posted 09-22-99 09:57 PM ET            

Korn and Vel have a fastest transcendence thread over at Apolyton. If I remember correctly, Korn transcended in 2194. That's right - he did it in less than 100 years. Vel has a similar score. If you are interested I highly recommend checking it out. These two have a wealth of information (Vel has a strategy guide there, too).

posted 09-23-99 01:54 PM ET         

The fastest Transcend reported at Apolyton is 2244, also by Korn. That's also bull.

I'm looking at the saved game that was submitted and it's obvious he stopped at various point and used the scenario editor to spruce up the scores a bit.

The first city wasn't captured until 2132. Secret of Human brain not until 2135, and the other 2 secrets were discovered in 2235. there are 13 techs between those secrets and Transcendent Thought.

That means you'd have to discover 10 techs in 8 turns. Except even at 100% science, the Spartans can't research more than 1 tech per turn. And when you're at 100% science, you are not accumulating credits.

And how does one reseach 40+ techs in 100 years, while simultaneously conquering the world? After all, he has submissive pacts with all other factions. Even though the Gaians is vastly more powerful than the Spartans and have lost cities to the Spartans, they have a treaty. In fact, the Gaians have treaties with everyone.

The Spartans didn't bother building their first base facility until 2146. That means every Spartan city was dirt poor for 1/3rd of the game, but somehow Sparta Command is a size 23 city with no less than 7 Secret Projects. Particularly impressive since the first SP wasn't built until 2174, and NOT in Sparta Command. That's some fast building, huh?

To accomplish all this, Korn only needed 10 formers [3 lost], no superformers at all. There are no boreholes, and no solar farms. He's built little to no military units - the most powerful unit he has is Isle of the Deep. The *latest* armed prototype is Gatling rover and infantry.

Now, we all know how the AI designs new weapons whenever they become available and rarely upgrade. Yet there is no remnant of any units between Missle and Graviton. None. No units designed, none lost.

posted 09-23-99 03:15 PM ET            

I won in 96 turns, built most if not all the sp's, never prototyped a single weapon past impact stuff, and if memory serves, conquered the planet with a grand total of five impact rovers.....lol....my score wasn't all that impressive, but the speed was dead on.... I'll send you the save if you like....

posted 09-23-99 05:59 PM ET            

Tiny planet
Mostly land
Few native life forms
Average everything else

Transcend was the only victory condition enabled.

Basically, before 2130, I had conquered all the factions (destroying miriam), and used them as tech slaves. The key to the game is early conquest and commerce income from all the enslaved factions. Once you achieve that, the victory is really a matter of efficient use of formers, and actually, kinda tedious....I recommend it as a lesson in patience, and theoretically, it has been proposed that with the right seeding and start, you could Transcend in 80-something turns, but 96 was good enough for me....lol
-=Vel=-

posted 09-23-99 08:14 PM ET         

He had 10 formers total, of which 3 had been destroyed.

In short, none of the parameters you specified applied.

And even if you have every faction {except 1} was a tech slave, a small world can't generate enough tech unless you play at a very low level of difficulty [so the techs are easier to get].

posted 09-23-99 08:52 PM ET            

Are you or did you use the SE flip flop to get those conquest pacts?

Like so many challenges, the devil is in the details. What is the rate for tech on the tiny map anyway? Sixty percent of normal?

posted 09-23-99 11:37 PM ET            

Play on a tiny map, research only costs 60% of normal. Conquer all factions quickly and use them as tech slaves.

posted 09-24-99 08:26 AM ET            

"Notes on the Fast Transcend:
I have been all but a ghost on the forums here lately, and that is because I have been trying like hell to beat ICE�s score of a 95 turn transcend.....I finally did that....barely.....managed to shave one turn off of the score, purchasing the transcend in 2193 to end the game in 2194.

Along the way, I picked up a few more ideas and thoughts on the speed game, and I thought I�d jot them down here, along with the timeline for this latest game, since that seemed to be a pretty popular idea the last time around.

