G-Major CXVII

Got an entry in under the wire. A couple short tries with archers and such were such a slog. Kamehaha only helps speed things up a bit when you build Galleasses as they can move through open ocean. Tech:Great Library to Compass to Navigation. Settled two expansion cities on Iron for the 8 iron needed for two 4-frigate fleets. SP:Tradition(Full)->Exploration(The happiness and production came in handy)
Victory: T180 or so. Capital City was nothing special, so building/buying frigates a bit slow. Gandhi slowed me down a bit by unilaterally declaring war on me and taking my captured Marrakech from me. I thought he was a peacenik?

We had an update, but none of the gauntlets resolved. Hopefully soon, now that this gauntlet deadline has been reached?

 

Only tried once, and gave up as it was going to be well over 300. Waited too long in starting the rampage.
Galleasses/Frigates with all upgrades are a joy. China sent a large (>12) fleet to kill the warmonger. Two turns later they were on the run, and ~3/4 gone.

 

Yes, the Galleasses/Frigates with upgrades are sweet. The galleasses with Polynesia are even better as they can hit the open ocean.

 

Want a trireme rush? Have I got the old gauntlet for you:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/g-minor-lxxxviii.537906/

Hint: quinquereme rush is more correct. Only works on Chieftain or Settler. Feel free to try for sub60 on that one!

As for this gauntlet, the key is getting the Great Library to get to Compass/Education/Navigation faster.

TraditionSP GLibrary rush gives you time to explore and amass cash/faith/capital size from huts and find iron sources to found your expansion cities on/near for the Frigates. Iron can seem scarce on tiny islands maps.

I spent my amassed cash on a university for the capital to speed the Great Scientist to help bulb Navigation and for the upgrades to my Galleas fleet. Then I built/bought my 2nd Frigate fleet while the first one was out conquering. Once the first fleet got Range upgrades, the conquest was swift.

 

Yes, if you are rushing for Compass/Navigation, the Great Library and its faster generated Great Scientist that results from it speed things up a lot. I played three other games failing to get the Great Library (Emperor makes it tougher) before finally getting it about T45 in the game i won.

I usually minimize triremes/caravels, 1 per attacking fleet, unless I have loads of production in expansion cities to spare or I need more exploration. Triremes are easy to take care of with the galleasses/frigates taking out the enemy naval opposition. With the Polynesians, exploration is not an issue at all.
I built 3 expansion cities in this game-- with Tradition, that optimizes things somewhat, and I needed two expansion cities to found on iron resources for my frigates anyway. My first expansion city had Sri Pada and decent production to jumpstart religion/pagodas and not drag my civ down too much science or culturewise. I had enough luxes and the pagodas for happiness to do this. If my capital city had had iron, I probably would not have made so many expansions, as a conquest victory means lots of puppets eventually.

 

I accidentally played this on Deity and ended up with a turn 150 victory. A nice salt start on the first try.

 

Submitted a T87 win with a CB rush. Here's a write-up:

The key to Polynesia island gauntlets is early scouting to grab all the ruins, maximize CS gold and meet everyone as soon as possible. You have a massive advantage over the AIs and it's important to capitalize on it.

Research Archery first, and build/buy Scout - Scout / Warrior - Archer - Archer - Archer. With your starting warrior, that makes 6 scouting units; send 3 to the east and 3 to the west. Standard maps are 80 tiles long and 52 tiles wide, but there are polar regions that won't have any ruins, so the useful area is closer to 80x45. This means each scouting unit should aim to unfog a 40x15 area.

I like to send the initial warrior straight to the north or south to get a good idea of where I am on the map. First scout goes in the opposite direction. Plan ahead, try to move in a zigzag pattern and do not go through the same place twice. Avoid barbs if possible. Try to end your turns on ocean tiles after you've spotted the first barb galleys, or at least one tile away from ocean or coast, so that you can escape if barbs attack.

You want to build archers instead of scouts because 1) these units will be part of your army that's going to attack the most distant AIs, 2) you're likely going to hit at least one compbow upgrade, and 3) scouts' buffed movement doesn't matter that much when you're embarked 80% of the time. Warrior as the second build isn't bad either - spearman upgrades are very useful for tributes on lower difficulties. The window of tribute opportunities is smaller on Emperor than King and below, but you can still get good amount of gold from it, especially if you select opponents that don't spam units.

After these units are done scouting, they should group up and form an army. By this point your army score should be so high that AIs are willing to give up expos in peace deals. Take one that's closest to your scouting party, upgrade your archers into CBs there. Raze the city to 1 pop, stop and buy more units if you need to, then finish razing the city.

Build a monument after the scouting units, then a workboat or two if you need to, then continue spamming archers. A fast monument isn't necessary when you have a good chance to hit two early culture ruins. Open Liberty and go for the free worker first. Improve luxuries (it's advisable to reroll for a mining luxury start; Marble, Whales, Crabs and Pearls make decent secondary luxuries since you want Sailing and Masonry anyway) and sell them to AIs in peace deals. You'll need lots of money.

Meanwhile beeline Construction. Once you're there, upgrade your archers into CBs, and start building Triremes which will serve as your city capture units and cover your CBs from barb trireme attacks. I found that 5 CBs is a pretty safe army size versus peacemonger AIs. Make sure you select Low sea level to maximize the number of tiles you can shoot from, and 5 billion years old world so that you get as few hill capitals as possible.

At this point you need to decide on your conquest order. You have 7 capitals to capture. If you build 3 armies, one of them will need to take 3 capitals, others just two each. Try to estimate how long it's going to take each army to get to the enemies and take their capitals. Ideally you want your three armies to finish their conquests on the same turn or, more realistically, within a <5 turn window.