War-mongering_Child
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2022
- Messages
- 25
Hey all, this is my strategy for CivBE RT. This strategy focuses on these key elements:
- A strong focus on a Multiplayer style game against real humans, whilst also factoring in playing against AI. I have comments throughout this guide for what can be ignored depending on multiplayer/single player.
- A strong focus on first building our civilisation to a well oiled machine, and then using it to conquer our opponents within a matter of turns, as opposed to being at war as early as possible.
- Unlocking science specialists as a matter of priority, in order to giga juice our science rate, thus reaching the useful unit upgrades ASAP. Specialists are also somewhat of a defensive layer, because if an opponent destroys your tile improvements, your city isn't completely useless.
- A strong focus on having a really high population count, therefore being able to support a large army without having reductions to production from reaching the support cap.
- Unlocking additional spies, which is a lethal weapon in Multiplayer due to how OP tile improvements are and the destruction of these can render a human faction virtually useless
- Unlocking Tacnet Hubs, alongside orbital coverage as a matter of priority which is my first take on how to defend against Phasal Teleporters, particularly useful in Multiplayer if these are allowed. This is untested as of yet, the rest of the guide has been tested many times.
- Hybrid affinity ASAP as it is a lot easier to research, and therefore provides a buff to our existing units a lot sooner, very useful against pressuring enemies. Gives the added buff of we can focus on technologies we actually want, rather than having to pick up useless Purity technologies that are fast to research but provide no meaningful upgrade. By the time we reach the need for 16 Purity, our research rate is ridiculously high so we can focus on the good Purity techs.
- 16 Purity, for the tacjet upgrade that makes them stronger against cities. Other affinities seem to be mediocre compared to Purity when it comes to warfare. We don't focus on 16 Purity for a while though, because it involves a lot of useless techs when our science rate is bad. Plus, a lot of the other techs are very nice quality of life. That being said, I have put options throughout this guide that suggest what to ignore if you wanted to rush 16 Affinity instead.
Disclaimer:
- There are many different ways to play this game, and at the end of the day it's all about having fun. This strategy isn't the only strategy and nor is it the fastest, but it is the one I choose to go with. I like to try out other peoples strategies, which is how I learnt most of what I know, some of which has been adapted into this guide.
- This strategy will get you the Affinity Victory on Soyuz Difficulty very easily, but is tailored towards games where you disable all other victory types except Domination. If you wish to go for an affinity victory instead, just go all in on Harmony instead, but only after you research Transgenics. Harmony is the quickest and easiest victory condition.
- This strategy can also work on Apollo and for the Affinity Victory too, however you will have to adjust the strategy so that your second and third cities are building military and nothing else until the other cities have finished their build order.
- It must also be noted that this strategy is heavily tailored towards Massive maps, and Quick Pace. You can do the exact same strategy on Standard Pace, however you will tech and build slower and therefore have to deal with active wars (wars where combat is actually taking place) a lot sooner than you would otherwise have to.
- Another thing to note is this strategy should work in Multiplayer, however some parts of it are untested as of yet so follow at your own risk. All multiplayer games I have played so far have banned the use of Phasal Teleporters, however I do plan to play some in future and so I may come back and edit this guide then, or additionally make a Multiplayer focused guide on its own. Why I say it should work is it keeps in mind that Phasal Teleporters are a thing, and so includes strategies to defend against this. However, if you notice something in this strategy is not working in Multiplayer than definitely adapt it to your knowledge.
- This is an adaptation on another strategy you can see here, with some additional strategy since the objective is Domination rather than an Affinity victory. The reason I say this does get you the affinity victory is because all of the early game of this strategy is cloned from that guide, with some minor tweaks to adapt to the Domination victory. My guide however takes you beyond the rush for 16 affinity.
- I digress that I may still have room for improvement, and so I welcome feedback/discussion on this post.
- I have attached a Save File as a reference point. Feel free to take a look at what I have done.
- After around turn 180 or so, my game crashes unless I turn off Yield Icons. By this time you won't need to see them anyway.
- I am continuing to update this guide when I discover new things.
Faction Priority:
- Single Player: Hutama -> Africa -> ARC-> Chung Su
- Multiplayer: ARC-> Chung Su-> Hutama-> Africa
- All other factions are not overwhelmingly powerful. China could be good, but requires prioritizing Wonder techs and so therefore needs an entirely different strategy.
- This strategy does however work for any faction, but factions not listed here are just slower and therefore can not guarantee a win on Apollo but it can be fun to try anyway.
- I don't have anywhere else to put this in the guide, but if you choose to play as Russia, you can adapt this strategy to include at least 1 Aquatic Cities city, the Exotic Matter technology (for the Ansible Wonder which allows satellites to overlap, but it can only be made by Aquatic Cities), and weave in Geoscaping for Orbital Fabricators, Orbital Networks for Lasercom Satellites, and Photosystems for Solar Collectors. Whether or not adapting this strategy to include any of this is worth it or not is up to you, as it takes extra turns when the below strategy will get the job done anyway, but it does allow for some interesting flavor.
- ARC/Chung Su are especially good in Multiplayer because Humans are much better at micromanaging than the AI and so tend to quite lucrative to steal from, especially when stealing technology. That being said though, no one actually loses anything despite the word "steal" being in the name of the operations, including recruit defectors. The main reason these two factions are bananas is because they get a lot of spying done quickly, which leads to incredible progression through the tech tree. Another great use is they can destroy a players tile improvements quite liberally, which is far more useful to a human than an AI since the meta is to actually build useful tile improvements, and if these are destroyed then the city becomes virtually unusable immediately until repaired.The only reason the AI is able to compete using just generic tile improvements is because they have inbuilt buffs to everything so they don't need to make good use of tiles.
- Hutama/Africa are a lot more focused on the builder playstyle, but are not to be underestimated since they build very healthy and happy cities quickly which means they can produce incredibly fast.
Colonists: Culture, Reveal Coasts, Pioneering. I strongly advise against using the reveal expedition sites colonist, as this alone makes the game TOO easy in my opinion and you might as well ignore this entire strategy since you will be 16 affinity before anyone else reaches 7.
City Locations priority (prioritize in order from first to last):
- 1 Square between city and coast (only for the first 5 cities)
- If you are planning to make a large amount of cities, 4 Squares away from capital, although I would advise against more than 5 cities until you have Gene Smelters. 4 squares is the minimum distance, thus allowing more cities per map.
- Rivers
- Titanium
- Try to avoid mountains as you cannot improve these tiles.
- Similarly it is kind of good to try and avoid tiles that have no natural food, or cannot allow farms, but this isn't completely necessary since Biowells can be built anywhere.
- Interestingly, an alternative approach is to go all in on Aquatic cities and replace Ecology (Viariums) with Biochemistry (Water Refinery), as this gives the big advantage of having increased health and therefore being able to aim for 7 cities instead of 5 land cities in the early game, thus leading to faster research. The biggest downside to this is that ocean cities are incredibly easy to attack, and are actually prioritized by the enemy AI when they go to attack you. Additionally you cannot gain more tiles without moving them, but if you choose to do this then move them once the cities are close to having enough population to fill ALL specialist slots AND tiles. You can also do a hybrid combination of land/sea cities.
Tech order and their uses:
Chemistry - Recylcer
Genetics - Pharmalab, Cytonursery
Ecology - Vivarium, removing miasma
Physics - Launch Complexes later, required for following tech
Bionics - Biowells, institute
Robotics - Firaxite mines, tacjets, manufactories
Engineering - Thorium Reactor
Computing - Spy Agency
Genetic Design - Maybe Ectogenisis Pod, required for following tech
Transgenics - Gene Smelter, maybe Promethean
Terraforming - Floatstone (not needed), required for following tech
Biospheres - 10% food carried over after growth
Alien Genetics - Culture from Biowells
Claim Nanotechnology from Institute Quest for Nanopastures
Ballistics - Rocket Battery
Defense Grid - Defense Perimeter
Transcendental Math - Markov Eclipse wonder for units fight at full strength
Fabrication - required for following tech
Civil Support - Mag Rails
Artificial Intelligence - CEL cradle for extra Spies and culture, maybe Surveillance Web
Communications - Command Centre for extra spy and city hitpoints, Feedsite Hub for extra Spy, Tacnet Hub for defense against Phasal Teleporters
Field Theory- Field Reactors
Biology - required for following tech
Vertical Farming - Food and Energy from farms, good when taking enemy cities, and putting farms on new tiles
Bioengineering - required for following tech
Industrial Ecology - Production from farms, good when taking enemy cities and putting farms on new tiles
Artificial Evolution - Science from farms, good when taking enemy cities and putting farms on new tiles, Resurrection Device for extra yield from health if wanted but not necessary.
Cognition - required for following tech
Collaborative Thought - Precog Project wonder for units gain 2 additional veterancy
Cybernetics- Node Bank required for following tech
Autogyros - Phasal Teleporters
Augmentation - For following Tech, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Surrogacy- 10% Worker Speed, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Mechatronics - Required for following tech, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Mobile LEV - LEV tanks, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Tactical Robotics - Spy Satellites
Alien Sciences - Xenomass - not needed but may as well for affinity xp and making use of it
Organics - required for following tech
Photosystems - Solar Collectors, optionally do this earlier to defend against teleporters. Need this to get hybrid affinity for Aquillion upgrades
Biometallurgy - Aquillion
Astrodynamics - Neoplanitarium for orbital coverage in cities near enemy, good for defense against phasal teleporters, and using phasal teleporters
Geophysics - Geothermal - not needed but free resources and not much else to tech into right now.