Again, position is everything. I have discovered that you can basically break the game down into �stages� (which I�ll outline below for those of you reading this who might be just starting out trying your hand at the speed game). This is certainly not the only way to go about it, but I�ve found it to be pretty effective. And, I have to also say that my current speed strategy is in no way my own work. There have been a lot of good ideas floated on this particular thread about winning the game as fast as possible, and I have incorporated bits and pieces of all of them into this strategy. Keep in mind that this strategy was written from the perspective of playing the Spartans �Korn-Style.�

The strategy I use basically has five �lock points� to pin the game down, and once you achieve those lock points, it�s pretty much over. Here they are:

Lock Point #1: Global Conquest:
This is where starting position is everything, because the faster you can conquer everybody, the faster you can put the rest of the plan into action. In my latest game, I had a wonderful start up near the north pole....only had one direction I could go to start looking for my opponents, and that made things pretty easy. So....smack everybody around. Make them submit....that�s pretty easy to do, given all the good suggestions floated here for getting the job done.

During this stage of your speed game, you�ll want to peg your research allocation as high as you can get it without losing money (and as high as you can get it, losing money or not, once you start actually conquering factions, as the income generated from the sale of technology will enable you to keep your research levels artificially high). This will net you some good early techs, but don�t just shoot up the tree blindly. Specifically, you�re gunning for Ecological Engineering and the treefarms that come with it. Along the way, you�ll pick up Cyberethics (Knowledge), and the sooner this tech comes into your possession the better off you�ll be/

Lock Point #2: A two-stage Pop-Boom
Once the world is at peace, this strategy calls for your entire effort to be focused on getting ready to do a Pop-Boom. You�ll be doing it in two stages though, and for the first stage, you need to make sure you�ve got Tree Farms and Children�s Creches in all your bases. Once you do, switch to planned/dem to get all your bases up to size class seven, then go back to market for cash. The reason for this is because some really important techs will likely be right around the corner (Planetary Economics--global trade pact and hybrid forest--and Fusion Power--from whence your fusion labs will come) and you�ll need the money. Besides that, the drone problems associated with growing a base to anything much larger than size seven without a hybrid forest are almost not even worth the trouble.

During the time that you spend in planned, you�ll want to keep your lab allocation to a minimum....I generally only run it at ten percent to bring in tons of cash to help get the infrastructure in place more rapidly.

So, once you get all your hybrid forests and hab complexes built, switch back to planned to get your bases up to size fourteen. You�ll be amazed at just how quickly your fusion labs and the rest of your infrastructure comes together in those seven turns....in fact, with judicial rush building, you will be able to finish all infrastructure development in all of your bases inside those seven turns.

I have found that it is more efficient to wait on secret projects, passing over them in favor of standard base facilities. Once a base has all its infrastructure (and it�ll be size 13-14 at this point), you can pick up the early projects amazingly quickly (Merchant Exchange in 9....about three with rush building), so I generally will not start on any of the projects I want until all my infrastructure work is done.

Once your bases are fat and happy, cut back to market and slam your lab allocation back through the roof. Thanks to your energy banks and fusion labs, even when you do this, you�ll still manage to eek out a small profit, even while running at 80-90% lab allocation, and you�ll see your techs coming in 1 turn....that�s where you want to be....

Lock Point #3: Thinkers & Cybernetic
Beeline for MMI just as quickly as you possibly can....Thinkers are far and away the best mid-game specialists you can have (because they provide both a psych bonus, and the same lab boost as a Librarian), and the sooner you can put them to work for you, the more profitable you will be. And, it is quite fortuitous that Thinkers lay directly along the path to Cybernetic, which is where you�re beeline will take you next.

At this point, you�re formers have about finished prettying up the neighborhood and can start to work on boreholes for you. Your bases won�t have a whole lot to do right at the moment (you�re infrastructure is done....it�s still several turns before you get quantum labs and nanohospitals), so have them start cranking out super-clean formers and supply crawlers. Make some boreholes wherever you can find room for them, and even if you just toss your crawler on an unused forest square, he�s still bringing in money every turn for you, and he can be cashed in later to help build the Ascent project.

