Weekend OCC #5

[sooooo]

It's not a weekend, but it is a One City Challenge.



I have not actually done an OCC with BtS yet. So I thought why not start a weekend OCC at Realms Beyond. It will get me back into proper CIV again, as recently I've just been using my BtS disc for logging in to the apolyton demogame. The major change in BTS is: you can only build 5 national wonders. Here are the details:

Civ: Egypt, controlled by Ramesses II
Speed: Normal
Map: Pangaea, normal, rocky
Difficulty: Monarch
AIs: Normal number, random
Balanced Resources
Extras: One City Challenge, No Random Events, No Vassal States

Your goal is a space victory. You can aim for fastest finish if you want. The usual rule for these games is that you just post your report in this thread when you have finished. There is no closing date, just try not to read this thread (for spoiler reasons) until you are done. Save is attached.

[Ruff_Hi]

please tell me that you haven't settled in that position? The above screenie has several conflicting settlement options and it would have been very interesting to see various people's settlement selections.

[sooooo]

I didn't just settle there on a whim to take decisions away from the player - I thought a lot about whether and where to settle. Not all the tiles you see now could be seen at the start of the game. I settled the city for similar reasons that Sullla settled the first city in the Rising Sun epic.

[Ruff_Hi]

Originally Posted by sooooo

I didn't just settle there on a whim to take decisions away from the player - I thought a lot about whether and where to settle. Not all the tiles you see now could be seen at the start of the game. I settled the city for similar reasons that Sullla settled the first city in the Rising Sun epic.

'settled to get the invisible cows in the city' (Epic 10 had pigs). Fair enough - it will be an interesting game to balance between commerce and hammers.

[Benno]

Had a quick go at this. Was in a winning position but got steamrolled by Justinian.

It was a surprisingly war-like game. I was declared on by Pericles early on in the game which was easily dealt with, then Justinian and Mehmed later on which was a close run thing but was fairly comfortable in the end. Wang was at war with Gilgamesh and Qin on and off throughout the game as well.

I built a tonne of wonders and was miles ahead in tech. I was trying to suck up to Justinian as he was #1 in power. I was holding off Liberalism, first for Democracy (which I self researched in the end) and then Biology. Mehmed got Education while I was researching Astronomy, so I ended up taking Sci Method. Here was my stuff up. I should have headed for Military Science (as I needed Chemistry for Biology) but continued on to Biology. Justinian of course declared and invaded with a 40-odd stack. I had 15 or so defenders (maces/longbows/muskets/pikes/trebs) which was no good. Possibly grenadiers would have been enough to save the day but it was not to be.

The starting position was great and with a bit mpore care, I'm sure I could have won this but was certainly a fun couple of hours.

[Ruff_Hi]

Sat back calmly and watched multiple world wars. Oracled Civil Service, built almost every wonder that was going, settled nearly all my GPs ... throw in a few Golden Ages to accelerate space ship parts. Held off one war mid way through the game and then Gil declared on me just as my Space Ship arrived in 1985.

[invy]

I played this one too. Since the beginning I had tech lead, cruising without problems. I picked up GM from Economics and GS from Physics. Wierdly, all world was happy hindu coalition, except Wan Kong who decided he likes Budhism and later on Taoism. Everyone piled on him, including me -phony war tho- but I did get military struggle bonus. Eventually, Wan Kong was totally eliminated, three different civs won his cities, Gilgamesh conquered his last I think.
The only annoyance was Apostolic vote which spawned many times, Justinian and Mehmed were fighting for Diplomatic victory, but they lacked votes.
Sometime close to Modern Age Justinian switched to Islam and Qin went Free religion. There were many Defensive Pacts made, I had DP with Justinian and Qin, so I was protected. Generally, diplomacy was easy in this game.