Alien Biology- Worker immunity to Miasma
If you are missing Purity, Surrogacy and Mobile LEV are probably good ones to get, nothing else provides a lot for us anymore.
Tech after this is whatever you want, no other tech is of much use and there isn't anything overwhelmingly needed right now so best options would probably be any tech that buffs resources. When you have finished this tech order, aim for 10/16/10 in affinity, so as to get the best yields from Hybrid affinity, prioritizing Purity/Harmony at 10/10 first to get the 25% production towards Military Units. 10 Supremacy/Harmony is really good too, for the 0.4 Health per military unit, fixing any health issues in the late game including negative health from annexed cities. Whilst pure t16 Purity units are stronger than hybrid, it requires a lot of extra turns researching tech we don't care about at different points of the game. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to get hybrid units sooner than it is t3 Purity, and this enables both a stronger defense and a stronger offense much sooner. My tech order focuses purely on tech that provides use to us, whilst also reaching our goals of having enough hybrid affinity that we can get an additional aircraft on the Aquilon from the upgrade. Another key point of this tech order is obtaining additional spies as soon as possible, which is really well suited for multiplayer in that you unlock Tacnet Hubs with the same tech as well as additional city hitpoints from Command Centre, both of which are excellent defensively, plus spies are OP against other humans (see Spies later in the guide). That being said, there is nothing to stop you from ignoring all of the techs after Transgenics except Autogyros, and instead focusing fully on 16 of your chosen affinity if you wanted to. If you do this however, you may gain stronger units sooner at the expense of quality of life from my other techs. In single player, you can forgo the techs for Spies/Tacnets completely if you wish, this is more of a flavor thing and does lead to some crazy advantages, but it isn't necessary. Other techs you can forgo are the farm upgrades, these are just nice to have when you take AI cities since they love to build farms, and it also gives us some Hybrid affinity faster which we need for the Aquilon upgrade. No matter what, you need 5 Supremecy for Phasal Teleporters to land on Firaxite, and so we have opted to go for the most useful Supremecy techs instead of cheap but useless ones. All of that being said, if you get lucky with expeditions you may well have enough Purity to make all of your military units t3 Purity, which occurred in the most recent games I played.
A great tech to add in this list at any point is Alien Biology to make workers immune to miasma, but it's not really needed. In the late game it only costs a couple turns though.
When you get first military unit, either auto explore (not as good but easier), or scout all land surrounding you, then scout all land surrounding enemy capitals.
Explorers: Prioritize Progenitor Ruins/Progenitor Device, all other expeditions are okay if they are close to the explorer. Also grab any nearby Resource Pods. During early exploration, send explorers back to a city to refill on modules. After this, scout all land surrounding enemy capitals to ensure that you can visibly see all of their cities in order to put all covert agents into 1 faction during war. It should be known that if you are playing either ARC or Chung Su, it can pay to scout enemy territories rather than using all explorer modules, so that you can make the most out of your spies sooner. The downside to this of course is you may miss out on the Artefact Rewards, which are really quite strong, so I will leave it up to you to decide this.
Build Order: When following this, understand that each game is different and you have to adapt to the environment. This is more a heirarchy, rather than exactly what to do. For example, some games you may have a terrible supply of energy and so you must build Thorium Reactors sooner than ideal. Same with Vivariums. Otherwise, Science is priority.
- Capital: Old Earth Relic -> Trade Depot -> Trade Unit-> Recycler -> Colonist -> 2 explorers-> Laboratory -> Clinic -> Pharmalab -> 5 workers ->Institute -> Vivarium-> Nanopasture -> Gene Smelter->Thorium reactor->All additional Trade Convoys->Warp Spire->Drone Command->Nanothermite->Markov Eclipse (when available)-> Field Reactor->Neoplanitarium->Convert to food. Always convert to food when there is nothing else to build in capital. When building wonders, switch the city to focusing on production from tiles, but back to food any other time. Rush buy Nanopasture if you have the money, do not rush buy anything else until this is done.
- Second City: Trade Depot -> Trade Unit -> Recycler -> Colonist -> Old Earth Relic -> Clinic -> Laboratory -> Pharmalab -> 5 soldiers-> Thorium Reactor->Institute->Nanopasture->Gene Smelter->Vivarium->All additional Trade Convoys->Drone Command-> Warp Spire->Frontier Stadium->Military (see "Military").
- All Other Cities : Depot -> Recycler -> Colonist -> Old Earth Relic -> Clinic -> Pharmalab -> Trade Convoy ->Thorium Reactor->Optionally build more military->Laboratory->Cytonursery->Vivarium->Institute->Nanopasture->Gene Smelter->All additional trade convoys->Drone Command->Warp Spire->Frontier Stadium
- Any city after first 5: Do not build the following - Institute, Laboratory, Nanopasture, Cytonursery.
- Build Launch Complex and Neoplanitarium in cities that are close to enemies, but only if you want to phasal teleport into them. If playing Multiplayer, you must build these as soon as they available, and fill orbital coverage with satellites ASAP.
- Build Defence Perimiter, Rocket Battery, Command Centre, Node bank, and 3 Tacjets in all cities near enemy, as a matter of priority after Trade Depot and Recylcer. Rush buy Trade Convoy's and Recyclers in these cities. Additionally, send Armour's from initial cities to these cities. If in multiplayer, build these in ALL cities.
- Also optionally build CEL cradles in all cities, to get more Culture but it's not really needed.
- Build Command Center/Cel Cradle/Feedsite Hub (build all 3 asap in any city with nothing to do and as soon as possible, these give extra spies as a quest reward). You only need to build these once to gain the quest rewards, except for Command Centre.
- After all of the above are complete, or nothing else to build (except capital), see military for what to build. Sometimes it helps to stop building the above if you are at war, but only build enough to defend.
- Captured Cities: Trade Depot-> Trade Convoy (to highest production)-> Recycler-> Military -> Optionally add Gene Smelters if your health is suffering. Same as before, rush buy Recycler and Trade Convoy's in these cities, but only if they are not at risk of being taken.
- ALWAYS fill specialist slots, especially if you have Student Aid, and even more so if playing Africa. There may be times where you shouldn't, but the buildings we have selected are so good that they should be used. When you have finished your techs, you can take specialists out of science buildings and place them on production.
- All cities should be manually focused on food from tiles, and then switch to production from tiles once your cities reach above 23 population, or they are building a Wonder. The biggest reason for this is because at any point in the game you might not have the Student Aid agreement and so you need to be able to feed your citizens. Furthermore, you get your third trade convoy at 23 citizens, making it even easier to feed your citizens.
- At any point that you don't have anything to build, and you DO NOT have your t3 upgrades for Armour/Destroyer/Patrol Boat, convert production into Science in any city that is not your capital. Do this at your own risk, as you may find a military more helpful especially if playing Apollo. You could instead do a mix of science in some cities, and military in others.
- No other building is worth the time, only build what is mentioned here.
- If you have the energy, it can be worth saving it to rush buy Recycler and Trade Convoys in new cities, but do not rush buy anything before you have all of the above buildings set up in the capital.
- In the late game (past 25 population in each of the 5 main cities), you can switch your capital from making food to building whatever you like. However, continuing to convert to food is excellent for feeding new/conquered cities so it does pay to keep it doing so. Up to you what you do here, either works.
- Build the Markov Eclipse wonder, Nanothermite, and the Precog Project Wonder. Nanothermite and Markov Eclipse feel incredibly strong, so I would definitely get these asap. Precog Wonder helps a bit too, but focus on the other 2 first. All other wonders are nice, but not necessary and take a lot of turns that could be used for other things. Obviously, put these in cities with the highest production so you can get back to making military sooner.
- If you are being left alone, and have nothing but Military to build, you could send out some extra colonists.
All trade convoys go to Capital first, then to whichever has the highest food, then which ever has the highest Science. Your second trade convoy should be sent to outposts, and put on standby until any future outposts are placed. Any convoys to capital should be repeated, then all other convoys should not be repeated. Convoys from captured cities go to highest production or food depending on the cities use. If it's going to take a long time to get use out of the city, put them on production and call it a day. If it's early on, and you want more mega cities, put it on food and it will quickly become another one. AVOID sending convoys through or even close to another factions territory. If you are having trouble with aliens, build an Ultrasonic Fence and claim the quest option that stops them from attacking your convoys.
It can be worth escorting colonists and workers with a combat unit, especially on Biomes where the native life tends to be aggressive. Check this Wiki page for more info. https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Biome_(CivBE)
Millitary:
- Planes are terrible until t3 upgrades so best to wait.
- Early game (before t3 upgrades) soldiers/patrol boats first as these get upgrades sooner and will be needed for defense. You are only really using them in case someone attacks you, so keep them nearby.
