One City Challenge - where did it start ?

[sorinache]

I was wondering if anyone has been around long enough to remember whose idea was to try a "one city challenge" ? I mean, we are talking Civ IV here but I guess people were trying to beat the AI with a "one city - only" civilization (think Singapore ? ) in Civ III as well, isn't it ? And maybe in Civ II before that ? Or even, one might think, in Sid Meier's Civilization (Civ I) ?
Who are the ancients on this forum ? Does anyone recollect the (very) old times ? Is anyone tracing his past Civ-related discussions to Usenet and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic ? I'm talking years before Google was founded ...

[rjmatsleepers]

I was wondering if anyone has been around long enough to remember whose idea was to try a "one city challenge" ? I mean, we are talking Civ IV here but I guess people were trying to beat the AI with a "one city - only" civilization (think Singapore ? ) in Civ III as well, isn't it ? And maybe in Civ II before that ? Or even, one might think, in Sid Meier's Civilization (Civ I) ?
Who are the ancients on this forum ? Does anyone recollect the (very) old times ? Is anyone tracing his past Civ-related discussions to Usenet and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic ? I'm talking years before Google was founded ...

The OCC was certainly around in Civ II. And it was genuine; unlike the OCC option in Civ IV, there were no rule changes to make it easier.

RJM

[Krill]

Dominae showed it to me in C3C when I joined the forum in early 04, but I do know that it was around in CII. Most of the old timers are gone now though, the civ forums here are old and shrivled.

And that link is from, what, '92? I wasn't even 4 then...jeez some of you guys are old.

[Ming]

It was developed in the old Civ II days. We were looking for new challenges to win.
In a thread here, a bunch of us started discussing the one city challenge. We determinded the rules, and gave it a shot. I was the first one to do it. Then, being twin brothers, rah and I traded off the record back and forth. AND THEN CAME PAUL He developed the best OCC strategies, and blew our records away. I think he wrote a guide on the best way to do it. He was the king of Civ II OCC.

We had some other strange challenges back then. One of my favorites was you could not create a city. The only way to win was to take AI cities. You pretty much wandered and opened huts until your army was good enough to take an AI city. And you had to pray the AI built a city on the coast, or you would never be able to win. (It was a conquest challenge)

We had some other wacko ones... but OCC was the favorite. I guess the game designers agreed, because we were all happy to see it included as an option in Civ IV.

KEEP ON CIVIN'

[Theben]

That thread is still around here in the CivII forum, way in the beginning. Or at least it was before the v.3 shift, I don't see it now but Poly is loading so slowwwww that I can't be arsed to search for it.

I remember being one of the 1st to complete the challenge, but then others came along that trashed my record. Some people were reaching Alpha Centauri in the BC era... I never could do that...

[Ming]

Yeah... I remember when I was the first to complete it, I did it with only a few turns left. We were all so impressed it could be done. And then Paul came along and showed us just how easy it could be done I don't think anybody ever did it in the BC era... I thought the record was in the 15 or 1600's at Deity. And I do remember you as one of the early competitors who managed to do it. Some couldn't at first.

[rah]

Something can't be done that's a requirement prior to AD. I think it was you couldn't build Apollo project or something.

[Theben]

Someone discovered that if you save the game as a scenario you could launch in BC. You couldn't in the standard game.

[Aeson]

I played OCC in Civ I quite a bit. I didn't call it OCC... it was just starting as the English...

[Unimatrix11]

So i did get it right, Ming and rah are actually twin brothers? Or is this figurative for something else than family relation ?

[rah]

Yes we're twins.

[sorinache]

I played OCC in Civ I quite a bit. I didn't call it OCC... it was just starting as the English...

Interesting. I played OCC in Civ I as well and actually wrote about it on Usenet under this name (one city challenge). It was, if I remember well, in the autumn of '93. I would start a new game of Civ on emperor (the highest difficulty level in civ I) and discover I was marooned on a tiny island. Since I was playing compulsively at that time, I didn't agonize over how to get out and settle new land : I just improved my city area to death while doing 100% research, and was clicking fast through game turns. When at some point an ennemy frigate showed up, I had almost finished researching the tech tree. I remember losing this first involuntary OCC, but only just : building the spaceship one component at a time was very time consuming and an AI caught up and snatched victory from under my nose.

Unlike Aeson, I didn't like playing the Earth map because it didn't have the excitment of discovery : I knew exactly what was where. Besides, playing as the english allows you to easily set foot on the continent using a trireme.

I was an avid contributor to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic at that time and went on to write about it in the newsgroup - it might even be that those posts could be dug up from Google's archives (if it bothered to keep them). spoke with a few RL civ-loving friends too about it. Named the idea exactly like that : "one city challenge". It didn't enjoy a very good reception at the time, most contributors on c.s.i.p.g.s thought I was nuts (which is probably true). I don't remember anyone willing to take it up and try it, mostly because 99,9% of the randomly generated maps were not suitable. If I remember well I never managed to win an OCC in civ I. In Civ II it was much easier because there was the map editor - I created a few maps for this specific purpose and managed to win.

How old is Apolyton (the website or the community, if it predates the website) ? I never heard about it before finding it thanked for its contributions in the Civ IV manual. But then I had all but stopped discussing civ on the internet around '98 or so ...

[Unimatrix11]

Well, i kinda could have guessed by the looks...

[Blaupanzer]

Yes, Ming's and Rah's avatars reflect their personal looks AND look so much alike. OR have you seen a picture or pictures or them personally, Uni?

[Theben]

How old is Apolyton (the website or the community, if it predates the website) ? I never heard about it before finding it thanked for its contributions in the Civ IV manual. But then I had all but stopped discussing civ on the internet around '98 or so ...

AFAIK to '96. Apolyton was created in 1998 from the merger of 2 other sites: MarkG's Greek Civilization site and DanQ's Ultimate CivII site (or something close to those), both of which orginated in '96, civII's release year.

There were definitely people before who had done 1 city challenges; a friend of mine played civI to the detriment of his life, health, and his job (he literally would play for days in his room, only coming out for bathroom breaks, food and cigarettes). One time there was a glitch in the game and an anomaly appeared on the top of the map- also his 1st settler was up there. He settled on the spot and it gave him 99 food, 99 shields, and 99 trade!! He easily won the space race.