OCC strategy guide updates - post feedback here

[Paul]

Based on the discussion in Vik's thread I updated the OCC strategy guide with the editing and expanding that Vik did and some more editing by myself.

As Vik suggested I started this new thread for the feedback. To start with, I'll first copy Vik's feedback post from that thread and I'll respond to that:

quote: Paul, I checked out the Strategy Guide. I think it looks really good. Third paragraph of section 2.4 has a typo. Should be "two" instead of "rwo" in the 3rd sentence. I don't doubt what I sent you probably had some errors in it.

Ah, a typo. I've just changed that.

quote: One thing I learned reading your edits (actually 2 things): 32-shield base production yields 80 shields after the factory/power/manu plant? Wow. That's helpful, because I always just estimated. I figured 4 specials and two or three mined-hills ought to do it. I was just hoping for the best, and I usually got close to 90 shields this way. That will lessen the load on me. But, when counting for 32 shields, it sounds like you are including an off-shore platform and railroads (even though these may not actually have been built yet). Wow, that's easy. 32 -- a number to remember.

Yes, the factory/power plant/man. plant together give a 150% bonus, so you'll need 32 base shields to get the 80 shields you need to build your structurals in one turn.

And yes, the 32 base shields include the offshore platform and railroad bonus. Those shields are also modified by the factory/power plant/man. plant combo.

quote: I also came into some personal confusion on the order to build a university, bank, and Isaac's. I understand better, now.

I personally prefer the order university, bank, Newton but game circumstances may cause a change in that order, for example if you can get banking from the AI before you discover university.

quote: I can't really fairly comment on the helpfulness of the table, because most of that stuff is in my memory. It seems useful, though, and the important thing is that new players have two ways in which to get help. Sometimes pictures/tables help more. One thing I think we can add is some strategy on when exactly to deliver caravans. I thought of this after I emailed you my section. We say "deliver them as soon as possible" when in truth we know it might be more beneficial to wait one turn to deliver a caravan. This is if you are close to discovering the next technology, or if you happen to be in a period of anarchy while switching governments. We also should state the part about maximizing the arrow squares when it is delivered. Just some thoughts.

Yes, I'll write something about that as well. Actually, if I'm already celebarting WLTCD when I deliver my caravans I sometimes wait until I reached size 12 so that I can get a larger initial bonus. But that also depends on other circumstances.

quote: But again, looks great, although I am biased. heh heh.

So I'll do some more editing in the guide tomorrow; I won't have time for that today. Besides, if I get some more feedback I can put it all in at once.

[Smash]

I may have missed it but is celebrating while building engineers to avoid population drops mentioned?

I think we have all become better OCC players with the advent of "fortnight".I know I have.Its only natural that a strategy guide evolve also.It is interesting that your system has remained basically unchanged under any circumstances.

Looks good, especially the table. Comes in handy when you haven't played OCC for a while.

On trade, maybe you could also include the "max out trade arrows trick" before delivering a caravan.

[Aurelius]

Huey,

Thanks for answering this question in the happiness thread. It's also good to trade with AI republics and Democracies for the one time bonus.

Aurelius, I learned that one and many others too on this very board

[Aurelius]

Wow, just got done reading the new strategy guide and am happy to say I learned quite a bit--like I haven't been fully utilizing incremental buying.

Also, as Vik suggests, "Sometimes pictures/tables help more." I'm not a good reader and find good pics helpful or compelling.

Thanks again

[tonic]

Yes, Paul, the table occref.htm is a handier guide/reference during play for us newbies. It's now downloaded and a hardcopy on hand for any OCCasion.

Could a mention be made about when to sell off the temple and colosseum as well (I assume near the acquisition of Shakespeare's theatre?)

Is a granary an option in the strategy at all(newbie question)?

[Genghis Al]

Aurilius! Hey ther, it has been some time. I stopped playing civ, don't ask me why. I do miss the old forums though.

