Posted April 04, 2022
I am going to rewrite what I put here before, so hopefully GoG will let me do a complete edit since I was not as clear as I would like.
I have played this game quite a bit over the years, from back when it came out, to getting it again from GoG a couple years ago. Just recently I went through and completed what I consider to be the "win conditions," even though technically there aren't any.
But I will say that I think, for many people, just getting to an even bank balance would be a win condition. It actually is quite easy, but it doesn't seem so at first. I will discuss how to do it.
Then, another possible win condition would be to get the highest gift structures, which come at 500 million souls in heaven and hell. This is a lot more time to achieve, but also is not especially difficult.
The highest win condition people usually set is to get love domes and omnibolges. This is quite a bit more difficult, because you have to manage your space pretty carefully. I will give a couple hints about it.
Beyond that, another goal you might set yourself is to have one of every fate structure. Surprisingly, this may be the most effort to achieve (harder than domes and bolges). Or rather, it is almost impossible without some tricks, but I will tell you how.
There is some good information already available on the game, and I won't recap most of it. But there are some things I haven't seen anyone else say. Of course they may have said it somewhere--I just haven't seen it. So, I will draw attention to the things I thing are new, because they might be useful.
Also, I will post screenshots of my recent game, which achieved love dome/omnibolge. It also was completionist--with one of each fate structure--at least I think I got all of them.
So, here were go:
First, fairly obviously, you want to get a good map to start with. You are going to be playing a long time if you plan to "finish" the game You want to get a map with a minimum amount of river, a minimum amount of karma portals, and a minimum amount of rocks. Also the rocks should be grouped together as much as possible and not spread out. You will want every bit of space if you are going for ominbolge/love domes, so set yourself up from the start. It is worth it to look at about 20 maps before you start, because that only takes a minute, compared to playing for hours with a bad map.
Second, money is the main constraint in the early game. Overcoming money is the first victory condition that many people will face. However, it is quite easy once you realize a few things. If you are a bit careful with your money, you will have enough to last about 800 years. Then you will be broke. There is almost no way around it. So, resolve to live with it. Your easy workaround is to get two hell banks and alternate loans between them. They don't charge interest so it's free money. Around year 800, get that first loan. You will still be losing money at this time. However, around year 1200 you will start to make money. Around year 1500 you will be able to pay off the loan. By year 2500 you will be rolling in money and it will never be a problem again. This is just how the game works, because you get more money per soul as your afterlife advances AND you get more souls. Micromanaging the loans between year 800 and 1500 is a bit of a pain, but that's all there is to it, and you will get through it.
Third, space is the main constraint in the late game. Especially toward the end, you will be squeezed. So you need to plan from the start.
Some comments on space efficiency:
It has been said before, but is worth repeating, that the best 2x2 structures are much more space efficient than the 3x3 structures. Even the second best 2x2 is slightly more efficient. And they pop much more easily than the 3x3s. Therefore, you want to mainly go for 2x2s for space efficiency. This is critically important!
Now, here is the first tip I have not really seen anywhere else. You should resist the temptation to build 6x6 boxes around all your fate structures! These seem efficient since they fit four 3x3s or nine 2x2s. But in fact, you do not need to "close off" each box. Rather, you can run them together for quite a distance. In hell, you want all the same color, and in heaven you want to mix it up, but either way, you can have rows of structures six wide but as long as possible. Look at the screenshots I posted and see that I don't really have many crossing streets at all. You do need a few or things won't be connected--but only a few. This saves a lot of tiles over a whole map. It possibly saves you about 1 out of every 8 tiles in the end, which is a lot!
A comment on bad things:
You want to leave bad things turned on, because it makes you far more money, and gives you far higher scoring. But, some of the bad things will wreck your game. So, what to do about it? Well, this is the second tip I have not seen anywhere else. Use the birds of paradise and bats out of of hell to keep away the other bad things! Basically, the birds and bats are fairly harmless, so call them on yourself about every 100 years. None of the other bad things will ever happen!
A comment on being completionist:
If you want to get one of every structure for sake of completion, the hard part is getting the lower ranking ones. There are seven 2x2s for each color in heaven and hell. Also, there are 13 of the mixed color 2x2s. Usually, the first two of these are difficult to get because the game will skip right over them. For example, the lowest ranking mixed color 2x2 in heaven is "angel for a day" and the lowest ranking green is "newbody knows." In hell, the lowest mixed 2x2 is "tip of your tongue" and the lowest green is "southgate mall." And each color has a lowest that is quite hard to get. You might get some each game, but getting all is tricky. Once you have a thriving heaven and hell, they may never spawn again because they are too lowly.
