Two OCC problems

[Campo]

I tried a couple OCC games over the weekend and had problems, and I'm wondering how you guys deal with these.

First, what do you do when another Civ keeps intruding into your city squares. I encountered this in two ways. Once a civ to my west became powerful early on, destroying a couple other Civs. They had a lot of cities and sent units swarming towards me. They didn't attack, as long as I gave them whatever they asked for, but they kept blocking my units and standing on my city squares. It was even worse in another game when a civ built a city just a few squares from mine. They had units all over my area.
In both instances asking them to withdraw was little help -- sometimes I didn't have the option, and when I did they would return very quickly. How do you handle this?

The second problem is being asked for tribute. When I'm building units or improvements it's not a big deal, because I buy them often enough to keep my treasury down. But when I'm building a wonder I start accumulating gold. Then I encounter another civ and they immediately demand a good chunk of my treasury. I have to either give them the gold, and thus delay my wonder completion, or else refuse and then they attack me. What's the right solution?

Thanks.

[Oldman]

With the enemy units, try allying with them so it won't matter!!! or station units of your own around your city strategically, like settlers, caravans so as to not make people unhappy!!! Thought: do military units in a fortification within the city radius make people unhappy? i'm not sure?? this might be your best bet!!!!

And you the gold thing, it's a complete arse isn't it!!!!! you save up to buy something and then they demand it or fight you!??! As far as i know there is no solution as such...

However, you mention that you generally accumulate gold while you're building wonders. Well, something Scouse told me was build caravans instead of wonders and add them to it to complete in a turn!!! firstly, with a caravan each shield costs 2.5gold, whereas the wonders cost 4 gold per shield!!!! So this is great especially before you prodcution is less than 25 (where you get a caravan every 2 turns anyway!!)
secondly, it gives you more flexiblility, incase you get attacked, or need something asap!!!! cause wonders can take 15,20 30etc turns from start to completion!!!
And this may help keep your treasury lower in the long run, when you meet people?!?!

[vik]

Here's some of my advice, although others can (and should) offer different points of view.

For your first problem, that is a real problem. Do everything you can to gain an alliance, even if it means declaring war against another civ. If that doesn't work, asking them to leave would be a temporary fix. You can also try putting one of your own units on the important city squares. Usually, at some point in the game, I have a bunch of caravan/freights sitting around doing nothing, so I put them on all my city squares to discourage this and to discourage tech theft by the AI. One of your diplomats, provided you have the money, can turn his army into your army in just a few turns. This is especially good if they are cheap and turn out to be NONE units. That's about the best I can do.

Your second question highlights how important it is to make early contact and early alliances. Usually, I can get the closest AI civs to ally with me. After that, I don't care what some other civ halfway across the globe demands, because I'm surrounded by powerful allies.

Peninsulas are best, and have that peninsula surrounded by the very powerful Zulus, for example. Then, any other AI civ that wants to attack you will have to fight through the zulus.

I hope these ideas helped, but just remember you can't win'em all.

[Ming]

Military units in fortifications within 3 squares of your city do not cause a happiness problem. But they still cause relationship problems. If you are at peace with somebody, and these units violate their city radius (even though they are also in your city radius), they must be moved if asked, or you are in violation. So if you are in Democracy or Republic, and you get sucked into peace, those units will have to be moved. The trick during those periods is to man those same foritifications with caravans, settlers, or diplos. Sure, they may get sneak attacked, but at least then, you will be at war and can take them back.

When it comes to them demanding tribute, I always just laugh at them. So what if they start a war. If you are entrenched well, there usually isn't much they can do about it, since you are only trying to hold one city. Remember to try to hold key choke points.

[vik]

one more thing.

I want to elaborate on Oldman's excellent point about Wonders.

Besides the colossus, I don't actually "build" any wonders. I build 6 caravans and then build the Observatory the next turn. Build 6 more caravans and complete Shake's after that.

The advantage of building caravans as opposed to out-right wonder building is that I can rush-buy a piece of a caravan here or there.

If your city can produce at least 10 shields, it's easy. First, start building a caravan. Next turn, you'll see 10 shields in the box towards caravan completion. On this turn, switch to a phlanx and rushbuy it for 25 gold. But don't stop there. Switch to a diplomat and rush-buy that for 25 more gold. Almost there. Now switch to settlers and rush-buy that for 25 more gold. You will have 40 shields in the box, so switch back to producing the caravan and it will be complete on the next turn.

The advantages to this seem to take care of the problem you have -- too much gold during wonder-building. You are spending 75 gold every couple of turns, and getting the caravans built much faster than normal (this is called "incremental rush-buying, I think). For faster results, start off by buying a warrior on the first turn, then switch to phlanx, etc. This will cost you 50 more gold, but will produce caravans every other turn. Your treasury should help decide which option you should use.

Repeat this procedure 6 times, and you have your observatory. Since caravans are so versatile (as opposed to just straight-building a wonder), you can continue to buy/build caravans in this manner, even if you don't have the technology for the next wonder yet.

great point, Oldman!
[This message has been edited by vik (edited May 30, 2000).]

[Campo]

Oldman:
(Bet you're not an older man than me)
I like the convert-caravan-to-wonder-in-one-turn idea. That would indeed help the tribute problem.

Vik:
In my second game I was on a peninsula about 8 squares from the end (have to settle where the specials are). Another civ landed on the very end and built a city there before I spotted them. Naturally all their land units headed my way -- big annoyance.
Thanks for expanding on Oldman's caravan point. Very helpful.

Mimg:
The biggest problem with wars is they kill my caravans and diplos. It sucks to build a caravan, nurture it along for 40 turns, and then have it destroyed a couple squares from its destination. Otherwise I wouldn't care much.

All your points about blocking with my units are good. I just hate to lose a unit to sneak attack. I guess it's better than prolonged production loss though.

Doesn't it irritate you all to have foreign units constantly circling your city? If that's the best they have to do I want to kick their sorry AI butts!

Thanks.

[The Mad Viking]

The caravan thing should take care of most of the problem. But if you do happen to have a pile of gold, say from two freshly established trade routes, you should simply refuse to talk to AIs until you have spent it.

[Smash]

the best way to deal with intruders in OCC is with the diplomat.One diplomat can usually "defend" your city almost all game.Bribed units can protect your city or be disbanded.