Campaign Guide (4 Weeks)

This is a Campaign Guide for the 4 weeks category, the same principle from Skirmish applies where this category also does not have a set "route" as it can change WILDLY based on a lot of factors. As always please let me know if I've missed anything and/or you want to add something to this guide.

# Pre-run Setup 
The same applies to this run:

These are the settings that you must have ticked or unticked in the options menu before any run:

Under the Gameplay tab:
Auto-Pause on Selection: Unticked
Auto-Pause on Tabs: Unticked

The rest is based on your preference.

# Campaign Setup
In the 'Choose your CEO' menu, next to the 'next' button there is a cogwheel that shows settings for the Campaign, it should be set as follows:

Reveal Map: Ticked
Change Speed: Ticked

The rest are unticked

# During the Run

One very important thing to note:
DO NOT take ANY auctions, no matter how juicy the offering is, it is not worth the time hit, this will make your runs a little bit harder since your opponents will get benefits and can close the gap but from a speedrunning standpoint, this will give you a minimum of 1 min of a time save with a maximum of 10 depending on how much back and forth bidding there is. It would be far better to skip the auction (shift + click the minimize button for the auction window). Best to rely on your pre-round planning phase (contract & hiring) to get what you need.

The same advice from Skirmish applies but it is a widely different ball park. Campaign works like this:

Week 1 - 3 requires you to buy stock from the colony instead of buying out your opponent, the week ends once it reaches SOL 7, whoever has the most stock at the end wins the week
Week 4 is the same as Skirmish where you buy out your opponent but this time its against 4 opponents with the added benefits from hiring employees

This leads us nicely to the next part of Campaign:

Hiring Employees - essentially this is where you are able to hire out buildings to build during the round, the defacto "planning" stage. Sometimes they may give out free buildings in the Specialists & Upgrades section but it is ultimately RNG

For Week 1, you can take your time in thinking on what to hire as the timer doesn't start until you get into game and place down your base but for every other week after that, you have to aim for, at the very least, a 1 min planning round.

My advice for this is to take note of what you have available at the start in Week 1 and adjust accordingly, remember that you also have a set budget based on your performance so some options may not be viable/greyed out.

One important piece of advice I can give you to make your life easier and do your planning fast is to remember this:

Free > Permanent > Contract

Power > Specialists > Resources

To further explain, if you can get a Free Power OR Specialist building then aim for that, if you can only hire permanently then do so but keep in mind on what you have for free as it can be wildly inefficient to have two patents, optimization or hacker arrrays, Pleasure Domes are fine however. Power is also very important as most of the time you may have to rely on Solar Panels which DOES NOT produce power at NIGHT, if you are left to fight with that then your debt will soar and may potentially lock you out of blackmarkets and can cause a huge detriment to your spending power in buying stocks or your opponents. Ideally you would want all 3 or at least 2 of the power buildings in order to complement each other. Specialists are also an important aspect in Campaign as it can potentially increase your profits both in game and in the planning phase, ideally you should have:

Optimization > Patent > Pleasure Dome > Offworld Market > Hacker Array

Optimization is VERY important as it can tip your profits by insane amounts if done properly, all the while using the smallest amount of buildings you can erect for each resource, it is also very useful when you find yourself lacking Power or any resource due to buying stocks (yes each stock bought in weeks 1-3 costs you 0.01 of your resources (Habitats consume Oxygen, Fuel and Food, The rest consumes Glass, Power, Electronics respectively) for each building you have) or if your opponent decides to sabotage you.

Patents can be whatever you feel that you need at the moment, I suggest reading up on what they do before attempting to speedrun, I personally find these to be useful:
VR Patent
Carbon Scrubbing
Teleportation

The rest are so-so in terms of efficiency and profits but can be useful in a pinch (lack of power buildings etc)

Pleasure Dome is your best friend - if you can protect it that is. It will net you HUGE gains if you pair it with the VR Patent and a Goon Squad to protect it, even without the VR patent it will still be a big benefit.

Offworld Market is more useful in Week 4 rather than the earlier weeks but it still has a use in Week 1 - 3 if you want to buy out all the stocks as it will increase your planning profits but generally its rare to find a permanent hire Offworld Market during Week 1 - 3

Hacker Array is generally useless in my opinion, while yes it can change prices but you're gaining profits FROM ALL of your resources so there's little point in changing.

Generally, Week 1 - 3 is a matter of accomodating for bought stocks, nothing can be done to make it faster other than menuing and making sure that you win in the end, so you can take your sweet time for the 7 SOLs that it takes. Week 4 is where it all matters.

Week 4 is pretty much a Skirmish match but with future planning, by this stage you would have at least 2 or more power buildings unlocked and some specialist buildings, during planning its best to follow what I wrote earlier and aim for Free specialist buildings, if there aren't any then aim for contracting (due to it being one week (final week), you can only contract) specialist buildings over anything else because by then most of your resource buildings would have been unlocked, the only remaining ones are either patents or blackmarket benefits.

