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

[mdbill]

solo,

I've only played a handful of games on Diety. I wasn't attacked that time I won Diplo with Elizabeth, nor the time I played Balanced map with China and at least one other time. I was in the middle of a Culture victory on Diety with no attacks yet (around 1600AD). I'm on vacation for a few weeks so no games lately.

The only big attack I can recall is way back when I won Diplo Victory on Emperor level on the Inland Sea map. I don't remember any crushing attacks on Diety, but like I said, I've only played a few all the way to the end.

[solo]

Welcome to Skatterbone & WestSideBilly!

WSB,

I agree with mdbill that the Internet is probably vital, no matter which level you are playing at. Since the tech costs were increased with the new patches, it is impossible to do all of the research single-handedly before 2050. If you are far ahead in techs, it may be necessary to gift quite a few to the AI before the Internet is built to get the best use out of it. I usually depend on it to pick up many SS part techs, and research the remainder myself.

Hauptman,

I was also attackd by 3 in a row! First in line was Caesar. Then Montezuma, as usual, and finally Isabella right afterwards! These three stooges all appeared in one game and did their usual damage!

mdbill,

I have been busy with other things for a few days, too. The newness of Civ IV is rubbing off a little, so I don't spend every spare moment of my free time playing the game now.

I tried a few "always peace" games, just to see if the AI researched or played differently, but they didn't. It was easy to win on islands, but they always outpaced my research on the balanced maps I have tried.

I am back to the regular options, but have a few more ideas to throw out:

1) Luck of the draw with opponents may matter quite a bit. In games where Montezuma, Caesar and Isabella appear, I can always count on an attack sooner or later. I remember that korn was able to "fly under the radar" with hand-picked opponents. Many "regulars" appearing in my games never seem to attack me, either.

2) In one game, I was attacked and killed by Montezuma, so I decided to replay this one from an earlier save just to see if there was anything I could do to prevent him from attacking. One idea that did work was Skatterbone's use of generous gifts. I tried 1000 gold plus enough other favors to bump up his attitude a notch and this worked. He did not attack me "on schedule" as he always had in previous attempts. I think your diplomacy win featured a lot of huge gifts, too. However, determining in advance when such gifts are needed and being able to afford enough of them to guarantee peaceful relations is another matter.

3) I'm finding if I stay ahead of known backstabbers with military upgrades, they will not attack until they have equivalent weapons or units. For example, if I beat Montezuma to frigates and build quite a few, he waited longer until he had Chemistry before he built his own and attacked. If I had continued onto destroyers first, I think this would have deterred his attack again. However, this would have meant a more significant detour on the route to Rocketry and SS parts.

I still have more to experiment with in this regard, but have noticed that many such as korn, Blake and ffpig have moved on to conquest games. I have downloaded the ones which have been posted and will take a look when I have a chance.

Maybe some selective or preemptive attacks could be useful in SS games! Start wars with a few attackers against the likes of Montezuma, and hope this distracts him long enough to negotiate peace when his hordes eventually arrive on my doorstep.

korn,

I have noticed that MP OCC is possible in hot seat games. I might give OCC pbem a try, but am not currently hooked up for other types of MP play. My "performance" computer with Civ IV stays off the internet and all of the invasive clutter it tends to supply. Maybe when I get a router for my birthday...

[WestSideBilly]

Originally posted by mdbill
WestSideBilly,

One word.... Internet.

You didn't mention building the Internet. That's the key to finishing the tech race. Go from computers straight to Fiber Optics.

In some games, I have built the internet to no avail (I have a couple games where I was into my 2nd future tech and just didn't have the shields to finish). In hindsight, a couple of the games I probably could have eeked out with circa 2040 launches had I built the internet and went straight towards fusion and let the internet fill in satellites and whatnot. I'll keep that in mind for future games.

I also re-read some of the old OCC thread and I'm going to try a different civ. Gandhi seemed a good choice but spiritual may not add enough value in OCC games.

Thanks

[Skatterbone]

Here is an unusually easy, random OCC map. Its a small, great plains map using Qin Shi on emporer. The start location is actually quite resource poor...you get marble, copper, corn and sugar (pigs after legendary culture). Not a stellar OCC plot, and yet...

Note the city size of 28...and still growing! This city would have topped 30...my largest of any civ4 game.

The AI never declared war on me despite a huge tech lead. This is what makes this map so winable. You can truly fly under the radar and concentrate on building/research. Just a lucky balance of AI civs.

Apollo program in 1814....launch in 2006. A personal best at this difficulty for v1.52. Could have been better, but I just couldn't get Tokagawa to part with his aluminum.

For those who are having trouble getting OCC wins on monarch and above, you might give this map a try.

[Hauptman]

nice picket fence there, I found the AIs far too reluctant to attack forts.

[Skatterbone]

Apperantly, I lack the forum savy to get both an image and savegame in the same post.

Sorry for the double post.

@hauptman

I haven't noticed that effect of forts. Typically I need all the military help I can get to avoid being wiped of the map.

[Hauptman]

well a fort with 1 or 2 defenders i should say, it doesnt mind so much... but;

I played an occ game not long ago, i was behind a 1 tile bottleneck, so i forted it and stayed within my "castle". Agresive AI's turned ON and at war often, and every single time a stack of units got close to my fort they would turn around and walk away, without attacking...

It got so bad, I was at war with catherin, she out teched me (i had riflemen/MG and cannon, she had infantry and arty) and had 3 times my score. same deal, move a stack up, see my fort with 5 defenders, turn around and go home. Now once i got flight i could look outside my castle. what i saw stunned me, in her 25+ cities she had garrisons of ...stacks. Stacks so large they end with "..." and who knows how many units there really are. all of it artillery and infantry. Sooo much power, and she absolutly refused to attack my fort with 2 riflemen and 3 machine guns.

