OCC (One City Challenge) at Monarch and Above (Part Two)

[amicus curiae]

Post that start if possible. I think 3 parts short is the closest I have ever come on deity as well. But I felt that I was playing a very lucky game to get that. And I remember I had aluminum, iron, and coal all within the city radius. If you got that close without even getting the library, I think it would certainly be possible to win!

[solo]

I can do better than that by posting 4 nice deity starts. All are on standard size deity island maps, and I believe all have the "no cheating" option on.

I believe the one mentioned in my previous post is #41, but they are all very suitable for OCC deity attempts.

Please be advised that more than one, "Beijing founded" messages may appear at the beginning of some replay files. This is because I use the "regeneration" option to produce and save a bunch of starts that look promising. I'll "play" the first turn after saving a start just to expose possible resources not in view. Founding a city is one way of doing this. Trouble is, regeneration records this event for each start that is tested unless you restart the game!

Deity wins are possible. Korn and I have managed it one time each, but there were some "issues" with these games. I'm still looking for that first unblemished win, now that I know wins are indeed possible.

I came close last night using start #42. This one was played straight through without any replays and I was just finishing up my second to last SS part in the early 1960's having got a good lead in this game.

Then Isabella attacked and with a vengeance. I thought I had built up a pretty good defence, but while I had been building loading docks and thrusters she had been adding all of the most modern tanks, aircraft, and other gizmos of destruction to her armed forces.

Here I was, almost tasting another deity win and in one brief moment all was gone. In one turn, all my terrain improvements were obliterated, my entire fleet was sunk and my city garrison of 20 fine infantry and grenadiers were bombed, strafed and sent into oblivion!

This mayhem lasted almost 5 minutes.

Afterwards I was reminded that "You have been defeated!"

I wish you others better luck.

[Hauptman]

So I played 2 games yesterday at work (love that job) both on emporer with Elizibeth of england (phi/fi)

Game 1 was on a standard size "maze" map. That map actually hurt me hard in the early game, it took forever to get some resources hooked up, i had copper 2 squares from my cap and it didnt get hooked up til industrialism. and i had NO trade routes for entirely too long. It hurt me but... The map absolutely wrecked the AIs. I maintained a tech lead throught most of the game on emporer, finished the apolo program in 1898 well ahead of anyone else, I had time to build all 3 luxury wonders AND the statue of liberty ON EMPORER! I had 5 food resources in my cap radius so i went bonkers making great people, 190+ bpt from specialists only at the end, more than half of total research (city at 1015BPT at 70% research at end of game!) One war that included them sending 4 units, attacking a fortified wooded hill once, loosing, pillaging 2 squares, then leaving.

Game 2 was standard size "ring". Had floodplains for food, but wasnt as good as the first game, made nowhere near the same # of GP. I was lagging well behind in techs so the internet was worth every hammer. Came down to a race for the last tech/last peice between 3 civs, me Persia and Inca. persia had genetics and the Inca and I had fusion... I had redid my tiles to make my city a hammer monster (i was behind in ss parts built and needed some help fast!) so researching was gone, i had to wait for the incans to research genetics for me. no idea if it would be enough, maybe the persians started sooner...

3 turns to finish stasis chamber (on standard speed, told you a hammer monster!) 3, 2, 1. Woot i won!!!

Guess i shoulda entered the editor see how close it was...


Tried a diety just for giggles, India's 2nd or 3rd city founded a religion and started culture choking me while i still had warriors and didnt even have a library yet... =(

[ben_sphynx]

Well, my first victory on emporor (still using the 1.09; started this game before Christmas, was away, and now I can get the new patch).

Was playing as Ghandi, on a great plains small map, turned out to have Hasheput, Cyrus, Bismark and Quin Shi Hun.
At the start I moved my settler north to have access to the stone; that helped with quite a few wonders.

Both Cyrus and Hasheput were close behind me with the spaceship, although I didnt actually have to sabotage their production. Not having a source of aluminum seemed to make things somewhat tighter at the end too.

I did have one war, with Cyrus, which messed up my terrain somewhat before I was able to sue for peace.
I did later manage to get him to +10 on the relations chart though

[Diadem]

Originally posted by solo
I can do better than that by posting 4 nice deity starts. All are on standard size deity island maps, and I believe all have the "no cheating" option on.

That first start looked really promising! It would give production troubles at first, but allow for a huge number of specialists.

