made regular RA's with them (I avoided making 2 or more on the same turn to escape the beakers bug, as that would have corrupted a game that was going really well anyway). Wu was a friend for a bit, but then I stopped making DoF's with her, as the turned into everyone's beating bag, lost its capital twice and was obliterated in the end. So I kept the 4 as happy as possible, and even did something I don't usually do - I signed Defense pacts with all of them, just to discourage Napoleon from DOWing me every 20-30 turns. Ethiopia was a decent civ for a while, but I saw he was denouncing anyone else, so I refused all his friendship offers in order to keep the aforementioned 4 as happy as possible. Eventually, Haile was also annihilated.
And that's it, the rest of the game was fending off my bully, giving it a gift or two to keep it happy, as I signed RAs and teched up. I will win it on T251 (just need to launch), while still at war with France, who promptly DoWed me for a gozzilionth time. Honestly, I expected to see a nuclear bomb flying my way, but thanks to the fact that France was bullying Greece and America as well, they couldn't sign many (or any?) RAs and ended up short - Paris is a few turns from completing the Manhattan project as I am about to launch. Maybe the Defence pact I signed with all of them helped too - when France DoWed, all the RAs would be automathically annulled, as all the aforementioned 4 go to war with Nappy as well.
This game was a blast to play. I am keen to try Siam, but I may take a small break too. We will see
All done. Changed the language of the game from DE to EN for better clarity
Thanks steam for letting me change the language on the fly - however, earlier saves still have the same turn notifications in German. Funny thing...