OCC Best Dates

[ToeTruck]

A couple of recent threads indicate that more and more players are trying (and succeeding!) at Civ3 OCC. I thought a record of best dates might be a fun way to track progress in this area. Hence, this post.

I know a lot of folks consider OCC a silly exercise until they get bored of winning the other ways; kind of a last resort of fun. I, myself, consider OCC a good, quick way to learn the game dynamics and fine tune your skills. I figure if you win on OCC and have a reasonable grasp of the multi-city dynamics, your overall game is far improved.

That said, I'd like this thread to serve as a record of OCC successes considering the three basic axes of Civ3 game variability:

1) Board size
2) Civ played
3) Victory type

I know there are a lot of other variables like land mass, climate, age, and patch level, but I thought we could start with these three and see how it goes.

Right now, I see the following OCC victories on the Apolyton forums:

Deity:
drenasu - Tiny - Greeks - Cultural - 1976

Emperor:
karlmarx9001 - Small - Egyptians - Cultural - 1864

Monarch:
ToeTruck - Standard - Persians - Space Race - 1846

If there's interest in this kind of record, I'd like to standardize on some of the other parameters (like Raging Barbarians), but I'm open to comments. If there's no interest in this record, I'll let the thread die.

Also, I figure we're so early in the learning curve on this game that I'm willing to accept better scores on any saved games of the other posters. When I have the chance, I start a Zip file of good starting positions with their "turn before victory" saves.

Thanks.

- TT

[karlmarx9001]

Chieftan:

karlmarx9001 - Tiny - Egyptians - Cultural - 1802

You'll need to take my word for it; I was screwing around this morning to see what the fastest possible time to a cultural victory was. You can probably shave another 100 years or two off if you start next to a river, which I didn't.

[dainbramaged13]

Regent
Whatever the settings were for the Apolyton Tourney 1 - Diplomatic - 1814

[dainbramaged13]

Originally posted by karlmarx9001
Chieftan:

karlmarx9001 - Tiny - Egyptians - Cultural - 1802

You'll need to take my word for it; I was screwing around this morning to see what the fastest possible time to a cultural victory was. You can probably shave another 100 years or two off if you start next to a river, which I didn't.

Im trying a similar thing, to see if i can beat u
i probly wont
i dunno, occ is like the funnest thing for me, its really wierd
i can only pklay so many wargames with huge empires shorter games are more my style.

[Ineffablebob]

Regent, Tiny map, Persians, 3 other Civs.

Cultural victory circa 1980 (not sure of exact date, don't have the game in front of me).

[solo]

TT,

It might be interesting to play a few comparison games, all participants using the same start. After loading the new patch, I tried OCC using the start for the 2nd tournament, with a launch date of 2018. Either the new patch slows research speeds or I did something terribly wrong to launch so late, so would be interested to see others give this one a try.

I know that in Paul's CivII comparison games, we always played for a spaceship win, since the only alternative was conquest, but if we try comparison games here, I believe the type of victory aimed for should be pre-determined, since some types of victories are much easier to attain than others.

(See your previous thread for details about how my previous deity OCC attempt failed, and about why I think it would be a better idea to use 5 cities instead of 1 for CivIII contests.)

[ToeTruck]

Five City Challenge!

Hi Solo,

I really like the idea of a five city challenge. That allows for all of the small wonders to be built (I think) and is still manageable enough that you don't need a zillion hours of screen time to put in a decent effort. Low corruption, too!

With five cities, early dates at Deity and Raging Barbs should be quite possible.

I also like the idea of restricting the victory type for each challenge. I have no problem playing a challenge for Cultural or Diplomatic or whatever, but if it's not restricted you end up comparing oranges to apples. The Space Race is my favorite, but I'm open.

Logistically, how would we do this? Start a thread, post a position and give everyone two weeks? I'm up for it.

Any thoughts?

On another vein, has anyone considered tinkering with your opponent civs to increase your chances of an OCC win?. In order to slow down the tech-sharing, I think non-expansionistic opponents might be best. Also, to improve your standing at the diplomacy table, you need a high culture. I'm playing a game right now with no expansionistic or religious opponents...we'll see.

Thanks.

- TT

[solo]

Toe Truck,

Sure, let's start a thread for FCC (Five City Challenge), post a start and some guidelines, which so far are:

1) No more than 5 cities.

2) Best launch date wins.

Then have a comparison game lasting a few weeks. Any more guidelines you can think of? Using the latest patch, so that all are using the same game, is another that makes sense to me. Then I think a game or two and some feedback from participants can be used to expand the rules, if need be.

[ICMB]

Originally posted by solo After loading the new patch, I tried OCC using the start for the 2nd tournament, with a launch date of 2018. Either the new patch slows research speeds or I did something terribly wrong to launch so late, so would be interested to see others give this one a try.