However, while I was playing it, someone finished the pyramids in 2160 BC! WOW! Damn, that's one game gone

[mdbill]

Victory on OCC Diety !!!!
Standard size! Islands (of course)

In 1924, Elizabeth defeated the world. I could not have done it without the tips from all of you, so thanks. Although this is my first post, I've read the entire thread. I realize this thread is all about SS victory, but I thought I might have some value to add with my Diplomatic Victory.
I've really enjoyed playing for Diplomatic victory since I won an OCC on Inland Sea (lower skill level of course.)

I re-played the end of the game and went for SS victory instead of the U.N., but came up 1 part short of Japan. I was doomed from the start on the space race because:

A. I only had 2 clams for food specials. My city only got to size 12.
B. Japan's Island was so close to mine he settled it with only a galley ride very early and got a large lead on everyone. His city was only 5 plots away from mine. He launched in 1984.

But I have to say, things went very well for me during the game and I did start with Stone. I got 26 super specialists without ever running Pacifism. I had no $$ to run it and no religion anyway. Also, I didn't want to run a religion for relations reasons.

Silly highlight: I got to use Mercantilism! Since it's Japan's preferred civic, and we were very close borders, I ran that for a long time to keep him happy and get him to finally open his borders so he wouldn't attack me. No one ever attacked me. Also, I had NO trade routes anyway. I didn't realize you had to sail a boat out and connect.

There are so many things to discuss, I better stop myself before I run on (more than I have.) Maybe Diplomatic OCC should be in it's own thread.

[korn469]

Congratulations to both solo and mdbill! It appears that maybe diety OCC victories are slightly less impossible than we thought at first. Mdbill, how did you keep the Japanese happy? Usually Tokugawa starts out furious with me and stays that way until he attacks, so what was your secret? What about the other civs?

[Diadem]

Keeping Tokugawa happy is not extremely hard. He's not as easy going as some other leaders, but if you give him stuff and run the right religion and civics it's possible.

Getting him to open his borders however... Wow... I'm truly impressed.

[mdbill]

Thanks guys,

Like i said, Mercantilism made him friendly enough to open borders, but that was probably 1400 AD. Before that he wouldn't even trade fish with me. Not having open borders may be what kept him from stomping me before that. In my experience Open Borders invites war. I think they maybe can't see how weak you are without it.

Once trade was flowing I could get him happier about other things and switch to Free Market (to please Mansa Musa.) I also alluded to the fact that, Tokugawa was my competition (i.e. largest population), so I wasn't getting his vote. No need for a +6 on the civics with him in late game.

[solo]

Welcome mdbill, and I'm sure that discussion of any kind of OCC deity win is of interest to all of the readers of this thread.

From what I have read elsewhere, diplomatic wins are harder to achieve than SS ones, and to do this on deity is very impressive, especially with the Japanese as close neighbors!

On higher levels, diplomacy can be very important in staying alive for any kind of deity win, so I consider any insights players may for avoiding AI attacks as vital to success in SS wins as well. Witness my previous post where Isabella spoiled my best deity attempt so far.

I once shared your suspicion that Open Borders may lead to wars, so I did try one game where I kept my borders completely closed, but to no avail. I was attacked anyways.

However, I still believe that the more aggressive and treacherous AI leaders will use Open Borders to scout out my territory before making an attack, and I usually avoid this agreement with them.

I like the extra commerce and trading opportunities that are available with Open Borders, though, so will agree to them with the more peaceful and reliable AI leaders.

Recently, I have lasted very long into deity island map games, and I think the reason is because that I'll try and be the first one to build the latest kind of ship, such as caravels or frigates.

The same goes for land based units, which makes me usually stop for Gunpowder as soon as it is available, as well as making a slight detour to Chemistry for frigates.

The most aggressive civs usually fall behind in techs, and I've noticed that a few superior units seem to act as a very good deterrant, and maybe even a better one than hordes of lower quality defenders.

I still think you need a certain quantity of defenders to deter attacks, but suspect that their quality may matter the most once you pass certain quantity thresholds.

As for adopting favorite civics or an AI neighbor's religion, I have not had much success, but maybe my approach is wrong after being burned so often by AI I've have worked up to "pleased". I wish others would add any insights they might have here.

In my last game, I think my major mistake was not pausing to build at least some of the latest types of units and weapons. The Internet certainly provided me with this opportunity, but I thought I could sneak in my remaining SS parts quickly enough.


I've noticed two more very fine Emperor games, too, by Hauptman and ben_sphynx (I downloaded a copy and have taken a look), and believe that games on Emperor on non-island maps are in many respects as demanding as deity games with islands.

