Yet another Promised Land victory guide

sylvanllewelyn

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Of the five victory conditions, the “Promised Land” victory has the worst flavour and is the most difficult. This is why I was inspired by this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=536441
Well-written, I learned a lot. Thank you.

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I will now attempt to write something similar and pretend somebody cares. Suggestions for improvement are very welcome!


Rules

i) Apollo/Standard/Standard;
ii) no trading favours, it’s bugged;
iii) no declaring war on AI factions while you are supplying energy to them every turn in a trade deal. If THEY started it, send them to the progenitors.


Seeding

Sponsor: Franco-Iberia.
Colonist: Artist.
Spacecraft: Continental surveyor.
Cargo: Machinery.

Choose whatever map type you want. This is not a strategic choice, it is a difficulty setting. Harder or easier, up to you.


Early game

Your aim is to get five (5) cities up as quickly as possible.

Planetfall: drop on the coast if you can. If you can’t, drop wherever sensible.

Research: pioneering, ecology, (depends), genetics, genetic mapping,
i) If you picked up 3+ science pods, slip in chemistry.
ii) If you picked up an affinity level from progenitor ruins, slip in physics.
iii) If you are stuck on a tiny landmass, slip in planetary survey.
iv) Otherwise go straight to genetics, don’t slip in anything.

Virtues:
frugality, homesteading, colony initiative, (workforce initiative).
i) If coastal capital, no more prosperity virtues for the rest of the game.
ii) If non-coastal, get workforce initiative as well.
foresight, social mores, laboratory apprenticeship, cohesive values

Capital build order:
old earth relic (OER),
clinic
(some production for explorer while waiting if needed)
trade depot
free settler
trade convoy/vassal [“vehicles”]
(finish off explorer if started)
Build settler
borrow energy and buy settler
ultrasonic fence
more trade vehicles

Location for new cities:
i) “coastal” factor is the most important factor, barring exceptional situations.
ii) good to have one source of firaxite that the city can work.
iii) a little bit of floatstone. If you can’t find any, trade for it later, no big deal
iv) lots of petroleum. You can trade for some, better to own some too.
v) It is OK to aggressively expand towards one AI neighbour. Do not do it against two or more AIs.
iv) leave space for your 4 earthling settlements
a) Your Exodus gate will be built in a tile from your capital’s radius.
b) Your nearest Earth Settlement should be “right next to” the gate.
c) Your second-nearest Earth Settlement should not be more than 2 turns travelling from the gate, after magrails.
d) The other two can be further away.

Expansion cities build order:
Trade depot, trade vehicles as needed, OER. First expansion city should then build another settler. If you have spare production after OER and trade routes are filled, before you have the fifth outpost, build a worker.

Worker strategy:
Not much, you probably only have your starting worker or one more at most. Capital gets one for farm-spamming. If you have spare workers for other cities, build generators so you can borrow more money to buy the settler. It is OK to work unimproved tiles. Prioritise getting those trade routes up.

Trade strategy:
Capital support outposts and new cities. Older expansion cities feed capital. Once ultrasonic fence quest comes online, the other trade vehicle goes external to a coastal city that you can access because you chose continental surveyors.

The early game stage ends when the 5th outpost becomes a city.


Early-mid stage

Your aims at this stage are:
i) stay alive: you will probably be at war with another faction because you are so weak
ii) stay away from -20 unhealthiness
iii) build Ectogenesis Pod
iv) get the autoplants quest for the extra trade route

Research: genetic designs, planetary survey, (physics or engineering), robotics, chemistry, (fill in physics or engineering)
i) if you picked up an affinity level, probably from a progenitor ruins OR the occupational hazards quest along the way, go physic and robotics.
ii) if you did not, go engineering and robotics.

Spoiler :
It is not a mistake that I am still putting off chemistry. Laboratories are great, recyclers are great, seeing the location of petroleum is great. At this stage, I cannot spare any production to build any of those nice buildings. Purity-1 explorers are good at clearing out alien nests for occupational hazards quest, if the opportunity presents itself.


Virtues:
networked datalinks, memeweb, community medicine, learning centres, monomyth,

Capital build order:
Gene vault “if you can”
Pharmalab
Ectogenesis Pod

“If you can” does not mean you are scared of losing the race, possible but remote. What it means is, if you can’t spare 210 production, it will be because of one or more of the following:
i) you can’t see much and you need more explorers
ii) AI units are shuffling around at your borders and you need more units
iii) you are choked so hard on miasma you must disperse it with satellites. This is rare but possible. I don’t mean 1 or 2 tiles got blocked by miasma so you have to do something else. I mean something like 6+ key resource in forest miasma or some craziness where the worker-healing will take 50 worker-turns.

