posted 04-18-99 01:11 AM ET         

All a golden age does is give you social engineering mods of +1 econ and +2 growth at the base in question. With a decent number of squares in production, this can be quite useful, especially if you have some pre-existing econ bonus like wealth or being Morgan.

Now, I tend to find that all things considered, it is better to NOT play on fundamentalist when trying to be in a golden age. I admit, that was part of my argument in the earlier post, but I generally find that Demo - Planned - Wealth is the best combo for Believer Golden Ages, as the Support penalty of Democracy is cancelled out by Believers inherent bonus, Planned's inefficiency penalty is offset by Democracies efficiency bonus, and no one cares about -2 morale in peacetime. So you are left with a base +4 growth, +2 industry, +1 probe, +1 econ, -2 morale, -2 research... but with a Golden Age you hit +2 econ (a vital stat, increasing the energy gain from +1 per base to +1 per square harvested) and +6 growth (another vital stat, giving you population booms which increase the bases population by +1 per turn as long as there is sufficient food to feed the new pop), which are both extremely nice, and will shortly result in an energy/industry glut from huge populations, which in turn will more than pay for the energy diverted. Note that in many cases, it is harder to get a golden age than to keep a golden age... with the +1 econ from the golden age the energy coming in will increase a lot, thus making the # of energy units being put into psych greater. You may wish to save a game, up psych to something ridiculous like 60% for one year, and then see how low you can lower it while still keeping a golden age for the maximum number of cities while balancing that against the need to actually have some energy doing something useful... generally you wouldn't want more than 30% energy going to psych, and if you can do it with less that would be ideal. Naturally, you'd like all of your bases to be in perpetual golden ages, but even a very few can be extremely useful... especially if you can produce colony pods quickly (esp sea colony pods, which tend to be better at finding "fertile ground"), because you will replenish the lost population every turn.

As noted in other posts, two SP's of note to this project are the Human Genome Project (for obvious reasons) and the Plantary Transit system. The Transit system cancels out a drone in size 3 or smaller bases, making each new base reach Golden Ages easier (and thus breaking the "Golden Age inertia"), and it also makes expansion a cinch by allowing new bases to begin with 3 people. With a negged Drone and an automatic Talent at each base, new bases are all that much more likely to be in Golden Ages from their inception, thus growing as quickly as you can provide food and energy (the latter is especially vital, as you need to keep up energy into psych to make sure you get the golden age in the first place) for them and becoming proper platforms for expansion quickly in their own right. This system also places less emphasis on getting your hands on the Cloning Vats secret project... although you will want to infiltrate and mind control / conquer whatever enemy base has this project eventually. Still, in my opinion the golden age Demo - Planned - Wealth is your best peace option for Believers all through the early and mid game. Once you steal clone vats and the planet starts getting pissy, you will want to switch to Green to help out your negative Planet rating... but maintaining golden ages is still vital for high energy returns. It's like advertizing... in order to make energy, you gotta spend energy.

posted 04-18-99 03:38 PM ET         

Finally, the probe advantage of belivers can be exploited to make them better at tech than any one faction by stealing from as many other factions as you can... particulary the UoP, because they are easy to dupe into thinking that someone else did it, so you can get them to go to war with whoever else you are stealing tech from. And when the belivers have equal tech to someone like the UoP, whose tech is their only advantage, then the Believers other bonuses really come into play (support and +25% attack).

It's all in your style of play. It pains me to say it, but generally speaking on harder levels I find the Believers to be head and shoulders above the UoP. On the first three, granted, the UoP is a real presence (especially with a well regulated Demo-Free Market-Knowledge society), probably the single best faction, but increasingly after that they just get to be too annoying with all their drone problems.

posted 04-19-99 12:27 PM ET         

1) Build the damn thing yourself if you have the techs, and if you don't, the faction which is building it assuredly does. Easy strat if you have a high mineral output base.

2) Infiltrate their faction. Find out where the HSA is being built and stop it. You can destroy the proto-SP with probe teams, or Mind Control the base in question (always a great option, as I play with Spoils of War).
3) If you feel like mocking the computer to its face, trade for the base where the HSA was built with a crappy 1 pop base.

