A January win?? Sounds like a challenge? I think it's entirely doable. All you need is engine techs, spore, universal trans and a bit of luck. I think given the luck of a 1000 anomaly, a precursor mine on your HW and having the AI nice and close...a 4 week win is possible.Very difficult and extremely time consuming to try, but pssible.
1) Cash anomalies aren't needed: The game isn't going to last long enough for you to run out of cash. Just lease buy stuff and you're golden.
Even in DA, lease buying the tech capital on turn 2 (I could've done it on turn 1, but I had a 400% research tile so I dropped a lab instead), I didn't go under 1000BC, and my understanding is that due to the new ways the tech trees work, that it's no longer possible to get it so soon.
Remember, you're only spending money for FOUR TURNS here. (Ideally, anyway.)
2) You don't actually NEED universal translator to kill off an AI...
3) If you're close enough, you don't need engine techs. Given that TA's base speed is 2 rather than DL and DA's 1, in addition to some races having a +1 to speed as well, getting to impulse drive for +1 speed (and another +2 from having one on the ship) is almost irrelevant.
4) You don't need a precursor mine, and you don't need a precursor library. It's almost doable in DA (probably doable, but it's rough) with only a 400% research tile; in TA with the creativity boost all you need is for it to proc on your spore weapons.
5) The worst part is that damned Ctrl+N bug.
Just had a game where he went Fool on me. *sigh* I thought that bug had been fixed?
