G Minor CI Midsession Update
----------------------------------------
Well, to follow up on the initial walkthrough, here are some observations after a full game and the wisdom passed on by others on the thread:
----
NOTE: I really apologize for the length.
As is, it is aimed at mainly less experienced players but also with some gauntlet specific points for all. The direction I am going is to have a generic guide for each victory type on the site somewhere for less experienced players that can be linked to in my posts.
Going forward, these walkthroughs, updates, and final thoughts will be stripped down to brief gauntlet specific issues so more experienced players don't have to wade through loads of other stuff. This is my first stab at this, so I just want to get itall down for now so I can do the guides more easily later. On to the observations....
------
The Opening:
--Make sure Sweden is in your opponents list if you choose opponents. That 10% Great Person bonus with a friendship is great. Made a noticeable difference in my game.
- When placing your city, it seems from the early results that jungle > Petra-worthy tiles, though Petra is still great of course. Jungle generates science bulbs aftr having a university and that is so key in an OCC. (Don't forget you need to be adjacent to a mountain or your time will suffer greatly for lack of an observatory!)
- Unless you are lucky enough to get the very elusive somewhat roundish large landmass Fractal map, most Fractal maps put a damper on the number of beneficial ruins you can find. Early exploration will tell you whether you want to build 2,3, or 4 pathfinders initially. Two early might be right for most of the snaky maps I have seen, but early units are always good.
Goals
-----------------
Faith - ideally you get enough faith to faith-purchase at least 4 Great Scientists after completing Rationalism. To purchase 4 you need to accumulate 670+1000+1670+2670(need to check last figure l, but I am typing on my phone now, will edit if I am wrong) = 6010 total faith. If you have truly crazy faith, you can get a 5th GS with 4060 more, as Smirk incredibly did! (I wouldn't make that a goal though as it is really hard to do.)
Best sources of faith--
Faith pantheon,
Shrine/temple,
Religious wonders (including Grand Temple national wonder after you build normal temple),
Religious CS alliances,
The belief Divine Inspiration (+2 faith/wonder) and the enhancer Reliquary.
note: the belief religious buildings like Mosque and Pagoda are useless in this one. You don't want to spend faith to get them. The happiness and culture from them are unnecessary.
You don't necessarily need all of these of course, but having 6000 faith at endgame is the goal, however you get there. Faithbuying less than 4 Great Scientists is fine of course, but your finish time will suffer at least 5 turns for each you are short.
----------------
Population - Your goal is to be at 50 or more population at game end (or as close as you can get). Thus your city needs to grow as much and as quickly as possible. Prioritize growth above all else early on - This is Chieftain level so it is 99% certain you won't get beaten to key wonders if you put any effort toward them, so food > hammers most(all?) of the game, or at least early until you get into wonderbuilding mode possibly. The faster you grow, the sooner you can work high hammer tiles too.
Aids to this?
Fast granary,
Finishing Tradition SP as fast as possible to get the growth bonuses and free aqueduct,
Religious belief Swords into Plowshares (assuming you play peacefully it is by far the best) or Feed the World (but it is much worse in OCC),
Religious pantheons Sun God (if you have multiple wheat/bananas/citrus) or the one giving you +10% growth,
Building/buying Medical Labs and Hospitals asap after discovering Biology and Penicillin.
The wonders Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens
------------
Science - ideally you will be producing 850-1000 science bulbs per turn at endgame. Having the 50 or so population helps most with that.
The other helps?
Beelining the techs that get you science buildings and building/buying them ASAP and filling them with specialists immediately
Building all the wonders that give you Science bulbs, bonuses, or Great Scientist generation points (especially getting Great Library and National College built as fast as possible given growth and other early concerns)
Planting academies wih 3-5 of your first Great Scientists
Choosing the social policies that give you bulbs in some way asap (there are not many-- Most of the Rationalism policies, Scholasticism in the Patronage Branch, and New Deal in the Freedom ideology. Worker's Faculties in Order does also, but Freedom has growth bonuses, New Deal, and lets you immediately buy rather than build spaceship parts so Freedom is highly preferred in this one)
Discovering technologies with your Great Scientists as near the endgame as possible.
The World Congress project International Space Station also helps immensely but it comes a bit late if you are trying to achieve the fastest times (you need Satellites tech discovered to even propose it) One religious founder belief can give you bulbs directly (Interfaith Dialogue) but it is very hard to make it work well in any game, especially on low levels.
Research agreements with AI civ friends can get you 200-1000 bulbs at one time depending on when and with whom you have an agreement.
-------------
Gold - assuming you choose the Freedom ideology and assuming you want to buy all spaceship parts (quicker than building), you will need go have accumulated at least 8280 gold by game end if you have built Big Ben for its 15% purchasing discount and have acquired the Commerce 25% purcasing discount policy (The 6 spaceship parts costing 1380 gold each). If you have not done one of the above or both, the cost will be higher. You also ideally want to buy as many buildings as you can afford throughout the game (faster than building them) and bribe CSes for influence on occasion possibly. Research agreements with AI friends cost gold too.
Best sources?
Cargo ships or caravans up to your maximum limit running trade routes; Caravansary actually helps a lot in this one if you are landlocked
Gold producing buildings/specialists
Religious founder belief Tithe (or Initiation Rites or Church Property but they are probably worse than Tithe in this one as your capital will be producing 10-13 gpt at the end with Tithe. Initiation Rites is a possibility if you are committed to spreading your religion fast and intensely.)
Commerce policy opener, the one giving 25% purchase discount (which you ideally get anyway to buy spaceship parts as cheaply as possible) and even the one giving +2 per land trade route if you have extra policies to burn. A few other policies help or give a little gold. Patronage has CS bribe booster for example.
Sell luxuries or resources to AI civs. You can get up to 7 gold/turn from any civ or up to 200 gold in cash from an AI friend. You literally do not need any luxuries for happiness in this Chieftain OCC if you get any Mercantile CS alliances, so sell them all!
Gold-producing wonders, though you really don't need any outside Big Ben if you are doing a lot of the above.
-------------
Aluminum - Since you can only build/buy 1 spaceship part per turn in your capital. You need to have only 1 aluminum resource on hand at game end.
Your options?
Ideally you mine it in your territory
If you don't have it, you can trade an AI civ for it, possibly gift a resource improvement to a CS ally with aluminum, or build/buy a recycling center.
-----------------
OK. Right now the formatting is terrible because it is being done on a phone. I will edit it on a pc in the next day or two.
Near month end, I will type up a final thoughts post with a little analysis or gameplay tip of some kind, with maybe a more detailed look at how I reached one or some of the above goals on this one. Just hoping to make these gauntlets a bit more interesting and accessible to all, especially less frequent or new players.
, also the enhancer belief to faith-buy science buildings, and the extra 
bonus for my temple. This worked, but it slowed me down a bit in the early game. Instead, it would have been better to open Patronage and get the bonus 
from CS allies before opening and rushing through Rationalism.
