I conquered the world by 750bc without building a single city. Version 2.4.2, Random Map, 7 civs, Raging Hordes, No restarting civs. Diety level.

I was playing around with this last night, and it really wasn't very hard. I came close a few times only to have one AI civ on an island, or running out of units. I expect this record (if it is a record) to stand for no longer than a week.

I didn't keep a log, but I periodically saved the game in about 5-turn increments. If you would like, you can get them from the following URL:
http://www.angelfire.com/ut/chuck0lynn/750bc.zip

Again, it wasn't too hard. Especially with all the plains on this particular map. It would have been faster if I would have gotten some horsemen/chariots from the early huts rather than archers.

Take care.

Last week, I played with one city on an ultra-small (32x32) map.

I conquered every civ but one (similar to what was done here), and left one AI civ alive (fortifying the rest of my NON units on hill-tops 3-squares away from his city). As a result, he never asked me to leave, but he couldn't get out of the "perimeter" until about 1850ad.

Then I built every wonder in my only city and launched a space-ship from it. It arrived really late (2019ad), because it took awhile to build all the wonders with only one city.

I often wondered if it was possible to conquer with no cities - now I know.

Do you remember how many units you received from huts?

Vik, I've had a few OCC games where I wandered about looking for ideal city sites while my barbarian hut tippers demanded tribute of any AI they encountered. I remember being sorely tempted to let loose a blood bath, but my devotion to OCC was too much back then. Maybe we should call your successful strategy Vik's Barbarian Method.

It not only is possible, I felt it was rather easy. Like I said, I've been trying this for a little while, and generally you can tell after about a half-hour or so whether or not you will have a chance at success.

You have to have some luck with the shape of the world, and you have to have luck with the huts. I think I tagged just about every hut on the map, and since I had no cities, I got no barbarians.

Overall, I got 9 archers, 1 legion, 2 chariots, and 1 horseman. Of these, I lost an archer and a chariot. I really could have benefited from fast units.

I also got various amounts of gold and technologies from the huts -- I don't know how many I tipped, though.

I got slowed down as I was making a bee-line to the last Spanish city. Some barbarians landed between me and the city and I couldn't get re-inforcements there right away. I probably could have destroyed the city sooner, but all I had there was a legion and an archer unit. The city was size-3, so I wanted to get one or two more units up there.

I could have destroyed the last German city about 7 turns sooner, but it was mostly a size-2 undefended for those 7 turns. Everytime it built a unit, it attacked the very same turn it was completed, so I waited until I killed off the 2nd to the last civ (the Spanish) before I turned on Liepzig (the last civ).

My aim was to destroy the cities, not take them over. In all but two cases this was a moot point. Most times, I faced either a size-1 or a size-2 city with one defender. Of course one or two successful attacks will destoy it totally.

And a couple of archers are very effective against a fortified warrior.

For one city, I waited a turn for the size-2 city to build a defender before I destroyed it. For the city of Liepzig, I had to wait several turns.

Aurelius,

Discovering Space Flight on the Chief level at around 1000bc seems incredible.

But don't doubt Paul.

Both Paul, Tom DeMille, and myself have reached Alpha Centauri in the middle 1500s. In this game, we all discovered Space Flight in 1100ad.

This was on Diety, 7 civs, Raging Hordes, with a "Large" map. We each played with one and only one city.

I just confirmed it for myself, playing on Chieftan.

I played with only one city, and got Space Flight in about 940bc. Probably could have gotten it sooner, but I wasn't managing the trade as sharply as usual.

Plus, I hadn't even built Darwin's voyage, yet.

We're talking about the discovery of the "Space Flight" technology by 1000bc, not building a spaceship by then.

As Paul already pointed out, the game will not let you build Space Ship parts until 1ad, even if you have built the Apollo Program before then.

When I was trying to get Space Flight, I used one city. It's pretty easy to do on Chieftan if you follow these steps:

1.) Found your city close to river squares and near 3 or 4 trade specials.

2.) Immediately begin work on the colossus (or build some warriors if you don't have Bronze Working, yet).

3.) After Bronze Working, research towards Monarchy and establish that as soon as possible.

