OCC-gone-wrong conquest strategy questions

[Mercator]

A few years ago I started my first OCC... Um, make that about 6 and a half years ago according to the savegame creation date. I'm only a casual Civ2 player (usually play at Prince or King level), so I thought I'd ease myself into it by playing a Chieftain-level game first, just to see how it would go. And now I'm still playing that same game... Well, I don't think I played it much or at all the past couple of years.

I can't really remember anymore how it started (I didn't keep any earlier saves), but I'm pretty sure I kept up pretty well and stayed alive without any problems. In fact, I destroyed a couple of my opponents. However, by the year 2000 I still had one formidable opponent (the Greeks) which had ~60 cities. Since then I've been trying to figure out how to conquer the world.

I'm currently in the year 3622 (!) and still haven't succeeded.

I've waged multiple nuclear wars and had multiple occurrences of global warming. I completely wiped the cities off the two main continents (I'm on a small island), but since there are so many small islands with cities on them the AI always bounced back and rebuilt those continents. On at least two occasions I consecutively captured my only opponent's capitals, splitting their empire in 4 or 5 pieces.

The Greeks have long gone. I can't remember all of them, but after them have come the Americans and the Carthaginians. I just ravaged their (pathetically defended) heartland, capturing and destroying 4 capitals in a row, and at the moment I'm facing the Babylonians (2 cities, arisen from the AI-captured German capital), Egyptians (11 cities), Chinese (30 cities) and Carthaginians (2 cities).

How can I finally get this ordeal over with?

My last couple of invasions have mostly consisted of Howitzers, accompanied by a few Armor and Mech. Inf. The only use for Battleships and AEGIS Cruisers seems to be as decoys so my transports can get through unharmed.

There are only two small cities within bomber range of my city. The AI is spread out across 10 different landmasses (about 6 "islands" and 4 "continents"). All of them, except one of the continents, will take 3-5 turns to reach from my city by transport.

I imagine the best way to do it would be some sort of island-hopping blitz war, with plenty of filled up transports ready to attack around the world before I declare war, but especially Howitzers are vulnerable after landing, and other units don't seem to be able to do much against their defences, unless I have plenty of them. But my resources are limited (obviously).

So what would be the best way to deal with this? What should my army/navy consist of?

[Straybow]

By this do you mean you are staying with only one city, razing all opposing cities that you conquer?

That makes it very difficult.

[MoNoLitH]

I tried an OCC last week and quickly dumped it; it's too difficult to prevent the computer from building cities right on top of you and interfering with your resource production. Also, without the crawler exploit from SMAC/X, it isn't possible to keep up with the computer technology-wise (I play on Deity level).

Were you fundamentalist? Otherwise there's no way to have a large army since the support limit will quickly become prohibitive (no clean reactor).

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Straybow
By this do you mean you are staying with only one city, razing all opposing cities that you conquer?

That makes it very difficult.

Basically yes.

Well, on some occasions I've held on to some cities and used them as (air)bases or built a few extra units or so. But mostly I try to stick to the spirit of OCC. In that case, as soon as I capture them, I change all citizens to entertainers, change production to Engineers and wait for it to vanish.

Originally posted by MoNoLitH
I tried an OCC last week and quickly dumped it; it's too difficult to prevent the computer from building cities right on top of you and interfering with your resource production.

I did have that problem too, though probably to a lesser extent because I'm on a small island anyway (enough room for squeezing in 4 or 5 cities at most). But I've made a bit of an effort to keep the AI off my island by building a few fortresses. At the moment I have 3 in my city radius and 1 outside it. Each with a few defensive and offensive units to clear out the AI as soon as possible.

Were you fundamentalist? Otherwise there's no way to have a large army since the support limit will quickly become prohibitive (no clean reactor).

Yes I am fundamentalist. Even that only gives enough support for at most ~120 units though.


I've developed a bit of a strategy since last time.

I'm currently at peace with all 3 opponents (the Carthaginians have died). On the 4 main landmasses with cities, I've built fortresses on coastal mountain squares, outside any city radiuses, connected to their railroad network. They each have 2 Mech Infs. in them. I plan on stocking them with Howitzers and Armor (and perhaps a couple of Spies), and most likely plenty of Fanatics when I run out of production in my one city.

Once I go on the offensive I will then hopefully be able to capture all but about 7-14 cities in a single turn. Most of the cities left are on islands; some are isolated and might not be connected yet to their railroad network.

Hopefully I'll have enough of an army and enough transports left to take care of the remaining cities, while maintaining enough of a defense that they don't recapture anything.

[MoNoLitH]

A really hardcore approach might be to use spies to poison all enemy cities to death - that would be a true OCC, and a very difficult one at that!

Have you considered using Fanatics? They're free under Fundamentalism and at veteran level are comparable to non-veteran Mechanized Infantry sans the movement score. It's pretty easy to overwhelm the AI with mass numbers of Fanatics.

[Mercator]

Well, poisoning might be going a bit too far. I'd need an awful lot of them even if they are successful all the time.

I hadn't considered Fanatics until a few days ago for my next attempt. I'm kind of forced to use them now because I don't have enough production for a decent enough army. I didn't think they were any good usually.

Now I think of it, I could use them in another way. I could build so many Fanatics that the maximum amount of units is reached. In that case I can simply wage a slow war against them, just making sure that every unit of theirs I kill I replace with a Fanatic of mine. That way I can slowly make them defenseless, or at least unable to expand because they can't build settlers.

That'd take me ~2000 turns though, and it's kind of cheating. Preparing for a mass attack would take far less than that.