4) If you fail to get any sort of infiltration, your best bet it to either attack that faction ruthlessly or make a pact with them. This will get them off your back and will also tell you where the HSA is, so that you can smash it.

5) If you know where the HSA is, you can ususally take that base... I find that you can take any base if you are willing to take enough casualties, and once the HSA is out of the picture, you can use superior probe tactics to finish off the battle.

The main rule: there is no single action your opponent can ever do that you cannot recover from. If you are massively outgunned, are facing a monolithic faction coalition which has you outteched and outnumbered, and THEN they build the HSA, then you are pretty much out of options. But if all else is equal, and someone else starts to build the HSA, then there is no point in abandoning your strength just because someone else might cut into it soon. Probe teams are one of the most powerful units in the game... a basic probe unit has the ability to take almost any unit or base, no matter how strong, with sufficient funding. Probe teams can freely smash up bases, cause riots, stop research, steal tech, and infiltrate the enemy to let you know what they are doing. Later in the game, drop probes have to be one of the single most annoying units, and combine with Space Elevator to open up every base, every where. Don't give up that kind of power until the very last minute, or on the assumption that someday somebody might try to take it from you. That's like not building a military because someone else might have one too.

posted 04-19-99 01:25 PM ET            

Random standard sized planet.
Apparently had 70-90% ocean coverage, and average erosion. Dense clouds, and average life forms.

I was believers, my brother, Troy, was spartans. we formed the Queen bitches of the universe alliance and set our goal of total planet domination while taking no prisoners.

Luckily, we both started on the same mid-sized continent alone. I had the monsoon jungle just above me. hive and pk's were below us. Hive had sunny mesa, pk's had borehole cluster. Gaians were on an island chain just a small sail to my west. Morgan was on mount planet to the north. And University had the largest continent to itself > !!

I started off by setting all my bases to explore to colonize my half of the island asap and get the Human geonome (Which I gave the weather paradigm to Troy for). Then rushed to the planetary transit system. For the expansion phase of the game I had a Demo/Planned/Wealth going. I found that the Virtual world came in real handy for getting my golden ages going. After my empire was set up and I had a sea colony next door to morgan in the geothermal shallows (soon to be an integeral probe operation point).

Troy graciousely provided me with a bunch of early techs which he had traded for from morgan and the gaians. This really gave me a boost! My early research was non-existant. He was a very lucrative part of my faction's rise to dominance.

After all was said and done I had golden ages at ALL of my bases. Things were booming! Troy was half the empire I was and he still was twice the empire all the other were! I was the only name on the who's who screen!

I had my probes running full speed, in 5 probe actions I had taken all of morgan's tech advantage.

I switched to Fundamentalist/Green/Wealth and had all 12+ bases on conquer for the following:

We considered allying with the Gaians to form the Femme force ("Girl Power!") But the gaians had just declared war on us so we ransacked her little faction in the course of 5 short years. Morale was booming as we next sighted the morgans for termination. The invasion consisted mostly of missile marines and aircraft. Morgan almost lasted 10 years. halfway throught morgan, I felt the need to obliterate the hive who had pressed vendetta a few years back. So I initiated an invasion of The Hive itself. After morgan had been vanquished Troy set out against the university. Which had been screwed over apparently by mind worms and the peacekeepers. the pk's had destroyed the University base and completely demorlized the entire UoP faction into nothingness. The hive suffered the same problem from the pk's. After some careful planning to overcome THE HIVE's perimeter defence I just hit it and won with few losses. After conquest of the hive drone riots broke out soon after in the newly aquired city. I figured I'd make them feel at home and nerve staple those drones, taking a page from the book of Yang. I could've bought a network node and saved myself some sanctions but what the hell. I had simotaneousely taken both his other cities in the next couple years. The university was near death at the hands of my gun toting comrad. Next was the pk's.

I mc'd an outlying base and began a mass march into pk territory. They were helpless to stop my 30+ missile infantry/marines plus a couple needlejets. In the last battle for U.N. Aid Station I lost 10 squads of infantry and a needlejet. A nice conclusion to a vicious game.