Third time was the charm for OCC

[chince]

Inspired by GEO's post I decided to try the One city challenge at Transcend level once again. Most, perhaps many would consider this a shallow victory, but I'm very happy to have won.

I soon found out that Yang was very nearby and figured that was that. I changed to Police state, gave him a few credits and techs, and soon he asked me to pact with him!

We remained Pact mates to very end, and I ran Demo for the last 20 or so turns too. I just kept giving him a few credits and techs, (which were mostly probed) along the way, and he was always Magnanimous.

As you can see from the screen shot everyone else was not so happy with me. I lost a few things to both Miriam and Dee, but managed to hold them off.

Soon Dee nuke Morgan, then Morgan nuked Dee. Dee nuked Miriam, and if I remember correctly Miriam nuked Dee. Dee and Morgan also committed a number of atrocities against each other. Gas I would assume.

Strangely enough, and this is hard to believe. Yang did not nuke anyone!

A different and weird game. Keeping the Pack with Yang and just surviving the others took some doing and therefore I'm pleased. My score was not high, but I did it!

Yang started and completed the VOP, I just finished it off with Transcend.

[Mark123jansen]

you were doing an OCC and your ONE base was only 7 citizens by the end of the game? that is impressive, although im not sure if thats a positive impressive or a negative impressive.

[Frankychan]

I'd say that is CRAZY impressive.

And seeing how the great Chairman Yang protected those in need, how can one doubt his glory?

seriously though, I'm pretty shocked that Deidre didn't try and take out Yang cause she sure as heck looks like she could have.

I don't see Santiago on the map...where is she?

[Frankychan]

And much Kudo's for getting the OCC.

Dammit, now I want to try it. Friggin 3CC was the best I could do...

[Mart]

I think I will join.
Where are the rules...

[GeoModder]

So, essentially you and Yang were able to research/steal the tech tree in 387 turns on a huge map.

Nice change of tactics, instead of popbooming (hardly possible without demo of course) and crawling extensively you choose to go infiltrating and techstealing around to help your pactmate. How did you manage to steal techs without a coastal base to let probe foils/cruisers depart? Or did you raise your HQ out of the coast?

[Drakan]

Shallow victory ???!!!

I can hardly beat Librarian level with 20 cities, nevermind OCC on Transcend !!

Well done mate impressive

[chince]

Yes, it was a weird game, but fast and enjoyable. Normally I never use probe teams for one thing, and just build and research using a 2x2 ICS type form.

This game of course I couldn't do that and have any chance of winning let alone surviving. I was able to probe earlier from Dee or Miriam by land. I can't remember how many times that the seas rose then fell due to Eco damage and atrocities. The solar shade was voted for, then rescinded, then voted back a few times. It was nuts for a while.

I did at one time try for and had a large population and had crawlers everywhere that I could. I was doing pretty well, but first my good buddy Yang crowded my city borders big time, my crawlers were still OK as we were Pact mates. However, I lost all of my out of city limits crawlers to Dee and Miriam. I had no way to protect them and Yang did not have interceptors. I myself only shot down one of Dee's choppers.

Even just 20 or 30 years before this screen shot I had much more land to work, but the seas were rising again. Losing so much land and the loss of out of city crawlers really hit my population hard. It didn't settle down until the city was only size 7. Right near the end I got rid of the 5 or so crawlers I had and small military, to help me Ascend.

While still happy with the game, I call it a shallow victory as I only got the HG and Ascend to Transcendence projects in the whole game. That's nothing to be proud of, in fact quite the opposite. I suspect that might be a record low for OCC.

Geo: Thanks for the inspiration to try again. It must be 6 months or more since my last try....oh and the Spartans are in the bottom left corner. They were at one time a real problem, but Yang looked after that.

