Monumentality

[eXistenZ]

Just finished it after 43h. Anyone else enjoyed this mission?

[cbwjm]

I still need to do this one as I normally just play continuous games. What do you need to do with this one? I'm assuming it is to do with monuments, build all three perhaps?

[eXistenZ]

Build all three, AND reach 5000 eco executives, 5000 tycoon executives and 2500 geniusses.

Probably could have done it in less than 43h, but my game chrashes sometimes

[cbwjm]

43 hours, quite possibly how long it would take me. I'm generally pretty slow at building up everything, especially if I need 5000 of each of the execs as well as 2500 geniuses.

The amount of times I've upgraded homes and haven't taken into account the amount of goods needed to support them. And the trade routes, craziness ensues with the island hopping of goods to get where they need to go.

Great game, great game.

[Tobekan]

It's a tough mission because you need to stay on top of things and be organized from the start. I'm not too great at planning out the space. Which faction did you start with?

[eXistenZ]

I started with Eco, but only because i know their production chains best. But once you can build the monument of one faction, use it to build up the city of the other. I build a eco monument, and surrounded it with tycoons houses, which made meeting their demands a lot easier

But it takes a lot of planning an coordination. alo its unlikely you'll get two factions completly on 1 island, so spread them out: 1 faction= 1 island. I destroyed tilda early on to get rid of her and later put my tyoons there

[8-bit]

I just started this mission. I've got the four starting islands claimed, and I've laid out housing and city centers in clusters for the Tycoon and Eco monuments later. I just put down my first batch of Tech housing on a third island. I bought Veggies for the fourth island and I'm going to use it for convenience food and those veggie drink things. Oh, and the coffee for the tech drinks. I have dreams of finishing my last research in the Academies during this mission!

But I have a question for you: What do you mean when you say that you surround an Eco monument with Tycoon houses? Can you build Tycoon houses without Tycoon city centers? And how does it make meeting their needs easier? I am curious.

[Informer]

Yeah, I finish it also some time ago. Don't know about how many hours, but it was a lot.

[eXistenZ]

Every monument fullfills the building needs (activity, information, participation) for every faction within its radius. So an Eco monument will act as a casino and a financial centre. In this way you can upgrade easier and cheaper.

Took this screenshot to clearify: I first reached the needed eco executives, then build the monument on another island, and then swarmed the place with tycoon houses. So i had less need for the need buildings. I did put a ministery of truth to half upgrade costs and increase tax

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576722372947713552/C0F0D57356000A7F91C77B24DA22AE9ECF749E9F/

And offcours, once i could build a tycoon monument, i did it on my eco island so i had to build less need buildings for them. Cause you need 600+ houses to reach 5000 executives

[8-bit]

Thanks for clarifying that. I thought when it said it met all needs, that it met all Eco needs or all Tycoon needs. I guess all really does mean all! XD

I got Geniuses and Eco Execs now. Tycoon Execs are next. I'm kind of making sure one civ has its needs met for the next level, then moving to another civ. I've got a good tax base and I'm holding steady at $200k credits with pretty much all the supplies I need on hand. I'll tell you what, though: the Functional Food is really a good money maker! I ran about 1k in the red for a long time, but the Functional Food got me through till I could get my balance right.

[8-bit]

Beat it. Took 29h 15 minutes. I'm going to go achievement hunting now. :)

[Devilfish]

64 hours :-p

I'm a slowpoke. But at least the whole thing is completely self-sustaining. I'm using that save as a sandbox for achievements now.

[Strandly]

The trick to monument building imo is just build a tiny block of normal houses and upgrade them to executives so the monument unlocks in the build menu. Then smash that 'city' and start a monument there and spam houses all around it. I've never been a fan of plopping a monument into the middle of an existing city (especially a big one) because you have casinos and media towers and all kinds of now useless stuff spread all over that creates awkward holes.

[melkathi]

Well, media towers aren't completly useless, as you may still want the benefit of whatever broadcast you prefer to play on them.

[la_nague]

uhm, wouldnt it be easier to thrash just the service buildings instead of the whole city? :p

[Strandly]

No, because the trashed buildings leave holes that houses probably won't fit nicely into. I'll post a thread eventually with some screenshots. I'm working on a continuous game where I have the whole map settled-- 3 big islands with 1 faction each on them covered by 3-4 monuments. It looks much cleaner and you get more bang for your buck on space usage anyway.