space race with minimum cities-strategies-

[Theben]

Finally. Spaceship landed in 1960. Not a record but at least I'm in it now. Yeah, baby!

Aside from building on a river, a tactic I think helped my bribing ability was I put a settler & a diplomat on a ship and sent it away from my city, looking for barbarian uprisings. Then I'd buy the uprisings & have a bunch of non-units. The settler would build a fort to keep them in. My original idea was to leave the diplomat with the fort, but instead when finished I put the settler & dip back on the ship. I had 3 such forts at any time. Later I moved them all near enemy cities so they would get a free trip home. Helped stop enemy expansion, and I think helped intimidate the AI's-they were all on the same continent w/ me, and my bribing was much more effective this game than any other.

wonders-colossus, copernicus, Issac's, HG, KRC, Sheakes Theatre, darwin's, SOL, hooverD, and apollo. Didn't need MPE, most everyone was nearby.

[Theben]

I meant demanding tribute, not bribing.

[Ming]

Congrats to Theben and Nakin Tames. Yes Nakin didn't quite do it in the time limit provided, but just doing it is great. Again, trade is more important than production, so next time, maybe you can get spice or some other special resourses instead of two production ones. It really helps develope those sciences.
And Theben... rah and I do the same thing. We set up little outposts (fortifications on mountains) in key areas or choke points. Spies bribe units, and we also use the teleportation feature of camping them out in nearby cities to get them sent home so they can particapate in the defense of the homeland. It's a great way to keep a military presence near the enemy, and for producing non units. Near the end, I try to get them all sent home so they can be used to help build space ship parts. 1960 is really good. And by the way, I live in Deerfield, so I would love to work there too. The compute into the city kills me everyday.

[jpk]

Some questions about one city games.

I was goody hut hunting and would find an advanced tribe somewhere. A few moves later a group of barbarians would show up. Is it permissible to defend the extra city while it is being turned into a settler? If not the barbarians take an awful lot of money. It seems to me that having a nearby barbarian city might be useful as a source of NON units.

My greatest difficulty was that I would be goody hut hunting, a bunch of barbarians would jump out and destroy my second settler or the NON unit that I was using to hunt.

Is there a map size that has a higher percentage of goody huts. I was playing on an 80x125 map and always seem to be in a hut free zone.

Thank you. Congratulations to everyone who has successfully completed a one city game.

[Theben]

I forgot to mention I had Leo's, which was a big help. I got hoover mainly so no AI civ would have it, and darwin to add an extra boost to my science. I had enough cash anyway. The civs were amazingly close to each other in size, so there wasn't any one overpowering civ. Only 2 civs were able to reach me & one was very weak due to inferior tech. 3 whales & 1 fur didn't hurt, either.

The amazing thing is all the civs were WAY behind in tech & fighting each other when I built apollo. 2 turns later they're all at peace(this I expected) and swapping tech like mad. Also their discovery rate seemed to have tripled. 5 turns after launch they have caught up to me & even surpassed me in some techs.

[Bird]

JPK: When that happens to me, I don't defend the city, but that's probably because I haven't had the exploring unit nearby when the barbs (or another civ) show up. You're right, it sucks to lose the cash when the city is taken over. An even more annoying situation is when you find a city and production is so bad that it is impossible to build a settler before the city grows. I once had to shell out gold to buy a stupid settler to disband the city.

Way to go Theben and Nakin! I'll get there yet, dammit.

[Theben]

jpk,
I don't think there is anything wrong with defending the city until you can disband it safely. I do it, so I hope not. Just don't build structures and few units(if any) besides the last settler.
Barbarian cities can also be useful to impede enemy expansion.

[Adam Smith]

On the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words, have you successful players considered posting your masterpieces in the Hall of Fame? Perhaps Stewart Spink can be persuaded to add additional categories for the major types of challenges.

[rah]

Not really. For three reason.
1. My primary motivation for these are to beat Ming.
2. The finish doesn't show how you got there, and that's what generating all the discussions. I really enjoy the discussions. I've learned different strategies that may surprise people in MP.
3. So far, we have had two challenges. I expect many more. (more ideas are are welcome) Some may get real obscure and while that may be ok for a single thread, it may not be appropriate for general consumption. (off topic treads excluded)
RAH

[Ming]

Yea, the trick is to get rid of the city as soon as you are ABLE to. It's not your fault you got a free city... it happens. In most cases, I end up buying the settler to disband it. With an elvis, it usually has one production... I buy up to a warrior the first turn, buy up to a phalanx the second turn, buy up to a diplo the next turn, and buy up to a settler after that. At least that minimizes the money drain. As far as defending the city... your choice. As long as you aren't defending it to gain some advantage. I really don't see why you would bother. I would love a barbarian city nearby. Bribing their units is much cheaper than other units. And usually, they provide better units to bribe.
And yes, sometimes you do lose a non unit to a barbarian from a hut... stuff happens. If I lose a settler to barbs from a hut... I will usually start a new game unless things are just soooooooooooo good that I want to continue.
As far as huts go... THERE IS A PATTERN!
The larger the world, theoretically, the more huts. But it really depends on where ocean squares are. Sometimes you get can really pissed when you go to a location where a hut should be, and there is a single ocean square there (sometimes in the middle of a desert).
I think we have all been playing this challange on the traditional small world size. IMHO it is easier because none of the other civs can really grow to large, and you are closer to everybody. Also, small worlds usually consist of one large land mass. On medium and small worlds, you might have trouble reaching everybody so that you can demand tribute. MPE would be a must if I try this challange on anything larger than a small world.

[Graag]

*BUMP*

Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but I had a lot of fun reading through the evolution of OCC, and the early strategies and ideas.

Graag

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You should never smoke in pyjamas, you could start a fire and burn your face

[War4ever]

No, thankyou for bumbing the post as i too enjoyed the early banter about OCC and some of the strategies that worked and didnt' work. I like OCC, too bad i suck at it

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I am a civ addict. ARE U 2??????


icq 30200920

[poppawoppa]

Thanks for bumping this thread up. I don't know if this is common knowledge, or just got out more recently than the March 1999 dates on most of the latest postings here. I see one comment about bringing in a Freight or Caravan, disbanding it and then with the city doing 55 shields per turn, or more, but less than 80, your structurals are built in just one turn. So far so good. However, I just thought of this (or maybe remembered something from another thread), what if you selected a Wonder of the World to build...then sent in the Caravan or Freight, to "Add to the Wonder", and then go back and switch to Structural, Component or Module? Wouldn't that add 50 shields to the production box instead of the 25 from disbanding? This would enable you to have less than 55 shields production, and still be able to build one per turn, also when doing the Component and Module, the cost of rush buying them would be 100 gold less per turn.

Like I said, maybe this is old news to most everyone else, but it seems like and idea worth posting again. It's not a cheat, is it?

[geofelt]

Nostalgia! It was fun to reread the old posts. Has anybody won on a medium/large map?

[Sten Sture]

I think Paul won both size maps a while back. I have been struggling just to stay afloat.

Look what you guys started geofelt!