Also, during this stage of the game, take a look at the number of bases and see who has how many. If there is great disparity, then help things along by evening the number of bases everyone has out. ICE makes an excellent point about the power of the Global Economy in a speed game, and you would only strengthen your game by taking a cue from him....the closer everyone has to the same number of bases, the more everyone benefits from the global commerce generated....you get faster techs, your allies get faster techs, and everybody gets all rich and happy.... This is also where being a good �coach� comes into play. You have to not only make sure your allies don�t turn on each other, but make sure they�re all well taken care of. Don�t give them a base that�s out in the middle of nowhere....in inefficiency will roast them.....if another faction builds a new base close to their holdings, coax or bully it out of them and even things out. Do what you can to make sure the numbers stay as close to dead even as you can. It�s definately worth the trouble.

Lock Point #4: NanoHospitals and Quantum Labs
Once you switch to Cybernetic, you�ll be able to keep your labs at 40% or so, run with no Psych allocation at all (you�ve got psych coming out of your ears thanks to thinkers, research hospitals and the like), make several hundred credits per turn and still pull your techs down once a year (plus what you�re getting from your �allies�). From Cybernetic, it�s a VERY short hop to both NanoHospitals and Quantum Labs, and you�ll need them both. It really doesn�t matter which you go for first, and there are good arguments either way....the economic kick of the Quantum Labs is nice, but so are the two free techs from the Universal translator (and since you�re selling your techs off, that�s an economic kick in and of itself), so however the game plays out, you�ll be okay....just make sure you get them both in every base you have, and once you do.....

Lock Point #5: Multiple Techs per turn
As soon as the last of your late game lab-enhancers are in place, jack your lab allocation back through the roof again....I�m talking 80% conservatively.....run it at 90 or 100 if it won�t cause you to lose too much cash every turn. You�ll start getting 2-3 techs every year, and that will polish the game off very quickly indeed.

When you get to this point, you�ll probably want to set up two of your bases for the Voice and Ascent Project, just to get a head start. Work on the Telepathic Matrix or something equally expensive, and don�t worry about accidentally finishing it.....if you don�t rush build it (and why would you), the game will be over before it finishes building on its own anyway.....

Keep an eye on your time. When you see you�re only about 3-4 turns away from getting the Threshold Tech, start migrating all your formers and non-essential crawlers (ie, crawlers that are not siphoning energy from boreholes) toward the base you plan to end the game at.

You�ll likely have enough cash to but the Voice outright, but the Ascent is expensive, especially since you�re lab allocation is jacked up so high that you�re not making a lot of money every turn, so you�ll be happy for the veritable army of formers and crawlers en route to the base you�ll finish the game in.

I discovered, for example, that the Ascent could be �bought� with 9 Super Clean Formers, 16 sturdy Supply Crawlers, two rattle-trap, converted-to-impact-weapons Unity Rovers, and a little over 7000 in cash....not a bad price to pay at all.....

Oh, and a note about getting techs from your allies.....it�s important to keep an eye on WHEN they get their next techs, and it might be in your best interest to intentionally slow your research down (give you a boost in cash for a couple turns too, which is nice) just to let them get whatever they�re researching so you don�t �step on� each other.....

And, for the curious, here�s my latest game�s timeline:

2103 Found New Jerusalem unguarded, smiled wickedly and took her out of the game in one shot. Faction eliminated (she can�t research anyway....lol)

2106 Met and made peace with both Deride and Zak on the same turn

2109 Overran Gaia�s Landing with a newly upgraded Rover (Laser weapons). The Gaians surrender.

2112 Overran University Base. Zak surrenders.

2118 Found Yang and Lal embroiled in a vicious war. Pacted myself with the Hive to get around him and go after Lal (he had a base right on a narrow piece of land that was giving me FITS). Also found evidence of Morgan further to the east.

2122 Took The Hive from Lal, and he surrendered. Got myself elected governor....even Morgan voted for me....

2123 Broke my pact with Yang and attacked him. He only had two bases and surrendered immediately.

2126 First facility (rec commons) built. Oh, I also enslaved Morgan that year....hehehe

2127 Switched to Market, did some base trading and wound up with five, all in a nice pretty line....good clean lines to each other, lots of rivers....very pretty, actually...

