Contact victory details

[Tomice]

I want to try a contact victory, but I don't understand the details (and don't want too much trial and error).

From what I understand so far this is what you have to do:

1. Tech "Transcendental Math" (which is only 3 techs away from the centre)
2. Build "Transcendental Equation" (675 production on epic speed), which seems to be a project (=national wonder without prerequisites)
3. Find a trace of the signal by exploring a progenitor ruin or building a space telescope (and waiting for a random number of turns). If you're lucky and get a signal fragment through both ways, you don't need to build the equation project.
4. Build "Decode Signal" Project (1275 on epic)
5. Build "Beacon" (2475 on epic, which is a bit less than the gates or the mindflower, but a bit more than any wonder)
6. Spend 1000 energy to activate beacon
7. Beacon now consumes your per-turn surplus of energy until it has gathered enough energy to make you win. You may interrupt this without penalty if you need surplus energy again.

There are however a bunch of questions left for me (too many to make me happily follow this path):

• How large is the chance to find the signal in a progenitor ruin?
• Do multiple telescopes help find the signal faster? How long does it take on average?
• The beacon consumes surplus energy per turn, right? But what if I have a huge stockpile? Does this count, or can it be added to the pool somehow?
• How much energy does the beacon need overall?
• Doesn't the fact that you only need 3 techs for this victory make any development of your empire pointless? If you're lucky while exploring ruins, you might not need more than a single city, moderate production for 3 wonders and a bunch of generators.

It would be great if you could help me with this.

 

[Teproc]

The beacon eats all your energy surplus, regardless of what it is. So you just don't gain energy at all once it's active. Actually you can, but through stuff like conquering cities, that kind of thing.

 

[Lucius_]

Could you buy ept from the AI? Sell resources and your cash on hand for ept.

 

[Tomice]

The most important question: How much energy? 10.000? 100.000? Do I need a huge empire? When to stop building "normal" stuff and simply focusing on energy and wonders?

 

[AgentDib]

I just finished a contact victory game on standard speed and it is a bit confusing.

I had 10,000 gold in reserve (to max out the industry 1% gold virtue) when I activated the beacon with 400 gpt or so. It initially said that it took 30 turns for the beacon to activate the win condition. I switched all my trade routes to gold, converted the money into gpt with AI trading, and started producing gold in my cities and that didn't substantially affect the timing at all.

I didn't realize it until after a dozen turns or so when i checked the progress and it still said 15+ turns left, so it might not have made a difference at all or maybe it did make a minor difference that I just didn't notice. It wasn't 1 to 1 with GPT for sure.

 

[Tomice]

@AgentDib: Interesting, thank you!

So it could be more complex than just amassing 10.000 energy it seems?

 

[Manannan]

The first game I played I threw a couple miasmic repulsors up over some canyons and got a quest regarding canyon formations being intentional (or something to that extent). Called for more satellites over canyons, then having an explorer go to a ruin that popped up, then having a unit enter said ruin. I ended up going a different route to win so I didn't pay much attention to it, but I think that gave me one part of the equation for a contact victory. Throwing up satellites over canyons hasn't reproduced this quest yet, so I'm not sure how it works but it might be worth mentioning.

 

[Teproc]

The most important question: How much energy? 10.000? 100.000? Do I need a huge empire? When to stop building "normal" stuff and simply focusing on energy and wonders?

I don't understand your question. As far as I understood it (I won through Contact but I was busy fighting wars so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it), once you spend however much it is (1000 I think) to activate the beacon, your energy per turn drops down to 0 and you win 30 turns later, period.

 

[Tomice]

I don't understand your question. As far as I understood it (I won through Contact but I was busy fighting wars so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it), once you spend however much it is (1000 I think) to activate the beacon, your energy per turn drops down to 0 and you win 30 turns later, period.

Ok?!
I thought there is a pool of energy that needs to be filled for the contact victory to happen. So there is no difference between 500 surplus energy and 1?