I hang out in the CTP forums now, call to power is my new addiction. Nice to see you and Smash though.

[Paul]

quote: Smash: I may have missed it but is celebrating while building engineers to avoid population drops mentioned?

By the time you get to build engineers you should normally be in democracy and already have celebrated to the maximum population your food will allow.

quote: Huey: On trade, maybe you could also include the "max out trade arrows trick" before delivering a caravan.

Ok, that will go with the other caravan stuff.

quote: tonic: Could a mention be made about when to sell off the temple and colosseum as well (I assume near the acquisition of Shakespeare's theatre?)

Sure, I'll put that in the reference table.

quote: Is a granary an option in the strategy at all(newbie question)?

I don't usually build one but if you are working a gold mountain it may be useful because you won't be getting much food.

[Paul]

The strategy guide and reference table have been updated based on your feedback.

The strategy guide now contains some more stuff about delivering caravans, optimizing your science rate and the shield production.

The reference table now tells you to sell your colosseum and temple when you build Shakespeare's Theatre.

[Aurelius]

Hi Genghis,

Someone said they'd seen you post at one of the other apolyton forums. I also have to give up Civ periodically. I've never played CTP; too many variants of the same game. I'm looking forward to getting a DSL connection and playing some Mp though. Maybe we can duel.

Hackey sac hunh...

later

[Scouse Gits]

Thanks Guys, a great effort - I have spotted a couple of typos which I report herewith:

• 1.3 First sentance 'simular'
• 2.2 Para 4 'continueing', 'yhe' and 'An other'
• 2.7 'februari'

More strength to your right arms - a priceless asset.


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Paul]

Only 'yhe' was of course a typo; the rest was caused by the fact that I am not a native English-speaker. 'Simular' and 'februari' were in parts of the guide that I didn't edit, so they have been there since I first published this guide.

Anyway, I hope that everything is properly corrected now. If you find any more spelling errors you might want to also tell me what it should be, because I didn't know that there were spelling errors.

[Scouse Gits]

Sorry, Paul - thoughtless of me

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[vik]

quote: Originally posted by tonic on 06-11-2000 11:58 PM Is a granary an option in the strategy at all(newbie question)?

Tonic,

Xin Yu proposed researching Pottery first and building a Granary prior to the Colossus. I test played his prescription and it looked very viable. Depending on what your special squares are, this looked very interesting. The debate is at the end of the following thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=05:29

I'm not sure how effective it would be without having 4 whales, but it seemed quite effective in this case. It is something I would consider doing if I started on 4-whales.

[Tom DeMille]

Vik and Tonic, my next OCC scenario will require a Granary, and there won't be any whales...

Paul, the rewrite and addition of the reference table will help out new OCC players a lot. Good job. Here's my two cents worth:

1) Have a link to the reference table at the top of the document (of course, people can just bookmark the table for easy reference, or print the thing out, which is what I would do if I were still new to OCC).

2) You ask the question "what should you have your settler improve first?" and go on to mention mining wine or gold. I agree that mining wine is a priority, but gold is not. It seems to take forever to mine a mountain, and for what - 1 extra shield. I would rather have irrigated and roaded a couple of plains squares in preparation for jumping up to size 12. I tend to leave mining gold until about the time I'm doing my railroading.

3) You suggest to hold off trading for non essential techs with other civs. This is certainly what I do before discovering Monarchy, but after that I tend to just take whatever the AIs offer. It does slow the science rate, but I can think of 3 reasons for doing it:

i) If you tip a hut and get a science you could have traded for from an AI, it makes you mad.

ii) If you ask for gifts from your allies, you will generally get their early sicnece instead of money. I guess the question is it better to have a faster discovery rate without getting money from the AIs. Money will help rushbuy caravans/Copernicus, so it's a balancing act.

iii) If the AI is offering Warrior Code, it might also have Mathematics and Construction. You won't know until you try a trade.