[Flubber]

First off well done on your first success with this

What rules did you play with since if you allowed yourself offensive weapons, you should not have attcks form others. The method is pretty simple if your ruleset allows You simply attack and capture any base in range of yourself and then immediately gift it to your friendly faction ( for you Yang)--

That works if you play that you can never END a turn with more than one base. If you are playing stricter and are NEVER permitted a second base, you need to just empty the base of offensive weapons every chance you get and if you can, gift units to your pactmate to take it

I have played OCC a fair bit and almost always I end up with a friendly protector faction that completely surrounds me and generally my only military casualties after the early game are to naval forces hitting my trawlers ( and in late game that is ineffective when I can ring my trawler fields with armored ones with *4 reactor)

Oh and you should have maximized your population. heck TWo crawled tiles with condensors adn soil enrichers plus some fungus or forests would be enough

[Flubber]

Originally posted by mart7x5
I think I will join.
Where are the rules...

There are a number of rulesets that I can try to dig out but the simplest is

1. Play to win in a game where you end each and every turn owning only one base. You can capture opposing bases but they must be gifted or destroyed before the turn ends.


Once you do that you can try more complicated versions. The most difficult I recall required that you NEVER own more than one base and never BUILD or UPGRADE a unit to have an offensive weapon in excess of weapon 1 AND you had to build a least x secret projects ( I don't remember the number for x but it was high -- something like all but 3 or 4 so you ended up building projects that were of absolutely no use to you)

I will try to dig up the old thread

[GeoModder]

No offensive weapons ever? Man that must be hard.

[Flubber]

I found the post from vel on 16-07-2001

Here's the synopsis in brief:

"One City Challenge"
Basic: (which is actually a two city challenge...or could be!)
1. You can't build any colony pods. (You can use your colony pod to found a new base at the beginning of the game.)

2. You must abandon conquered bases either by starving, turning over to friends or obliterating. (I've never quite come to grips with how the whole starving thing works....'s always seemed easier to just turn them over to a friend).

3. You must win by Ascent to Transcendence.

4. You must build at least 16 secret projects.

5. You may only build native military units and units without weapon(armor allowed).

6. You must choose the difficulty level higher than Librarian.

7. You can keep whatever you find in the unity pods.

Advanced Challenge(changes to basic challenge):
1. You must disband your initial colony pod immediately--IIRC, rather than disbanding the 2nd pod, you could simply add it to your OCC-base's population.

5. You can only build units with armor and no weapon.

7. You must disband any units you found in the unity pods.

Ultimate Challenge:
1. You can only build one base, disband any colony pod at start (no adding to your initial Pop).

2. Abandon any conquered base by starving, obliterating, or giving away (must be done on the same turn as the base is conquered)

3. You must win by Ascent to Transcendence.

4. Blind Research.

5. You may not build any units with weapon, armor, and psi-ability. You can only bribe enemy units.

6. You must disband any units found in unity pods(including transport foils)

7. You must build at least 16 secret projects.

8. You must play at transcend level.

9. You will play on the "Planet" map.

This was in a thread I started after my first OCC success

[Flubber]

Abd here was my first OCC plus the things I learned-- from the same date

MY first OCC attempt Remove this text


I had won OCC games in CIV2 but couldn't recall ever doing it in SMAX. I chose the Univesity on a large (randomly generated) world with all other settings medium and with random opponents(playing transcend level).

The start was ok with a mineral special and a 2 square river in sight so I moved my CPs to a coastal spot on the river. Centauri ecology was the first choice and my thinking was that on a large map I should have some time to develop. Wrong !!!

I met a Free Drone unit only 4 squares from my base in 2109. I then meet a Hive unit in 2112. Lastly, I get to see a Gaian base be established across the ocean square but in my base radius. So much for space to develop on a large map !! It appears that 3 other factions had a start position within 10 squares of me. So, I gave in to all demands for many, many years to keep some peace. The other factions BTW are the Conciousness, Data angels and MARR.

