G Minor CII Pregame Walkthrough
I tried to keep this walkthrough short and sweet, like the gauntlet game will hopefully be.
A very quick discussion of the settings (not many choices) and then I will rough outline the three "pure" approaches and talk about the general strategies for them. This gauntlet is a bit out of the ordinary, so it's wide open for people to come up with their own strategies and wrinkles to basic approaches. Please feel free to chime in with your own ideas and takes
Settings:
- Don't forget this is a One City Challenge!
- Unfortunately, you cannot choose the sea level with Large Islands
. The best you can do to lessen rough terrain impeding your ground forces while on land is choosing 5 Billion years and Arid, which will reduce mountains and vegetation. Some people might rather have 3 or 4 billion year old Earth to have more hills for more capital production so it is not necessarily a clear cut choice. Remember though, that more hills means more chances that AIcapitals are on hills and tougher to take. 5 billion and arid seems like the best bet to me.
- Opponents should be civs who are NOT big sea powers (you don't want to get bogged down by ship-infested waters) who will send out as many early cargo ships as possible for you to plunder. Gold focus good. Naval focus bad. Venice is a conundrum-- will definitely have trade routes, but may build multiple triremes too. I am going to include them at first because they will build cargo ships first usually
. My initial list is Morocco Songhai Inca Arabia Portugal Poland Venice. All high gold, not upper level naval except for Venice. Bleidraner and others like to include Spain always, on the chance they will find an early Natural Wonder and have mucho gold to extort. I have never found that jackpot, though, and don't want their annoying scouts in my pathfinders' way 
- Promotion Saving should always be on. Raging Barbarians is more hindrance than help by far in this one. This is OCC and you will not be able to heal your ships unless in your cap or by XP instaheal. Every barbarian ship and archer on the map may reduce your units' strength semi-permanently.
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The following approaches are the "pure" forms-- most people will probably use some combination of them based on their own instincts and ingenuity! Keep in mind that all these approaches will be limited by OCC because you soon reach a unit limit which curtails production on units in your capital. Buying units becomes hugely important, and thus demanding tributes from CSes and possibly making some early peace deal money grabbing with AI civs are also hugely important. Don't forget to exact tributes whenever possible!!
Approach 1: The Swimming Pool
The idea here is that your main conquering force will be land units. They will get from Large Island to Large Island by swimming there after you research Optics. Obviously, you have to hope you can get to every AI via swimming with this approach. If any civ is reachable only by crossing ocean tiles, you are doomed to wait until teching Astronomy.
Tech order: usually Archery, beeline to Optics, then either to better land unit techs or start working toward Compass (galleass) and Astronomy in case the whole land unit swim thing doesn't pan out
. Shoshone pathfinders can upgrade to Composite Bowmen through ruins, so it might be worth a shot to beeline Optics first send out 3-4 pathfinders to hopefully find enough ruins to all upgrade eventually.
Build Order: Crank out pathfinders until archery, then archers and then build enough triremes to take cities (as the melee unit), plunder trade routes, and fight enemy ships. Take into account NiceOneEmlyn's invaluable post above for ideas on how many you will need! A monument possibly if you feel a strong need for tilespread or SPs. Possibly a worker if you simply can't steal one, buy one, or get one from Liberty and need one for upgrading terrain. Remotely, a lighthouse if you have lots of sea resources. Wonders don't help you much with this approach; units alone do.
Social policies: Totally up in the air. Honor is always good for conquest. Liberty will get a free worker and help production (No free Settler though with OCC) and eventually get you a Great Admiral, Great Engineer for a wonder or Great Scientist to rush a tech if you complete it. If you tech far enough to choose the Exploration opener, that is a must grab for extra naval movement and vision.
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Approach 2: Galleass rush
The idea here is that you build some pathfinders and triremes to scout, plunder, and eventually take cities once galleasses are bought/built. Build wonders to help get to Galleasses and then buy as many as you can after teching Compass. Then build more of them until you win. Galleasses main disadvantages are that they need Compass to get built, are slow without Great Lighthouse and Exploration opener, and must follow coastlines-- but they will bring the hammer down quickly on AI civs when they get there and the map sweep should be swift if you get 2 fleets moving ASAP.
Tech order: Either beeline Optics to get your triremes and pathfinders scouting fast and maybe Great Lighthouse going, then Writing for Great Library, and then to Compass.... OR beeline Writing to get Great library ASAP to help slingshot toward Compass ASAP...... OR Pottery-> Sailing (for trireme building)->Writing (to start GL)-> Calendar/Optics etc.
Build Order: Pathfinders, triremes, GLibrary/GLighthouse (maybe even an Oracle to finish Liberty sooner) and then Galleasses. Monument to help speed Liberty is a possibility.
Social policies: Liberty until it is finished (this is OCC so choose the Free Settler last) Get Great Scientist and bulb something on the way to Compass or Compass itself. Then Exploration Opener.
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Approach 3: Trireme rush
Vadalaz and others got this to work on a Chieftain Dom Gauntlet using Carthage that has pimped-up version of triremes. The idea is you don't wait so long for Galleasses. You take capitals with masses of brute force naval melee units. AI capitals with only 1 sea tile adjacent are big obstacles in this though. This being Warlord level and the Shoshone having only generic triremes means this approach may not work so well. OCC means these triremes will probably never heal except for XP instaheals, and as NiceOne Emlyn pointed out, the trireme that takes the city may easily get lost. All those negatives being said, I will probably first try this approach in hybrid approach with swimming upgraded pathfinders hopefully. Masses of triremes can get tribute from CSes easily. Great Lighthouse, Honor, and Exploration Opener help a lot.
Tech order: Beeline to Optics. After that, anything goes, but it is probably best to either tech to archery/composite bows or continue on Galleass path just in case.
Build Order: Pathfinders, triremes, GLighthouse at some point. Monument to speed Honor at some point possibly.
Social policies: Honor helps this a lot. Honor is great for melee units, and triremes are melee units. Exploration Opener when you can get it is big too.
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Ok, those are the rough outlines of 3 pure-form approaches to try. Most players will probably end up using some combination thereof.
This is low level; it is OCC, so not too many choices to make as far as cities go. It is domination, which is clean, pure, and simple conquest. Have fun with it!
Good luck to all.
While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.
. Just wanted to get some discussion going, so I'll probably leave this one for awhile.