2128 Added Dem to the mix

2140 Began researching Ecological Engineering for the game. Cashed in my two AA�s and GOT Ecological Engineering! Began working on Treefarms immediately.

2145 Added Knowledge to my SE mix

2149 Planetary Economics. Global Trade Pact Passes unanimously.

2150 All Treefarms finished. Working on CC�s across the board

2152 Planned/Dem for stage one of the Boom

2155 Back to FM for cash to hurry those blasted Hybrid Forests (one already done)

2159 All Hybrid Forests completed. Now working on Hab complexes

2160 Hab Complexes done (all five) Back to Planned to finish growing my bases

2161 Fusion Labs done (all five)

2164 Infrastructure complete. Starting work on the Virtual World, Supercollider, and Human Genome Project

2167: Finished Supercollider and Genome. Started work on the Merchant Exchange

2168 Finished Virtual World Back to Market to reap the benefits

2169 Finished Merchant Exchange

2173-2175 Spent some time evening out the number of bases everybody had

2177 MMI and Thinkers!

2178 First Centauri Preserve Built

2180 Started the Theory of Everything

2181 Cybernetic

2182 Three (3) Nanohospitals rushed this turn, along with the Universal Translator and Network Backbone

2183 Finished Nanohospitals and rushed my first two Quantum Labs

2184 Quantum Labs finished, research jacked to 100%

2186 Best turn in the whole game. Six techs in one turn!!! (two from research (both of the late game secrets), two freebies from that, a tech from a pod I found late-game, and a tech from one of my allies!

2192 Finished the Voice Project

2193 Finished the Ascent

2194 Game"

posted 09-24-99 09:11 AM ET         

Now that I realize tech research requirements depend on planet size, it explains a lot. The AI would have a huge amount of research to contribute, given the bonuses they already get on Transcendent level.

How very lucky to have Miriam only 2 moves away from your home base. But under standard rules, Miriam would be restarted with colony pods elsewhere.

posted 09-24-99 02:46 PM ET            

Do you mostly plant forests, with boreholes in rocky squares? Or level out the rockiness for forests, making boreholes for supply crawlers outside your city's radius? What about farms/solar collectors?

I'm not so much amazed at your quick transendence, but the fact that you could do it with five cities (more or less) -- the only time I've ever gotten two techs or more in a turn was with Morgan, and that was with a lot of supply crawlers in the late game. Also, how big was this map? Being a builder at heart, I almost always play on a Huge map, though it sounds like putting an early beatdown on your opponents is the key to early transendence...

posted 09-24-99 03:45 PM ET            

Former-Wise: I went with my usual "forests everywhere" plan (hardly uniquie, I know, but it works SOOO well! ), with boreholes constructed in places my workers could not work.

I think the "top end" techs cost just under 5000 research points each, and it's very easy to arrange a "super city" in your empire to snag you one tech a turn all by itself (size 20-odd base, fully developed, Theory of Everything + Supercollider + Network Backbone = A Hellish Amount of Research), and it's not too hard to get the other bases in your empire to crank out at least one other tech each turn....though I admit to getting VERY lucky on the turn I got six!!! :-)

posted 09-24-99 05:20 PM ET            

Early game: Started in a great location, and found the University before the 10th turn. I saw that Zak already had a colony pod roaming, so as soon as he deployed it I nailed University Base -- before I could even ask him to surrender, mind worms came in and ate his other base. Doh! He rocketed off to another island, and I didn't find him again until much later. I Pacted with Morgan early, and beat both Miriam and Deirdre into submission -- the Believers may not be able to research, but I was getting the best commerce from them next to Morgan!

Mid-game: Found Lal, who decided he didn't like me. Fortunately, he was on a remote island. He wiped out Yang before I ever even met him. By this time I had five cities, which had a heck of a lot of infrastructure. I wasn't sure of the best way to grow them quickly -- I know about Dem/Planned, but I went Golden Age for a few turns to speed it up. Not sure if this was a good idea.

