The goal of this guide is to give you a roadmap for a self-imposed restriction run of Kittens Game. Having knowledge of the base game will greatly help navigation of this mode as the unique bottlenecks provide much of the enjoyment. There may not be specifics since this gamemode is very slow and expect you know the basics. To "complete" it you will likely have a 2 year run. (Thankfully with redshift this doesn't mean your computer has to be on for 2 years)
- You must start a fresh save in Iron Will
- The only resets that are allowed are for Zebras and if you happen to gain a few paragon, but always less than 10
- Your run where you obtain the Space Oddity gold star must be your final run
- You may not reset otherwise
Start out gathering catnip doing IW procedure.
I generally convert wood after 30-40 fields to get as many libraries first (before building barns) since getting over a threshold can allow your first techs to take 1 event less.
Go through the tech tree until archery.
After you purchase archery, reset.
repeat up to 10 times, usually 6 is sufficient before going on a longer run to obtain in total 50-60 Zebras This number is somewhat arbiturary.
- The code for catpower is as follows:
getLimitedDR((zebras.value - 1) * 0.05, 2 + zebraPreparations * 0.05) where getLimitedDR gives the first 75% free and the last 25% will approach .25 but cannot actually reach it.
- It compares 2 and 1/20th of your Zebras and sees if it less or more than 75% of 40 + 1 which is to say after 31 Zebras you start collecting diminishing catpower returns
- I chose 55 since 50 gives 1.82 and 40 gives 1.73 (a 0.1 increase), but 60 gives 1.87 (a 0.05 increase from 50)
On this longer run your goal is to get the remaining Zebras for your 40K run. How long you want to drag it out it up to you, but I would suggest setting a tech goal or a Zebra goal. As mentioned previously, 55 is a good number of Zebras.
- To unlock the Nagas you need 1500 culture cap, this is gotten from capping your libraries and figuring out the minerals to culture cap ratio of Amphitheatres and Academies
- You will want to keep a good track of seasons and make sure to trade with the Nagas only in spring.
- When you can, do a single craft of slabs and concrete since these unlock at 5 and 10 embassies repectively
- The Nagas can be traded with for minerals which can be put back into your smelters and produce more gold which can then be used to repeat the cycle. Make sure you have enough magnetos and steamworks (along with solar revolution, if you have it) to make the production of gold positive. Before this point smelters are a loss, since the minerals would be better spent on workshops or other mineral costing things. Generally at smelt-positive point you'll have a lot of ivory saved up. Don't forget to also buy some tradeposts with the gold and minerals.
- The Sharks and Griffins trading loop is a great way to start collecting wood, steel, gears, and blueprints for steamworks. This trade starts in fall with trading wood to the Griffins to gather up as much iron as you can, then in winter you trade the iron and convert it to catnip and convert that catnip into wood/planks/scaffold.
Once you have the number of zebras you're satisfied with you can start on the main run, all of this is doable with only a single zebra, though it makes hunting and trading much slower and locks you out of the zebra buildings. proceed as normal to space.
Generally think long term: "Will this improve my ability to get time crystals and paragon?" This means making decisions like keeping your alicorn supply until the last moment for maximum conversion ratio. Consider that gold production will eventually increase beyond use and faith production will always be slow.
At certain points tankers look like the best way to get to the oil cap, this is not true. Grind out the steel necessary for the oil wells. With enough embassies, Griffins are a great way to collect a lot of steel
¶ Unicorns, Alicorns, and Religion
- build at least 10 ziggurats before converting any unicorns, the more the better, but 25-30 I find is about all I ever get considering the mineral/naga trade cost
- Use a unicorn calculator which allows you to optimize for both best ivory returns and best time crystal returns.
- Initially optimize for ivory as this is a free, AFK ivory source, this generally means building as many ivory citadels as you can.
- Once you get enough ivory (and sometimes unicorns) to get a palace confortably do so, but consider continuing to get up to 25 citadels, before moving on to Utopias and Sunspires
- Switch to alicorn mode when you have got near the mineral cap on workshops and tradeposts.
- TT 15 is your religion goal as blazars are vital to a time crystal engine.
Sunlifters and hydro plants will be hard to max but are the main focus. Reactors give a lot of power, but consider the blueprint cost, make sure to turn off Thorium Reactors, when you buy it and only use that when time skipping for antimatter.
Buy some chronospheres to generate void, since the bonus from void rifts will greatly increase your power output. Before time skipping to generate antimatter sell these chronospheres to reduce power consumption.
- Aim for either Tradition->Autocracy->Communism or Liberty->Republic->Liberalism
Communism will give you better time crystal results and Liberalism will allow you to get more of the templars upgrades which increases catpower cap helping with ivory generation and trading.
- Cosmological Libertarianism over Technocracy
Time crystals are your late-game gate, DO NOT get Order of the Stars as it requires a leader
- TBD Transkittenism is likely the best, though not strictly necessary to still get many AI cores balanced with entanglement stations
- Necrocracy's bonus requires a lot of paragon to be better. Radical Xenophobia unlocks pacts which may be useful though the debt is steep and the effects are fairly minimal. So hold off as long as you can on any of the 3.
- Isolationism->Big Stick Policy or Diplomacy->Cultural Exchange
the first may be perferable for the additional naga exchanges
- Outer Space Treaty
- Stoicism->Mysticism
faith production is slow
- Full industrialization
Pick Strip Mining when you have 2000 science to spare, 10000 culture, and a factory to boost.
Your reward is being able to burn paragon without exiting IW mode.
¶ 40k (time skipped) and Beyond
Nothing really special happens when you hit 40k years since you'll continue saving your paragon until year 165k (See Metaphysics Order)
The idea is to obtain 5000 antimatter for relic stations, this means you will need as many containment chambers and heatsinks as possible amd sunlifters to power them.
To obtain the 5000 cap the most common number of Heatsinks will be 34 (costing 526K Thorium) and 29 Containment chambers (costing 13.5M science) along with 6 paragon. Note that 28 CCs and 37 HSs will also get you there, but the thorium costs are prohibitive.
After you reach 40k in game (not real time) you will see your time crystal cost start to go up due to dark future. You can buy a few time impediances and accelerators to ward this off, but don't worry about it too much as it is minimal.
Transcendence Tiers (TT) After getting Order of the Void getting from TT 13 to TT 15
Check the Metaphysics chart
- Megalomania is necessary in a very long 40k run to be able to work toward time crystals as soon as possible. This means once you have researched metaphysics you should pick up Enlightenment and Megalomania (total cost 15 paragon).
- The next step is perhaps less intuitive, go for Order of the Void (total cost 150 paragon consisting of Carnivals, Numerology, and Order of the Void). This is to make Transcendence tier 15 obtainable more easily. Which will heavily boost your time crystal growth with blazars.
- Then go back to price ratios: Golden Ratio, Divine Proportion, and Vitruvian Feline (total cost 350 paragon)
- By this time it is likely you have a present box, you can open it for the final price ratio upgrade
- You can now go for less vital upgrades like Chronomancy and Astromancy
- (TBD) Codex paragon upgrades
Congratulations! you made it. Now you can try to obtain the rest of the paragon upgrades, transcendence tier 25, and other hard to obtain goals in IW.