Looking for OCC advice

[Quillan]

I just finished playing my first One City Challenge game. Since I'd never played one before, I dropped back to Chieftan difficulty. For the majority of the game, I had no problems gaining and maintaining a tech lead. I got a bunch of the wonders, prioritized getting the science improvements and generally ran top of the heap until the late game. That's when I started having difficulty with research. I still did well, by the late stages of the game I was getting around 800 beakers a turn out of the city, but that wasn't enough to research the expensive techs quickly.

I played on huge/continents/marathon, so that might be part of it. I'm also wondering about the polluting of the GPP pool. I only got something like 5 great scientists the entire game. I used one to build the Academy, used one to lightbulb Scientific Method (probably should have settled that one) and settled three others. Should I avoid the wonders that give prophet/artist points so as to get nothing but scientists or engineers?

Any advice you can give would be appreciated.

[Diadem]

A huge/continents/marathon map is not very suitable for OCC games.

First of all there's a map size modifier in technology costs. It's not very big, but it's still there. For a small map the modifier is 1.2, for a huge map it's 1.5, so you pay 25% more for your beakers at a huge map compared to small map (which is the usual choice for OCC).

Also, the AI has a lot more room to expand into. That's bad. Even at low difficulties the AI will eventually use all that room. Thus they will be harder to beat. In general you want to limit the AIs room as much as possible on OCC games.

Generating 800 beakers in your city is actualy pretty decent. Not too long ago I won an immortal OCC game with only 735 beakers per turn. Though in that game I produced almost 400 modified hammers, which was a major boost to my science, and also helped in getting those spaceship parts out quickly.

Hammer production is actually almost as important as science output in OCC. That's why I do not consider great prophets to be pollution. Their science output is low, but their hammers are great. And the 5 gold is useful too. A bit of gold is always useful for unit maintenance and upgrading and even bribing AIs. It's nice to not have to use the slider for gold. You don't want a great many great prophets, but a bit of pollution is not a problem.

Great Scientists are great. But don't use them to lightbulb things. Settle them! That's much more advantagous. Even pretty late in the game. With 250% modifiers and representation a Great Scientist yields 22.5 science points per turn. That's a lot. In just 50 turns he produces more science then lightbulbing gives (normal gamespeed). And then there's the hammers too.

In general, I build a academy, and settle all other great people. I don't bother about shrines either. I don't need the income, and I don't have the time to build missionaries to spread my religions. I'd rather build science then missionaries, in fact. I might consider using GEs to rushbuild wonders, but only if it's a very important wonder and I'm sure the AI will otherwise get them. In fact the only wonder important enough to rushbuild in that way is the Great Library. But you should beeline for that, so you don't have to rushbuild it

Those 3 hammers a turn are just too important to waste. The major exception is of course the space elevator. Rushbuilding that with a GE is fully justified, that late in the game the 3 hammers per turn are not going to payoff anymore.

As to pollution of your GPP pool. Engineers and scientists are great, and Prophets are okay. Merchants aren't that bad either, because of the food (there aren't many merchant wonders anyway). The only great people you want to avoid are Great Artists. They are really a waste. Avoid like the plague.

So don't build any artists wonders. They are not worth it. There are just two exceptions. The National Epic is obviously worth it, the 100% GPP bonus is worth the pollution. And the Globe Theatre is sometimes a necessary evil - it's hard to get enough happiness without it. All other artist wonders are a definite No though.

Anyway, from your report it looks like you are actually doing quite allright. Just don't play on a huge map, and use your great people a bit more effectively. That's all.


Oh, and the late age techs simply take a lot of time. That can't be helped. You won't get many new GPs anymore, and your city is pretty much completely developped, so your output will not grow much anymore, but the techs keep getting more expensive. At chieftain you might be able to keep outteching the AI, but at higher difficulties that is a lost cause. They will catch up, or at least reduce the size of the gap significantly.

The internet is your friend here. Post Scientific Method get biology, physics (for the free GS), rocketry, computers, fiber optics and build the internet. Once you have the internet you can stop bothering about the lower techs, and only research the final few spaceship ones - pick the ones the AI prioritizes least. I usually research fusion (free Great Engineer) and then Robotics.

The above if you're going for a space ship victory. If you're going for a conquest victory, I recommend skipping rocketry. The AI beelines for it, so you will most definetely get it for free from the internet.

[Diadem]

And yeah, I was actually thinking of writing an OCC guide one of these days. Perhaps this thread can be a nice start for that

[Blake]

Religion can be a worthy thing in OCC. Build only a single shrine (never more than one), spread the religion to everyone you can - settled prophets and great scientists should provide enough hammers to do this. Do this well and you can easily manipulate the diplomatic situation to create a game-long war between the AI's, war keeps the AI's feeble and backwards. You can conclude the game with a diplomatic victory or a space victory.

With a shrine you'll end up with 80+ gpt which can be used to buy strategic resources, to upgrade units, to buy stuff from AI's or prop up their research, to bribe AI's.


In terms of wonders and national wonders. I usually consider that the best time to build the National Epic is after researching Scientific Method or building Iron Works - up until that time you can get by with just the Pacifism bonus. Build the globe theatre somewhat later again, then you can trade away all your happy resources and you can stop running HRule if you previously were. It's almot never worth getting The Globe Theatre early because between religion, temple and HRule or Rep you should have enough happy.

[fed1943]

I never played OCC.

So, one can build more than two National Wonders?

Best regards,

[lockstep]

IIRC, if you check 'One City Challenge' in the game setup, you're allowed to build all national wonders in your (one and only) city.