We also have some fine deity conquests to add to our growing collection of deity wins.

[mdbill]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I totally agree that non-Island games are much much harder. I tried one on Diety and the AI started Apollo in 1290AD. I'm thinking maybe "Balanced" has a small enough land area, and might keep them fighting. Solo, I remember you tried some Balanced maps and it wasn't working for you. Hopefully you just needed to keep the peace. I'll try it.

Diplomatic harder than SS?
I think many people don't practice Dilpo skills. It can seem intimidating when you have no idea how close you might be to getting someone to vote for you. I believe that SS victory is harder. I'm pretty sure I can be first to the U.N. and the fact that you're trying to please (most) everyone all game long keeps you out of wars.

Regarding city defenses.
Elizabeth had no cash flow, so I just had about 7 Redcoats. I built 1 galleon to connect my trade routes.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Concern about rambling on? Don't be silly. We've already filled an entire thread with OCC related stuff. Any and all thoughts you have on OCC are greatly appreciated by everyone who reads this topic.

mdbill, congrats. Assuming you didn't reload, you completed the first OCC win on a standard size map deity without cheating or reloading of any kind. Mad props.

I've had limited luck with pursuing diplomatic wins. Any tips on diplomacy and placating the masses to get votes would be greatly appreciated. On a side note, how much of your win was due to having Toku as your competition for the vote? Toku almost always is universally disliked by the AIs in my game.

I have had absolutly no luck with balenced maps. The small landmass size tends to make the world a powderkeg of AI agression. It's all fine and dandy when they attack each other, but I can't keep them from attacking me. Too many "our close borders spark tension" modifiers from too many AIs.

The patch's change to combat tends to help the OCC, since the OCC's defenders are most likely to be higher tech and damaged than the attackers. Nice to know that you're slightly less vunerable to being mobbed by a stack of catapults and a swarm of inferior units.

[mdbill]

I suppose my biggest tip would be to never plan to run a religion. Like in real life, religion causes more wars than anything else. Don't think that you can just switch religions. Although this instantly clears up the negative relations on that subject, you may still be in trouble. If the AI has been plotting against you and has an army heading your way over the vast ocean, he's not going to turn around.

Luckily Free Religion is a decent civic for OCC and you get it pretty early racing to Liberalism. Once most of the world has also dropped their religion, you might be able to switch to match some of the last remaining ones if you're going for votes.

My attempt at a balanced map was just like you described. I was in the very center of the only small land mass that they cram everyone on. Within the first 10 turns I was surrounded by the evil triplets....Tokugawa, Montezuma, Napolean....and then Gandhi. I kept the three happy and picked on Gandhi a little. I let them drag me into a few wars with the other civs that couldn't reach me. I never got attacked all game, that was a major goal this game. I was first to Liberalism and thought I might have a chance. However, Monte and Toku wiped out most everyone else, grew too large and launched in the 1800's.

Regarding my win against Toku...
Caesar actually liked him a lot. +11 or 12 I think. I had to get my relationship above that. He was my biggest voter. If I lost him, I wouldn't even get Sec-General. You want to avoid losing that job because the AI might vote in civics that you don't want. The other civs were quite a bit easier to sway.

In another game, one time I was at +17 with someone and not only did he not vote for me, he voted for the other guy. They had the highest relationship score I've ever seen: +23. Seven of that was from religion, so I just voted in Free Religion and it dropped to +16, getting me the vote.

[solo]

mdbill,

This is very interesting to me that you were able to survive a whole game on a balanced map without being attacked.

I have never managed anything close to that and any experiments I have made trying to keep neighbors happy have ended up in them attacking me anyways because I was weak. I usually run without having any religion, so this can not be the sole factor keeping them peaceful towards you.

It's pretty clear that you are doing something (or many things) I am missing, and I'd be very interested in more details about how you negotiate with the AI. Some questions I have are:

1) In that balanced map game did you have Open Borders with any of the AI? If so, which ones? And if so, did you wait until they requested Open Borders or did you ask for them yourself?

2) Do you initiate any diplomatic sessions or wait until you are contacted? To some extent, I have found that if I ignore the AI they tend to ignore me, too and attack each other, but I need some contact for making tech trades, etc.

3) Do you appease and give into any or all of their demands, whether they be for cash, tech or assistance? You mentioned above that you join in with neighbors in wars against distant AI. I have done this too, but as soon as my nieghbor made peace, I decided to negotiate peace, too, but then was immediately backstabbed and attacked by my neighbor and former partner in war.