Your objective in Week 4 is different because you have to buyout 4 different companies, there will ALWAYS be one that will try to buy their stocks to about 50% making your run EVEN SLOWER as you have to pay a larger sum than their stock price, this will hit the 108k+ area and will be VERY difficult to raise without an offworld market + Pleasure Dome + Optimizations, with those three buildings you would be able to lower your time as Offworld Markets give 15k -50k per shipment in 15 - 20 seconds, the rest will be covered by your Optimized resources and Pleasure Dome/s

# Closing Statement
I honestly wouldn't even call this a guide but more of an advisory guide because of how difficult it is to route this game but honestly its very fun to have on the spot judgement and decision making that I don't even pay it any mind.

Skirmish Guide

This is a starting guide (sort of- there's no set route) for Skirmish, for new runners that might be interested in running the Skirmish Category. It is not a set in stone guide by any means as there are multiple ways to finishing skirmish, rather it tells you how to setup the game and what to look out for in forming your own build routes. It is sort of a WIP as I keep finding things that shave off some time the more I play. I will update if I find more advice to shave off time. Please do tell me if there's something missing or if you want to add to this guide


# Pre-run Setup
These are the settings that you must have ticked or unticked in the options menu before any run:

Under the Gameplay tab:
Auto-Pause on Selection: Unticked
Auto-Pause on Tabs: Unticked

The rest is based on your preference.

# Skirmish Setup
Ideally your settings should be as following:
Difficulty: Applicant
Location: Mars
Map Size: Tiny
Preset Map: Default
AI Players: 1
Other settings that haven't been mentioned include:
Map Type and Map Seed
I intentionally left Map Type out as it can be changed to a set Map and will give some advantages but it ultimately depends on the RNG for resources and Base placements. Which means you may be able to change it but it would still be the same outcome with negligible advantages. As for Map Seed, well there's no resource for seed searching currently so I left that out.

As for the Game Rules option:

Game Speed: Blazing
Resource Minimum: Double
Latitude Type: Equator

Ticked Options:
No Auctions
No Random Events
No Sabotage
Reveal Map
Change Speed

Unticked Options:
Advanced Sabotage
Random Prices
Stock Delay
Stock Victory
Include All HQs
Marathon Mode

# During the Run
Most, if not, all runs will have different RNG resources, base placements, black markets and terrain, so its difficult to narrow down a "route" so to speak. I can only give specific advice but ultimately the rest is up to the runner's discretion on what build route to take:

1. Your goal is to reach Level 4 - 5 as soon as possible as it gives you the most opportunity to buy out your opponent

2. Pleasure Dome > Patent > Optimization > Offworld Market - The reason for this is because you get more out of the Pleasure Dome than anything else, sure it may be better to have the VR patent (hence its place in the ladder) however Pleasure Dome gives off $140 off the bat, if placed correctly which is a huge gain. Patents take a while to come into fruition and the same applies to optimization despite their meager resource conditions. Finally the Offworld Market in a short skirmish is very difficult to pull off as it requires an ABSURD amount of resources and/or money with a diminishing return in terms of time (15 - 20 secs to earn 30-50k)

3. Always place your base as near as possible to resources in order to save fuel generated from your electrolysis reactor & always go for high resources rather than skimping out due to the resource being much closer than the high resource. To put it simply:
If resource = high then build regardless of fuel cost else build according to fuel cost

4. Always auto-sell at the beginning of each run, NEVER have stock in your inventory

5. DO NOT over commit to one resource - its a economy sim, if there's demand great, if there's none you lose profits making you much slower.

6. Always have set build pattern & NEVER use the blackmarket UNLESS it has stims, if so then use the stim on buildings that give you the most based on the price.

7. DO NOT over claim - if you have enough buildings to generate at least 0.5+ resources and it is selling well then there is no need to claim & build more as it costs money.

# Build Path
If you're curious as to what my current build path is:
Base --> 2x Aluminium, 2x Iron --> 1x Steel Mill --> 2-3x Reactors (based on fuel consumption) --> 2x Water Pumps --> 2x Windmill --> 1x Geothermal --> 1x Carbon Quarry, 1x Silicon Quarry --> 2x Electronics, 2x Chemicals, 2x Glass --> 1x Pleasure Dome --> 2x Food

This ALWAYS changes depending on the map, what resources is more in demand, blackmarket items and what makes me bleed money and yes this is a wildly different build to what I did in my skirmish run, this is somewhat more condensed with less money bleedout from having 4 steel mills as I find that they always end up being $1 in the market along with aluminium & iron but those two are important resources for glass & electronics.

# Conclusion
The rest is up to the runner's instincts/guts on what they can do to make their run better as there are many ways to buy out your opponent, a good example would be double Pleasure Dome with the VR patent but that would require extra steps so if you can make it work then go for it.

Name	Author
Campaign Guide (4 Weeks)	Mqkoto 3 years ago
Skirmish Guide	Mqkoto 3 years ago