AU302: One City - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Call it an unconventional approach but I didn't build the SETI wonder in my emperor game. I had so much $$ I decided to steal techs to win...

I've never stolen a tech - what are the chances of success and the risks of war? Do spies make a difference?

[Vlado]

Well if thats desert I guess that I'´ll have to do it differently next time. Time to try again...

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I've never stolen a tech - what are the chances of success and the risks of war? Do spies make a difference?

If your rival's attitude is not very favorable there is a very high risk of them declaring war.

What I did was switch to Communism when I stopped researching (after getting Space Flight), communism gives you much better odds of successful stealing at normal and careful levels.

Also, for example, you'd do the careful research on the nations you most have to lose from if war were to occur, Korea in this case. With civs on the other continent you can risk a normal steal if you're short on cash.

[rush]

Part IV. Modern Age

Continued from where I left off, OCC Monarch, non-PTW v1.29.

I entered the Modern Age with 20000+ Gold, +80gpt and a Tech lead in Rocketry, as I was playing scientific Greece and received one free advance. But I had a problem. My rivals, the Indian, English and Roman trio were researching different Techs and were actively exchanging among themselves. They always get the same Tech on the same turn. There was no chance of trading. .

I went for Computer. I did not sell Rocketry until 10 turns into the Modern Age, so as to "buy time" before the rivals started researching Space Flight and built Apollo Program. The sales netted me about +250gpt, and my overall income was about +350gpt. This gold later came in handy as I lost out Computer by about 2 turns, and had to buy Fission, Space Flight, and subsequently Superconductor, Satellites, Ecology, Synthetic Fibers. I went for Nuclear Power, got it first, and held on to it for The Laser.

Still on research, the AI made "mistakes" in researching for Advanced Flight, Recycling, Miniaturization, before going for Nuclear Power and The Laser. If they had gone straight for Nuclear Power and The Laser, I would never win.

On units/Wonder building, I built 4 Tanks, 5 Bombers, 2 battleship to add to my existing 20 Infantry units, while waiting for Computers/Fission. Built UN in 1824AD, pre-built SETI. Once Space Flight came, I dropped SETI and switched to Apollo Program. Built Apollo in 1836AD, and started building Space components. Only switched to Nuclear Plant (rush in 1 turn) and Research Lab (1 turn) in between.

While building Space components, I checked what resources were required. 2 components - Fuel Cells (Uranium) and Exterior Casing (Rubber) needed material other than Alumimium. So I built these 2 units as soon as possible to ensure that I don't run out of these materials, as playing in OCC means I had to import all resources for the space ship. Meanwhile, I was also looking out for opportunities to create War between India/England/Roman in order to slow down their Space ship building.

I was lucky. India declared war with Roman before I planned to intervene. But I had to watch out - Roman was my sole source of Rubber, and I was importing Aluminium and Uranium from India. Eventually, England joined force with India, and I was sitting on the fence.

I pre-built ICBM a couple of turns before The Laser, and immediately switched to SS Party Lounge once I got The Laser. Launched Space Ship on the same turn The Laser was researched, and just beat India.

The 3 main reasons I won were - 1. My rivals were not focused, and went for irrelevant Techs like Recycling, Miniturization, while I went for The Laser 2. I had enough gold to buy the expensive Techs (at the end I had less than 1000 gold) and 3. I went straight for Apollo and space ship components, and did not spent turns building SETI, Mass Transit & other city units. The War helped too.

[Nightfall]

Nice games all. I finished in 1946 w/ cultural victory. Built 13 wonders and all available buildings, of course. Just finished an SS victory in GOTM19 so didn't feel like going that direction.

DaveMcW....incredible win. As good as 2cc conquest on large map I saw last month.

[Zero]

My first AU game AND My first OCC game.

Anyways. I cheated. Cause I lost twice as Bab and German... So I had a very good knowledge of the map when I retried it the third time unfourtunately. Being a warmonger that I am, I went for conquest.

