What is value of Mind Stem

[Budda]

I just finished the game by winning with "Transcendence Victory". Just for the completeness that involves the research of appropriate techs, building Mind Flower and waiting for mind flower to bloom.

I had few "Mind Stem" buildings across my colony, and I believe I had "some" points counting towards Transcendence Victory", but how do they work? Do they have any impact on the time of required for Mind Flower to bloom?

On the Gemini difficulty it took 17 or 18 turns to bloom. Would it be quicker if I had more Mind Stems?

Thanks.

 

[Alkaid]

I believe each Mind Stem takes 1 turn off the time the Mindflower takes to bloom. The Mind Stems must also be built before the Mindflower is finished building to affect the turn count.

 

[Budda]

Looks reasonable.

Is that applicable to only transcendence victory? I didn't try others, do they need 'something to be done' after the 'gates' are built?

 

[Alkaid]

Looks reasonable.

Is that applicable to only transcendence victory? I didn't try others, do they need 'something to be done' after the 'gates' are built?

Yeah, the Purity and Supremacy affinity victories are a lot different. Purity you have to spawn 20 earth settlers(1 per turn) out of the gate and settle them like you would a city. However they can settle up to 6 on the same tile, and the tile basically becomes a special tile improvement rather than an actual city like normal settlers. The earth settlements do follow normal city rules though, so must have 3 tiles clearance between it and other cities/earth settlement tiles. It's a bit slow and requires a little before-hand planning to make sure you'll have room in/around your empire to settle them all safely.

Supremacy you need to basically sacrifice units into the gate (1 per turn). Each unit's combat strength adds toward the needed total of 1000 to win. It's simpler than purity and if you have a lot of gold to purchase high-strength units or some already sitting around you can finish the 1000 faster.

The Transcendence victory is the easiest one, in my opinion, but also the most boring. Contact victory is basically the Transcendence one but with different requirements to be able to build the victory wonder, and it takes 30 turns after you build and activate it to win. It also makes you not able to gain gold per turn during those turns.

Hope that helps!

 

[Ryika]

Yes, every Mind Stem (and Xeno Sanctuary) takes 1 turn from the victory timer. If I read the TranscendenceVictoryQuest.lua correctly, then this does not scale with game speed.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

As said above:
XenoSant and Mindstem reduce Transcendence Timer by 1 turn, but iirc they only work if they are completed before the Mindflower construction is STARTED.

 

[Ryika]

As far as I can tell from the lua it's the moment the mindflower is finished, not started.
But yeah, that's an important thing to notice. Finish it a turn too late... and it does nothing.

 

[tedeviatings]

So if I have 9 cities with xenosanctuaries and mind stems I'll finish in 2 turns? Or is the base duration 30 not 20?

 

[Ryika]

Base duration is 30 and scales with game speed. So if you have 15+ cities and all of them have both buildings, it takes 1 turn on Standard. ^^

 

[tedeviatings]

Ah, thanks

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Base duration is 30 and scales with game speed. So if you have 15+ cities and all of them have both buildings, it takes 1 turn on Standard. ^^

That's the reason why I find transcendence a bit imbalanced imo. The only one that really scale with a wide empire (which is incidentally mandatory in BE).
Compare to settling the earthlings or entering the gate where you are capped with 1turn/unit...