TOT/MGE and OCC

[lord of the mark]

Im trying OCC.

I own Civ2:TOT.


I am frustrated by the AI's.

in may last game i was next to the Zulus.

The best i good do was to keep them in ceasefire. Their price for peace was go declare on someone else, which i refused. they often disdained my tech gift offers. They sent multiple units on to my squares (which i tried bribing, but could only afford to bribe so many) they built a nearby city, depriving me of use of 2 squares, including one of my only 2 grassland squares. They sent me into starvation, sending my pop back down from 12 to 11.

By 1300 ad I gave up.

How do you deal with this.

and are the people discussing OCC playing TOT or MGE, or the older versions with milder AI's.

LOTM

[Paul]

Most of us play version 2.42, but I know that Ribannah plays MGE and she is doing very well with that.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm sure Ribannah and others will have a million good suggestions, but I thought you might appreciate hearing from a fellow beginner.

I play ToT and have won on Deity once (7 civs/raging); the log of that game is here. You're right: the hyper-aggressive AI makes it very hard. It can be done, but may require a couple of deviations from the Paulicy. First, you need to get down a city quick; I'd say if you haven't founded by 3750, and done so on a great site (my win was with a 2-whale 2-silk site, founded in 4000), you should start over. It seems to me that aggressive exploring is also must, for two reasons: you need to find and control chokepoints (as you discovered), and you need contact with as many other civs as possible, but especially the white civ (your "key civ" in OCC). I waited until midgame to explore off my own land mass; I wish I'd done it sooner.

Other things I would suggest: (1) Always declare war when asked to. You can turn around and make peace asap. (2) Play as the Babylonians. Seriously. I find the greens the worst opponents in OCC: The Babs are programmed to play a good perfectionist game, and conduct their own decent race for AC if left alone; the Zulus are just plain insane; and the Japanese are a delightful combination of the two. Take them all out by playing green yourself; and play the Babs, because they're most likely to have starting techs you want.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[solo]

I've played quite a few OCC games with MGE, and once had a practice game go the way yours did, with about the same result, though I played the game out to its conclusion. When you get an AI's undivided hostile attention and nearby encroaching city, attribute this more to bad luck than anything else, and hope for a bettter situation in your next game. The next practice game using the same start led to a completely different situation and game. AI's still attacked, but not as relentlessly and with the encroaching cities as in the previous game.

Some things I've learned are NOT to give in to early, hostile AI demands, which they usually take as a sign as weakness and appeasement. It's better to have an early declaration of war, and get the hostilities over with before much (if any) damage can be done. After 10 moves or so, they will want peace, and very likely an alliance, too, and then you have excellent prospects for a good game with little interference. Go with Rufus' excellent suggestions, too, especially the ideas about early exploration and control of check points to prevent early infiltrations.
[This message has been edited by solo (edited May 12, 2001).]