Second I didnt play at Monarch+. I always played my games at regent so I didnt wanna have to get used to another difficulty level. Also, Conquest on OCC alone would have been difficult. No matter what level it was, so I stuck with regent.

By the third time (Germans again), I got the hang of just having one city, and didnt repeat the mistake that I made during the last two times. I planned to play out as aggressive as possible using military alliance to help me win wars, and by industrial era everything was going just as I planned (well sort of). Now at this time I was expecting to push on with panzers and finish of the big two civs (Rome and English) w/o their resource aid (meaning I have to stock up on hell of alot of tanks before declaring war) when I am fighting the last civ.

Well it didnt work out exactly as I planned, and not being able to colonize resource in other continent w/o a city in there always made me reliant on other civ to provide the resource for me. Had it have been pangea, conquest might have been more favorable, but then again if its pangeatic I would have had to worry about enemy invading my territory much easily.

It was really fun though. And I learned alot. I'll have to try other Non OCC AU games before I'll come back to this one though.

[CorpusScorpius]

Dominae.......Any chance that AU303 will be another OCC

[Dominae]

Originally posted by CorpusScorpius
Dominae.......Any chance that AU303 will be another OCC

That's an interesting idea. Usually (apart from "The Power of Gold) we've always moved on to different themes, but there's no rule against duplicates. It all depends on what people want to play; if there's interest for another AU game, we'll have one!

AU401 is going pretty slow. We'll wait a bit, then post some polls about the next course.


Dominae

[ToeTruck]

What was AU301? Does the "3" imply some sort of theme? Like OCC? Heh. Lots of questions.

Incidentally, I'd love to play another AU - OCC game. This last one was a ton of fun. Or, I have a couple of ideas for good twists on OCC.

How does an AU game get created? Do I snag the AU mod or is there some "keeper of the AU" I should contact?

- TT

[Arrian]

Wow.

Some day I'm going to try out OCC, but I get the feeling I won't have enough patience for the extreme micromanaging required to do it right, and I KNOW I won't have the patience to write up the impressive logs some of you have.

The thread was a good read, though.

-Arrian

[rush]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wow.

Some day I'm going to try out OCC, but I get the feeling I won't have enough patience for the extreme micromanaging required to do it right,
-Arrian

Arrian, not really. In OCC, it's RELATIVELY EASY to micromanage because you have only have 1 city and not more than 10 workers to manage.

[ToeTruck]

You know, I find the micromanagement in an OCC game to be a lots of fun. Whereas, when I have a 100 cities spread across two continents, it becomes totally un-fun.

In OCC, the small decisions are magnified. That's part of the challenge I really enjoy.

When mining a certain tile before roading it lets you build Cope's one turn ahead of the Russians, you start to get little hyper-focused. In a weeny sort of way, it's a bit of a rush.

- TT

[lmtoops]

I completed my OCC game and had mixed results (Emperor level), which means I lost. I started very well, and was was doing great technologically. My reputation was impeckable.

Then I made a key error of delaying a Research Wonder (can't remember the name) and just never recovered. I had a city with awesome production capabilities, but the other civs were building wonders before I got the tech. I paid a ton of money for what techs I had and I research at 10% (even at 100% it would take 40 turns).

I completely enjoyed the experience. I am going to try the same scenerio again. I think my biggest error was not thinking and planning enough during the middle turns. I had a great plan in the early game, and it worked. Then by the time I realized I was behind, there was no recovery.

I have more details on the game at home, but will not bore you with them. I will do a better write up on my second attempt. I may not win, but I will improve.

[Dominae]

lmtoops, I've not seen you around AU before: welcome! Nice to see you're going back to apply what you've learned.

To the others I've not commented specifically on: well done.

I will stop cheerleading now.


Dominae

[lmtoops]

When the PTW Democracy game when down (for a month), I need an outlet. I checked out the Strategy thread and found AU. I've enjoyed this course and the current course.I had the fortune of winning the current course, which is good.

In any case, I am ready to try again AU302. Concentrate on getting more commerce (whale, gold, and ivory). And hopefully get all the "research wonders".