So... fastest wins so far?

[NewAgeOfPower]

On Gemini or better difficulty, of course.

I had a turn 54 Brasilian domination win on my first attempt. Duelist sized map, of course, but crossing the ocean to my opponent's start location took a good 20ish turns anyhow.

[Yitzi]

I have to ask: Why does everybody focus on fastest wins, as opposed to wins under most unfavorable conditions or highest-scoring wins?

[NewAgeOfPower]

Approaching 5k points (first place) in my current game, playing PAC/Engineers/Retrograde/Machinery on Kepler 186f, where I was last place until around turn 80.

I had 3 cities, only 2 of which were of any use at that time, when my neighbor Brasilia, who I was trading with and had "Friendly" relations with, whom we had cooperation agreements with, showed up with 12 cruisers, 4 carriers, a dozen brazillian marines and even more armor, and declared I was an insult to humanity or something for having 4 points in Supremacy, as his excuse for betraying me. He was second place, and I was last place at that time.

My total army at that time was 3 gunners, 7 marines, 4 cruisers, 4 tacjets - and 3 of my cruisers were halfway across the map, scouting for trade routes, and 5 of my marines and a gunner were busy training vs Aliens.

Luckily, I built rocket batteries in the cities facing Brasilia, fortified my gunners in the city under attack or on hills, and turned my entire army around in 3 turns using the magrails I built to link the core cities of my budding empire.

My rocket batterie'd cities 1-shot his cruisers, while the gunners + tacjets could grind down carriers or focus fire  down a cruiser each turn, and my marines with 3 levels of Discipline from carefully fighting aliens, positioned on strong terrain, massacred the vaunted Brasilian marines and armor. Even worse, I had Cynosure for +1 maximum veterancy level, so soon many of my units were sporting +50% stats.

I repositioned one of my scouting cruisers to cut all of his trade routes, and all my cruisers were full on EXP too. Earlier, I picked +20% vs Sea units on them, and I had observatory pumping their movespeed. My scouting cruiser farmed me over 1.5k energy from pillaging over 10 trade routes, and it 1-shot multiple defending brasilian cruisers, chased down 2 brasilian carriers, and quickly also hit Apex Discipline. Same for my defending cruiser, lol.

Without losing a single real combat unit (some brasilian armor killed an explorer scouting near them) I quickly pushed them off my lands, only suffering some pillaging. Over the next 20 turns I systematically razed each Brasilian city to the ground, sparing no man, woman, or child, repeatedly ignoring his begging for terms of peace. By that time. his Brasilian Lancers and Battlesuits were getting ravaged by my Chinese Heralds and Disciples, I took out his entire empire losing only 2 units, a Disciple (sadly, one of my level 5 Disciples) and a Cruiser that sailed too close to his Rocket battierie'd Capital, to chase down a carrier.

After I took his capital, I ceased my genocide of Brazillians and accepted peace in return for his entire energy reserves, but he was only left with some tiny city across the map, which the African Union soon turned on...

At times, the game got hairy, where I was expecting a repeat betrayal event repeatedly, and Polystrailia-AI dominated the game for the first 200 turns, with more than double the second places score. But by now (T290) I am more than double HIS score.

Now I'm just farming orbital fabricators and trade routes.

[Green1]

Why does anyone focus on wins AT ALL?

The main thing is the struggle and experience. I want it to be brutal, but not so brutal as to feel cheated or have no way out.

I need to get this thing and AAR it.

[NewAgeOfPower]

Why does anyone focus on wins AT ALL?

The main thing is the struggle and experience. I want it to be brutal, but not so brutal as to feel cheated or have no way out.

I need to get this thing and AAR it.

Did you even read my post?

Was that not the definition of a long struggle from the bottom, followed by a brutal betrayal from a trusted ally, but through careful just-in-case security measures, sound strategy, efficient tactics, I turned things around?

[Geo]

It sure was.

Fastest win for me was exactly a 100 turns a couple times. With the demo of course.

[sisko]

First transcendence victory for me in 296 turns playing the Slavic Federation.
Map type: Kepler 186f
Map size: Standard
Difficulty: Gemini
Game pace: Standard

Moving on to Soyuz level..

[Geo]

The ARC won a Contact victory over me last game. (Soyuz)

And in my current game (as the ARC, on Soyuz) I'm deadlocked on that all land map in a war with both the PAC and SF.

[sisko]

Very slow start for me on Soyuz. The Brazilians attacked me first, with no reason, so I had to build up some army and now almost everybody hates me because I'm a "warmonger"!!! I haven't even crossed the border of another faction.. 


Gone are the times when "noble reputation" had actually a meaning. 

[Othniel]

Have you guys noticed how much more quickly the game starts when you start with pioneering just because you can build the trade depot immediately? I feel that and the revealed coastlines have lots of hidden value that dictate your ability to get into the late game so much sooner than most options because of how they support OP trade routes.

[sisko]

So, your first build is always trade depot? I go for Old Earth Relic / Clinic first.

[Geo]

First, on topic: turn 238 Contact victory on standard speed, Soyuz difficulty I think. Might be Apollo, but I'm not sure.

In my experience starting with the Laboratory loadout for the sake of the Trading Depot isn't worthwhile. It takes around 20 turns anyway for the first trade post to get established anyway.
In that time one can research Pioneering.

Usually I like to have the relic or an explorer out as soon as possible.

[Othniel]

i've found it typically takes 12 turns to establish your first trade depot, which is long as the clinic and the old earth relic combined, however, it does allow you to build both about two turns quicker than without it, especially if its quest has triggered. Typically that gives me all three by turn 18. It also triggers the trade station quest sooner if its built which allows me to react to where the station is and get trade value from it while I'm doing other things.  Effectively this might be interchangeable to starting with the clinic already built (or a worker), because the clinic will both cut down on the research time for Pioneering and will eliminate the build time for the clinic. The worker can let you start with a mine which is quicker than building the trade depot. The extra population can also work to accelerate you, but typically means you need to get health earlier as well. Clinic may very well be the best of those options.

I'm still going to say that an early trade depot does do a lot to help. It means you already have trade online when you go to grow your first outpost. 

For speed, contact is the quickest victory condition. Its easy to get everything you need early, or to stumble into it.

[Geo]

I do like to save up energy to purchase the trade depot the turn an outpost grows into a city.
The only problem is I sometimes don't have enough trade units available for basing them there.

[Dale]

I had a turn 125 contact win, apollo, standard map, Pacific.