Late game: I finally located Zak and dropped the atomic elbow on him until he surrendered. I actually gave him back all of his bases, since they were decently large and too far from my capital to help me much.

So here I am in 2215. Brother Lal is the only holdout (he hates me), though Morgan just dissolved our Pact and we're at Treaty status now. I'm only about halfway to Transendence, though I have the game basically locked up.

I think the biggest mistake I made was letting Zak get wiped out... It surely set his research back at least 20 turns, and I wasn't drawing commerce from him until after 2200. I also didn't make enough Supply Crawlers, I think -- my capital was using them to draw energy from my solar collectors on Mount Planet, but I didn't have any other than that.

I spent WAY too long on Planned/Democracy. I'm still learning just when to switch over to Free Market (aside from the police problems -- with Lal out there, I had to keep some impact skimships roaming).

posted 09-24-99 07:04 PM ET            

plato90s in that 2244 i did not cheat! i did not us the scenario editor or anything...the reason the map looks weird is i bought all the enemy bases to raise my score the turn before i transcended...my personal best score is 2210 on a tiny map

tiny maps let you transcend faster because buildings, tech, and growth all cost less.

the settings i think are best for a fast transcend are

tiny map
large landmass
low erosion (to give you more land)
low worms (less fungus to impede movement)
high rain (more fertile areas and more river which act as natural road)

transcend is the only victory option (so you can conquer all the AI factions)

unity survey on (you know the lay of the land and can direct your forces accordingly)

pods on (artifacts come in useful)

aggressive AI off (computer surrenders easier)

random events off (random events hurt mor than help)

do or die on (you wanna conquer not kill but if you have to kill you dont want them coming back)

blind research off (this is obvious)

tech stag off (this too is obvious)

ironman on (for a better score)

posted 09-24-99 07:29 PM ET            

1. freedom of information: always trade tech...even to enemies (but be smart about the techs you give your enemies), you will eventually run them over and any techs they discover will come in handy

2. co-ordination: once you have slaves talk to them every turn and always co-ordinate with them...take all their money from them everyturn, make sure they vote for the things you want them to vote for...especially co-ordinate all your research with them, in my opinion in most cases two or three turns before they discover a tech give them all of your tech and then act accordingly...also when you buy a city from them demand all your money back, keep everyone with about the same number of cities and try to keep all of each factions bases close togther

3. go for the impact rush: early on use ICS and rush for impact rovers, make everyfaction surrender, don't kill them make em slaves...by 2130 you should have all but one or two under your rule or about to surrender...if by 2150 there are two strong factions fighting you to the death you're not going to transcend fast

4. only build a few key SPs, don't waste time on special projects you don't need only build the most vital special projects and don't worry about stuff like the maritime control or the hunter seeker

5. build a super base: put up alot of bases around your headquaters and use them as feeder bases for your hq...send formers from their to terraform your HQ send crawlers to help it build Sps, and i usually go with forest and forget strategy also when you buy something at least let the first row of minerals get filled up and buy to only one turn is left i love the super exchange-theory-base (merchant exchang/ super collider/theory of everything)

6. social engineering: go market asap and stay in it except when you are pop booming...once you get enough bases where the extra efficency helps you go democratic...and try to get knowledge ASAP and switch to it...once you get cybernetic you should be able to get 1 tech a turn but keep on giving tech to your slaves and they might just research something for you so that means you can get more than 1 tech a turn

7. encourage the global economy: make sure everyone stays at peace...get the global trade pact as soon as you possiby can and make sure everyone has good trade with everyone else, the more trade your slaves have the moremoney you can extort from them and put it into your infrastructure

that is pretty much the macro strategy overview

plato90s i am at school right now and my save games are at home...if you know who ICE_DH is he might have them...however if he doesn't once i go home i will email you my save games...however before you call somebody a cheater ask them what they did first and most times they can probably give you a good explanation of what they did

and even if you think i am a cheater and a liar listen to vel unless you just think he is a cheater and liar too

posted 09-26-99 02:11 PM ET            

I think the war with Lal cost me at least 50 turns. He started on a remote island with the Monsoon Forest, so by the time I found him, he was marginally more powerful than I was (plasma sentinels and perimeter defenses every base, though he only had Gatling Lasers to my Chaos Guns).