- Mid game (t3 Hybrid Upgrades for Armour/Destroyer/Patrol Boats)- build Armour and Destroyers, alongside Patrol Boats. Patrol Boats are not for attacking units, keep these safe so they can capture a city. 3 Patrol boats and 3 Destroyers is the optimal squad for taking coastal cities. Make multiple squads of these, but ensure you leave some at home to defend. If you know the enemy has land cities which you desire, bring Armours along with the squads, but only if they can hover over water. Basically, there is no defined magic number for how much army you need, pretty much just keep building squads and sending them to the enemy until they give in.
- Late game (10/16/10 affinity) - build squads of 1 Aquillion, 4 armors, 2 planes to put on Aquillion, and 1 phasal teleporter.
- If you are playing Multiplayer, then as soon as Tacnet Hub is available, place them everywhere that you have orbital coverage, and solar collectors to fill any gaps. This is extremely important to defend against Phasal Teleporter strategies, and must be done as soon as possible. Prioritize the techs for tacnet/solar collector over any other tech, and rush build an army if you know that anyone is getting close to teleporting to you. Unfortunately there isn't an easy way to know this, but if you see another Human focusing on Supremecy first and they are nearing level 5 then that is one big clue.
- It should be known that the Armour has terrible combat stats, and dies really quickly. However, their mobility makes them excellent and therefore all other units are bad as speed is key. It is for this reason that it is strongly recommended that they be accompanied by an Aquillion with 2 tacjets, as the tacjets can take out any units that would harm your Armours.
- Armours and Patrol boats are TERRIBLE at reducing City Hitpoints, so must be accompanied by some form of Rocket/Destroyer/LEV Tank/Tacjet. Any one of these will do, but bring at least 2 of these units.
- It should also be known that the LEV tank is an excellent land version of the Destroyer. However, T3 Purity Tacjets are just as good at reducing City Hitpoints and have more mobility. If you aren't close to 10/16/10 affinity, optionally add the Mobile LEV technology if you plan on conquest before you obtain Aquillions.
- Do NOT kill aliens in the early game unless you have to, these will disturb your progress, and they will kill your workers/colonists/explorers, furthermore they are way too strong for your units to handle. You can kill them if they are not Blue (Friendly) once you have t2 unit upgrades, which can be nice to get free unit upgrades/quest rewards.
- My three favorite units in the game are SABR, LEV Tank, and Aquillion. Unfortunately, 2 out of 3 of these are out classed by other units. The SABR could be an amazing defense, and I have really enjoyed them in combat since they hit so hard and have a nice range, but unfortunately they move way too slowly and also cost Firaxite which we need for Aquilon. If you can get around the mobility issue of SABR then they are a lot of fun to use.
- One potential early game defense against Phasal Teleporters is keeping an Artillary stood on any nearby Firaxite, as this can shoot down the satelites. You have to be fast though if you are playing simultaneous turns as they can bring the army in real time.
- I have never really bothered mass buying units in the late game, but I know that I should. This guide accounts for the fact you should, and will help you do such. If you like to Purchase Units, going with Liquidity in the Virtue tree instead of Scalable Infrastructure is a really good choice.
- In the early game, if you find your self on an island to your self, and you have managed to keep all of your cities at least 1 tile between them and the water, you could instead just build tacjets as these will shoot down any land units that are not t3 and instantly kill them whilst they are embarked in the water. This is a gamble in multiplayer however, because the opponent may have already reached t3.
Virtue tree:
Prosperity: Frugality -> Homesteading->Colony Initiative->Workforce Initiative->Pathfinders->
Industry: Labor Logistics->Commoditization->Standardized Architecture->Profiteering-> Interdependence Network->Social Investment->Civic Duty->Magnasanti->Investment->Scalable Infrastructure->
Might: Adaptive Tactics->Military-Industrial Complex-> Public Security->Adaptive Sciences->Martial Meditations->Integrated Arms->Democratized Quartering->Channeled Wrath-> Army Engineering Corps->Brutal Efficiency-> After this pick whichever virtue you want.
- Liberation Army and Special Service are quite good, but the issue is we are unlikely to reach Channeled Wrath by the time we are declaring wars if we go this route and we really want at least Democratised Quartering because it massively helps our economy. It's up to you, the intrigue is very nice for our spies though. In my recent testing, I only made it to Integrated Arms before I declared my first active war, however my economy was fine enough that I didn't need Democratized Quartering yet. If you build a lot of units, you do need Democratized Quartering ASAP or your economy will get floored. I think there is a really good case for getting these virtues early in the game if you are playing Multiplayer, see Spies for more info.
- If you like to Purchase Units, going with Liquidity in the Industry tree instead of Scalable Infrastructure is a really good choice.
- It should be noted that you can instead go all in on the Might tree, and this actually enables combat a lot earlier, however I much prefer having my infrastructure built as I like to have high affinity, and a healthy civilization that can produce units real fast.
- Another really good option with the virtue tree is instead prioritizing Brutal Efficiency, for 50% quantity from strategic resources. This can be necessary for games where you don't have a lot of Firaxite, Titanium, or Petroleum.
Tile improvements (in order of priority, i.e prioritize the top of the list first, if its not needed then go down the list):
- Basic Resources-> Strategic Resources-> Biowells-> Mines-> Farms->Magrails/roads)->Manufactories-> Clearing Miasma (if not Harmony).
- When you have both Vertical Farming and Industrial Ecology, switch to building farms and stop building Biowells. Optionally replace Biowells with Farms, but only when you run out of space, which you shouldn't as you will have enough to keep your workers busy. Do not buy tiles unless it is for a strategic advantage. Obviously, if you aren't going with the farm techs, just don't build them.
- Prioritize squares that have energy, tiles that don't have miasma, land tiles, and tiles without a forest. Only improve "bad" squares when all others are improved.
- Avoid tiles near aliens, as you cannot kill them until at least t2 unit upgrades and aliens are notorious for pillaging your improvements, or even killing your worker. Sea tiles are good, but aliens love to roam these and since we can't enter the water until we have boats or t3 land units, it's best to focus on land tiles first.
- Always clear miasma first on a tile that you plan to improve unless you are playing Harmony. You do NOT want a Harmony faction getting buffs from your miasma tiles!!
- It can be nice to build magrails leading to enemy territory, but do so at your own risk as they can use them too!
- There was a time where I would build 1 Manufactory for every city, and this was really good for getting new cities to produce quickly, but that was before I swapped to this strategy of spamming Biowells/Farms. That being said, they are still quite good and I think you should still do this as long as your health can support it.
- When you get magrails, start building them towards the capital after they have finished what they were already working on. After that, go back to the list of priorities.
Traits:
Internal Trade Routes-> Increased City Conversions->-> Cheaper Military maintenance-> Factions Trait-> Agreements. If your faction trait is good, you should get this before Cheaper maintenance unless you are having serious energy issues. If you are playing ARC/Chung Su, AND you didn't get the Artifact OR the agreement/trait (you do not need all three) for quicker spies, then change Increased City Conversions to Increased Spy speed. Spy speed caps at 80%, therefore you only need a combination of ANY two spy speed upgrades. Another thing to note is you can swap the Cheaper Military maintenance with Military production if you wish, but this strategy does have issues with energy so it can become quite problematic. The way to get around this is to convert Biowells into Farms once you have the relevant techs, but you do want to keep Biowells around for health which I personally feel are a bit more useful since when we take a city our health drops.
Artifact rewards (In order of priority, i.e do not use artifacts until these are available, but if it's getting near the end of your explorers modules unlock the next one in the list and so on):
Increased Covert Operation Speed -> Warp Spire-> Increased Worker Speed-> Drone Command-> Frontier Stadium. Rest are whatever, if you don't have artifacts for any of these rewards, just mix and match until you find something nice. As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Agreements:
- Student Aid is top priority over any other agreement, play diplomacy with the faction that has it whether it means starting wars with their enemies, and making agreements with them or their friends if you have to keep them from sanctioning you.
- ARC increased Covert Operation Speed, play diplomacy with ARC whether it means starting wars with their enemies, and making agreements with ARC or their friends if you have to keep them from sanctioning you. Spy speed caps at 80%, therefore you only need a combination of ANY two spy speed upgrades.
- ARC Increased spy rank (not needed if you take the Surveilance Web Quest reward)
After those 3, the agreements aren't necessary, but the best one to get is energy per tile of land, second best is % income, and last is generic + yield from strategic resources.
- You are not guaranteed to get any of these agreements at all in every game, so just deal with the deficits if you can't.
- As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Quest rewards:
- Culture from Old Earth Relic
- Health from Clinics
- Explorer Module from Laboratory
- Production from Trade Depots
- Food from Recyclers
- Energy from Thorium Reactors
- Production from Cytonurseries
- Food from Vivariums
- Free tech from Institute
- Health from Gene Smelters
- Purity Affinity until 16, then supremacy AND harmony until both are at 10, after that it doesn't matter.
- Always free Covert Agents
- Increased City Hitpoints unless any of the above
- Always Orbital Coverage, unless any of the above
- Spies take fewer actions to advance in rank (Not needed if you are best friends with ARC AND have their agreement for additional ranks)
- After that it doesn't matter, just go with whatever you want.
- As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Spies:
- (In order of priority from first to last)Quest objectives-> Steal technology (only before 16 Purity, 10 Supremacy AND Harmony)-> Steal Science (only before you have finished the above techs)-> Recruit Defectors OR Steal Energy.
