What's allowed in a One City Challenge?

[JKuan]

Sorry if this has been answered before; I tried the search feature but didn't find an answer.

So, in Civ VI, a One City Challenge is a self-imposed condition, rather than an achievement or game mode. Is there a general consensus on what's allowed? One condition I've heard is that you can't end a turn with more than one city. But this leads me to ask:

1) Is capturing cities allowed, as long as you liberate or raze the city? Sometimes capturing a city lets you complete quests (e.g. build a campus) to earn envoys at city states that would otherwise be impossible to complete.

2) If a city loyalty flips to you, does it need to be refused immediately? One thing I've done is to first build an improvement in the flipped city, and then refuse the city, and then pillage the newly built improvement for gold/faith.

3) What about founding a city and then immediately gifting or trading it to another player? Sometimes I do this to "save" a civilization in order to not lose their tourists.

Let me know what you think!

 

[Bangau]

Good questions, I would say:

1.) Yes, liberating and razing is part of OCC for me.
2.) I've never thought of that, I'd say this little trick should be allowed.
3.) No to this one, I think you shouldn't build settlers in an OCC. Captured settlers should be immediately deleted.

 

[Sykes179]

1) Yes, 2) No, you can keep it, 3) No

 

[Vandlys]

1) Yes.
2) Yes, is my personal opinion on this one. Keeping it to build an improvement takes at least part of one turn, and thus for that turn you have reaped benefits of more than one city.
3) No.

 

[Bangau]

and thus for that turn you have reaped benefits of more than one city

I agree with Vandlys on this one.

 

[DrCron]

The "one city challenge" existed as an advanced setting option in some previous CIV games, so you can take the rules you had in those games to answer your questions:

1) You could raze cities when playing OCC on previous games, so the answer is yes.

2) There wasn't an equivalent rule on CIV 5 and it was really hard to flip a city with culture on CIV 4 having just one city (at least on high difficulties), so this is one I can't answer from memory, but I think your should refuse it immediately to avoid having the benefits of a second city during any number of turns. You can pillage stuff from free cities anyway, so it shouldn't make a difference, but I think logically the answer should be no.

3) Hard no. You were not allowed to build settlers if you turned on the OCC option in previous games.

 

[Vandlys]

The "one city challenge" existed as an advanced setting option in some previous CIV games, so you can take the rules you had in those games to answer your questions:

Well, since the games have different mechanics at times I'd say you cannot take those rules.

2) There wasn't an equivalent rule on CIV 5 and it was really hard to flip a city with culture on CIV 4 having just one city (at least on high difficulties), so this is one I can't answer from memory, but I think your should refuse it immediately to avoid having the benefits of a second city during any number of turns. You can pillage stuff from free cities anyway, so it shouldn't make a difference, but I think logically the answer should be no.

Disagree. Civ VI has mechanics that are built around liberating cities. Therefore I think liberating cities should be fine.

In my opinion it is as simple as "Do you own more than one city in any way that gives you any advantage for at least part of one turn? Then you have stepped outside the rules of the OOC". Liberating a city does not fall into this, thus it should be okay. Yes, liberating a city can give you an advantage, but it doesn't give you an advantage because you own the city.

DrCron below pointed out correctly that I was responding with half a brain.

 

[DrCron]

Disagree. Civ VI has mechanics that are built around liberating cities. Therefore I think liberating cities should be fine.

In my opinion it is as simple as "Do you own more than one city in any way that gives you any advantage for at least part of one turn? Then you have stepped outside the rules of the OOC". Liberating a city does not fall into this, thus it should be okay. Yes, liberating a city can give you an advantage, but it doesn't give you an advantage because you own the city.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Are you sure you are checking the correct question? Read what OP asked in question 2, because it's not about liberating a city, it's about keeping it for a while when it flips to your civ.

 

[Vandlys]

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Are you sure you are checking the correct question? Read what OP asked in question 2, because it's not about liberating a city, it's about keeping it for a while when it flips to your civ.

Yeah, sorry, wasn't paying attention.