Location for new cities: NONE. You are trying to survive.

Expansion cities build order
Clinic, (pharmalab), (explorers/workers/units), autoplant

This stage ends when you get the autoplant quest for the extra trade route. Build that trade vehicle and get more energy + science.
Spoiler :
If you expanded fast enough, the feeling is that you are pressed against unhealthiness and AI aggression, juggling too many priorities.



Middle stage

This is the agenda at this stage:
i) free virtue quest from holosuite
ii) with your first free technology from 10 virtues, get social dynamics
iii) with your free technology quest from institutes, get human conservation

Research: computing, (cognition / bionics)
i) if you have many cities with workable firaxite, get bionics first and build institutes in every city, after autoplants are complete. Maximise the trigger chances for the free tech.
ii) if you only have 1-2 cities with firaxite, get cognition first and build/buy holosuites in those cities. Maximise the trigger chances for the free virtue.

Virtues:
labour logistics, (another industry virtue only if you did NOT take workforce initiative), (knowledge tree starting from useful to useless).

General build order:
Autoplant
Recycler
Institute/Holosuite
Laboratory
(Gene garden)
(Cytonursery)

Additional for capital:
Spy Agency, vivarium, soma distillery

Location for new cities:
Launch a second-wave expansion. Focus on coastal, petroleum, firaxite, floatstone. Buy/build settlers and protect them with purity-explorers. I can’t tell you how many cities, it depends on the map, resources committed, pay-off period and when you feel you will win the game.

Spoiler :
Yes, this is iterative. It is one of the hardest parts of the game.


Expansion city build order:
Trade depot, trade vehicles, OER. You *may* ignore autoplants, build it, or buy it, dependson the situation. If you do, count how many turns it will take to pay-off and whether it will pay-off before you start building the exodus gate.

Spoiler :
But, how many energy is 1 science worth, I don’t know…


Worker strategy:
Buy and build workers for new cities and for some of the older ones too, aim for one worker per city. Stop spamming generators, start spamming academies. If you took bionics first and the city did not hit local health caps, a couple of biowells are OK.

Trade strategy: no change. For external trade routes, try to have 1 route for each player for diplomatic purposes. Capital supports new cities.

This stage ends when your capital finishes the Deep Memory wonder. There may be overlap with the next stage.

Spoiler :
I find biowells overrated because it doesn’t actually solve your health problems. Local health caps stop it from being useful. Only virtues or very large cities can deal with health issues.


While you are expanding the second wave, if you don't have enough space for 4 earth settlements, decide in advance which ones you will attack and raze. But don't attack yet.


Mid-late stage

This is your agenda:
i) Reach level-13 purity with the fewest marginal quantity of science.
ii) Finish 20 virtues, along with the entire knowledge tree. When you get those two free techs at the same time, you will get “nanotechnology” and “tactical LEV”.

Research: Assuming no quest XP, you already have genetic mapping (12), and you will get non-researched XPs from human conservation (40) and tactical LEV (40) eventually. This is 92 out of 12 + 13 + … + 24 = 234

You are going to get these ones for sure, in this order: terraforming, fabrication, civil support (25), servomachinery (25), biospheres (25), alien genetics (18), communications, orbital networks. This is 185 in total, 49 more.

Now you customise this queue:
i) no quest XP: get biology and vertical farming (25) after civil support, then mechatronics and mobile lev (30) after biosphere.
ii) +12 XP or +17 XP quest. Then you get augmentation and surrogacy (40) after civil support.
iii) over +24 quest XP: same as i) but no need for mobile lev after alien genetics.
Do not laugh at surrogacy. +10% worker speed is where your magrails come from.

Virtues: finish off the knowledge tree. You will finish it the moment you finish the twentieth virtue.

Capital build order, in this order of priority:
Holomatrix
production-enhancing buildings
wonders,
1 lasercom satellite
buildings with reasonable payoff periods.

“Reasonable” means “will accelerate my starting turn for building the exodus gate”. The alternative to weigh against is “research development” or “social development”. Do your own math. It is, again, iterative.

