posted 06-29-99 12:55 PM ET        

I began this game to test the value of Punishment Spheres. I have placed one in all my cities and I must say that this strategy works. The war of which I am about to tell was fought entirely under Democracy/Free Market/Knowledge

The year 2250 found Planet with five of the seven original factions remaining, with both the Hive and the Gaians destroyed by the Spartans, who now were the most powerful force on Planet. The Morganites were confined to two cities, as the Believers had driven them out of all their others. The Peacekeepers were sitting in the north contentedly, steadily growing stronger; and the University of Planet was on a medium sized island at about the equator.

The UoP's cities were rather small, but would never have any drone problems because they were all equipped with Punishment Spheres. This allowed the Honorable Provost Nathan to use Free Market without any drone problems, and the research problem was surprisingly not bad.

But it was around this time when things slowly began to change. The Peacekeeper's power grew rapidly, as their population and production increased, and the UoP's infrastructure and terraforming campaigns were beginning to pay off. It suddenly came to Provost Nathan's attantion that if he did not act soon, he would most likely be forever stuck at fourth place, a lowly faction unable to do anything.

And so the entire faction regeared for war. The plan was to build several dozen cheap rovers, load them into transports and send them to contend with the Peacekeepers, before which they would be upgraded to chaos.
Wishing to move quickly, the Provost set the hoped-for but seemingly impossible date of 2270 to load the transports. Surprisingly, the date was achieved and the first transport loaded in 2271.

The other 20-someodd rovers and assorted spies were loaded and sent off to attack the
Peacekeepers. Along the way, however, Provost Nathan decided that the Peacekeeper defenses were too strong for the invasion force, whereas the more powerful Spartans had a weaker defence. The attack was redirected and the transports were sent to the Spartan lands.

The Spartan lands were roughly divided into four parts. The North chunk of the islands (the biggest) was where the Spartan capital was and the majority of their larger cities. The Gaian lands were the lands around the conquered territory of the Gaians. I owned two bases their, one which was gotten by trading and another which was taken ina smaller, earlier war. I had a goodly supply of rovers stockpiled there. The hive lands, to the west, were the lands taken from the Hive. The Peacekeepers had one city there and were at war with the Spartans. The Southern Cluster was a grouping of smaller Spartan cities.

At around 2291, I positioned my transports around The North and goaded them into declaring war. I then promptly attacked.My attacks were quite successful. For all their military strenght, the Spartans simply did not have a strong defence; some were even totally undefended! I tore through their cities, and met with defeat but once: when I was attacking Militia Station, where the Spartans had built the Citizen's Defense Force. This was making it more difficult to destroy them, but if I controlled it then the war would go even easier.

In a few turns almost all of the North and Gaian lands were mine, with the exception of Militia Station and a small city beyond it, I had troops gathered around the other cities in the Gaian lands, waiting for Militia Station to fall, taking with it the Spartan perimeter defensesin every base. After gathering most of my forces there, I finally stormed it, although I had to use a missile as well.

With the Citizen's Defence Force gone, I quickly subdued all The North and Gaia, leaving the Spartans with only the Southern Cluster and Hive lands. If the PK's my ally, were smarter, they might be attacking from the Hive land,s thus quickly crushing the Spartans, but I think I'll have to do it myself.

Well, that's the war so far. I went from fourth place witha small population to second about equal with first (the next round of attakcs will bring me up to first)

posted 06-30-99 02:21 AM ET            

However, when the game starts out slowly, a century is a long time to be fighting one war, and time is running out with two factions remaining.

Here's the current faction status:
UoP me): most powerful faction, richest player, best technology.

Peacekeepers: 2nd most powerful, high population, high defensive military.

Believers: 3rd most powerful, large territory and military.

Spartans: Defeated by the UoP in an epic war (I was in 4th place, themin 1st and I won!) now confined to a few bases and controlled totally by their overlords.

Morganites: Dead. Crossed me one too many times so I killed them off.

Gaians and Hive: Long dead.

Details of the Spartan War:
The air force plan failed and I was forced to turn to other means. I finally decided touse large numbers of Fusion and Shard drop infantry to combat the Spartans, but while I built up the forces they took an excellent base with the Human Genome and Empath Guild.

