Variant OCC Prime Directive

[KMadCandy]

cam! you wanted suspense didn't you?

IWhy's always peace more fun?

it was fun for me just because i'd only ever played that way once before. and i knew it would be safer .

 

[Welnic]

I started another game. I always run my OCC games on a pangea map so I can get to everybody if I want to for a conquest victory. I did that in my first game for this, but then I realized seeing other people's games that since I am not going to be leaving my borders I shouldn't be doing that. So I tried a game using the Hemispheres map. It was going okay for a while, but I am stuck on a continent with just Catherine. She declared war on me and shows no sign of stopping after 500 years and generating 3 GGs. So I might try again and hope to get a better neighbor.

 

[Cam_H]

KMad and Welnic,

'Yep' ... a fairly tight finish, and clearly a lot later than I expected for a start with two Gem tiles sans-Jungle! I'm sure that this date could be improved upon a lot.

I went with a high sea level archipelago that aimed to stunt the AI, although if one of them got both The Great Lighthouse and The Colossus they might become a run-away. No technology and resource trading, no trade routes, and no State religion really slowed things down a lot - while constantly having to refuse the AI's requests/demands added some tension. The archipelago also meant that I was likely to be alone on the island, which lifted the probability that the AI would need to arrange an inter-island invasion, which 'traditionally' it's not been that good at doing.

 

[Turinturambar]

I managed to beat it on monarch in 2029 with high sealevels/raging barbs/agg ai/no huts/6 AI rivals.
I accidently broke the rules on two occasions though by scouting for 5 turns with my initial warrior before remembering the cultural borders rule and voted once for a Un secretary general, but both shouldn´t have had any noticeable impact. To compensate I never adopted a state religion, since I didn´t notice that the rule was removed.
I think the rule makes sense anyway, because of the "we won´t fight with our brothers and sisters of the faith" modifier during wartime.

Lincoln seems perfect for this challenge btw. Chm offsets the early happiness problems and guarantees a top notch military in the late game( I killed about 500 units and lost 30). Phil is basically a required trait in OCC.



Screenshots:

 

[Quechua]

I finally got it on Vanilla Monarch with Saladin in 2008. Neville Chamberlain yay!

Spoiler :

So I...cough....turned on Always Peace, but hey Vanilla is tougher than BtS. Nearly all of my rivals turned out to be warmongers, and for most of the game they were literally all running different religions. It's almost a shame I didn't get to see the pressure cooker explode.

I did get aluminum but I had already built all the casings and thrusters by the time I discovered it. No coal or copper though. Many important resources were culture battlefields. I normally try to avoid building the Globe if I can, but in this game I almost welcomed great artists. I ended up getting 4 of them, and 3 went to culture bombs.

Guess when I built the Internet? Surprisingly, my rivals weren't so far ahead that it got me any spaceship techs. But I had avoided Nationalism and its successors, so I couldn't see aluminum or build factories until then.

I was the first to Fusion, and used the engineer for a golden age. I had to switch back to pacifism and rehire some specialists to crank out a companion great person. The spiritual trait surprisingly really came in handy this game. For instance, it let me spend much of the game in serfdom, which was useful because I kept switching improvements around late game. True I could've just built a third worker, but whatever.

 

[Cam_H]

I finally got it on Vanilla Monarch with Saladin in 2008. Neville Chamberlain yay!

Congratulations!

I managed to beat it on monarch in 2029 with high sealevels/raging barbs/agg ai/no huts/6 AI rivals.

Good work! Raging barbarians and Aggressive AI? I guess the idea was to slow rivals' research down and have the AI hit each other?

I never adopted a state religion, since I didn´t notice that the rule was removed.

... me too!

Phil is basically a required trait in OCC.

I've typically gone with Industrious leaders in my very few OCC games with a fear of missing some of the more advantageous early WoWs - most notably The Pyramids - and making up ground with The Parthenon and National Epic, but I am starting to lean towards the idea of Philosophical more and more.

I'd actually be curious to see your end game if you still have it.

