G Minor CI Final Thoughts
A recap of lessons learned from experience after playing through this gauntlet, followed by a couple concrete gameplay tips
Game Start:
Opponents: Because Fractal maps really seem to limit how many huts your pathfinders can grab, making sure you have friendly money-conscious civs for good trade routes and Research agreements is more of an important factor than scouting prowess. All else being equal, though, having bad recon nations in your mix is still better than not because even 1 more hut yields a pretty good bonus for your civ.
Ideal Opponents (if you are choosing your own):
Sweden - possible 10% boost to Great Person production
Korea - Lousy at scouting, friendly, good enough at science to give you good bulbs from a research agreement. Anecdotal evidence has shown they can build a science wonder very early for the game level though, so don't blame me if it snipes one somehow even on Chieftain
.
Morocco - Bad at scouting, friendly, good for trade routes, won't forward settle you.
Any other civs that are high on friendship willingness and/or gold.
Capital placement:
Bountiful Jungle>Petra>anything else pretty much. Of course being adjacent to a mountain is most important.
Observations:
- Happiness is not an issue. Don't even factor it into your calculations
- Culture is not a huge issue if you do the normal things like build Writer's/Artist's Guild and get Cultural CS allies. No need to stress on it.
- You can (and should) get all the City States as allies at some point. There is enough culture to get 1-4 Patronage policies, and quests are easy in general. Use spies to shore up alliances that don't have good quests
- You should plan to accumulate a little over 6000 faith by endgame (after Great Prophets) so you can faithbuy 4 Great Scientists. If you have a faith-producing pantheon, that and religious CS alliances go a long way toward that. Any religious wonders you need to supplement your faith are easy to get. The belief Divine Inspiration (+2 faith/wonder) also may be a key to insure this. If you can get to 10000+ faith to faithbuy 5 GSes, more power to you, but it is a waste of resources to try for that 5th GS and fall short. 6000+ faith is easily doable.
- Academies are powerful in this game. Planting 3 is a minimum, 4 is probably a no-brainer, 6 is a maximum. The 5th academy pays itself off if you win more than 50 turns after planting roughly. The 6th academy pays for itself after about 60 turns.
- Policies that give you science bulbs directly are powerful in OCC. The key Rationalism policies, Scholasticism in Patronage, and New Deal in the Freedom ideology are good to get sooner rather than later if possible.
- You will need to have a little over 8000 gold at endgame to buy spaceship parts (6*1380), assuming you go Freedom, build Big Ben for 15% discount, and get the Commerce policy with a 25% purchasing discount. No Big Ben or Commerce policy menas you will need 10000 gold or more. Going Order would mean no buying and lots of suboptimal hardbuilding in this OCC.
- Cash may seem tight at times early, but if you get trade routes and gold buildings up early, they will pay dividends eventually. Ideally you have enough gold to buy all the science buildings, medical lab, and hospital, immediately when those buildings become available. Provided you are not wasteful and get your gold production in good shape, signing research agreements with AI friends whenever possible up to T150/160 or so is suggested. Every bulb helps!
- After founding the World Congress, Science Funding should be your first proposal to boost Great Scientist generation a lot. An extra Great Scientist will shave about 4-5 turns off your finish time. Cultural Heritage Sites to cash in culture-wise on all your wonders is a good 2nd proposal but if you can get a good AI friendship by proposing World's Fair or International Games to make AI civs happy, it might be worth it as the 2nd proposal (it was for me-- saved me a turn with a good RA and didn't cost me any culture policies as my culture was good enough without Cultural Heritage Sites)
- For Religious beliefs, a gold-producing Founder belief and Swords into Plowshares (+15% growth if peaceful) are pretty much mandatory if you want to speed growth and go for fastest finish. 2nd belief and enhancer are up for debate - the most faith come from Divine Inspiration and Reliquary. Others might suit your individual game better.
-------------------------------
Gameplay Focus #1 - Build only what you need for the game you are currently playing!
This gauntlet really highlighted for me the idea that originally improved my game and expanded my enjoyment of Civ 5 immensely.
After playing Civ 5, G&K, and then BNW for awhile, I still didn't feel I was playing very well. I could do all right in a gauntlet occasionally, but often I was finishing far behind the leaders, with no idea of how to improve my play. Games in general were often frustrating, as I felt I was treading the same well-worn path each game and often getting stuck in the mud.
Eventually, I figured out my problem--
I was playing every game more or less the same. Same general build orders, wonders built, etc. regardless of civ, level, or victory condition. Games felt samey and often didn't go well. When the light turned on in my brain that I did NOT have to build Great Library or even a library at all in every game, and not always have 4 cities, etc., my gameplay improved a ton AND I began enjoying the game much, much more. Each game at a new setting was a new challenge, with different strategies to try and decisions to make. Yes, general approaches to some victory types are often similar, but how to get from game start to game end can take radically different paths even if your approach is consistent, depending on a variety of factors.
This gauntlet highlighted that idea. After my first finished game, I understood that I did not have to care about happiness one single bit at Chieftain Level with only one city. Happiness wonders and policies became almost worthless to me, so in my T173 win, no Chichen Itza or any other happiness wonder, no real need for Freedom of Thought (Freedom policy that gives specialists happiness bonus) that is often one of the most sought after policies. This opens up the build queue and policy trees for things more helpful to these specific settings.