[solo]

Another nice Emperor win. Great game, Skatterbone! Size 28 is better than I've ever done! I'll have to download your file and take a look.

On island maps I have forgotten all about forts, but do remember earlier games I played on continents where forts were always bypassed by the AI, but it takes a lot of worker time and enough of a military to man a contiguous line of them.

It's funny that forts scare the AI, but they never hesistate to attack cities, which have much higher defense!

I tried another deity game, and did well in research (first to Liberalism and Physics) but lacked enough hammers (too many artists and not enough engineers plus never any access to Coal) to compete in the SS race, which was won by the Chinese.

However, I went the whole game without being attacked. Opponents were Qin, Capac, Hatty, Cyrus, Mansa and Saladin, the most agreeable group I've met so far on deity.

Instead of being attacked, I was plagued by spies though, which kept destroying my mines and other terrain improvements. This was the first time I've faced this in an OCC game.

I'm encouraged to have lasted a complete game without being attacked, but do attribute this mostly to a lack of the usual backstabbers among the AI opponents.

[Skatterbone]

@solo

What is your current approach to game speed and map size for immortal/diety?

I've done a few immortal games now using tiny/quick and was quite surprised at how easy it is to out-tech the AI, even with just an average starting position. Not that I win every time, but with a solid first 100 turns or so, I can set up a realistic chance for a win fairly consistantly. As you mentioned with diety, the problem tends to be running out gas toward the end...or losing to a cultural/diplomatic victory when you are on your last SS part....I hate when that happens.

But tiny/quick just doesn't hold my attention. The game feels too rushed and mechanical (and diplomacy is too easy with just 2 rivals).

I see in your last post you had 6 opponents...are you attempting standard/normal maps on diety now? If so I'll assume small/normal/diety has already been mastered. I recall several posts of diety wins on duel and tiny, but I must have missed the small map victories.

I am at that point of where to go next on this difficulty scale while still keeping the game enjoyable ( and have at least a shot at victory). If you played say...50 standard/normal/immortal games in succession, how many would you expect to win?

[WestSideBilly]

I played a game (granted, only Prince) with Qin and finally won. Launched Apollo in 1918 and won in 1998. I had a really bad start (settled on the 2nd turn, missed pyramids and wasted a lot of time with my worker being idle), but beelining civil service, computers, and fiber optics really paid off. It was a mediocre start spot, but I had the triumvarate of massive production (coal, iron, alum) so it was okay.

I also adopted the suggestion of always gifting the AI when they came with a tech/war demand - I noticed I had a lot of +2s and +3s for giving them resources. I used a 3 way defensive pack late game and was never attacked. Woo, onto Monarch.

Thanks again

[mdbill]

Hey Scatterbone,

Some Conquest-Diety games have been on duel/tiny maps, but I believe all of the Space Race/Diplomatic games solo and I are working on are standard size/normal speed/diety. Diety seems like a huge jump up from Immortal, so since Space race and Diplomatic have been won at least once on Diety/standard/normal, I don't bother going back to Immortal (even though it's probably a lot more fun.) Therefore, I can't say how many wins you can expect at Immortal.
I'm thinking of trying out the other game speeds, but I believe the main goal is finding a good way to win on Diety/standard size. Until they make cultural victories possible, It seems Diplo/space race are the only choices. Maybe someone will pull off a domination win on standard size. That would be impressive.

[Blake]

I'm trying an experimental conquest OCC strategy.

I call it "The perfect shield of invunerability". Or not.

Small Highlands, Raging Barbs, Marathon, playing as peter (russia, philo/exp)

At the start I send out my scout and pop another scout, while building warriors. My scouts pop 2 warriors, I pop a lot of pods, and my 3 warriors (1 built 2 popped) head off to harrass AI's. I steal two workers and one makes it back to my city (Thus I don't bother training one).
AT this stage the Perfect Shield of Invunerability kicks in - if you havn't figured it out - this is the raging hordes of barbarians. So I declare war on the other AI's - war with everyone. My plan is basically to make the AI's really flustered with fighting the barbarians and being "at war". I dunno how well it'll work, but I have high hopes.

edit: ROFLKMLINASLASG. France (one of the civs I ninja'd a worker from) ELIMINATED by barbs. Gogogo barbs! With luck I wont have to do any work .

[korn469]

Skatterbone

When I played, I tried for spaceship victories on small maps using normal gamespeed. I've won a diety tiny OCC conquest victory using marathon speed. Currently I'm trying to win a normal size map conquest victory using marathon speed. I certainly think that marathon or epic is the only two settings for a military victory. Spaceship probably works well on any, with normal and epic speeds possibly being the best. Diplomatic victory should work well on any setting.

[korn469]

Blake

unless you have iron or copper, it's all fun and games till barbarian axemen start appearing on your borders.

[Blake]

Hahah I'm the veteran of Marathon Raging Barbs on Highlands. I laugh at the barbs pillaging all my improvements. In fact I don't even bother making improvements, I just hole up in my city and choprush the Pyramids and rely on rep great people to power my economy, who needs terrain improvements? 3 archers in a hill capital are more than enough to keep the raging axemen at bay.

Unfortunately this game I got eliminated by the barbs, it was while building the Great Library, I'd sent a hunting pack of 6 units out to bother an AI, when about a dozen barb swordmen swarmed my borders.

However my start was The Sux, only one meaningful resource in city radius - cows. No river. There was Iron in cultural radius. And I played sloppy, like forgetting to switch to rep for like 50 turns (or more). And terrible Civ choice, Alexander is MUCH better.