 

[Welnic]

I ended up with Space victory in 2011. Prince, small map, raging barbarians. Went for a no artists National Park game. Didn't cut any trees in the BFC, no roads where there wasn't a tree or resource. I did get suckered into building the Taj Mahal, and two great people later I ended up with a GA. I built the National Epic at the very end when I was just going to be using great people for golden ages anyway. I didn't go into Environmentalism as early as I should have.

I got free religion before I got a religion anyway, so I didn't have to think about that.

Surry declared war on me about 6 separate times. Everyone else declared at least once. None of their landed stacks survived a turn.

Spoiler :

Delhi near the end:

Starting save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93671/Etheral_Gandhi_BC-4000_e.CivBeyondSwordSave

Last turn:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93671/Etheral_Gandhi_AD-2010-July.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Quechua]

I've gotta admit, the National Park is pretty cool. At first I couldn't figure out how you were you pulling in good numbers with what looked like mediocre land tiles.

This is a little off topic, but the only problem I have is that it seems a little too good. A forest preserve sacrifices the extra 2 hammers you'd get by running a lumbermill or watermill, but you make it up right away with an engineer getting gp points and representation beakers too. Plus, it's getting the watermill commerce bonus under environmentalism, and you get the forest health (not that you need it anymore). What's the catch? Sure you have to keep the forests around, but I'd do that anyway for lumbermills if I had coal.

Anyway, nice looking city, sorry to go on a minor rant

 

[Welnic]

The National Park is pretty powerful, I'm sure that it was the reason that National Wonders are now limited to 5 in OCC. There are some drawbacks, though. You give up the coal bonus for the Ironworks, which is still worth getting to be able to run more engineers. You are gambling that you will have aluminum since you can't run the corporation that supplies it without coal. And before you can build preserves you can't build roads on open ground because that will inhibit forest growth and you can't pillage your own roads, which makes defense harder. And you want to rush to Scientific Method which obsoletes the Great Library.

I've never really cared much for financial in OCC because if you are running cottages it doesn't make a big difference once they are mature, and if you are not running cottages there aren't that many tiles that have two commerce. But in this game I didn't change civics much at all, and financial would be a big boost once you go to Environmentalism.

 

[Turinturambar]

Heh this variant is totally awesome. Just played the best game of civ I ever had.

I managed to win an emperor game with the same settings: agg ai/raging barbs/no huts/ high sealevels. I added the rule that I´m not allowed to initiate talks to any civ and have to defy all resolutions. Also no state religion. Beat a certain AI who had more than 7k score to the space victory by 9 turns in 2030. Oh and I spawned 13 great generals without the imperial trait.

I have attached the starting save if any of you want to try it.

And here is a screenshot of my beautiful city in its prime during a golden age:

 

[Turinturambar]

Congratulations!
Good work! Raging barbarians and Aggressive AI? I guess the idea was to slow rivals' research down and have the AI hit each other?

The idea behind raging barbs was to slow the AIs down and to get experienced units before the first war. Agg AI is a lot easier as long as you manage to keep a techlead. The AI really sucks at waging offensive wars. I regularly have 20-30:1 win/loss ratios, so the unit spam AI actually helps my economy by providing me with great generals, which add 3 beakers each .

I've typically gone with Industrious leaders in my very few OCC games with a fear of missing some of the more advantageous early WoWs - most notably The Pyramids - and making up ground with The Parthenon and National Epic, but I am starting to lean towards the idea of Philosophical more and more.

I'd actually be curious to see your end game if you still have it.

Industrious adds only a 50% bonus and isn´t really necessary to grab the early wonders with agg AI. I regularly manage to get stonehenge/oracle pyramids/glib, which are the ones I care about.

I usually do a metal casting slingshot and get an early forge which nets me half the industrious bonus anyway for everything .

 

[Turinturambar]

Just in case anyone is still interested in this variant, I managed to win on immortal too after many failed attempts. I had to stack the deck a bit more in my favour with these settings: agg ai/raging barbs/no tech trading/no huts/small world/high sealelves/7 AIs.

If anyone is interested I can write a report how to win this variant easily. For now there is just another megacity screenshot attached.

 

[Cam_H]

Turinturambar,

Congratulations again! Great city location! I'd certainly be interested in how you did it.