My method, which I have not seen discussed anywhere else, is to get them at the beginning of the game. For starters, don't use any siphons until you have all the low ranking structures. Siphons make evolution more likely, so they work against this goal. Then, you will need to make a row of the cheapest karma stations. You don't even need to hook them up. They will generate a lot of bad vibes. Then, you build your 2x2s next to these karma stations. In this way, you can get all the low ranking 2x2s. Even then, you might have some evolve too quickly--then you will destroy them and rebuild until you get what you want. Don't worry about the cost because, like I said above, you are going to be broke from year 800 to 1500 no matter what. Therefore, don't even consider it as a problem. Also, in my opinion, this is the only way to be sure of getting all these lower ranking 2x2s if you want to have them all.
A comment on structure capacity and planet population:
You will have noticed that your structures hold more souls over time. You can't possibly get a max-size heaven or hell without using this fact. But what controls how many souls you can fit? I have only seen this answered in one place. Credit to Beavis83 for pointing it out, but I will restate it here. It is the population of your planet that controls this and nothing else. Knowing this is very helpful for planning your way forward.
One tip, which I have not seen talked about anywhere else, is to influence your planet toward NAAAism. This means your EMBOs don't believe in an afterlife, and therefore don't come into your heaven and hell. You don't want to do this early, because you need the money. And you don't want to do it too much, because your advisors will complain. But after about year 3000 you can definitely push a bit of NAAAism. You have enough money, and space is starting to be valuable. You want maybe 75% of your EMBOs believing in you. That way, you get the benefit of bigger structures (caused by planet population) before you start get big numbers through your gates (causing overcrowding).
A comment on tech on the planet:
Tech on the planet, especially early game, does not seem to work as you would expect. In fact, I suspect it is broken and should have been bug-fixed. But this game predates the era of easy patches, so it never was fixed. Anyway, you might think that increasing tech would increase your population growth, but it actually seems to do the opposite. This is a huge problem, and you can cripple yourself, so be careful with it. For sure save before making changes and experiment to see what happens before you commit to anything.
With these ideas, you might have some better luck. I wish you well and will post my recently completed heaven and hell, which you can see the way i laid it out and maybe it will help you. Good luck!
Edit--An additional idea I forgot about when I wrote this:
If you build no structures at all in heaven nor hell, you won't be charged for lost souls that don't come into them. Thus, you can let time run--say to the year 1000 before you start the game. This can be a huge advantage because your costs are fixed based on structures but your income scales based on souls entering heaven and hell. Thus, letting the population get large before you start allows you to skip the unprofitable stage of the game.
I have played this game quite a bit over the years, from back when it came out, to getting it again from GoG a couple years ago. Just recently I went through and completed what I consider to be the "win conditions," even though technically there aren't any.
But I will say that I think, for many people, just getting to an even bank balance would be a win condition. It actually is quite easy, but it doesn't seem so at first. I will discuss how to do it.
Then, another possible win condition would be to get the highest gift structures, which come at 500 million souls in heaven and hell. This is a lot more time to achieve, but also is not especially difficult.
The highest win condition people usually set is to get love domes and omnibolges. This is quite a bit more difficult, because you have to manage your space pretty carefully. I will give a couple hints about it.
Beyond that, another goal you might set yourself is to have one of every fate structure. Surprisingly, this may be the most effort to achieve (harder than domes and bolges). Or rather, it is almost impossible without some tricks, but I will tell you how.
There is some good information already available on the game, and I won't recap most of it. But there are some things I haven't seen anyone else say. Of course they may have said it somewhere--I just haven't seen it. So, I will draw attention to the things I thing are new, because they might be useful.
Also, I will post screenshots of my recent game, which achieved love dome/omnibolge. It also was completionist--with one of each fate structure--at least I think I got all of them.
So, here were go:
First, fairly obviously, you want to get a good map to start with. You are going to be playing a long time if you plan to "finish" the game You want to get a map with a minimum amount of river, a minimum amount of karma portals, and a minimum amount of rocks. Also the rocks should be grouped together as much as possible and not spread out. You will want every bit of space if you are going for ominbolge/love domes, so set yourself up from the start. It is worth it to look at about 20 maps before you start, because that only takes a minute, compared to playing for hours with a bad map.
Second, money is the main constraint in the early game. Overcoming money is the first victory condition that many people will face. However, it is quite easy once you realize a few things. If you are a bit careful with your money, you will have enough to last about 800 years. Then you will be broke. There is almost no way around it. So, resolve to live with it. Your easy workaround is to get two hell banks and alternate loans between them. They don't charge interest so it's free money. Around year 800, get that first loan. You will still be losing money at this time. However, around year 1200 you will start to make money. Around year 1500 you will be able to pay off the loan. By year 2500 you will be rolling in money and it will never be a problem again. This is just how the game works, because you get more money per soul as your afterlife advances AND you get more souls. Micromanaging the loans between year 800 and 1500 is a bit of a pain, but that's all there is to it, and you will get through it.