After stockpiling troops at two cities, one on either end, I deployed them all and took a large amount of cities with minimal casualties. I repeated this several times, with each wave resulting in more land, cities, and spoils.

Well,that's about it...it was better if you were there.

Now, then, my plans for the future:
I had hoped to use my drop troops on the PK's to quickly destroy them but so far it is not working as well, I may have to either hurry for Quantum Lasers or think of a new plan.

The Believers have the most powerful military on Planet, and I have no intention of starting another hundred year war, this time with me as the loser. I might win at first, but their counterattacks would kill me.

Because of this, I have chosen a special surprise for the Believers: a Nuclear Holocaust! (referring to the term used to describe nuclear war, not genocide) I have begun building Planetbusters, as well as building a ring of bases around their island, which would allow me to target anything on their island...hwa hwa hwa hwa hwa!!!

I may have to use a similar strategy on the Peacekeepers...their bases are quite close together, allowing me to easily nuke 'em.

What would you do? The year is 2354 on Transcend. (Research in the beginning was bad, but I'm starting to make up for it now...every three tunrs)

posted 06-30-99 02:20 PM ET            

I'm afraid that it is too late. After all, I didn't start fighting till around 2300, and now it's half a century later and I don't have time for a Transcendence or conquest, seeing how I cannot quickly defeat anyone.

I have only on choice. I shall fire off my Planetbusters and then hold mass executions of all my people, rather than allow them to fall into the hands of the Believers.

(If you can think of a way to win, tell me!)

posted 06-30-99 02:58 PM ET            

And here's the death toll:

70,000 Peacekeeping citizens were killed in a nuclear attack.

60,000 Morganites were executed.

750,000 Spartans were killed.

A staggering 1,720,000 University citizens were killed, 150,000 of which died in the nuclear blast.

The total numberof my citizens hich were killed: 2,530,000 people.

Wow. That's frightening...that's a lot of people.

Well, it's understandable to lose your first Transcend game, so I think I'll try again, now that I know what not to do.

Lessons learned:
Expand more and terraform much faster than I did this game.

If you're going to war, don't wait until 2300.

I think Punishment Spheres worked well; If I build more bases then I can get faster research.

Try to war faster, don't do what I did this game (war one trun, treaty next two, then war, then treaty, then war, then treaty) go all-out war.

Repeal the charter so you can use nerve gas.

posted 06-30-99 03:50 PM ET            

EK

posted 07-01-99 03:30 AM ET            

I decided to attack earlier this time, and after I finished my terraforming (well, it's never really done, but the land is blanketed in farms, solar collectors, echelon mirrors, condencers, and boreholes, so it's enough for now) I quickly built a large force of gatling infantry (I was planning to attack a low-tech faction, and I wanted the troop fast) although as soon as I'm done researching Organic Superlubricant they'll all have fusion lasers.

I planned to attack the two weakest factions, the Morgainites and the Believer. The attack on the Morganites is going well, in one turn I've captured their capital with two SPs in it and positioned my froces to strike again...I've taken one city and they're already desperate for peace...I don't think I'll accept their surrender. They only have about five poorly gaurded cities, but boy, are they rich!

posted 07-01-99 11:48 PM ET            

I conquered the Morganites long ago, the Believers won't surrender because I used nerve gas; all they have left is seabases and the Gaian navy is working on those, and seeing as I don't want to pick a fight with the Gaians I'll let hem go ahead and do that.

I'm preparing for an invasion of the Peacekeepers; very soon twenty elite Psi (is it pronounced P-S-I or sy?) infrantry torrps will be dropped in around a small bases which just happens to be connected by magtubes to a large base with the Citizen's Defense Force. More news later.

I plan to build the Network Backbone as soon as I get the technology. I love that thing! It, the HSA, and the Empath Guild are probably my three favorite Sps. Doesn't the quote remind you of Microsoft?

posted 07-03-99 02:49 AM ET            

But here's the good news: my research is now at a healthy rate of 4 turns and getting quicker (Theory of Everything, Supercollider, Network Backbone in one city with a lot of supply rovers out collecting lots and lots of energy, still not covering my new solar panel, echelon mirror complexes!!)