Spartans definitely seem the way to go -- if you don't make everyone surrender early, you don't have the Commerce you need. I only had five core bases, with 10 total by the time I finished (I had to distribute several to Deirdre and I gave Lal's back when he surrendered).

posted 09-26-99 02:41 PM ET            

in my opinion on a tiny map the spartans are the way to go, because they start out with mobility and can quickly get impact weapons try the setting i listed and see what that does for you

your research should go like this

1. research applied physics

2. research information nets, in theory you should be able to research impact next but that hardly ever works, unless you have gotten a tech from another faction or from a pod so i usually research centauri ecology

3. research impact and then more than likely if you strike quickly enough this should be the highest weopons you need

zak is the second best rush transcend faction

the problem with morgan is support and it takes longer for him to get impact rovers than what it does santiago and his rovers aren't as good as the spartan rovers so it takes longer for him to enslave the world and that means it takes longer for him to switch from conquerer to builder

remember this miriam might only discover techs every 50 turns but if you co-ordinate correctly she can discover a brand new tech for you instead of a useless level one tech, every tech discovered should be a new tech and not a tech some faction already has, that is what co-ordination is all about

posted 09-26-99 03:04 PM ET            

list1
1. merchant exchange or WP
2. super collider
3. theory of everything
4. network backbone
5. virtual world (could even be considered optional)
6. voice of planet
7. AoT

list2
1. merchant exchange
2. super collider
3. theory of everything
4. network backbone
5. virtual world
6. cloning vats
7. longevity vaccine
8. space elivator
9. universal translator (optional let a slave build it)
10. voice of planet
11. AoT

building anymore secret projects than those are a waste. build the merchant exchange if you are going for one super base strategy or build the weather paradigm if you are going to have a great empire. when it looks like you are going to get some early
conquest then build it. also don't build satelites the reasonyou are building the space elevator is for the money bonus not the orbital facility bonus. also build
the longevity vaccince for the money and built it in the same base as the
space elivator (perferrabbly in the same base as the merchant exchange) save
up your money in order to rush build in your head quarters. when you rush
build rush build the item so it will finish in one turn, never rush build it
all the way (there are a few exceptions to this and i'm sure you'll figure it
out).

starting out. this is important the first tech you want to research is
applied physics and then you wanna zoom for impact weapons. if you haven't made
everyone submit by the time you have impact weapons (which is kind of a luck
thing) then you probably won't have a super fast transcendence. in my 2244 game i
never lost a battle to the AI factions (mindworms killed some guys) and by
the time i had discovered gatling technology only lal and mirriam hadn't
submitted and in like four turns ater that they surrendered. in my game i
never went to war with the gaians at all. i maintained a state of truce with
her the whole game. also you'll want to have two (maybe even three) feeder
bases for your headquarters. found bases close to it with a three square
spread and build terraformers from those bases. early on you'll wanna build
rovers and colony pods. after you make everyon submit and a good number of
bases have recreation commons go free market (before that use police state/green) after impact the most important techs are

1. idustrial economics-free market
2. environmntal economics-tree farm
3. centauri meditation-empaths
4. cyberethics-knowledge
5. applied relativity-super collidor (build ASAP)
6. fusion power-fusion labs and engineer
7. planetary economics-trade pact and hybrid forrests
8. unified field theory-thearoy of everything
9. digital sentience-cybernetic
10. the secrets of alpha centauri and the secrets of creations-free tech

thats the order i went for the techs in. cloning vats and biomachinery can
help too. work mostly on the main base turning it into your super science
city. improving the rest of your empire just enough to help you out. but at
least you won't have to build military units.

