Fun with Evolutionary Mutation

[Jack the Bodiless]

Evolutionary Mutation gives you four points to buy new abilities. But what the manual doesn't tell you is that those four points stack with any points left over during your initial race design: by planning ahead, you can suddenly gain one or more abilities costing rather more.

For instance, Telepathic is really useful in a war of conquest, but not so useful in the early stages of the game. So, rather than spending 6 points on it, reserve 2 points and put the other 4 on something more immediately useful, then become telepathic later.

For real overkill, try becoming Creative later. Without Creative, tech advancement is more rapid because you're only researching one tech per level. You can zoom up the Computer tree (gaining research techs to accelerate further research), then zoom up the Biology tree to take Evolutionary Mutation, then advance more systematically up the other trees with a big research headstart on others who were Creative from the start. Also, you only need to reserve 4 points to do it (2 without the patch), rather than spending 8 or 6 on Creative at the outset.

What are your favorite EM strategies?

[Garth Vader]

The number of research points is the same for creative and non-creative so there is no benefit to taking creative later.

I usually just bank the 4 points for a 40% increase in score. If I am not telepathic I will take it as ground combat bonuses.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
I usually just bank the 4 points for a 40% increase in score.

same for me. I usually get the EM late in a game when I'm already dominating the whole galaxy, so it's just really pointless to invest the 4 points - all picks bonuses become then unnecessary. If there was no "banking" possibility, and forced to use the additional points, I'll tend to invest on farming or growth rate for the max total pop after getting advanced city planning and gaia transformation.

[ravagon]

I don't know about banking/reserving points. It seems a waste to have picks sitting idle for a fair part of the game.

I've found telepathy to be highly useful especially in the early game when a captured enemy planet can basically break an opponent. Even if said opponent is much stronger, forcing them to chase after a "planet stealer" ship on a rampage through their colonies, recapturing and subduing (or annihilating) their own planets can badly hinder any offensive against you.

I tend to take warlord after getting EM as at that point in the game I am often going on the offensive myself and the double CP (and the higher rating of newly-built ships) is a big plus.

[Zealot]

Did you ever thought about using those 4 pics on getting Warlord ability? And get that Ultra-Elite Status?

[Garth Vader]

I don't know about banking/reserving points. It seems a waste to have picks sitting idle for a fair part of the game.



By the time I get EM the game is usually basically over. All that's left is the tedium of cleaning up.

[The Mad Monk]

I always do my picks with the Evolutionary Mutation in mind. This last time, I played a non-creative with one point left over, which I used with EM to pick up Aquatic. That, combined with Subterranean, gave me a bunch of 30-40 pop worlds in very short order.

I'm a builder, and getting the mutation by mid-game is part of my strategy.

[Bkeela]

I also find telepathic early a major advantage. For you can find all the best planets and get there before others - especially useful if the good system is not guarded by a monster.

Bkeela.

[vmxa1]

I concur, using the points for mutaion is not require and is best used to bump your score. If you keep the selections down, the multipler % goes up. I usually have it locked down about that time, maybe one species with a decent fleet left. I only play on hard or impossible level. No more huge maps, too much work.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I also find telepathic early a major advantage. For you can find all the best planets and get there before others - especially useful if the good system is not guarded by a monster.

Bkeela.

That's Omniscient, not Telepathic.