This is something I've been wondering about lately, since I've played two games in a row now where I set out from the beginning to get an Ascension victory with settings I thought were favorable to that victory condition (medium map, godlike difficulty, abundant crystals, normal tech speed). Both maps generated 5 crystals, and as far as I can tell, at most you get 5 points per turn from one crystal. That means, even if you were gifted all the techs and necessary starbases on turn 1, it would take 160 turns to get that ascension victory (25 points a turn, with 4000 points required). The two games I just mentioned ended in tech victories on (IIRC) turns 108 and 125, and despite controlling all 5 crystals and trying hard to maximize my ascension points, I only had about 1400 and 1200, respectively, at game end. Unless I've missed a way to generate more ascension points, it seems like there's no circumstance where an ascension victory is an optimal choice, given my chosen game settings and the number of crystals generated. So the question that comes to mind is, what are the most favorable circumstances for an ascension victory, and realistically, can you ever actually outpace a tech victory (on normal speed) with the crystals? Presumably dropping the tech speed low enough will make this possible, so what tech speed is required?