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Weather Paradigm is good, but for a while now (very little to do with the challenge, very much because I wanted to be a lazy terraformer) I've restricted myself to forest only, no crawlers, and things still go smoothly (and of course I made very little effort for the WP). Human Genome (very important, especially for those parties against Free Market), Virtual World (very important if we have tons of bases), and Merchant Exchange (especially important if we can still maintain a tech lead even with all this role-playing...I do love those tech doublers) are my favorites, then. Slightly later the Empath Guild is fun, to practically ensure becoming the governer and selling all the commlinks is great 
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I've actually played very few Transcend non-forest games, so I really don't love the WP as everyone else does
. The Planetary Transit System is another one I don't like, because so much expansion goes on before it's available (let alone built). The Command Nexus I let Yang (or someone else) get, I don't go to war much and if that morale is going to make a difference between being conquered and surviving, I've misplayed. Still, since we're putting so much effort into this game, we'll need to deal with any mistakes, not pray they never happen.
Similarly for Citizen's Defense Force. I usually get that right after Tree Farms (Integrity is a prerequisite for Planetary Economics - Hybrid Forests), when I'm just finishing up expansion. If I'm in a big war now, I'll have Perimiter Defenses up where they're needed already, and if I'm not, I'll have time to put them in my outer bases, if I ever put them in at all (call me sloppy, but if they ever get built, it's usually when there's some Chaos Infantry knocking on my door. It's rushbuilt and I quickly upgrade my Police Infantry inside to something decent).
So I like starting ME first at the home base after 3-4 bases are out there (building Recycling Tanks first), then after the next wave (6-7 bases, maybe, I don't count), my second best gets a Recycling Tank and starts HGP. All artifacts go towards building one of the projects (depends on my mood which one), hopefully I can finish one, maybe build Creche/Rec Commons, and go to VW. Same for the other when it finishes, going towards EG. Then it's a long way for the next good SPs (next one I have to have is Ascetic Virtues, which is where I go right towards anyways), so by then I try to have a big enough tech/production lead.
Z
.I've actually played very few Transcend non-forest games, so I really don't love the WP as everyone else does
. The Planetary Transit System is another one I don't like, because so much expansion goes on before it's available (let alone built). The Command Nexus I let Yang (or someone else) get, I don't go to war much and if that morale is going to make a difference between being conquered and surviving, I've misplayed. Still, since we're putting so much effort into this game, we'll need to deal with any mistakes, not pray they never happen.Similarly for Citizen's Defense Force. I usually get that right after Tree Farms (Integrity is a prerequisite for Planetary Economics - Hybrid Forests), when I'm just finishing up expansion. If I'm in a big war now, I'll have Perimiter Defenses up where they're needed already, and if I'm not, I'll have time to put them in my outer bases, if I ever put them in at all (call me sloppy, but if they ever get built, it's usually when there's some Chaos Infantry knocking on my door. It's rushbuilt and I quickly upgrade my Police Infantry inside to something decent).
So I like starting ME first at the home base after 3-4 bases are out there (building Recycling Tanks first), then after the next wave (6-7 bases, maybe, I don't count), my second best gets a Recycling Tank and starts HGP. All artifacts go towards building one of the projects (depends on my mood which one), hopefully I can finish one, maybe build Creche/Rec Commons, and go to VW. Same for the other when it finishes, going towards EG. Then it's a long way for the next good SPs (next one I have to have is Ascetic Virtues, which is where I go right towards anyways), so by then I try to have a big enough tech/production lead.
Z
. in SMAX planetary economics is a level 4 tech, in SMAC its level 6. (thus hybrid forests before tree farms 
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And alphabet is a preq for writing when, historically, writing came a few thousand years before the alphabet (no biggie to fix, just flip the advance names).
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