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

[Terajoule]

exactly, i'm attempting to play deity as its meant to be played. By establishing an entire civilization rather than one Uber-City. For me thats apparantly *harder* than the ooc. Feeling seriously challenged at the moment

[fluffyflyingpig]

Terajoule, Three words: Caesar, Conquest, Marathon. Other than that, no idea. I've only been playing OCC and ancient era conquest games. =\


Beleg, generally, it is best to delay the Globe Theater for as long as possible since it adds great artist points. Ususally, you hit the health cap before the happy cap. In my conquest games, I delay the Globe untill I begin conquest in ernest, usually around when I get granadiers or so. Even with both epics and the Globe, I've been lucky enough to only get a couple of artists in my games.

[korn469]

Here's a weird start, not only in the loction of the AI, but also in it's behavior.

[fluffyflyingpig]

>.< I think I lost my conquest bid on my first attempt at Emp. Standard, Great Plains, Napoleon, normal speed as usual. Random oponents drew 4(!!!) warmongers: Monte, Alex, Ghengis, and Toku, plus Hatty and Mansa. The AIs killed off Egypt on their own and spent a long time killing each other. I got close, and killed everyone but Toku and Ghengis, but am down to the last 30 odd turns and lack the troops to finish the deal. Both AIs got steel last turn, which more or less sealed my failure. I still have a point and troop lead though, and should hold on for the win, but don't think I can kill both AIs huddled in their fortified towns before 2050. Bah, if I had though to enable perm alliances, I could've just allied with Ghengis and won 20 turns ago.

I wonder what AI combinations are best for conquest games. Warmongers like Alex can be bribed to attack others and tech slowly, but tend to build massive stacks to park in their cities (Toku is particularly bad). Peaceniks like Mansa or Ghandi tech faster and tend to go for the early wonders I want.

I've noticed a couple of AI bugs that are particularly annoying:

The AI will sometimes decide to make a bunch of catapults as city defenders and leave them in single cities. While, leaving a bunch of catapults in cities a good tactical move when facing large stacks, it is worthless if the cats decide not to attack the my stacks when they come, and instead sit in the city to be destroyed by my modern attilery/infantry. If the AI had only thought to attack me with the city garrison catapults every time, I would never have had a chance at conquest this game.

Secondly, once I have the world's largest army, the AIs will usually agree to my demands, but ONLY the first demand and will ALWAYS refuse the second of two consecutive demands issued on the same turn. While I can understand the reasoning behind this, it's somewhat absurd to see Mansa Musa meet my demand for 1500 gold, but refuse my second demand for a single additional gold coin.

[solo]

Hmm, it's been awhile.

Since my last post long ago, I have played quite a few deity games using balanced maps, and have found that if I am able to last until I get Alphabet, I can usually survive by careful diplomacy. Much depends on the initial starting position. If it is next to an aggressive AI, then an early attack and defeat is almost inevitable. However, in more favorable positions, there is usually enough time to placate potential attackers and opportunities arise to bribe them to fight amongst themselves.

After so many games, I am now in agreement with Terajoule that a strong defense is not the vital element in preventing AI attacks. A minimal defense will do, if no mistakes are made during a game when negotiating with the AI. One new thing I have tried is gifting 1 gold/per turn to each of the aggressive/treacherous AI as soon as I can afford to do this. I also avoid Open Border agreements with these AI, and just have them with AI normally considered to be peaceful. These things can keep relations on an even keel even if I sometimes sidestep some of their most unpalatable demands.

These 1 gpt gifts often keep me very safe long into a game, especially when potential attackers do not share one of my borders. I have been able to last into the end game many times defending with just 1 or 2 warriors. I have also found that Defensive Pacts are very useful when they can be arranged with friendly AI who are strong and who border potential troublemakers. So, although devastating and unanticipated attacks can and do still happen in my balanced map games, they are not as inevitable as I once thought. Perhaps in 50% of my games, I have been able to last long enough to lose the space race.

Having partially solved the problem of staying alive, I soon discovered that on balanced maps, the AI are considerably faster in research than they are on island maps. They consistently are finishing their space ships in the 1800’s, well ahead of the early to mid 1900 pace of island maps. Finding a way to complete one ahead of them became an almost impossible task. Most often I was beaten by 3 or more SS parts, but in one game, playing as Gandhi, I was able to sneak in just ahead of two AI competitors.