The 1.16f patch increased the maximum tech research time from 32 turns to 40 turns, and also made many late techs require more research. (Which makes sense since most people are down to 4-turn reserach in the late stages of the game...now it's a struggle to balance throughout the game.)

- ICMB

[photar74]

OCC Diety Win

I know that drensu (sp) already posted a Diety OCC culture victory, but I was just so happy with the one I just achieved that I wanted to post.

I chose the Persians, because I figured that if there was a source of iron in my city space then I could EASILY conquer anyone on my island. I also chose a tiny map, three other civs, sixty-percent pangea, arid and cool climate and five billions years because I figured that would result in the least possible amount of usuable land, thereby reducing my handicap to the AI.

Everything worked out perfectly. Even though I wasn't on the coast, there were five hills in my starting location. I went right for Iron Working and, sure enough, one of the five hills had iron. Only about 15-18 turns later I was able to attack Babylon, which was only four squares from my capital. Soon as one of the Immortals won, a Golden age was trigged, which allowed me to produce an Immortal once every two turns. With a small hoard of verteran units attacking at 4, it was only about 30 turns before I had conquered the entire continent, which by my fortune included all three other civs.

Only the Zulus were wiped out however, and the Indians and Babylonians lived with one outpost each on nearby islands. Now, I was cursing my lcuk, because as it turns out that from ym starting location I could have moved one space to the west and had access both to the coast and to the source of iron. If I had done this, I would have won by a conquest victory, probably still during the BC.

Still, the other civs were so crippled that it took them a very long time to get back on their feet. Also, my city had such a huge production potential being near the five hills that I was able to outbuild them when it came to wonders, usually even if they had a twenty turn head start.

I also kept picking off any settlements they tried to make on my continent until about 1750, when the Babylonians started arrived with Infantry. At that point, however, it didn't matter. I just built up a huge defensive force and waited for the inevitable.

It seems to me that if there is a source of iron and acess to the coast in the starting position, then someone could win OCC Diety by conquest every time on either a tiny or a small map if they take the Persians. After all, I got the idea for this type fo victory from the very first way I defeated Diety back in early November. It takes a long, long time before Immortals can be stopped.

If anyone is interedted, here is the saved game the turn before I win.

[photar74]

I just replayed the game and won in 510 BC with a score of 16,000+. I wonder if that is a record, although since this was a replay it probably shouldn't be considered for any records.

[Excelsior]

Deity OCC Cultural Win - 2015

I know that drensu (sp) already posted a Diety OCC culture victory, but I was just so happy with the one I just achieved that I wanted to post.

Me too! I was playing on a tiny random map with the Babylonians. I ended up on a small continent with the Aztecs, Russians, and Persians.

My city was in a good position. There was a river running through my territory, but not next to the city so I didn't get the benefit of a free aqueduct. The city did have furs, iron, horses, and later rubber, though.

Early on, everyone was agressive. I probably paid tribute to someone every other turn. Meanwhile, I was in no position to wage war, having started the oracle rather than building a military. Eventually, the Persians decided to eradicate me, sending 2 warriors in the first wave and a warrior and 2 horsemen in the second. The Oracle was about 2 turns from completion when war broke out and I was loathe to switch to building war material. Fortunately, luck was on my side (no reloading!); I managed to hold off the entire Persian force with a single warrior. Not long thereafter, the Aztecs declared war on the Persians forcing the Persians to offer me peace.

After getting the Oracle, I also managed to snag The Great Library and Shakespeare's Theater, somehow. While I was peacefully building, the other three civs were hammering away at each other with everything they had. I occupied a bottleneck in the continent through which the Persians had to pass to get at the Aztecs and vice versa. And they were constantly at war, using my civilization as a highway to each other. I saw battles from archers and spearmen, to knights, longbowmen, and riflemen, all the way to infantry, tanks, and cavalry. Amazingly, none of the AIs ever seemed to gain a clear advantage.

While they expended their resources on war, I slowly crept back into the tech race, finally pulling even with the AIs about the mid-1900s. That's about when I picked up fission, I think, the first technology that I controlled exclusively. I figured that the AIs would demand it from me if I tried to keep it a secret, so I sold it off in exchange for more tech + cash. I still managed to beat the Russians to the UN. It didn't matter, though, since everyone voted for himself/herself.

About this time, the Russians stopped fighting with the Aztecs against the Persians, and instead decided to fight with the Persians against the Aztecs. It wasn't long before they were wiped out and the Russians turned on the Persians again. Throughout, I remained happily neutral. I was a little worried that the Russians might wipe out the Persians and achieve a domination victory, but I managed 20K culture first!

It was a great game. Trying to stay on the good side of the AI when it can wipe you out with its pinky finger is lots of fun.

This zip has both the 4000BC save and the turn before victory, if anyone is interested.

[ToeTruck]

OCC Deity Space Race Win

Tiny - Egyptians - Space Race - 1655AD

Log and save game attached.

See Solo's thread "Quest for Deity OCC..." for more.

- TT