OCC (One City Challenge) at Monarch and above

[solo]

My understanding and experience so far has been that Balanced maps place strategic resources within 4 tiles reach of each players starting position. By strategic, I mean the ones that are revealed by learning techs.

In Balanced maps I have played so far, this has been the case, but many times an AI will plant a city too close and snatch a few of these away from the human player, before culture expands enough.

I want everything in a start of course. Easy to start up food resources as you mentioned. Let's say four or more of these, a few luxuries to trade and then access to important strategic resources such as Coal and Aluminum, later on. I also would want some hills to mine, fresh water and forests for their health benefits and finally coastal access, for lighthouses and coastal trade. That's not asking too much, is it?

By the way, on Balanced, I don't think you get every single strategic resource within range. I think it's either Copper or Iron, and most of the rest or something like that. I do know for sure that you get much better access to more of them than on a random start.

[amicus curiae]

I guess a balanced map would be a valid OCC win then. it just reduces the amount of time you would have to spend reloading to get a better start position. I'll try that tonight and see how it goes.

btw what level are you playing on now?

[solo]

Emperor now.

I move up a level whenever I have managed to find a way to win.

So far, I am stuck on Emperor, still looking for my first victory there in OCC.

[amicus curiae]

Oh, I have been playing on immortal but I think I will move to emperor since nobody can seem to win at that level. I can't really remember the order of levels, but I'm pretty sure I never won at emperor.

[Yosh]

I think I'm going to try an OCC and go for the religious strat to see how that works

I mean, you can pick up at least 2 religions almost without trying if you're beelining to CS (confucianism, with Christianity being a short diversion if you've got GP's to help out!)

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by amicus curiae
Oh, I have been playing on immortal but I think I will move to emperor since nobody can seem to win at that level. I can't really remember the order of levels, but I'm pretty sure I never won at emperor.

immortal? holy crap! and there i thought you couldn't win on that level even with normal game rules (>1 city allowed)

honestly... can one win without either exploiting like hell (in civ3 sid level it was the GL beeline) or having a map that really suits the human and is a disadvantage to the AI (eg mini islands, etc.)?
edit: my question applies to the highest difficulty level...

[amicus curiae]

Yosh - Let us know how you fare

sabre - That's what we are trying to find out. I'm sure with an edited map you could win on any level. But I think only random maps should be counted for OCC. Mabye only standard size continents maps. Although I don't see how pangea and island maps would be any easier. Then you get into sea level and stuff like that. Anyways it would be good if there was a standard for OCC games. Because obviously anyone can say they won a OCC on Deity if they set the conditions.

[solo]

Yosh - Yes, let us know how it comes out. Please save your starting position and perhaps winning one!

Amicus - After thinking it over, I think OCC players have been given too much of a handicap, when the patch increased the cost of Apollo and SS parts. I thought I was doing okay starting Apollo in the early 1700's last night, but then looked and saw I would need 56 moves to complete the wonder. With only one city, we can't not spread out the extended times for SS parts, either. I don't think it is just a matter of lacking helpful resources, too.

So I think for setting up a standard, we might be limited to playing at lower levels, or just playing from very propitious random starts we happen to find. I think one solution would be to edit the .XML files to reduce these costs to their original levels. This would give the OCC player a fighting chance, even without all resources, at the higher levels.

[Risa]

I don't think prodution is the ultimate problem. All my OCC games seem hammer abundent, hey, even in your evil "4-tile island map", solo, I managed to get 41 base hammers after railroad done. Iron and coal are always possible to get by trade, if plays right. Now if only I hadn't left far behind in research and had got a proper force when AI's troop felt impatient...

[Blake]

Surely the Ironworks working now helps out with the increase SS parts costs?

If you can get the iron/coal anyway....

[Diadem]

Even on balanced maps the strategic resources are often very far away. If you need an legendary city to get that iron resource, that pretty much sucks. And one game my oil was actually outside my cultural bounderies even for a legendary city.

In civ3 you could grab resources outside your city range. It really sucks that you can't do that in cIV.