 

[AgentDib]

I just did another contact victory now that I know what I'm doing. It is 30 turns no matter what on standard speed; I tried feeding 0 EPT into the beacon and 500 EPT into the beacon and it doesn't make a difference.

This seems like a neat mechanic in 3+ multiplayer but it isn't thought out well in single player vs. the AI. It is just too easy to turtle as long as you can defend the beacon you win in the same speed no matter what else is going on. You are just as well off fortifying everything and then hitting "end turn" 30 times in a row.

 

[Teproc]

Ok?!
I thought there is a pool of energy that needs to be filled for the contact victory to happen. So there is no difference between 500 surplus energy and 1?

I didn't experiment around with it, but I'm pretty sure yeah.

 

[Manannan]

Just won a contact victory and as far as I can tell it doesn't matter how much surplus energy you're running, the countdown clock remains the same. Spam units and buildings I guess.

 

[rawrkitty2]

so having explored all the progenitor ruins on the map, and having fully timed out 5 deep-space telescopes, im left lost as to how im supposed to get the last part of the signal?

 

[AriochIV]

so having explored all the progenitor ruins on the map, and having fully timed out 5 deep-space telescopes, im left lost as to how im supposed to get the last part of the signal?

Research Transcendental Math and build the Transcendental equation project. You can only get 1 fragment from the telescopes, so building a second one doesn't do any good.

 

[Elfdemon]

The beacon can't be de-activated even though in the civilipedia it says so......

 

[schwartzpedro]

Is it possible for the Progenitor Ruin to be on another civ's land (therefore unreachable)?

I was trying to do Contact but got stuck at 1 part of the signal!

 

[Xenotitan]

Is it possible for the Progenitor Ruin to be on another civ's land (therefore unreachable)?

I was trying to do Contact but got stuck at 1 part of the signal!

You don't need a signal fragment from progenitor ruins to achieve this victory. You can get 1 fragment from the telescope and 1 from transcendental equation. A signal fragment from progenitor ruins just makes the victory quicker but is fairly rare.

 

[Halbbruder]

There are however a bunch of questions left for me (too many to make me happily follow this path):

• How large is the chance to find the signal in a progenitor ruin?
• Do multiple telescopes help find the signal faster? How long does it take on average?
• The beacon consumes surplus energy per turn, right? But what if I have a huge stockpile? Does this count, or can it be added to the pool somehow?
• How much energy does the beacon need overall?
• Doesn't the fact that you only need 3 techs for this victory make any development of your empire pointless? If you're lucky while exploring ruins, you might not need more than a single city, moderate production for 3 wonders and a bunch of generators.

It would be great if you could help me with this.

1. Although the game says the chance is rather small, I have managed to get 2 pieces of the signal from ruins, thereby skipping transcendental math and deep space telescope steps altogether. I think the chance is around 20-25%. If lower, than I must have been luckiest player to complete the contact victory to early.

2. don't know, it's worth testing. I've used it once and it takes about 10-15 turns on average.

3. Yes. All surplus energy is consumed. You can view the revenue in the expenses section showing the amount of energy consumed by the beacon. Whether this actually speeds up the beacon I do not know. To me, it seems fixed at around 15-20 turns (on quick and standard speed respectively).

4. 1000 gold to activate + any surplus energy. As for whether a deficit would stop your progress, it probably does but I do not know.

5. It does not make empire expansion pointless. If you don't expand, you'll get less science and energy and the other factions, especially other players in MP, will arm up and take you down as soon as they discover that you've built the beacon. AI will probably attack you if your army isn't big enough. Whether they take quality into account, I do not know. You don't need a lot of generators to win. The industry virtue is suited to this victory condition.

 

[DST1348]

Sorry for reactivating an old thread, but I couldn't find anything else on the web. Is there any way to speed up Contact Victory? In my current game (large map, standard speed, BERT) I activated the Beacon and now have to wait 40+ turns while the Beacon consumes all my Energy per turn. Do I have to amass a certain amount of Energy? If so, how much? Or is it really just hitting End Turn 40+ times in a row?

 

[Ryika]

No, you just have to wait. No way to speed it up.