For Science! - 5+ city Academy spam guide

YES! That happened to me too on a Huge Skirmish map, Polystralia practically landed right where I was thinking of settling my second city. Ugh.

I went ahead and pressed on, thinking we have plenty of room to expand elsewhere (south and east for me, North and east for Poly) so I am hoping it won't be too bad. I did have to quickly build up military as he seemed to be antsy, moving his units close to my borders, but it seems he had some aliens to fight so hopefully that sated him

 

Apollo T269 Transcendence Victory with 5 cities - longer than average due to multiple delays.

ARC spawned north and PAC spawned northeast. I found some space in the east for Ayaan, then I looked to the south for expansion. Fortunately no other sponsor spawned there, but the area was infested with aliens.

I interrupted Cognition research for Physics in order to get some Rangers. After battling through 3 alien nests, I eventually settled on 5 cities. Despite the delays, I felt pretty confident once my cities were founded - there was plenty of Titanium and Xenomass around (at the end I had about 45 Xenomass in total ).

Things got ugly around T185 when ARC and PAC declared war on me. ARC seiged my capital from the north and I defended by focusing on her Rovers and Battlesuits. I ended up picking off her ranged units one-by-one from city attacks and made peace with her.

In Ayaan, PAC was a bigger threat with her army of Xeno Swarms. Fortunately this was my second largest city so I was able to make Marines every 2-3 turns. (Many Marines were harmed in the making of this production. ) It was a really close call but somehow I managed to pull through. She stopped advancing into my territory but refused to make peace until much later.

Throughout all of this, Brasilia crept in and expanded south of my empire. I made deals with him to stay in his good graces. Fortunately he was in a good mood, and I bribed him to war with ARC. This was a vital move as it finally allowed me to focus on my victory progress.

Meanwhile Franco-Iberia and Slavic Federation were at conflict in a far away land. I had no idea what they were up to, but they were top 2 for most of the game. If anyone was going to beat me to victory, it was going to be one of them. I made deals with both of them, but it became clear that Franco-Iberia was not interested in diplomacy.

As I approached 13 Harmony, I made my final preparations for a Transcendence Victory. Mind Stems and Xeno Sanctuaries were built. Academies were replaced with Manufactories in Ayaan. Everywhere else they were replaced with Biowells.

Franco-Iberia finally revealed her hand by completing an Emancipation Gate, and my first move was to get Brasilia and Slavic Federation to declare war on her. This turned out highly in my favor, as she actually stopped sending units through the gate for a number of turns. I had also bribed PAC to war with ARC, so in the end everyone was in conflict except for me.

Franco-Iberia was able to make peace without losing much, but it was too late for her. She had less than 600 points to go when I won. Brasilia actually ended up closer to winning a Transcendence Victory, but I was comfortably 10 turns ahead of him throughout.

Thanks for the guide, couldn't have won without it. Now I'm probably going back to Civ V while waiting for the next expansion/patch.

 

Not sure whether to thank you or hate you. Great strategy, but now I know how to win I'm not going for the quickest victory.

The cool thing is just starting up like this I can have a lot of fun trying different things after turn ~100.