Transcendence

[Fantasmo]

I have to be honest I have never won the game through Transcendence because I spend so much time as the Progenitor factions winning through the "Progenitor Victory".
Right now I am Zakharov and it is about 2234. my SE engineering choices are Police State, Green and Knowledge. i have up to all of the following techs: Super String Thory, Mind Machine Interface, Centauri Meditation, Advanced Military Algorithims, Ecological Engineering and everything level 3 and below. My real question is do you think I will be able to win by Transcendence before the time is up?

(sorry for the length of this post)

[Killjoy]

IMHO;

Switch your SE settings to FM, and adjust your energy reserves alloted to your labs up to atleast 60% (preferably 70%) so you're starting to get techs atleast every three or four turns (depending on how much energy you are pulling in with FM). Hopefully you have atleast 20 bases. Pop boom after you've built hab complexes in atleast half the bases (this will help your economy and research). Try avoid any vendettas (which I find tough running FM). Use specialists!! Crank out those crawlers and put 'em to use gathering energy, and nuts (main focus on energy). Build boreholes—atleast one per base, and as many as you can outside of any base radii (these you'll send crawlers to).

Pop boom again when you've managed to build hab domes in about half your bases (although by this time you may already have the Cloning Vats—in which case don't worry about engineering a Pop boom, you're doing it automatically). Hopefully by 2300 you are getting one tech per turn (two if you're lucky). Finally, I can't stress it enough: use specialists, tons o' crawlers, and don't forget your probe teams (to protect all your bases from enemy probe actions).

Good luck!

[knowhow2]

I would say yes,
but you probably should change your SE settings to either plan/demo/know for pop boom or police/FM/Wealth to boost your energy collection for both eco and lab purposes. Since you re playin Zak builder style is prefereable.
using the "upgrade-and-cash-in-crawler" tactic also helps.

[Killjoy]

You are correct! I forgot to mention at the start; when you switch your SE setting to FM — also get out of Police State and switch over to Demo!! You'll need it (for efficiency and to Pop Boom)!

As far as the Knowlege or Wealth SE settings, its your choice. Both are good for different reasons. It really depends on your situation at a given time in there game.

edit: spelling
[This message has been edited by Killjoy (edited March 18, 2001).]

[mark13]

if you are fighting ongoing wars, and have a reasonably large empire, it might be worth considering green. Of course, you would need to have periods in planned to pop boom, but green generally does the trick just as well, if not better (for larger empires) than FM. It also allows you an airforce....

If you do nothing else, though, switch out of Police State and into Demo - the minerals you lose can always be crawled in, and the extra energy from the efficiency will more than make up for it.

[Skanderbeg]

With any SE choices, plenty of time!
You didn't tell if You play directed or blind research, but You seem to be quite far in the tech tree for 2234.
For me (playing blind), in 2234 I am generally still far away from MMI.

I have won a game in which energy restrictions were lifted in 2385 (!), and MMI around 2430.

But I agree to the other posters. I would be no bad idea, except You were fighting for Your life, to change SE to settings which would improve Your science, especially Demo. Perhaps it is better to stay in Green except switching to FM, when You have a big airforce.

[Fantasmo]

Wow thanks for all the help you guys! The bad thing is I am in the middle of eliminating Cha Dawn so if I were to switch to Free Market right now all my bases would riot right away! It is now about 2307 and I have these: Monopole Magnets, Advanced Spaceflight and Will to Power.

[Walt]

quote: Originally posted by Fantasmo on 03-19-2001 08:57 AM Wow thanks for all the help you guys! The bad thing is I am in the middle of eliminating Cha Dawn so if I were to switch to Free Market right now all my bases would riot right away! It is now about 2307 and I have these: Monopole Magnets, Advanced Spaceflight and Will to Power.

You might do the following:

Build a punishment sphere in a high-production base (or simply make your military Clean, if you have the tech) and switch to FM, "homing" all your military units to the punished base. Make sure you station a couple probes there if it's near your border and you don't have the HSA. If the cash and research bonus FM provides isn't considerable stay in Green. I /would/ switch to Dem, whether you're at war or not.