Settings for this one were:

Standard size Balanced Map
High Sea Level
Cold World
No Cheating

The start featured 1 clam, 1 cow, 1 corn, 1 stone, and 2 gold within reach of city workers. I was in a corner of the continent, and my closest neighbor was Hatty, the perfect AI to have as a buffer between me and the rest of them. Later on, oil, horses, coal and iron appeared within my city’s borders and much later, my culture wiped out a Persian city just in time to use their copper to build the Internet. All I needed to trade for was Aluminum, which became available from the Persians.

I think the key to winning this one was being able to build both the Pyramids and the Oracle. With Stone, Gandhi is sometimes capable of pulling this off. The Oracle gets the Alphabet well ahead of any AI, and gives a good jump on completing the Great Library, most of which I chop rushed.

After that I was first to Liberalism, using it to get Astronomy early, which I sat on for a long time, sidestepping all requests and demands to part with it. This allowed me to maintain my lead and get to Physics first for a free scientist, and then it was a beeline to Computers, as usual before heading to Rocketry.

Even though I had a good lead at one point, the AI closed in very quickly and almost beat me to completing a space ship. If I had made any kind of detour during the game to pick up bypassed, but desirable techs, I would have lost yet another balanced map game.

I was attacked late in this game by the Mongols, but by this time I had a Defensive Pact with Cyrus. The few cavalry they sent in my direction were never a threat, and before long the Persians wiped them out. Near the end, the Internet was vital again, supplying all of the missing SS techs while I continued from Fiber Optics via Fission to be first at Fusion for another free Engineer. I was able to finish my ship in 1878, and probably without a turn to spare!

So, besides staying alive, there are many ingredients vital for a successful balanced map deity SS game. The quality of the starting position and resources almost has to be ideal in order to have a decent chance to compete. Then a tech lead must be established and maintained for as long as possible. This means sticking to beelines and building only essential things. It also means deferring many techs until they can be provided by the Internet, because too many trades will allow the AI to catch up too quickly. It also helps if there are a lot of AI wars, and although some wars can be started using bribes, the number, duration and outcome of their wars is mostly a matter of luck.

It’s been awhile since a post in this thread, so I wonder if others have moved on from OCC to the regular game. Or maybe others are finding it just as time consuming as myself to find ways of beating the AI in OCC at the higher levels. Anyways, I have posted my starting and ending positions for this game. Perhaps some others would like to try their hand at a deity game on balanced maps using the same start.

[mdbill]

Hey solo,

I've been doing some other challenges, but I think I've learned a few things and can't wait to try this again. Questions:
Have you moved away from Island maps because they've been beaten?
What is the current "unbeatable" challenge you're after? Balanced maps? or just any non-Island map?

It'll be at least a week before I get an attempt at this again.

[solo]

Yes, island maps were the easiest, so I wanted to try Balanced, where the AI research more quickly, and where it's harder to stay alive. It took awhile, but in the game above, I finally found a way to win on them. I have a few more ideas to try out on Balanced, but may try some other map types, too.

As for "unbeatable" challenges, I think the next thing to try is what Terajoule is attempting, a non-OCC SS win at deity, but I'm content for now fiddling around with OCC.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Very impressive solo!

[Blake]

Woohoo! I finally tried for an OCC diplo victory.
Monarch, small Great Plains, 1 extra AI.

Basically I rerolled until I got a commerce resource on river start, for +2 commerce tile. I completed the HindBudJuism Hydra, missed out on Conf and Tao to Isabella, and got Christ and Islam with Prophets.

It was my plan to create a scapegoat, fortunately luck went my way and Isabella scapegoated herself. I went with the religion which spread best naturally, happening to by Hindu, and easily converted everyone.

Then it was pretty much a simple matter of beeline to Mass Media and getting my bloc to vote me in favor of the hated Isabella. They did it first time, I made sure I had max trade bonuses and such.

Isabella attacked me once, I sicced Louie onto her, she took a big bite out of Louie which I think gave her the population needed to be contestant #2.