- You can also do other fun stuff with spies, like pillaging their tile improvements, taking down their satellites, or even unleashing colossal aliens on the city. You could even go for a Coup D'etat but this is difficult as it immediately declares war when successful and therefore unless you have units in range, they will just take the city back anyway. Also it immediately removes any intrigue once it becomes yours.
- Despite the word "steal" being in the Steal Energy and Steal Science operations, the enemy doesn't actually lose any, same goes for Steal Technology.
- Do not underestimate stealing energy, especially in the early game. This can really help when you have a negative income, or you need a bit extra to rush buy buildings/units.
- If you are playing against another human, and optionally AI too (although not as powerful), use your spies to destroy their tile improvements when at war with them. Should the faction be playing somewhat efficiently, the city will be rendered virtually useless until they can repair.
- Another really useful Spy project for Multiplayer is taking down their satellites, which enables you to put teleporters there.
- It should be known that a smart Human player will have at least some counter strategy to spies, so these cannot be relied on completely. However, they are lethal when they do work. One strategy that I can think of is if you are on the defense, put all your spies in your own cities so as to reduce the chances of an opponent succeeding with their own spies.
- Another defense layer that Spies can provide is Recruit Defectors gives you lots of free units, a strategy that can cover your continent with units quite quickly.
Unit Upgrades (in order of priority from first to last)
- Additional capacity for Aircraft
- Ignore zones of control when moving
- Offense against Cities
- Offense against wounded units
- Increased Movement
- Increased Range
- Offence against naval, and naval melee
- Increased attack in ALL situations, NOT circumstantial buffs, unless you know what you are doing with them.
- Increased defense
- Rest of the upgrades are whatever just pick what feels good to you.
A short guide to Diplomacy:
- Factions hate it when you help their enemies, so keep the useful factions around by declaring wars, cancelling agreements, or revoking friendships.
- You don't need to completely wipe out an enemy, just take their capital and try to make peace to save time. Or, you could take them out entirely and use the land for your own, it's up to you.
- Alliances are very dangerous to enter in to, despite giving the best rewards. You may be forced into wars you don't want to be in, including between ARC and the Student Aid faction for example. Any war that an Ally declares is a war that you are automatically placed in.
- Making a bad agreement to keep a faction happy can be worth it, but only if you are relying on their agreements.
War advice:
- The key priority of this strategy is getting both strong units and a good production/economy first, before declaring all out wars. So, it pays to not attack until you have this, unless you have to or want to. Ironically it is a lot faster to win a war when you have Aquillions and Phasal Teleporters, than it is to spam Armours/Patrol Boats. Teleporters can end a faction in 3 turns, where as Armours can take multiples of 10, even 100 turns. So, that's why we don't focus on waging war's until much later on.
- AI, and humans too, will prioritize killing melee units first before ranged units, since it is only melee units than can capture cities. Keep these out of harms way, until it is time.
- It can be helpful to clean off the enemies army first before taking a city, so as to not lose melee units when they retake the city. Alternatively, just bring enough melee units to keep taking the city back. The idea here is to have such a high production rate that you quickly overwhelm any foe, so even if they take the city back a few times, you will very quickly be pushing past that city and on to their next, thus distracting them from taking back your new city.
- If you are playing against humans, and sometimes AI too, ALWAYS be prepared for a war at any moment no matter how friendly someone may seem. You can work together as long as you want, but there may come a time where they turn around and declare war for their own reasons.
- In multiplayer, you are boned if someone phasal teleports an army into your empire. You MUST cover all areas with satelites ASAP to prevent this. Simultaneously, you must also keep a large army at home. Human players are notorious for working together and sending large armies all at once in a very intelligent manner, and if your army is off killing another faction instead of defending the home land, the game is quickly over for you.
- For some reason the AI is really dumb with their military tactics, and so even if you have a small army defending your home land, they won't attack you because the AI looks at your over all army size instead. So, you can get away with leaving your cities unprotected to some degree. However, this is less effective in Apollo, where the AI will attack you at all costs anyway.
- When playing with friends, remember that no body forgets anything. If you did them dirty in a previous game, they are sure to remember that the next time. Similarly, if you are a pacifist and known for playing a builder style, which is largely what this strategy is all about in the early/mid game, they may well take advantage of that and rush you early on. You should definitely build an army to compensate for this weakness.
- There seems to be some resentment from people about annexing cities instead of making a puppet or razing them to the ground. There isn't any need for this resentment, because following this strategy allows you to keep any city you like. That being said, losing a city lowers war score and therefore reduces yield from wars, but again, this isn't an issue because our strategy is fool proof in that you don't need to rely on war score to get progress anyway. On the flip side however, a stolen city is a city that can be used against you, so it can pay to raze it to the ground if you don't think you can defend it at all times, especially if playing multiplayer. But otherwise, there isn't any reason why you can't turn it into a unit factory of your own. It is my personal opinion that you should always annex a city as soon as possible, because it takes a certain amount of turns before you can use it your self, and this counter seems to start from the moment you stop puppetting it or razing it. The sooner you have more places to build units from, the more you overwhelm your enemy and can force them into treaties or death.
- AI targets Coastal/Aquatic cities, and very early on. Defending this is quite difficult, and becomes even more so in multiplayer when a human chooses the right unit upgrades that enable them to move past zones of control. It's for this reason we focus on keeping our mega cities off of the water. It isn't fool proof, but it is an added layer of defense. On the flip side, the AI seems to be awful at attacking land cities, in most cases they send boats that get confused and can't do much bombard. A human can do it, but not with relative ease until they too reach t3 upgrades for their armours/rockets. Obviously, this all changes when a faction is on the same land as you, but even then the AI is still bad at land wars.
- It pays to make peace some times, to build up infrastructure and hit back harder. Or another good reason is you have taken their capital, and want to focus on another faction. Always prepare for war though, no one forgets what you have done to them.
- The AI knows when you are about to get unit upgrades, and similarly when they are about to as well. You can see this in how they send an army your way right before they get the upgrades, or they start to sanction you etc. Another example is you are at war, and the AI knows the next turn you get your upgrades so they all of a sudden wants peace. You should be on the look out always for any faction that is getting close to level 7 in any given affinity.
- If you really want to, you can build Aircraft Carriers a lot earlier than the Aquillion and win wars this way. The downside is they cannot go on land, and are very slow to move. Because of this, they cannot use magrails or even just roads, which is even worse when you want to get them to a nearby city asap for teleportation. I would compliment them with teleporters so as to get the best use out of them, but it is definitely possible. Again though, aircraft are awful before 16 Purity.
Further advice:
- If at any point you are losing enough energy that you would reach 0 within 15 turns, it it highly recommended to stop whatever you are doing and use any of the above strategies to gain energy, meaning Thorium Reactors, Field Reactors, Military Maintenance cost, and Energy related Agreements. Worst case scenario, you put a city on converting production to energy for a few turns, whilst you are also working on the previously mentioned fixes.
- It really pays to delay active wars as long as possible, because you are at your strongest when you have completed the above orders. Any wars before this will slow down your completion of the above. That being said, It can be done if you really wanted or are forced to. To compliment this, you can completely annihilate an enemy faction within 3 turns if you have 3 squads of the Aquilion/Tacjet/Armour/Phasal Teleporter. The earliest I would start a war is when you have t3 upgrades for your Armour/patrol boat/destroyer, maybe even t2 if someone is really on your nerves. This means that you might take more turns over all compared with other strategies, but you spend less real life time doing so as it takes a long time to manually move large squads of units every turn before teleporters, and even longer if you can't easily attack their cities with aircraft which are best at t16 purity.
- Most of the time, if you are following this strategy correctly, you should almost never run into Military Capacity issues, but it does happen if you are a bit reckless. Just ease back a bit, found a new city or two, and grow some more population.
- To prove that this is possible with any faction and on Apollo, I have recently done a test run with Kavithia, and it went alright. Unfortunately the AI is really dumb and can be taken advantage of, for example their capital was on land, but most of their cities were in the ocean so I was able to easily take their cities and defend them. I didn't end out finishing the game, because it would have taken me a few hours to get through Africa who had a continent to them selves, but I know it's possible using this strategy.
- One serious downside to this strategy is if you do not have Titanium, you cannot make Aquilon. Therefore it is an absolute priority to get Titanium ASAP when you want to start war. Same with Petroleum for Teleporters.
- In the tech tree, I explain that you could skip farm techs if you wanted. After playing a few games, I have decided I really like these for a few reasons. After 180 turns or so, the game starts to crash if I use Yield Icons, so unfortunately I can no longer micromanage my tile improvements for new cities. Another thing is it can be tedious to manually make Magrails, so I just automate my workers at this point since the farms are better than Biowells at this stage.
- The easiest way to win is to make a Cooperation Agreement with every faction, teleport 3 aquilon with 2 Tacjets on each, and 1 car to their capital cities. Do this for every Capital city in the game, and you will win the game that turn. Realistically, you might not be able to do this with every faction or with every game, but theoretically it is possible. A more realistic approach is to teleport in masses of army as well, so that if it doesn't work out, you can claim their land. The problem with this strategy is as mentioned before, you need Firaxite, Titanium and Petroleum to build Aquilons and Phasal Teleporters.
- Another really broken mechanic is claiming other capitals through peace treaties with dominant factions.