Three AIs started Apollo, including me, I settled all my GP, including 3 G Engs and many Scientist, and I founded Mining Corporation also which I used to finance nice defensive army.
I think I would have won eventually Spaceship Race as I had Aluminium and great production as well as research, but in one of the Apostolic votes, in 1868AD, Mehmed managed to gather enough votes for Diplomatic win.
So there it was in the end, Diplomatic religious loss in 1868AD.
Nice game and good capital choice

[Swiss Pauli]

Space win in 1943, though it wasn't all plain sailing.

Good to see multiple specials in and around the capital, but it's a bit lacking in food so those FPs will be farmed, and the unforested river grass cottaged.

Had some good luck in animal battles and managed to get most of the map plotted by a woody II warrior (who died unluckily in the end). Mehmed was Hindu, but Justinian founded and spread Buddhism widely, converting all the other AIs at one time or another (I think) though Gilly founded and converted to Confu for the rest of the game.

I snagged Pyramids and Hanging Gardens, and had nearly completed Great Library when Mehmed and Huang declared war! My units were out fogbusting, but - unusually - I had researched Calender early, so the forest had been removed from the tile 1 N of the city. This meant it was a question of whipping and training enough units as Mehmed had to get through 60% culture.

Huang took peace for Priesthood and Poly in AD 250, but M was being stubborn so I bribed in Wang, and together we took out his second wave and I got peace and 5g.

With the Great Library safely in the bag, I had the three core wonders for Space. One mistake I made was not forcing a couple of Scientists, and I was punished with an early, low odds Artist from the NE (settled). The main risk of defeat, aside from war, was the AP. Thankfully, M bulbed Theo and built a useless Hindu AP in 740AD

Plain sailing until 1595 AD when Gilgamesh and Mehmed attack. Bugger: a really nasty looking, two dozen-strong Sumerian Cuirassier stack Luckily for me, Peri learnt Rifling a turn after the invasion and so Rfiles get whipped and drafted (thank you SPI). In 1625, Mehmed shows up with 15 medieval units and Gilly has chipped away enough culture to persuade me to attack. Half a dozen Cuirassiers get killed and Gilly is happy to make peace for Divine Right. Woot.

My GG Medic heals the Rifles, who then take out all of Mehmed's stack without loss, and he throws me 170g for peace. My secong GG builds a military academy (just in case). I was hoping to get through without DefPacs, but I now decide to sign them (J, Huang, Wang). Resume cruise control....

As to the path to Space, I decided to skip Assembly and Indy and go directly to Rocketry and use a saved GS to found AlumCo (seeing as we had Coal). This worked well, as the AI is more kee on the Indy path than it once was, and I was able to trade in both techs. Given that my plan is to generate lots of GSs, it's a quite a good use of them in the late game, and is slightly cash positive with the HQ only.

We did have Alu (safely) in our borders so I traded it to China to balance the books. As to the endgame path, I went to Fusion then back to Composites which is probably the wrong way around in OCC: each engine took 4 turns, but the 5 casings took 11 turns, so it would be more efficient to go Satellites-Composites-Computers-Fibre Optics-Fusion (on Monarch, as Emperor should still require an Internet beeline).

As to the AIs, Gilly declared a suicidal war on Pericles The Silent and was rent asunder by Greece and Korea. M & J managed a few SS parts but were around 50 turns from launch.

National Wonders: NE, IW, Oxford, Globe, and finally Wall St (too late to matter much). I don't rate National Park in OCC as the loss of Coal is too steep a price. A larger dilemma is presented on coastal OCC by Maoi and it's Prophet points.

Cheers for the game, sooooo! How much editing did you make to the map? As luck would have it, it had a good mix of random opponents, too!

[Ruff_Hi]

My bottle neck in this game was research. I could only put out about 1100-1200 beakers per turn in max science config. Production wasn't a problem with most space parts built in 2or 3 turns with the crazy multipliers.

Anyone else?

[TheArchduke]

I actually got destroyed by Suleiman at about 1200 AD.

Wang Kon dowed me early in the game, but I could beat him off, but Suleiman brought 10 catapults with him and my longbows after being softened up, couldn´t stand up to his macemen. Still I had fun.