4) Something you could mention in section 4 about fortnight games: Research behaves slightly differently for scenarios and regular games. In a regular game, some of the techs that you should be able to research next (ie you have the prerequisits) are blocked. In scenarios, there is no such restriction. Scenarios therefore play quicker than regular games.

5) In section 2.6, you could add a mention of the alternate spaceships that can be built. If you can launch a ship before 1750 (when time changes from 10 years per turn to 2 years per turn), then you can consider a 15-1-1-1-1-1 ( travel time 36 years, 79% chance of success), or a 15-2-2-1-1-1 spaceship (25? years, 95% chance of success).

A 15-1-1-1-1-1 launced in 1700 would land in 1736.
Compared to a 15-2-2-1-1-1 ship launched in 1720 landing in 1745
and a 15-3-3-1-1-1 ship launched in 1740 landing in 1757.

The danger in this strategy is that i) The ship crashes, although this has not happened to me yet, or ii) An AI builds a ship in the 36 turns you're sitting around waiting, and then beats you to AC.

If you discover spaceflight around 1200, you should be in a position to launch one of these small ships. Keep in mind that you only need 5 freights to build a 15-1-1-1-1-1 ship instead of 9.

[Campo]

Paul, good work on both. I think your presentation of the reference table is better than my original. That will be very handy and should speed up game play for those of us who don't have it all memorized.

[vik]

Tom,

Good points. I should say that this part of the strategy section was mine. I suppose it was a short-sighted in lieu of these issues you bring up.

I will defer defending what I put because the rationale is already in the Strat-guide. Again, I admit to tunnel-vision here, but that's what this whole review process is about.

I'm glad you pointed that out, because sometimes it is better to trade for horse-back riding or something right after Monarchy in order to better ensure a monetary gift.

[Paul]

Tom, you make some good points. Although I must say that I mine my gold much earlier than you. If I have whales I'll usually do it first thing. Otherwise I may road/irrigate some grassland first. In order to speed up the early sciences I like to put my second worker on the gold and with the resulting lack of growth I can use the extra shield.

Your suggestions about trading tech to make sure you don't get something from a hut that you could have gotten from the AI will make it into the guide. Actually, I also play that way; I just forgot to change that part of the guide.

I'll also put in something about the smaller spaceships and the scenario research options.

[Paul]

I just updated the strategy guide with this new stuff. Let me know if I added some more errors or if I forgot to add something that I should have added.

[East Street Trader]

From one who finished his first OCC game last night, may I thank Paul and the other contributors for the help given by the guide and for its clarity.

The finish times mentioned in the threads are intimidating and I expected humiliation.

Instead I achieved some sort of respectability.

But I don't kid myself. The guide gets the credit.

I downloaded the guide a few days back and don't think that the changes discussed above are in my (already slightly dog eared) copy. Be assured, the new edition (once I get hold of it) will enjoy the instantaneous close attention of at least one reader.

Oh, and I'm totally sold on OCC. Can't wait to try another comparison game and will certainly (having being deintimidated) join in the fortnightly session.

What intimidates now is the task of thinking of SOMETHING to get an edge on you guys with.

But there is that thought which struck me when .... and that funny thing which happened after ....

East Street Trader

[Dino the Dinosore]

I'm thinking of volunteering to write a short guide on what to do if you don't like the leader name and/or tribe in a comparison game. I often use a hex editor to change the name (to Dino, of course ) and the tribe to the Astros (my Astronauts are headed for the stars all the way.) It's an easy thing to do for programmers like me, but I could write a little guide for non-programmers (kids, try this at home ) - it's not that hard. Would anyone be interested in this?

[tonic]

Would be a useful utility. In the OCC fortnightly games I've played (out of sync, for a newcomer), both my civ and city names never seem to tally with those mentioned in the log and discussions. Of course my preferred city would be - tonicity (some resonance for the musically initiated ).
[This message has been edited by tonic (edited June 17, 2000).]