- A strong focus on a Multiplayer style game against real humans, whilst also factoring in playing against AI. I have comments throughout this guide for what can be ignored depending on multiplayer/single player.
- A strong focus on first building our civilisation to a well oiled machine, and then using it to conquer our opponents within a matter of turns, as opposed to being at war as early as possible.
- Unlocking science specialists as a matter of priority, in order to giga juice our science rate, thus reaching the useful unit upgrades ASAP. Specialists are also somewhat of a defensive layer, because if an opponent destroys your tile improvements, your city isn't completely useless.
- A strong focus on having a really high population count, therefore being able to support a large army without having reductions to production from reaching the support cap.
- Unlocking additional spies, which is a lethal weapon in Multiplayer due to how OP tile improvements are and the destruction of these can render a human faction virtually useless
- Unlocking Tacnet Hubs, alongside orbital coverage as a matter of priority which is my first take on how to defend against Phasal Teleporters, particularly useful in Multiplayer if these are allowed. This is untested as of yet, the rest of the guide has been tested many times.
- Hybrid affinity ASAP as it is a lot easier to research, and therefore provides a buff to our existing units a lot sooner, very useful against pressuring enemies. Gives the added buff of we can focus on technologies we actually want, rather than having to pick up useless Purity technologies that are fast to research but provide no meaningful upgrade. By the time we reach the need for 16 Purity, our research rate is ridiculously high so we can focus on the good Purity techs.
- 16 Purity, for the tacjet upgrade that makes them stronger against cities. Other affinities seem to be mediocre compared to Purity when it comes to warfare. We don't focus on 16 Purity for a while though, because it involves a lot of useless techs when our science rate is bad. Plus, a lot of the other techs are very nice quality of life. That being said, I have put options throughout this guide that suggest what to ignore if you wanted to rush 16 Affinity instead.
Disclaimer:
- There are many different ways to play this game, and at the end of the day it's all about having fun. This strategy isn't the only strategy and nor is it the fastest, but it is the one I choose to go with. I like to try out other peoples strategies, which is how I learnt most of what I know, some of which has been adapted into this guide.
- This strategy will get you the Affinity Victory on Soyuz Difficulty very easily, but is tailored towards games where you disable all other victory types except Domination. If you wish to go for an affinity victory instead, just go all in on Harmony instead, but only after you research Transgenics. Harmony is the quickest and easiest victory condition.
- This strategy can also work on Apollo and for the Affinity Victory too, however you will have to adjust the strategy so that your second and third cities are building military and nothing else until the other cities have finished their build order.
- It must also be noted that this strategy is heavily tailored towards Massive maps, and Quick Pace. You can do the exact same strategy on Standard Pace, however you will tech and build slower and therefore have to deal with active wars (wars where combat is actually taking place) a lot sooner than you would otherwise have to.
- Another thing to note is this strategy should work in Multiplayer, however some parts of it are untested as of yet so follow at your own risk. All multiplayer games I have played so far have banned the use of Phasal Teleporters, however I do plan to play some in future and so I may come back and edit this guide then, or additionally make a Multiplayer focused guide on its own. Why I say it should work is it keeps in mind that Phasal Teleporters are a thing, and so includes strategies to defend against this. However, if you notice something in this strategy is not working in Multiplayer than definitely adapt it to your knowledge.
- This is an adaptation on another strategy you can see here, with some additional strategy since the objective is Domination rather than an Affinity victory. The reason I say this does get you the affinity victory is because all of the early game of this strategy is cloned from that guide, with some minor tweaks to adapt to the Domination victory. My guide however takes you beyond the rush for 16 affinity.
- I digress that I may still have room for improvement, and so I welcome feedback/discussion on this post.
- I have attached a Save File as a reference point. Feel free to take a look at what I have done.
- After around turn 180 or so, my game crashes unless I turn off Yield Icons. By this time you won't need to see them anyway.
- I am continuing to update this guide when I discover new things.
Faction Priority:
- Single Player: Hutama -> Africa -> ARC-> Chung Su
- Multiplayer: ARC-> Chung Su-> Hutama-> Africa
- All other factions are not overwhelmingly powerful. China could be good, but requires prioritizing Wonder techs and so therefore needs an entirely different strategy.
- This strategy does however work for any faction, but factions not listed here are just slower and therefore can not guarantee a win on Apollo but it can be fun to try anyway.
- I don't have anywhere else to put this in the guide, but if you choose to play as Russia, you can adapt this strategy to include at least 1 Aquatic Cities city, the Exotic Matter technology (for the Ansible Wonder which allows satellites to overlap, but it can only be made by Aquatic Cities), and weave in Geoscaping for Orbital Fabricators, Orbital Networks for Lasercom Satellites, and Photosystems for Solar Collectors. Whether or not adapting this strategy to include any of this is worth it or not is up to you, as it takes extra turns when the below strategy will get the job done anyway, but it does allow for some interesting flavor.
- ARC/Chung Su are especially good in Multiplayer because Humans are much better at micromanaging than the AI and so tend to quite lucrative to steal from, especially when stealing technology. That being said though, no one actually loses anything despite the word "steal" being in the name of the operations, including recruit defectors. The main reason these two factions are bananas is because they get a lot of spying done quickly, which leads to incredible progression through the tech tree. Another great use is they can destroy a players tile improvements quite liberally, which is far more useful to a human than an AI since the meta is to actually build useful tile improvements, and if these are destroyed then the city becomes virtually unusable immediately until repaired.The only reason the AI is able to compete using just generic tile improvements is because they have inbuilt buffs to everything so they don't need to make good use of tiles.
- Hutama/Africa are a lot more focused on the builder playstyle, but are not to be underestimated since they build very healthy and happy cities quickly which means they can produce incredibly fast.
Colonists: Culture, Reveal Coasts, Pioneering. I strongly advise against using the reveal expedition sites colonist, as this alone makes the game TOO easy in my opinion and you might as well ignore this entire strategy since you will be 16 affinity before anyone else reaches 7.
City Locations priority (prioritize in order from first to last):
- 1 Square between city and coast (only for the first 5 cities)
- If you are planning to make a large amount of cities, 4 Squares away from capital, although I would advise against more than 5 cities until you have Gene Smelters. 4 squares is the minimum distance, thus allowing more cities per map.
- Rivers
- Titanium
- Try to avoid mountains as you cannot improve these tiles.
- Similarly it is kind of good to try and avoid tiles that have no natural food, or cannot allow farms, but this isn't completely necessary since Biowells can be built anywhere.
- Interestingly, an alternative approach is to go all in on Aquatic cities and replace Ecology (Viariums) with Biochemistry (Water Refinery), as this gives the big advantage of having increased health and therefore being able to aim for 7 cities instead of 5 land cities in the early game, thus leading to faster research. The biggest downside to this is that ocean cities are incredibly easy to attack, and are actually prioritized by the enemy AI when they go to attack you. Additionally you cannot gain more tiles without moving them, but if you choose to do this then move them once the cities are close to having enough population to fill ALL specialist slots AND tiles. You can also do a hybrid combination of land/sea cities.
Tech order and their uses:
Chemistry - Recylcer
Genetics - Pharmalab, Cytonursery
Ecology - Vivarium, removing miasma
Physics - Launch Complexes later, required for following tech
Bionics - Biowells, institute
Robotics - Firaxite mines, tacjets, manufactories
Engineering - Thorium Reactor
Computing - Spy Agency
Genetic Design - Maybe Ectogenisis Pod, required for following tech
Transgenics - Gene Smelter, maybe Promethean
Terraforming - Floatstone (not needed), required for following tech
Biospheres - 10% food carried over after growth
Alien Genetics - Culture from Biowells
Claim Nanotechnology from Institute Quest for Nanopastures
Ballistics - Rocket Battery
Defense Grid - Defense Perimeter
Transcendental Math - Markov Eclipse wonder for units fight at full strength
Fabrication - required for following tech
Civil Support - Mag Rails
Artificial Intelligence - CEL cradle for extra Spies and culture, maybe Surveillance Web
Communications - Command Centre for extra spy and city hitpoints, Feedsite Hub for extra Spy, Tacnet Hub for defense against Phasal Teleporters
Field Theory- Field Reactors
Biology - required for following tech
Vertical Farming - Food and Energy from farms, good when taking enemy cities, and putting farms on new tiles
Bioengineering - required for following tech
Industrial Ecology - Production from farms, good when taking enemy cities and putting farms on new tiles
Artificial Evolution - Science from farms, good when taking enemy cities and putting farms on new tiles, Resurrection Device for extra yield from health if wanted but not necessary.
Cognition - required for following tech
Collaborative Thought - Precog Project wonder for units gain 2 additional veterancy
Cybernetics- Node Bank required for following tech
Autogyros - Phasal Teleporters
Augmentation - For following Tech, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Surrogacy- 10% Worker Speed, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Mechatronics - Required for following tech, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Mobile LEV - LEV tanks, Purity XP - Ignore if 16 Purity
Tactical Robotics - Spy Satellites
Alien Sciences - Xenomass - not needed but may as well for affinity xp and making use of it
Organics - required for following tech
Photosystems - Solar Collectors, optionally do this earlier to defend against teleporters. Need this to get hybrid affinity for Aquillion upgrades
Biometallurgy - Aquillion
Astrodynamics - Neoplanitarium for orbital coverage in cities near enemy, good for defense against phasal teleporters, and using phasal teleporters
Geophysics - Geothermal - not needed but free resources and not much else to tech into right now.
