Export synthesized top-module and import in another project

I am going through that training class that @strell mentioned. My confusion remains. I want to export my entire project/design as a synthesized netlist (ONLY synthesis)... not a sub-module of my design. How can I do this if I cannot export the top level of my design as a partition? Do I just use the '--export_design' option to quartus_cdb (I have not had luck with this yet...)? I cannot figure out how to do this in the GUI, but like I mentioned before I ultimately need to do this all via command-line or Tcl.

The Altera docs and training always export a sub-module as a partition. I want to export my top-level module as a netlist and import it elsewhere as a submodule. And to reiterate, I will only be running synthesis on this module. Fitting and timing will not be run until all submodules have been included in a final design.

Thank you,

David