Was this a "cheap" victory?

[nyarmondt]

Well, I was playing with Zakh, and I was the 2nd most powerful player, on Thinker difficulty. Deirdre was the biggest & almost everyone was at war with each other - though I had a treaty between me & Deirdre since the start of the game.

Now, my research was damn good, but the Gaians did beat my in the last 20-odd years for those last branches. Now offcourse, she wanted to go for that Ascendence victory and she had launched the race towards it.

Now, I had like 5 or 6 bases doing nothing but making supply crawlers, so I had beaten her for multiple secret projects (I also had a good economy - so I could rush-build after the crawlers arrived).

So, I used the same tactic for grabbing that ultimate victory. It worked out, but I'm wondering ... Isn't that a bit of a cheap victory? I mean, I let the AI do all the research work while I just try defending off any possible invasions, and when the time is ripe I just snatch it away from it?

I've got the impression that the AI doesn't use Supply crawlers nor the Hurry option, which makes this kind of "victory piracy" possible...

 

[Weakling]

I'm not in any way qualified to comment, having only completed two (yes two ) games myself , but do you mean exploiting supply crawlers themselves in general or explicitly because you hadn't researched the last few branches yourself? Can every civilization build the Ascent SP after the race is launched (by building the other SP whose name I forgot) even if they don't have the prerequisite tech? I had the opposite situation in my second game, also as Zak, but on Librarian, where I was miles ahead in research and after launching the race afraid somebody else with stronger industry and economy might make it. So set research to 0, making *loads* of credits, and had every base make supply crawlers, and in the end managed to rush-build it.

It seems a bit odd that you can snatch the victory if you are behind in tech. Not that you were as described by you, but couldn't also a faction way behind in tech and just focussing on military / industry snatch the victory intended for research-focussing gameplay easily then?

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I've got the impression that the AI doesn't use Supply crawlers nor the Hurry option, which makes this kind of "victory piracy" possible...

Supply crawling does give the human an advantage. Once you have got the hang of the game you may find yourself artificially sabotaging yourself to make things a bit more challenging.

Whilst I was loathe to do it as I enjoy popping pods, restricting pods to the start area only greatly upped the challenge of the game for me in a good way.