Alien Biology- Worker immunity to Miasma
If you are missing Purity, Surrogacy and Mobile LEV are probably good ones to get, nothing else provides a lot for us anymore.
Tech after this is whatever you want, no other tech is of much use and there isn't anything overwhelmingly needed right now so best options would probably be any tech that buffs resources. When you have finished this tech order, aim for 10/16/10 in affinity, so as to get the best yields from Hybrid affinity, prioritizing Purity/Harmony at 10/10 first to get the 25% production towards Military Units. 10 Supremacy/Harmony is really good too, for the 0.4 Health per military unit, fixing any health issues in the late game including negative health from annexed cities. Whilst pure t16 Purity units are stronger than hybrid, it requires a lot of extra turns researching tech we don't care about at different points of the game. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to get hybrid units sooner than it is t3 Purity, and this enables both a stronger defense and a stronger offense much sooner. My tech order focuses purely on tech that provides use to us, whilst also reaching our goals of having enough hybrid affinity that we can get an additional aircraft on the Aquilon from the upgrade. Another key point of this tech order is obtaining additional spies as soon as possible, which is really well suited for multiplayer in that you unlock Tacnet Hubs with the same tech as well as additional city hitpoints from Command Centre, both of which are excellent defensively, plus spies are OP against other humans (see Spies later in the guide). That being said, there is nothing to stop you from ignoring all of the techs after Transgenics except Autogyros, and instead focusing fully on 16 of your chosen affinity if you wanted to. If you do this however, you may gain stronger units sooner at the expense of quality of life from my other techs. In single player, you can forgo the techs for Spies/Tacnets completely if you wish, this is more of a flavor thing and does lead to some crazy advantages, but it isn't necessary. Other techs you can forgo are the farm upgrades, these are just nice to have when you take AI cities since they love to build farms, and it also gives us some Hybrid affinity faster which we need for the Aquilon upgrade. No matter what, you need 5 Supremecy for Phasal Teleporters to land on Firaxite, and so we have opted to go for the most useful Supremecy techs instead of cheap but useless ones. All of that being said, if you get lucky with expeditions you may well have enough Purity to make all of your military units t3 Purity, which occurred in the most recent games I played.
A great tech to add in this list at any point is Alien Biology to make workers immune to miasma, but it's not really needed. In the late game it only costs a couple turns though.
When you get first military unit, either auto explore (not as good but easier), or scout all land surrounding you, then scout all land surrounding enemy capitals.
Explorers: Prioritize Progenitor Ruins/Progenitor Device, all other expeditions are okay if they are close to the explorer. Also grab any nearby Resource Pods. During early exploration, send explorers back to a city to refill on modules. After this, scout all land surrounding enemy capitals to ensure that you can visibly see all of their cities in order to put all covert agents into 1 faction during war. It should be known that if you are playing either ARC or Chung Su, it can pay to scout enemy territories rather than using all explorer modules, so that you can make the most out of your spies sooner. The downside to this of course is you may miss out on the Artefact Rewards, which are really quite strong, so I will leave it up to you to decide this.
Build Order: When following this, understand that each game is different and you have to adapt to the environment. This is more a heirarchy, rather than exactly what to do. For example, some games you may have a terrible supply of energy and so you must build Thorium Reactors sooner than ideal. Same with Vivariums. Otherwise, Science is priority.
- Capital: Old Earth Relic -> Trade Depot -> Trade Unit-> Recycler -> Colonist -> 2 explorers-> Laboratory -> Clinic -> Pharmalab -> 5 workers ->Institute -> Vivarium-> Nanopasture -> Gene Smelter->Thorium reactor->All additional Trade Convoys->Warp Spire->Drone Command->Nanothermite->Markov Eclipse (when available)-> Field Reactor->Neoplanitarium->Convert to food. Always convert to food when there is nothing else to build in capital. When building wonders, switch the city to focusing on production from tiles, but back to food any other time. Rush buy Nanopasture if you have the money, do not rush buy anything else until this is done.
- Second City: Trade Depot -> Trade Unit -> Recycler -> Colonist -> Old Earth Relic -> Clinic -> Laboratory -> Pharmalab -> 5 soldiers-> Thorium Reactor->Institute->Nanopasture->Gene Smelter->Vivarium->All additional Trade Convoys->Drone Command-> Warp Spire->Frontier Stadium->Military (see "Military").
- All Other Cities : Depot -> Recycler -> Colonist -> Old Earth Relic -> Clinic -> Pharmalab -> Trade Convoy ->Thorium Reactor->Optionally build more military->Laboratory->Cytonursery->Vivarium->Institute->Nanopasture->Gene Smelter->All additional trade convoys->Drone Command->Warp Spire->Frontier Stadium
- Any city after first 5: Do not build the following - Institute, Laboratory, Nanopasture, Cytonursery.
- Build Launch Complex and Neoplanitarium in cities that are close to enemies, but only if you want to phasal teleport into them. If playing Multiplayer, you must build these as soon as they available, and fill orbital coverage with satellites ASAP.
- Build Defence Perimiter, Rocket Battery, Command Centre, Node bank, and 3 Tacjets in all cities near enemy, as a matter of priority after Trade Depot and Recylcer. Rush buy Trade Convoy's and Recyclers in these cities. Additionally, send Armour's from initial cities to these cities. If in multiplayer, build these in ALL cities.
- Also optionally build CEL cradles in all cities, to get more Culture but it's not really needed.
- Build Command Center/Cel Cradle/Feedsite Hub (build all 3 asap in any city with nothing to do and as soon as possible, these give extra spies as a quest reward). You only need to build these once to gain the quest rewards, except for Command Centre.
- After all of the above are complete, or nothing else to build (except capital), see military for what to build. Sometimes it helps to stop building the above if you are at war, but only build enough to defend.
- Captured Cities: Trade Depot-> Trade Convoy (to highest production)-> Recycler-> Military -> Optionally add Gene Smelters if your health is suffering. Same as before, rush buy Recycler and Trade Convoy's in these cities, but only if they are not at risk of being taken.
- ALWAYS fill specialist slots, especially if you have Student Aid, and even more so if playing Africa. There may be times where you shouldn't, but the buildings we have selected are so good that they should be used. When you have finished your techs, you can take specialists out of science buildings and place them on production.
- All cities should be manually focused on food from tiles, and then switch to production from tiles once your cities reach above 23 population, or they are building a Wonder. The biggest reason for this is because at any point in the game you might not have the Student Aid agreement and so you need to be able to feed your citizens. Furthermore, you get your third trade convoy at 23 citizens, making it even easier to feed your citizens.
- At any point that you don't have anything to build, and you DO NOT have your t3 upgrades for Armour/Destroyer/Patrol Boat, convert production into Science in any city that is not your capital. Do this at your own risk, as you may find a military more helpful especially if playing Apollo. You could instead do a mix of science in some cities, and military in others.
- No other building is worth the time, only build what is mentioned here.
- If you have the energy, it can be worth saving it to rush buy Recycler and Trade Convoys in new cities, but do not rush buy anything before you have all of the above buildings set up in the capital.
- In the late game (past 25 population in each of the 5 main cities), you can switch your capital from making food to building whatever you like. However, continuing to convert to food is excellent for feeding new/conquered cities so it does pay to keep it doing so. Up to you what you do here, either works.
- Build the Markov Eclipse wonder, Nanothermite, and the Precog Project Wonder. Nanothermite and Markov Eclipse feel incredibly strong, so I would definitely get these asap. Precog Wonder helps a bit too, but focus on the other 2 first. All other wonders are nice, but not necessary and take a lot of turns that could be used for other things. Obviously, put these in cities with the highest production so you can get back to making military sooner.
- If you are being left alone, and have nothing but Military to build, you could send out some extra colonists.
All trade convoys go to Capital first, then to whichever has the highest food, then which ever has the highest Science. Your second trade convoy should be sent to outposts, and put on standby until any future outposts are placed. Any convoys to capital should be repeated, then all other convoys should not be repeated. Convoys from captured cities go to highest production or food depending on the cities use. If it's going to take a long time to get use out of the city, put them on production and call it a day. If it's early on, and you want more mega cities, put it on food and it will quickly become another one. AVOID sending convoys through or even close to another factions territory. If you are having trouble with aliens, build an Ultrasonic Fence and claim the quest option that stops them from attacking your convoys.
It can be worth escorting colonists and workers with a combat unit, especially on Biomes where the native life tends to be aggressive. Check this Wiki page for more info. https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Biome_(CivBE)
Millitary:
- Planes are terrible until t3 upgrades so best to wait.
- Early game (before t3 upgrades) soldiers/patrol boats first as these get upgrades sooner and will be needed for defense. You are only really using them in case someone attacks you, so keep them nearby.
- Mid game (t3 Hybrid Upgrades for Armour/Destroyer/Patrol Boats)- build Armour and Destroyers, alongside Patrol Boats. Patrol Boats are not for attacking units, keep these safe so they can capture a city. 3 Patrol boats and 3 Destroyers is the optimal squad for taking coastal cities. Make multiple squads of these, but ensure you leave some at home to defend. If you know the enemy has land cities which you desire, bring Armours along with the squads, but only if they can hover over water. Basically, there is no defined magic number for how much army you need, pretty much just keep building squads and sending them to the enemy until they give in.
