Happiness

[Hasdrubal]

quote: In my present game, I'm in Republic... I also have four military units present.

Martial law doesn't apply in Republic. As for what makes those pesky, ungrateful citizens of yours unhappy...can't tell from here. Happiness is one of the most complex elements in the game. Check for all the usual -related aspects: luxuries, units outside city, wonders, size of empire (the more cities you have, the more they become unhappy), etc. Tip: get lots of trade routes, then raise your luxury level.


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Ceterum censeo Romanem esse delendam.
[This message has been edited by Hasdrubal (edited June 09, 2000).]

[Xin Yu]

Smash: You can grow to size 21 in Republic without HG since your first citizen is content. On Size 21 you must have a specialist, who is, unfortunately, your only originally content citizen. Due to that you can at most have 10 happy citizens out of 21, not enough for WLTKD. After changing to Democracy your palace gives one more citizen then you can celebrate again.

With HG, however, you can still keep on celebration under republic since it gives you 3 more happy citizens.

Unlike the colosseum, HG's effect lasts after Shakspear has been built. Thus it continues to save you money when you need celebration (you need less luxury from other resources).

There is a problem: HG expires on RR, and you may need RR quickly to give you another shield on mined hills. So you'll probably get RR before Refrigiration and can't use the HG to really grow your city to size 36. Have to use Democracy eventually, but that could be postponed.

[Aurelius]

quote: Originally posted by Xin Yu on 06-09-2000 10:46 PM There is a problem: HG expires on RR, and you may need RR quickly to give you another shield on mined hills. So you'll probably get RR before Refrigiration and can't use the HG to really grow your city to size 36. Have to use Democracy eventually, but that could be postponed.

Most occ'ers go for refridgeration before railroad so your strat is viable in that regard.

[Smash]

ok I understand why you can't celebrate past 21 with Republic without Gardens.I thought it was a limitation of Republic that was uneffected by Gardens.

I'm still not convinced Usually after Medicine,you go straight for Sanitation,build Shake's,celebrate to 21 or as big as terrain allows.At this point,your non settler is scrambling to keep up.

Also,it is usually at this point that research drops to 2 turns per tech.You try to keep this rate going by building engineers,researching Refrigeration,growing to mid 20s(for scientists),research Automobile,superhighway,research Computers and finally build a research lab.

I think size 36 is overkill.You may drop out of 2 turns with that much celebrating if your treasury is not good.How much time will it take to convert size 36 terrian to 80 sheilds?.Remember,airbasing hills amd mountains is an OCC cheat and not permitted.

The odd time in between each "goal" it goes to 3 turns you gift techs until it drops back to 2 turns.Only for a brief period can 1 city produce enough beakers for 1 turn on its own(no caravans) so I don't beleive the extra citizens is worth the effort.

Paul's system has been refined by him and others to the point that even new civers would win OCC just by following it.

I'm a little unclear about the timetable.After trade you have to get your 3 routes up ASAP,build market,temple and usually colliseum followed by aquaduct.Most times you are still building the colliseum or aquaduct when Republic is discovered.Gold is usually scarce and sheilds are low.4 caravans may take 12 turns.

With "The System" your first set of caravans arrive about the time you get Republic so colliseum and/or aquaduct are rushed so you can start caravans for Cope's as you celebrate to size 12.You may only have a colliseum for 6-10 turns then sell it.Not too much upkeep.That extra 100 comes in handy for Cope's or Shake's caravans.

[Paul]

Xin Yu, I think that the currently accepted OCC strategy of building a colosseum is the best for the reasons that have already been mentioned. At that time in the game you don't have the time to build an other wonder or the money to buy it.

Besides, I tested this in cheat mode and with HG but without the colosseum you can only WLTCD to size 8. That means that you are stuck on a smaller city size when the colosseum player is already at 12.

And it will take more time to build HG than a colosseum so you will get to size 8 later in the game. That means that by the time that your smaller city build Shakespeare's Theatre my larger city will most likely also already be a long way towards completing it.

And as has already been mentioned, if you stay in republic you are stuck with the 80% max science rate. In democracy you can set science to 90 or 100% if necessary, so I'll go for democracy. It can make the difference between advances every 2 or 3 turns.

But of course you are welcome to try your OCC strategy and let us know if it works better than expected. If you go to my OCC page you can download some comparison games. For the fortnight games I have made tables with the progress of all the players who posted their logs, so you can easily see how well your strategy works compared to mine.

Aurelius, we do get refrigeration before railroad but railroad is the next target after refrigeration so you won't be able to start celebrating before HG is obsolete.

[tyagel]

Ok maybe I should start another thread, but
since it comes under the topic somewhat
(in that modifying squares increases
trade...) I wanted to get a little more
information about how people modify the
terrain of their cities in these OCCs.

I read Paul's guide and he says to put roads
and mine trade specials in the beginning,
but after that I am unclear of how to
proceed with my settler(s)/engineer(s).

It seems that there must be some kind of
balance since people also mention several
times the need to get 80+ production.

What do people generally do in order to get
the huge production and the required food
and trade for a large city size.

[Paul]

In order to get the required food for a large population you should of course irrigate your grass and plain squares and make farmland after refrigeration. Don't forget to also build roads for trade arrows. And build a harbor if you have ocean squares in your city radius.