My point is that even when it flips to you, if you used it for whatever part of a turn, you didn't finish the game with one city only. You used more than one city. So, if it flips, yes it should be refused.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I can capture whatever I want, but anything I capture, I must liberate or raze immediately. If I capture a capital, well... trade it away, I guess.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

If I capture a capital, well... trade it away, I guess.

Afaik original capitals cannot be traded or given away.

 

[Civ Chemist]

For those self-imposed challange like OCC in the end It's up to you what the exact rules are.

In non-domination games I would only conquer (and immediately raze cities) that were too close to my capital.

In my domination OCC I allowed myself to keep the city for upgrading units and moving great generals before razing it at the end of the turn. Some might consider that braking the rules and if I'd do one again I'd probably try to avoid that.
Others allow themselfes to keep capitals (since you can't raze them) instead of conquering all capitals on the last turn. Though personally I would not call that a true OCC.

So It's really up to you how strikt you want to be. You can always apply the "rules" more loosely for your first OCCs and be more strikt once you are more experienced.

 

[JKuan]

Thanks everyone for your answers! Over the last two weeks, I did some more experimenting, and I've changed my mind on something - I think #2 (building improvements in loyalty-flipped city-states) should *not* be allowed.

So there's a more long-term strategy that goes like this:

1) A civilization loses a city to loyalty pressure, and it becomes a Free City.
2) Send troops there and pillage the improvements. Also send some builders into the city territory too.
3) When the free city requests to join your civilization, build new improvements and repair the pillaged improvements, which does not use a Builder charge.
4) Refuse the free city, then immediately pillage every improvement again.
5) Capture the city with your troops, which can often be done in only one turn, and liberate the city to its original founder (this has not occurred to be before)
6) The civilization will likely lose the city to loyalty pressure again, causing it to become a Free City again.
7) Because the city has changed hands once since you refused it, it will probably request to join your civilization again. I had not realized this - I had thought that a city refusal was permanent. Thus allowing you go back to step 3).

I tried this in a game, and the cycle repeated about every 18 turns. On Marathon speed, this is not a long time, and I was gaining something like an average of 700-800 gold per turn for free from repeatedly pillaging six mines during my Golden Age, when my one city was only generating around 300 gold per turn. So yeah, I think it should not be allowed.

As a side question, do people do this in regular games?

 

[Vandlys]

Thanks everyone for your answers! Over the last two weeks, I did some more experimenting, and I've changed my mind on something - I think #2 (building improvements in loyalty-flipped city-states) should *not* be allowed.

So there's a more long-term strategy that goes like this:

1) A civilization loses a city to loyalty pressure, and it becomes a Free City.
2) Send troops there and pillage the improvements. Also send some builders into the city territory too.
3) When the free city requests to join your civilization, build new improvements and repair the pillaged improvements, which does not use a Builder charge.
4) Refuse the free city, the immediately pillage every improvement again.
5) Capture the city with your troops, which can often be done in only one turn, and liberate the city to its original founder (this has not occurred to be before)
6) The civilization will likely lose the city to loyalty pressure again, causing it to become a Free City again.
7) Because the city has changed hands once since you refused it, it will probably request to join your civilization again. I had not realized this - I had thought that a city refusal was permanent. Thus allowing you go back to step 3).

I tried this in a game, and the cycle repeated about every 18 turns. On Marathon speed, this is not a long time, and I was gaining something like an average of 700-800 gold per turn for free from repeatedly pillaging six mines during my Golden Age, when my one city was only generating around 300 gold per turn. So yeah, I think it should not be allowed.

As a side question, do people do this in regular games?

I don't, because it's gaming the system in my opinion. It feels like an exploit.

Also, how do you do step 3 without accepting the city? Can you repair improvements without it being your city?

 

[JKuan]

Also, how do you do step 3 without accepting the city? Can you repair improvements without it being your city?

The city joins your civilization at the beginning of the turn, and you have until the end of the turn to decide to keep it or refuse it. Since I only have R+F on iOS, maybe this was patched in a later update. Here is a video of how to do it:

 

[agonistes]

In a war game, you have to control the capitals to win. You can't raze capitals. So we agreed (i think) that you could own them, but do nothing with them (no building, no working tiles, no repairs, etc). Least thats how i did mine.

edit: mind you, you then have more non productive cities to defend from troops that out class you.