- Late game (10/16/10 affinity) - build squads of 1 Aquillion, 4 armors, 2 planes to put on Aquillion, and 1 phasal teleporter.
- If you are playing Multiplayer, then as soon as Tacnet Hub is available, place them everywhere that you have orbital coverage, and solar collectors to fill any gaps. This is extremely important to defend against Phasal Teleporter strategies, and must be done as soon as possible. Prioritize the techs for tacnet/solar collector over any other tech, and rush build an army if you know that anyone is getting close to teleporting to you. Unfortunately there isn't an easy way to know this, but if you see another Human focusing on Supremecy first and they are nearing level 5 then that is one big clue.
- It should be known that the Armour has terrible combat stats, and dies really quickly. However, their mobility makes them excellent and therefore all other units are bad as speed is key. It is for this reason that it is strongly recommended that they be accompanied by an Aquillion with 2 tacjets, as the tacjets can take out any units that would harm your Armours.
- Armours and Patrol boats are TERRIBLE at reducing City Hitpoints, so must be accompanied by some form of Rocket/Destroyer/LEV Tank/Tacjet. Any one of these will do, but bring at least 2 of these units.
- It should also be known that the LEV tank is an excellent land version of the Destroyer. However, T3 Purity Tacjets are just as good at reducing City Hitpoints and have more mobility. If you aren't close to 10/16/10 affinity, optionally add the Mobile LEV technology if you plan on conquest before you obtain Aquillions.
- Do NOT kill aliens in the early game unless you have to, these will disturb your progress, and they will kill your workers/colonists/explorers, furthermore they are way too strong for your units to handle. You can kill them if they are not Blue (Friendly) once you have t2 unit upgrades, which can be nice to get free unit upgrades/quest rewards.
- My three favorite units in the game are SABR, LEV Tank, and Aquillion. Unfortunately, 2 out of 3 of these are out classed by other units. The SABR could be an amazing defense, and I have really enjoyed them in combat since they hit so hard and have a nice range, but unfortunately they move way too slowly and also cost Firaxite which we need for Aquilon. If you can get around the mobility issue of SABR then they are a lot of fun to use.
- One potential early game defense against Phasal Teleporters is keeping an Artillary stood on any nearby Firaxite, as this can shoot down the satelites. You have to be fast though if you are playing simultaneous turns as they can bring the army in real time.
- I have never really bothered mass buying units in the late game, but I know that I should. This guide accounts for the fact you should, and will help you do such. If you like to Purchase Units, going with Liquidity in the Virtue tree instead of Scalable Infrastructure is a really good choice.
- In the early game, if you find your self on an island to your self, and you have managed to keep all of your cities at least 1 tile between them and the water, you could instead just build tacjets as these will shoot down any land units that are not t3 and instantly kill them whilst they are embarked in the water. This is a gamble in multiplayer however, because the opponent may have already reached t3.
Virtue tree:
Prosperity: Frugality -> Homesteading->Colony Initiative->Workforce Initiative->Pathfinders->
Industry: Labor Logistics->Commoditization->Standardized Architecture->Profiteering-> Interdependence Network->Social Investment->Civic Duty->Magnasanti->Investment->Scalable Infrastructure->
Might: Adaptive Tactics->Military-Industrial Complex-> Public Security->Adaptive Sciences->Martial Meditations->Integrated Arms->Democratized Quartering->Channeled Wrath-> Army Engineering Corps->Brutal Efficiency-> After this pick whichever virtue you want.
- Liberation Army and Special Service are quite good, but the issue is we are unlikely to reach Channeled Wrath by the time we are declaring wars if we go this route and we really want at least Democratised Quartering because it massively helps our economy. It's up to you, the intrigue is very nice for our spies though. In my recent testing, I only made it to Integrated Arms before I declared my first active war, however my economy was fine enough that I didn't need Democratized Quartering yet. If you build a lot of units, you do need Democratized Quartering ASAP or your economy will get floored. I think there is a really good case for getting these virtues early in the game if you are playing Multiplayer, see Spies for more info.
- If you like to Purchase Units, going with Liquidity in the Industry tree instead of Scalable Infrastructure is a really good choice.
- It should be noted that you can instead go all in on the Might tree, and this actually enables combat a lot earlier, however I much prefer having my infrastructure built as I like to have high affinity, and a healthy civilization that can produce units real fast.
- Another really good option with the virtue tree is instead prioritizing Brutal Efficiency, for 50% quantity from strategic resources. This can be necessary for games where you don't have a lot of Firaxite, Titanium, or Petroleum.
Tile improvements (in order of priority, i.e prioritize the top of the list first, if its not needed then go down the list):
- Basic Resources-> Strategic Resources-> Biowells-> Mines-> Farms->Magrails/roads)->Manufactories-> Clearing Miasma (if not Harmony).
- When you have both Vertical Farming and Industrial Ecology, switch to building farms and stop building Biowells. Optionally replace Biowells with Farms, but only when you run out of space, which you shouldn't as you will have enough to keep your workers busy. Do not buy tiles unless it is for a strategic advantage. Obviously, if you aren't going with the farm techs, just don't build them.
- Prioritize squares that have energy, tiles that don't have miasma, land tiles, and tiles without a forest. Only improve "bad" squares when all others are improved.
- Avoid tiles near aliens, as you cannot kill them until at least t2 unit upgrades and aliens are notorious for pillaging your improvements, or even killing your worker. Sea tiles are good, but aliens love to roam these and since we can't enter the water until we have boats or t3 land units, it's best to focus on land tiles first.
- Always clear miasma first on a tile that you plan to improve unless you are playing Harmony. You do NOT want a Harmony faction getting buffs from your miasma tiles!!
- It can be nice to build magrails leading to enemy territory, but do so at your own risk as they can use them too!
- There was a time where I would build 1 Manufactory for every city, and this was really good for getting new cities to produce quickly, but that was before I swapped to this strategy of spamming Biowells/Farms. That being said, they are still quite good and I think you should still do this as long as your health can support it.
- When you get magrails, start building them towards the capital after they have finished what they were already working on. After that, go back to the list of priorities.
Traits:
Internal Trade Routes-> Increased City Conversions->-> Cheaper Military maintenance-> Factions Trait-> Agreements. If your faction trait is good, you should get this before Cheaper maintenance unless you are having serious energy issues. If you are playing ARC/Chung Su, AND you didn't get the Artifact OR the agreement/trait (you do not need all three) for quicker spies, then change Increased City Conversions to Increased Spy speed. Spy speed caps at 80%, therefore you only need a combination of ANY two spy speed upgrades. Another thing to note is you can swap the Cheaper Military maintenance with Military production if you wish, but this strategy does have issues with energy so it can become quite problematic. The way to get around this is to convert Biowells into Farms once you have the relevant techs, but you do want to keep Biowells around for health which I personally feel are a bit more useful since when we take a city our health drops.
Artifact rewards (In order of priority, i.e do not use artifacts until these are available, but if it's getting near the end of your explorers modules unlock the next one in the list and so on):
Increased Covert Operation Speed -> Warp Spire-> Increased Worker Speed-> Drone Command-> Frontier Stadium. Rest are whatever, if you don't have artifacts for any of these rewards, just mix and match until you find something nice. As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Agreements:
- Student Aid is top priority over any other agreement, play diplomacy with the faction that has it whether it means starting wars with their enemies, and making agreements with them or their friends if you have to keep them from sanctioning you.
- ARC increased Covert Operation Speed, play diplomacy with ARC whether it means starting wars with their enemies, and making agreements with ARC or their friends if you have to keep them from sanctioning you. Spy speed caps at 80%, therefore you only need a combination of ANY two spy speed upgrades.
- ARC Increased spy rank (not needed if you take the Surveilance Web Quest reward)
After those 3, the agreements aren't necessary, but the best one to get is energy per tile of land, second best is % income, and last is generic + yield from strategic resources.
- You are not guaranteed to get any of these agreements at all in every game, so just deal with the deficits if you can't.
- As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Quest rewards:
- Culture from Old Earth Relic
- Health from Clinics
- Explorer Module from Laboratory
- Production from Trade Depots
- Food from Recyclers
- Energy from Thorium Reactors
- Production from Cytonurseries
- Food from Vivariums
- Free tech from Institute
- Health from Gene Smelters
- Purity Affinity until 16, then supremacy AND harmony until both are at 10, after that it doesn't matter.
- Always free Covert Agents
- Increased City Hitpoints unless any of the above
- Always Orbital Coverage, unless any of the above
- Spies take fewer actions to advance in rank (Not needed if you are best friends with ARC AND have their agreement for additional ranks)
- After that it doesn't matter, just go with whatever you want.
- As mentioned previously in the guide, you can ignore spies in Single player if you want.
Spies:
- (In order of priority from first to last)Quest objectives-> Steal technology (only before 16 Purity, 10 Supremacy AND Harmony)-> Steal Science (only before you have finished the above techs)-> Recruit Defectors OR Steal Energy.