I plan to build the Space Elevator as soon as possible, after which an army of drop pod hovertanks will touch down in the Gaian homeland. I have a few select targets in mind, such as their capital, the city with the HSA, and the city with many other SPs. Hopefully my troops will win the day, and then I can either drop in some good defenders or destroy the bases and their valuable contents. I would never have tehm, but the the Gaians would never have them again, which I think would be a serious blow. I then can attack the Gaians from the inside and do as much damage as possible, nuking them if I get desperate or if I can convince the Council to drop the charter, which I don't think they'll do. Oh well, I'm at war with everybody but the Morganites anyway. I hope this works. I want to try and make it as quick and bloodless (for my side) as possible. If I win, I will be the single most powerful faction by far. If I lose, then who knows what will happen. Most likely death, but I'll do a mass execution before it gets that far.

posted 07-04-99 09:37 AM ET            

Evil voices of optimization told me to inform you that there is a better pattern for your echelon mirrors. The almighty hedgerow pattern:

SESE 2E4E
SESE = 3E6E = 21 echelon effect
SESE 2E4E

Compared to:

ESES E2E1
SSSS = 2332 = 16 echelon effect
SESE 1E2E

Granted, the hedgerow takes longer time to build, but you wrote yourself that you didn't have enough supply rovers to cover the collectors/mirrors, so obviously you had the former power to spare. Also, with fewer collectors with higher echelon bonuses you can cover the best parts (the actual solar collectors) of the pattern faster. My inner collectors give 7 energy, excluding any bonuses from altitude and economy.

And what did you mean by "Supply Rovers"!? I hope you build these because your cities produce so many minerals that it would be a huge waste to build the cheaper crawlers

posted 07-06-99 11:13 AM ET            

Well, I built your hedgerow plan, but before I could get more than a few crawlers working it, I had to stop producing crawlers and prepare for an invasion of the Gaians.

My plan was simple. I built lots of drop infantry and tanks with my best weaponry and the blink ability, so they ignored the perimeter defenses and stuff of its ilk. I also produced a bonanza of drop probe teams.

As soon as I got Super Tensile Solids, I built the Space Elevator so I could do orbital insertions.

After I had my invasion force ready, I set my core on building Planet Busters. At this time the Gaians had no orbital defense pods.

I sent my entire drop force to the Gaian city of Memory of Earth, where they had built the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm. I quickly overran the defenses and captured it for the Hive. I used my probes to steal all their technology, including Singularity Mechanics so that all my PB's would be Singularity Planetbusters.

I had five targets in mind to nuke...five targes which were in positions that my Singularity PBs would destroy almost every city on the Gaian mainland. (At this point, I actually burst forth into a spurt of maniacal laughter)

As soon as my PBs were ready, I loaded them all on a carrier and headed straight for the Gaian mainland. When I was only a few turns away from completely destroying them, in two turns they built 25 Orbital Defense Pods! I quickly built more of my own, bringing mine up to a meager 13.

posted 07-06-99 10:07 PM ET            

I tried making a Fusion Supply Rover, and found out that they cost just as much as Fission Supply Crawlers. And for those extra dangerous positions near fungus, a Fusion Synthmetal Supply Crawler (which also cost only 3 mineral rows) would be handy, as it loses its -50% for being a non-combat unit. Not much defense against Missile Needlejets though.

It sounds like an insanely large game, with a faction building 25 satellites in one turn. How many bases are we talking about? I've only finished one game on a standard planet, and the AI factions never got past Fusion Shard troops, while I would've reached transcendance at 2293 if only that option hadn't been accidently disabled. I guess I'm too much of a micromanager to play on a huge map. Give me only a handfull of cities and space for a mirror park, and the world is my oyster

posted 07-07-99 10:26 AM ET            

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!
Transcend is evil! The stupid Gaians shot down my ODPs (most of them) so now I have no hope of destroying theirs. I preemptively started over, as I knew I could never destroy the gigantic Gaians.