posted 05-11-99 08:41 PM ET        

Score 14820 at 1036%

Here's a short course in how to see what a maxed out game plays like without really cheating that much.

First, create your own map, 120x120... and hope your machine can handle it, my 200 MMX can and did. Then you fill every square with land, just brush it on...then erase it all! What's the use? Well, it sets every water square at just one depth and perfect for your friend fungus! Now, randomize fungus TWICE! fill that sea with losts of fungi! Then set the world for ABUNDANT lifeforms to gain the +25%! Remember, worms be friends!!!

Now, make a large landmass in the bottom, give it a jungle, garland and the boreholes.

Make 8 very small landmasses around the board and give them rivers, hills and etc. Pods are optional, but I'd suggest giving the smaller islands at lest four each. On the large landmass make sure it has plenty of rivers and pods. Now, keep starting the game with our favorite faction. Save and check your position and that of the other factions with the Ctl-K senario editor. Eventually after plenty of starts and restarts you'll be the only faction on the big island and everyone else somewhere else, surrounded by a fungal hazard that almost assures nobody coming to see you until your already established. Go Democratic, Green, Knowledge ASAP and put enough ships out to capture Isles. Use the isles as pod poppers.
Concentrate early on building as many cities as you can and cover as much of your land as you can, BUT DO NOT PUT CITIES SO CLOSE THEY CROWD ONE ANOTHER!!!! At this point concentrate on Secret projects. With this set up, you should get them all. Don't contact any player if you can avoid it. You'll grow at three times their rate and they don't like it and make demands. You avoid war UNTIL... Until you have the space elevator... Drop Dragons make wonderful pets! Blitz the badies in ONE TURN! At this point you have the Nano Factory and all you do is make scout tanks and upgrade them into Behemoths and drop in on those crazy enough to try a vendetta. Forget being nice once they force a vendetta on you, don't give them any respite until there safely in a punishment sphere and your monument has a gold tab on the bottom. You'll most likely have four by the end of the game usually with the University, Gaians or PK's as your only companions. One will probably be a pack brother. Okay, so keep them happy, but don't give them PB's until you have at least 40 pods up there. At this point the AI says their futile anyway.

Now, for how your score gets into the rediculious numbers...

Make a drop colony pod and use up what land isn't someone elses. Then make cruiser colony pods. Set every city you have inland into the drop pods and coastal ones to the cruiser pods, keep building them and moving them out. Turn the Govern. to BUILD and then set it to only control the people and build land defense forces, pods, formers and that's it. You'll now grow at the rate of the rediculious. HOLD OFF TRANCENDENCE!!!!! DON'T LET YOUR GOVERN. BUILD SECRET PROJECTS!
They'll even get to the point where they'll try it without asking you unless you turn it off altogether. The other factions will take a minimum of 140 turns to complete it and the game will all be over by that time. If one faction is stupid enough to try something at this point, corral them. Kill all but one city and surround it with your forces, just to keep at least one faction in the game! Remember, your winning by trancendence, not conquest. I've ended the game with over 200 cities each with over 40 people in most of them! Most times I quit when the line graph in your information window suddenly hits rock bottom telling you the AI can no longer keep on track of your score. For you who used to play Sid's Railroad Tycoon, remember the graph hitting bottom in Alpha Centauri isn't bad, it's fine, it just tells you that your into the fantastic numbers (around 800%).
Your major concern is where to put the new colonies and making sure that all squares in the city are being used. Food=Population=Score (Dig?) Your major cities inland should stockpile energy as soon as the usable land is eaten up, your coast and sea cities keep popping colonies until the entire sea area of the 120x120 map is covered by your cities, except where that one faction's last city is. Rest is yours and if you have enough satellites up every square is at least 3-3-3!!!! At minimum!
Play our cards right and you'll end the game with the highest score you ever imagined. I played a net game the other day and used the mass colony strategy on them and all of a sudden this dude found himself a very small faction in a world of MINE!!!! I layed down 100 new cities in a single turn by stockpiling colony pods!!!!