Third, space is the main constraint in the late game. Especially toward the end, you will be squeezed. So you need to plan from the start.
Some comments on space efficiency:
It has been said before, but is worth repeating, that the best 2x2 structures are much more space efficient than the 3x3 structures. Even the second best 2x2 is slightly more efficient. And they pop much more easily than the 3x3s. Therefore, you want to mainly go for 2x2s for space efficiency. This is critically important!
Now, here is the first tip I have not really seen anywhere else. You should resist the temptation to build 6x6 boxes around all your fate structures! These seem efficient since they fit four 3x3s or nine 2x2s. But in fact, you do not need to "close off" each box. Rather, you can run them together for quite a distance. In hell, you want all the same color, and in heaven you want to mix it up, but either way, you can have rows of structures six wide but as long as possible. Look at the screenshots I posted and see that I don't really have many crossing streets at all. You do need a few or things won't be connected--but only a few. This saves a lot of tiles over a whole map. It possibly saves you about 1 out of every 8 tiles in the end, which is a lot!
A comment on bad things:
You want to leave bad things turned on, because it makes you far more money, and gives you far higher scoring. But, some of the bad things will wreck your game. So, what to do about it? Well, this is the second tip I have not seen anywhere else. Use the birds of paradise and bats out of of hell to keep away the other bad things! Basically, the birds and bats are fairly harmless, so call them on yourself about every 100 years. None of the other bad things will ever happen!
A comment on being completionist:
If you want to get one of every structure for sake of completion, the hard part is getting the lower ranking ones. There are seven 2x2s for each color in heaven and hell. Also, there are 13 of the mixed color 2x2s. Usually, the first two of these are difficult to get because the game will skip right over them. For example, the lowest ranking mixed color 2x2 in heaven is "angel for a day" and the lowest ranking green is "newbody knows." In hell, the lowest mixed 2x2 is "tip of your tongue" and the lowest green is "southgate mall." And each color has a lowest that is quite hard to get. You might get some each game, but getting all is tricky. Once you have a thriving heaven and hell, they may never spawn again because they are too lowly.
My method, which I have not seen discussed anywhere else, is to get them at the beginning of the game. For starters, don't use any siphons until you have all the low ranking structures. Siphons make evolution more likely, so they work against this goal. Then, you will need to make a row of the cheapest karma stations. You don't even need to hook them up. They will generate a lot of bad vibes. Then, you build your 2x2s next to these karma stations. In this way, you can get all the low ranking 2x2s. Even then, you might have some evolve too quickly--then you will destroy them and rebuild until you get what you want. Don't worry about the cost because, like I said above, you are going to be broke from year 800 to 1500 no matter what. Therefore, don't even consider it as a problem. Also, in my opinion, this is the only way to be sure of getting all these lower ranking 2x2s if you want to have them all.
A comment on structure capacity and planet population:
You will have noticed that your structures hold more souls over time. You can't possibly get a max-size heaven or hell without using this fact. But what controls how many souls you can fit? I have only seen this answered in one place. Credit to Beavis83 for pointing it out, but I will restate it here. It is the population of your planet that controls this and nothing else. Knowing this is very helpful for planning your way forward.
One tip, which I have not seen talked about anywhere else, is to influence your planet toward NAAAism. This means your EMBOs don't believe in an afterlife, and therefore don't come into your heaven and hell. You don't want to do this early, because you need the money. And you don't want to do it too much, because your advisors will complain. But after about year 3000 you can definitely push a bit of NAAAism. You have enough money, and space is starting to be valuable. You want maybe 75% of your EMBOs believing in you. That way, you get the benefit of bigger structures (caused by planet population) before you start get big numbers through your gates (causing overcrowding).
A comment on tech on the planet:
Tech on the planet, especially early game, does not seem to work as you would expect. In fact, I suspect it is broken and should have been bug-fixed. But this game predates the era of easy patches, so it never was fixed. Anyway, you might think that increasing tech would increase your population growth, but it actually seems to do the opposite. This is a huge problem, and you can cripple yourself, so be careful with it. For sure save before making changes and experiment to see what happens before you commit to anything.
With these ideas, you might have some better luck. I wish you well and will post my recently completed heaven and hell, which you can see the way i laid it out and maybe it will help you. Good luck!
Edit--An additional idea I forgot about when I wrote this:
If you build no structures at all in heaven nor hell, you won't be charged for lost souls that don't come into them. Thus, you can let time run--say to the year 1000 before you start the game. This can be a huge advantage because your costs are fixed based on structures but your income scales based on souls entering heaven and hell. Thus, letting the population get large before you start allows you to skip the unprofitable stage of the game.
Post edited February 08, 2023 by RCMorea