4.) After Monarchy, go for writing, currency, and trade

5.) After Colossus is built, build a library, marketplace, and temple

6.) Research towards Republic and/or Construction

7.) Build 3 caravans and deliver them. If you don't have a useful building to build, build caravans

8.) Build Colosseum and Aqueduct; once Republic is established, bump luxuries up to attain a size-12 city through WLTCD. Set your sights on Astonomy (pun intended).

9.) Build enough caravans (6) to rush-build Copernicus while start researching towards sanitation.

10.) Get Medicine after this and build up 6 more caravans for Shakespeare's. After Shake's is built, bring population up to size-21 through WLTCD; you can sell of the temple/colosseum. You've probably traded for seafaring by now so you can build a harbor if necessary.

11.) Go for Democracy, University, and Theory of Gravity technologies while building caravans, university, bank, and stock exchange as necessary.

12.) Get your city up to max size after democracy while building Newton's college and/or caravans.

13.) Research towards refrigeration and explosives. Build 2 engineers to modify terrain as desired, after which you use WLTPD to achieve your max city size. Build a supermarket.

14.) Research straight towards Automobile, possibly building Darwin's voyage with extra caravans along the way. Build Superhighways.

15.) Research towards computers. If your engineers are finished with the terrain, consider building a factory/power plant. If you can't grow your city any more, be sure to sell off the un-needed aqueduct and sewer system. Build Offshore platform if applicable, and a research lab as soon as possible.

16.) Research towards Space Flight, saving the Flight, Radio, Advanced Flight, and Rocketry as your last four techs.

17.) Throughout the ages, make sure you give techs to the AI. That decreases the time it will take you to discover something new. Also, avoid getting techs from the AI before you need them. This also decreases the time it takes. For example, there is a good chance an AI will have discovered "Fuedalism" while your working on "Refrigeration." Since you don't need Fuedalism as a pre-req for anything except for (I think) Computers -- you certainly don't need it for refrigeration -- avoid picking this tech up if possible until after you discover Automobile.

I can't get technical with you, or site a reference. All I have to go on is my experience when I tried it this morning.

At one point, I was researching Computers before the AI guys were discovering Polytheism/Trade/etc.

I gave them every technology I had (except for Combustion - a Flight pre-reque). Before I gave them all this technology, discoveries were coming every 3 turns at 70% science rate.

After I gave the 5 remaining civs nearly all of my technology, I was getting new discoveries every turn at 70% science.

Thanks. Believe me, I did not intend to list 18 separate points, only 5 or 6 originally, but I just kept typing and typing.

I'm glad you appreciate it, and I am considering elaborating even further on it -- kind of, if I may be so bold -- an addendum to Paul's guide. Paul is a really good player, but I, and others, consider me to be a very good writer. Don't get on me for typos and misspellings for my posts here, because I don't spend much time editing.

It's similar to Vik's 18-point list, but with more formatting. I made a series of tables with "Improvements" and "Research goals", chronologically arranged. And I included periodic key instructions.

I was thinking about posting it, or asking Paul if he wanted to put it on his site. However with Vik's recent offer, perhaps I should send it to him as a starting point for an OCC summary guide.

Vik, Paul -- would either of you like to see it or improve on it? It's in Word 2000 format, but I could save it in an older version.

I emailed my section to Paul as well. If I were to edit yours, I would be focusing on format, wording, etc., rather than strategy. I prefer to let Paul hash out any strategy flaws that might be in your document.

What I did is a huge elaboration on the 18 steps above. In it, I tried to take care of explaining why you do those 18 steps, and I've also expanded past the mere discovery of Space Flight and tried to include strategies for building space ships on a low budget.

Really, Paul's guide as it stands now is perfectly acceptable and helpful to me, but I wanted to try and expand on the philosophy and reasoning behind why you do what you do in OCC.

My intent was simply to summarize Paul's strategy. I just wanted something short to use for quick guidance while playing a game. I completely omitted any explanations.

In any editing you may choose to do, though, I would first like your attention to go towards any strategical fallacies that might be in there.

Also, being an American, I tend to have this unsubstantiated notion that everyone else understands the American version of English as well as I do. As a result, there may be some expressions or figures of speech that may sound akward -- go ahead and change these around. For example, I think I said in there at one point:

quote: "...you won't have to spend a dime..."

I also added a reference table with a recommended chronological order of research and building. It will print on one page, so you can keep it next to your computer while playing OCC games.

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.

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.

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

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.

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