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zsozso
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of Chiron
Oct 1999
time: 00:26
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First a little bit of history:
Few years ago we had a little competition for fastest transcend game.
See thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...20&pagenumber=1
Korn469 set the original record with a neat strategy on tiny world to conquer all opponents quickly with an impact rover rush (playing Spartans) then use them as slaves while concentrating on building infrastructure and maximizing research. I managed to improve on his strategy by playing Gaians and using native worms for the conquer phase - this way I could focus on research from the first turn and transended in 71 turns. BTW, this was all in regular SMAC.
Later David Byron showed up on the forum and surprised us with his extreme method of pure thin expansion ICS - he advocated not building any base facilities just colony pod after colony pod, placing them as tight as possible, make some formers and supply crawlers, but mainly pods. He has set the fastest transcend record to 67 turns with this technique using SMAX, all Morgans and custom size 16x16 map to get even cheaper tech cost and he played on Citizen level for further benefits:
- Ability to produce colony pods in size 1 base without abandoning the base
- Cheapest tech cost
- Free switching on the SE table
- More cooperative opponents - easy to Pact all Morgans and keep them
Recently, Hendrik brought up the question of fastest transcend possible on huge map at transcend difficulty, see thread:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=73935
I played a bit modified Byron strategy using Zak against 3 other Zaks and 3 Morgans on the huge map of planet starting next to the jungle and transcended in 93 turns, see thread (the first game in the thread was with Gaians on citizen level, but there is a second one on transcend level):
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=74735
I found those games to be very tedious, beause massive number of bases and units had to be micromanaged. So I decided to try to beat Byron's record on absolute fastest transcend for more fun 
I managed to transcend in 54 turns with the following combined Byron - traditional strategy:
- setup: custom size 16x16 map, rare fungus, maximum land, SMAX, playing Zak against all Morgans - actually got only 3, the others were eliminated from the start, probably due to the small map size.
- started playing Byron style, BUT beeline research for impact rovers
- Once I got the techs (2107), built 2 impact rovers and went away to conquer the Morgans. I only made 2 of them submissive (2116,2123), the third one offered too much cash for Treaty on first sight, so I couldn't refuse it (I needed the energy for rushing. So I made a diplomatic pact with that one (in 2111).
- Beeline tech for Ind.Auto, run FM/Wealth and keep building colony pods until the map is saturated (2124). Note, most of the map contained the jungle (very good!), even though my start location was as far from it as possible on such a tiny map.
- I started building some crawlers from 2117 to rush some important SPs: PTS first in 2121, HG in 2124, WP in 2126, PEG in 2128, VW in 2131, CA in 2133, CV in 2141.
Note that some bases were still building c.pods until 2124.
- From 2124 I switched to building formers and crawlers in all bases, then infrastructure for faster research from 2133
- With the Cloning Vats operational from 2142, my 18 bases started to become large and gradually well equipped for reseacrh. I have built a tiny energy park within the range of cities (there was no more space) half-inside the jungle on naturally high altitude - did not raise any tile.
- I rush-built Ascetic Virtues in 2145 to let my bases grow to size 9, then built Hab complex in a few science cities only.
- In 2151 I rush-built the Universal translator to get 2 free techs, cancelled my Pact and attacked the last Morgan because he had an AA in his base next door to me. This way I could get 6 more techs by next turn in addition to the already known 65 - making it to 71, just 4 more techs needed for completion and I could research that in 2152 (was getting 3 techs regularly each turn for a while and this last pack contains the Secrets of Manifolds).
I did not choose PlaNet for starting free tech, I wanted to go for the impact rovers right away - forgot about the fact that the citizen level does not give you lab points in the first 5 turns. Running Planned would have helped in faster early expansion by building the cpods quicker. I also should not have accepted the Treaty from that Morgan. Making him submissive would have benefited me more. So it should be possible to sueeze this a few more turns, but I don't think it is possible to go below 50 turns.
The attached zip file contains saves for EVERY SINGLE TURN from 2101-2152, so you can see the game in fine details. The last 2 turns are attached to another post, because it would have exceeded the file size limit otherwise.
 Attachment: zsozsoft.zip
This has been downloaded 21 time(s).
Last edited by zsozso on 15-02-2003 at 21:10
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15-02-2003 18:47
! That super small map is borderline overly manipulative though. Nevertheless, under 60 turns is freakin' amazing.
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