- You can also do other fun stuff with spies, like pillaging their tile improvements, taking down their satellites, or even unleashing colossal aliens on the city. You could even go for a Coup D'etat but this is difficult as it immediately declares war when successful and therefore unless you have units in range, they will just take the city back anyway. Also it immediately removes any intrigue once it becomes yours.
- Despite the word "steal" being in the Steal Energy and Steal Science operations, the enemy doesn't actually lose any, same goes for Steal Technology.
- Do not underestimate stealing energy, especially in the early game. This can really help when you have a negative income, or you need a bit extra to rush buy buildings/units.
- If you are playing against another human, and optionally AI too (although not as powerful), use your spies to destroy their tile improvements when at war with them. Should the faction be playing somewhat efficiently, the city will be rendered virtually useless until they can repair.
- Another really useful Spy project for Multiplayer is taking down their satellites, which enables you to put teleporters there.
- It should be known that a smart Human player will have at least some counter strategy to spies, so these cannot be relied on completely. However, they are lethal when they do work. One strategy that I can think of is if you are on the defense, put all your spies in your own cities so as to reduce the chances of an opponent succeeding with their own spies.
- Another defense layer that Spies can provide is Recruit Defectors gives you lots of free units, a strategy that can cover your continent with units quite quickly.
Unit Upgrades (in order of priority from first to last)
- Additional capacity for Aircraft
- Ignore zones of control when moving
- Offense against Cities
- Offense against wounded units
- Increased Movement
- Increased Range
- Offence against naval, and naval melee
- Increased attack in ALL situations, NOT circumstantial buffs, unless you know what you are doing with them.
- Increased defense
- Rest of the upgrades are whatever just pick what feels good to you.
A short guide to Diplomacy:
- Factions hate it when you help their enemies, so keep the useful factions around by declaring wars, cancelling agreements, or revoking friendships.
- You don't need to completely wipe out an enemy, just take their capital and try to make peace to save time. Or, you could take them out entirely and use the land for your own, it's up to you.
- Alliances are very dangerous to enter in to, despite giving the best rewards. You may be forced into wars you don't want to be in, including between ARC and the Student Aid faction for example. Any war that an Ally declares is a war that you are automatically placed in.
- Making a bad agreement to keep a faction happy can be worth it, but only if you are relying on their agreements.
War advice:
- The key priority of this strategy is getting both strong units and a good production/economy first, before declaring all out wars. So, it pays to not attack until you have this, unless you have to or want to. Ironically it is a lot faster to win a war when you have Aquillions and Phasal Teleporters, than it is to spam Armours/Patrol Boats. Teleporters can end a faction in 3 turns, where as Armours can take multiples of 10, even 100 turns. So, that's why we don't focus on waging war's until much later on.
- AI, and humans too, will prioritize killing melee units first before ranged units, since it is only melee units than can capture cities. Keep these out of harms way, until it is time.
- It can be helpful to clean off the enemies army first before taking a city, so as to not lose melee units when they retake the city. Alternatively, just bring enough melee units to keep taking the city back. The idea here is to have such a high production rate that you quickly overwhelm any foe, so even if they take the city back a few times, you will very quickly be pushing past that city and on to their next, thus distracting them from taking back your new city.
- If you are playing against humans, and sometimes AI too, ALWAYS be prepared for a war at any moment no matter how friendly someone may seem. You can work together as long as you want, but there may come a time where they turn around and declare war for their own reasons.
- In multiplayer, you are boned if someone phasal teleports an army into your empire. You MUST cover all areas with satelites ASAP to prevent this. Simultaneously, you must also keep a large army at home. Human players are notorious for working together and sending large armies all at once in a very intelligent manner, and if your army is off killing another faction instead of defending the home land, the game is quickly over for you.
- For some reason the AI is really dumb with their military tactics, and so even if you have a small army defending your home land, they won't attack you because the AI looks at your over all army size instead. So, you can get away with leaving your cities unprotected to some degree. However, this is less effective in Apollo, where the AI will attack you at all costs anyway.
- When playing with friends, remember that no body forgets anything. If you did them dirty in a previous game, they are sure to remember that the next time. Similarly, if you are a pacifist and known for playing a builder style, which is largely what this strategy is all about in the early/mid game, they may well take advantage of that and rush you early on. You should definitely build an army to compensate for this weakness.
- There seems to be some resentment from people about annexing cities instead of making a puppet or razing them to the ground. There isn't any need for this resentment, because following this strategy allows you to keep any city you like. That being said, losing a city lowers war score and therefore reduces yield from wars, but again, this isn't an issue because our strategy is fool proof in that you don't need to rely on war score to get progress anyway. On the flip side however, a stolen city is a city that can be used against you, so it can pay to raze it to the ground if you don't think you can defend it at all times, especially if playing multiplayer. But otherwise, there isn't any reason why you can't turn it into a unit factory of your own. It is my personal opinion that you should always annex a city as soon as possible, because it takes a certain amount of turns before you can use it your self, and this counter seems to start from the moment you stop puppetting it or razing it. The sooner you have more places to build units from, the more you overwhelm your enemy and can force them into treaties or death.
- AI targets Coastal/Aquatic cities, and very early on. Defending this is quite difficult, and becomes even more so in multiplayer when a human chooses the right unit upgrades that enable them to move past zones of control. It's for this reason we focus on keeping our mega cities off of the water. It isn't fool proof, but it is an added layer of defense. On the flip side, the AI seems to be awful at attacking land cities, in most cases they send boats that get confused and can't do much bombard. A human can do it, but not with relative ease until they too reach t3 upgrades for their armours/rockets. Obviously, this all changes when a faction is on the same land as you, but even then the AI is still bad at land wars.
- It pays to make peace some times, to build up infrastructure and hit back harder. Or another good reason is you have taken their capital, and want to focus on another faction. Always prepare for war though, no one forgets what you have done to them.
- The AI knows when you are about to get unit upgrades, and similarly when they are about to as well. You can see this in how they send an army your way right before they get the upgrades, or they start to sanction you etc. Another example is you are at war, and the AI knows the next turn you get your upgrades so they all of a sudden wants peace. You should be on the look out always for any faction that is getting close to level 7 in any given affinity.
- If you really want to, you can build Aircraft Carriers a lot earlier than the Aquillion and win wars this way. The downside is they cannot go on land, and are very slow to move. Because of this, they cannot use magrails or even just roads, which is even worse when you want to get them to a nearby city asap for teleportation. I would compliment them with teleporters so as to get the best use out of them, but it is definitely possible. Again though, aircraft are awful before 16 Purity.
Further advice:
- If at any point you are losing enough energy that you would reach 0 within 15 turns, it it highly recommended to stop whatever you are doing and use any of the above strategies to gain energy, meaning Thorium Reactors, Field Reactors, Military Maintenance cost, and Energy related Agreements. Worst case scenario, you put a city on converting production to energy for a few turns, whilst you are also working on the previously mentioned fixes.
- It really pays to delay active wars as long as possible, because you are at your strongest when you have completed the above orders. Any wars before this will slow down your completion of the above. That being said, It can be done if you really wanted or are forced to. To compliment this, you can completely annihilate an enemy faction within 3 turns if you have 3 squads of the Aquilion/Tacjet/Armour/Phasal Teleporter. The earliest I would start a war is when you have t3 upgrades for your Armour/patrol boat/destroyer, maybe even t2 if someone is really on your nerves. This means that you might take more turns over all compared with other strategies, but you spend less real life time doing so as it takes a long time to manually move large squads of units every turn before teleporters, and even longer if you can't easily attack their cities with aircraft which are best at t16 purity.
- Most of the time, if you are following this strategy correctly, you should almost never run into Military Capacity issues, but it does happen if you are a bit reckless. Just ease back a bit, found a new city or two, and grow some more population.
- To prove that this is possible with any faction and on Apollo, I have recently done a test run with Kavithia, and it went alright. Unfortunately the AI is really dumb and can be taken advantage of, for example their capital was on land, but most of their cities were in the ocean so I was able to easily take their cities and defend them. I didn't end out finishing the game, because it would have taken me a few hours to get through Africa who had a continent to them selves, but I know it's possible using this strategy.
- One serious downside to this strategy is if you do not have Titanium, you cannot make Aquilon. Therefore it is an absolute priority to get Titanium ASAP when you want to start war. Same with Petroleum for Teleporters.
- In the tech tree, I explain that you could skip farm techs if you wanted. After playing a few games, I have decided I really like these for a few reasons. After 180 turns or so, the game starts to crash if I use Yield Icons, so unfortunately I can no longer micromanage my tile improvements for new cities. Another thing is it can be tedious to manually make Magrails, so I just automate my workers at this point since the farms are better than Biowells at this stage.
- The easiest way to win is to make a Cooperation Agreement with every faction, teleport 3 aquilon with 2 Tacjets on each, and 1 car to their capital cities. Do this for every Capital city in the game, and you will win the game that turn. Realistically, you might not be able to do this with every faction or with every game, but theoretically it is possible. A more realistic approach is to teleport in masses of army as well, so that if it doesn't work out, you can claim their land. The problem with this strategy is as mentioned before, you need Firaxite, Titanium and Petroleum to build Aquilons and Phasal Teleporters.
- Another really broken mechanic is claiming other capitals through peace treaties with dominant factions.
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