And here I fail to see this post for ages somehow

Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian
Magtubes is the key to multiple techs per turn, as it is the key to everything else advanced (the super former is probably the most powerful unit in the game). Tool up your supersized solar panel park, then rehome your crawlers to your science cities (several to enable multiple techs per turn, clustered around your capital to minimise corruption). Boost efficiency to insane levels with Democracy/Green/Knowledge/Cybernetic, and set Research to 100% - the engineers freed by crawling in nutrients from your maximised farmland will be providing the economy. As you can imagine, this is not a viable tactic against human players, as the set-up is far too lengthy and vulnerable, but it is eminently achievable against the AI (read the one city challenges in the Apolyton forums for more pointers). Why anyone would bother is another question altogether.
That critical mass thingy happens thanks to a major empire with massive build-ups I think, I don't really aim for it (more than that I like to tech).

Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian
BTW, have you ever tried the more advanced tactics during the competitive part of the game? Homing invasion forces to a base with a Punishment sphere to allow you to continue running Free Market, etc. My favourite was to use my massive former fleet to landbridge and magtube my conquests, usually neutralising the enemy faction within 2-3 turns. Edit: have you ever done the faction-wide pop-boom?
Not many, as at this point I would usually have gotten the tech leap started (didn't play on hardest as I didn't like the penalties you had). Graviton ships with locusts of chiron was a nice speed invasion combo though.

Only with the cloning vats and hydropod satelites. Bit problematic if you run this too early though, as you need to be able to handle the planetary damage or end up with a lot of fungus and mind worm attacks.

Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian
Who knows? But I can listen to Deirdre reciting a phonebook and I'd be happy. Edit: Oops, just realised it isn't Deirdre who says that, but Planet. Still, Yang remarking "What do I care about your suffering?" is probably my favourite quote.
Yes Yang does have some good quotes (there's a lot of them in there), but to be honest, he scares me.

Never played SMAC online, so I know that a decent player would probably defeat me quite badly.