To get 80+ shields you must have a base production of 32+ shields. That is the production that comes naturally from the terrain plus the bonus from railroad on forest/mines plus the shields from an offshore platform. Combined with the production bonuses of factory, power plant and manufacturing plant this will give you 80+ shields.

If the terrain around your city doesn't provide the 32+ base production you should mine grass or plains to forest. You can also transform to hills, but that takes more engineer time, so I prefer forest. For mining to forest your first choice would be river squares because forests on a river will still produce trade arrows.

[Aurelius]

Inca911 had a helpful chart about terraforming land...I cut and paste it on each of my logs as a reference.

Using Inca911:
Manipulation of Special Terrain Squares

You can terraform these special terrain squares into different special terrains as follows:

Buffalo: Mine to Pheasant
Coal: Transform to Buffalo
Fruit: Transform to Wheat
Furs: Transform to Oil(in Desert)
Pheasant: Irrigate to Buffalo
Musk Ox: Transform to Oasis
Gems: Mine to Pheasant, Transform to Buffalo
Gold: Transform to Coal
Iron: Transform to Wine--very useful!
Ivory: Transform to Musk Ox
Oasis: Transform to Buffalo
Oil(in Desert): Transform to Wheat
Oil(in Glacier): Transform to Furs
Peat: Mine to Pheasant, Transform to Buffalo
Silk: Irrigate to Wheat
Spice: Tranform to Wheat
Wheat: Mine to Silk--very useful!
Wine: Transform to Wheat


Might be obvious, but building roads on rivers and on hills with wine or on silk/spice add an orange trade arrow.

Don't read the following if you are going to play OCC5:

Paul, I tend to believe you concerning Xin's HG idea, but it is a potentially good strat at some level of the game and it might even have it's specific advantages on certain maps. I played it (rather poorly: monarchy to Democracy excluding republic) in OCC5--ahab. I got a late 1700 score. I also built King Richards in the game as the ocean minimizes the affects of pollution. Did anyone try this in OCC5? King Richards isn't usually good in OCC, but it has it's good moments too.

[Xin Yu]

Paul: I agree with you in most aspects except the size 8 thing. If food is enough and you hire 2-3 specialists when growing beyond size 8 you can grow to 12.

Here's another HG's drawback: when you celebrate to size 21 (10 turns from sanitation) you may already have democracy. So there's really not much advantage except for saving your revolution time.
[This message has been edited by Xin Yu (edited June 10, 2000).]

[Paul]

Xin Yu, you're right about the specialists; I hadn't thought of that. But I will still build a colosseum instead of HG for the other reasons mentioned before.

[vik]

Xin Yu,

I curious to know when you would build HG. Normally, we build in the following order, if possible:

(warriors, if necessary)
Colossus
Library
Marketplace
Temple
caravan
caravan
caravan
Colosseum
Aqueduct

I know you have advocated a granary before the Colossus, but I was just wondering where you would put HG. I might try a couple of test-games for myself (like I did with the Granary).

[Sten Sture]

One possible risk with HG over growth is outgrowing your food supply. Since every specialist consumes two food they act like a settler/engineer on your civ. If you don't plan your growth very carefully you could find yourself in a food deficit when you build your engineers and if you run out - the game kills them off. Which is bad.

There are ways to get around this - bribing non-eng or a bunch of non-settlers - starve shrinking your city before you build engineers - bribing AI food caravans (never seen that one) but all of those responses have costs associated with them.

I like the graneries ability to keep the food box half full after you grow, but I would rather have it keep it half full when you starve down one size.

[vik]

Thanks, Xin Yu.

My previous message was just how I normally build things, and I couldn't figure out where to put the HG.

I'll try it out both ways when I get some more time. I'll try to keep a log similar to the Granary thing.

One question. When I was trying out the "Granary-first" option, you advocated building a settler into the city. Are you still doing that for this? Basically, the same way again? If so, I would probably re-build the settler after the library.

Also, if this is true, I'll probably use the 4-whale comparison.

thanks

[Xin Yu]

Vik: Sure I'll put the second settler in the city. The whole idea is to beat the other strategy by 1 population in the city until republic is found. With one extra worker on a whale each turn you have two more shields and two more trade icons. Suppose Republic is established on 500BC, then you have about 75 turns with this one-pop advantage. Not mention that you get Monarchy faster.

This strategy will be less favorable if Republic is found by 3000BC.

[Xin Yu]

Vik: Don't build Marketplace too early. You are wasting your money (at 20%-30% tax rate). Build library, temple, then harbor (if possible). With harbor you can hire specialists and celebrate. You may need to research seafaring before construction, but your city is at size 5 so you can hire scientists to get more science bulbs.

Granary -- Sold at size 5
Colossus
Library
Temple
(Harbor) -- build as soon as you can
Caravan
Caravan
(Trieme) -- if necessary
Caravan
Caravan
Caravan
Caravan
Caravan (HG)
Aqueduct
Marketplace (Marketplace can be built before Aqueduct if you haven't reached size 8 yet)

Edit: You don't need to have the first 3 caravans for trade. You can use them for HG if you want, since HG gives 3 happy citizens, equivalent to 6 trade icon. An early trade route doesn't give you a lot.
[This message has been edited by Xin Yu (edited June 12, 2000).]