ok and here is what won me that transcendence, good old spartan diplomacy.
even before they submit make as many demands on tech and money as you can
attack them asap and go for the surrender not the extermination. when you
negociate try to get them to surrender as fast as possible use their social
setting when you talk to them and just try to over-run them quickly. now once we
got our slaves extort all their money (you can always extort so that they
will have 24 energy or less) every turn or every two turns. between this
eergy and commerce this is where most of your energy will come from (cause
most of your energy is put into science) and then make them all tech slaves.
if they are ever researching a technology you already have let them get to
one turn until discovery (sometimes it better to do this at 2 turns just to
be on the safe side) then exort all their money and then give them all of
your techs. so what miriam discovers tech only once every 80 years that one time
she does discover a tech it can be one you don't have. submitted faction will
give you newly discovered technology. if they discover more than one tech in
a turn talk to them more thn once. always wait till they are one or two turns
away from discovering a tech (or building the universal translator it's good
if the AI builds this and they have all the tech you do) because giving them
all the new tech will slow down their research some because it increase tech
cost. also make sure the AI faction stay at pace with one another and as long
as that happens they will build up their empire and get tech at a decent rate
in my 2244 game the AI discovered probably over half of all the technology that
game. once you can build the voice of planet turn tech off and then build the
voice and transcend. oh yeah and i did find about five alien artifacts if
you get alien artifacts save them until later in the game when you are
getting techs at a rapid pace and them cash them all in one turn before you
discover a new tech. if you cash them in too early it could hurt your
research rate by making the techs cost too much. so am i doing anything that
you are not? i hope this helps.

korn469

posted 09-26-99 04:04 PM ET            

I got almost every tech myself, aside from about six that Zak gave me when I conquered him. I hadn't considered giving out all my techs to my slaves -- I was a bit afraid that someone (Zak or Morgan) might out-transcend me, but I have a huge advantage on commerce and base infrastructure so I guess that isn't really a threat.

Also, what do you mean by "always rush-build to within one turn"? I always just rush 100% of the minerals -- do you do this with partial payments?

I was really hurting myself with the initial settings: small planet (instead of tiny), moderate everything else... I was only playing on Librarian level, however. Next time I'll try Transcend with optimal quick-transcend settings.

Also, you mentioned no satellites... There were a few times where my bases had all the infrastructure they needed. I suppose I could have built supply crawlers or gotten a head-start on soon-to-come SP's, but the extra energy looked nice. With so few bases, do you think supply crawlers would be better?

posted 09-26-99 05:20 PM ET            

yes you do with with partial payments

get you a calculator if you're not good with math

ok say a recreation cost 24 energy to complete and it will build in 6 turns you want to hurry it so it will finish in 1 turn, because in almost evey instance 1 turn is as good as 0 turns and it will savee you some cash, that means in my example we divide 24 by 6 and then multiply that answer by 5 and round up. that means for this example we would spend 20 to hurry it to 1 turn, and it will finish just as quickly as if you spent 24

what i mean by round up is if something cost 13 and will finish in 3 turns spend 9 to get it ton 1 turn

if you don't have the cash to hurry something to one turn it is my opinion that you shouldn't spend the money on it then, every turn you let something build it gets geometrically cheaper, what i mean by this is if something cost 10k and takes 10 turns to complete if you wait until it takes 5 turns to complete it will take something like 2k to complete it

as for satellites i don't think that they serve much of a use in a quick transcend game, i usually don't build them but you can they won't hurt you but satellites gain cost efficency with the more bases you have and with the more time you have, in these gams you probably won't have many bases or much time, so it is probably better to spend your time on needed secret projects, needed facilities like fusion labs, or on supply crawlers, when you start getting close in tech, i would have two bases start work on the telepathic matrix, it is a special prject you won't need...and have the rest of your bases start building drop rovers, when you get the threshold of transcendence then switch one of your bases to the VoP and uses rover and the money you have been saving to hurry it to one turn...next turn change the other telepathic matrix to the AoT and use drop rovers and sacrifice and then build it in one turn...even at best it will always take you two turns after you discover the tech Threshold of Transcendence for you to transcend cuz it will take one turn to build the VoP and one turn to build the AoT

and don't worry about your slaves transcending before you do...the computer isn't plotting on building the VoP and the AoT quickly but you are, and it can't hurry the AoT because you will extort all of it's money from it so it will be broke and can't spend any money on rushing
also after you discover the threshold of transcendence switch your social engineering from dem/FM/kno/cyber
to dem/planned/kno/eudi and put your economy at 100%

hope that helps

posted 09-27-99 12:14 AM ET            

I used your suggestions and just transcended in 2245!