Culture was similar. On Chieftain, less culture is needed to get policies and with one city there are no penalties. Thus, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Writer's Guild, Artist's Guild, Oracle, some Cultural CS allies--that was pretty much it to get all the policies I needed when I needed them. No need for Globe Theatre, Parthenon, or any of that. I did not even propose Cultural Heritage Sites until the 3rd Congress which may not even have met, because I wanted to make some AIs happy with International Games in the 2nd Congress for friendship and RAs.
Faith on the other hand was something I knew I needed. 6000 or so faith was needed after the Great Prophets by endgame to get 4 faith-bought Great Scientists to bulb techs. My faith generation started very late, so Stonehenge was a key this game. If I had taken a faith producing pantheon instead of Sun God, I would not have built Stonehenge. If I had had early or another religious CS ally I may not have built Stonehenge. I really didn't want to waste that early build time on Stonehenge but I had to because I needed a religion up ASAP and to get that faith generation rolling.
As for wonders, once I built the growth wonders (T. Artemis, H.Gardens) science wonders (GLibrary, NCollege, Oracle, Oxford U., Porcelain Tower late) faith wonders (Stonehenge, HSophia, Borobrodur, Grand Temple), GP wonders (N. Epic, Leaning Tower), and Big Ben to get a buying bonus for research lab abd spaceship parts, I built the Great Scientist point generation wonders (Brandenburg gate and Red Fort) last in an experiment to generate 1 more Great Scientist than I normally could. Didn't work, and if I played over again, I may not build either of them. With a jungle capital, I also built Ironworks, but am not convinced that was needed, so it may have been a waste.
Buildings were granary, shrine, then all the specialist slot buildings as soon as I could, rushbuying the science ones. Also rushbought hospital and medical lab for increased growth. Monument and Aqueduct came free with tradition and Temple came free with Hagia Sophia.
At that point, I had all the buildings and wonders that were essential. I built research until Apollo program, and then built research afterward.
I used a natural GEngineer to rushbuild Statue of Liberty (nonessential, but the best use of my GE). My 2nd natural GE to rushbuild the essential Hubble. Only built 4 units (pathfinders) all game early to explore and do quests; the rest fell from the sky from military CS allies.
The upshot? If you are playing this one again, and feel you are taking too long to get from Education to whatever next benchmark you want, try stripping your build order down to its essentials. The things that help you win this gauntlet are science (via growth, science buildings, generating GS, getting key policies, getting RAs, and faithbuying GSes) and enough gold to buy all the spaceship parts immediately via Freedom at the end. Any wonder or building that is not absolutely necessary to get you to that goal should not be built. Chichen Itza, Globe Theatre? Nice, but not needed in this gauntlet. Stonehenge? Might be needed if you lack a faith pantheon, but might not be needed.
----------------------------------------------------------
Gameplay Focus #2 - Science at low levels is all about growth.
With only 1 city and a Science Victory needed, this gauntlet is a good one to make you concentrate on pure, unfettered population growth. At higher levels, you have to balance growth with happiness, but with a Chieftain level OCC? Pure growth focus from the start!
I used to not focus on growth much... and thus was not putting in very competitive finish times in Science games. Eventually this light bulb lit up above my head at some point too.
If you think your city could or should be growing faster, look through the following points to see if you are doing these:
- After your opening pathfinders, granary should be the first building built (in other games it is often shrine, but not in this one I think). If you are flooded with cash you can consider buying it, but remember you will need gold for rushbuying university and observatory relatively soon.
- Increasing population by 1 is a solid choice upon discovering a hut in this one.
- Prioritize working 3+ food hexes at all times. If you can make a 3+ food hex by irrigation/improvement, do it ASAP
- Use workers to irrigate tiles as soon as possible, unless they are jungle tiles. Always leave those as jungle for the science benefit after university is built.
- After Great Library and National College, Temple of Artemis and Hanging gardens should be top priority builds to help growth!
- Prioritize Maritime CSes for alliances at all times to get the food bonus!
- In Tradition, go down the main path to the increased capital growth policy ASAP.
- After Maritime CS allies, prioritize cultural CS allies and also choose culture from an early hut to jumpstart Tradition and finish it ASAP for the free aqueduct and growth bonus
- Get a religion ASAP and choose the Swords into Plowshares +15% to peaceful growth belief as your first belief
- When choosing religious Pantheon, Sun God needs to be your strongest candidate if you have 3 or more wheat/bananas/citrus. If you cannot go Sun God, Desert Folklore, or a different big-faith pantheon, consider the +10% growth pantheon as your best choice
- After researching Philosophy, beeline to Civil Service to get the irrigated tile food bonus
- After getting Plastics, go to Fertilizer for added irrigation bonus if you have applicable tiles, then to Biology and Penicillin, where you will rush buy Hospital and Medical Lab
--------------------------------
Ok, for those trying or retrying this gauntlet late, some accumulated wisdom on it with thanks to all who contributed in this thread. The gameplay tips are in response to those looking to improve their play a bit in certain areas to speed things up. Hopefully, they are a help to some.