I suppose it's at least half luck, but not bad for my first try.

[Blake]

Cool, won another OCC diplo victory at Monarch. 2 out of 2 so far.
This time as the Arabs, I think that Spiritual is a must...
Anyway, I started out very deliberately researching Meditation, with the intention of letting another research BOTH polytheism and monotheism, it's fairly probable that this will happen. The other probable religion pair is Conf+Tao, but I was going for those.

Basically a normal Philo slingshot, I got Stonehenge, used a prophet for CoL, used Oracle for Philo, used a prophet for Theology, I got another prophet while researching *Monarchy*, since Divine Right wasn't unlocked he went to Civil Service.
The next Prophet hit Divine Right.

So I had:
Buddhism, Conf, Tao, Christ, Islam.

Alexander (!!) got:
Hindusim, Juadism.

This being a small great plains map, again with 1 extra AI to make it more crowded.


It was interesting, in that I was in a corner, and my 2 neighbors were Qin and Alexander - yup my antagonist was my neighbor. At the start I only converted Qin to Buddhism, but that was enough to distract Alex when he got around to attacking me (while I was researching Divine Right).
For a while it was like this, Alex would attack me, I'd bribe in Qin and some other allies. Alex managed to survive until fairly late, then it got REALLY fun.

I signed Defensive pacts with EVERYONE except Alex. EVERYONE. Only a lunatic would attack me.

Now at this point I had also trained about a dozen of those horrid Camel Archers (for once being grateful for it's resourcelessness).

Trumpets blazed.

Alexander had declared war on me.

Alexander's empire got devoured at the rate that the invading forces could move through his culture, perhaps faster as one civ would take his city and that would allow the next civ to move their forces along the roads.

Barely after Alexander got destroyed I completed the UN and everyone except the #1 voted for me, a landslide diplomatic victory.

I suspect this Saladin Prophet Whoring strategy might even work at Diety. Since by monopolizing the Stonehenge, Oracle and most the early religions you're in a very strong position to generate the only prophets and thus be the only player capable of lightbulbing the religion techs. Then with everyone being friendly you're fairly safe. Then it's just a matter of generating Great Scientists and Great Artists to help lightbulb the Physics -> Mass Media path, rushbuy UN.
And just before elections try to arrange for the Antagonist to get dog piled to get rid of the “dead votes”. But not so soon that whoever captures the holy cities ends up converting to the captured religions. (you could also try destroying the holy cities with camel hordes)

[solo]

Nice going Blake!

Now you have me wanting to try winning this way. I shall make an attempt in my next game.

[mdbill]

Hey Blake, I suggest trying for six religions. Skip Buddhism. Even on Diety you may be able to get this to work...

Your leader starts with Myst of course, Get Hindu, Mono, Slingshot to CoL/confuc. (You can't shoot higher than that on Diety.) That shot is enough of a lead to let you research Philo/Tao. Use Prophets to get Christ. and finally Islam.

If you hand-picked your opponents to NOT have Mysticism, maybe you could get all 7 religions...probably not on Diety.

I might try it for something different too.

[solo]

I tried it on Deity without any religions.

Soon after I built the UN I was attacked. A bit later another AI joined in and attacked me, and I was eliminated.

No one ever voted for me, although I gifted thousands!

It was clear to me that what worked for me in SS games was not producing optimal results in my first try for a diplomatic win!

[regoarrarr]

I won my first attempt on Monarch. I played as Qin on an Islands map. Random civs - came up with Roosevelt, Izzy, Alex, Huayna, Bismarck and Caesar.

Got the Pyramids no problem - but lost the Oracle with 1 turn left! Found the Hanging Gardens and used my first engineer to rush the Great Library next turn.

I kept pretty good in tech. Built some riflemen and made my way towards Sci. Method. I got all the free Great People plus Liberalism first.

Alex and Bismarck declared war on me and Alex landed about 4 knights which I whupped with rifles. Biz never landed and that was the only war.

Built the Internet but still had to research Fusion and Genetics on my own. I launched in 1998 - Roosevelt was down only the Stasis Chamber.

Had major health and production problems - I was only able to get to size 15. I had gold, deer, coal, iron, and aluminum in my borders and was able to trade for copper and a few health resources.