[Cam]

There's few things worse than coming on these threads and apologising for a question, however I've had ongoing problems with AI civs encroaching on my city square radius. I usually play with ToT (which I'm sure shares the MPGE's aggressive traits) and work hard to keep AI alliances - however often I ally with one, and they plomp a city / cities just outside mine and start working my city squares (pre-Sanitation). Placing units on the square doesn't do anything (alliance), and if you break off the alliance, peace quickly becomes unwanted war.

Is there an approach to dealing with allies that encroach on your city radius by taking unworked squares? If so, this might be good for the guide (assuming I haven't missed it already!).

[Aurelius]

Cam,
You can always break off the alliance and then squat on the land and then give away a ton of science to reinitiate the alliance, but it can be dangerous.

I had a similar problem with an ally using a river grass square my One City needed for growth. But when pollution occurred, the square was abandoned by the AI. So I pounced on it. One possibility is to develop some land for the AI to switch to outside of your radius....bit time consuming but well worth it if it works.

Another idea is preventative...send you're food caravans out of the city and monitor the area for ally settlers thinking of settling nearby your One City and then block the way!

I use to put my caravans all around my resource squares to prevent diplomats and pest ally terraformers from approaching, but occasionally I'd get burned by Barb Knights.

The surefire way to prevent the AI from encroaching on One City resources is to grow fast and use up all the resources... a requirement in OCC anyways.

[granite00]

Paul,
I have difficulty downloading **some** of the comparison and fortnight games. I'm using Civ version 2.42. The game files other than those noted below download fine. However, some links immediately lead to a screen allowing me to save the file while other links force me to right click the link and choose "save link as".

Specific problems:

comparison game 3.1 - downloaded bo_b3250.sav file causes Civ to shut down with "memorylockfailed" message
comparison game 3.2 - downloaded ar_b4000.sav file causes Civ to shut down with "memorylockfailed" message
comparison game 3.3 - downloaded pa_b3650.sav file causes Civ to shut down with "memorylockfailed" message
comparison game 3.4 - downloaded ir_b4000.sav file causes Civ to shut down with "memorylockfailed" message
comparison scen 3.5 - downloaded occsmash.scn file is very small...scen won't play...gives message "failed to load game, file is not a saved game"
fortnight #1 - downloaded appolyocc.scn file is very small...scen won't play...gives message "failed to load game, file is not a saved game"
fortnight 2 - downloaded br_b3700.sav file causes Civ to shut down with "memorylockfailed" message
fortnight 6 - downloaded occ6fnc.zip file...saves as a faulty zip file

[Cam]

Aurelius,

Thanks for your considered response - the encroachment problem's pretty frustrating!

[Paul]

granite00, the games where you get the "memorylockfailed" message work fine for me. The other files were bad links.

Unlike with files on your own computer files you download from the internet are case-sensitive and I had apparently mixed some uppercase and lowercase letters in the filenames. That means that the file you saved was most likely the page that says that the requested file does not exist. These files are now fixed and should work.

I don't know what the problem is with the other files, but maybe you could try to download the two zip-files with all the regular and fortnight comparison games and see if they work.

[Scouse Gits]

Cam - My strategy here has been to pre-empt the AI and ensure that my city is using all potentially disputed squares - even at the cost of non-optimality of my own city for a short time - then as Au says - expand and use them all!!


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Cam]

Scouse,

Thanks again for the advice. Usually at least two of my four special resources are land-based, although frustratingly if it's a gold or iron ore square, it's the first to go once an engineer's built, and 'whammo' - guess who's lost a railroaded gold mine? ('Mine' being the operative).

I wonder what you can do about ocean-specials that get pinched? I'd imagine this probably never happens, as they're usually so food-rich.

So clearly, you have to conscientiously put your workers on the outer perimeter? OK - thanks, I'll give it a shot!