[Senethro]

I similarly used my religion to cause world wars.

I also hated my Great Artists and tended to donate them to my favorite AIs in locations where culture bombs would cause trouble. Luckily I only had a couple of them even after building the Heroic Epic. (100% hammers is always worth it you builders swine t )

[Diadem]

Well a GA is worth about half of any other specialist. It yields the equivalent of 6 commerce, where others yield 9 commerce and 1 hammer, 9 commerce and one food, 8 comerce and 2 hammers and 6 commerce and 3 hammers. So they aren't utterly useless, and they aren't the end of the world. But you do want to avoid them.

Religions. Well, it depends on the situation. I was perhaps a bit too quick to dismiss them in my previous post. At lower levels they can certainly be worth it. But it still depends on your start.

If you play an island map, for example, you want to grab early religion if you can, for the happiness bonus. But you're not gonna build a shrine for that religion since it'll just be in your one city for a loooong time. Once you have optics and meet the other civs you might spread the word and build a shrine, but by that time the AIs usually have their own religions spread in all their cities. And income alone does not seem to be worth all that bother, with so few cities on the map.

If your religion has spread pretty well on its own already, then building a shrine and sending out missionaries is probably a good idea. But if your religion has not spread, then it's probably not worth it. A settled great prophet yields the equivalent of about 10 gold (2 hammers + 5 gold). So you need to spread your religion to at least 9 other cities to break even. That's an investment of 360 hammers, which have to be earned back somehow. Every further missionary is 40 more hammers. Once you have banks and wallstreet shrines give 3 gold per city, but that still means it'll take 30 turns or so before a missionary earns itself back - assuming no loss from hammers due to overflow. And you have to earn the initial 9 missionaries back.

There are certainly situations where spreading your religion can be useful, but it depends entirely on the circumstances.

Oh and fed1943: Yes, you can build more than 2 national wonders in an OCC game. That's one of the special rules. The other one is that you do not get a relationship penalty for razing cities. And then there's the rule that you can only have one city, which is the defining rule of OCC of course.

[Blake]

Remember the Shrine also helps to spread the religion.

Hmmm.

I think that most higher level OCC's are done on watery worlds, to hamstring the AI's... also to further hamstring the AI's you can use maps with worldwrap in one or both directions (both directions results in the highests upkeeps), I kind of like Monarch level since it's entirely possible to win using land maps which tend to be my preference (since the AI's suck so badly on water maps).

[Diadem]

Upkeep goes up by having more world wrap? How is that, don't distances become shorter, on average?

A watery world is indeed pretty normal for OCC. Not because they suck at naval maps (which is of course a nice bonus) but because they have less land on naval maps.

There are two other map settings that work well at the highest difficulties though: One vs. one dual where you rush your opponent (that's not really OCC though :P) and a small pangea-like map with 18 AIs.

At monarch level more normal maps are indeed still winnable, though you need a very good starting position for some maps. I myself have had a lot of fun with great plains maps at monarch difficulty.

[Krill]

Well, for OCC I would say that a specialist economy is by far the best possible economy; though running a couple of cottages as well is a good idea.

[Diadem]

Aaaargggh! *frustration*

I just lost an OCC game because of a stupid random fluke. Deity game, 18 civs on a small map. I had a perfect starting position, at a peninsula, with lots of sea food.

Isabella is my only neighbour, and of course she founded Buddism. I need to stay on her good side or I'm dead, so I kept my borders closed to all non-buddist civilizations, and opened borders with all buddist ones.

What do you think? I *still* get infected with hinduism. I didn't even know that was possible! By all means it shouldn't happen. Still it did.

There's no point in even playing on now. The AI doesn't use missionaries so I'll never get buddism. I don't have to pick a state religion, but without pacifism things are not looking good. Besides without the +7 to relations Isabella will kill me.

*frustrated*

Things were going so well

[Quillan]

Originally posted by Krill
Well, for OCC I would say that a specialist economy is by far the best possible economy; though running a couple of cottages as well is a good idea.

That's about what I thought, too, Krill. I built a library, ran two scientists, built an Academy, built the Great Library while continuing to run two scientists and went on from there. I still had 6-7 cottages built along with it. Eventually the Great Library became obsolete, and the commerce from the towns outstripped what I could get from scientists. Things got really bad in the late game.

I had founded Buddhism and spread it to a large part of the world. I had a big "Buddhist Bloc", consisting of me (Ramses), Spain, Greece, America (Roosevelt), Russia (Cathy), Germany (Bismark) and Tokugawa, against the other side of Mansa, Ghandi, Wang Kon and Brennus. Ghandi was #1 in pop and hated by almost everyone in the Bloc, so I built the UN. Needless to say, right when I completed it, Cathy sneaked into first place in overall population and that split the vote. She wound up getting elected Sec-Gen and forced through the global civics of Universal Sufferage and Free Speech (bye bye Bureaucracy ). It was only when she passed global civic Free Religion that the bloc broke up and most of them liked me better than Alexander, who'd slipped into the highest pop position due to a war with Mansa. I won a diplomatic victory at that point.

[fed1943]

Thank you Lockstep and Diadem for your informations.

Best regards,

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Blake
Religion can be a worthy thing in OCC. Build only a single shrine (never more than one), spread the religion to everyone you can - settled prophets and great scientists should provide enough hammers to do this. Do this well and you can easily manipulate the diplomatic situation to create a game-long war between the AI's, war keeps the AI's feeble and backwards. You can conclude the game with a diplomatic victory or a space victory.

Why never more than one?