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Other Beelines
Besides the much-discussed Indy Auto (Ga Vida, honey) builder beeline, there are some other beelines we all use, some so obvious that they are probably hardly discussed. But I will mention a few that come to mind, in case they in fact are under-discussed.
Non-Linear Mathematics -- A no-brainer when you find a victim, I mean neighbor, early. Don't take me wrong, I'm a builder... I just love that pact income from vassals...
Secrets of the Human Brain -- If, like me, you love trading tech, and you are too busy ICSing in the early game to build crawlers, ergo you don't need IA off the bat, Secrets provides you a lot of tech trading leverage, which snowballs into a lot of tech capital as you find more and more partners. Also, it means that, during the opening, you can build recycling tanks (biogenetics), build a rec commons in a core city (social psych) and begin building the HGP there (biogenetics again). Of course I mention HGP as it is the sneaky ICS'er's delight...
Intellectual Integrity -- Another ICS'er's delight, primarily on transcend, where every citizen soon becomes a drone if you ICS like I do. This means that each base must have a doctor a while before it pops out its colony pod, or build an "overeffective" (curing one drone too many) and expensive rec commons. The HGP eases this effect somewhat, but eventually even it is drowned out. But police infantry, available with II, eliminate this problem entirely. The effect of police infantry on my game tends to be so large that it actually shows up on my powergraph, as all those doctors disappear.
This is an especially effective beeline for Santiago, as she can pull it on towards Cyberethics, giving her higher efficiency (knowledge) to reduce the riot factor, better relations with Zakharov, "the fountain of knowledge", and the Planetary Datalinks to snag all those techs she lost by not beelining to IA :-)).
Erik P
By the way, the Spartans are not my favorite faction, as much as it may sound that way from my posts.
Non-Linear Mathematics -- A no-brainer when you find a victim, I mean neighbor, early. Don't take me wrong, I'm a builder... I just love that pact income from vassals...
Secrets of the Human Brain -- If, like me, you love trading tech, and you are too busy ICSing in the early game to build crawlers, ergo you don't need IA off the bat, Secrets provides you a lot of tech trading leverage, which snowballs into a lot of tech capital as you find more and more partners. Also, it means that, during the opening, you can build recycling tanks (biogenetics), build a rec commons in a core city (social psych) and begin building the HGP there (biogenetics again). Of course I mention HGP as it is the sneaky ICS'er's delight...
Intellectual Integrity -- Another ICS'er's delight, primarily on transcend, where every citizen soon becomes a drone if you ICS like I do. This means that each base must have a doctor a while before it pops out its colony pod, or build an "overeffective" (curing one drone too many) and expensive rec commons. The HGP eases this effect somewhat, but eventually even it is drowned out. But police infantry, available with II, eliminate this problem entirely. The effect of police infantry on my game tends to be so large that it actually shows up on my powergraph, as all those doctors disappear.
This is an especially effective beeline for Santiago, as she can pull it on towards Cyberethics, giving her higher efficiency (knowledge) to reduce the riot factor, better relations with Zakharov, "the fountain of knowledge", and the Planetary Datalinks to snag all those techs she lost by not beelining to IA :-)).
Erik P
By the way, the Spartans are not my favorite faction, as much as it may sound that way from my posts.