Another problem on balanced maps are the barbs. On tiny islands you just don't have them, making your game more relaxed in the beginning. It's much easier to grab the early wonders if you don't have to bother with military units.

Still though, I'm sure I would have won that game I described above had I had access to either iron, oil or coal. Ironworks would have easily given me the spacerace victory. And better military units sure would have helped. Not to mention railroad.

[Yosh]

I started the game (at Prince, since I've never played OCC before), picking Mansa as my civ - Financial for the commerce, and Spiritual for the civics changes. I picked Pangaea, Large as the map type/size; I didn't want to be isolated, and I wanted the other AI's to fight some.

Well, the game didn't start out too badly; I actually ended up with a four-headed hydra (Hinu, Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism)!

Whether it was due to poor starting spot, or poor playing on my part (probably the latter lol), I was a bit behind in techs, and I didn't really build up enough units (again, inexperience on my part). I did send out The Missionary Squad as early as possible, and made Frederick, Louis XIV, and Cyrus my good pals, with Tokugawa actually accidentally getting Judaism and being buddies with me ( as much as Tokugawa is friends with anyone!)

Isabella founded buddhism, so we didn't get along very well; she declared war on me, so I asked Freddie to dec on her - he was more than happy to help out

Later on, I signed a DP with Cyrus, and then Huey goes and attacks Cyrus, so naturally I'm called into the war. Well what do I know but Louie declares war on me because he didn't like that I declared on Huey (Huey and Louie were NOT DP'd to each other, but they WERE mutually pacted to Dewey, making the triumvirate Huey, Dewey, and Louie heh heh - jk on the last part)

So the game ended with Louie's armies ransacking my city

On a bright note though, I was making ridiculous amounts of money from the shrine - spreading judaism early on ensured that the civs I spread it to would adopt it, and would continue to spread it themselves as they grew.

I was literally making 150+ / turn at 100% science - BEFORE Bank, Grocer, and Wall St.! The gold helped in upgrading old units (I think that's a key strategy there), and in trading to the AI's.

EDIT: Link to initial save below:

Starting Spot Save

[solo]

Could be I'm a wee bit frustrated at not being able to trade for Coal in that second game!

That prevented railroads, and the lack of Iron for too long time caused too much of a delay. I know neither were available, since I was checking the trade window every turn.

I even made sure each AI had Steam Power as I was starting Apollo to increase the chances of extra supplies of coal appearing for trades.

Even when you lack every resource needed to boost hammers, I think you should still be able to have a slim shot at completing SS parts first. It takes a long time to play into a game far enough to find out if there is a chance of getting one or two of these key resources.

I suppose that for now I will be discarding any start that does not have many hills (and more chances for these strategic resources) near enough to my city to be claimed later if they do, in fact, appear.

[Risa]

here's my latest game, in which I had been beaten by only 5 turns. It is emperor level, normal speed, standard size, ice age, middle sea level, rocky terrian with raging barbarian, and 7 AI in game. The city can be settled both on river bank and on shore.
More detailed information is in spoiler tag below.

Spoiler:

The player starts on a middle-sized continent alone. Other civs are Mansa Musa of Mali, Bismarck of Germany, Isabella of Spain, Kublai Khan of Mongolia, Huayna Capac of Inca, Cyrus of Persia, and Julius Caesar of Rome.
If the city is planted at right spot, There will be sheep, marble, gold, gem, copper, iron, coal, oil, uranium, and fish within border of 5000 culture.

It is already a very good start and I had try my best. So I guess it is quite unlikely to win OCC of immortal level with standard map and normal speed on regular basis.

[solo]

Yosh,

Just saw your post which snuck in ahead of my last one. I'm impressed with the amount of gold you were able to get per turn, but wonder if you have a chance for such a good religious start on levels above Prince. I would think all the early religions would be snapped up first by the AI on higher levels.

One question I have is how you were doing in research compared to the AI. Were you on track to getting to Rocketry first before the wars ruined your game? Were you able to buy techs you didn't have from the AI, and if so, how much were you paying?

Risa,

Just saw your post, too. So close!!! Too bad.

I will download that start and give it a whirl. Thanks for attaching it.