[Straybow]

That'd take me ~2000 turns though...

Drop in the bucket. You've done that many already.

[Straybow]

But seriously, try a few rounds of bribery. Send out a transport with a couple of spies and a MechInf to attract an audience. As long as they're far enough away from your cities, or on the far side of the opposing civ, they will become NONE units.

It can be expensive but you get better units than Fanatics.

[Mercator]

I haven't actually bribed anything so far, but I have tried using spies on occasion. I don't think I've seen any units worth less than ~3000 gold or something. Rushbuying my own would be cheaper... Hmmm, I suppose having them be unsupported might be worth it.

Originally posted by Straybow
Drop in the bucket. You've done that many already.

True...

[Straybow]

You have to lure them away from their own territory with the MechInf so their bribe cost goes down.

Use Rep or Dem celebration to make a city near an opponent grow. When the opponent captures the city you get a number of NONE Partisans. Pull them back, use supported units to soften the enemy and recapture. Rinse and repeat.

[Straybow]

How could I forget? Use spies to nuke/poison the capital and then sabotage until Palace is lost. When an enemy loses it's capital bribe costs go way down.

Also, pay close attention to their politics. When they switch governments they'll spend a turn or two in Anarchy. Gotta pounce on them right away while their bribe costs are down.

[Elephant]

This thread really should be titled OCQ (One City ConQuest)...

The basic strategy of an OCC is pacifist tech focus, with as much AI exploitation as they will permit without getting upset combined with as little military development as possible. A high-trade starting spot, good trade routes and early alliances let you pump your city up for 1-2 turn research while you kiss the AI's butt and try to manipulate their research via tech gifting to supplement your own.

Another basic OCC rule is that you can never, even for a second, possess another city. When making war you cannot "take" a city greater than size 1, even if you could rush-build a settler and disband it next turn.

OCQ is a different but similarly challenging game, with more options on strategic directions. You can try to explore and wipe out as quickly as possible, or try to research your way to a major tech advantage quickly and then use it before the AI catch up or steal it, or wait till the AI builds some serious empires and see if you can survive dealing with them one at a time. Shield support is not the killer limit to the size of your army if you keep your eyes open for NONE bribe opportunities, even if they are not the most powerful units. A high-trade city can also quickly switch to taxes or churn out some high-payoff caravans to finance bribes. And once you are in the modern era with Spies you can poison, sabotage and nuke ad infinitum without shield support. The only thing you probably still need to avoid is taking on more than one at a time.

[DaveV]

The most important use for spies is to destroy city walls, so you can reduce the city population by 1 for each defender destroyed. Another, slower, way to reduce city size is to put units on all the squares around the city. With no food tiles to work, the city should starve down to one population eventually (and one defender, if rep/dem). This doesn't work for water tiles, though.

Do you have respawn enabled? I remember a pretty extensive study on respawning; bottom line, I think you have to station units all over the map to prevent respawns.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Straybow
You have to lure them away from their own territory with the MechInf so their bribe cost goes down.

Aha, I didn't know that.

Use Rep or Dem celebration to make a city near an opponent grow. When the opponent captures the city you get a number of NONE Partisans. Pull them back, use supported units to soften the enemy and recapture. Rinse and repeat.

That wouldn't quite be OC, though.

Originally posted by Straybow
How could I forget? Use spies to nuke/poison the capital and then sabotage until Palace is lost. When an enemy loses it's capital bribe costs go way down.

Yes, I haven't used many spies at all in this game (usually it's not uncommon for me to win games by "spy conquest", inciting revolts left and right). Nuking failed the few times I tried. I've had some success repetitively capturing capitals until no new one is found, though.

Also, pay close attention to their politics. When they switch governments they'll spend a turn or two in Anarchy. Gotta pounce on them right away while their bribe costs are down.

Aha, thanks... I think I've only seen government changes shortly after schisms though. Everyone is Fundamentalist, and has been for quite some time.

Originally posted by Elephant
This thread really should be titled OCQ (One City ConQuest)...

I didn't realise there was a difference...

Another basic OCC rule is that you can never, even for a second, possess another city. When making war you cannot "take" a city greater than size 1, even if you could rush-build a settler and disband it next turn.

Yes... I can't quite remember, but I think I didn't actually capture any other cities until after 2020, when I started trying to fight the Greek monsterciv. They were just too big to handle, so I decided to loosen the rules a bit. It's only a personal game after all.

Do you have respawn enabled? I remember a pretty extensive study on respawning; bottom line, I think you have to station units all over the map to prevent respawns.

I don't think I have respawn enabled. The only reason new civs keep popping up is because of schisms.


Thank you all so far!

[Mercator]

Hmmm, interesting... Just found an old post of mine on CFC about the same game... Posted on "9/11" no less.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7423&postcount=22
Just yesterday I had a stack of 40 paratroopers, while doing my very first OCC (in Chieftain). I only managed to land my spaceship (without competition) on AC by 2085, so I decided to continue just for fun, to try and wipe out the omnipotent Greeks (with approx. 75 cities). To prevent a risky sea transport I built a huge invasion force of 40 paratroopers, dropped them all on enemy land, and captured 3 or 4 cities (yes, paratroopers aren´t all that powerfull, but much more handy than I could remember) which I then starved down.
I´m actually still playing, although I don´t think I´ll be continuing to the end. Trying to wipe out such a large civ, while only having one city yourself is rather tedious, especially when the only city you have is starving due to massive global warming (which I started intentionally to weaken my opponents).