Is OCC easier than regular games?

[Hoss]

I’ve been on holiday this week and have played a number of games. I played OCC five times and landed every time(between 1781 and 1930). Then I switched to regular games. The first time I had to go for a Fundamentalist conquor because my tech advances were too slow, and in my second game I just gave up in the 1800s when I realized I’d never get to AC or conquor because my riflemen were confronted by the Zulu’s airplanes.

What am I doing wrong?

[Scouse Gits]

IMHO - YES a lot!
I too have no difficulty 'winning?' ie beating the AI at OCC - The no holds barred games are MUCH harder - I still generally 'win', but don't feel that I could be doing a lot better - which i do at OCC.

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Sten Sture]

LoL! Remember when we weren't even sure that OCC was possible! Now it is easier, and I agree. (and I do play it in MGE)
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited March 06, 2000).]

[Aurelius]

Hoss,
I've had the same experience. I think the additional cities are liabilities given given a Super Science City. You have to defend them and the AI has more possibilities to steal from your Civ. Still....playing multi-city games are fun in a different sort of way.

AU

[Empress]

Well, I think it depends on who you are playing OCC with. I have found that it is tough when playing against another human, and having to worry about keeping peace with all the a/i civs!

[geofelt]

If you win OCC at deity, you are playing very well. I find it takes some luck to get a decent city site.

[Graag]

I find OCC far easier.

Graag

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I could really give a rat's ass about your Apolyton politics
Maestrobto

[Drago Sinio]

To me the thing about OCC that is easier is the Happiness factor. Once you Build Shakespeare's theatre you are practically immune to it. That is the hardest part of the game at Deity for me, dealing with the unhappiness while trying to expand the size of your civ.

In OCC, there is none of that, you just build the Shakespeare wonder, and no more unhappy citizens, ever.

[crowatbitemedotcom]

Geo - a good site is important, no doubt. But once you have a good site, then OCC is easier than most other strategies (on diety).
Like Drago says, the happiness factor is very important. If you have more than a 8-10 cities you are spending a lot of time & effort just keeping the people happy.



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Will everyone stop bloody quoting everyone else in their signature damnit. - Graag

[Hoss]

Geo,
Of course the problem of finding a good site is eliminated when you play one of the comparison games. They set you up in a sweet spot. But even if you play a random map, it doesn’t take that long to find a few specials to found your city near. You can quickly make up the lost turns spent wandering. From then on its just a matter of following the formula (get the right wonders and follow the right tech path) to win.

[Hoss]

To everyone who’s posted here,
Glad you all seem to agree with me. I thought I was doing something wrong. I’d had no trouble winning at the lower levels, but wasn’t prepared for the unhappiness problems at deity From reading earlier posts I was able to craft together a strategy to finally win an AC game. Thanks to all of you who did it before me and put your advice up here at Apolyton

[geofelt]

The part of OCC I have difficulty with is keeping rivals away from your city. If you can find a spot with a choke point, it is easy. If not, the ai builds an overlapping city. I can't keep alliances forever, and I find it hard to defend while trying to get the ss off. This seems to be even more important than a city with maximum specials.

[Tom DeMille]

I wonder if map size has as much to do with it as OCC. OCC is always played on small maps, and the AI never seems to amount to much. That is, they never get their cities up above size 12, and never discover more than 6 or 7 techs amongsn't themselves (I give them all my techs as I discover them). I just finished that medium map comparison game that DaveV put together, and found the AIs became a lot more powerful. They still had only 6 or 7 cities each, but they were getting up to size 20, and they discovered a lot of techs for me (I received 39 techs in trade from the AIs).

Maybe it's time ot play OCC on medium maps

[inca911]

I think OCC is much more a challenge if you are using MPGE (Multi Player Gold Edition)instead of v2.42. The AI in MPGE is much more hostile and can go from Worshipful to Uncooperative in one turn. If you want a harder OCC challenge, load up MPGE and see if you can even get the AI to swap maps with you!

[Smash]

Research moves faster on small maps than medium-Medium faster than large.I can't remember the exact numbers.Since many of you are routinely landing in 1700s and early 1800s perhaps its time to move up to medium maps.The Specials tend to be fewer the bigger you go so finding a spot might be even more difficult.Perhaps the next "fortnight" should be on a medium map.


The biggest advantages 2.42ers have on MGEers is(1) the amount of gold you can get out of ai civs and (2) not having to defend against unit after unit.This allows more time for infastructure,wonders and caravans

slightly less total beakers required in MGE but I think the inability to maintain relations far outweighs this.