Location for new cities: probably none because it won’t payoff in time, barring unusual circumstances.

Build order:
i) More workers as needed. As many workers as needed to finish the magrail network for Earth Settlements just in time. Exercise quantitative judgement.
ii) More units as needed if you plan to raze cities to make space.
iii) *maybe* networks are worth it, but do your math to make sure.
iv) Research or social development. The advanced buildings are not worth it.

Worker strategy:
Magrails, academy spam.

Trade strategy:
Trade routes as usual, one to capital and 2 external. Trade and even buy petroleum if you can.

You need all this petroleum because you want as many holomatrix as you can. Each one takes 3, build and buy as many as you can, as fast as you can. Push your culture, make sure you get 20 virtues before you have “everything except nanotechnology and tactical LEV”.

If there is not enough space for 4 earthling settlements, now is the time to attack someone and raze cities. Affinity level advantage should carry you through.


Late stage

Make sure you have a magrail on the spot where you will build the Exodus Gate. Now build it.

Research will vary at this point. Maybe some techs will unlock buildings that you can buy in the capital, anything that can speed up 1-2 turns. But note they increase percentage of terrain production and most of your production comes from trade routes. Or maybe you need cybernetics for phasal transporters if an earth settlement spot is far away.

Keep hammering at magrails. Remember to build the magrail ON the spots of your future Earth Settlements too.

Once it’s ready, settle the Earthlings. Arrange it to minimise turns. Win.


Endnotes

I have attached a savegame, a nice and easy start. I won with it on turn 198. You can do better.

As always, please make corrections and suggestions.

Spoiler :
This is not a generic builder strategy. I think that the “Ectogenesis Pod” wonder only works for Promised Land Victory. For other victories, it is best to ignore it completely, and thus, not “overpowered”. It may be the “most powerful”, but something has to be.

Each victory requires a different economic style altogether. Their differences are far beyond their affinity techs. I will let someone else can talk about it.
 

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If the whole world hasn't been fully settled, having six points in Supremacy can be very helpful for finding places to settle the colonists at, as the affinity gives you satellite cover for phasal teleporters near every firaxite resource on the map.
 
If the whole world hasn't been fully settled, having six points in Supremacy can be very helpful for finding places to settle the colonists at, as the affinity gives you satellite cover for phasal teleporters near every firaxite resource on the map.

Holosuites for the free virtue is optional and low-priority, not worth six-levels in supremacy.
 
I find that in the end the few odd supremacy techs I need to pick to get it to six don't take that long and is one of the best options to tech while waiting for the gate to be built.
 
With a few minor adjustments this guide should work well with any of the affinity related victory conditions. No matter what affinity I plan on playing, I usually get genetic mapping early for that handy purity level 1. Thanks for the excellent guide.
 
The early part of the guide where you expand quickly is pretty generic and should work well with any affinity related victory condition. But one of the key parts is getting deep memory early, which among other things gives 40 purity points. Using holomatrices (more purity points) to push culture is also important. These free virtues and the culture is important because without the 2 free techs at the end this guide slows down in the end game. So I think it might not be so easy to adapt this guide to other affinities.

I won with this guide on turn 199. It would've been turn 198, but I forgot to summon an earthling once. If I had been a bit smoother with timing I probably could have shaved a few turns as I got lucky with affinity xp through quests and no one ever declared war on me. Only Reginaldo landed close and he got crap terrain and aliens which held him off long enough for me to build an army after the REX phase.

I think this is an excellent plan for a purity game. The only part I had difficulty with was leaving space for my four earthling settlements, because on Apollo the AI starts spamming colonists pretty quickly. If you have any tips for keeping the space clear that would be helpful.

This is a great guide. Playing a game along with this guide has improved my early game play and given me a new long term strategy. Well done.
 
No matter what affinity I plan on playing, I usually get genetic mapping early for that handy purity level 1. Thanks for the excellent guide.

Do not get genetic mapping when playing supremacy or harmony. The early game opportunity costs are too high for the benefits. You're welcome.

The only part I had difficulty with was leaving space for my four earthling settlements, because on Apollo the AI starts spamming colonists pretty quickly. If you have any tips for keeping the space clear that would be helpful.

Go to war and raze nearby cities. It's hard because purity units are weaker than the other two affinities, but an advantage in affinity levels should carry through.
 
Well, I guess the change to Elodie with the patch has made this strategy a no-go.
 
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