This was with the Spartans, Transcend difficulty, optimal game settings for a quick transcend. I still don't play Ironman, but I only reloaded once this game to "turn back time" due to horrible bad luck early on.

Just a note: Make SURE you turn off random events! I probably could have transcended in 2235, but I forgot to turn off random events and we had a long sunspot activity just as my research was really starting to take off. Doh! By the time I had regained communications, the other factions had overlapped a lot of my research.

I also did this with no satellites, and no supply crawlers other than to advance the Voice and Ascent projects. I know it probably would have gone quicker with some boreholes, but my bases were so busy cranking out labs that I never found the chance -- it was hard enough just getting forests everywhere!

Thanks to Korn and Vel for sharing their excellent ideas and suggestions! One of these days I'm going to Transcend before 2200, and it'll be mostly due to their insights. =)

posted 09-27-99 09:29 PM ET            

My E-mail is [email protected]...

posted 09-27-99 09:32 PM ET            

sure do i'm sending it to you right now

i had a great game and managed a recon rover conquest, that's when you know things are going well, btw is it white howler as in black spiral dancer?

posted 09-28-99 12:22 AM ET            

And Korn....beat my score, eh? And by ten turns no less.....sheesh....looks like I've got my work cut out for me.....

posted 09-28-99 01:18 PM ET            

korn469

posted 09-30-99 12:18 AM ET            

I think my main problem is waiting too long before population booming and ramping up my labs. How do you get the computer players to surrender so quickly? I always end up with a holdout on some island, or worse, they don't surrender before I take their last base and I have to hunt them down all over again.

I'm beelining for Nonlinear Math every time, and have usually enslaved one or two of my enemies by the time my impact rovers are ready.

Also, is there a good method for evening out computer bases? A way to get the computer to cede bases to you without having to pay out the nose (come on, they're my slaves... why don't I have a "give me that city or else" option)? In the quick transcend games I'm making a lot of money by selling techs to everyone, but I also spend it at a ludicrous rate and don't have much left over.

posted 09-30-99 03:25 AM ET            

congratulations, no you might not be there yet, but 2218 is like in the top ten fastest transcendence scores i know of.

last game i conquered everyone with recon rovers, basically 4-1-2 should be all you need on tiny map

its uncanny how it works
tiny: impact
small: gatling
average: missle
large: chaos
huge: shard

large landmass weak erosion there shouldn't be an island, but around 2130 all but one faction should be slaves...it takes some practice on unit positioning and on surrender conditions but eventually you'll get good at at, and don't kill them just have a little patience, usually after you take a base they will surrender, kill all of their defenders in their last base (without killing it)

thing about buying bases is spend the money, then same turn extort all your money back

i would recommend when you sell tech don't sell the computer into negative numbers because if the computer goes into the hole its headquaters will blowup and then inefficency will hurt them from then on but besides buying and relocating bases you will have to found some too. practice a few more games and see how you do...

last game i didn't pop boom at all i just went and stayed dem/FM/kno from an early point on, and i built the cloning vats fairly early...

as for tech
impact
secrets
tree farms
planetary economics
cyberethics
fusion
biomachinery (cloning vats)
orbital (after you have everybody enslaved salvage the unity core and then extort all the money)
cybernetic
secrets

hmmm thats about all i can think of for now, but in a couple more game you should break 100 turns

korn469

posted 09-30-99 12:03 PM ET            

What's the best way to extort money from your allies? Selling techs (which I do anyway)? They usually just laugh at me when I say "otherwise I'll cancel our pact".

posted 10-05-99 06:35 AM ET            

WhiteHowler: 09-24-99 "..So here I am in 2215. I have the game basically locked up..."

I am a huge map player. Forgive me posting in a speed thread. On huge map play, this year is a turning point. Turn on the senario editor and snoop around. If you don't have the game locked up, then you need to figure out a way to become more efficient.