I ascertained that my peninsula was about 6 squares wide in the direction of Yang/Domai (south) with a big 3 square wide dogleg northeast. Tha Gaians are on a large island just to my North. Startegy was simple, Ind auto, -- crawl energy until I could get to hab complexes and then crawl nuts to boom and then go back to energy. Buy peace at all costs.

Well it was working fairly well since no one wanted to war with me until Yang suddenly got uppity and wiped out about 6 crawlers in a suprise attack. I jumped from FM to Green and smacked out a few planes to deal with him. I actually had two bases for a fraction of a turn as I probed away the Hive base between myself and the rest of the Hive empire and gave it to the Gaians.

Currently it is 2286 and I have pacts with the Gaians and Consciousness and a treaty with the data Angels, all of whom have empires in excess of a dozen bases. The Hive is an enemy (with about 30+ bases), has eradicated Domai, and is currently munching through the Angels and intermittently plinking my formers/improvements . Marr is an enemy but other than a couple of naval attacks has been very quiet.

My base at 2286 is a size 14 with 2 excess nuts, 42 minerals beyond support requirements and 184 energy (energy would be much higher but Yang JUST killed 5 sea trawlers -- bye bye 25 energy). My base has all the bells and whistles up to fusion labs and my SPs are the merchant exchange, Supercollider and the theory of Everything. I am running Demo/Green/Knowledge and that results at 100% Labs in 2604 research points per turn. Up until last turn when I lost the trawlers I was achieving a tech a turn for the last 3 turns but now tech cost is over 2700 .

My military includes: 1 chaos Sam artillery (damages locusts like crazy), 1 clean chaos helicopter interceptor ( the 5 needles that killed my trawlers are now dead LOL), a bunch of clean needlejets, 6 formers (4 land, 2 sea), and one ship.


The only problem that won't go away is Yang. His continual sniping at my crawlers and formers has already cost me a bunch. He has about 4 bases that can reach my base radii with air power. I have avoided the problem somewhat by developing new tidal harnesses out of his air range but I hate looking at those old tidal harnesses and not being able to use them.

My plan now is to churn out a trawler every turn and watch 5 new energy go through the amazing effects of a base with all facilities. The Gaians seem to be fighting the Hive to a standstill in the base I gifted them so the main military threat is from Hive airpower. My other big fear is a PB as I can see that the Consciousness is already building one. My beeline now is to try to get ODPs as soon as possible. I figure if I can avoid getting busted I should be able to transcend around 2340 or so.


If I were to play this map again I know that I would not have developed a tidal harness field in range of the Hive. Even though I kill every needle that takes out a trawler, I have lost 11 trawlers thus far. That 55 basic energy would have me easily at a tech a turn ( consider that 184 turns into 2604 lab points). I over-estimated my ability to keep the peace with Yang by giving him stuff. Once he declared war , he would not desist no matter what I offered.

Lessons I have learned

1. Watch those SE allocations-- Everything beyond the tech cost is lost so watch that

2. The centre of the map is a tough place to OCC-- It would be much easier in a quiet fringe place -- Dead center you are trying to defend possible attacks from all points on the compass.

3. You can generate obscene amounts of cash and have no use for it at present

4. There are really not enough Drone-control facilities LOL- it is not really worthwhile to build the Drone control SPs so at size 14 I just live with a couple of specialists whenever psych allocation is 0

5. If its not considered a cheat in OCC, it would probably be worthwhile to go cash crazy for a turn or two to probe away some more Hive bases. If I had taken just 3 more and gifted them to the Gaians, I would not have to lose resources in this war.-- Is it considered ok to mind-control a base in OCC??

6. The build queue is precious. No matter how many minerals or energy you have, you can at most build one thing per turn.


Whether I win this one or not I know that I will try this again. I am already thinking that if I did not have to waste time with war, changed my beelines a bit, used Golden ages better and gifted more tech to my friends, I would have transcended already rather than facing a still-uncertain situation. Any thoughts ??