4) What about trading techs? I need to do this in order to pick up bypassed techs I have not learned myself. However, tech trading often results in the "trading with my worst enemy" tag. So if you trade techs a lot, how are you avoiding this kind of problem? Do you initiate any tech trades or do you wait until a deal is proposed by the AI? Do you negotiate a lot when making a tech deal or do you just accept what the AI offer? Do you ever give them sweetheart deals, where for example, you might give them a tech for just a little gold and a map?

5) Do you give things away to the AI? If so, what do you give away, and in what quantities? Isf so, then how often? Every few turns, every turn? I know that in Civ III a gift of 1 gold every turn was often enough to buy peace from a neigboring AI, but doubt something like this works in Civ IV, where weakeness is targeted in spite of attemtps to butter up potential attackers with gifts.

6) What about your military? In the game above, was your city defended well? What quanitities and types of units were you using for defense, and where were you placing defenders? Any lookouts along borders, for example, or were all defenders in your city?

7) What about Defensive Pacts? Do you try to initiate them or agree to any that are proposed?

I know I have a lot of questions, but I find it remarkable that you were able to survive in a deity balanced map game. I know I have been able to last a long ways into many games, without much of a defense, but have not yet mastered how to avoid being attacked for a whole game, so I'd really appreciate any further light you could shed on this subject. Thanks!

[mdbill]

I welcome all questions because it gives me a reason to review my games and learn too. I'll knock out a few, and answer the rest another time.

1) Open Borders (OB)
I first got open borders with Washington and Montezuma. They asked.
Early on I don't persue OB until I know who is close by and whom I want to make happy and whom everyone hates. Gandhi asked and I accepted because he was a close neighbor. I think this was a mistake. I was probably lucky he didn't come after me later. It doesn't hurt relations to turn OB down, but when everyone else demands I stop trading with Gandhi, I get a negative.

Tokugawa of course wouldn't open up, so when he asked to go to war against Washington, I jumped on that. A few turns later I asked him for Open Borders. He closed them again soon after the war.

Then I eventually persued my 4th neighbor, Napolean, for OB.

I usually had only 2 - 3 Open Borders running all game. Mostly just 2.

Any time Washington, Isabella, or Gandhi asked for OB later in the game I turn them down.

2) Initiating contact.
Early on, I wait until they contact me. Once I decide which group of civs get along and won't demand that I stop trading with others, I initiate Open Borders and I try to have an active trade running. Even if I have to trade my only cow for corn, it's still +1 health. I want the + for "years of supplying us with resources". I also don't shy away from them when I have a new tech to trade.

3) Demands
If they're one of the civs in my "group". You know, the ones that are close neighbors or are not the civ being embargoed, I pretty much give in to all demands except war assistance. I only assist if I'm pretty sure the attacked civ won't come back to get me or if I really want to just get trade relations opened up (with Tokugawa for example). After the war, I'll check and see if peace is cheap (or maybe they'll even pay me), but I don't spend to much for it. Usually I just stay at war unlil they offer peace for free or maybe 10 gold.

I'll come back to 4 & 5.

6) Military
I gambled for a long time with 1 Warrior. I never had any money, so my Unit Maintenance was usually 0. 1 or 2 gold later. Around 400AD I got a few Swordsman/Spearmen. Just enough to not pay maintenance. Around 1000AD I started building Musketmen (and killing other units). I only made a few of these before getting Riflemen. I cranked out about 10 of those and sat the rest of the game at 5 gold Unit cost.
I had no lookouts, etc. all were in the city. Late in the game when even Gandhi was getting stomped, I sent two Riflemen out to pillage the now neutral tiles in Gandhi's land before Monte and Toku's borders expanded.

7) Defensive Pacts.
Never touched one.

Unfortunately, I don't think my Diplomatic skills are that special or unique. Besides luck, I tend to think there are other reasons I'm not getting attacked. Here are some possibilities:
A) My gold is very low. maybe this keeps me off the radar.

B) My city size is smaller than I think you all are doing. Size 12 in this case. That's my smallest city ever in OCC with only +13 health. When I had my Diety Diplomatic win the city was only size 13.

C) This time I lost the space race by a large margin, so again-- not very threatening. However, when I re-played my Diplo win and went for SS win instead I was only 1 part short of winning...still no one attacked me. Tokugawa was even on the same island as me (more like I was on his island.)

to be continued....