Heck, with Monopole magnets, you should at least be on the way to building a trans-empire magtube network. You could move your units from the front, support them from the punished base, and move them back, all in one turn. If you /can't/ do that, take a break from the war and build about twenty clean superformers and set them to building the mag tube net. You'll be glad you did almost immediately.

I wouldn't worry about transcendence. At your current rate, you'll get there before the century turns again.

Walt

[knowhow2]

quote: Originally posted by D on 03-19-2001 12:02 PM I was in a similiar situation with UoP in which I had a vendetta with yang(damn perimeter defense!), Santiago, miriam who was all by herself in a continent, and Morgan who had bases all over, I only had a pact with Diedre. I was fighting all the damn time, was going blind research, it took well in the 2300's to get tree farms, I got hybrid in a trade with diedre before tree farms which was really hurting since I go forests. Killed yang, do a clean chopper run to morgan except he has like at least 2 AAA guys garrisoned in his base so I had to postpone that and has elite and the plasma shard too, did a chopper run on miriam and she submitted. I captured one of miriams base that was right on the coast of Morgans base, got hovertanks and I am now sending my plasma amphibious hovertank and steamrolling over all these damn AAA garrisons capturing like 3 bases at a time. Meanwhile diedre is hitting Morgan from the other side and Morgan is going down in like 4 more turns. Doing a locust's chopper run on santiago. Now that it is 2400+ I have researched the two late tech's that give you a free tech. Build the cloning vets so I am now pop booming which is causing riots all over the damn place, I had to use thought control to get the +3 police to cool everyone down(damn UoP and librarian) and stationed police units everywhere. I am now starting to run away with it getting all the SP. The game was pretty even all throughout but now the line graph shot way up and it has an infinite slope. Transcend is not too far away, so you should have np in doing it. Sorry for rambling just wanted to share my experience.

No need to apologize, people around here do this all the time (telling stories or as you call it, rambling), myself included

[D]

I was in a similiar situation with UoP in which I had a vendetta with yang(damn perimeter defense!), Santiago, miriam who was all by herself in a continent, and Morgan who had bases all over, I only had a pact with Diedre. I was fighting all the damn time, was going blind research, it took well in the 2300's to get tree farms, I got hybrid in a trade with diedre before tree farms which was really hurting since I go forests. Killed yang, do a clean chopper run to morgan except he has like at least 2 AAA guys garrisoned in his base so I had to postpone that and has elite and the plasma shard too, did a chopper run on miriam and she submitted. I captured one of miriams base that was right on the coast of Morgans base, got hovertanks and I am now sending my plasma amphibious hovertank and steamrolling over all these damn AAA garrisons capturing like 3 bases at a time. Meanwhile diedre is hitting Morgan from the other side and Morgan is going down in like 4 more turns. Doing a locust's chopper run on santiago. Now that it is 2400+ I have researched the two late tech's that give you a free tech. Build the cloning vets so I am now pop booming which is causing riots all over the damn place, I had to use thought control to get the +3 police to cool everyone down(damn UoP and librarian) and stationed police units everywhere. I am now starting to run away with it getting all the SP. The game was pretty even all throughout but now the line graph shot way up and it has an infinite slope. Transcend is not too far away, so you should have np in doing it. Sorry for rambling just wanted to share my experience.

[Earwicker]

quote: Originally posted by D on 03-19-2001 12:02 PM Build the cloning vets so I am now pop booming which is causing riots all over the damn place, I had to use thought control to get the +3 police to cool everyone down(damn UoP and librarian) and stationed police units everywhere.

With very few exceptions, I never build the Vats until I have or am close to being able to build The Matrix. Especially if I am conquering other bases or have a lot of skyfarms: wayyyyy too much drone trouble. For most factions, SE+creches+skyfarms+crawlers (sea crawlers+aquafarm rule!) will get your bases up to 16 before too long without the vats. Then all they do is make life difficult on the small bases.

A strategy I find works well is to hold off on the vats until the The Matrix is possible (pretty close on the tech tree, IIRC), at which point you're starting to get Domes in the big bases -- that's where the SP really pays off.

[meanwhile, keep assassinating researchers to prevent your opponents from catching up in tech so that you aren't overrun by Yang clones]